After his successful ranking up, Greg walked back home.
Closing the door behind him, he sat down onto his bed and summoned Alice.
With a white flash, Alice appeared before him in her rabbit form. As he watched her, he noticed that after ranking up, not just her powers, but her appearance changed too.
Her size grew from a mere one feet, into almost a size of a human baby. Her fur was much whiter than before too.
Feeling Greg's gaze, Alice jumped up onto his lap and looked at him with her innocent eyes.
After thinking for a while, Greg put her back down onto the ground and asked her to show him her other forms.
Obeying his command, Alice changed into her snake form. Her snake body grew also a few feet, reaching about two and a half meters. But the most eye-catching thing was the small scales on her body.
Next was her bird form. However here, her size didn't grow, but instead, a black mist floated up from her little body. From afar, she looked like a small black cloud.
In her other forms like the blue turtle and the green lizard, only her size grew, however the most changes her fox appearance showed.
The small fox now had two tails and her paws were burning with fire. Her fur's color was now crimson red instead of red.
After seeing her other forms, Greg thought, "I used her darkness, light, and wind element too much lately and ignored her other elements. Maybe I should start to use them more frequently."
With that in mind, Greg started to test out what changed in Alice's abilities and how strong did they become.
After a few hours of testing, he realized that Alice's power didn't just get stronger and faster to use, but there was an extra ability, which can be very useful, but also very risky.
Like all the Guardians, if an owner uses their power, the Guardian cannot fight independently. Simply put, it can't fight, while the owner uses its abilities.
This rule applied to Alice too, but after she ranked up this rule somehow disappeared.
Now if Greg used for example the ice element, Alice can appear and use the fire element. However, this is very dangerous, because there is one thing that every Guardian owner fears.
Their Guardian's death.
The Guardian is the owner's soul guard and it has a mutual connection with it, so if the Guardian dies, the soul will die too, resulting in the owner's death.
One will be a soulless body, only waiting for death to come or worse...
Because of this and also because Alice's defense was almost zero, Greg decided not to use her until its a life and death situation.
"Well, we will see what the future will bring us.", said Greg as he picked Alice up and petted her.
***
The following morning, Greg was eating his breakfast, when he heard a knock on his door.
*Knock~knock!*
"Coming!"
Standing up, Greg walked before the door, unlocked the lock, and opened the door.
Outside, Joe and Henry were standing before him with a smile.
"Good morning. So it's about time yes?", asked Greg as he looked at his watch.
Joe nodded and said, "Yeah. Are you ready or you need a bit more time?"
Greg looked behind him and seeing the food on the table he said, "I will go back and put the things away, so please wait a sec. If you want, until then come in."
"Sure, thank you."
With a thank, Joe and Henry walked inside and looked around.
The small house was around 50 square meters. There was only a small bed on one side of the room, a small kitchen with a fridge on the other side, and a wooden table with a mini chair next to it in the middle. Next to the bed, there was a door, which opened into a bathroom.
Everything looked simple and crowded, but strangely it gave off a cozy feeling.
Greg ate and drank the remaining food and milk and put the plates into the dishwasher.
Running into the bathroom, Greg washed his teeth and face and after changing into his clothes, he nodded and looked at Joe.
"I'm ready. Let's go."
After an hour later, Greg was standing before a massive crack, which changed its color between white and black from time to time.
Joe was standing next to him, while Henry was in the back not far away. Joe looked at the crack before him too and started to talk calmly.
"My father won't come, however, he told me to give you this."
Saying this, Joe took out a small circular device with a red dot on it and handed it over.
"This is an emergency button. Press it only if you are in a death situation and there is no chance to escape. In an instant, as you pressed it, a rescue team will be on its way to help you, but it will take time, so be prepared."
Taking the device away from Joe, Greg nodded and put it into his shadow. Joe saw this act but didn't say a word.
"So... What should I expect in there, except of creatures, which tries to kill me?"
Joe looked at the crack before them, and a while later he opened his mouth.
"Dual zones are special. While normal zones have only one type of creature, until then a dual-zone logically will have two. However, what makes it so special is its core. While normal zones core is an orb and is fixed in one place until a dual dimension core is a moving creature in itself."
"A creature? And why is that so special?"
Joe looked at Greg and said with a smile, "Because killing such a creature allows you to choose your Soul Creature's type."
Hearing this, Greg was shocked. If he understood right, then if he kills this zone's core, which is a creature, then he can choose, if he wants a weapon type Soul Creature, a shield type one, or something else.
"That's a bit too beautiful to be true."
Joe nodded and said, "It is true, however, there is one problem. You can just choose from two types."
Greg nodded and said with a smile, "Well, two should be enough, so I'm not complaining."
When Greg understood everything, he turned toward the zone and after taking a big breath, he nodded and stepped forward.
"Wish me luck Joe."
With that, his figure disappeared into the crack, leaving Joe and Henry outside.
As time went by, Henry walked next to Joe and looked toward a direction, while talking coldly, "Will you come out or should I go and find you?"
Joe looked confused, however, a second later, a figure came out from behind a tree with a smile.
Joe and Henry looked at the man before them. It was a bald man full of tattoos all over his body, giving them a gangster feel.
However, Henry instantly knew after looking at the man that he was dangerous. Too dangerous.
"Haha, it seems I got busted, haha. Oh, apologies for my rudeness, I forgot to introduce myself."
As the man talked, he bowed slightly and said while looking at the two with a smile.
"They call me R. And if I'm correct, you two want to know why am I here, right? Well..."
After straightening his back, his smiling face changed into an ice-cold glare.
"To kill."