Lucia was lured away by Thunder King Po for a duel. They fought. These are logical happenings. Thunder King Po broke through his bottleneck after being subjected to Lucia’s Despairing Blade. That also makes sense; he could’ve been one step away but needed some external stimulus to hone his mentality. What doesn’t make sense is what happened next. I’m not even sure what happened. Logically, there should’ve been a tribulation, and Thunder King Po should’ve been struck by lightning a few times. He would’ve succeeded or failed, and afterwards, Lucia would’ve smote him with her hammer, ending his brief stint as an immortal. However, that’s not what happened at all.

A white hand came out from the tribulation clouds and grabbed Lucia and Thunder King Po. It disappeared back into the clouds, and everything returned back to normal. Lucia and Thunder King Po were gone. The tribulation clouds were gone. Even the two doors leading to the immortal realm were gone. All that was left was a life pouch on the ground with a confused phoenix head sticking out of it. Did a supreme immortal forcibly transfer Lucia to the immortal realm? I’m not sure. Perhaps it’s a phenomenon that occurs when a third immortal door is about to appear in a dimension? It’s entirely possible that this lower dimension is incapable of keeping three doors open. They’re powered by something after all. If that’s the case, that really ruins my plans of cultivating a thousand immortals, doesn’t it?

Alright, the fact of the matter is Lucia’s gone. I can still slightly modify my plans, have the army breakthrough at the same time to enter the immortal realm collectively. Without Lucia though, my greatest deterrent is lost. She even left Sophia behind. I have ten minds to think about this with, but all of them have headaches after just a few seconds of thinking. What am I supposed to do now?

***

So this is the immortal realm. I thought it would take a lot longer to come here, but who knew something like that would happen? I was playing dumb, lying where Lucia left me, but before I knew it, I was transferred back into my weapon body and taken away. How do I know this is the immortal realm? I can feel it! The qi, no, the spiritual energy around me is so bountiful.

“Durandal…?”

“Lucia.”

“You can speak!?” Lucia’s eyes widened, and she tackled me, hugging me tight. Surprisingly, my body didn’t break. It only creaked a bit, and I’m sure I developed a few bruises. “You’re fixed! You’re really fixed! It’s great that you’re fixed! Now, help me out here. Where the heck are we?” Before I could say anything, Lucia shook her head and let go of me. “Never mind. You wouldn’t know. You’ve been braindead this whole time!”

…Lucia’s not even going to apologize? “I shouldn’t have bothered faking my brain damage. You haven’t learned anything at all.”

“Wait. Fake brain damage?” Lucia blinked hard. Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by fake brain damage?”

“After you Soul Scoured me, I pretended you injured my soul. Luckily, you didn’t take Ilya’s advice of Soul Scouring me again; otherwise, you would’ve known I was faking it.” It’s true. I’ve been conscious this whole time. Why did I put Lucia through that suffering? Simple. I was resentful of her. …I mean, I wanted to teach her a lesson about consequences. She’s always gotten away with doing so many things that she’s forgotten what the word consequences even means! Also, it was a way to encourage her to enter the immortal realm. If I remained unconscious, wouldn’t she try to fix me? If the things required to bring back my soul could only be found in the immortal realm, then my choice was practically pushing her to go. Would she be here if I hadn’t? Who knows? As to why I didn’t challenge her upon becoming an immortal? I didn’t want her to hate me if I forced her to enter the door. Tricking her is fine.

“You…, you’re unbelievable!” Lucia glared at me and whipped out her hammer. Then she turned around. “Mm? Is someone eyeing my hammer? I felt it! Which one of you had thoughts about stealing my hammer just now? Was it you?”

It seems like we’re in a tiny encampment. Perhaps this is where the door leading to the Immortal Continent used to be. There aren’t a lot of people around. The person Lucia picked a fight with is here, but he seems to be in a daze. What happened between them that forced them to come to the immortal realm?

“Did you three ascend from the lower dimension?” a person asked. His eyes were practically glued to Lucia’s hammer. The remaining six or so people spread out around the three of us. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll hand over all your treasures. None of you know how to use spiritual energy. You’re still on the level of quasi-immortal. Facing the seven of us—”

“Flaming Hammer Strike!” Lucia smashed her hammer onto the man’s head out of nowhere. His body shot into the ground like a nail. “I’m in a bad mood! Which one of you is—hey! Don’t run from me!”

It didn’t take long for seven human nails to appear in the ground around us. Lucia glanced at the fellow who came with us from the Immortal Continent, and he cupped her hands at her. “Perhaps I’ll see you again one day, Heart Devil Lucia. I will take my leave now. I wish you good luck.” With that, he dissolved into a bolt of lightning and disappeared. …Who even was that guy?

Lucia stared at me. “We’re in the immortal realm?”

“Seems like it.”

Lucia frowned. “How do we go back?”

“No clue.”

“Gah!” Lucia slammed her hammer against the ground before putting it away in her interspacial ring. “What if Sophia starves? Do you think I can make it back before dinner? Mm, first things first, I have to pick up some money lying around.”

Lucia dug her victims out of the ground one by one, stripping them, Soul Scouring them, and dropping them. When she was done, there was a bitter expression on her face. “I don’t think we can go back anytime soon.”

Is that so? I rubbed Lucia’s ears. “It seems like it’s just you and me again, huh? It’s like we’ve gone back to the good old days.”

Lucia sighed and closed her eyes, tilting her head so my hand rubbed the back of her ears instead. She didn’t say anything.

After a period of silence, a small voice came out of Lucia’s socks. “…You know I’m still here, right?”

“Shut up, Puppers.”

…

Poor Gae.