"Where am I?"
Her voice traveled through the vast expanse of nothingness.
The ground looked so pure and white, it resembled an ocean filled without water, but stagnant milk instead. And in front of her was a colossal door embroidered in golden patterns.
For a second, she looked at the great white door in awe, but in the next instant, she suddenly began to punch it, trying to force it open.
Alas, she couldn't even make it budge in the slightest. Her arms tore off like paper and disappeared, nevertheless she kicked the door instead.
Yielding, the same vain result as before, her legs vanished, nevertheless, she banged on it with her head. She didn't know what was happening, she didn't seem to be in control of her own body, however, this girl didn't want to fight back as she felt a certain alignment in thought to whoever or whatever was controlling her body.
It was probably because of the incessant banging of her head to the immovable door, that her vision started to blur and she began to lose consciousness.
"Why won't you open?" She exhaled tiredly. Despite her missing limbs, not a single drop of blood had oozed out of her body to desecrate the holy white floor.
And as if she suddenly remembered something, she turned her head to her side and found her greatsword, its exterior as pure as the ground beneath her torso.
"Why didn't I think of that before, this is the key isn't it." A thought suddenly came into her head.
But try as she might, she could not control her body anymore, as her vision gradually turned black. And without hands, she also couldn't pick up the sword.
"Oh well." She soon succumbed to the tiredness.
"It wouldn't have made any difference anyway, since the sword's heart is gone. Ah, I wish I knew where that was.
If I did, then this door would surely open very easily."
Rambling on about things she wasn't even sure about, her vision finally faded.
———
Nova's eyes sprung open as she gasped desperately for air. Upon looking around, she realized that she was in her bedroom.
That must have been a dream.
She had fainted somewhere in the safe zones, so somebody must have found her and brought her back to her dorm.
As she looked through the window a few meters to her right, the moon's gentle gleam seeped through the window blinds and fell on her face.
"What was that about?" She tried to remember what she had just dreamt of in detail, but all she got she was a splitting headache.
"Gah!!!" The pain was gradually increasing and soon became unbearable for her. Nova felt like her head had struck against a wall a million times without stop.
She tilted to her side and hurriedly tapped on a cuboid shaped desk. With a beep, a hole opened up at the top of the desk and a white amulet rose to the surface.
As soon as Nova's bandage covered hand grabbed onto the five diameter amulet, it started to light up. And like the pain was being transferred into it, Nova was starting to feel better.
For a while she laid down flat on her stomach to catch her breath, but after a couple of minutes, she placed her feet on the floor and put the amulet around her neck.
Nova suddenly noticed that something was wrong. 'Is this an hallucination?' She frowned.
As she turned her head around, she noticed that her plain room's white color had now lit up in a golden hue.
Figuring it had something to do with it, she pulled the amulet to her face and it reflected a blurry image of her.
Nova looked curiously as she saw her hazy reflection depicting glowing eyes.
"What is this?" She muttered.
"Is this because of the amulet? But it's never done this before." She didn't know the cause of the strange occurrence, but looking ahead, she felt like she could find that out.
From the center of the amulet, a white light tunneled out and through the walls of her house.
For some reason, she felt like the light was urging her to go somewhere, and she was compelled by her curiosity to follow.
Nova walked out of her house and saw the light piercing through the forest.
She couldn't see where it was leading to, as she couldn't use her powers in the night. Therefore, her eyes were less sharper, while she couldn't fly to get a better range of sight. However, there was some kind of attraction pulling her in that direction, it was almost hypnotic.
A memory of her weird dream flashed in her head, so she ran inside to take her sword and pack a few other things in her storage bracelet.
As she walked out of the house again, she looked at her angelic sword under the moonlight.
The blade of the sword was milky white, with a thick gold line in the middle. It was only a little wider than a grown man's palm, and about 5 feet long.
It's guard was a weird circular shape that had it's circumference not fully connected, and in the center of the circular guard was a golden orb.
The more Nova looked at the sword now, the more she felt something was amiss.
With her new golden vision, the orb looked empty, and upon a closer inspection to the bladed part of the sword, she could see faint patterns crawling around the golden parts of the blade. She would have never been able to see those patterns with her normal eyesight.
As she brought the orb of the greatsword to her face, she noticed that, although it looked transparent now, she could only see the white light in the distance and nothing else.
It was strange, she thought. But it was all the more reason she had to follow that strange light.
"If that dream really means something, then I wonder what the sword's heart is.
Without a second thought, Nova plunged herself into the forest and disappeared into the darkness.
———
Somewhere else on Ansel...
"Gah! This is so frustrating! Why do we have to go this far out in the highlands just to get rid of a dead body. I mean, we could have just pulverized it into dust and blew it away."
"If you wanna get paid then don't question what the boss asks us to do. And besides, our mission wasn't to get rid of the body, but to just put it somewhere hidden."
"And what exactly does that sound like to you?"
In the inhabited parts of Ogmore province, two people were walking through the canyons of the highlands, pulling along what looked to be a plastic like casket.
The casket was being pulled on a cart that moved on its own, with the two men on both ends.
They had received orders to drop this glowing red casket in a cave somewhere. And although they wondered why, it was like the second man had said, the orders of their superior could not be questioned. They were both just bummed out that they had to work so late at night.
The two walked for a while before finally reaching somewhere they thought should be safe. But still, one of them went out to scout the perimeter just to be sure.
The man that was left with the casket looked inquisitively at it's glossy white surface, it was opaque, but it emitted an eerie red light.
"What the heck is this for?" He tapped the casket with his finger, wondering why somebody made the casket to be glowing.
"You're being extravagant even in death, huh, useless rich guy? But what's the point of it all? In the end you'll die and your bones will rot just like any other stinking human.
It doesn't matter that you were rich now does it? In fact, I bet I could piss all over your corpse and you won't even be able to do anything." He cackled maniacally.
His eyes turned to the side of the casket and he caught sight of a rare metal shaped in the form of a triangle.
"That shine... That's a freaking Platinite!" He exclaimed in shock as he examined the bluish metal.
Living organisms weren't the only things to evolve with the Earth, minerals did to. And other than the normal functions they served, precious minerals could be used to harness greater powers from natural made artifacts.
The more valuable the mineral, the more use they could provide, and of course, the more expensive they were. And Platinite was definitely a top grade mineral metal.
After confirming its authenticity, the man in black stared at the triangular shaped metal with ardent greed. He placed his hand on the metal and then tried to pull it off.
Unfortunately, the metal was stuck.
The man frowned at his inability to take the precious metal. He could move a boulder, but not something as small as this?
He took out a pen shaped object from his pocket, and as he tapped one end of it, the other shot out a beam of green light. The light was a laser in the form of a blade.
However, before he could press the burning hot laser on the casket, he heard a sound from behind him.
"The perimeter is mostly secure, all we need to do is set up the cloaking barrier and — what are you doing?"
The thieving man's partner had come back.
But seeing as he didn't get a response, he yelled again. "What are you doing Arnold!"
Arnold, the man with the laser knife rushed over to his friend, bidding him to calm down and stop yelling.
"Look here Min Ho, it's a Platinite lock." Arnold showed his friend what he had found, with excitement.
Although he wished he could keep his discovery to himself and earn more money out of it, the only thing he could do now was try to buy off his friends silence when he sold the mineral.
However, to his surprise, Min Ho took out a pistol and aimed it at his head.
"Step away from the casket, Arnold."
"Wha—" Arnold was baffled. "Seriously! What's wrong with you?!
It's just a lock from the bed of a dead man! No one's going to have any problem with us taking that thing. They'll bury it in the ground later, and then what? Huh?"
Arnold started yelling, seeking to force common sense into his friend. But Kim Min Ho wasn't having it.
There was an ominous feeling he got from looking at that casket. He couldn't feel anything strange physically, but unlike his friend, he didn't let emotions and greed cloud his judgement, especially not at work.
Thinking deeply, if the casket was really just that, then the procedures they were ordered to take in disposing it were too much and useless. With the power their superior had, if he wanted to bury a close relative, it'd be at a grand graveyard just like any other rich individual would do.
However, he was hiding the body deep within the highlands, leaving it in one gloomy cave.
Min Ho did his best to keep his thoughts off it anyway since it was none of his business, but now that he had heard that the casket was locked by an extremely hard material, the uncomfortable feeling in his mind erupted like an active volcano.
"You don't understand Arnold. Something doesn't feel —"
"Doesn't feel right?" Arnold cut him off. "Who cares?! You're just being an unrealistic idiot. If we have this, just this little thing, our standard of living is gonna shoot through the roof. We could establish our own guild, make lots of money. Think about it, you love your children don't you? Your wife?"
BANG!
Min Ho pulled the trigger. "Don't bring my family into this you piece of scum!" He said coldly.
Arnold's face was black as he looked at the ground with a hand in his chest. However, Min Ho knew it'd be foolish to assume him dead.
And he was right.
"Hahahaha." Arnold chuckled under his breath.
"Did you really think a measly gun could hurt me?" He removed the hand from his chest and threw the bullet on the floor.
"You see? You can't even afford a proper weapon." He smiled devilishly, with the full intent of murder. If he could not bring his friend to his side, then he would eliminate him.
Arnold was a strong level 20 super human, while Min Ho was just at level 11,the difference, although not as big as between higher division with the same number distance, was still great.
It was because of this that Min Ho tried to use a gun against Arnold, but still, because of the latter's special enforcement skill, the bullet was also as hopeless as he was.
BANG!
Min Ho tried not to seem fazed, but he was. For he didn't know Arnold's powers could reach this extent.
Of course, Arnold caught the other bullet just as easy as the first. But soon more were upon him. As more and more bullets blasted towards him, Arnold soon realized that it was getting harder to catch each time. It was as if they were increasing in speed and strength, however, this was only by a little amount.
"So this is the ability you got." Arnold voice sounded with a hint of mockery.
"It would have been more useful if you'd managed to level it up, but since you're going to die soon anyway, it doesn't matter." He sighed and shook his head.
BANG!
The final bullet came out.
"I guess it's over then." Arnold knew the bullet capacity of the gun, so he stretched his hand to catch the incoming bullet, however before it met his opened palm, the bullet suddenly disappeared and then reappeared right before Arnold's very eyes.
"Argh!" Arnold let out a scream of agony as the bullet pierced right through his left eye.
"What did you do?!" He growled.
"Like I said before Arnold, Step away from the casket." Min Ho reloaded his pistol.
If any mistake happened on this mission, Arnold wasn't the only one who'd be in trouble. Min Ho had his and his family's lives on the line.
So with all his breath, he would protect that casket, no matter what it was.