Chapter 104 World I: 1 It took almost a month, finally…
After nearly a month, they finally gained everyone's approval and borrowed their power. They immediately opened the portal, because they felt they had already wasted a lot of time, including in the previous world.
A misty fog came into view, revealing a place shrouded in mist, where Tenas and Nadia were nowhere to be found.
"Um...is anyone there?" Ethan's voice was unusually soft, subconsciously sensing some danger: "Miss Nadia? Turnas?"
There was no response from Ethan; only the ever-present mist shrouded everything around him. Ethan could only see a few meters around him, and it seemed to be a forest.
Although his intuition told him not to act rashly, sitting and waiting for death was not an option either. Ethan moved slowly and cautiously, because he was focused on making sure that no sound would escape his ears and eyes.
After walking for about five minutes, Ethan noticed that the fog nearby seemed to have thinned a bit, and the visible area had expanded. Was he about to leave this fog-shrouded area?
Ethan continued walking.
Ethan saw something in the distance, some distance away, but tall and pointed. Was it the shape of some kind of house?
Seeking help from locals in the New World was important, so Ethan headed in that direction, quickening his pace this time, and arrived in about ten minutes.
It wasn't a house, it was a cage. A huge cage, resembling a birdcage, it was golden, and Ethan couldn't quite tell if it was actually gold. The cage was beautifully crafted, and it was easy to see how much effort the person who created it had put into it.
But that's not the point. The point is, there's someone inside the cage!
It was a figure whose build was not much different from his, curled up and hugging himself tightly.
"Um...?" Ethan cautiously approached the cage. "...Hello? Can I ask where this is? Are you alright?"
Although he found it strange to put someone in a cage, the gaps in the cage were so large that Ethan could get in without even having to turn sideways.
The figure who had been facing away from him only belatedly noticed someone was there. The person sat up and turned slightly to look at Ethan.
Ethan's first impression was of the other person's delicate features, which gave him a sense of familiarity and made him feel close to them.
Ethan also noticed that, apart from the short hair at the back, the other person actually had two long tufts of hair on both sides of their sideburns that reached their collarbones, which inexplicably made the visual resemblance even stronger.
The other person was probably around the same age as me, and looked like they weren't even an adult, but they had deep bruises under their eyes. Their gaze wasn't calm; it was more like the numbness after a bout of madness—there was nothing left in it.
The face was so beautiful that Ethan couldn't tell the other person's gender; it was androgynous, yet lifeless and lacking any vitality for someone of that age.
She? Or him? Wearing tattered clothes, it wasn't hard to tell from the remaining fabric how luxurious the garment had once been. The exposed skin had black patterns, and the most obvious was the black pattern on her neck that Ethan almost mistook for a close-fitting collar. She was also barefoot.
"You...?" The man stared at Ethan for a while before speaking: "Where did you come from? Why were you able to enter this forest? And who are you?"
The voice was a little hoarse, a voice that was changing unique to adolescence, and it was still impossible to tell the gender.
“Ah… this…” Ethan was unsure of the other party’s identity. He would only reveal his identity and purpose if the other party were a guardian: “I just got separated from my friend, walked for a long time, and then ended up here.”
"Liar." The man in the cage coldly exposed Ethan's lie, his dark eyes reflecting Ethan's unnatural expression as his lie was exposed: "Ordinary people simply cannot get here."
Even she... is now banned from entering this area, and I haven't seen her in a long time.
Is this the will of a newborn? Has it been trapped for so long? There's a strangely familiar feeling about him.
"Uh, well." Ethan looked away, avoiding eye contact with the caged man, then replied in a joking tone, "I'm actually from another world! You know about parallel universes, right?"
"A parallel...world?" the caged man murmured, his tone softening for some reason, almost pleading: "Could you put your hand in a little?"
Ethan didn't move. He was afraid it was a trap; what if they reached in and chopped off his hand or attacked him? You still have to be a little cautious in an unfamiliar world, even if you don't have much.
"I won't do anything to you, and I won't hurt you." The person in the cage lowered their voice, which carried an almost imperceptible seductive quality, and even raised a stiff smile to show intimacy: "Besides, I'm so far away from you, almost half a cage, I promise I won't do anything."
After saying that, the person in the cage raised his hand, but made no other movements.
Ethan didn't want to do what the caged man said, but that eerie familiarity and inexplicable intuition urged him to get closer to the person in front of him, so Ethan couldn't resist and reached out his hand as the caged man requested.
My hand slipped through the gap and entered the cage; nothing happened.
The man in the cage widened his eyes, and Ethan quickly withdrew his hand in fright. The man in the cage suddenly stood up and walked urgently to him: "You... which city are you from?"
"Why are you asking this?" Ethan suppressed his irresistible urge to get closer to the other person and asked cautiously.
It's no wonder he's so wary. Having experienced so many worlds, although he's now more likely to trust guardians he knows in each world, he still retains a degree of caution, let alone strangers.
“This is important for what I’m about to tell you,” the man in the cage said. “So I need to know, and even if I knew which city you’re from, I wouldn’t do anything about it; it’s just your birthplace.”
This sounds very problematic! But there's also a strange sense of credibility to it.
“Starfall,” Ethan said hesitantly, “I am a Starfall person.”
Before the words had even finished, Ethan stared at the person in front of him, his previously lifeless eyes suddenly blazing with an unprecedented light.
"You're the guardian of Starfall City, aren't you?" the caged man said with certainty, a rare hint of joy appearing on his usually calm face. "Help me."
Ethan didn't have time to figure out how the other person knew he was the Guardian. That sense of familiarity surged up again, and he was also curious about what the other person wanted him to do for them. His mind was a little confused: "What?"
"Help me get out of here." The person in the cage thought this meant "yes."
"Wait, why?" Ethan gestured to the gap in the cage, feeling that even if he and the other person squeezed sideways into the gap, they could still squeeze out: "It's so spacious here."
"..." The person in the cage was silent for a moment, then placed their hand on the gap in the cage, a place that should have been empty.
Originally, it should have been like Ethan, with nothing at all. But when it touched it, a pale golden barrier suddenly appeared. The hand touching it made a sizzling sound, and within a few seconds, it corroded a lot of flesh off the person's hand in the cage, and the white bones were already visible, like putting a piece of raw meat into boiling oil.
The caged man withdrew his hand, his injured hand hanging limply. His brows also looked somewhat unnatural, as if he was enduring unbearable pain.
Ethan was already speechless with shock when the person in front of him put their hand on his, and his eyes widened in horror when the other person's hand felt like it was being burned by something.
"You say nothing's wrong?" Ethan's voice held a mixture of lingering fear and belated anger: "If I had reached out just now, it would have been like this..."
It wasn't just pain anymore; he couldn't even repair his body. The person in front of him was so mean; they had just tricked him into reaching out, even though nothing had happened to him.
“Because you must not be from this world.” The caged man showed no remorse: “Once I discovered that you could reach this forest and come before me, I knew your special nature. Presumably, this cage will not affect you.”
"You're gambling, aren't you?" Ethan seized on the loophole, his tone bordering on accusation: "That's outrageous!"
“So, I think you can free me.” The man in the cage ignored Ethan’s words without changing his expression, quickly skipping over the topic and getting to the point that concerned him most. His eyes were flashing a dangerous red light, full of hatred: “I want freedom. I can’t stay trapped here forever. I want to take revenge.”
"Why were you locked up here?" Ethan was a little annoyed that the other party had skipped over the previous topic and didn't want to talk about it, but he was still quite curious about why the other party was locked up here.
"I..." The caged man took a deep breath, his fists clenched tightly. Although he didn't want to recall it, he still had to expose his shameful side, trembling with anger and hatred: "Because of my... face, some bastard tied me up because he liked my face. I was only born recently, so I was very weak, and he was very strong. I had almost no ability to resist. We should have been equal beings, but he treated me like an object, a collectible, imprisoning me here. No one but him could come here. He also sealed most of my power. Because of the restraint he placed on me, I can't leave this forest. If I take even half a step out of the forest, I will be killed by his power again and again until every part of me returns to the forest."
As he spoke, the person in the cage tore open some of his clothes, revealing his upper body. Below his neck, more mysterious patterns appeared on his pale skin, almost completely obscuring his complexion.
The mysterious and exquisite patterns resemble works of art that should be displayed in a museum for people to appreciate.
Ethan was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information in his long speech. An idea popped into his head, and he could barely speak: "Wait, no, you, who are you?"
"Me?" The caged man bent down, his head close to Ethan's, maintaining a perfect distance before touching the barrier: "I am the embodiment of the will of the newly born Starfall City, imprisoned here by that bastard Yang Yan."
“And you, as long as you help me—” He narrowed his eyes slightly, his aggressive eyebrows relaxed, and a mesmerizing smile appeared on his face. His eyes were full of temptation, and his soft voice was full of seductive meaning: “I will help you get everything you want.”
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Author's note: Because this is a fan account, I'm addressing you as "Miss".
The clothes were torn when he was in a fit of rage, like a meteor shower or a werewolf tearing clothes [not true].
He took half a step and was strangled to death by the black markings on his neck [actually something like a thread that had burrowed into his skin]. He was strangled and then revived, only to be strangled again, until Yang Yan noticed and dragged Xingyun back.
Starfall: xx
Kagero: (*｀へ?*)
Ethan*, teary-eyed*: Lord Starfall…
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