Chapter 169: Dead or Dreaming?

Without raising any questions, every Shadow candidate quickly returned to their huts with a grim feeling rising inside them.

Even the Drakon girl immediately entered her hut, closing the door behind her, leaving only Matrim outside.

He didn’t immediately head to his hut. Instead, he walked quickly to the old man and bowed deeply.

’’Master, my friend has not returned yet.’’ He even thought the old man might not remember him, so he described him. ’’The last one who arrived here on Lord Arthas’s shoulder. The one with golden eyes.’’

He didn’t believe the Drakon girl’s words in the slightest, as he thought Master would know better where he was.

But again, he couldn’t get the answer he wanted.

’’Return to your room.’’

Matrim raised his head, wanting to object and say that he wouldn’t go before finding his friend.

But as he looked into the man’s eyes, his heart trembled slightly.

The old man wasn’t looking at him. He was staring directly at the extinguished campfire.

His eyes were so focused that they seemed to be looking at something beyond anything material, with an incredibly cold and inexorable gaze.

The gaze wasn’t even directed at him, yet Matrim couldn’t force himself to speak. He slowly backed away and finally returned to his hut, closing the door behind him.

The entire place suddenly fell into a deadly silence, with even the sound of the wind completely disappearing.

An unimaginable, malignant feeling descended upon the place, leaving even the Shadow candidates inside their huts frozen in place.

They felt an unexplained fear rising inside them. Even though they were curious, they couldn’t even force their bodies to their feet to peek outside and see what was happening.

They could only stay beside their fireplaces, trying to warm their cold bodies with the flames while holding onto the only source of comfort they had in this feeling of despair.

Meanwhile, Master, who seemed to be waiting for something, finally took his eyes off the extinguished campfire and slowly shifted his gaze toward the dark sky.

There, he watched a large tear slowly form, as if the sky itself were being ripped apart, opening a gate to a realm that reeked of malice and death.

’’What did you actually do to break the entrance like this...’’ His voice trembled slightly as he tried to make sense of what he had witnessed a while ago.

He had been sitting in his hut and watching Magna fall into the pool and disappear inside it.

Unfortunately, his eyes, which could see incredible distances and even see through all matter, were unable to pierce through the pool made entirely of pure mana. He wasn’t able to see what exactly was happening there.

But as soon as Magna fell into the pool, the campfire, which was the seal of the entrance to the Underworld, started to flicker as if it could go out at any moment.

He had first wanted to go and save the boy from being scalded and drowning in the pool, but his first priority was being the guardian of the entrance. He had chosen to stay and observe the fire.

He knew that if the fire went out while he wasn’t there, there would be no one to stop whatever came from there.

The tear in the sky grew wider and wider until it completely covered the sky in darkness.

The old man clenched his fists. His entire body started to swell as his skinny body from a moment ago began to bulk up. The ground beneath his feet started to crack and crumble from his sheer power alone.

He prepared himself for the inevitable fight, as he could sense a presence there, just waiting and watching from above.

It was the first time he had ever faced a situation where he couldn’t see his watcher, yet could feel their gaze upon him.

The feeling was so intense and unbearable that even breathing under it felt painful. The pressure was crushing the old man’s entire body, yet his will never wavered.

Whatever was there, he was ready to stop it or die trying.

Even if he could only buy enough time, it would be enough until the Tower sent reinforcements to seal the entrance again.

Seconds passed, feeling like days to him, and at last, something started to move.

The presence that had been watching him suddenly disappeared. Then, the tear in the sky slowly started to close again.

’’What does this mean?’’ The old man could only mutter before falling to his knees as all the pressure on him suddenly disappeared.

His breath was ragged from holding it for so long, and his entire body was aching from trying to keep all his muscles tense with all his strength.

He hadn’t fought anything at all, yet he felt like he had just been through a life-and-death battle.

Confused and feeling exhausted, he still forced his body back onto its feet and slowly walked toward the extinguished campfire.

He picked up 2 stones from the ground and struck them together, using the last bit of strength left in his arms.

Sparks flew from the stones, falling onto the smoking ashes and reigniting the fire, returning its light and warmth to the settlement.

—

Magna, unaware of what was happening on the surface, was currently experiencing his own shock.

’Green?’ If he could move his body, he would have said the name out loud.

The silver-colored specter floating in front of him had features he knew very well.

He was at least grateful enough to remember the face of the one who had raised him and given her own life so he could live.

He was simply too lost, unable to understand how she could be there in ghost form like this.

Even if that was a ghost form, he wasn’t sure.

Feeling emotional yet curious, he asked in his mind directly, thinking he might get an answer without having to think about it so much.

’Are you a ghost?’

There was no answer, as expected, but after the question, she actually moved.

She raised her skinny arms and wrapped them around his body, giving him a hug.

Though Magna couldn’t physically feel anything, he still felt the familiarity of it.

The feeling was exactly the same as when he felt her holding him in her arms as a baby.

With that nostalgic feeling, he now had no doubts left in his heart.

But that only raised another question in his mind.

’Wait... Am I dead?’

To him, the only reason he could see Green’s ghost would be that he had actually died in the boiling water and was now in the afterlife.

Making his thought seem even more believable, more and more streams of silver light began to appear around him.

Countless silhouettes, some human and some monstrous, began to appear in the water, resembling spirits traveling toward their next life.

They all seemed to be moving in the same direction, toward the bottom of the pool, where Magna continued to sink.

Among them, he even saw another familiar figure approaching him in the form of a silver-colored specter.

’Lady Morrigan? Morrigan Cinder?’

He had never seen the woman apart from her skeleton, but her features were so similar to Renna’s that he was able to recognize her instantly.

He became more and more convinced that he had actually died and was now on his way to the gates of the afterlife, until he saw someone else that made him reconsider.

He saw a bulky man floating downward among countless others not far from him.

At first, he thought he was seeing things wrong, but as the man came closer, he became certain that he knew him.

’Titus?’

Now Magna started to wonder if he had simply fallen asleep and was dreaming, or if Titus had actually died somewhere.