Chapter 1360: What Lies Beneath the X

Seraphina was already above it.

She folded her wings and dove toward the giant bird, spreading her claws wide as she fell.

The bird finished charging its attack and raised its beak.

A dark crimson laser shot into the sky.

The beam raced up along Seraphina’s path, rapidly closing the distance between them. Just before it struck the dragon, Seraphine raised a hand.

Light Force gathered before her palm and formed a massive fist of light.

The fist didn’t attack the bird.

It slammed into Seraphina’s side, knocking her enormous body off course. She went flying sideways as the dark crimson laser grazed the edge of her wing and shot into the sky above.

Seraphine had successfully helped her dodge the attack.

She had also ruined Seraphina’s perfect angle of attack.

Seraphina spread her wings again and rubbed her side. The laser from below had certainly been dangerous, but after taking that punch, Light Force had left a much stronger impression on her.

Once the giant bird saw that the dragon above it was gone, it turned immediately.

It beat its wings and aimed its beak at the group below. The red-black laser changed direction and swept toward them from the sky.

Seraphine stepped in front of everyone.

Dense Primordial Death Energy poured from her hand and spread to either side, forming a shield almost the same color as the gray-white forest.

The red-black laser struck it head-on.

There was no explosion.

Not even a ripple.

The part of the beam that entered the Primordial Death Energy was swallowed outright. The red-black light vanished inch by inch, and not a single fragment of energy made it through.

The bird kept firing, oblivious to Seraphina circling around behind it.

Seraphina flexed her claws in excitement, then beat her wings and accelerated. Pointing her talons at the bird’s back, she charged in a straight line.

The giant bird’s attention remained fixed on the shield ahead.

It didn’t realize there was more than one enemy until the pressure from Seraphina’s wings hit it from behind.

By then, it was too late.

Seraphina slammed a claw into its back.

The bird went flying again, tumbling over the gray-white forest. It had taken two heavy blows and still hadn’t lost the ability to fly.

The damn thing just wouldn’t stay down.

Once it regained control, it didn’t hesitate.

When in doubt, run.

It pumped both pairs of wings, rapidly building speed. In the blink of an eye, it cleared the distant treetops and disappeared from sight.

Ethan poked his head out from behind Seraphine’s shield and watched the direction the bird had fled.

Once he was certain it wasn’t coming back, he walked over to the patch of ground struck by the red-black laser and crouched beside the darkened soil.

Ethan closed his eyes and carefully sensed the energy lingering in the air.

An unfamiliar power still drifted slowly through the impact zone.

It carried the presence of death, but also possessed a quality that resembled time.

If it had nothing to do with time, how else could the forest’s supposed immortality be explained?

Ethan turned toward Seraphine.

When he compared the lingering power to Light Force and Primordial Death Energy, the difference became obvious. Both of Seraphine’s powers completely suppressed the gray-white energy. They weren’t remotely on the same level.

With the giant bird gone, silence returned to the forest.

Other than the group’s footsteps, there wasn’t another sound in the gray-white world.

Ethan continued forward until his ears caught something different.

Water.

Running water.

He pushed aside the bushes ahead and spotted a small patch of green deep within the gray-white forest.

Everyone quickened their pace. A stream gradually appeared between the trees. Its water was still flowing, and a little greenery remained along both banks, but the gray-white force was already closing in from upstream and downstream.

By the time they reached the bank, the stream was on the verge of being completely consumed.

The last patch of blue at its center began to fade.

First the color paled, then gray-white spread over it. The water kept flowing, but the sound gradually died away until the stream blended into the surrounding forest.

It happened quickly, yet so naturally that the change was almost impossible to notice.

This was what happened throughout the gray-white forest every moment.

Only by witnessing it firsthand could they understand the suffering of this place.

Endless gray-white filled their vision.

No signs of life.

No birdsong.

Even the red-and-white bird that had attacked them was nowhere to be seen. It had clearly found somewhere to hide.

Everyone climbed onto Seraphina’s back again.

She spread her wings and continued over the gray-white canopy. After flying for some time, they spotted a mountain rising above the clouds at the center of the forest.

They decided to land on the summit and survey the surrounding terrain.

Seraphina descended onto the mountaintop.

Once their feet touched the ground, they quickly noticed something strange about the mountain. It wasn’t a single formation of solid rock. It looked more like countless boulders fitted together.

Cracks of varying widths ran between the stones.

Some formed deep ravines, while other sections were connected by only thin layers of rock. They spent a long time examining the summit, but found nothing else unusual from the outside and eventually gave up.

What they didn’t know was that the entire mountain was hollow.

The red-and-white bird that had fled earlier was hiding inside, resting.

It suddenly raised its head and stared through the gaps between the interlocked boulders. Its eyes locked onto the group at the summit as red-black energy streamed continuously from its beak.

Above, everyone decided to rest for a while.

Once they had recovered enough energy and stamina, they planned to continue on their way.

But the creature inside the mountain had no intention of letting them leave.

The giant bird spread its wings and flew through the vast hollow interior. It stopped beside a motionless river and lowered its beak toward the water.

Red energy finished gathering.

A laser shot from its beak and struck the river head-on.

The bird waited for the change it expected, but nothing happened.

Instead, the gray-white color in the river began to recede.

The gray-white energy withdrew with the current, then left the river entirely and entered a floating rock nearby.

With that power gone, the stagnant water began flowing again.

The rush of water echoed through the mountain’s hollow interior and traveled through the cracks between the boulders to the summit.

Ethan heard it first.

He stopped what he was doing, lay flat against a boulder, and pressed his ear to its surface.

Running water was directly below them.

Ethan knocked on the rock.

Thud.

Thud.

Instead of the sharp sound he would have expected from solid stone, the knocks produced a dull echo.

The mountain was hollow.

And there was running water inside it.

That was all Ethan knew for now.

He stood, called Idra over, then drew a large X on the stone beneath his feet.

"Break it open!"

Idra nodded.

She stepped over the X and raised her fist. Power flowed down her arm and gathered around her knuckles. Just as she was about to punch the stone, the mountain shifted slightly beneath her feet.

Idra lost her balance and slipped sideways.

Ethan quickly reached out and caught her.

He helped her steady herself, then looked down at the cracks around them. That tremor had been unmistakable. Idra hadn’t simply lost her footing.

Was there another creature hiding in here?

The mountain shook again.

This time, the tremor was far more violent. The enormous boulders making up the mountain ground against one another, and a heavy rumble traveled from beneath their feet toward the summit.

The stone they stood on began to split.

A crack opened at the center of the X Ethan had drawn and raced toward their feet.