Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game
Chapter 159: Ch157. [World Quest] (17) - Bond/Eyes

Chapter 159: Ch157. [World Quest] (17) - Bond/Eyes

The moment their feet crossed the threshold, the world changed.

Not just the air, which grew heavier and thicker with age, or the silence, which stretched out so wide it felt like a second sky pressing in from all directions, no.

Something more profound shifted.

And Miles had felt it.

"What do you mean?" Sarissa raised an eyebrow.

Dee and Mara had the same question written in their faces.

"Try opening your stat windows." Miles retorted, not even trying to open his own.

One second, then two, three, nothing.

Diego waved his hand in front of his face, trying to pull up his menu like always, but nothing came.

"It’s gone. Even my inventory seems... Locked."

"Same." Sarissa muttered. "Even the basics aren’t working. Why?"

Before Dee could finish speaking, or anyone could say anything in return, Miles said.

"Because this place is..." He paused briefly, his eyes looking somewhere else – somewhere in a not-so-distant past. "Outside the system’s authority."

Miles stared into the void ahead, lit only by the faint shimmer of starlight embedded in the walls. It was like stepping into the skin of a dream too ancient to remember itself. And for a moment, he could’ve sworn the stars blinked

As if they had noticed him.

Miles didn’t say anything else, focused on the way the ground beneath his feet pulsed, gently, subtly, like a heartbeat.

Like this place was alive.

And aware.

"It knows we’re here." His voice carried a slight tone of concern. "It’s watching us."

"That’s not creepy at all, Big Bro. Thanks for that." Dee shivered.

Sarissa stepped forward first, her boots barely making a sound against the polished obsidian floor.

"We keep moving. Standing still in this kind of space... It’s asking to be devoured." She turned her head to glance back.

"Wait!" Dee almost shouted, his eyes slightly wide.

"We got company?!" Sarissa got into her fighting stance, and Mara followed, their weapons immediately materializing from a storm of sparks, their brows going up. "Well, at least the functions work."

"Uh, no... Sorry, guys." Dee said, smiling sheepishly. "It’s just that... Big bro, there’s something I’ve been meaning to give you for a while, now."

Miles turned towards Dee, his expression a question mark as Dee summoned a small wooden box from his inventory.

"Wait... You’re telling me you didn’t give it to him yet?" Mara’s eyes went wide, a tinge of reproach in them.

"After all that happened? I couldn’t even if I wanted to." He pursed his lips, looking at Mara with slight annoyance.

"Point taken." She shot her head back, letting out a small sigh.

From the wooden box, Dee took a pair of silvery rings finely forged, with an intricate engraving of a feather in each one.

Miles looked from them to Dee, and back to the rings.

"It’s not much, but..." Dee shifted his weight from one foot to the other, hesitant. "They have an enchantment that... Well... They kind of bond us, letting us know if the other is in danger or something..."

Miles’ eyes went wide, his heart tightening in his chest, but he couldn’t say a word.

"Don’t worry, big bro. You don’t have to say anything, just... Just wear one, okay?" Dee looked at him, and in that moment, his eyes did not look like the eyes of a grown-up.

They looked big and gleaming with the hopes and dreams of a child who didn’t want to lose his only family.

Miles’ lips curled upwards, he closed his eyes, pressed shut, but only for a second. It was the strangest, and yet the prettiest smile he had ever given, with slight wrinkles forming on the side of his eyes.

He wore one and gave the other to Dee.

"I’m not taking it off on my life." Miles finally answered, and for a moment, his eyes gleamed with tears, but he dried them off and turned around. With a soft sigh, he added. "We need to get going, I don’t think we have much time."

They pressed onward, walking into the throat of the abyss.

The passageway was long and curved, as if they were moving down the inside of a spiral shell. The stars embedded in the walls didn’t illuminate in a consistent pattern, they flickered, changed color, almost as if responding to their emotions.

Diego waved his hand once, and a cluster of stars scattered, revealing an image hidden beneath. A mural of a broken world.

Not any world, though. Their own.

"Hey, is that Berlin?" Mara asked. "But... What the hell? The city’s shattered, almost beyond recognition..."

Miles squinted. The city skyline was familiar, but wrong.

Skewed and crumbling. The murals depicted monsters not yet born, none of them carved in their memories yet, guild banners torn and bloodied, and a black sun hanging in the sky.

Sarissa stepped closer, placing a hand to the wall. Another cluster of stars moved out of the way, revealing another mural. This one of a throne carved from bones, seated by a silhouette of pure shadow.

This one, though, different from the one that had haunted Miles’ vision.

"It looks like possibilities." She said quietly. "I mean, it hasn’t happened yet. Right?"

"Maybe." Miles responded. "Or futures that were already erased. Like it’s holding the memory of everything the system tried to bury."

He looked to the path ahead, where the corridor curved again.

"But... It’s our world, right?" Mara frowned. "We’re still alive and all, so... How could it have already happened, to be buried by the system and all?"

"I don’t know." Miles retorted, his voice grim. "But there’s only one way to find out. We survive this, and move on."

"And if it hasn’t happened yet," Sarissa added, "we stop that thing no matter what."

They kept walking.

At the next bend, the passage opened into a massive chamber.

It was like a dome, impossible in size, yet perfectly symmetrical. At the center stood a spiral obelisk made out of crystal, suspended over a pit of endless depth.

Around the pit, a dozen stone walkways stretched in every direction like spokes on a wheel, leading to other tunnels. Each path was engraved with a different symbol. Some familiar, others utterly alien.

"I’m guessing we get to pick one." Mara said, already eying the paths attentively.

"I don’t think it’s that simple." Diego muttered, pointing up.

Slowly, each of them tilted their heads, and froze.

Countless eyes watched them.