For a long time after he woke up, it was hard to believe that the song he sang before his death could save his life.

He couldn't even remember why he was singing all of a sudden. At that time, the companions around them were already silent, and in the boundless darkness, only the net that wrapped them shone with a faint white light, which was protection and restraint...... The result won't be any different anyway.

Through the crack sealed by the wire mesh, he could even faintly see the green forest waking up in the sun, but he could never go back.

Only gray-white shadows crowded beyond the shimmer of light, slowly wriggling, like the mist of a swamp. He held on to fear and despair for too long, and in the end his mind was left blank.

He looked up at the sky—a lifeless black curtain without stars or moonlight.

When the song sounded, he even suspected that it was his hallucination...... But it was a song he sang himself, not sad, but with joy and satisfaction, gentle as starlight.

It was a song in praise of the stars, the most common and simple song sung by the elves, so simple that many elves did not bother to sing it...... It was the song his mother had put him to sleep when he was a child.

Now, he was willing to sing it again, to his pillow, which was as beautiful as the small Mithril ...... Although it was a little fat, it was also very fat, and the cute dragon listened to it, watching it yawn pleasantly and lazily close its eyes.

“...... Thank you. He whispered.

The little dragon had already fallen asleep, and only the young man with blond hair outside the door turned his head and glanced at him, a pair of light blue eyes were as clear as crystal, but they hid incomprehensible emotions.

The elf thought he would come in and take his dragon, but he didn't, and he let it lie on his bed, still standing guard outside the door.

After a moment of doubt, the elf fell into a deep sleep again. The wind swept through the treetops, and the small, steady breathing of the pillow easily blew away the nightmare he thought would haunt him for a long time.

.

Not far away, in the study higher up, elves, dwarves, and humans who had been tired all night were not lucky enough to sleep peacefully.

"It's a bit like what I've experienced before. Ed propped his head in one hand and unconsciously swiped across the map with the other, "I was ...... when I disappeared from the Stonebuge sewers."

I can clearly see the oncoming darkness and feel the indescribable danger, but I have no power to resist for a moment, and I have completely lost consciousness, and when I regain consciousness, I am already in another world.

It's just that he fell into a little fragment of time...... A space under his own control, these dwarves and elves who had disappeared from the forest, had fallen into the realm of ghosts.

- Why the Ghost Realm?

His hand stopped, and suddenly there was some not-so-good suspicion. He still remembered the old mage on the mountain who had turned himself into a shadow demon...... So, someone has mastered the way to that world?

Someone...... Have you mastered the way to turn people into ghosts, or are you trying to do so?

He remembered being told that the Shadow Realm had once been as full of life as this world, but when it was swallowed up by the Sea of Nothingness, it gradually became what it is now...... He remembered the gray-white world he had been in for an unknown amount of time, the fragments that might not have completely disappeared, and compared to the ghost world he had experienced when he was shuttling through the otherworldly ring, there were only some clear enough shadows of the past, just those gray shadows wandering the streets, and there seemed to be a little bit of consciousness left.

If the waves of the Sea of Nothingness continue to wash away, that little fragment will probably become a small ...... Ghost Realm.

In his opinion, that was the real hell.

He shuddered. Whether it's the desperate gray, or the thought of the phantoms of the besieging elves, perhaps the missing ones from the sewers of Stonebuge...... It all made him chill from the bottom of his heart.

He spoke his suspicions, and his friends seemed calmer than he was.

"A long time ago, there were spells powerful enough to connect all known worlds at will. "It's not impossible if someone regains some of the tricks." But let's be honest...... A rift leading to the Ghost Realm is better than a direct lead to the Sea of Nothingness. ”

Payne's face wasn't as ugly as last night - the sun always brought some warmth and anger, but he wasn't much better than last night.

Sixteen of the missing elves had returned, including the only one still alive, Villani, and the remaining seven, including a dwarven messenger who, according to Villani, had disappeared by the time they found themselves in another world.

Everything points to disaster...... And even the body could not be found. Even if the elves of the Antlers Forest showed a clearer desire to return to Grivar, he couldn't be happier.

And Mock hadn't spoken for a while. Two of the three Black Rock Dwarves he searched for were dead and one was missing...... And what they brought with them can no longer be recovered.

Hidden in the broken wooden box was indeed the silk spit out by the Scythe of Light. The dwarves and elves who had been dragged into another world had been encircled from the beginning, and when the dense shadows swooped down silently, most of them had not even recovered their senses, and in the blink of an eye, they had already lost half of their companions.

One of the dwarves wielded a powerful magical weapon, a double-edged axe that swung with blue and white light. It was a weapon that the Shadow Wage could not resist, but there were too many of them to kill, and when he and the only one of the elves were exhausted, the dwarf suddenly roared something, turned around and slashed at the wooden box that the other dwarf had taken out.

In an instant, a dim white light poured out like a mist from the wooden box, dispersing the surrounding enemies and enveloping them in it.

The three elves who were still alive at that time were pleasantly surprised. They had a brief respite, and the shadows could no longer touch them, but at the same time, they were like worms in a cobweb, unable to move.

But the two dwarves were still able to move freely...... Just quarrel with each other.

The elves couldn't understand what they were saying - the only companion who could understand dwarven language was dead. They could only be suspicious and cautiously silent, and after a long while, they realized that the "spider silk" that bound them was actually tearing open this dark space little by little.

When the scent of earth and blades of grass from the forest poured into the suffocating world, Verani thought they had a chance at last.

Then that faint hope turned into even deeper despair.