Chương 71: A new world

Hours passed. Eventually, the clock reached exactly three in the morning. Everyone stood together at the edge of the coast, staring out at the ocean. The atmosphere had changed completely. The moon above them hung enormous and close, its strange energy spilling across the entire coastline in a pale, restless light. Benkay stepped forward.

"Ready?" Amelia nodded, taking a deep breath before raising both hands.

"Lunar Skill: Lunar Shield!" A brilliant blue barrier bloomed to life around her, enveloping her entire body in its glow. She looked toward the others.

"Ready." King glanced around at the shoreline.

"So where exactly do we go to get there?" Benkay pointed out toward the water.

"Amelia, walk into the ocean." Amelia froze mid step.

"... Sorry, what?" She stared at the waves.

"Won't we drown?" Benkay waved a hand, unconcerned.

"We'll be fine." Amelia eyed him with open suspicion.

"... Okay." She stepped forward slowly. Thomas spoke up immediately.

"Everyone, stay close to Amelia." The group closed in around her at once.

"We don't want anyone drowning," Thomas added, then paused.

"Or turning into roast chicken." Tony's eyes went wide.

"Roast chicken?!" Everyone pressed in even tighter around Amelia without a second thought. She glanced around at the group now practically stacked against her on every side.

"You're all a little too close." She shuffled forward carefully.

"I mean it. Personal space, please."

"Sorry," Krystal said, barely inching back.

"There's not really anywhere else to stand," Max pointed out. Amelia sighed and took another step anyway. Her foot touched the water. The ocean drew back from her immediately, retreating in a slow, curling wave. Amelia's eyes widened.

"Whoa." The sea parted cleanly around the shield's edge, opening a dry path straight through the water ahead of them. Mochi stared, delighted.

"That's incredible." Tony pointed at the walls of water rising on either side.

"We're literally splitting the ocean."

"Keep moving," Benkay said, already walking. They pressed on, the water climbing higher around them the deeper they went, never once touching the surface of Amelia's shield. They kept walking, and walking, until the surface of the sea was far above their heads, a dim, wavering ceiling of blue. Faesha suddenly looked straight up.

"Whoa." She pointed.

"Look! The moon turned pink!" Everyone followed her finger. Far above the walls of water, the enormous moon had shifted into a deep, unnatural shade of pink, its light bleeding down through the ocean in slow, pulsing waves. Tony's fur stood on end.

"That's the one!" He jabbed a paw skyward.

"That's the moon that turns people into fried chicken!" Ace glanced at him.

"The way you're acting, you're already halfway there." Tony spun toward him.

"Excuse me?" Ace nodded toward Amelia.

"You do remember she has Lunar Shield, right?" Tony blinked, looked at Amelia, and visibly deflated.

"... Oh. Right. I forgot she did." Ace shook his head.

"Unbelievable." They pressed forward. The deeper they traveled, the stranger everything around them became. The water itself began to glow faintly, and the pink light from above grew steadily stronger, pressing down against the shield like a physical weight. Amelia's breathing grew heavier. Her steps started to slow. She winced. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Oh, no." Mochi turned toward her instantly.

"What's wrong?"

"My magic." She gritted her teeth, fighting to hold the barrier steady.

"I'm running low." Krystal moved closer to her side.

"Stay with it, Amelia." Faesha nodded firmly.

"Faesha believes you can do it. Please don't stop!" Amelia managed a strained nod.

"I'll try." Thomas suddenly came to a halt. Everyone turned toward him.

"I can feel it," he said, eyes fixed ahead.

"We're close now." Amelia clenched her jaw.

"Then I'll keep going." RoboZ looked toward her, voice calm but insistent.

"Amelia. You mustn't stop now. Not when you're this close to the end." Her breathing grew ragged. She forced herself forward, one step, then another, legs trembling with the effort. The Lunar Shield flickered around her, dimming for half a second before steadying again.

"Come on," she muttered through clenched teeth.

"I'm not giving up." The space around them began to warp. Max looked around sharply.

"Is it just me, or is the world doing something weird right now?" The walls of water shifted, bending in ways water shouldn't bend. The ground beneath their feet seemed to lose its shape entirely, and the glowing sea around them started to fade at the edges, like ink dissolving in water.

"It's changing," Max said, louder this time. King's eyes widened.

"The whole domain is shifting." Krystal looked around, stunned.

"We're actually entering it." Benkay smiled.

"We made it." Mochi spun in place, wide eyed.

"This is unreal." Faesha gasped.

"Everything's changing around us!" Thomas stared into the distance, unreadable.

"The boundary between the ordinary world and the lunar domain." Ace narrowed his eyes at the shifting horizon.

"So this is the other world." RoboZ's sensors activated with a quiet whir.

"Dimensional environment confirmed." Then a hairline crack split across the surface of the Lunar Shield. Everyone froze. Amelia's breath caught.

"Oh, no." A second crack spread beside the first. King's expression shifted instantly.

"Amelia." A third crack tore further along the barrier's curve. Mochi's fists clenched at his sides.

"Come on, come on." Amelia's whole body was shaking now.

"I can't." Tony's eyes went wide with genuine panic.

"Amelia, please!" He clutched at his own head, staring up at the pink moon above them.

"I'm far too young and far too cute to die out here!" Faesha grabbed onto Benkay's sleeve, fear plain on her face.

"Uncle Benkay, what's happening?" Benkay kept his eyes fixed on the cracking shield.

"We're close."

"But if it breaks."

"Trust her." Mochi's voice rose over the tension.

"You've got this, Amelia!"

"You can do this," King said, firm and steady.

"Don't stop now," Krystal added. Max's jaw tightened.

"Just a little further." Thomas watched in silence, his expression carved from stone. Ace's hands curled into fists at his sides.

"Don't you dare stop." RoboZ's voice cut through the noise, calm and certain.

"You are almost there, Amelia." Amelia's eyes brimmed with strain, her whole frame trembling as she forced herself past every limit she had left.

"I'm." Another crack split across the shield.

"Not." The cracks spread wide, threading across the entire barrier at once.

"Giving up!" The Lunar Shield gave way entirely, shattering outward into countless drifting fragments of blue light. For one terrible second, heat washed over all of them, sudden and sharp, like standing too close to an open flame. Then, nothing. No burning. No explosion. No screaming. Just silence. Tony cracked one eye open.

"... Huh?" He looked around. The ocean was gone. The pink moon was gone. They were standing somewhere else entirely. A massive cavern stretched out around them in every direction, its walls disappearing into deep shadow, its ceiling so impossibly high that none of them could find where it ended. Strange, glowing formations lined the distant walls, bathing the enormous underground space in a soft, steady lunar light. Tony looked around slowly.

"We." He blinked.

"We actually made it?" Faesha's face lit up instantly.

"We made it!" She jumped straight into the air.

"Faesha is so happy right now!" Mochi threw both fists overhead.

"Yes!" King let out a long breath, laughing under it.

"We actually crossed over." Krystal smiled, glancing toward Amelia.

"She did it." Max exhaled hard.

"For a second there, I thought we were done for." Tony flopped flat onto his back in the dirt.

"I had already started drafting my final words." Ace looked around at the strange cavern, arms crossed.

"So this is the lunar world." Thomas nodded slowly.

"Looks that way." RoboZ's eyes swept the surroundings.

"Dimensional transition successful." Faesha ran straight over to Amelia.

"You really did it!" Amelia was completely spent, legs shaking, breath coming in short bursts, but she still managed a tired smile.

"I did?" Mochi jogged over, grinning.

"You absolutely did." King gave her a proud nod.

"You kept us all safe the entire way here." Krystal added, quieter, "Even when it broke, it had already gotten us where we needed to be." Max gave her a thumbs up.

"That was genuinely impressive." Tony scrambled back to his feet and pointed at her dramatically.

"Amelia. You have officially saved my adorable, irreplaceable life." Amelia let out a weak laugh.

"Glad I could help." Thomas offered a small, genuine smile.

"Well done." Even Ace gave her a short nod.

"Good work." Amelia's tired eyes widened just slightly at that.

"Thanks." She looked around at everyone, safe, exhausted, but together, and let herself smile properly for the first time since the shield gave out.

"I'm glad I didn't stop." Benkay looked around the massive cavern, grinning.

"Well then." He spread his arms wide.

"We made it." Mochi turned in a slow circle, taking in the glowing walls.

"So what's actually special about this place? What made it worth almost dying for?" Benkay smiled.

"Good question." He gestured toward the glowing rock formations embedded along the cavern walls.

"Besides being a perfect hiding spot from RoboGeneX for a while, this place has a few unusual properties." Everyone turned to look at the walls.

"See those rocks?" Benkay asked.

"The ones glowing?" Mochi nodded.

"Yeah, hard to miss."

"They're giving off something called Excite Waves." Tony's ears shot straight up.

"Ooh, let me take this one." Benkay blinked, then stepped aside with a small shrug.

"Go ahead, then." Tony straightened proudly.

"Excite Waves send tiny, fast pulses of energy straight into the body. Too small to actually feel," he explained, tapping his own chest, "but they wake everything up underneath the skin. So it makes your whole body run more efficiently while you train." King's eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

"So recovery and performance both improve just from being near them?"

"Exactly." Tony puffed out his chest.

"Which means you can get more real training done here in less time than anywhere else." Benkay smirked.

"Look at you, explaining things properly for once." Tony grinned.

"I contain multitudes." Ace glanced at him.

"You ate a rock yesterday."

"That was completely unrelated." Amelia laughed despite herself, the sound loosening some of the exhaustion still sitting in her shoulders. King looked around the cavern again, more seriously this time.

"So this place lets us train faster than we could anywhere else." Thomas studied the glowing walls, considering.

"I've never heard of anywhere like this." He turned toward Benkay, eyes narrowing slightly.

"Where exactly did you find it?" Benkay turned casually.

"An old friend told me about it." Everyone looked at him.

"He actually lives down here you know..." A brief silence followed. RoboZ tilted his head.

"You've known about this place this entire time?" Benkay shrugged.

"More or less so." Mochi's mouth fell open.

"You knew about this and never said anything?" Benkay was already walking.

"Pretty much, yeah."

"Master Benkay!" He waved without turning around.

"Come on, I'll introduce you." He kept walking, glancing back over his shoulder just long enough to add, "You're going to want to meet this guy." Then he vanished around a bend in the cavern wall. For a moment, nobody moved. Krystal sighed.

"He really never tells us anything until the last possible second." She glanced at the others.

"That's our guild master, everyone." Amelia let out a tired laugh and started walking after him.

"Come on. Let's go find out who this friend is." Mochi jogged to catch up.

"Right behind you." King followed at an easier pace.

"I'm curious myself, honestly." Thomas came after him, unhurried.

"Knowing Benkay, this should be interesting, at the very least." RoboZ fell in beside them.

"I would also like to be introduced." Tony scrambled after the group.

"Wait for me!" Ace exhaled and followed last, muttering, "Here we go." One by one, they disappeared deeper into the glowing cavern, the strange light pulsing quietly along the walls as they walked. Nobody knew who Benkay's old friend was. But from the way he was acting, whoever it was, it was clearly worth the trip.