Chapter 35: The hill

Yuto and Shiny pressed onward, putting the basin and its ceaseless swarm of clicking creatures behind them as they ventured deeper into the strange wasteland. Even after they had left the depression far in the distance, the memory of that sound seemed to linger in the air, faint and ghostlike, as though the land itself had absorbed the noise and now whispered it back in distant echoes. The ground beneath their feet gradually began to rise, the landscape unfolding into a series of uneven ridges and fractured elevations that stretched toward the horizon in jagged layers of black stone and cracked earth.

The terrain grew harsher with every step. Massive shelves of rock jutted from the ground at irregular angles, their surfaces split apart by ancient fissures that disappeared into darkness. Dust gathered in those cracks, stirred by a dry wind that carried the scent of scorched stone and something older, something Yuto could not name. The earth looked as though it had been broken apart and carelessly stitched back together, leaving scars that ran across the land in every direction.

Yuto pushed forward despite the growing ache in his body. Every step sent a dull throb through his ribs, the pain spreading through his chest like slow-moving fire. The injuries he had accumulated since arriving in this world had begun to pile on top of one another, each demanding attention, yet he forced himself to ignore them. His breathing remained steady, though every deeper inhale reminded him exactly how battered he had become.

Pain could wait.

What could not wait was understanding.

His gaze remained fixed on the horizon, searching the endless wasteland for anything that might reveal the nature of this place. Every distant silhouette, every break in the monotony of black stone drew his attention.

After a long silence, broken only by the crunch of loose gravel beneath their feet and the occasional whistle of wind threading its way through the rocks, Yuto finally spoke.

"We need elevation."

His voice sounded rough in the open air, quickly swallowed by the emptiness around them.

Lifting an arm, he pointed toward a rise in the distance. It was little more than a hill, a solitary mound of dark stone emerging from the wasteland. Compared to the colossal formations that dominated the surrounding landscape, it appeared almost insignificant, dwarfed by towering cliffs and massive ridges that loomed like the ruins of forgotten mountains. Yet it was still higher ground, and from its summit they might finally gain a clearer view of whatever lay ahead.

"If we can get up there," Yuto continued, keeping his eyes on the distant rise, "we might be able to see farther. Figure out where we are. Maybe find a landmark. A river. A structure. Anything that makes sense."

The words left his mouth, but even as he spoke them, a part of him questioned the assumption behind them.

Assuming this place makes sense.

The thought settled heavily in his mind as he stared across the barren expanse stretching before them.

This was the Astral Realm.

By its very nature, it was a place detached from ordinary reality, a domain born from forces that existed beyond the understanding of most people. Expecting familiar rules to govern a place like this might have been foolish from the start. For all he knew, rivers could flow upward here. Mountains could shift positions when no one was looking. Distance itself might be an illusion.

Who was to say there was any logic to this world at all?

With no better option available, Yuto and Shiny adjusted their course and began making their way toward the hill.

The gradual incline carried them across another stretch of desolate terrain, their figures moving through a landscape that seemed frozen in a state of perpetual ruin. Loose fragments of black stone crunched beneath their feet while fine dust swirled around their ankles whenever the wind stirred. The air remained dry and strangely lifeless, lacking even the faintest scent of vegetation or water.

As they walked, an uneasy silence continued to dominate the wasteland.

It was not the peaceful silence of an empty field or a quiet forest. Those places still possessed life. Birds called to one another. Insects hummed in the grass. Leaves rustled in distant trees.

This silence felt different.

It felt wrong.

The vast plains and fractured ridges surrounding them seemed utterly devoid of life, as though sound itself had abandoned the region long ago. Their footsteps echoed faintly against the stone before fading into nothingness, swallowed by an emptiness so complete that it almost seemed tangible.

Yuto found himself thinking about the Astral Realms he had experienced before.

The difference was impossible to ignore.

The realm connected to the N Gate had certainly been dangerous. It had been primitive and untamed, filled with beasts and relentless threats, but beneath all of that there had still been something familiar about it. Forests had existed there. Rivers had existed there. Animals hunted, territories formed, and ecosystems functioned. The place had felt like an exaggerated and hostile version of the natural world, yet it had still possessed a recognizable structure.

There had been a connection.

A thread linking it back to reality.

This place possessed no such thread. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

Everything about the T Gate’s realm felt alien.

The sky looked wrong. The land looked wrong. Even the atmosphere carried a sense of detachment that he struggled to put into words. It was as though he had not simply crossed into another dimension, but had stepped into an entirely different universe governed by laws that bore no resemblance to those of Earth.

The longer he spent here, the more that feeling intensified.

Yuto glanced toward the distant horizon, where endless formations of black stone rose from the wasteland like the remains of some ancient, dead world.

A troubling realization slowly crept into his thoughts.

He wasn’t even certain this realm existed on the same planet.

For all he knew, Earth might be unimaginably far away, separated from him by distances so vast that ordinary concepts of space no longer applied.

The possibility should have sounded absurd.

Yet standing beneath this unfamiliar sky, surrounded by a landscape that seemed to reject every expectation he carried with him, it felt disturbingly plausible.

What was the origin of the gates and why were they so different from each other in properties?

His mind came back to the present, it was quiet and this unsettled Yuto more than any monster they had encountered.

The violet sky stretched endlessly overhead, painted in shades that never seemed to change. Strange shadows moved between distant rock formations, impossible to tell whether they were creatures or tricks of the light.

Ahead of them, the hill gradually grew larger.

What had once appeared to be a distant rise on the horizon was beginning to reveal more detail as they approached. Loose stone covered its slopes, while jagged outcroppings protruded from the surface like broken teeth. Wind swept around its base, carrying dust through shallow depressions carved into the terrain.

At first glance, it appeared ordinary.

Just another feature of the landscape.

Nothing remarkable.

Nothing threatening.

Then Shiny’s expression changed.