"Kendra, listen to us."
Near the strange luminance, all watched Kendra cross the swirling belts of vapor encircling a climbing spire of stone desperately. A foggy look consumed her eyes. Her skin blemished from the taint of the luminance. Upon her approach, she heard voices. Familiar ones that only can be heard from her.
(Come closer.) They sounded gruff and strident; just enough for the voice to sound familiar to her. Beset by agreeable hallucinations, Kendra increased her pace toward the sparkles.
Asahi however was clueless. He sprinted across the mist-veiled meadows with his thousands of followers, chasing after Kendra without knowing what lured her.
As they approached the cliff-side leading near the cyan light, the followers stopped dead in their tracks. Shields and blades dropped onto the floor as all reeled back from the warmth of the glow. Frightened looks formed on their faces as their heads perked upward.
Asahi felt an absence of company surrounding him after he took a step upward the cliff.
By virtue of his impassioned curiosity, he figured that his followers would trace down his every movement. Nonetheless, as he felt the winds from the howling current of the underground expanse whip across his face, Asahi's eyes widened as he noticed his thousands of followers gathering several meters away from him.
"Huh? Followers, what are you doing over there?" He hollered to them sharply as he stood atop the natural staircase.
Conjuring up a scene of mystery and unease, most of the followers kept their mouths shut. They thought that the action of speaking itself may harm them because of the presence of the cyan glow. But as time moved onward, Flavia gulped down a breath of unease, stepped forward and answered with an unusually trembling voice.
"Lord Asahi, that luminance is dangerous."
For moments, Asahi found himself confused at her response. The hopeful glow in Asahi's eyes flickered and faded. He fastened his arms in a stagnant position and ensured himself that he wasn't hallucinating. Once after he had blinked, the sight of the still followers remained. Drawn with confusion, he shrugged his shoulders and sighed.
"Fine," He said as he slowly tilted away from the group. "If all of you can't advance to the luminance, then I will do it myself. There is a person in danger. I refuse to sit here and watch."
After his voice echoed across the cavern, Flavia bowed down to the white-haired boy standing confidently atop the staircase of stone and replied as an unsure smile formed on her face.
"Do what you must, my lord."
From thereupon, Asahi advanced upward and found himself just centimeters away from Kendra's presence. The luminance around him had grown stronger, seeming to form its own gravitational pull because of how alluring the luminance was. But Asahi resisted. He knew that luminance meant no good.
When he tried to grow closer to Kendra, he was stopped by an invisible barrier. He raised an eyebrow in confusion and tried to pass it. But to no avail, he was halted from the transparent wall. A burning glare of frustration glowed within the center of his pupils. He forced all of his body to pass and enter within the proximity of the dangerous luminance, and for a second, he almost passed it.
However, a shockwave pushed him back, knocking him toward a wall of stone nearby. A coldness started to engulf his surroundings. Goosebumps popped up from the surface of his skin. His throat tightened with each chilling footstep. Frost started to emerge from his body. And yet, it seemed as if Kendra was unaffected.
Finally, with just a few meters away from Kendra, Asahi felt the coldness attached to him start to slip away. He could hear himself think once more, feeling his mouth unstiffen from the approaching warmth of the luminance. He hurriedly tapped Kendra's shoulder but to his avail, it seemed that she was unphased by the impact. Asahi muttered with a tone of confusion.
"Huh? Kendra, hello? It's me, Asahi. Behind you."
Not a response was uttered from her stiff lips. In this moment of uncertainty, Asahi chose to investigate whatever it was that made her tranced by that luminance. His gray pupils slowly steered over to his left. The swirling streams of debris came to a brief halt, standing still like a statue. His heart slowed down as a cold realization vexed him.
"That's not a luminance." Asahi said as he saw letters appear from the peculiar glow. "It's…"
When his eyes finally caught on to the strangely written sentence levitating at the epicenter of the luminance, Asahi's eyes widened with shock. Deep, deep within its glowing, twisting curves, he saw words that made his heart drop in unease. Terms that defined and changed everything he had known.
://: What is destroyed in this reality can not be erased, but replaced."://
Nothing of the sort made any sense to Asahi. Reality was a common word, indeed. But the way that it was written here, made it seem as if it was identified as a part of a bigger whole.
Yet even so, his mind stitched that inscription deep into his consciousness.
(Could this be the reason why Kendra is paralyzed?) Asahi mumbled to himself as he continued to ponder near the luminance. He turned to Kendra and saw the foggy look continue to consume her eyes, enveloping the blue in her pupils to a dark gray.
Almost immediately, Asahi tossed that thought aside and contradicted it with another.
(No. Kendra wouldn't have sprinted from the city all the way here just for this.) He thought. (It has to be something else.)
Before Asahi could drown himself in his thoughts any longer, the spectacle of the floating inscription flashed suddenly. His eyes shrunk in shock. He stepped back and tried to pull Kendra along with him. And to his momentary surprise, Kendra began to move.
He felt something grasp his hands. A tingling and comforting warmth of soft texture. Her eyes flickered back to the brilliant blue she had before. She gasped deeply, and shivered as her consciousness returned.
At the same token, all belts of vapor and debris encircling the inscription collapsed harmoniously. All levitating stones, trees, and debris rained down toward the cliff below, endangering Asahi's followers. And what followed was the sound of a piercing, irritating screech that had extended across the dark horizons, echoing for minutes until it finally had ceased.
While the luminance disappeared into darkness, Asahi sprinted back to the stone staircase, holding Kendra's hands tightly. Her legs felt flimsy to her, wobbly like a thin twig drenched in water. Asahi used his strength and picked her up with his two arms. As he hurriedly ran down the cliff, he noticed his followers climbing up it. He had no choice but to return back to where the luminance was, or else he would slip and fall.
But at the expense of that, he was treated with the company of his followers, who had bore their shields and swords once more. Even Flavia herself held her shield with a smile. She approached Asahi and asked as the sound of blades scraping the ground filled the tangy air.
"Is there something wrong, my lord?"
"Yes." Asahi said as he cradled Kendra gently on his broad arms. "I need you to escort this girl to safety. I don't want her to get hurt."
"Understood, Lord Asahi." Flavia replied.
Just before Kendra could be taken away by the followers, a shockwave bursted out from the dying cyan luminance. All eyes reeled back toward the light and saw the inscription fading out into tiny particles. Immediately, the followers shivered in fear, seeing a glowing, teal-green circle expand from the center. Flavia shuddered, and Kendra quickly jolted upward from Asahi's arms, breathing and panting heavily.
"Huh? Asahi? What's going on? Where am I?" Kendra asked, confused.
"Nothing. Just. Stay put." Asahi replied with an unsure tone.
As they planted their feet onto the dry and brittle ground, the round object grew even more. Glowing cyan cracks slowly opened up at the recess of the anomaly. Strands of that same color emerged from the fissures and moved around like wild animals. Kendra and Asahi stepped back and watched as several followers cowered behind the stone, afraid of the luminance. Speechless, they turned away and fled across a bridge of stone, leading over to an opening leading upward the cavern.
Although scared, Asahi encouraged his followers and they headed up the bridge, dashing away from the peculiar portal.
"Lord Asahi, do you have any idea what that thing is?" A blonde-haired, gray-eyed man asked as they sprinted up from the trembling bridge.
"No. I don't have a clue at all." Asahi replied to him as he felt the winds of his speed whip across his face.
With little to no time at all, they continued scrambling across the bridge like frightened ants. The darkness strengthened as all of them departed from the circular luminance. Asahi lost sight of Kendra as he took a second to breathe.
Once they had reached halfway, Asahi finally found Kendra in the immense sprinting crowd. Quickly, he jolted over to her and tapped her shoulder. She hurriedly tilted back and gave him a relieved smile, keeping up pace as the sounds of their pitter patters echoed across the underground expanse.
"Oh there you are, Asahi!" She said with smiling, quivering eyes. "I have been looking all over for you."
"Me too." Replied Asahi, smiling in return. "I'm glad you're safe."
As nothing but silence and the sound of footsteps entered between them, Kendra scratched her head and asked with rampant, queasy breaths.
"Where are we going?"
Keeping up with her pace, Asahi looked back and then forward, scratching his head. He was clueless on where he was going. All he saw beyond from his left and to his right were an expanse of stone pillars, the view of hills, villages, and entombed ancient structures; all buried deep underneath the ceiling of rock.
"I don't know, exactly." Asahi replied with a shrug in his shoulders. "I'm just going anywhere that is safe."
Even with this current situation, Kendra decided to lighten it up with soft laughter, drawing up droplets of sweat on her face in the process.
"Ha ha, you sound silly!" She said as she covered her mouth, coughing up a breath of exhaustion as she kept running. "I guess you're right. Anything is better than getting caught by that… strange thing."
Seeing all the followers sprint away, Kendra decided to turn around and see if the anomaly was still there. Unfortunately, it seemed as if the cyan luminance had grown stronger, expanding and stretching to nearly every corner of the underground expanse like the sun. A chilling prang of fear grasped her heart as she turned forward, gulping down a breath of unease.
"What the…"
Yet, before she could even warn Asahi or even the followers of what transpired behind them, a gruff-sounding, deep masculine voice shouted out from affront.
"Light!" He exclaimed. "I see light ahead!"
And just like that, the man gathered everyone's attention, including Asahi and Kendra's. Approaching the ends of the bridge, Asahi and Kendra watched as many followers stopped dead at their tracks, gazing heavenward at a golden light protruding from the ceiling.
It was a dazzling beacon of light; one that had shone everything underneath like a spotlight. The followers watched in awe as they saw the ribbon of light shine brightly down the expanse of stone. Many jumped up and screamed with wonder.
"It's a miracle!" One cried out.
"Sunlight. Finally, after years of being trapped in eternal darkness, we can see the true light!" Screamed another.
As they gazed at the glow with wide-open eyes, all felt a strange emotion rise deep inside them. A hopeful-feeling. One that eclipsed the presence of the dragon. This, and many more reactions from this phenomenon reminded Asahi of something.
(Oh, that's right. These people… haven't seen true sunlight in over… five thousand years.) He mumbled as he slowly walked over behind the followers with Kendra. "This is the first time… in millenia, the people from my old world can see… true sunlight."