Life Hunter

"Do you have an idea of how this whole thing holds together?" Aergia asked and crouched to pick up a flower. She stared at it and threw it away.

"I don't," Layla responded as she looked around.

"Do you think it's like this everywhere?" Evangeline questioned as she looked up. "…I have a hard time imagining it."

The place the girls landed in was quite special as well. The moment they arrived in that Reality, they noticed that the ground was curving upward a few hundred meters to the front. They thought that they were just near a mound or something similar. But when they started following the curve with their eyes, they instantly realized how wrong they were.

It continued to go upward indefinitely. The surface of the terrain kept going up. They were completely dazed until the moment they caught up to the fact that they were looking straight up and that an intense source of light was in their field of vision.

"Is this supposed to be a planet?" Evangeline muttered and turned her head toward Aergia. The latter had advanced alone and was now standing far away in a baffling angle.

They were literally inside of sphere filled with an eco-system. The gravity kept them down no matter on which section of the sphere they were and, in the center, there was a small sun that lighted the whole thing.

"Perhaps, but one thing is sure; this is really small. There's also no one living here. I don't even see any animals. There are just insects here and there," Layla said.

The sphere they were in was maybe only around five kilometers wide. If you were to compare that to the average planet, it was awfully small.

"Hey, come here," Layla and Evangeline heard Aergia's voice and both looked up to see her floating around the miniature sun. They looked at each other and flew off too. When they approached the 'sun', they instantly noticed that it wasn't emitting any heat.

"Look at it closely," Aergia uttered and Layla squinted.

"…I can't see anything," she lamented and Evangeline shook her head too. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't simply use your eyes," Aergia retorted and Layla moped as she observed the globe of light again. She used her Unblinking Eyes and used her mana to probe. After a moment, she finally found out what Aergia was referring to.

It was faint but there was a slight dimensional fissure inside it. It was very small but at the same time, incredibly stable. Layla's eyes widened and glanced at Aergia.

'She spotted this so easily… that's not an easy feat. Arima was right when he said she was more than she let on.'

"Do we follow the path this fissure's leading to?" Evangeline tilted her head and inquired.

Aergia shrugged. "We don't really have a choice," she said and placed her hand inside of the small sun. She wordlessly cast a magic and the light of the sun blinked a few times before she pulled her hand out. A black blue marble was being held between her fingers. She scrutinized it and threw it over her shoulder.

The marble cracked and exploded to create a small spatial portal.

"Let's go," she mumbled and went first. Layla wryly smiled and went inside along with Evangeline. When the three of them went through, the small portal closed up and left the strange 'inverted planet' empty once again.

The transfer only lasted for a second, the three girls reappeared next to another 'sun'. But this one was clearly bigger and they immediately noticed that the sphere around them was also a lot wider. Maybe this time it was actually of the size of a normal planet. Which only made things look even more impressive.

It was like looking at a planet from space but they were actually inside of it looking at it from the center…

"This is messing with my head," Aergia groaned and glanced at her left. Layla and Evangeline also looked in the same direction and scowled.

A few dozens of presences were approaching. They were flying thanks to a peculiar energy coming out of their feet. Their bodies were similar to those of humans except that they were slightly taller on average and all had a second pair of arms. They also were wearing silver armors and wielding tough-looking weapons.

"Soldiers, perhaps?" Evangeline assumed and after a short moment, those same soldiers had circled their group.

"{Identify yourself. From which nebula did you come from?}" One burly old man asked. He had long gray hair and a thick beard. He held a spear with his two left arms and was the embodiment of a powerful elder. He appeared to be the leader of this group of soldiers.

'Telepathy to break the language wall, huh? And 'nebula'? Does that refer to these habitable spheres?' Layla wondered and took a glimpse of Evangeline and Aergia.

"{What should we answer?}" She asked them.

"{I don't think there's a safe answer, to be honest,}" Aergia stated and Evangeline bitterly smiled.

"{Then it's decided,}" Layla smiled and looked at the old man in the eyes. A pinkish aura escaped her body and enclosed the area. Aergia's eyes glowed and an anomalous pressure was pushed over the area. Evangeline sighed lamentedly, she brushed her emerald hair with her fingers and her eyes shined with a vermillion color.

The effect was immediate. With the power of the Goddess of Worldly Emotions, the Goddess of Sloth, and The Succubus Rose; all of those soldiers helplessly fell into a trance, mentally drained, and charmed. Their eyes lost focus as they gazed at the three women.

"{Okay, can you tell us what is a nebula?}" Layla inquired and the old man trembled. He slowly opened his mouth. He seemed to be trying to resist but couldn't do anything. His life force was maybe around the same as an Earthen God but was beaten by three girls' natural presence. It felt like he was their subordinate or even sometimes it was like he was in front of his family.

"{A nebula is how we call our home. This place,}" in the end, he started talking. "{A nebula is born at first with a small Kryon core. The core will continuously gather soil, energy, and blood essence to create a habitable terrain. From that point onward, it will continue to expand its territory and create a sphere like this one.}"

"{That's what we call a nebula. The Kryon core will never stop to enlarge the nebula. The one you're in right now has existed for ten thousand years and this is the size it attained during that time,}" the soldier spread his arms open as he said that.

"Fascinating," Evangeline commented and Layla nodded.

"True. It's really incredible. Maybe Arima would like to see one of these Kryon cores," she said and looked behind her at the globe of light. "{I can safely assume that this is the Kryon core, right?}"

"{Yes,}" the old man replied obediently.

"{Then what about the dimensional path we took to come here? What is that?}"

"{Each Kryon core has a space crack within it that connects every nebula. As for how it works, nobody knows. We only are aware that the nebulas are connected together in a one-way road by them.}"

"I see…" Layla mused and Aergia stepped forward.

"{Tell me, have you ever heard of the Pillars of Elysium or the Plane Guardians?}" She questioned and the old man shuddered.

"{I did hear about them... I was told that they are the strongest beings in the world but nothing more.}"

"{So, you know nothing about their whereabouts?}"

"{No… I don't know.}"

"Tch," Aergia clicked her tongue. "Things can never be easy, huh?" She complained and Evangeline chuckled. She looked around the nebula then a weird thought came to her.

"{Hey, hum… sorry, what's your name?}"

The old man groaned. "{My name is Garo.}"

"{Then Garo,}" Evangeline pointed at the surface of the nebula. "{Do you happen to know what's behind?}" Aergia and Layla widened their eyes when they heard her. They both looked at Garo for an answer.

Garo blinked in confusion. "{My apologies but… what do you mean?}"

"{She's asking you if you know what's outside of the nebula,}" Aergia told and Garo blanked out for a second. He seemed to be stunned.

"{I… we never tried to learn what was outside,}" he stuttered and the three girls looked at each other. Layla suddenly swept her eyes over the entire nebula and noticed something.

"{From where do you get your water? Without rain, how do you avoid drought?}"

"{The water… we get it from underground and as for your second query, I'm afraid that I have no way of answering it,}" Garo was even more puzzled than before.

"Hey… do you think what I think?" Aergia muttered.

"Yes…" Layla dazedly nodded and flapped her wings. Her figure dashed and left an afterimage.

The aftermath was only a weak breeze but Garo paled when he saw that. He didn't even get to see in which direction she had gone. Aergia and Evangeline didn't lose her though and were looking right below.

Garo looked down too and spotted Layla casually crouching on the ground as if she always had been there. He was shocked and scared. When he looked away to face Aergia and Evangeline again, they had already disappeared too. He got a chill and hoped he was wrong as he looked down again. He almost fainted when he did so.

"Do we do it?" Evangeline asked Layla.

"It should be fine. If this nebula can create a gravitational field to keep everyone stuck to the ground, there shouldn't be any problem if we make a hole in it," she replied and knocked on the ground a few times. "Hm, I think there are around twenty kilometers to go through," she mumbled and drew her rapier.

She stood up and the blade glowed. She slowly pulled her sword until her waist then thrust it in a quick motion. Before anyone could react, Layla had already stored her sword back and a two meters large hole had been dug in front of her. You couldn't see the bottom at all.

Layla wordlessly looked down the pit. "Well, let's jump," she uttered and went inside. Evangeline giggled and followed her with Aergia. Garo gaped as he watched them vanish into the bottomless hole.

The trio freefell for a short moment before they reached a certain depth where they found themselves underwater. Layla's eyes glowed and illuminated the surroundings. She could see that this wasn't groundwater, but water that came from the bottom of the tunnel she had made.

She squinted and dashed like a literal torpedo. The water was split by her movement. She reached the end of the tunnel in no time. She was still submerged but had exited the tunnel, and supposedly the nebula as well. Layla didn't even need to conjure a source of light. There were already multiple ones.

Aergia whistled and Evangeline exclaimed in surprise. In the pitch-black depths, titanic spheres of different sizes were shining with a blue color. Amid them, large aquatic animals were serenely swimming.

Some were even bigger than the spheres. A whale-like animal who could maybe swallow in whole the nebula that the three girls just came out from, passed by and observed Layla with his giant eye for a second before swimming away.

She smiled as she admired the scene. "This is gorgeous, undeniably."