Abyssal Awakening

A sense of weightlessness overwhelmed her mind as she realised that she was now falling through the sky!

\'S-Sh*t!\'

Looking around her, she noticed a city in the distance.

Despite the darkness that surrounded the Abyss, this city stood bathed in radiant light. Throughout the city, hues of white and gold decorated the houses while a band of celestial blue light flowed through the streets like a silken banner.

At the centre of the city stood a grand castle, its architecture resembling that of a sacred cathedral with a single crest carved into the centre. The crest of a moon surrounded by a halo of spikes or rather in this case, the glow from the moon.

Its walls, crafted from pristine white stone seemed to radiate a divine aura while overlooking the city below.

Looking at this city, a sense of nostalgia, longing and sadness overwhelmed her heart as tears flowed from the corner of her eyes.

"Dammit! This is no time to think about this crap!" The biggest danger right now was that she was about to fall to her death!

Making a cut on her arm, she tried to manipulate the blood around her but something seemed to interfere with her control of the Sigil.

Widening her eyes, Alice realised that she couldn\'t use her powers to save herself!

With the ground coming closer and closer, Alice gritted her teeth and looked at her gloves.

\'F*ck it! If it breaks then it breaks!\'

Installing the thread as fast as possible, she flicked her wrist and sent the hoot towards a tree that was quite far from her landing spot.

Her goal was to reel herself in and redirect her movement from falling to swinging horizontally!

As the mechanism pulled the thread back, Alice could hear the stress being put into the device but there was no time to worry about that.

Holding onto the gloves with her spare hand in order to distribute the force to her arms and shoulder rather than just her right shoulder, Alice held her breath and pulled as hard as she could.

*BANG!!!!

Swinging herself using the thread, she crashed against the ground at a diagonal angle and rolled across the dirt. The mechanism in the gloves could not handle the sudden force and broke apart while Alice tried her best to reduce the injuries she would sustain.

Once she slowed down, she lay in the pit of her own making. The dirt crumbled around her and fell onto her outfit.

Spitting out some stray dirt that landed in her mouth, Alice looked up at the sky and let out a deep sigh.

"First Kaden threw me into the gods dammed Abyss Waters and now Xinbei\'s teleporter sent me into the sky where I can\'t even use my Sigils. No wonder people don\'t like to use the teleporters." Alice complained in annoyance.

Reaching into her pouch, she wanted to see how many vials of blood were still intact from her fall. Since she needed the healing vials, she made sure to protect the pouch to avoid the vials shattering.

Out of her stock of 10, only 6 remained. 3 vials of healing, 1 vial of berserk and one vial of her own blood. But considering what happened during the fall, she wasn\'t sure if her own blood was still useful in this regard.

Shaking her head, she grabbed one of the healing vials and drank the contents in one go.

However, contrary to what she expected, the blood stopped working after a brief moment. It wasn\'t her body acting up either, the effects simply disappeared.

\'Is there something blocking the Abyss here?\' Alice thought with a frown.

Reaching into her jacket, Alice paused after remembering the orb and vial of blood Xinbei had given her broke apart just before she teleported.

Meaning she was stranded here.

None of her group members were around her, she was on her own.

Climbing out of the pit she created, Alice glanced back and looked at the trail of destruction caused by her landing.

Seeing the ground being dug up from her impact, her smile twitched.

She was grateful that each Sigil would passively reinforce her body without her needing to drink vials of Abyss Blood. After all, if she tried to survive that fall with her feeble physique from before she got her Sigils, even if she swung herself at the last moment, she would be a blood smear on the ground.

Dusting off the dirt on her dress, Alice needed to figure out where she was right now and how she could leave the Inverted World.

\'Xinbei said that this is a reflection of the past. A passageway. If that\'s the case then there are probably people around here as well. I doubt they\'ll take it kindly if I told them they\'re a fragment of the past.\' Alice mused to herself.

Climbing up a tree, Alice could see the strange city in the distance. To her right was a river, to her left were plains and some small villages while behind her was a main road that connected everything together.

So far, she hadn\'t seen anyone walk by.

Without her hood, she looked somewhat like an aristocrat, if you ignored the dirt on her body. Frilled white shirt, a bow tie, a black skirt, stockings and shoes.

In the end, she decided to go to the river for now and clean some of the dirt from her body. She couldn\'t do much about her outfit but she could at least keep herself clean.

While she was making her way to the river, Alice wanted to see what was skill possible and what wasn\'t.

Her first Sigil and third Sigil were \'sealed\'. Same with her blood control.

However, her flames were still available.

\'Is it because my flames go against the Abyss? That would explain why I can use the flames but not the blood control my second Sigil also provides.\' Alice thought to herself.

Looking at the gloves and broken sword, a bitter smile formed on her face.

"Seems like it\'s just us two again." She muttered while holding up her obsidian bracelet.

Seeing this bracelet, a thought came to her mind as she immediately rummaged through her jacket and found Kaden\'s feather along with Allura\'s amulet. But both of these items felt lifeless and lacked the energy from before.

\'Urg… It\'s not that easy huh?\' Alice had thought that she could\'ve found an easy way out using their help.

Looking at her reflection, everything seemed to be normal. Cayla inhabited her right eye socket while her left was same as usual. Split hair and the crown that floated above her head that refused to disappear.

It was a little conspicuous but there was nothing she could do about it.

After giving herself a quick wash, experimented with her flames and how she could use it.

Just like before, her flames manifested from her body and blood. While she couldn\'t use her blood control, her blood beads and vials of blood could still act as a catalyst for her fire.

Not only that, but the obsidian blade could still drink her blood and combust into a blade of flames.

\'At least I can defend myself to some extend if things get rough.\'

Since her flames could still be used, it meant that she could activate her Void Flux and void Flux – Cleave. In the case of Void Flux, she\'ll be using her beads as bombs since she would rather not detonate something this dangerous right next to her.

Once she was happy with the tools available to her for now, Alice glanced towards the city in the distance. If she wanted to figure out where she was, her best bet would be the city ahead of her.

###

"Lua, can you help me order the knights? Something dropped down around half a day\'s journey away from the city." A man asked while sitting behind a desk.

Kaden was currently writing some documents allocating some resources around the city.

"Again? How many times has it been now urg…" Allura replied with a groan. She laid on the sofa while pushing all of her work to Kaden.

"If you want to make it go faster there is always the option of checking out the situation yourself."

Hearing this, Allura sat up and shook her head.

"Nope. I\'ll go let the knights know. Which squad should we send?"

"Just send the scouting squad. We don\'t know what it is yet and strangely, I can\'t make out its form. It\'s like a weird mist is covering their body."

"Wait… Even with your authority you can\'t make out its form?" Allura widened her eyes in surprise while the Kaden simply nodded.

"Just send the scouting party for now. Don\'t let them engage in a fight unless it can be avoided. If you want to watch, you can. Try not to cause a mess." He smiled softly while looking at Allura who nodded her head and gave him a salute.

"Roger~ Can you make me some cake when I come back then? I need to replenish my nutrients."

"From walking?" Kaden raised his eyebrow.

"Effort is effort. I\'ll go deal with this quickly, be right back~" Allura chuckled while hopping out of the room.

Seeing this, Kaden simply shook his head and looked at the pile of documents left to him.

If he wanted to make her the cake she wanted then he\'ll need to hurry up and finish all of this.