Ranna closed the drawer with a muted thunk. She then made her way to the door.
Each footstep across the creaking wooden floor seemed to draw the air tight. The key in her hand pulsed faintly, trailing ghost lights as she moved. Motes of bronze sparks, like tiny embers trapped in slow motion, streaked into the air around her.
She passed them without acknowledgment.
Then Cris broke the silence. It was as though he feared his voice might wake someone.
"Didn't you say that the key was your last one? And that it was for emergencies only?" A beat.
"Until you could get another?"
Uncertainty.
Wary of the weight this minor act carried.
Ranna reached the door. Her hand hovered just above the knob. She didn't answer right away. She stood with her back to them, head slightly bowed.
Then she exhaled. It was a long, quiet breath that seemed to let out more than just air.
"If Leo's telling the truth," she said, "then spending a key is nothing."
Her fingers tightened around the metal. "Compared to what might be coming for us."
Silence again.
Amanda stepped forward. "Ranna," she said. Just that. Just her name.
But it carried weight.
And Ranna heard it.
She straightened. Her shoulders rolled back into their usual tensed poise. Then she turned slowly. Her gaze locked on Leo.
Her tone changed. No more clipped urgency. No more tension simmering in the walls.
Just the flat edge of resolve.
"This is the last time I'll ask," she said, standing tall, her eyes steady and unflinching.
A pause.
A stillness that pressed in.
"Are you really the one who defeated the Orc Lord?"
Leo didn't flinch. He just nodded once. Short and clean.
Ranna didn't blink. She nodded back, slow.
"Then we'll find out inside."
Leo narrowed his eyes, brows gently folding.
"Inside?"
But she didn't answer.
Instead, she turned back toward the door.
The key met the lock. And after a smooth turn came an almost ceremonial click. A snap echoed like glass breaking underwater.
The key shattered.
The metal dissolved. From the space it vanished, hundreds of bronze motes erupted, cascading into the air like a soft rainfall. They shimmered, weightless, spinning and trailing in their wake.
Then, without a word, Ranna reached forward and opened the door.
Right away, mist spilled out. It was dense and bright. It crept across the floor, curling around boots and ankles, filling the space with a sudden, biting chill.
Ranna stepped inside without hesitation.
Cris followed at his heels but paused just at the threshold. He turned, meeting Leo's eyes.
"For once," he said, voice thin with something like nervousness, "I'm really hoping you're not lying."
Then he stepped through, swallowed by the mist.
Amanda lingered behind. Her gaze flicked over Leo, soft but pointed.
She placed a hand on his shoulder.
Her thumb gave a small squeeze, like an anchor. "She's not angry. Ranna's just doing what she always does."
Leo tilted his head.
Amanda smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling. "Trying to protect people who won't protect themselves."
With that, she turned and disappeared into the pale fog.
Leo hesitated for half a breath, then stepped forward.
The door's edge passed over him like a veil.
He expected darkness.
Instead came light.
White.
Not the cold whiteness of snow, or the sterile glow of enchanted corridors.
This was softer. Vast.
A limitless pale expanse opened before him, like walking into a sky made of mist and silence. He couldn't tell if the ground was truly beneath him or if he was floating somehow, suspended between breaths. There was no ceiling. No walls.
Just mist and light.
It's like heaven... he thought, not even sure what that meant. But if it existed, this was it. The quiet awe. The impossible stillness.
And somewhere in the distance came a hum.
Low, endless.
Leo stood still, unsure if stepping further would carry him forward or downward.
Behind him, the door had already vanished.
No turning back now.
As soon as the door behind Leo vanished, the air pulsed with a dull shimmer.
Then, a screen blinked into view just above their heads. It was translucent and rectangular, its edges lined with faint golden glyphs that moved like ink in water.
[SYSTEM NOTICE]
It was eerily similar to Leo's own interface. Same faint chime, same glimmering border. But this one bore nothing but a single, ticking countdown:
00:59:48
00:59:12
00:58:43
Each second fell away with a hushed tick.
Leo's gaze stayed fixed on it until Ranna's voice sliced through the stillness.
"Welcome to the Paradise," she said, her tone calm, but her eyes sharp.
Arms loosely crossed, and the white mist around her parted in smooth, curling spirals. "A magic plane created by the Astral Sovereign."
Leo blinked. "So we're not in the real world anymore?"
"Not exactly," she said. "This plane exists for a short time using the mana that was put into the key."
"Some call it the Land of the Gods too," she added, her voice dropping slightly.
Then she tilted her head toward Cris.
"Do it."
Cris rolled his neck once, a grin forming at the corner of his mouth. "With pleasure."
He turned toward Leo, lifting his right arm high into the air. As he did, the mist around him stirred, no longer passive. It gathered, pulling itself upward, funneling through his palm as if he were drawing water from a bottomless well.
The mist thickened into a spiraling force. Amanda and Ranna's hair whipped around wildly in the wind. Within seconds, a lance-like vortex hung above Cris's hand.
Leo stepped back by instinct, the air pressure shifting around them.
Ranna kept talking like this was routine.
"The mist you're breathing in, is magical essence. Or at least a copy of it."
Leo frowned.
She nodded. "They say it still exists in our world, within arm's reach, but no one's been able to harness it. Not since the Primordials were wiped out."
Her words hung in the air like ancient prophecy.
"The Demon God invasion saw to that," she finished quietly.
Leo's mind reeled. Primordials? Magical essence? An entire world made of mana?
The sheer scope of what she was saying felt unreal. He barely had time to process it.
"Oi!" Cris shouted. "Did no one ever teach you not to turn your back on a damn fight?!"
Leo's head whipped around.
Cris had already thrown it.
The tornado-lance was a streak of twisting air and compressed force. Screaming toward him like a living beast, fangs bared and hungry.
Leo's breath caught.
He barely raised his arm in time before the impact hit.
Whump!
A wall of force slammed into him, air and magic spiraling as the lance exploded against his chest with a thunderous shockwave. The impact flung him backward, the mist parting violently in his wake.
He hit the ground.
Hard.
Shoulder first, skidding across the pale expanse until friction finally slowed him.