The wait felt endless before the leviathan finally reached Hour Island’s shore. Its colossal head punched through the invisible barrier and slammed into the sand, the impact sending violent tremors through its entire body. Raiden braced himself as he and the others dove for cover.
The instant its maw opened, scorching dry air hit Raiden like a punch to the gut. One breath seared his throat raw, leaving him clutching his stomach and coughing violently, his eyes burning as if all moisture had been sucked from them.
He turned around in his distress, ready to ask what was wrong, but quickly realized the others were suffering just like him.
"We’ve arrived," the leviathan’s voice reverberated through their minds, distorted and harsh. Its enormous tongue unfurled toward the ground, prompting someone to yell, "Get down!"
The closer Raiden got to the island, the more the air seemed to deteriorate—growing thicker and drier, yet paradoxically too thin to breathe properly.
His eyes slowly reddened as he squinted into the distance. The sun lazily hung above the horizon, and ahead of them lay a vast stone pathway that disappeared into the far reaches of the island.
There was something else unsettling about the absolute domain beyond the suffocating air, but Raiden couldn’t identify what was bothering him.
Still, he couldn’t resist leaping off the leviathan’s tongue, the others following close behind. With his hands still covering his mouth, he examined the pavement more closely.
The ground was definitely solid, its surface rough and hard to the touch, and wide enough for dozens of people to walk abreast.
"It seems right to me..." His gaze swept the area as the leviathan withdrew from the absolute domain, leaving them standing alone before the vast pavement. "...but something feels so wrong."
Raiden barely glanced behind him this time. As their leader—and having already lost Freya in the last absolute domain—he couldn’t afford to underestimate this realm. To protect the others and maintain their confidence, he would have to shoulder the greatest risks.
Without hesitation, he stepped onto the pavement, pinching his nostrils tighter with each breath to filter the toxic air. The others followed wordlessly behind him, their footsteps the only sound breaking the eerie silence as they endured the same torment as their leader.
Unlike Solace and Dark Dream, their previous absolute domains where they’d felt the weight of being watched, this place offered no such recognition. It was as if the ruler of this world simply didn’t care that they existed at all.
Or perhaps... Raiden froze, tension gripping his chest as his eyes swept the area nervously. What if there were traps lying in wait?
As his eyes swept the area in growing confusion, uneasiness prickling at his nerves, a voice came from behind.
"Is it just me, or did the ocean disappear?" Speed asked, gripping Soul’s hand tightly.
A sudden chill ran through Raiden as he spun around to look back toward the ocean. His throat went dry, sweat beading on his forehead. The ocean that had stretched beyond the barrier just moments before had vanished entirely, replaced by an indistinct haze.
"That’s unusual..." Chrono said, stepping toward where the ocean had vanished. At the barrier’s edge, he knelt and reached for the sand below—then instantly jerked back and leaped onto the pavement.
"I... I think the sand is disappearing too." He backed toward the group, his gaze flickering between them and the steadily vanishing shoreline.
Raiden’s hands clenched as the truth about this absolute domain hit him. This time, he was willing to avoid conflict at all costs. Whatever mechanism was at work here, he had to understand it and reach the Reader if possible.
"We can’t leave through the Leviathan’s Path without the ocean," Levi pointed out, fixing Raiden with a hard look from his dry, irritated eyes. "You realize that, right?"
The full weight of their situation hit Raiden, his eyebrows lifting as the realization sank in. He hadn’t thought of that; now figuring out this domain’s mechanics wasn’t just curiosity, it was survival.
Before he could answer, his throat seized up, dry as sand, and he doubled over, coughing with the rest of them. The air was becoming lethal; he watched in horror as it began to crack and fissure his exposed skin.
"We have to... find the Reader!" Raiden croaked through his burning throat and spun around to lead the group forward.
Before he could move, everything disappeared: the sun, the sky, and the very air around them. Raiden floated in absolute nothingness, his pulse thundering as death seemed certain. Then the sun returned with two deliberate blinks, and as reality reformed around them, he found himself more lost than ever.
The pavement had transformed into endless rolling grassland. Flying insects swarmed the air, and when one dove toward Raiden, he struck it down without thinking. But the instant it hit the ground, two flies rose where one had fallen.
Even as the poisonous air continued its assault, this impossible phenomenon froze him in place. His mouth gaped as he tracked the duplicated flies with his eyes, his face broadcasting his complete inability to comprehend what he’d just witnessed.
He had no idea what drove him, but the sole coherent thought he could grasp was to press ahead and find the Reader.
He launched himself forward without pause, legs pounding as he pressed a hand to his nose and forced himself to breathe through his mouth, but the merciless air continued to torment him.
’We need to hurry," he wheezed through his distress, punctuated by a series of brutal coughs.
If any of them answered, he didn’t hear it; his thoughts were wholly occupied with finding the master of the absolute domain, the Reader, before disaster could unfold.
He raced through the tangled vegetation, his boots striking hard against the terrain as he wished desperately that they could overcome whatever ordeal the Reader had set before them.
This marked the first time he’d had to protect his emotional state while making critical decisions, and despite knowing that losing anyone here would almost certainly cause his remaining allies to doubt him, what actually motivated him were feelings he couldn’t identify.
These emotions were his greatest enigma and potentially his greatest weakness.
He accelerated step by step, and as his boot made contact with the ground, the world vanished into total emptiness yet again.
Raiden’s mind churned as he experienced this moment of pure nothingness, wondering how often their environment would continue changing while yearning for any semblance of sanctuary.
Moments passed before everything reconstructed itself, placing them at the center of frozen mountain ranges, the heavens pulsing with neon luminescence as the moon loomed behind the peaks, bathing them in its ghostly radiance.
Raiden gulped audibly as the cold sent violent shudders through his frame. Beyond the bone-chilling temperature, the air remained equally hostile, carrying the same deadly quality as their last location.
Yet Raiden refused to yield, forcing himself to walk forward.