**#232. Flight (2)**
—
Tap—
A foot stepped off a branch.
A body surged toward the sky.
The air, reserved for heights forbidden to creatures of the ground, clung vividly to every inch of his skin.
Haa.
Every sense in his body felt unnaturally vivid.
When he looked down, he saw the earth stretched far below him.
A fall from here meant instant death.
Slowly, he felt his body descending.
One meter… three meters… eight meters…
Just as his falling speed snowballed—
*Crack!*
A condensed wind orb in the propulsion unit shattered and exploded.
The blast of wind generated immense thrust, and the boy stabilized his posture and soared.
─────!
Higher, even higher.
Upward, ever upward.
Thanks to the pair of wings attached to the device, it wasn’t difficult to maintain his balance and adjust direction.
His rapidly rising body pierced into the black clouds blanketing the sky.
His vision darkened instantly.
The black clouds brushing his entire body looked like tangled threads, or rolling wool, or industrial smoke.
Sensing they might be toxic, he instinctively held his breath.
He just needed to hold out until he broke through the thick cloud layer and emerged above.
‘Above the clouds.’
Resonating with the boy’s excitement, yellow mana overflowed from the gem.
*Crackle! Crackle!*
Electric currents sparked across his skin and fed into the device as fuel.
Just then, Ray sensed something and twisted his body instinctively.
*Shwiiik—! Fwit!*
A long projectile narrowly missed him, piercing through the black clouds and vanishing into the distance.
It had the form of a giant needle.
And if he hadn’t misread the color—
‘Dark red…?’
Vicious, who had once invaded Rael Row, instantly came to mind.
But there was no time to think deeply as more needles flew in.
*Shwiiik—! Shwiiik──! Shwiiik—!*
Dodging the relentless assaults, he altered his posture and increased his climbing speed.
Perhaps due to the excessive output, the flight device kept making clicking noises.
*Shwiiik—!*
After dodging the final needle, he broke out of the clouds.
He exhaled the breath he had been holding and saw it.
Below and diagonally across from him—something else sitting atop the clouds, like him.
‘The sun…?’
It was a massive sphere.
Red and black mana twisted and consumed each other, painting fiery patterns across the surface.
He had subconsciously likened it to the sun, but he quickly realized that wasn’t it.
‘That’s not the sun. It’s a fake.’
The sphere emitted no warmth whatsoever.
Suddenly, Ray felt an eerie sensation as though the sphere was watching him.
He soon noticed it.
The red and black mana of the sphere had taken on the shape of an eye.
The boy looked at the sphere.
And the sphere looked back.
“So this is it.”
Suddenly, the boy parted his lips.
“Doctor, this is how you were able to track my movements. I always thought it was strange. There were times you shouldn’t have been able to trace me with just the homunculi. You were watching from here, weren’t you? What’s your goal? What are you trying to achieve with an artificial construct like this floating in the sky?”
As expected, no answer came.
Only a gathering of mana before the sphere, which shaped itself into another needle.
*Fwoosh! Crackle!*
Ray fired off lightning and flame in response, but they were deflected by the repelling force of the sphere.
‘Standard attacks don’t seem to work. And these needles—they’re even sharper and larger than the ones earlier.’
If he were on the ground, he could’ve dodged using electrification. But midair, his movements were limited.
Worse, even with mana injection, the flight device’s output kept declining.
“….”
He turned his head back.
Looked upward.
The sloped underside of the spinning island loomed above in grand form.
…Not far, but—
‘Still a little short of reaching it.’
Decision made, Ray sharpened his senses and locked onto the needle being completed below him.
And just as it launched—
*Shwiiik!*
He timed it perfectly and formed a high-output shield directly beneath his feet.
*Boom!*
A stinging pain shot through the soles of his feet.
Simultaneously, the recoil from the impact launched his body upward.
*Whoooosh!*
His vision rose.
Altitude increased.
Seizing the opportunity, he maxed the output of the flight device.
─────!
The nozzle wind flared with its final breath, and the device rattled violently.
As the island drew rapidly closer, Ray reached toward the cliff marking its edge.
‘Just a bit more… just a bit more…!’
*Tap!*
Ray managed to grab the ledge and, reinforcing his strength, pulled himself up in an instant.
Then he immediately rolled his body in response to a surge of mana behind him.
*Boom!*
Contrary to his expectation, the explosion didn’t hit where he’d just been standing.
The next needle had shattered and scattered far away in midair.
“…A shield.”
Ray belatedly realized the island was surrounded by a transparent, blue-hued barrier.
It was stronger than any barrier he’d ever seen.
Every time the black cloud touched the edge, it was sucked in and vanished.
That must be why fewer clouds had gathered beneath the island.
Mesmerized by the sight of blue devouring black, Ray was struck by a thought.
‘…The needles and clouds can’t pass through the barrier.’
Then how did I get through?
Just then, his chest burned hot, and a mental voice echoed in his head.
[Open the door! Open the door!]
[Master, open the door! Open the door!]
[Bam bam bam! Bam bam!]
“….”
Ray recalled that he had sealed the entryway to the yellow gem.
He’d done so in case the overexcited Laqria—since ascending the World Tree—might burst out mid-flight.
“You’ve always wanted to come this high up too, haven’t you?”
The moment the entryway opened, Laqria popped out, flicked her tongue, and scurried inward.
Trotting along busily.
Without looking back once.
“You never move unless your body’s fully charged with mana… What’s inside that’s got you so eager?”
Ray raised his gaze slowly, following the path Laqria had taken.
And he saw it.
Nameless flowers, trees, and thickets spread across the entire island.
“…A forest.”
Though not as dense or deep as the Final Forest, the scene before him certainly qualified as a forest.
However—
‘…The plants aren’t green.’
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue—
Every visible plant shimmered with various mana colors in the wind, only to return to its natural form and repeat the cycle.
As if drifting between reality and a dream.
A wondrous, dreamlike scene that made his whole body tingle.
*Plop.*
He sat down.
*Rustle.*
Pulled out his sketchbook and opened it.
He could do nothing but start drawing the scene in front of him.
*Scritch scritch—*
His hand moved rapidly over the page with a colored pencil as he continued analyzing.
‘The mana here is purer than even in the Final Forest. And higher quality too. It might be more refined than the mana from the Circles.’
He recalled what Gwendel had once said:
“Plants help us in more ways than just offering shade or fruit. One of them is absorbing mana from the air, purifying it, and then releasing it again.”
“You can think of them as serving a similar role as the Circles. The Circles absorb scattered mana from the atmosphere and refine it, right?”
“But there is a difference. Unlike the Circles, plants don’t refine it just once. For them, refining mana is like breathing—it happens infinitely.”
If the plants here had become full mana bodies, shimmering like that, how many times had refinement occurred?
Thousands, tens of thousands—
Maybe even more.
‘Of course, it still can’t compare to the gem’s mana…’
That was when he felt something soft and damp touch his ankle.
Looking up, he saw a fox at his feet.
Its fluffy orange fur made it look like a cub.
It sniffed at him and started gnawing on the tip of his shoe.
‘So there are animals here? Well, aside from being suspended in the sky, this place is still a forest.’
Ray reached out to stroke its fur and asked:
“Are you a resident here?”
Startled by the approaching hand, the fox cub flinched and retreated.
Ray noticed its forepaw shimmered with orange mana before reverting.
“So you’re a spirit.”
His eyes gleamed with curiosity and intrigue.
Based on murals, spirits were presumed to be one of the ancient races.
And now they were almost impossible to find.
He had never encountered one while traveling the Sectors, and even in the mana-rich Final Forest, he’d seen only a handful.
‘And even those were either too young or too underdeveloped to speak.’
That was why he’d never gained much insight into the old world or spirits.
He’d asked Laqria a few times, but she was a naive and ignorant snake who had lived her whole life in the wastelands.
Yet now, a new spirit had appeared before him.
And not just anywhere—on a mysterious island overflowing with abnormal mana.
‘Maybe there are even more spirits on this island.’
This cub’s parents were likely spirits too.
Ray felt his heart race as he spoke.
“Go get your parents. We need to talk about what you did to my shoe—and how you’re going to compensate me. Even if you’re young, the harshness of society doesn’t make exceptions. Got it?”
The fox didn’t respond.
It just circled him, letting out little barks.
“So, you refuse to admit wrongdoing. I admire your resolve, but baseless conviction only makes things worse. Go bring your parents—wait, do you want something from me?”
Looking closely, Ray realized the cub was hungry.
*Rustle.*
He pulled out some jerky from his bag.
“Woof woof!”
“This isn’t it?”
Next he took out a potato and carrot.
“Grrrr!”
“Not this either?”
As he pondered, he remembered—it was a spirit.
*Woom—!*
When he summoned the yellow and green gems, the cub’s reaction changed.
No longer cautious, it leapt into his arms and rubbed its head against the gems.
“Alright, calm down.”
“Woof! Woof woof!”
When Ray extracted mana from the gems and let it flow out, the fox eagerly absorbed it.
It consumed it through its mouth—
And absorbed it through its body.
Orange, yellow, green—
The cub’s entire body repeatedly lit up in dazzling brilliance, then returned to normal.
“…You’ve got quite the appetite.”
At that moment, Ray suddenly felt a gaze from the entrance of the forest.
When he turned his head, he saw a pair of adult foxes staring at him.
*Grab!*
Ray, still holding the scruff of the cub who was too engrossed in eating to notice anything else, stood up.
“Perfect timing. You see this shoe all chewed up? We need to have a serious talk about home education and damage compensation.”
The fox couple didn’t respond.
They simply looked at each other as if exchanging some silent conversation, then turned their heads back to fix their gaze firmly on him.
Maybe they weren’t spirits after all.
If they were ordinary animals without developed intelligence, trying to communicate through speech would be pointless.
Just as Ray was starting to feel disappointed—
“At the very least, we offer our sincere apologies for the wrongdoing committed by our child.”
A response came back.
