Soul of Searing Steel

“How did our teleporting mess up again?”

In the thin atmosphere more than eighty thousand meters above, Rider was screaming in terror as if he was a pig before the butcher’s knife. Indeed, it made evident his excellent physique for him cry out so powerfully despite the altitude.

“It’s the World Fleet!”

On another side, despite being in falling freely from thousands of meters above without any parachute, Mage had answered Rider with distinct clarity. “They are so massive that they distorted the dimensions—but that’s supposed to be impossible, why are we still near the edge of the galaxy?”

Logically speaking, the teleportation beacon made by the very hands of Archmagi Nostradamus and directly connected to the Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds could transcend the entire Multiverse in its entirety and send all five of them back. Even if the World Fleet’s presence affected the dimensions, they should not have moved such a short distance.

Meanwhile, Clergy and Alchemist said nothing as both of them silently spread their wings. Clergy’s wings were a pair of commonly-seen conjuration of Holy Light—the huge, pale gold wings dispel the falling force of gravity as soon as they materialized, holding Clergy steadily mid-air.

As for Alchemist, the armor over his back had shrunk while the flesh there squirmed. In seconds, a pair of wings resembling that of dragonflies spread and hardened, and he too floated in the air just as he grabbed the falling Priest.

“Heh, Titan Dragonfly wings! I’ve just put them on a few days ago!” He proudly boasted. “It’s quite unusual though—there wasn’t many participating in that ‘Human Development Group’ that the Liege recently established, so I easily grabbed the chance for this modification.”

“Well, thanks,” Priest said feebly. “That being said—I can fly, and please, not the nape.”

“Oh.”

Beside them, Mage, who had cast a flight spell as well caught Rider, who was still making a fuss. The five then started a brief exchange as they hung halfway in the air.

“We should hide as soon as possible,” Priest said, having used gravitational aura to reduce his weight and solidify a spot in the air as a footing. He frowned when he managed to stand steadily, and glanced at the dark skies above. “Those eight-legged fungi have advanced technology,” he said anxiously, “and we did not warp too far off. They could find us if we’re too careless.”

“Our leader’s right.”

Caster nodded as well, subconsciously stroking the scepter hanging by his hip before continuing, “of course, we should determine this world’s coordinates as well and try to contact Mycroft, or we’ll be marooned here.”

That was mostly what was said. The others did not ask anything else, and after they determined what they should do next, all five of them started to land.

***

The world they had reached was a planetary realm located on the edge of the galaxy, the continent beneath their feet belonging to a colossal spheroid. However, halfway through their descent, the keen-eyed Clergy noticed something wasn’t right.

“Wait, look,” he said silently, “isn’t this… a living world?”

At his words, all five looked down at once at the earth beneath them. As expected, it was a green planet filled with vigor that lay below them!

Mountains of uneven heights could be seen cascading across the continent, while white clouds cascaded above the sky-blue oceans. A thick-green hue covered the entire continent as if a blanket—one could even see a dozen gigantic trees amidst the forests that covered the continent, taller than certain hills. The crown of those trees flickered in distinct magical rainbows, with circles of such radiances surrounding the top.

“Praise the Seven…”

Clergy could not stop tears from welling in his eyes. “Could we finally have discovered a normal, living world with mana?”

***

For some reason, being the most excellent Elite Party, the five of them often encountered unlucky things on each of their expedition. Now that they thought of it, they basically drop into a pit on every step, falling each time their feet overextended for just the tiniest bit—a far cry from any sort of smooth sailing.

During their first expedition, they were attacked by the Black Fog amidst the extreme environment of World Zero One, and would have been wiped out if not for the Soul Pool Sphere and the many Legends who had gone to their rescue.

Their second and third expeditions were to barren worlds without value. All that they had encountered were merely natural disasters such as some earthquakes, landslides, thunderstorms and volcanic eruptions, which was considered the two easiest expeditions they had.

During the fourth, they had journeyed to a primitive oceanic world but ran into a colossal ‘Tyrant Squid’ that was more than a thousand meters in size. If their fishing boat had not been large enough and a sturdy ramming horn, they would have been swallowed alive and forced to fight against the parasites in its body.

Their fifth expedition had been their most dangerous one—it was an utter wasteland, and yet they were attacked suddenly by waves of primitive beasts. If they did not incidentally bring along the unexpectedly useful hypnosis glasses to bewitch them, all of them would have been torn into pieces.

And this time, their expedition to the edge of their galaxy should have been a normal world exploration, a safe and comfortable mission save for the faraway distance from the world of Mycroft. Never would they have imagined that their teleportation failed at the very beginning, after of which they would run into the air of an advanced otherworld civilization, their very souls almost stolen for information regarding their homeworld!

Clergy had almost been left despairing at his party’s fortunes, which was why he never thought that the teleportation failure this time would actually send them to a normal forest world!

“Don’t get too excited just yet,” Rider, however, grumbled beside him. “Heaven knows if those plants eat flesh… Eh, why are you hitting me?!”

***

Leaving aside the matter of Rider and Clergy starting a fight in the air, their five-man cell had considerable fortune this time around. Rider’s Crow Mouth did not activate, and they had certainly landed on what was a normal forest that was neither carnivorous nor mobile. It was not inhabited by any beasts either, and appeared very peaceful.

Perhaps even a little too peaceful.

Amidst the silent, empty woods was an elevated stone ground filled with most and scattered shrubs. It was why the dense forests around it did not extend towards it, just as the five of them who had landed could rely on the high ground to survey their environment.

“Weird.”

After landing, Alchemist, who was most adept at biology amongst them withdrew his Titan Dragonfly wings and approached one of the trees nearby, touching its bark curiously.

“These trees…” he said softly, “is very similar to the plants in Mycroft!”

“Very similar?” Asked Caster, who had been setting up communications equipment. “In appearance? According to what I know, most of the plants in the galaxy look the same due to Order Resonance.”

“No, not only in appearance.”

As he spoke, Alchemist took out a steel tube from the armored bag by his hip and stabbed it into the tree. He then drew it out and carefully observed the color of the tree sap, before opening his mask and helmet to inhale the air around and tasted the tree sap.

His expression turned unusual at once.

“Hey, take off your helmets!” He turned and shouted to his companions. “The air is the same as it is on Mycroft, just like the trees! Those are even the exact same tress!”

While Alchemist enjoyed modifying himself into something between a cross of human and beast to the point that he had switched innards twice, his brain was at least human. He was usually dutiful as well, which was why the rest of them, including Priest, were willing to trust him.

Caster was the first to take off his helmet. He ruffled his own hair and took a deep breath, and exclaimed at once as he looked at the forest around him in astonishment. “It’s true! The atmospheric conditions here is remarkably similar to that of Mycroft! The only difference is that the air in Mycroft is a little turbid!”

“Definitely.” Clergy nodded. Having dispelled his Holy Light wings and took off his helmet as well, he sniffed the scent of the nearby trees. “It’s very fresh and very clean, without any Chaos pollution… But why? Why would there be a world so alike to Mycroft at the edge of the Galaxy?”

It was not only Clergy. Everyone else present found the situation very peculiar, and none of them had an answer for it at the moment. Still, it was in that moment that Alchemist realized that Priest, their leader, had refrained from voicing his opinion—instead, he was standing in a corner, fiddling with something.

Alchemist hence strode to Priest, intending to remind him to join in the conversation and examine the present situation. However, when he reached Priest, he could hear him muttering to himself in annoyance.

“This isn’t right.”

The young warrior was holding the Return Beacon that was now gray, and using aura to activate the inner system and obtain detailed records of their teleportation. Alchemist had assumed that Priest was trying to find records of the failed teleportation, so as to reverse-trace their current coordinates, which was the only way they could send for rescue from Mycroft.

However, Alchemist soon realized that he was wrong when he heard Priest’s next words.

“Teleportation successful?” Priest exclaimed in disbelief and a fear of the unknown, his expression dazed. “We didn’t fail? The beacon’s teleportation was good?”

But, success? How was that possible! When they had left the portal, all of them had seen that there were so few stars around the Void it was almost as if there were none. There was no doubt that they were still at the edge of the galaxy, and due to teleportation failure, they fell into that insignificant world.

If that could be called a ‘success’, then the children of failure were many.

“Perhaps my teleportation beacon is wrong?”

At the very thought, he looked up at the other four beside him—right then, Rider, Clergy, Caster, and Alchemists had all taken out their own Return Beacons, using their respective powers to energize the beacon’s records and obtaining the data within.

In seconds, cries of surprised echoed.

“What?!”

“Teleportation was actually a success?”

“No way—”

“How?! We actually didn’t fail?!”

The shocking truth that the teleportation beacon revealed threw everyone into disarray at once. None of them could believe that their teleporting was not a failure.

But why? The teleportation beacon was not a random teleportation scroll—it was a Legendary magical item connected to the Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds!

“The same atmospheric compositions, the same plants… and yet, this isn’t Mycroft.”

Rider looked at the thicket around him, staring at the familiar fauna around him with a mixed expression while he breathed air no different to the air Mycroft.

“Where… is this place?” He muttered softly.

Meanwhile, in the distant woods, a dark shade could be seen sprawled over a tree trunk, a tube in hand as he silently observed the moments of the quartet.

After studying them for a long time and deciding that there were not making a move at once after landing, the slender humanoid figure thus quietly turned and retreated, vanishing within the woods.