The moon felt like it was closer. Was that something that could happen? She didn’t really understand how other planets would work and wasn’t sure if she should feel worried or not. It certainly seemed dangerous, but then again, it might just be a common occurrence. The thread she saw connecting herself to the moon was even more frightening than seeing something that enormous slowly close in on you. Just as Jill was contemplating what to do next, another puppet jumped out at her. This one she saw fully. It had formed from one of the trees and lashed out at her, all in one motion. She teleported away easily and watched as more puppets started emerging from the trees. Quickly turning, she started running again. The music was still there too, despite how far away from the source she moved.

Something was wrong. There shouldn’t be dungeons like this one. One that was designed to be so unfair. A single touch from the puppets was all it would take, and she knew that no one else would have been able to survive as long as she had. Mash and Luke would’ve been completely hopeless. Although she didn’t really know how Red’s magic would affect the situation. She could turn her body to blood, and Jill didn’t know if the puppets would be able to change that into wood. Thinking about that, she grew increasingly worried.

This dungeon would be impossible for Mash and Luke. She felt the fear seep in. Imagining her friends dying, without anyone ever knowing how was more frightening than seeing herself die repeatedly. She pushed the thoughts out of her mind, focusing on keeping her mind focused on the task at hand. The system she had formed to fight through the horrifying images would fall apart if she started worrying about the others. She could embrace her visions of herself but couldn’t help but imagine her friends in the same situations. Their death worried her more than her own.

As she learned more about her abilities, she started having recurring nightmares. Plenty of them had contained visions of her death but many more had the opposite. She had this surreal fear that she would be alive alone. That everyone else would die and leave her alone. For a long time, she had felt like she was falling behind the others. Recently, it had been the opposite. She was scared of getting more power, but she knew that she couldn’t avoid it. The others would pursue it, and the only way she could protect them was by doing the same. They had stuck with her, helped her clear her family’s debt, and even got them a formal pardon. She owed them for everything she had now, for the freedom she was able to enjoy.

Her friends had seen her nonsensical and apathetic attitude. She knew that they assumed that she was becoming arrogant and was going to make a careless mistake. They were wrong though, she needed to act like that. To embrace dangerous situations and embrace the images of her own death. To see it and react accordingly. It was her way of fighting, of protecting the others. She grimaced, dodging another puppet as another image flashed into her mind. Taking the trial was a stupid plan. They should’ve just hunted down a criminal or something. At least that way she wouldn’t need to worry about them so much. If she finished her trial, she might get a better teleport. Could she get something that would let her go to her friends?

Her determination to complete the dungeon increased and she glanced up towards the moon again. Her initial instincts had been to remain on the ground, but she needed something to change if she hoped to finish the trial soon. She let her wings sprout from her back and lifted off the ground. She had cut holes into her clothes to allow for her wings. Honestly, the fact that Mash hadn’t thought about that was just like him. He never seemed to consider the smaller details, only ever focusing on whatever was immediately in front of him. Although that did make him stupidly honest and easy to read, and she liked that about him.

As her wings picked up the wind, she teleported up into the air. Once she was floating in the air, she glanced down, to look at the entire forest. She saw no end to it no matter how far she looked. The moon sill hung overhead, but her focus was drawn to the skies themselves. It was colder up in the air and there was a wind that she hadn’t felt while on the ground. She spotted some clouds in the distance, but the majority of the skies were empty. There was some movement to her right. A group of birds was flying around, dozens of them moving towards her in a swarm. It took her a second to process what she was looking at. They were not simple birds.

The creatures looked more like fish than birds. They were slightly round with scales instead of feathers. Large fins seemed to act as wings for them to fly. None of that bothered her much. It was the strange teeth she noticed that truly disturbed her. They looked like human teeth. The distinct contrast made for one of the most revolting creatures she had ever seen. As the monsters closed the distance, she simply waited for them to arrive. She wanted to get a vision, to see how the strange creatures would attack. Her skill was most valuable for gathering information, and she braced herself for the images. Even though no one was around, she forced herself to smile.

The image was simple the fish would swarm her taking bites out of her like a pack of hounds. They were the size for it too. Even the smallest of the fish was as big as her arm. She teleported again, dodging to the right as a group of fishes swarmed over where she had been standing. She raised her palm towards the group and warped the space around them. The skill was supposed to give her full control of space now, but she just didn’t understand how it worked. Space was too far beyond her understanding, and her attempts to alter it usually resulted in an explosion. The group of fishes exploded blood and pieces of fish sprayed over the forest below.

It looked like she had made a mistake. In the distance, she saw clouds approaching her. At least she had thought they were clouds initially. Now she recognized what she was looking at. The white somewhat reflective scales had become recognizable. It looked like an endless wave of the fish-like monsters. She had no doubts that she wouldn’t have the mana needed to fight something like that. She could head back down to the puppets, but all that would do was buy her some time. She could dodge the puppets endlessly, but that probably wouldn’t help her complete the trial.

She looked up at the moon again. her resolve slowly becoming firmer as she noticed the thread tying her to it. She didn’t know what to expect up there, but it was better than fighting a forest of puppets, or an ocean of man-fish. Her mouth felt dry as she took a deep breath. She knew that air grew less plentiful the higher up one went, and she wanted to make sure she had as much as she could carry. Then she attempted to teleport to the moon.

It failed. She moved higher up, but the moon was still a good distance away. Trying again, she tried using her mana to strengthen the teleport. While she hadn’t had the same mana control as Luke or Mash, she had used her teleportation skill often. Such frivolous use of the skill let her gain some understanding of how it worked. She was able to feel how her mana reacted to the teleport. This time something different happened, and she felt like something had collided with her. Rather, she was bounced back as if the moon had pushed her back down. Was there a barrier around the moon?

Her mind raced with the possibilities, but ultimately, she decided to just try and smash through it. Once again, she held her hand towards the moon. The skill was supposed to let her manipulate space, not just cause it to explode. She should be able to make a path through the barrier. Rather than an instantaneous burst, she used the skill continuously. Unlike Mash, she didn’t have a way to sense the barrier like his domain and just had to keep trying to teleport through it. Even while using her skill, she tried to force the teleport. Then she heard something crack, and her eyes went wide as the moon itself broke apart. Cracks spread from she had been targeting her spell until the moon looked like a broken plate.

A second later the pieces started falling apart, and everything seemed to contort violently. Her eyes quickly swam around the space, and another image flashed into her mind. This one was horrifying. She had seen the whole world collapsed in on itself, the warping of space tearing her body into chunks. She looked up past the cracks to whatever lay beyond. She saw nothing there. It was as if nothing at all existed there, and she teleported into it, desperate to avoid a collapsing world. Her vision blurred, and she realized that it was the very space itself that was blurring.

Then she appeared in complete darkness and turned to see the world collapse in on itself. it kept shrinking until nothing remained of it. Her eyes drifted down, and a shiver ran through her spine. All the hairs on her body were standing on end. Had she just destroyed a world? Was that something she could even do? Even more frightening than the image of herself was her abilities. She had known messing with space would be dangerous, but actually destroying a world didn’t seem possible.

It took her a while to move on from the thought, but she eventually refocused on her situation. She was in complete darkness, though she could hear a strange sound. It reminded her of the sounds she would hear when her mother worked on an item. The slow and repetitive clicks and scratches that only a craftsman would make. Her body started drifting toward the sound automatically. She wondered if she was losing her mind. Her movements were stopped as she ran into something. It had been hard and cold. She ran her hand along the smooth surface and was surprised to feel something metallic. At least, that was what it seemed like.

She opened her storage space, grabbing one of the lighting devices her mother had made. It was a simple enough design. It was like a lantern, but she used glass to magnify the light so that it could light up a much greater space. It looked like a glass dome connected to a chain. She grabbed the chain and poured a small amount of mana into it. The item needed a small amount of mana to get started but it would be able to run on the ambient mana of the environment after that. Jill wondered if it would work in this space but was glad to see the light grow brighter.

Eventually, the light grew bright enough that she was able to look around again. The thing she had felt earlier seemed to be a metal bar. Instantly, she understood what she was looking at. It was a cage of some kind, and she could see more bars to her right and left. They were wide enough apart that she could sneak by easily, but she remained frozen as she noticed where the sounds were coming from.

She saw someone or something in the distance. It was sitting at a large desk and was completely draped in long robes. The creature’s face was covered, but she could identify a feminine body. It reminded her of her grandmother, but that didn’t make sense considering the size of those fingers. The creature’s hand was easily bigger than Jill's. It could easily crush her with those enormous hands. Jill attempted to cover the light as the monster stirred, but it was too late. The monster had turned, seeming to notice Jill for the first time.