After climbing a small rocky mountain, Ed sat down and took a breath.

As far as the eye can see, there are endless stone mountains, stone pillars, and stone blocks...... It is as if the black waves are frozen, and there is no end in sight. They are all the same stones, but they are so diverse that they can almost be called vibrant—vibrant in another sense.

Yet he had walked for so long, and there were no particularly high mountains, no particularly large clearings, and, of course, no animals or plants, no dirt, no currents......

Monotonous and dull, but it does not make people feel bored, only feel a certain strange peace, and a faint loneliness and sadness.

Looking up, the starry sky is far away, and it is far away to see it either way. He had fallen from the end of the world, but it was as if he had fallen to the center of another world.

Strangely, he couldn't cast spells at will. The power surged through his body, abundant and peaceful, but in this world it seemed to be pitifully weak. He tried and tried, and once the power left his body, it was like a drop of rain falling into the sea, and a star twinkling in the bright sunlight disappeared in the blink of an eye. If he had used the Staff of Eternity, the effect would have been a little better, but it wouldn't last long, and it wouldn't affect much of the range...... He should have been glad that he wasn't that far from the ground when he fell, and he had used the right spell, otherwise, he would probably have been a meatloaf spread out on the ground by this time.

So, he couldn't find Isis either. Whether it's with his not-so-sharp eyes, or with the countless discounted spells he's played.

Is it too far away...... Or are they separated into two different worlds again?

He was a little depressed, but far from despair, and even uneasy was eerily small, as if nothing bad could happen in this world. He didn't know where that confidence came from...... This strange world actually gave him an indescribable sense of intimacy, vague and distinct.

He lay down on his back, not caring about the pain in his back. There was no sound in his ears, not even the wind, so quiet that he could hear his own slightly rapid heartbeat. He may be the only life in this world, but when he lies there, he feels that he is another rock, a part of this world......

He bounced off the ground like a fish.

He thought of a way to find Is—he could be a part of this world, just as he had been a part of another world.

Perhaps his power is indeed as small as a drop of water in the sea in this world, but when a drop of water is completely integrated into the sea, in a sense, he is everywhere.

He is part of the sea, he can also, the whole ocean.

And when he thought of this, his consciousness stretched out almost uncontrollably and instantaneously, stretching endlessly in all directions, like a hurricane sweeping across the earth, like the sun jumping out of the sea to spread its light all over the world in an instant...... In a kind of ecstasy of total liberation, he felt a faint fear that he could not bear this, that he might really be the whole ocean, but he would never be able to change that drop of water...... And he really just wants to make that little drop of water, tiny, ordinary, and unique.

The moment he found Is, he tried his best to regain his consciousness, and he fell to the ground dizzy, shivering with chills, and couldn't get up for a while.

He thought he was almost going to come back...... But he found him.

In the boundless blackness, a few feet away, the ice dragon lay among a cluster of stone pillars like crystals, so white that it seemed to glow.

Ed pounced ecstatically, but cautiously stopped his steps as he approached.

The ice dragon seemed to be sleeping. It wrapped its wings around its body, hiding its head under the wings - but its broken left wing was nearly torn in half.

Ed stared at the massive wound, at the other, not long, but deeper wound on the ice dragon's back. The long spines on his back were broken off a lot, and under the scales that fell off were patches of pale red tender flesh, which rose and fell slightly with his breathing.

Guilt and hatred almost tore out his heart. He had never thought of killing Nine Toes, even if he had sacrificed him to the depths of the sea, but what was that...... Rafferty.

But now, he really felt that the madman might be better dead.

He cautiously reached out his hand, realizing before he could touch the scales of the ice dragon that it might not need his treatment.

It does glow.

A soft glow covered its body. Instead of bleeding from those horrific wounds, they were healing rapidly at an almost visible rate.

Ed exhaled and withdrew his hand. As if some kind of intuition...... He knew, now, he shouldn't bother with it.

He sat down. I don't know how far I have crossed...... Consciousness was expanded to an infinite dizziness, and it was only then that it almost doubled back. He staggered for a moment and fell headlong.

When he woke up, his eyes were bright, and he felt that it was dawn...... So will the sky be bright here?

He came to his senses and blinked again and again, only then did he realize that the light in front of him was not sunlight, but the wings of the ice dragon...... At some point, he got under the ice dragon's wings.

- Like a chick under the wings of an old hen.

He thought blankly, and laughed out loud, genuinely amused...... It's also a bit embarrassing.

The ice dragon remained motionless, seemingly undisturbed by his laughter. He lay quietly for a while before crawling out softly backwards.

The wounds on the ice dragon's body had almost completely healed, and the newly grown scales were translucent, delicate like fragments of gemstones that had been patiently ground by craftsmen. He marveled and admired it for a while, and even couldn't help but sneak a touch, but the ice dragon still didn't wake up.

But its breathing is steady, and its heartbeat is heavy and powerful. Ed crouched down in front of its nostrils to make sure it was a little relieved.

And sure enough, it wasn't dawn. The starry sky was a sparkle that could not be seen in another world, and he squinted and looked at it carefully, reaffirming his initial judgment that the stars were roughly the same as those in the other world.

In another season, they will appear on the other side...... So, to be precise, they are not in another world, but on the other side of the world, in the true sense of the word, "underground"? But didn't they fall down, how did they fall to the ground on the other side? Shouldn't they fall into the sky on the other side? Isn't there a sun and moon here? What are the sun and moon on the other side?......

One question after another scrambled to come out. He didn't notice the shadows that silently probed at his feet.

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