Chapter 6: A Lone Voyage

At the same moment that Armad lost consciousness in that city, in another part of the world, there was a garden that was so big it could easily exceed the size of a small village. Tall trees with broad leaves, mostly green, yellow, and red, surrounded the garden. Beyond the tall trees, smaller trees stood in rows like soldiers. They had different fruits that were too many to count. Some of these fruits had been extinct for hundreds of years in the outside world. And in-between the rows of these trees, a river flowed. Its water so clear and appealing that it looked like it wasn't from this world. You could perceive a pleasant scent coming from this garden even from a day's journey away.

There was a house at the center of this garden that glowed with colorful light. There was no apparent lamp producing the light. No, the light was coming from inside the house. Specifically, from a room at the center of the house.

At the moment, two women, a young and a middle-aged, sat on a bed at the center of the room. The bed covered more than half of the room and was embroidered with feathers of different birds.

At first glance, you would mistake the two women as mother and daughter. But on a second look, they looked more like a princess and a maid. They both wore the same white dress, but somehow the younger woman's dress looked better. The light surrounding the two women and the one lighting the room and the house was all coming from the young woman's body and dress. She appeared to be made of light. So bright it was impossible to stare at her.

The older woman who wasn't as impressive as the young woman had a pol of 342 years, an indication of the status of the young woman.

The older woman nodded at the young woman. She then walked to the opposite wall and put both her hands on it.

"Wall-wall walks," she said.

Soon after, the wall glowed with a green light and a couple of seconds later the green light was replaced by a medium-sized door.

The woman turned around to look at the younger woman. "It's time, princess. This is the 31st try. As we have agreed, this should be the last. If you don't succeed now then we'll just have to comply with his majesty's, lord Bihanzin's, order to return home."

The younger woman whose face was still not apparent because of the intense glow surrounding her walked to the door. She looked at the older woman and nodded before she walked inside the door. The door disappeared as soon as she entered.

The older woman sighed softly and raised her hands in prayer. "Luck will be with you, princess Nostalgia Nára."

Four days later, the younger woman sat by the side of a river whose water was black. She sat there calmly, legs crossed, staring at the river and studying its calm water.

By her side was a young man lying on the ground unconscious. His clothes were burned in a way that half of his body was exposed. His skin was charred and covered in dirt and blood.

There was a white light with the shape of a snake cycling around the young man's body.

But despite the situation of this young man, there was a red turban tied around his head to cover his forehead. This turban wasn't affected by the fire at all. It wasn't burned and it didn't have a single speck of dust on it, appearing as if it was tied after the young man was burned.

Looking at the young man closely, he was Armad Wilberforce.

Day after day, Armad laid there unconscious by the side of this young woman for three days. The young woman was sitting there all along, studying the black river in silence.

At the end of the third day, she looked away from the river and turned to Armad with her big eyes.

She was so beautiful that any man looking at her for the first time would fall into a trance, debating if she was even human.

The height of her face conformed with its width, which gave her a unique attractiveness that could inspire rivalry. Even before she smiled, a soft depression of a dimple was apparent on her cheeks. Her eyes were big; the sclera was so clear it appeared chalk white and the iris was pitch black like the river behind her. Her nose fits perfectly in her face like a work of art. She had a soft-arched brow that accentuated the attractive shape of her eyes. Her long, black hair was touching her lower back. The hair itself shone so brightly that it reflected the surroundings like a mirror.

If you coupled the unmatched beauty of her face and her curvy body, then this woman could easily surpass even the celebrated beauties of the lower worlds.

After turning to Armad, she put her right hand on his chest. As soon as she touched him, the wounds in his body began to heal. Within a couple of minutes, the burn had disappeared and his skin had returned to normal as if he was never burned.

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The glow around her body disappeared and her skin turned pale. As the seconds went by, her breathing became labored. She remained like that for a long moment before she calmed down.

She retrieved a paper from her robe and put it in Armad's remaining pocket.

This done, she stood up, looked at the black river again for a few seconds, and turned around and left, leaving Armad there.

At the end of that day, Armad woke up, weak and confused.

The first thing that caught his attention was his surroundings. He remembered the mysterious city where he saw the giants and heard the voice, but this wasn't it. He was now lying by the side of a river.

His clothes were burned, which meant he'd come in contact with fire at some point after he fell unconscious, but he had no wounds. How could his clothes burn to this extent and his body remained unscathed?

Looking at his clothes, the first thing that came to his mind was the paper he received from the guardian which was supposed to be his guide.

He hurriedly reached for his trouser's pocket, even though he knew he didn't keep it there, but that was the only pocket remaining on his burned clothes. But, to his surprise, he found it inside.

As he took it out, a pleasant scent coming from the paper hit his nose, attracting a frown from him. At the lower left-hand side of the paper, there was a writing that was signed by 'princess Nostalgia Nára'. He was sure there was nothing like that in the paper he received from the guardian.

He closed his eyes and tried to remember what happened, but no matter how he tried, he just couldn't remember what happened when he was unconscious. In the end, he concluded that someone must have rescued him from the city. Whoever this person was, they must have known the importance of that paper, so when they saw the paper in his pocket burned, they replaced it.

"Who are you? Why did you save me?" Armad asked himself. But he had no answer except for the name 'princess Nostalgia Nára'.

After debating on it, he decided to leave the dungeon at once. It was time to go to the fourth world and find the Triple Factor.

He read a few incantations from the paper and waited. Five minutes later, he saw a small boat approaching him on the river.

Once the boat arrived at the bank, Armad jumped inside. He read another incantation from the paper, and as if responding to the incantation, the boat started moving forward in the northeast direction.

Armad sat at the front of the boat and faced the darkness ahead. He stared into the distance, trying to see the bank on the other side or even just an island, but there was nothing but emptiness. He continued like that until the afternoon of the next day.

Seeing there was no end in sight, Armad decided to take a nap. He laid down on the boat, put his hands on his sword, and closed his eyes. He slept almost immediately.

When he woke up, the sun was gone from the sky. When he looked at the east, he saw another sun coming up, meaning it was morning already. So he had slept through the previous afternoon and evening and night. He was surprised how much he slept – since Benders required much less sleep than other humans – but then he remembered he didn't sleep for the last three days, ever since his neighbors knocked on his door and told him his mother was sick.

Hmm.

He sighed, feeling a new urge to leave the desolate dungeon and find Triple Factor so he could go back to his mother.

Now that he thought about it, the sky in this place was strange. In the third world, one sun would come up from the east and set in the west. While another sun would remain in the sky from morning to evening without moving. But it was different here: there was only one sun in the sky and it was coming from the east and set in the west. He didn't know what caused the second sun to disappear, but his mind was focused on reaching his destination. Later on, when he found Triple Factor and saved his mother, he might dedicate some time to finding the missing sun in the dungeon.

When would he reach the bank? He looked into the distance. There was still no end in sight.

Ever since he stepped into that door and came to this place, he'd been thinking about the fourth world and Triple Factor. What would he do when he arrived?

On the fifth day of his journey, he felt an irresistible hunger. There was no food with him or anywhere else in his current surrounding, so he closed his eyes and recited the song his mother used to sing for him when he was little to put him to sleep.

*

My little Wilberforce

Close your eyes

Then the dark will go away

Then the demi-humans will go away

Then you will see your sister

Then the sun will come up

When the sun comes up

Then the dark will go away

Then the dark will go away

My little Wilberforce

*

It worked. He fell asleep for the second time.

He was woken up by the shaking of the boat. As he opened his eyes, he saw what he'd been waiting for, the bank.

Although, not in the way he'd expected. He saw a wall of normal-looking water, an actual wall not a wave, which looked like the great northern wall, although he had no time to confirm as he saw something just before the wall. A hole, dark and at least one thousand meters wide, sitting between the wall and the black river.

From its current pace, Armad realized the boat wouldn't be stopping anytime soon. It was speeding up as it approached the hole as if it was meant to fall into the hole.

When Armad woke up, it was already too late because the boat was only three to four meters away from the hole, which was now reduced to two meters.

He furiously thought about a way to stop the boat, but nothing came to mind. There was nothing he could hold to stop the speeding boat. It was all water.

As he thought about his options, the boat arrived at the edge of the river where it abruptly stopped. And before he could release the breath he'd been holding, the boat lifted him and threw him in the black hole. It then turned around and disappeared into the black river.