Chapter 1: This Night

Chapter 1: This Night

Late at night, the clatter of doors and windows being flung open jolted Wendell from deep sleep. Alert, he rolled out of bed and swept his gaze around the room.

What happened? Did Utopia get hit by a massive storm? After days of poor sleep, Wendell had finally fallen into a deep slumber, only to be forced awake. For a moment, his thoughts were sluggish, and he looked rather dazed.

He quickly realized that no wind was blowing in through the open window, nor was any rain drifting inside. It was almost as if he himself had opened it while sleepwalking, just to draw in a breath of fresh air.

Wendell’s mind immediately jumped to the supernatural incidents he had experienced, as well as the ones he had learned about through case files. He thought of the fear of the unknown that had once ruled his heart.

He did not know what changes would follow, nor could he guess what might befall him. A chill crept over his back, and a tremor quietly rose within him.

Just then, he heard a commotion outside the door. All kinds of sounds entered his ears.

There were rapid, pounding footsteps; voices judging certain actions; voices revising the current order; and undisguised shouts:

“Some of the underground seals have shown abnormalities!”

“Raise the alert level!”

Underground seals? There’s something sealed beneath the Iris Hotel? Wendell listened in astonishment and confusion. Unable to help himself, he walked to the doorway and looked left and right.

He then saw colleagues from MI9, not exactly familiar yet still faintly recognizable. He also saw Colonel Xio Derecha, who was on duty tonight.

MI9 found Utopia through me? They’re here to handle the abnormality? The thought had only just flashed through Wendell’s mind when he instinctively frowned.

He discovered that the corridor outside was completely different from that of the Iris Hotel. On either side, there were not only gas wall lamps but also classical lampstands. The floor was maintained to a bright polish, and the ceiling was more than three meters high.

This… this isn’t the Iris Hotel… Wendell abruptly turned around and reexamined the room he was in.

Very quickly, he recognized it as his bedroom at MI9 headquarters. His suitcase sat quietly in the corner, showing no sign of having been moved.

Wendell remembered very clearly that when he went to Utopia, he had used the washroom inside this room. He had not been very confident beforehand, so he had not brought any luggage at all. He had only taken the document from the Utopia public security court.

Thump, thump, thump! He hurried to the window and looked outside.

What entered his view was the garden and lawn belonging to MI9 headquarters.

I… I’m back in Backlund? Or did I never return to Utopia at all, and everything just now was only a dream I had because I was too tired? Wendell walked back to the bed in a daze and sat down.

More than ten seconds later, he suddenly sprang up and picked his coat off the floor.

Then he saw that, inside the inner pocket of the coat, the Utopia court document that should have been lying in the drawer rested there quietly.

Wendell fell silent, as though he had turned into a statue.

…

Travel columnist Monica was likewise awakened by the sound of the window and door slamming against the walls.

She sat up at once and pulled the blanket higher, shielding her chest.

Still hazy from sleep, her first reaction was that robbers had broken into the hotel. She gathered her breath and was about to scream, hoping to summon the police.

Yet during the next dozen or twenty seconds, Monica did not hear any footsteps enter her room. Instead, it seemed that more and more people were gathering in the corridor.

“What happened?”

“Doesn’t look like a storm…”

“Was this some kind of prank?”

“Damn clown. If I find out who did this, I’ll kick his backside so hard he won’t sit for a week!”

…

The voices of discussion rose and fell, interspersed with every kind of curse.

At first Monica found nothing strange about it. Following the words of the crowd outside, she even began earnestly thinking about the cause of this bizarre event, intending to include it in her travel notes.

But as she listened, she gradually noticed something wrong.

How could Utopia’s Iris Hotel have so many guests?

She remembered very clearly that on this floor, no more than five rooms were occupied, including her own.

In that instant, Monica thought of all the ghost stories she had read and heard. She suddenly felt as if the people outside the door were all vengeful spirits and shadowy phantoms.

Her foot had already been reaching toward the bedside, as she planned to go out, join the discussion, gather more details, and accumulate material for future writing. At this moment, she pulled it back with a swish and curled into a ball, trembling.

Several seconds later, she heard a man say:

“I asked the hotel owner. He said he doesn’t know what happened either. Maybe there was a brief storm just now.”

“Everyone should go back to their rooms and rest. Lock the doors and windows. Yawn—I have to get up early tomorrow to go to the Kingdom Museum.”

The Kingdom Museum… Monica froze.

As a travel writer, as a traveler who had spent quite a long time in Utopia, she naturally knew that there was no Kingdom Museum here.

In the Loen Kingdom, a museum bearing such a title had to be in Backlund.

And taking the steam train from Utopia to Backlund required many hours. Even if one rose early, there would be no way to arrive at the Kingdom Museum before closing.

Puzzled, Monica slowly lifted the blanket and heard the sounds of doors and windows being closed one after another.

She carefully got out of bed and walked toward the door.

During this process, she gradually saw the room more clearly beneath the moonlight.

Hiss… Monica nearly screamed aloud.

This was not the guest room she had been sleeping in at all!

Whether the layout or the furnishings, everything was completely different.

The ghost stories that had come to mind just moments ago once again flooded into her head, making her legs go weak. She almost could no longer support herself.

Just as Monica’s teeth chattered with a clicking sound, she saw a hotel business card lying on the table. These cards were prepared for guests so that, when going out, they would not lose their way back. Even if a person could not read, they could still use it to ask others for directions.

Monica instinctively moved closer. By the moonlight, she made out the words printed on the card:

Calpensa Hotel, 19 Monning Street, West Borough, Backlund.

West Borough… Backlund… Monica’s eyes widened at once, and she felt as if time and space had gone out of joint.

…

Backlund, Hillston Borough, inside a house with a fireplace.

Fors heard the clatter of doors and windows opening, yet she did not wake immediately, because she had fallen into a grotesque nightmare and could not break free no matter what she tried.

She dreamed that her teacher, Dorian Gray Abraham, had been affected by the family’s Sealed Artifacts and died bloodily before her eyes. She dreamed that she lost control and mutated, transforming into one bent, door-shaped Starlight Worm after another, flying involuntarily toward a Door of Flesh. She dreamed that the apocalypse descended, and a surging crimson tide drowned the entire world. Xio, Gehrman Sparrow, and everyone else were unable to escape.

Finally, Fors broke free from the dream and sat up, gasping for breath.

As a demigod, and a demigod who had once been an Astrologer, she knew that such a dream necessarily meant something. She hurriedly restrained her emotions and looked up ahead.

At some unknown point, the glass of the bay window in the bedroom had completely swung open.

Something must have happened… And it has a certain connection to the apocalypse, the Abraham family, and the Apprentice pathway… Fors silently muttered those words to herself. She immediately got up, draped on a cloak, and prepared to Teleport to her teacher’s place to confirm his safety.

This change added a few more degrees of urgency to her desire to advance to Sequence 3, and even Sequence 2.

—Ever since learning about the apocalypse from Mr. Fool and The World, Gehrman Sparrow, Fors had actually been working hard. However, the Scribe potion could not be digested in a short time, and having made no major contribution, she felt too embarrassed to ask her teacher for the Traveler formula and materials.

Of course, if she were willing, she could obtain them directly from Mr. Door. But after receiving warnings in advance, how could she possibly be tempted?

Her figure flickered and vanished from the room.

A few seconds later, she appeared at Dorian Gray Abraham’s residence and saw her teacher sitting there, pressing a hand to his heart, looking as though he had been badly frightened.

“…Do you need medicine?” Fors carefully asked.

She had purchased some medicine from Mr. Moon to treat illnesses of old age.

Dorian took a deep breath and shook his head.

“No.”

Fors immediately relaxed a little.

“Teacher, I dreamed that you suffered the negative effects of a Sealed Artifact. Uh, the doors and windows around me also underwent some unnecessary changes, so I came to check.”

Dorian raised his head and looked toward the open window, his expression grave.

“Your dream wasn’t wrong. I almost died just now. But at the most critical moment, the seal took effect again…”

At this point, he abruptly stood up and said to Fors, “Quick! Take me somewhere else. I’m worried something may have happened to the other family members!”

Fors did not hesitate. She immediately grabbed her teacher’s arm and asked for the exact location.

Their figures rapidly faded, turned transparent, and vanished.

After traveling for several seconds through the spirit world, where colors layered upon colors and mist drifted everywhere, Fors and Dorian suddenly broke away from the current environment and landed in what seemed to be a study.

Several people stood there. They were all Abraham family members who possessed different Sealed Artifacts and could “travel.”

“Verlos? Why are you here?” Dorian blurted out.

Verlos and the others shook their heads at the same time, equally dazed and terrified.

The next second, countless brilliant specks of starlight emerged from the void.

The starlight quickly gathered together, transforming into object after object that fell to the floor.

Among them were miniature doors made of starlight, crystal balls formed from worms embracing one another, semi-transparent keys of unusual design, and brilliant flames burning silently…

For some unknown reason, nouns surfaced one after another in the minds of Dorian, Verlos, and the others:

Sequence 3 Traveler Beyonder characteristic… Sequence 4 Scribe Beyonder characteristic… Sequence 1 Key of Stars Beyonder characteristic… Sequence 2 Planeswalker Beyonder characteristic…

Moreover, there was not merely one of each. Even the Sequence 1 Key of Stars Beyonder characteristics numbered two! In addition, there were three Planeswalker characteristics, and even more of the others.

The key members of the Abraham family, along with Fors, slowly opened their mouths, and for a very long time, none of them managed to close them.

When all those Beyonder characteristics had finished falling, no further abnormalities occurred around them. Everything became quiet.