Afterlife Dream

My whole life -- that being said, my whole life in the Afterlife Dream realm -- passed before my eyes as I fell from the height.

In my head, I kept screaming the words that failed to come out of my throat.

"I don't want to die!"

"I don't want to die yet!"

Desperation mixed with hopelessness often generated unexpected strength. While I was falling with increasing velocity toward an unknown dark pit, I suddenly remembered that I could fly.

"Angel Wings!!" I shouted finally. My loyal pair of wings quickly unfurled its majestic self and carried me up with vigorous flapping movements. I was completely drenched in cold sweat.

Angel Wings carried me upward and I was finally free from the clutch of darkness that almost swallowed me whole. I looked for the Fairy Forest port map, but I could not find it. No, it was not that I couldn't find it. I did not know which one it was. I was flying in a vast and completely foreign space with a lot of two-dimensional shiny portals that were randomly scattered in the space. These portals had the appearance of white vortex that shone with blueish light.

The portals were connected in pairs through brick bridges. Like the bridges that we were trying to build to connect to the Fairy Forest.

For a moment, I was in awe at the sight before my eyes. So this was the real appearance of the Afterlife Dream universe. I gingerly stepped on a random bridge and looked around me. Maybe there was some kind of instruction? A legend? I opened my user interface screen but it showed me a dark screen. There was nothing. I tapped on it impatiently but I still could not conjure even a single button. I had to go back to the Afterlife Dream realm. Any portal was as good as the other, so I just arbitrarily picked the one on my right side.

When I arrived in front of the portal, I swallowed hard. For my own protection, I buffed myself up before crossing the portal. Then I closed my eyes and let myself be engulfed by the blinding light.

Once I opened my eyes again, I found myself in a familiar and nostalgic place. It was Marsh City, but it was a lot more crowded than I remembered. Kitty did not lie when she said that new players kept coming while the space was getting more and more sparse.

I stood there in a daze for a while, trying to recover from what just happened until some low-level players noticed me and shrieked out of surprise.

"OH MY GOD A LEVEL 90 HIGH PRIEST!"

"EVERYONE, COME CLOSE, THERE IS A LEVEL 90 HIGH PRIEST OVER HERE!"

I was soon surrounded by a bunch of curious low-level players, who treated me like some rare animal in a zoo.

To my greatest relief, Kitty and Wolfhound soon showed up. They were shocked but also very happy to see me.

"Antares oh my God, what happened? How are you here???"

Before I managed to answer, a lot of dinging sounds came from my user interface screen which was reactivated again upon my entry back to the Afterlife Dream world. A lot of messages flooded my screen. I answered the one from Aurendiria first.

"Oh my God. Antares, where are you? Are you well? Are you hurt? What happened???"

"I am fine. I am in Marsh City right now."

"WHAT???"

A lot of people wished to speak to me, so I went to the Global Market section with Kitty and Wolfhound. A bunch of my guildmates already gathered there, and they were huddled in groups. Ingenious and ArrowRain were discussing in a low voice some distance apart from the others. They were the first ones to see me. Blatant astonishment was written all over their faces as they sized me up and down as if they did not expect me to show up in one piece at all. Frankly, that was not surprising. I did not expect to be able to come back either.

Ingenious grabbed me by my shoulder and pulled me close. "Antares. Man. Auren said that you somehow managed to cross the barrier at the end of the Fairy Forest port. And then she completely lost you. Our messages didn't go through, just like when we tried to..."

"ANTARES!"

Aurendiria, who was sitting on one of the market platforms surrounded by Cecilia and HellWitch, finally noticed me. She jumped to her feet and went to hug me. She almost tackled me off my feet.

"Auren... oof..."

Aurendiria kept sobbing on my shoulder.

"I was so scared. You suddenly disappeared like that. I didn't know what to do. It was so scary."

Ingenious peeled Aurendiria off me with much effort. "There, there. Auren, let the boy go so he can tell us what happened."

My friends and guildmates fell into silence as I told them what happened after I accidentally crossed the invisible shield, and what I saw once I managed to fly back up. I knew that my story was unbelievable. Everyone stared at me while I told the story and they kept staring at me long after I finished.

"That was quite an adventure, Antares," ZhaoYun broke the silence. The others nodded in agreement.

"But why was Antares able to cross the barrier?" DragonTalon asked.

Well, I might have an answer for that. "I believe the key is the Angel Wings. Without it, surviving is impossible because players will just fall from the edges."

"Possibly," HellWitch nodded. "We should investigate. It was a fortunate coincidence. Should we ask around for people who happen to have Angel Wings?"

"Antares said that there were many bridges. Most likely if he went through the bridges one by one, he might discover the half-built Spring Blossom Bridge and Enchanted Beauty Bridge."

A wave of relief flooded everyone's heart.

"Finally. Finally, we have a clue about what was happening. We should go investigate the unknown space full of portals!"

"After the second invasion," Cecilia reminded. "It is almost time. Someone should remind the players not to trade their Dimensional Points yet."

"I'll do that," Kitty quickly said. She started typing vigorously on her user interface screen. Before long, a warning message was repeated three times in the world chat.

"REMINDER TO EVERYONE, PLEASE DO NOT TRADE YOUR DIMENSIONAL POINTS YET UNTIL THE BUG IS FIXED! OTHERWISE, PLEASE PARTICIPATE IN THE EVENT AS USUAL."

"Um, Antares," Livina stepped to my side. "Did you, uh, did you see anyone else inside?"

I knew who she was talking about. There was only one other person who had gone missing so far. I was not able to use my user interface screen when I was in the mysterious space, and no one was able to contact me.

I cleared my dry throat. "I did not stay long enough to look around. There might be someone else in there."

"That is good, right?" Livina asked, looking at everyone one by one. "BlackPuma might just be there."

"But BlackPuma disappeared after he entered the level 150 raid, Judgment of Dimensional Master," HellWitch pointed out. "Unless he somehow fell off the edge of the map while fighting the final boss."

"Look, until recently we had no idea that people could even cross the map barrier. Maybe BlackPuma did fall off the edge of the map."

"Oh no, did he...?"

Cecilia shook her head. "Everyone, let's not forget that maybe only those with Angel Wings could cross the barrier. And if BlackPuma indeed crossed the barrier somehow, he would have used Angel Wings to went back to the maps, just like what Antares did."

Aurendiria nodded in agreement.

"Besides, he had been away for such a long time. If he really went into the same space, he would have come back a long time ago. I think he's somewhere else."

"Never mind," ZhaoYun said. "Let's just find out the people who have Angel Wings and send them over to investigate the situation beyond the barrier. Also to find out the issue with the NPC bug."

Ingenious looked at me. "Antares, we will find out the people who can go with you to investigate the space. Until then, why don't you join the event from Marsh City? I don't think it is wise to get back in there to find the way back to the advanced maps."

I agreed. It was too risky. I would rather not do that.

The theory about Angel Wings and their hidden ability to cross the barrier was not yet proven, so everyone discreetly asked around for those who had Angel Wings. By the time the second invasion was finished, six other people were found and they agreed to go beyond the barrier with me. Two of them were Cecilia and Kitty. We were all on different maps, so we were going to cross the barrier from different locations. I made a suggestion to cross while flying in order to not fall down the map like I did.

Kitty took my hand and nodded with eyes full of determination. We thus let our Angel Wings carry us and crossed through the barrier of Marsh City.