“Mortal boy! How did you cross the rift? It should’ve shredded your whole flesh to dust!” 

  The mysterious being’s Incredulous face pulls Kevin back to his reality. Kevin looks at the beautiful supernatural being. Her steel spaulders consist of layers of overlapping steel plates, he can see the golden engravings of flowing lines on them. Like her rerebeaces and vambraces, they are contoured to fit her slim, well-built arms under a thin garment layer and articulated to her joints so she can move freely without too many restraints. Two claw-shaped gauntlets clench in the air, and the golden gleams flow along the engravings on the gauntlets. 

  “Now I am done for…” 

  The lady warrior strides back and forth for an answer to what is happening. Soft clinking sounds from her overlapping tassests from the sides of her faulds. 

 “So, who are you?” Kevin realises his brother is standing behind the lady, but the strap of the lights restrains him from moving, except for standing like a pole. 

 The lady warrior stops moving, adjusts her poleyn to better fit her knees, and then steps on her sabatons to finish the adjustment. 

  “I’m the Guardian of the World of Ever-After. Warrior of Palace of Origin, Protector of Souls, Vakshssj–Juhaloksish–Lahsjlouj–EJkohanksi–Xahshgghsk–Lhjikohi.”  

  Her slim cuirass jolts as her gauntlet knocks on her well-rounded chest plates. 

  “Wait, what is your name?” Kevin can’t catch her name fast enough.

  “Vakshssj–Juhaloksish–Lahsjlouj–EJkohanksi–Xahshgghsk–Lhjikohi.” 

  “Do I have to call you by your full name?”

  “Well, I presume it is challenging for mortals to pronounce my full name. Then you can call me Xahshgghsk–Lhjikohi.”

  “Xahsh– hjiko– Well, it is still too hard. Do you have a nickname?” 

  “Kevin! Respect the lady!” Quinn stops Kevin from butchering the name of this mysterious being who has dragged them to this world.

 “You are dead, Quinn McGinns, and I was tasked to collect your soul, but your brother, a living human, somehow traveled with us into the world of Ever-After,” the lady warrior says. 

  “Are you the Death?” Quinn does not seem scared or shocked. 

  “You are saying my brother is dead?!” shocked, as Kevin, on the other hand, is not taking the news very well. 

  “Your brother is dead, he belongs here now. But you are not dead, boy. If you are here as a living human, then some blinded spirits will be coming to hunt you.” 

  “What are you talking about, lady? This is not a dream, ain’t it?”  Kevin looks around him. There is nothing but vast silver grasslands; the grasses are not green but silver, and they radiate a faint light. He looks up to the sky, and there is no longer a roof over them, but millions of stars over their head in the bright pinkish sky. It is not dark, but the stars look like spilled white dots on the paint canvas. 

  “Look at your brother’s body, his body is translucent and radiates milky light. Only spirits can be found here.”

  Kevin looks at his brother, then looks at his own hands. They are the same as usual, but his brother’s skin glows like a glass bulb, with a soft, subtle milky light. Quinn’s skin no longer looks human.

  The lady signs. This is probably her first time dealing with a case like this. 

  “When humans die, we would retrieve them from the mortal world and bring them back to the Palace of Origin in this world, the world of ever-after. It is not possible for a living human to even come here!“ 

She looks around her in disbelief. 

“But we are not even directly teleported back to the Palace of Origin, but in a random location. I hope we are not too far away from the Palace.”

  “Then can you send my brother back to the home?” Quinn asks, signals Kevin not to yell at the lady. 

  “He has to go back, but we need to move now. Lord Judge will tell us what is going on…” Just before she finishes her sentence, a screeching sound pierces through the wind behind them. 

 A gigantic black formless slime, tall as two two-story buildings, bolts in their direction. Hundreds of limbs protruding from the slime, jerking, bending, and stretching hysterically. An unknown, dark translucent fluid stretches to strands all over those limbs, but none of the stains are left behind the tail that the monster has created.  

  In the direction of the monster, Kevin sees a bottomless, bloodthirsty “mouth” chomping as they are being approached closer and closer. 

  The screeching sound again, from the monster’s “mouth” as it shifts into different shapes while gnawing.  

  “What is this?!” Kevin rushes to Quinn and tries to move his brother, but his action is futile. Quinn’s body is strapped with strips of light, tightly constraining him.

  Kevin bites into the light strips and yanks them, but the light strips do not come loose.

  “You have to let him go!” Kevin shouts.

  “You have to run, Kevin! Run!” Quinn jerks his head, telling Kevin to leave him.

“Fallen souls!” The lady warrior readies her stance, and a giant light blade quickly and gradually solidifies in both of her clenched gauntlets. 

  Kevin can feel the tremors from the ground as the monster dashes closer. Tulmtulmous sounds get louder and louder.

Despite the monster being gigantic compared to her, the lady warrior is unflinching at the sight of the monster closing in on her.

Finally, the monster’s body slams into her. Her blade chops onto the monster and matches its velocity and force. The powerful shockwaves explode in their clash, the lady warrior absorbs the impact, and does not move back a bit. However,  the gigantic monster screams in pain, its body has been split open. A great amount of dark fluid leaks onto the grassland as the monster’s painful wails end. 

  She cuts open a giant cheese ball, says to himself, Kevin. 

  The monster’s corpse is turning into dust and getting carried away by the swirls of wind. 

  The lady warrior turns around, brandishing her blade, as the blade vanishes in the air. She walks back to Kevin and Quinn; in the blink of a second, in their terrified faces, she sees a familiar face of her own and her brother. 

  “Don’t worry, it’s just a Roller, I have dealt with it.” 

  “You are telling me monsters are real in this world!” Kevin says.

  “Yes, it means we are somewhere around the edges of the grassland where some monsters can be seen. I wonder if they smelled the scent of a living human and decided to come here. We should depart now. If any more monsters are coming, we’d be in trouble.” The lady warrior’s finger draws a circle in the air, commands the strips of light to transform into light strips that swathe Quinn’s waist, and a tether links to the lady warrior's waist. 

  “Do you mean those monsters can sense me?” Kevin asks.

  “Well, corrupted souls and spirits are drawn to the living beings; you are like a candle in the darkness, so bright they can sense it from far away.” The lady warrior looks at Kevin seriously, then starts leading the way.

  “Do you know where we are going then?” Quinn follows behind her and holds onto Kevin’s hand.

  “Don’t worry, I have a compass with me all the time. We are heading east.” 

***

  The Silver Valley appears in the distant view. Ridges rise from the vast grassland. Kevin can’t fathom how vast the grassland is; he cannot find the edges of the grassland from a distance, and at the farthest distance he can see are jagged mountains. 

  They walk for hours, they cross the meadows, tiny puddles, and rivers with strange fish Kevin has never seen. Peaceful scenery without monsters like what they have faced.

  They ascend to the top of hills where the wind tosses their hair up high in the air, and flail wildly. When they descend from the hills, the breeze lingers on their cheeks.

  They reach the valley moments later. Kevin feels his breath is burdening after hours of walking. They stop and rest at the foot of the slope before they climb up. After another few hours or so, when Kevin feels his body is getting heavier with each step, his limit is drawing near, they finally reach the top of the foothill.

  “Wow.” 

  Kevin has never seen a palace this big before. The grand, colossal palace crowns the highest mountain among the ancient titans. The palace’s spire seems to reach outer space, the milky glow makes it look like a beam pierces through the sky.  

  The lady warrior removes strands of hair from her face. 

  “The Palace of Origin.”