630 Thank you for taking me here (1/2)

Hoshi's vision darkened for a moment… and then he saw something incredibly beautiful!

Red, white, yellow, blue… Large amounts of flowers bloomed in varying colors here, creating a beautiful flower garden. Numerous small silver butterflies danced amongst the flowers, and abundant green leaves grew on vines that spread everywhere. These served to accentuate the flowers' beauty even further.

Clear water poured out of a long crack on a wall to Hoshi's right. The water cascaded downwards, forming a small waterfall that then became a babbling stream which curved through this entire area.

A giant red-leafed tree stood in the center of this area. It was apparently the same type of tree as the one from before, except that this one was bigger and also bore some black fruits.

”So beautiful…” Hoshi couldn't help but praise the scenery. He then heard the sound of song again.

Following the sound, Hoshi carefully walked past the flower garden so as to not trample on any flowers. When he approached the large red-leafed tree, he saw the gold-haired girl sitting on a tree branch as he expected. Just like before, she was singing that mysterious and ethereal song.

Hoshi silently enjoyed the performance for a while.

No mist was appearing, nor were there any spiritual monsters… This appeared to be a safe zone.

Quite a long amount of time passed without any spiritual monsters appearing at all. Hoshi was now confident that this beautiful place was safe.

”Thank you for taking me here,” Hoshi thanked the girl who was sitting on the tree.

He then walked over to the bottom of the tree, sat down against the tree bark, and placed his shield down next to him. Hoshi finally relaxed himself and sighed deeply.

He had fought for so long by himself, running everywhere without daring to let down his guard… Now he could finally not worry and rest for a little while.

His originally tense state of mind eased itself. The accumulated fatigue of his body instantly overwhelmed him like an unstoppable tidal wave. The pleasant song echoed in his ears, making him feel drowsy.

He knew that he shouldn't sleep, but…

Hoshi gradually closed his eyes, no longer able to fight off the drowsiness overcoming him. He fell asleep right there under the red-leafed tree, with a peaceful expression on his beautiful face.

Seiji stopped paying attention to how much time had passed after their search for Hoshi passed two hours.

His [Interdimensional Locator Spell] mark still indicated a clear direction. This meant that Hoshi was still alive and healthy.

Even Seiji was feeling fatigued after traveling in the Domain for so long. However, his junior had managed to survive for so long despite this being his first visit to an Inner World, and even remained in good condition. This was… amazing!

Any Awakened that managed to survive here would rapidly grow in power. Hisashi and Mika next to him were great examples.

After fighting here for so long and absorbing large amounts of mist, not only did their powers improve, they even learned new abilities.

*Bang!*

Hisashi kicked away an approaching black wolf with his right leg that had thunder entwined around it.

Hisashi was no longer restricted to only casting thunder spells with his hands. Even his legs and feet were now capable of producing thunder. This gave him powerful kicking strength, along with much greater agility for jumping, dodging, and close-quarters combat. The drawback to this was that if Hisashi used thunder on his legs and feet for too long, they would start to go numb or even hurt. He would then need to rest or receive healing from Seiji to help cure the symptoms.

Obviously, this ability's best use was to improve Hisashi's mobility. However, he also really enjoyed the feeling of kicking small monsters far away with his feet, so he kept using it often in such a manner.

*Whip!*

Mika shot out a black band from her Mashiro's Clothes. This black band accurately impaled the black wolf that had been kicked into midair by Hisashi. The black wolf was then transformed into mist that was absorbed by the black band.

Mika was now able to control her Mashiro's clothes to shoot black bands in a radius of twenty meters. She could control at most six black bands simultaneously to attack enemy monsters. Her accuracy with this was far higher than using the spiritual gun to shoot Mana Bullets, and this also had a lower Mana cost as well. The drawback was that these black bands had limited attack power, and could even be broken by boss monsters, which would cause a large amount of damage to Mika.

Although this seemed rather subtle, Seiji felt that this new ability of Mika's might become something like a powerful tentacle technique if it leveled up some more.

Mika and Hisashi were continuously getting stronger. However, their fatigue was also accumulating.

Luckily, there were three of them, so they all took turns fighting and resting.

Seiji didn't know how much longer it would take for them to find Hoshi.

After the Domain or Inner World transformed… not only were there more paths now, every district was much larger.

As the three traveled in the direction that Seiji's [Interdimensional Locator Spell] indicated, they even passed through a gigantic district that was larger than several football fields put together! There were so many monsters that appeared there which seemed like a tidal wave. It was impossible to count how many monsters were rushing at them…