I walked the very same corridors I once did before. I didn't want to relieve this nostalgic feeling again.

It was warm inside so I had to stop my blood reactions and even take off the jacket.

It was normal. And there was still ice here and there. But last time there was more ice. 'Maybe it's a different cave but looks similar?'

There was a possibility but as I moved further and further, I got all sorts of doubts.

I reached a room. I knew this room pretty well. It was the same room Clyde got eaten. I guess this answered my previous question.

But there was a difference, the floor was actually melted this time around. Behind me was a small passage with little snow and in front of me, was an ice lake, totally melted.

I looked around carefully, and sure enough, there weren't any passages in the room. Which only meant one thing. 'I have to dive?'

I did not like the idea. 'I think I could live without a good saber.'

But once I did turn around, thoughts came to my mind. 'Coward. You're a coward.'

They weren't my thoughts. I guess the shadow was just quiet all day. But now even he felt like belittling me. But he did have a point. I came all this way, claiming I could just do this on my own, but the moment things went south, I turned tails. He was right- I was a coward.

But I couldn't be a coward forever.

I took off my shirt, I took off my pants. And though there wasn't anyone here who could have seen me naked, I still didn't take off my underwear. I sighed and stared at the water. It looked cold.

I touched the water with my toe. A shiver went down my whole body. This was definitely cold.

But my mind was made up. I took deep breaths and controlled my breathing. I could hold my breath for a minute and a half. But with the freezing water into the equation, and possible encounters with Mutors and stuff, I had to make sure, I didn't start panicking underwater. I also regulated my body heat.

"This is a bad idea." I really didn't want to do this, but at this point, there was no backing down. 'Here goes nothing.'

I jumped with just my underwear on, and saber hanging from it.

***

COLD!

Cold, was an understatement! It was freezing. Every single hair on my frigging body was up and my heart was screaming at me until it finally calmed down and my diving reflexes kicked in.

There wasn't much light in here and so I had to make a bit of plasma just to see things around me. There wasn't anybody around, so I didn't care about letting radiation ooze out.

And using the plasma also meant I had to expand a lot of energy, but at least I was getting heat and light out of it. My feet were still freezing though.

I'd been underwater for almost a minute already, but I didn't see anything. So I went back up.

"Whoah!" I breathed rapidly. But my heart was calm. Darkness stretched quite far down there. So I didn't know where to go and I didn't even know if this was the right place or not. But after getting this far, wasting this much time and effort I refused to give up.

So without a doubt, I dived again.

I went to almost the bottom of the floor, the water was pressing quite solidly on my skin. This was seawater and from the looks of it, there were fish around. But I didn't see any passage that led anywhere: I also didn't see any Mutors around either. It was plain empty. But I did feel the water slightly being warm. I tried moving left from right and vice versa.

I got up again. Took another breath and repeated the process.

Given my body's shivers, it was close to its limits, if this didn't work, then I'd have been forced to get up whether I liked it or not.

But I did feel a bit of heat coming from the west side. So this time, I headed straight for that side and sure enough there was a small passage, leading further inside.

A black passage which screamed, 'bad things will happen if you go in'.

I went in.

The passage kept on going. It was round in shape and quite wide just a bit inside. It almost felt like this was manmade. But I didn't have time to worry about that and I didn't have enough oxygen left either. Actually, I was already suffocating. I should have gone back and taken another breath before heading straight through.

Damn!

With every flap, I felt like passing out. My chest was cold, and my body was freezing. And the plasma was also dwindling.

I saw no end to the hole. But I didn't have any energy left. So in a last-ditch effort, I slammed the plasma ball as hard as I could to use it as propulsion. But as expected, it wasn't enough.

My vision blurred and everything started to become black. 'Maybe it was a bad idea to come alone.' I saw light in front of me, but I couldn't reach it. I felt like my body didn't move anymore.

As my last breath escaped my mouth, I drowned.

'Sigh* I'll take care of it.' The water around me boiled and before I knew it, I passed out.

***

Water dripped.

My eyes fluttered before finally opening.

There was chatter around me. Some sort of unknown language. I didn't understand it and it felt weird. I felt like I'd heard that chatter before and I also felt like this was the first time. What was going on?

Drip!

A drop of cold water dropped on my chest and I jumped awake.

Whoa, that was cold!

And not to mention I was still naked.

But when I did get up and took a look, I wished, I hadn't. "What the hell is this?"

As the faint words escaped my lips, I got stares. I got all sorts of stares. But these weren't human stares, rather, in front of me were hundreds, no thousands of Mutors. They were going about their own day. Some were even on two legs, wearing clothes.

"Com Comrad," A lizard on two feet came walking over my way with a brown cloth.

For a second I kind of panicked and moved back. But behind me was a wall of nice.

'What the hell is this?'

"Don afraid comrade." He raised his hands over his head and showed his teeth. Was that supposed to be a smile? Because it was more than just terrifying.

He looked like an alligator standing up on two feet and he was in tattered clothes.

"Can't you see you're scaring him?" Another one came towards us. This was a girl and she was also on two legs. But she wasn't quite lizard-like. She looked fairly human, even the face. But she was covered in small scales.

But more importantly, her English was almost perfect.

"You must be freezing." The girl dropped the cloth on me and sat down near me. She was actually taller than me.

If I wasn't perplexed before, I was definitely flabbergasted now.

"Seriously, what the hell is going on? Where the hell am I?"

"You're in Nelbound, the sanctuary."

"Nelbound?" I still felt groggy and my head hurt but I grabbed the cloth and wrapped it around me. It was better than walking around in nothing. I got up, looked around. The stares coming in my direction vanished and people just went on their way. Only two people were with me, the lizard and the girl with scales.

Wait, scales… I looked at her feet. And surprise, she didn't have feet. 'Shit.'

She was a snake through and through.

Just because she was tall, I'd just assumed she had feet, but she didn't.

"What?" The girl looked at me with confusion and a bit of a half-smile.

"Nothing." I couldn't be rash about this. 'If they're sentiment, then I shouldn't risk treating them as normal Mutors.' I cleared my thoughts. "What is Nelbound and who are you, people?"

"More importantly-" The lizard grabbed my hands. "How did you procure such wondrous skin? I've been alive for thirty years already, but even I haven't got such wondrous skin!" He licked his lips. "You're almost like the three gods!"

'Wait, what?'

Skin, gods? What?

What did age had to do with skin?

I didn't know why but confusion sure was a mysterious thing. It was literally screwing me over tenfold since I woke up.

But there was something that was also troubling me. Even just moments ago, I had trouble understanding these people. And now, I was talking to them just fine. It wasn't like they were talking in English or something, but sure enough, I could understand them better than before.

I knew they were speaking a different language and yet, it just felt natural.

'Is it because I'm half Kin? But wasn't that part sealed too?'

I did understand one thing though that I didn't know shit.