Just then, the world around Luna shifted faster than her mind could even fathom. One moment it was hot enough to make her sweat underneath her suit, the other it was so cold that the brain itself had gone numb.

  She was now staring at a dark sky, surrounded by white snow dots circling her. The sharp wind felt like blunt razor blades cutting her exposed skin. The sound of wind kept cutting across her ears as her long dark hair moved upwards in a wild manner.

  ‘What...is going on…’

  ‘Where am I?’

  Luna stretched out her hand with great effort. As she continued falling from this height, she noticed her arm was covered by a cold layer of ice. She quickly realized that her brain activity was too slow to activate the mental link attached to her spine. The suit wasn’t going to adjust to the conditions if her body didn’t react to the environment.

  If this continued for more than two minutes, the heating system would remain inactive and she would freeze to death before plummeting into whatever the ground was made of.

  And knowing her luck, Luna wasn’t expecting snow to break her fall.

  Gods…Was she really going to die here? Was this her fate?

  Luna stared at the dark clouds and her consciousness started to fade. The layer of ice started to grow even faster as her descent continued. She had almost given up when something within the depth of her soul awakened and her eyes seemed to brighten as she was overcome by the sheer will to survive.

  'I can't die in a place like this.' She clenched her cold hands and forced her mind to wake up. 'Not when I am so close to the truth.'

  There was a renewed spark in her mind and the nano-mites that protected her body reacted to the environment. The suit’s core increased its power output and started supplying her body with enough heat to awaken some of her awareness. Her blue lips gained some color and her thoughts were now running as her blood started flowing to her brain. She was still short of breath but at least dying from hypothermia wasn’t on the list.

  ‘Where’s Valentine? How were we suddenly teleported despite being so far away?’ Her mind didn’t spare her a second as multiple questions bombarded her consciousness.

  Then…

  Kraak!

  Without warning, Luna heard the sound of ice breaking when her body plummeted into a thick ice surface. She felt a great deal of her bones shatter before she was immediately submerged in the cold water underneath the surface and coughed out a great deal of blood as she began to swallow a lot of water.

  The suit had done its best to protect the vital organs but it felt like her mind was flickering on and off as she held onto her life which felt like a weak thread at this point.

  Despite the pain coursing through her tiny body, Luna gathered the little strength she had managed to swim up with one hand. She emerged from the cold black water and gasped for air. The air left a bitter taste in her mouth and a sharp pain in her lungs but that’s fine.

  She desperately reached for one of the floating ice blocks and clanged onto it as if her life depended on it.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  She continued to hold onto the block for some time, and then she let the suit do the rest by heating her. Very Soon, her fingers regained their color and her eyes started to move and take in her surroundings.

  “Crap…” Luna cursed weakly when she realized she was—in the middle of a frozen water body. The rest of her surroundings, well…was blanketed by a twilight darkness and a powerful snow blizzard. The winds carried most of the snow, obscuring the little visibility she had left.

  Once she felt some of her strength return, Luna climbed up the ice block and threw her body on the surface of the ice block. She looked up at the dark cloudy sky. Her breaths were ragged due to the extreme cold and the hypoxia she had just experienced while she was falling. Her lungs were also taking some time to adjust to the cold air of this world.

  ‘I guess Gail was right about appearing in weird places.’

  With a thought, a black helmet formed over her head and her display changed showing her a full body status and diagnosis. She wasn’t surprised to see that she was in a terrible condition, her right arm was dislocated. Parts of her spine were cracked and some ribs had attained a good deal of damage after breaking the ice with her back.

  ‘Damn it…damn it all.’ She cried out while staring at the display.

  What exactly had happened? Why were they suddenly transported to the second floor?

  A dark thought crossed her mind as she waited for the suit’s heating function to go fully online. Though it was far from the realm of possibility, she could've become a prisoner of this place. She was getting close to the truth, after all.

  Being suddenly dragged to this world only confirmed that she was right about some foreign force pulling the strings of everything that led her to this tower. All of this no longer felt like a coincidence. Why did Oblivion only pull her into his space? Why was it only her who found the temple?

  “Something happened on that train.”

  Yes, something must have happened there to initiate this cycle of events. She needed to remember.

  Corruption and Raphael were probably trying to stop her from getting into the Crimson Tower because she was the anomaly that worried Corruption.

  But in what way was she a threat to someone as powerful as Corruption? Was it her knowledge about qi or something entirely different?

  Luna wondered.

  ‘Whatever it is, it’s connected to what happened on my way to Hansho. It's connected to the stars….’

  “That makes me an enemy of someone like Corruption.”

  A creepy smile appeared on her face before she broke into mad laughter. She laughed at the top of her voice but the blizzard was loud enough to hide her mad laughter with the whistling wind.

  She was now unsure of her fate in this place and the real world. If she lived through the challenges of this tower and made it out alive, then she would be the anomaly Corruption is trying to get rid of.

  So…

  Luna needed to get stronger to protect herself and the people close to her. It was the only way.

  After some time, her body temperature returned to normal and her breaths became more controlled. Her thoughts came down cleared and she was finally able to move perfectly.

  Luna used her good hand to row her way to the edge of the ice surface, reached for the icy surface, and climbed over to it. The ice was thick enough to hold her entire weight so she wasn’t worried about it at the moment.

  She stood up and scanned the environment with her helmet on. Even with the helmet peering through some parts of the frozen seemed difficult despite the night vision too. Her infrared scanners also picked up no heat signature which wasn’t surprising for a world ruled by magic and disobeyed what humans considered normal.

  “I’m sorry Len but I guess I still have business here.”

  She observed the blizzard around her for a moment. Beyond this point, there was a high chance she was going to go against cursed creatures and other horrors on her own. She bit onto her lower lip and fixed her right arm into position. This was a first-time experience so the pain from this action could only be described as excruciating for a brief moment.

  She could've waited but fighting with one arm would be difficult, especially in her current state.

  Once that was done, the first thing Luna needed to do was get off the surface of a frozen water body and then locate the others. She turned on the navigation for the first time since she entered the dungeon. But was surprised when received an unexpected response from the nanosuit.

  [This function is unavailable]

  She stared blankly at the red words on her display. ‘Why did I think technology would work in a place like this?’ Luna sighed and began her glorious trek across the frozen surface.

  The ice crunched under her boots as she entered the blizzard and began her search for land through the darkness. Since the night vision seemed useless, she was now relying on her qi sense to navigate and sense for any enemies. Her only weapon was a black enchanted dagger.

  Unfortunately, Rita wasn’t skilled enough to repair her original weapon so she left with its pieces to have it repaired when she returned to Main Command outside of the tower.

  So, for now, this enchanted dagger passed on to her by Monic was her only weapon in this world. Honestly, an ordinary enchanted dagger wasn’t enough for someone like her. But this dagger, the Poison Sin was a powerful one and made from the skin of a cursed tyrant that appeared in the southern settlement a few years ago.

  The blade didn’t look much, but it contained two impressive enchantments. One made the blade very sharp and tough, while the second delivered a powerful toxin capable of incapacitating a tyrant and killing anything below its rank.

  The toxin was part of the tyrant’s ability so that made the blade even more special because copying a creature’s ability into a weapon was extremely difficult and needed to be done within a specific time frame.

  Nevertheless, Luna wasn’t going to let herself die in a place like this.

  Also, there had to be a reason why she was the only one Oblivion had exposed his truth to and why the tower decided to keep her.