Ryan Micheus’s face was a picture of dismay as he shook his damp hair, looking utterly bewildered.
Watching him, I suddenly felt a pang of pity. To have a tiny furball urinate on your head…
“Well then, if you’ll excuse me,” Ryan said, his signature sunny smile returning. “It seems I truly need to wash my hair.”
Suddenly, as if a thought had just struck him, he added, “Oh, and Ye, if you don’t mind.”
He unslung the zither from his back and placed it into my hands. “Could you hold this for me for a bit? I probably won’t have time to look after it while washing my hair, and I wouldn’t want anything to happen to it.”
“Hmm, it’s mine to begin with, so what do you mean ‘help you hold it’?” I retorted, taking the zither and waving him off. “Go on, hurry.”
Ryan nodded. “I’ll go clean my hair then.”
With that, he turned and headed back towards the city.
“Do you want me to help you carry it?” Lavishly Karafar asked, her gaze falling on me as I clutched a zither taller than myself. Her voice was tinged with concern.
I shook my head. “There’s no need. I don’t require any help. Though I might be a little short, I’m quite strong. It’s truly fine.”
A strange pang of heartache resonated within me as I spoke those words.
I slung the zither horizontally across my back, securing it with a rope so it wouldn’t drag on the ground.
“Shall we go check out the gate?” Yin suddenly spoke up.
I turned my head, finally remembering the true purpose of our journey. The massive gate, towering thousands of meters high, was a sight that thrilled our nerves.
This ‘gate’ wasn’t composed of actual door panels, but rather a shimmering, purple light curtain, much like a teleportation array.
I nodded. Although, theoretically, it was likely impenetrable, I knew that some things couldn’t be believed without experiencing them firsthand.
Slowly, I walked to the entrance and pressed my hand against the light curtain. It felt chillingly cold, as if it were a solid, tangible gate.
I pushed with all my might, yet it yielded no reaction whatsoever.
Observing the expressions on everyone else’s faces, I surmised their feelings mirrored my own exactly.
I looked around once more, but found no trace, no clue of anything amiss. I could only shake my head.
It seemed the task entrusted by the golden phantom was destined to remain unfulfilled.
“Let’s go, we…” I began, turning to signal our departure, intending to return later for further observation.
However, as I turned, the zither’s long body swept against Yin, who was standing right beside me.
Since I was completely relaxed, my body instantly lost its balance. I stumbled back a few steps, and then…
My left foot tripped over my right, sending me sprawling to the ground. The zither crashed against the gate, and the force of the impact sent me tumbling several times.
I rolled directly into the gate’s interior.
“!!!”
Yin, quick-witted and agile, attempted to follow me in. The moment his hand crossed the threshold, he felt a tremendous repelling force.
“Damn it,” he cursed. “Because I can’t use divine power right now, I can’t even break through this place’s lowest-level restriction.”
This, he realized, was the natural repulsion of divine power against those who possessed none.
His hands were helplessly pushed out of the gate, little by little. No matter how much force he exerted, it was utterly futile.
Lavishly Karafar and the others, noticing the sudden commotion, rushed over.
“What happened? Where’s Little Mengmeng?” Liu Han immediately pinpointed the crucial question.
Yin frowned. “She just tripped and rolled inside.”
“What? Rolled inside?” Lavishly Karafar knelt, carefully touching the spot where I had accidentally fallen in. She found nothing amiss.
“I suspect it was the zither,” Yin mused. He recalled that the zither seemed to have touched the gate first, and only then had I rolled in.
Furthermore, he remembered that when I had touched the gate earlier, nothing had happened.
“However, I don’t think there will be any issues,” Yin said, calming down after a moment. “I believe she likely knew she could enter before, which is why she asked me to bring her here.”
“That’s probably it,” Lavishly Karafar agreed, regaining her composure after a moment of thought.
“Let’s just wait for her to come out here,” Liu Han proposed. The others readily agreed.
“This… this is…” I murmured, gazing at the blood-red world before me. “The God-Fallen Land?”
It was utterly unlike the battlefield I had witnessed earlier. That place had merely been desolate; this one, as far as the eye could see, was nothing but endless crimson.
Apart from the ground directly by the entrance, where I currently lay, the rest of the earth was thoroughly covered in blood, corpses, and even severed limbs.
The sky itself was a bloody red, and occasionally, a rain of blood would descend.
Witnessing this gruesome scene, my stomach clenched in a spasm. For someone unaccustomed to such gore, this sight was simply too much…
Just then, a sound utterly discordant with this blood-soaked world reached my ears. It was the gentle melody of a zither.
The music, graceful and serene, stood in stark contrast to the crimson landscape.
Curiosity piqued, I looked towards the source of the sound. I took a step, preparing to investigate what lay in that direction.