Seol-ah groaned as pain rippled through her body, a sharp reminder of her predicament. The familiar training grounds of the Moyong estate were gone, replaced by a scene so alien that even her sharp mind struggled to process it.
Her father, an Immortal-ranker, had been unable to stop what had happened. The mana surge had been unlike anything she had ever felt—an overwhelming force that didn't simply overpower her but rendered her world unrecognizable.
Her eyes fluttered open, and the first thing she noticed was the vibrant canopy above her. Leaves shimmered faintly with a bioluminescent glow, bathing the forest in an eerie, otherworldly light. The air smelled rich and damp, carrying the earthy tang of moss and something… sharper, metallic.
'Where am I?' she thought, her instincts taking over as she forced herself to her feet. Mana flowed through her core, strengthening her limbs and steadying her breath. Her vision sharpened, her senses expanded.
But no clarity came.
She reached into her pocket and retrieved her phone, the comforting weight of technology in her hand bringing a fleeting sense of relief. That relief was short-lived. Her brow furrowed as she stared at the screen.
No bars. No signal.
Seol-ah blinked, her confusion turning to unease. "No signal?" she muttered. That shouldn't have been possible. Not in this age of technological marvels where satellites crisscrossed the skies and blanketed the entire world in a web of connectivity.
Her mind raced. There was only one place on Earth where technology failed this utterly. Her breath hitched as an unwelcome thought took root.
'Black mana territory.'
A shiver ran down her spine. The lands controlled by the black mana species were places of nightmare and despair, realms humanity had failed to reclaim despite their combined might. Each territory was ruled by beings of incomprehensible power—Radiant-rankers at their peak.
If she truly was in such a place…
The weight of the thought pressed down on her, but Seol-ah quickly steeled herself. Fear was natural, but panic was a death sentence. She couldn't afford to let it control her.
Her senses stretched outward as she tried to detect any threats. The forest around her was unnaturally still, but it was not the comforting stillness of a peaceful glade. It was the heavy, expectant quiet of a predator lying in wait.
'Think, Seol-ah,' she told herself, taking a deep breath. 'If this is black mana territory, I can't stay in one place for too long. I need higher ground, a vantage point.'
She took a cautious step forward, the damp earth squelching under her boots. Her hand instinctively brushed against the hilt of her sword, the cool metal grounding her as she scanned the trees. Every shadow seemed to move, every rustle of leaves sent her heart racing.
But nothing attacked.
Not yet.
'Why am I still alive?' she wondered. If she had been teleported into enemy territory, the black mana species should have descended upon her by now. She was a high Ascendant-ranker—a significant threat, but hardly invincible. The creatures of these lands would relish the challenge of hunting someone like her.
The unease lingered, gnawing at the edges of Seol-ah's thoughts as she pressed further into the forest. Her steps were careful, her senses heightened to every sound, every shift of shadow among the trees. The oppressive quiet felt unnatural, but it wasn't the dreadful silence of black mana territory.
It was… something else.
The forest itself seemed alive in ways she couldn't quite explain. The trees were ancient, their trunks gnarled and twisted as though frozen mid-contortion. Their branches reached toward the sky like skeletal hands, casting a lattice of shadows that danced eerily as she moved. Here and there, faint glimmers of light—mana beasts. But weak ones.
'Too weak,' Seol-ah thought, frowning as she stopped to study the traces left by one. A small, harmless creature had passed through recently. It wasn't uncommon to find mana beasts in untouched wilderness, but the absence of larger predators made her skin crawl.
Black mana creatures didn't coexist with mana beasts. They eradicated them.
'So this isn't black mana territory,' she concluded, her mind piecing together fragments of logic against the backdrop of her unease. The question remained: If not there, then where?
The forest began to thin, the dense canopy giving way to patches of open sky. Seol-ah picked up her pace, eager to leave behind the suffocating atmosphere. Soon, the ground beneath her feet shifted, becoming rockier, and the faint scent of salt on the breeze tickled her nose.
She reached the forest's edge and stepped out onto a cliff. The sheer drop stole her breath for a moment. Before her stretched a vast expanse, the view partially obscured by wisps of mist curling upward from the depths below.
She moved cautiously to the cliff's edge, her boots dislodging loose stones that tumbled noiselessly into the abyss. Drawing on her mana, she enhanced her eyesight, her vision sharpening to pick out details far below.
And then she saw it.
Her breath hitched, her heart pounding in her chest as her eyes drank in the sight. A city sprawled in the valley below—an alien yet strangely familiar sight. Its architecture was archaic, almost medieval, with towering spires and intricately carved stone walls. Streets twisted and wove together like veins in a living organism, lit by lanterns that flickered with an odd, otherworldly glow.
Seol-ah blinked, as though her eyes were deceiving her. But the city remained, its presence an unyielding testament to the absurdity of her situation.
'What the…' she cursed internally, her thoughts racing as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing. This place was no part of the world she knew. No satellite imagery had ever captured anything like this.
Mana rippled faintly through the air, carried on the wind from the city below. It was old, ancient in a way that made her chest tighten. It felt raw, unrefined—unlike the carefully cultivated mana systems she was used to.
Seol-ah stepped back from the edge, her fingers curling instinctively around the hilt of her sword.
"Where the hell am I?" she muttered, her voice barely audible over the sound of the wind rushing past the cliff.
She clenched her jaw, forcing herself to breathe deeply, to think clearly. Her heart raced, but her mind demanded answers. What was this city? Why was it so… alien? And, most pressing of all: How had she ended up here?
The silence of the forest behind her now felt like a warning, a deliberate stillness meant to shepherd her to this point. Seol-ah couldn't shake the feeling that she had been brought here, though by whom—or what—she couldn't say.
The city below gleamed faintly, its lights pulsing like the heartbeat of some ancient, sleeping giant. It was a strange and beautiful thing, and yet it made her stomach churn with unease.
'What waits for me down there?' she wondered.
And with that, Seol-ah turned, casting one last glance at the forest she'd emerged from. There was no going back. Not now. Squaring her shoulders, she began to make her way down the narrow path that wound toward the city, her hand never leaving her sword.
Whatever this place was, she would find her answers—and she would survive.