Bonus thanks to trippelstabb 🙂 I hate your guts 🙂

Sylas steps grew slower and slower until he came to a stop.

Darkness. There was nothing but it for as far as the eye could see. It fe like the world had basically vanished.

A part of him wondered if things were meant to be this way.

He raised a palm and sparked Aether, but as though it couldnt gain any purchase, it didnt even take form. The bo of Glassvo he tried to form didnt even manage to gear up before it fizzled out of existence.

In fact, he didnt even see the spark itself, barely feeling out its existence.

Sylas gaze flickered.

He fe something odd just now. If his Glassvo Aether hadnt been a perfect 100 Foundation F-tier Aether, it wouldnt have been able to form at all, let alone leave any sensation on his end. It was like this world barely allowed perfection to exist, and anything less had no chance at all.

Void.

Sylas fe it so very clearly again, and inwardly, he began to understand something.

This place wasnt just deep underground. It was completely closed off from the rest of the world. The only connection point between the outside and this place had been that skylight of concentrated rayswell, that and wherever the exit to this place was.

If Sylas had simply asked how to leave, the old man would probably have told him, but he hadnt expected to run into such a thing after stepping off a teleportation platform.

Sylas was prideful, but not a fool. He had thought the exit would be obvious enough. Otherwise, he wouldnt have thought it beneath himself to ask questions. He asked questions all the time.

As for the old man, part of the reason for his weird expression was that the old woman had informed him of who Sylas was and to let him go with the papers he would need to exist in the city without being captured by guards. As far as the Jade Race old man was concerned, Sylas was already aware of how things worked here fact the old woman was so interested in such an old F-tier was baffling to him nonetheless.

though the

In truth, Sylas had noticed the oddity the moment he had taken a few steps beyond the old man, but he had continued walking because it reminded him of what he had just sensed through the teleportation.

Now he was wondering if he had bitten off more than he could chew.

Right this moment, he wasnt even 100% sure if he was still standing. His proprioception itself had been completely stripped away from him, and he wasnt confident in taking another step without falling on his face. He wasnt even sure he would feel it if he fell.

Proprioception was ones awareness of where ones limbs were in relation to space and the other parts of ones body. It was the sense people took for granted the most because it was the one that didnt have the most obvious feel to it.

But, by the same token, this was probably the most valuable of the senses. Even walking was impossible without it.

The only reason Sylas thought he might still be standing was because his last proprioceptive sense had been that he was, and right now, he was doing his best not to move a single inch.

He couldnt tell which way was up or down, which way was left or right, or if there was even still gravity acting on him or not.

An endless expanse of blackness… that was all there was.

This place was created like this on purpose. Its the only way to ensure that extremely long-distance teleportations dont suffer from unwanted deviations… by placing the teleportation platform in a void of its own, it avoids potentially killing people by phasing them into a pillar.

Over the course of countless trillions of light years, even a rounding error dozens of decimal points deep could put you thousands of miles off target. Without a place like this one, the odds of death were too high even for an A-tier.

Maybe it was as the saying went — curiosity killed the cat. Sylas had been intrigued by the potential chance to immerse himself in this feeling, and now he had no idea how to get out.

But he also didnt panic.

He stood there in silence, embracing the darkness. He couldnt tell if his eyes were closed or not, but it didnt matter.

It was like he wasnt in his body anymore at all, and the world, as faded as it already was, only faded all the more.

He couldnt see, couldnt hear, couldnt touch, couldnt feel…

Silence embraced every part of him.

The old woman walked out of the darkness of her own abode, stretching out her back and yawning.

As the sun touched her skin, she became like dry soil soaking up the first rain of the year.

Her wrinkles smoothed out, her back straightened, her legs even seemed to become longer.

From a woman who seemed to be deep into her eighties, she aged down to a beauty in her mid-forties, the faint greys gracing the sides of the hair she kept up in a prim and proper bun.

It looked as though there were a few elegant jade pins holding her bun up, but in reality every single one of them was a sheathed dagger. It was possible that even she had forgotten this, though.

Her robes swayed in the wind of a graceful courtyard, weighed down by a heavy and fluffy cotton. It somehow both looked like she had just thrown a bathrobe on and like she was prepared to step into a ballroom. The mix of the two was perfectly balanced, so much so that no one would bat an eye if she stepped into the street with such wear.

Ah, the sun. How long has it been?

She yawned again and then blenched into the wind.

Oof, I need some food. But first… She took a deep breath. LEIA ANALE!! GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE!