As Judith stared at the prince/impostor, the fear echoing in her heart seemed to be doused by confusion, when she saw the prince/impostor swaying on his mount. As confusion continued to plague Judith, Wukong on the other hand was forcing himself to stay awake.
Barely staying upright and or keeping his eyes open, Wukong began to curse this red-haired woman. Why was he woken up before he even began to sleep?
Forcing his tears to stay within his lids and attention away from sleep and onto something else, he decided to think about the Realmwalker and how he would even go about approaching her.
He thought at first of just using his magic to freeze everyone here in place, save for Judith, walk up to her and tell her of everything his sister had planned. But as Wukong had painfully discovered when he tried to get dressed, his magic had been all but stripped away upon entering this world.
Somehow, Wukong could feel his powers well within himself. But for some odd reason, they were inaccessible. Thinking on this, Wukong wanted to cry once more, when he realized he will have to be doing hard labor from now on. Hard labor like picking up glass cups, holding spoons and so on.
Realizing he was not the only one present, he forced himself to not cry, then he returned his attention to the Realmwalker. If he couldn't use his powers to talk to her, then he would have to find a way to speak to her in private.
At that moment, Wukong had wondered if he could ask his father the King to call her in as...company. Thinking on this, Wukong found himself a little more than flustered. What was he thinking? He was the monkey king, he never had time for such things. So, how come he was feeling his heart pound rapidly by the thought?
'Could it be this body?' Wukong thought for a moment, before shrugging everything off and emptying out his head. He decided not to think on this any further, since there was nothing he could do for now apart from wait.
Deciding on this, Wukong had let it all go for now. But by the sudden absence of what to be preoccupied by, Wukong once more found himself feeling sluggish and sleepy, so he began to sway from left to right again.
Judith had kept her gaze on him intently, wondering to herself what was even going on. But that didn't really matter, not now at least. What mattered at the moment was how to get rid of the impostor. Unfortunately for Judith, no matter how much she thought on it, there was no straightforward way to handle him, that didn't concern killing him.
One of the major things she thought of was to tell Qui Lin straight up that he was not the real prince. But out of fear Qui Lin would roast her at the spot, she held her tongue. It's true that Qui Lin was calculative and very weary, but the fact that she was to the prince as a mother was to a child, meant there was plenty of room for her on think irrationally when it came to him.
So that was not a option. Again, Judith thought of another way, which was trapping the god in some form of prison for all eternity, or at least long enough till she became a Tethered, being able to protect herself.
But it was very unlikely she was going to get any Tethered in their right mind to put the prince in a void, unless...she had some dirty secret about them which she could use to manipulate them.
Now latched onto an idea, Judith felt a sense of relief wash over her. But yet, she didn't let her guard down. Keeping her gaze on the impostor, she had let her mind rest for a while as they made their way through the desert.
After an agonizing three hours, when the sun was just about emerging from the horizon, an enormous wall could be seen in the distance not too far ahead.
This wall had caught everyone's attention and had revitalized those who were feeling sleepy. The reason being how much of an incredible monument the wall was. It had stretched toward the east and west as far as the eye could see. It was made of pure metal, which had caught the sun's rays with a sheen on its silverly body, and more than anything, it towered into the sky even at such a distance. Spanning three hundred to four hundred meters into the sky.
Judith like everyone else present, had been mesmerized by such an incredible structure. Of course the greatness of the wall had been emphasized in Judith's novel, but seeing it for real was a completely different experience.
Wukong likewise was quite fascinated by this structure, yet he wasn't blown away by its grandeur to the degree others were. Rather, he found it oddly reminiscent to structures from his world.
What did catch his attention was why he and likewise, others, didn't see such a massive structure from a great distance away. Instead, it only came into view when they were just a kilometer or so away from it.
As soon as Wukong thought on this question, he at once found there was an answer in his head. As it would seem the prince had classes in his youth, detailing the geographic nature of the four main Kingdoms.
And as one would find out, the gravitational field around Western and Eastern Shoubi were strangely warped, so that the perspective of things were altered. Which meant that most times, depending on where a person was, things in the distance would either seem further, or very close, despite that not being the actual case.
When Wukong arrived at this answer, his head began to spin. Talk about nausea inducing.
The walk toward the massive walls hadn't taken as long as Judith or Wukong had expected. Once they had all arrived at the front of the colossal walls, a massive metal gate was awaiting them.
After a quick analysis, they were let through. Judith and Tsai had watched the massive metal gate rise off the ground with child-like amazement.
The sight unfolding before their very eyes was nothing like they had ever seen. Judith was mesmerized beyond her wildest dreams. She had never thought for once in her life that she'd see something so incredible, and yet here she was.
She and Tsai continued to stare with gaping mouths as the enormous gate rose up into the wall. By the time it had gone all the way up, Judith and Tsai immediately regretted following it with their head, because seconds after it had creaked and settled into place, sand had poured down like rain, falling into their eyes.
Once again like children, Judith and Tsai began to clean out the sand with frenzied panic. By the time they were free from a good chunk of the sand in their eyes, they turned to one another, wondering if the other was okay.
When Judith had stared into Tsai's eyes and found it as red as blood, and Tsai vice versa, they couldn't help but burst out into laughter, completely forgetting they were in the midst of people.
Judith's and Tsai's laughter didn't live for more than three seconds when they had finally realized they weren't the only ones present. Even more so, Judith had found her joy overturn to despair when she saw that the impostor had his eyes fixated on her.
'Good job at being discrete.' Judith thought, berating herself. She had let herself be nonchalant for just a moment, and it would seem that had caused her to be once again under the impostor's radar.
After a few awkward and silence-filled seconds, which Judith had felt as though was an eternity, the eyes finally rolled off her and she let out a sigh of relief. Which she realized had been synced with Tsai's sigh of relief.
This had caused Judith to chuckle, before remembering she was supposed to be discrete. So she quieted down.
Keeping her gaze forward, they proceeded to make their way inside, with Qui Lin and the prince at the forefront, while the others followed behind.
Now being consumed by shadow as they walked into the structure, a sudden grim thought had dawned on Judith. She discovered that ever since she came to this new world, she had not been herself. Or at least, not the part of herself that she liked. That being, the carefree and always cheery Judith.
Of course she wasn't carefree, no one really was. But she liked to act this way because she liked being happy, and she liked to bring joy to others, no matter how much struggle she was going through, she always liked to remain positive and hope for the best.
One could say that the reason for her change was being that she had basically died. But Judith did not want to believe this, she knew that as long as she was given a second chance at life, she was going to forget about that horrible thing that happened to her and move on.
Yet, here she was, being the part of herself that was always actived when she was in danger.
With her eyes suddenly widened, Judith had finally realized why she was not herself. She at once became a bit annoyed that this fact was glaringly obvious, yet she missed it. But more than anything, Judith had found a sudden fear resonate within her heart.
This fear was stirred by the thought that she would never be herself again. She was afraid that this world would cause her to always be weary, always apprehensive of her safety. That she would completely forget about the part of herself that liked to laugh.
Judith did not like this thought at all, she prayed with all her heart this wouldn't be the case. Because, if she was going to lose an integral part of herself, then what was the point of being given a second chance at life in the first place?