The dragon, Asternix, raised his head and stared at the intruders. "You've come back here. Does that mean you intend to dissolve this realm?"
Elanore tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. "Dissolve? Why would I do that? I only came to this desert to bring my mother back here."
Asternix recoiled and stared down at the vampire. "I thought by now you would have known what you're meant to do."
Ella waved her hand, dismissing his claim. "I don't follow any predestined routes, not even if they come from myself. There is no way I'd follow someone that I don't even know. If you want this realm to be dissolved, vanquish it yourself. The only thing I want to find is a map of the universe."
"Then...You are just like you were before." Asternix looked towards Elanore's beloved Naela. "Do you intend to leave her here?"
Elanore shook her head. "I don't intend to leave anyone here, and what's the deal with this place? Why did it have to be guarded behind a door? Why did I leave a basilisk to guard it?"
"This is a fragment of your domain. This is the broken patch for storing some of my kin."
"What is this place called?"
The dragon shook his head. "Officially, it has no name. On the outside, they've started calling it Desecration."
"There are people who know about it on the outside? How do you even know that? Are you able to leave here?"
"No, I am unable to leave here. It was my punishment. As for how I know this information..."
Asternix stepped back on the large platform and channeled some magic throughout his body. A metal monolith started growing from the center of the landing pad. It grew into a towering podium, standing three times as tall as Elanore and as wide as the snake girl during her transformation.
Elanore saw the scribbles in the unknown language once more that she was somehow able to read. The Dragon God's Monolith...
Finally, things started clicking together. Elanore remembered something from the game. She'd seen this god stone before in a dungeon. In fact, she collected it from the same dungeon as an item after slaying a dragon god. Her eyes widened and flickered towards the dragon.
"Did you remember?" Asternix asked.
"Kind of, I remember killing you. But if that's the case, then why..."
Asternix shook his head. "That's not the whole story." His eyes flicked to the monolith. "Are you going to do it? Do you wish to bring your mother here?"
Elanore stared at him with uncertainty. She wished to know more, yet she walked forwards. She placed her hand onto the towering stone.
"Channel your magic, and let yourself feel the world around you."
She pushed her magic into the device, and her mind went blank. Her consciousness floated into the air and left the space behind. She was staring down at the world from the sky, glimpsing at the desert she'd arrived here from.
The vampire saw endless dunes in all directions, the spell reminding her of the eye spell she'd used before. Only, this one brought with it no level of discomfort. It allowed her to see the world freely while feeling in tune with her surroundings. She could see a large fortress in the distance, but her attention turned towards the sky.
Her mind floated upwards, past the clouds, and into space. Her mana spread around in an infinite abyss of darkness. Once she allowed it touch all corners of the universe, she felt what true depletion was like for the first time. Her mana started being zapped rapidly from her being, yet in that moment, she felt every single star across all of the galaxies.
And there it was, the Milky Way Galaxy. Towards the edge of a singular spindle of that familiar white galaxy, she'd found her target. The small star that housed her old familiar planet.
Her mind penetrated the clouds and dove into the ground below. It reached a city that she'd once made home. A city that she died in. She found the park she'd visited before, and she searched for her mother. Please let her be alive.
Though, with this amount of power, it did not take Ella long to find her. She saw the woman sitting inside of a cafe with her head resting on the desk. She saw a detective man and heard them talking about the state of Ella.
Even in Elanore's ethereal state, she felt a pull on her chest, and a tightening in her body. She briefly wondered whether her mother would even want to see her, but that feeling vanished when she saw Penelope in the park. She'd resorted to smoking to cope with the loss of her daughter. In that brief instance, an infinite amount of guilt weighed on the vampire.
Though, she had no idea how she was even going to pull the woman inside. How would she get her all the way across the universe? How would she pull her beyond the veil of magic and classical physics?
Elanore had experienced teleporting herself multiple times, but that was somewhere on the same planet? Would it even make a difference? It doesn't matter! I have to do something.
She channeled even more of her magic power, and purple magic started swirling in the clouds above Penelope. Eventually, it formed into a long arm, descending from the sky like a lightning bolt towards its target.
It completely enveloped Elanore's mother, grasping her tenderly. The vampire connected both realms together for a brief instance, and the hand whipped Penelope across the universe, folding space along the way.
The purple hand was like a wormhole, connecting the two realities together. And as the spell ended, Elanore's eyes flashed open, and she gasped for air. It was like she was pulled from a deep ocean, and the liquid of the universe was being expelled from her lungs.
For the first time since her arrival, she felt an infinite amount of fatigue. She'd collapsed to her knees, sweating from her head.
She glanced behind her towards the panicking woman who was still wrapped in a protective arm. After all, Elanore was keenly aware that a normal mortal would not be able to withstand the heat of this place.
Elanore ripped a hole into the realm with the last bit of her magic power, and she dropped herself and the others inside of it. Elanore, her mother, Naela, and Neshy fell back into the mortal realm, arriving at an underground temple.
Penelope screeched in surprise as if she was riding a roller coaster and nearly stumbled on the new floor.
Ella fell onto her back, trying and failing to keep her eyes open. Her consciousness was fading rapidly with each passing moment. Before passing out, she spoke softly enough that it was almost impossible for anyone to hear her.
"Mom..."