Translator: CinderTL
"Galvis? Galvis?"
Deep within the ley lines, Roland sensed the sudden severing of the Red String of Fate. He tried calling out again, but received no response.
"This is bad..." he muttered, his brow furrowing.
"Hey! Rudolph!"
Durga's gruff voice boomed beside him. The Gray Dwarf Leader strode over, his battle-scarred face etched with curiosity.
"What are you muttering about over there? Get on the ship! I've already finished the 'Lava Blood' I brought. We need to get back to the surface and find some decent liquor to wet our whistles."
"I'm coming."
Roland nodded, suppressing his anxiety for the moment. He followed Durga up the stairs, which were faintly glowing with bioluminescence.
"Is everyone here?" Durga's booming voice echoed through the cave as he surveyed the surroundings.
After confirming that no one had been left behind, he nodded with satisfaction and began to chant a series of obscure syllables in a low voice.
As he chanted, the stairs that had just unfolded slowly retracted, merging seamlessly back into the ship's hull as if they had never existed.
"You lot, keep watch on the deck."
Durga issued the order to the Grey Dwarf warriors beside him, then turned to Roland, a slightly boastful smile playing on his rugged face.
"Come on, Rudolph. I'll show you the 'masterpiece' of those otherworld bastards."
With that, the Grey Dwarf Leader led Roland through an entrance that contracted slightly, like a biological chamber, and into the interior of the shell ship.
The scene inside the ship defied Roland's imagination.
The walls were not cold metal, but a warm, faintly pulsating organic material, with a texture that blended muscle and carapace.
Faintly glowing blue bioluminescence flowed slowly along neural-like patterns on the walls, providing illumination.
The air was filled with a strange scent, a mixture of ozone and a sweet, glandular secretion.
The corridors twisted and turned, and at times they had to step over ground that rose and fell slightly, as if made of living tissue.
Durga was clearly very familiar with the place. His massive frame moved nimbly through the complex network of corridors, occasionally slapping a section of the "wall," causing the bioluminescence in that area to flicker urgently.
"These corridors change on their own."
Durga explained without looking back, his voice tinged with a complex emotion that bordered on hatred.
"Those octopus heads' minds are as twisted as these corridors. But we figured out their patterns long ago."
After passing through several forks in the path and slipping through a curtain of drooping tentacles that recoiled at Durga's approach, they finally reached their destination.
The space ahead suddenly opened up into a vast, spherical chamber.
The light here was even brighter, with countless tiny points of brilliance drifting across the dome like an inverted river of stars.
In the center of the hall, a massive pillar formed from thick nerve bundles and glowing crystal clusters stretched from the floor to the ceiling. It pulsed slowly, radiating powerful psionic energy.
"This is the place," Durga said, his voice gruff as he stopped and looked up at the throbbing core. "This ugly thing is the ship's heart and brain."
The Gray Dwarf Leader strode toward the pulsating control center and pressed his iron-gauntleted right hand firmly onto the thickest nerve bundle.
As he chanted a low, ancient incantation, the core's pulsations began to synchronize with his breathing, its deep blue glow waxing and waning in time.
He turned his head to look at Roland, who was standing beside him. A rare, complex expression flickered across his rugged face.
"Once I've delivered you to Aetheron, old friend..."
His voice sounded low in the psionic glow.
"...my kin and I will pilot this ship, tear open the rift, and seek the legendary Realm of Forged Fire, where eternal lava flows."
He paused, his gaze sweeping over the central hall, which was filled with otherworldly constructs.
"A voyage across planes... The road ahead is unknown. After this parting, you and I, two old fellows, will likely never meet again."
The end of his sentence carried a faint, almost imperceptible sigh, the kind only a warrior could let out.
For a Grey Dwarf who valued friendship, parting from a comrade-in-arms was always a melancholic affair.
But Roland felt little stir in his heart at the undisguised melancholy in Durga's tone.
He knew all too well that the old friend the Grey Dwarf Leader cherished and knew so well was "Rudolph," not "Roland."
At least for now, he couldn't fully inhabit that identity.
So, he merely nodded calmly and asked, "Can this shell ship reach any destination you desire?"
Durga's hand, resting on the neural bundle, shifted slightly, causing the control center's light to ripple.
"As long as we have a clear Planar Anchor and precise Astral Coordinates, it can tear through the barriers of reality and traverse the Astral Channel."
"Even other planes aren't difficult to reach, provided the coordinates are correct."
An anchor and coordinates...
Roland's heart sank.
He had no idea where Eversong Forest was located.
Durga seemed to read something from Roland's subtle change in expression. He laughed hoarsely, his voice carrying the grey dwarf's characteristic boldness in the face of the unknown.
"Don't worry, old friend! Although I've never set foot on the Aetheron Continent, rumors say that land is so vast it stretches beyond the horizon. Even without a precise anchor, we can find a suitable landing spot on its outskirts."
"Astral Navigation is an adventure by nature. Being off by a hair's breadth is common, but as long as the general direction is right, we'll always reach our destination!"
Roland shook his head and said in a low voice.
"Change of plans, Durga. I need to head to Eversong Forest, the elven race's territory, immediately."
Durga's thick eyebrows furrowed at the words.
"The elven territory? I don't know its exact location. According to the original owner of this body's memories, those arrogant long-ears abandoned their ancestral lands long ago."
He paused, a meaningful smile spreading across his bearded face.
"However... while I don't know where those haughty bastards' new home is, I know the exact location of their 'kin's' nests."
"Given the twisted, light-and-shadow-like destiny that binds these two races, wherever the drow are, we'll surely find traces of the elves."
"'Kin'? You mean the drow?"
"Exactly," Durga confirmed, waving his hand. "But we can discuss the details later."
He slammed his palm down on the control console. A stronger surge of psionic energy instantly swept through the entire ship, causing it to vibrate with a low, resonant hum.
"Let's get out of this godforsaken place! Who knows if those Aboleths will come back for us."
Under his control, the shell ship's massive hull shuddered slightly, and the faint blue light flowing across its surface suddenly flared with blinding intensity.
The space ahead of the bow began to warp and fold, as if an invisible giant hand were tearing at the very fabric of reality.
A rift, shimmering with countless silver motes of light, was forcibly torn open. Beyond the rift lay not darkness, but an endless, silver-glowing sea of void.
The shell ship emitted a long, low hum, like the cry of some ancient creature, as its colossal form slowly ascended and slipped precisely into the rift.
As the shell ship vanished completely into the torn fissure, an indescribable sense of weightlessness seized Roland.
It wasn't a feeling of falling, but rather as if he himself—and the entire ship—had lost the very concept of "weight," becoming pure existence.
He looked out through a translucent biological membrane in the ship's hull, and his breath caught in his throat.
Everything in the material world had vanished without a trace.
In its place was a boundless void, flowing with a gentle silver radiance.
There was no up or down, no left or right, no sky or earth—only an endlessly stretching silver backdrop, as if he were submerged in the depths of an ocean made of liquid moonlight.
In the distance, countless tiny specks of light twinkled silently like sealed diamonds.
These were not stars, but the distorted and colorful halos cast from distant planes, wavering like reflections on water.
Closer still, indescribable geometric shapes, as abstract as thought itself, drifted slowly by. They had no physical form, yet exuded an ancient and mysterious aura.
An absolute silence enveloped everything—a stillness so profound that even sound itself was dissolved.
The sense of time's passage grew ambiguous, as if the boundary between a second and an hour had vanished.
Only his own heartbeat, and the low, rhythmic psionic pulse within the shell ship, proved that he had not yet lost himself in this eternal void.
(End of the Chapter)
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