A Reaper's Philosophy-Chapter 84: Imagine That

As they looked around, they could see the wastelands were still scarred from their first encounter with Dunamis. There was a deep pressure all around them. The pressure came from Dunamis’ residue intent.

"Even after so long, Dunamis’ power still hasn’t disappeared from this place." Grayson said out loud.

Because of this pressure, those below the Mythical Realm could no longer traverse the wastelands and could even die if they tried to. Even those in the Mythical Realm could not last too long under the pressure and preferred to avoid the wastelands altogether.

Grayson and Lilith did not struggle beneath the pressure. Their bodies were comparable to Legendary Hosts or even Heavenly Hosts in some respects. Lilith had even more of an advantage as her body was already stronger than Grayson’s before coming to Evnoia.

"I’ll warp 3 more times, but we will have to walk the rest of the way. If we’re dealing with grimmes, I would like to stock up on my warps." Grayson said.

"You’re going to make me walk?" Lilith asked.

"You chose to be here; you can’t complain now." Grayson replied.

He then warped 3 times with Lilith. Each time appearing somewhere different. Grayson could warp anywhere and was only limited by distance. A sixth sense allowed him to warp safely despite seeing the location. This allowed him not to warp somewhere dangerous like in-between a wall or inside a beast.

After the third warp, they found themselves in a strange grassland stretching as far as the eye could see. The strangest thing about this grassland was that it was all white. All the grass was white in color. Silence covered the entire area, alongside a thick fog, giving it an eerie feeling.

"What is this place?" Grayson asked astonished.

"You warped us here. It can’t be anywhere good." Lilith said,

"If it were dangerous I would have sensed it. Let’s just keep going." Grayson said then kept walking.

"Are you sure you’re going the right way?" Lilith questioned. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

"Yes. The mission tubes we receive are made of Biron, a very durable metal. They aren’t too common but are not that rare either. Birons grow out of Evnoia naturally in chunks. If you ever find a chunk of Biron somewhere, there are bound to be more. These chunks grow over time, almost like living beings. They will continue to grow until they are pulled out of the ground. If pieces are taken from a chunk of Biron, they will all be attracted to the largest chunk like a magnet.

No matter where in the universe you might be, pieces of Biron will always be attracted to the largest piece of its original chunk. The largest piece of Biron from this tube is in the North. So, anybody with a piece of that Biron can get to the North easily." Grayson explained.

Lilith surprisingly listened carefully as Grayson explained the element. She seemed genuinely interested in the phenomenon.

As they were walking, they noticed something strange. Bubbles began to rise from the ground they stepped on. Wherever they walked, bubbles rose behind them.

"What’s causing this?" Lilith asked.

"I don’t know, let’s just hurry out of here." Grayson said increasing his pace.

A few minutes later, they swiftly arrived at the edge of the grassland. Beyond the edge was still more fog.

"Should we jump?" Lilith asked.

"Nah we’re not invincible. We don’t know what’s down there." Grayson replied.

They then walked around the edge as Grayson observed the fog a little longer. He suddenly came to an abrupt stop as he realized something.

"Lilith, I think this grassland is moving!" Grayson said.

"I don’t feel like we’re moving." Lilith said confused.

Grayson then conjured a scythe in his hands and used it to slice a deep gash into the ground. Bubble rushed out of the gash. To his surprise, the ground became soft upon contact. It didn’t feel like he slashed into soil.

Suddenly, an eerie, deafening roar echoed all around them. The roar scattered the fog, and a bright sun could now be seen amongst a sea of clouds. It looked like they were in some floating, white grassland. Energy could suddenly be felt all around them. A stream of a white energy exploded from the center of the grassland. The energy expanded towards the edge and seemed to form a transparent barrier, much like a bubble. Not even oxygen could pass through this barrier.

The ground suddenly shook all around; it felt like they were falling. This went on for a whole minute as they desperately clung to the white grass, not wanting to fall off. It was surprisingly firm.

The grassland finally reached the ground, but there was no crash. After a lot of movement and everything settled, they found themselves somewhere else, or so it seemed. Instead of fog, there was now dust all around them. Even the grass was now green, but they knew they had not left from where they were. They squeezed the ground and could feel it was still soft. It was all quite strange and eerie.

Eventually, the dust settled around them, and they could finally see where they were. The scene before them left them absolutely stupefied. Everywhere they looked, they saw strange beasts that they had never seen before.

Grayson had been doing a lot of research on Evnoia. Learning about different beasts and cities and how the world now worked. A lot had changed since Grayson had last been here. Even with all the research that he did, he had never seen nor heard of this beast.

There were thousands of them all around, coming in different sizes. Some of them towered all the way to the clouds, whilst others were only as small as a fist. They all looked like Marmots, but with incredibly long legs. On their backs, was a white, grassy shell of sorts.

The smaller variants of these beasts walked around in herds and were incredibly quick. They seemed to be following the larger ones. These larger ones were as big as houses or cars. Many were even bigger than that. The colossal ones were too fast for the others, thus were walking solo.

Grayson and Lilith happened to warp onto the back of one of these colossal beasts. They were not sure why the beast they were on was now grounded, but they weren’t worried. Most of these beasts were in the Ordinary Realm. Even the colossal ones were only in the Ascended Realm.

"Are those...giant beavers?" Lilith asked.

"No, they look more like...marmots?" Grayson said.

{Ascended Beast: Inter-Dimensional Marmot}

"What’s wrong with this one?" Lilith said pointing down.

"Maybe it’s like this because I slashed at it. It could just be a defence mechanism. These beasts are actually weak. I felt no resistance when slicing its flesh." Grayson hypothesised.

"They are really fast though. Maybe we can ride one?" Lilith wondered.

She then tried to jump off the edge. To both their surprise, she ended up crashing into an invisible barrier.

"Aaah! What the fuck is this?" Lilith said enraged.

She then punched the barrier with all her strength, but the barrier only rippled slightly. It did not seem like it could break from a force like that.

"What could this thing possibly be made of? Even I can’t break it!" Lilith said astonished.

Grayson was also very surprised by this. Dunamis aside, there had never been an obstacle that Lilith could not overcome. Grayson was already aware that Lilith was stronger than him, so it was very scary to imagine an Ascended Beast would be unfazed after receiving a strike from her.

"Let me try." Grayson said.

He knew he wouldn’t be able to bring down the barrier, but he still wanted to try it for himself. Lilith’s strike was purely physical and had no other powers behind it. Grayson wanted to try and strike it using every power he had in his arsenal. He wanted to see how the barrier would react to other powers.

He then tried to circulate the powers within him. Unexpectedly, he could not feel any of them. It’s like he was just an average man. He had been completely cut off from his paths.

’What’s going on!’ Grayson thought to himself.

"Lilith, try opening a gate." Grayson said.

Lilith then stretched her hand forward, as if to open a gate. To her disappointment, nothing happened.

"It won’t open!" She exclaimed.

"Imagine that..." Grayson said.

Lilith then tried to bring out other powers, but none of them worked.

"That’s interesting..." Grayson said as his hand turned to water.

This power came from Neró, The Reaper of Water. For some reason this power seemed to work fine. However, turning his body into liquid was about all he could do at the moment.

He then turned his other hand into lava. This power came from Terry, The Reaper of Flames. He could not produce any flames outside his body however, all he could do was transform his hand. With a flaming fist, Grayson delivered a mighty blow at the barrier. The barrier, however, only rippled slightly.

"Other powers don’t seem to work either." Grayson said going into deep thought.

After a while of silence, he finally said, "I think I understand how this works now."