Alexnded on Eldaris without dy.


    As soon as his ship touched down, he didn''t waste any time. The moment thending gear settled down on the soft terrain, he exited the craft, taking in his surroundings with a quick nce.


    There was no time for unnecessary caution or overthinking — Mira was missing, and that was his only focus.


    After stepping out, he immediately stored his ship in his spatial storage, a process that had be second nature to him now. The ship shimmered briefly before disappearing entirely, leaving no trace that it had ever been there.


    But it also provided him with some cover for his tracks, the Red Demons, or whichever enemy was hiding by had most definitely noticed his entrance into this area, as Alex wasn''t trying to hide it at all, but with his ship disappearing it would be hard to track where Alex was exactly.


    Now, he was alone on the''s surface, ready to begin his search.


    Thendscape around him was dense with foliage, the thick green of Eldaris''s forests stretching out in every direction.


    Alex didn''t pay much attention to the scenery.


    The coordinates he had received covered arge area, but that didn''t discourage him.


    With his newly upgraded strength, he could cover the entire 500 kilometre radius in less than 10 seconds.


    And with his spatial perception now stretching to over 20 kilometres, that would be a huge help to him as well.


    He started moving immediately. Although the forest was dense, it wasn''t an obstacle for him; he navigated through it with ease, his senses on high alert at all times and his Spatial perception scanning every nook and cranny of the surrounding area.


    However, he hadn''t spotted anything significant as of yet.


    And this trend of finding nothing continued on, with not even a single beast or Red Demon in the area.


    It was quite troubling for Alex, who wasn''t in the mood for patience.


    Every minute passed was another minute Mira was missing, and that thought drove him forward with even more motivation.


    ***


    ''This is just getting eerie now…''


    Mira walked her way through the forest at a leisurely pace, as if she was not concerned by the idea that she may not be able to find a way out for a long, long time.


    But whether she walked faster or slower mattered not to her, as she would still encounter the same environment, with the samepleteck of any life forms whatsoever.


    It only made her wonder just where that Galephant came from, as it had to havee from somewhere where there were other beasts around.


    The silence surrounding this ce wasn''t the calm, peaceful kind of silence, but the oppressive, heavy kind that made her feel like she was being watched from every direction.


    The worst thing was the fact that her Spatial Perception didn''t work in this ce, so she couldn''t even tell whether she was being watched or not…


    But even if her sixth sense didn''t work, her other five were still working just fine, and she had sense not a single thing with those either, so despite the eerie feeling that had been bugging her the whole time, she ignored it.


    She didn''t waste time panicking, instead just carrying her leisurely walk on.


    Her idea was that if she walked for long and far enough, then surely she shoulde across some ce new, right?


    After all, they say that the Primordial Expanse is all one infinitelyrge world that is all interconnected, so no matter if two people entered and arrived millions of miles away from each other, they would still be able to meet up eventually if they walked towards the same direction the whole time.


    Considering this factor, Mira had decided that even if she had to walk tens, if not hundreds of thousands of miles, she would make it out of this ce.


    Though, she was hoping it didn''t have toe to that, as surely she woulde across 9 more Variant ss beasts, or 4 Variant sses higher ranked than her, right?


    Well, that was her hope at least.


    And her walk continued on for another five hours, quite boringly for Mira.


    She was beginning to think about whether to call it a night yet, but before she reached that point, she encountered something she was never expecting.


    An edge…


    A cliff edge where there was a steep drop off.


    But even more rming was the fact that Mira could see what was at the bottom, and she didn''t like what she was seeing.


    She turned her attention further past the expansive drop and looked all around her, only to have her suspicions confirmed.


    ''I''m on a floating ind…''


    The reason she came to this conclusion was simple.


    There were at least a dozen other floating inds dotted across the skyline, and those were just the ones she could see.


    Below her, perhaps thousands of kilometres below, was the vastndscape of what Mira assumed was the surface of the Primordial Expanse.


    ''So I''m stuck here then!?''


    But Mira''s highest concern was how she would ever n on getting down…


    If she tried jumping off the edge andnding on the surface below, well… there wouldn''t be much of anding and more of an explosion of blood and meat if she attempted it.


    There was no such thing as terminal velocity in the Primordial Expanse, so if Mira jumped from this height thousands of kilometres above, she would just keep elerating and elerating until she hit the ground hard enough that probably even higher life forms might be severely injured by.


    With this major obstacle blocking her from being able to explore further, she had no idea what to do next.


    Turn around and walk in the other direction?


    What if she just meets the other edge of the ind without encountering another beast?


    What if that Galephant was the only beast to inhabit this entire floating ind…


    ''I''m really fucked if that''s the case…''


    ***


    ''Where could she have gone? What the hell happened to make her simply disappear into thin air!?''


    Alex was utterly confused by theck of any results from his search at all.


    The information he had read from the reports of the missing jump pods stated in full confidence that this 500 kilometre radius area was where they should havended.


    But Alex had explored the whole thing from top to bottom, and found nothing at all.


    This only made things much moreplicated.


    Either the information on the reports was wrong, or those jump pods really had disappeared into thin air.


    But if they did disappear from this cepletely, that only begged the question.


    Where to?


    ''Wait…''


    Alex paused.


    Perhaps the absence of any signs or clues of Mira''s whereabouts was a clue itself.


    He knew Mira''s talent, Call of the Void allowed her to teleport to the Void dimension whenever she liked.


    But he doubted this was the cause of her disappearance.


    For one, she had already told him how dangerous it is for her to use it for extended periods of time, and secondly, she would have alreadye back by this point if she had done so.


    This only left one option in Alex''s mind.


    The Primordial Expanse.


    He didn''t know why Mira would be there, but right now that was his best guess.


    But the fact that there were over a dozen other jump pods missing threw him off a little.


    Unless they all collectively decided to go off the grid and enter the Primordial Expanse at the same time, something fishy was going on.


    Alex considered the possibilities.


    If Mira and the others were in the Primordial Expanse, it wasn''t by choice — it had to be some kind of external force or anomaly.


    But how? And why?


    He didn''t dwell on these questions for long.


    The priority was finding out how to get her back.


    He had no idea what kinds of conditions Mira or the others had been thrown into.


    The sooner he found out, the better.


    With this focus in mind, Alex shifted his attention.


    This whole time, he had only been searching the 500 kilometre radius that had been mentioned in the reports.


    However, now Alex had decided to follow his own n.


    Rather than scanning just this area, he was going to search the whole.


    But before he did that, he needed to do a little bit of research.


    He was in such a haste to make it over to this system and start searching for Mira that he had neglected to do any research about the environment or even what kind of ce he was entering beforehand.


    He knew this was unique as the tactics both sides of the war used were different, but he hadn''t even gotten to experience that yet, as he literally found zero other sentient beings in the vicinity of this area.


    In fact, now that he thought about it, that seemed a little suspicious…