Astra eyes twitched as she stared at the glistening words that streaked across the stars and nebulae. Wearing a shocked expression, she placed her hand on her forehead as her chest tightened.
"These words immediately appeared when I said I wanted to understand the First Dimension…"
"It's almost as if it was listening to me…"
"Is it because it's warning me of that existence against the Demigoddess? And that existence also represents the night sky?"
"No, the Demigoddess seems to also represent that as well. It seems like the night sky is synonymous with the first dimension…"
"So that existence already has the authority of the first dimension?" Astra inwardly remarked as she felt chills running down her spine.
"I see…I see why that thing was able to make all of us transport to this world…"
In that moment, the English words rapidly contorted once more, outlining what appeared to be a pupil-less eye.
The eye looked strange—it was half-closed and appeared as if it wanted to fully open.
Astra continued to observe curiously. Not long after, she saw the luminous edges that outlined the eye fracture into many different strange symbols.
Some were mathematical equations, others were symbols that Astra had never seen before.
Like an implosion, the symbols got sucked into the center of the once half-closed eye, instantly transforming back into a huge galaxy.
"This almost seems like a riddle. It's not that hard to figure out the meaning of it." Astra held her mouth as she reasoned out what she saw.
"Beware of those who are from the First Dimension. The half-closed eye represents the Demigoddess, and the fracturing of this eye represents something happening to Her. The ones that I should beware of are those who did that to Her. She is using her connection to warn me of that existence. And as expected, it's in a rather vague way."
"I guess this confirms my thoughts."
Dressed in starry purple pajamas, Astra continued to walk in the direction of the large galaxy. Her two golden strands of hair at the sides of her face swayed gracefully as her footsteps momentarily disturbed the peace of the reflective starry surface.
Her mind was calm and silent for a while, reflecting the peace of this space.
After a few dozen footsteps, her mind focused on Kayla.
"I wonder if she is aware of this space. Judging by the information she gave me, I doubt that she had full knowledge of this subconscious area controlled by the Demigoddess and I."
"At the same time, she said that I'll be able to figure certain things out when I get stronger. Is breaking the seals also a part of getting stronger and understanding myself better?"
Astra sighed as she realized the only way to know this is to get Kayla's messenger.
"The moment I get out of here, I'll try to find ways to find that comet and the planet Atlantis. Why does this have to be so difficult? Does a messenger really need to have such complicated instructions?"
She facepalmed as she shook her head, expressing her frustration.
Moving her hand slightly so that she can see in front of her, she thought about something else.
"At the same time, I need to figure out how to enter and exit this space. If it's really the subconscious, then I should be able to enter it whenever I sleep, and exit it like I would normally do for a lucid dream. I'll experiment with this later."
She put her hand to the side as she kept walking in the direction of the galaxy in the sky.
"And if this space is truly my subconscious, what happens in the outside world? Is my physical body just standing there, appearing as if it was asleep? What about time?"
"Well, all of this stuff I'll be able to figure out…"
Astra's mind bounced many different thoughts at once—her mind was her usual scatterbrained self in this peaceful, calm space that resembled the night sky.
As she kept walking, she noticed that her surroundings were appearing to shift.
The quiet, pristine reflective liquid surface began to turn brighter, like a soft white and yellow light was blanketed over it.
Though strangely, the pathway that Astra was walking on still reflected the night sky perfectly.
As for the sky, it too was also turning into a bright white and yellow light. It almost was as if a large sun that encompassed the entire sky was fading into existence.
Astra looked around as she saw the sudden changes of her surroundings.
"Everything is turning brighter the more I walk in this direction…"
"And strangely, the reflective surface seems to be forming a road, or a path perhaps…"
Not feeling any intuitive danger that should be present in her subconscious, Astra kept walking into the direction lined by the reflective surface. She even fastened her pace.
The surroundings kept getting brighter and brighter. It was to the point where Astra had to squint her eyes to even see the 'path' that she had to walk on.
After a few dozen steps, she had stopped her feet. Her intuition was now screaming to her that she couldn't go any further.
Still squinting her eyes, she vaguely saw something in the distance.
Using her best effort, she fully opened her eyes—taking in all of the visual information that her eyelids were once blocking her from seeing.
There, she saw it.
Her eyes widened—not out of shock, but out of curiosity.
In the distance there was a great, luminous boundary. It looked like an ocean of white and yellow light. It appeared blurred, as if the mortal mind wouldn't be able to see it, or shouldn't be able to see it.
Rested above this boundary were seven blurred circles; they were so blurred that one wasn't able to discern any of its visual features aside from the fact that they were round.
However, the first circle in this line was extremely peculiar—it was vastly different from the others.
The other circles looked just like that: circles. They whirred faintly as they rotated in line.
Instead, the first circle not only rotated, it appeared fractured—like something had struck it to tear it in half.
Coming out of the tear was a strange, oozing black liquid that not only appeared blurred, but also like it was glitching out of reality.
It plummeted down into the vast sea of light, stretching down infinitely.
Astra's mouth widened as she saw these circles.
"Are these objects the seals? Yes, it has to be! The first one even looks like it was broken!"
"That means that whenever I break a seal I'd be able to come back here and see another circle that has fractured!"
"Well, I'd have to find a way to break them first. The best way to know about it is through Kayla…"
"And as I get more powerful and gain more knowledge through these seals, I should be able to solve the problem of the Demigoddess awakening in me…"
As Astra completed her thought, she instinctively inched forward in order to see the circles a little better.
RUMBLE!
Crack!
The moment she finished that thought, everything began to shake!
Along with that, illusory glass shards flew out from the sea of light as corporeal cracks formed on the surface of the light.
The reflective surface that Astra stood on ebbed and flowed like waves, crashing onto Astra's feet, ankles. As the rumbling got worse, the surface even began to reach her knees!
"What?" Astra shouted in disbelief as she processed the events that happened in a fraction of a second.
Immediately after her voice reverberated throughout the space, she saw her hand rapidly turn pale. The pale color then quickly invaded the rest of her body, covering her entire body in ethereal purple veins.
In a fraction of a second, Astra saw that her hand was now turning into lines—like a mathematical grid. As it turned into a mathematical grid, it disappeared into strange symbols that Astra had never seen before.
It didn't take long for the rest of her arm to start turning into lines on a grid!
"Shit! Not good!" Astra didn't waste any time. She knew she had to leave this place immediately!
Using the knowledge of the fact that this place is her subconscious, she immediately imagined herself 'waking up' from a dream.
…
Whoosh…
"Ah!" Astra gasped as she opened her eyes, staring at the mechanical towers that stretched towards the sky that had now suddenly turned dark.
Visual sensory information rushed into Astra's brain as strange lights and colors were emitted from certain areas of the towers.
They were skyscrapers!
"…!" Astra's eyes widened as she saw a faintly glowing ball of violet light in the sky. In her peripherals was a faint, spherical blue light.
"So you could exit it like a dream!" She proclaimed as she fully returned to the real world. She almost didn't think about the fact that she was potentially in a really dangerous situation.
However, something was off…
The moment she said those words, she felt the wind battering her body as she saw her hair flying upwards in the corner of her eye—like someone was tugging on them while swaying.
In her direct line of sight though, not only did she see the Lunan skyscrapers and violet crescent moon, she also saw the crescent-shaped balcony above her.
This balcony got smaller as every millisecond passed by.
Whoosh…
Finally, auditory sensory information was now being processed by Astra. She heard the soft sounds of the wind flying past her. Various violet fireflies buzzed faintly as she saw them appearing to move upwards.
There was no mistaking it.
Astra was falling!