Before Arthur could even realize it, everything suddenly turned white. His vision was blinded and so were all his other senses. He didn’t understand what had just happened, as he found himself in a completely different place.
Blinking slowly, he looked around him. Everywhere he looked, it was all fog. From the ground, he was standing in the sky above him. He could see nothing else, no trees and no grass.
It was as if he was inside a cloud world… A surprisingly beautiful one that took his breath away.
“What is this place?” He muttered in awe as he stood up. Looking behind him, he could only see a wall of thick fog covering the entire place. “I came here from the forest, didn’t I?” He muttered.
Although Arthur was aware that he had somehow broken through the fog and reached a whole new place, he didn’t know exactly where he was or if he was even still in the forest or not.
“Hnng…”
At that moment, he heard a small groan coming from a little farther away. Looking in that direction, he saw Isla slowly standing up as she rubbed her forehead.
“Isla!” He exclaimed, happy to see that she was there too.
“Where are we?” She asked while looking around.
“I don’t know. But, it seems we have reached a different place. Maybe this is the place where the forest didn’t want us to go.” Arthur replied.
“Do you mean…”
“It could be the heart of the forest, for sure.” He replied. ‘A lot of fog and nothing else. Yeah, this fits exactly what we’re looking for.’
“How did we break through, though?” He asked Isla.
“Perhaps, we have moved fast enough that the illusion and the fog couldn’t contain or divert our direction. That was the only way it could’ve worked, apparently.” She replied. “Unless this is also another form of illusion.”
“… It certainly could be,” Arthur replied with a thoughtful look. “I can feel something different from this place, though. It isn’t as creepy as the forest.”
Crouching down, Arthur tried to touch the fog beneath him. But, it was surprisingly very hard as if it was solid ground. “Interesting. The fog here is manifested in a physical form. No wonder we can stand on it.”
As he was talking, Isla looked up only to notice something appearing in the distance. She squinted her eyes a little before she tapped Arthur’s shoulder gently.
“Look at that.” She said calmly.
“Hm?” Arthur stood up and looked in the direction she was pointing at. There, far away from them, a small ember of light could be seen shining through the thick fog.
“…”
The two stared at it silently for a few seconds before they finally looked at each other. They didn’t even need to say anything to understand one another. Their intentions were very obvious.
With careful steps, they then started moving forward while keeping their eyes on the light. Their hands slowly moved to their weapons as they got ready for an ambush or an enemy.
However, as they walked, nothing of the sort popped up. That, however, didn’t put them at ease at all. As they got closer to the source of light, it grew even brighter. The layers of fog moved out of their way gently as if they wished for them to see the object.
One layer at a time, the light became very bright. It was warm and pleasant, giving the duo a relaxing feeling. At the same time, they started feeling immense amounts of energy in the atmosphere around them.
The energy wasn’t as hostile or harmful as they expected and instead simply spread everywhere, giving them an insight into what they were approaching. It was simply indescribable.
The energy was so vast and deep that they couldn’t even feel a fraction of it. A level of power far above what they had seen so far.
“Can you feel it, Isla?” Arthur asked his companion with a careful tone.
“I do. This energy… It’s very rich.” Isla replied. ‘Incredibly so. What could be emitting such a vast amount of it?’
Not that long after her question, the answer finally manifested in front of them. A dozen meters away from them was a shiny crystal shard, floating in the air quietly. Its bright white light spread everywhere around it.
Coils of fog and mist wrapped around it gracefully as if they were a pedestal holding the shard with respect. The sight was breathtaking, to say the least.
Both of them didn’t even take a second to understand what this thing was. They felt it deep in their bones without the need for any explanation. That shard was the source of the fog.
“…” Isla and Arthur didn’t realize that they had stopped in their tracks, staring at the shard in complete silence. Their bodies revered the shard and almost gave it an instinctive respect.
Eventually, they snapped out of it as they breathed again.
“A Crystal Shard? That’s the cause of all of this fog?” Isla asked with a confused look. She couldn’t understand how something that small could be the reason for the fog that covered the entire forest. No, she didn’t understand how something so small could emit such an insane amount of energy as if it were nothing. Nothing about this made sense to her.
“A crystal shard… Wait, a crystal shard?” At that moment, Arthur’s eyes widened. “A crystal shard!”
“… Yes, that’s what I said,” Isla replied with a deadpan expression.
“No! You don’t understand! A crystal shard! What did we learn the very first moment we stepped into the divine realm?”
Isla didn’t understand what he was trying to say for a second as she squinted her eyes. But, it quickly came back to her.
“The divine shards.” She muttered in a daze.
“Exactly! This could be one of the divine shards!!” Arthur exclaimed. Even as he was saying it, Arthur couldn’t believe his own words.
So far, Arthur knew nothing about the divine shards. The information he received from the angel was minimal and scarce. However, it was enough to give him an idea about the importance of these shards and their immense strength. After all, these were shards left by gods and as far as he was concerned, a god is an invincible entity.
But, to suddenly find one in such an unexpected manner was very… anti-climactic. He was ready to get into epic wars and arduous adventures just to find one of these. Finding a shard randomly in a forest was a twist.
“Why are you so sure?”
“Hm? Well, it could be something else, of course. But, putting into perspective how powerful this thing is, it can very likely be a shard.”
‘I mean for god’s sake it has its own consciousness, can read our minds, can cover an entire region in fog, and still emit insane amounts of energy as if it was another Tuesday. If this isn’t one of the shards, then I don’t know what could be this strong and look similar to them.’ He mused.
“I understand that. But, what are we supposed to do now?” Isla asked.
“Hmm… Can’t you feel it?”
“Feel what?”
“The urge to grab that thing.” Arthur grinned playfully.
A//N: Don’t forget to give the book some golden tickets for good luck! :3
