Its that girl! How?

  Masa Ed remembered the girl with the ridiculously large pair of breasts who caught fire during the initiation ritual he watched the day before. Her image overlapped perfectly with the girl standing respectfully in front of Dali—the loc-haired loner lost in thought.

  He observed her. Under her black blazer, she wore a light-gold shirt, half-buttoned in a way that revealed much detail of her narrow cleavage, forming something like a plunging V-neckline. She also wore full-rim rectangular glasses with a cat-eye upsweep and a golden locket necklace—its warm color enhancing her creamy white skin.

  Masa Ed nodded. Not bad. She is my type, he concluded.

  “Your Excellency, her name is Maya Love. She was the vice leader of our program unit,” Abu Dinn whispered softly. He stood right behind Masa Ed, sweat trickling down his face.

  Masa Ed ignored him. He focused his gaze on Maya, who was pleading in a hushed voice with Dali a few meters away.

  He is clearly not stupid like that idiot.

  Responding to a shoulder nudge on his upper arm, he turned to look at Sera’s face close on his left.

  “What?” he asked.

  He followed Sera’s gaze to their group members gathering at one corner, with a blonde-haired, light-skinned boy as the focal point. The boy had his finger on his chin, absorbed in thought.

  Masa Ed noticed that some of his group members looked confused and lost, some jittery and panicking, while a very few looked pale, unable to hide the contagious fear in their eyes.

  Some might not survive. He sighed softly.

  He proceeded to carefully observe their location—a rotunda like the one they had entered on foot earlier, but with the inclusion of four tunnel mouths spaced at random intervals along the circular wall, leading outward. He looked up. An aqua-spot occupied the center of the domed ceiling; the diffused, shimmering light leaking from it struggled to travel through the stale, stuffy air.

  He performed a sweeping scan. Bones lay scattered across the sandy ground, some half-buried—a scene resembling a forgotten massacre. Behind them, close to the center beneath the aqua-spot, several wooden machines lay in ruin, their broken parts scattered across the sandy ground.

  “Your Excellency, do you perhaps know where we are?”

  Masa Ed ignored Abu Dinn again. After a glance at Maya, who was returning, he held Plum’s hand and, with Sera and Abu Dinn following behind, led her toward where the others had gathered. He took a position behind them, with Abu Dinn stationed at his back, backing a point on the wall marking the midpoint between the two tunnel mouths with the widest separation.

  Shortly after, Maya returned. She stood before everyone and scanned their faces, including Masa Ed’s.

  “Who knows where this is?” she broke the silence. Her eyes moved from one person to another, lingering briefly as some avoided her gaze.

  “Fog Plane—the reverse world.”

  A tiny, childlike voice gained everyone’s attention. All eyes turned toward a pink-haired, short beauty standing among those at the front of the gathering.

  Startled by the sudden attention, she flinched. “I… I am from a vassal family…” she added, her voice even smaller.

  “Tell us what’s going on,” Maya pressed.

  Simultaneously, the blonde-haired boy moved closer to her, turned around to face the gathering, and adjusted his spectacles.

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  “We were not told much about it, but we were told knowledge of it is forbidden until we are ready,” the pink-haired girl replied, her eyes fixed on the grains of sand beneath her feet.

  “What exactly do you know?” the blonde-haired boy pressed further, briefly drawing everyone’s attention before it returned to her.

  “Uhm… it’s a reverse world,” she said, nervously meeting his eyes before quickly lowering her face again. “They say it mirrors the real world. Only the surface rules and the inhabitants are different.”

  “Are you saying this is a world like the real world, but not the real world?” the blonde-haired boy asked.

  “Yes.” She nodded. “They say it’s a world accessible only through the mystery fog.”

  Silence followed.

  The blonde-haired boy lowered his head in thought before raising it again. “Do you know how we got here? How the mystery fog is involved?”

  The pink-haired girl shook her head without hesitation and stepped back, returning to a spot among those in the front row.

  It must be related to how the fog-boat moves from one underground level to another, Masa Ed deduced, narrowing his eyes slightly.

  As the blonde-haired boy and Maya turned to discuss among themselves, Masa Ed raised his right forearm, leaving only his forefinger and middle finger unfolded.

  “Abu,” he whispered.

  “Your Excellency,” Abu Dinn responded from behind, leaning over his shoulder.

  “Check if Ball Boy can break the ceiling glass. The water needs to flow,” Masa Ed instructed quietly.

  Nodding and smiling, Abu Dinn left his position.

  Quitting his brief contemplation, Masa Ed turned to Sera beside him. She was shivering, head lowered and arms folded. He chuckled softly.

  Looking to his other side, Plum—somewhat glued to him—nodded. Following her darting glance toward one of the dark tunnel mouths, he slipped briefly into autopilot thought before sighing and returning his attention to Maya and the blonde-haired boy.

  Then—

  A chilling, agonizing scream shattered the atmosphere.

  More screams followed—fearful ones. Someone rolled on the ground clutching his bleeding eyes, while two girls and a boy knelt nearby, crying and screaming. Panic spread as the gathering recoiled.

  “He must have activated spirit vision,” someone said.

  “How can he? Is he stupid?” another wondered aloud.

  “What did he see? Tell us!” someone else urged, attempting to move closer, only to be stopped by the blonde-haired boy, who stepped forward and glared at her. Maya knelt beside the injured boy, tending to him.

  Idiots. Masa Ed pursed his lips.

  From the position he had relocated to with Sera and Plum, he watched the unfolding drama with contempt. The crowd fractured into groups—some whispering, others watching as Maya, the pink-haired girl, and Rango attended to the injured boy under the blonde-haired boy’s vigilant watch. The three others who had screamed earlier remained on their knees, still wailing.

  This one too.

  Masa Ed glanced left at Sera, who remained quiet, trembling with her head lowered.

  Does she have a bad memory related to something here?

  CRASH!!!

  A loud impact and sudden shift in illumination interrupted his thoughts. A section beneath the dome dimmed as part of the recessed clear glass of the aqua-spot shattered, allowing water to pour down onto the sandy ground.

  While others questioned the cause, Masa Ed pulled Sera and Plum by the hands and led them close to the center where water now fell like a waterfall. Positioning himself with his back toward the midpoint between the widest tunnel mouths as before, he held formation as Abu Dinn approached from afar, rounding a half-buried broken wooden machine.

  Better.

  Masa Ed smiled.

  Following Plum’s scanning gaze, he noticed a half-buried stick at the edge of the forming pool. Moving toward it just as Abu Dinn arrived, he pulled it free, revealing it to be a golden staff marked with black spots and patterns.

  Returning to position, he examined it carefully. The staff felt strangely perfect in his grip—as though tailored specifically for him.

  I must be imagining it, he concluded, resuming his place between Sera and Plum, Abu Dinn behind him.

  A few meters away, the gathering argued with a short boy with dark, curly hair.

  “Your Excellency, his name is Mara. He has an artifact,” Abu Dinn informed him.

  “Artifact?” Masa Ed murmured, eyes narrowing at Mara approaching them.

  “Yes, Your Excellency,” Abu Dinn replied, stepping back. “Artifacts are powerful tools inherited from deceased high-realm practitioners. The one he owns is called the Galaxy Ball. It’s what broke the glass ceiling.”

  “Hm.” Masa Ed nodded faintly.

  His gaze briefly swept past Mara toward the blonde-haired boy and Maya, who were escorting the others closer.

  “What about Blondy? What’s his name?” he asked, glancing at Sera, who now gripped her scythe, eyes narrowed toward the approaching group.

  “Your Excellency, his name is Pastor Kanu. He ranked forty-second in the final rankings—twenty positions above Maya,” Abu Dinn answered, stepping back once more as Mara stopped before them, grinning.

  Masa Ed acknowledged Abu Dinn reply with a nod.

  At the same moment, he and Sera shifted into fighting stances, weapons raised as the gathering closed in.

  What’s it going to be? He focused his vision.