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Chapter 192: Sleeping with the enemy!
🕑 Added 2025-01-30 10:33:00 +0000 UTC« Chapter-191 | Index | Chapter-193 »
Sora took a deep breath—or at least, the astral equivalent of one. He couldn’t actually feel his lungs expand, nor the usual rhythm of breathing, but the motion helped him settle his thoughts.
'Panicking won’t help. Let’s just wait for the update to finish… maybe I’ll return to my body when it’s over.'
That was the logical conclusion. The system wouldn't just leave him like this, right?
Right?
Pushing that thought aside, he floated toward the door and passed through it. Outside, the world remained still. Not just people. Everything.
Sora narrowed his eyes. 'Is this… time manipulation?'
It made sense at first glance. Everyone was frozen, locked outside the normal flow of movement. But if this was an application of the [Time Element], he should be able to sense it with his affinity to the element. Focusing, he extended his awareness outward, probing the space around him.
'Nothing?'
Nothing at all.
'Weird… I don’t sense space manipulation either. Shouldn’t something like this require at least one of the two?'
He stretched his awareness further, scanning for any type of element he was familiar with. Fire, water, wind.
Nothing.
It was like the world had been completely drained of its natural energy, leaving the world dry.
Sora frowned. 'The system update does this? Every energy I'm used to sensing has disappeared...'
His mind shifted gears. If he couldn’t sense elements, could he still affect the world?
Determined to experiment, he focused on a small stone near the entrance of his house. He tried to nudge it, push it with his will. But once again, nothing happened.
'Of course. [Astral Form] is intangible… but what if I use mental power instead?'
Sora reached out with his mind, wrapping his mental power around the stone.
'I could do pretty much anything I wanted with mental power before. And my mental power reserves haven't disappeared, so I should still be able to do perform some actions.'
He moved his mental power and tried lifting the stone.
Instead of moving, a translucent barrier appeared for a brief moment before fading.
He frowned. 'What was that? Is this a holy stone or something?'
Testing again with another stone, he released his mental energy. The same reaction. A shield appeared around everything he tried to interact with, blocking him entirely. His expression darkened.
'So it’s not that my mental power is useless… everything is protected.' He thought, 'I can't touch anything. I can't use mana or move my body. And nothing is happening.'
Sora sighed, crossing his arms as he floated in place, his body upside down. 'I swear, if this lasts too long, I’m going to die of boredom before the update ends.'
With nothing left to do, he decided to wait. He drifted above the academy, watching the frozen students below. Minutes passed. Then more.
And even more.
'Alright, screw this. I need something to do.'
If he was stuck like this, he needed to find ways to occupy his mind. But then, without warning, the world around him trembled.
It was subtle at first, like a gentle distortion in the air. Sora narrowed his eyes as everything began to fade. He watched as the ground beneath him crumbled into nothing, leaving only the players behind, each wrapped in a transparent cocoon.
‘So everything disappears, but the players remain…’
It felt surreal. He propelled himself forward, passing through the empty space that had once been his academy. If not for the players still remaining in their suspended states, it would’ve felt like he was floating in the void.
Then he felt something.
'What's this feeling?' He wondered.
In a space without mana or energy, his surroundings felt extremely empty. And something he had trouble sensing in other situations stood out in the current environment.
'There is something heavy in the space surrounding my body...' He thought. Feeling nothing with mental power, he activated [Soulcraft] and focused his Soul Power in his illusory eyes.
Then he saw them. Threads made of Soul Power. Countless threads. Thin, glowing strands of energy extended from every single player’s cocoon, stretching far beyond what his eyes could trace. They pulsed quietly, almost alive. Sora instinctively looked down at his body.
Two threads left his own cocoon.
One was massive. Dozens of meters wide. A thread that big could be considered a tunnel. It made the others around him look pitiful in comparison. But the second thread caught his attention. It was minuscule, barely noticeable next to the giant one, but bigger than anyone inside of the academy except for Kara.
Sora’s expression darkened as he floated closer. Something about it was familiar. His gaze followed the smaller thread, tracing its path across the void. The realization soon hit him.
‘Rachel's soul… as expected. I’ve stored it inside my inventory…’ He frowned.
It was her soul, linked to her real body somewhere in the distance. For a brief moment, the idea of severing it crossed his mind.
'Can I do it? Should I?' He pondered, considering the consequences of the act.
The thought was tempting. 'If I cut the connection, what would happen? Would she be erased from the other world? Or would the system notice and punish me for interfering? Worse, the system might detect my interference during their update...'
He hesitated, fingers twitching slightly.
‘Not now. There's no hurry. She's not going anywhere. I've done my share of dumb things today.’
It wasn’t worth the risk. At least, not until he understood more. Tearing his gaze away, he turned his attention to the other players.
Every single one had a soul thread, stretching out into the endless void. And they all led in the same direction. Sora’s eyes narrowed.
‘Is the real Earth… In that direction?’
If this world was some sort of simulation, then the real bodies of these players had to be somewhere. And if every human’s thread pointed in that direction, then it was highly likely that they all led back to their true world.
His heart pounded. This was an opportunity. A rare chance to understand something that no player should have been able to see. His curiosity soon reached the peak.
Turning away from the suspended humans, he shot toward the horizon. He passed Japan, then beyond, moving faster than he ever had before. Borders no longer mattered for Sora. Nothing could block him, no barriers, no walls.
Then, in the distance, he saw them. More threads. Hundreds of thousands of them. They stretched into the void, just like the humans, but in a different direction entirely.
‘So this is the Demon Kingdom, and the lights there ... These are Demon race players…’
They were the same. Cocooned, unmoving, waiting for the update to finish. But their soul threads pointed somewhere else.
Sora’s mind raced. ‘So every race really does come from a different world… And now, it's not an assumption anymore. I have proof.’
And as he was about to turn around and head in another direction, he saw it. One thread. One massive tunnel of Soul Power, rivaling his own in size. But unlike the others, this one wasn’t connected to the demon world. It was heading toward Earth.
Sora froze.
‘What…?’
'That shouldn’t be possible. If all humans were from Earth, then why would a thread this big be coming from the demon race?'
There was only one explanation.
‘A human… has infiltrated the demon kingdom? Is he spying on Demons, or did he betray humanity?’
'I know I'm not the only strong player, but if someone with such a massive soul has betrayed humanity, it's not good news for us...'
A strange feeling settled in his chest. Whoever the owner of the soul was, they weren’t normal. Unwilling to leave the mystery unsolved, he approached the owner of the soul, and examined him.
The demon looked quite tall, at least a meter taller than himself. And he was currently ... naked! Confused, Sora saw that next to him, in a smaller cocoon, lay a figure he recognized!
'Eloj? There's no way, right... Of all demons I could have found… he’s sleeping with one I actually know?'
'So this guy is really a demon? Could a player from the demon race actually be tied to Earth? Or is it someone like Rachel who can have an identity from another race, or disguise himself to perfection?'
'I sincerely hope this isn't an enemy. Because he's literally sleeping with the enemy...' Suppressing his unease, he moved on, soaring across the void, observing everything.
Each race had their own distinct soul connections, all leading to different places in the void. Sora traced them one by one, confirming his theory.
Dark Elves? Their threads led to a different unknown direction.
Orcs? Another destination.
Even the Spirits from the Spirit Kingdom had their souls leading to a different destination.
It was as if this world was merely a meeting point for the ten different civilizations, each drawn from their original realms and placed here.
"Who brought all these people here? Just how strong are the ones orchestrating this? Are they gods?"
He already knew that, deep down. But seeing it like this, with his own eyes, made him feel fear.
'I'm glimpsing at this world's foundations.'
'If they find out I saw all this… would they let me live?'
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