The first thought that crossed Levin's mind when he saw his surroundings was that this should be a dream. After all, there was no way a sea of clouds like this was real, especially considering how he stood on it. However, when the memory of his encounter with the illusionist came to the tip of his mind, the soldier's instinct flared instantly, trying to figure out if there was something strange that could hint to him of a possibility that this was done by the enemy. Well, something that was stranger than this scene, of course.
"Is this even a real place?" He murmured to himself. Seeing the fluffy cloud on the ground, the soldier hesitated for a second before raising one of his feet and putting it lightly on the cloud. He was trying to make sure that the cloud was solid enough for him to walk there. "Good. At least I am not helpless if something bad happens." He let out a relieved sigh after realizing that the cloud was pretty solid, albeit a bit fluffy. It was as if he just walked on the fluffiest bed in the world, and the urge to lie down was pretty high here.
"Man, Mira would love this place." He smiled unconsciously when thinking about the girl.
Still, there were a lot of issues that Levin needed to figure out, like what kind of place this was, who brought him here, and if Mira was here or not. The last thing he remembered was going back to sleep after practicing with Mira, and he was so sure that nobody hit him with any strange power to teleport him into this kind of place.
"Is this some sort of a lucid dream?" Levin murmured to himself once again, trying to think of every possibility that could explain this situation right now. "Well, even though it is indeed a lucid dream, I still have no way to check out whether it is real or not."
As he fell into deep thought, Levin unconsciously walked around, and with every step he took, the sound of a water drop could be heard as if he had just stepped on a body of water. Much to his instinct's protest, the soldier also tried to shout, just to find out that his voice echoed all over the place for a good, full minute without anyone answering it. The state where there was nothing but him here started to creep him out, and Levin also started to feel panic.
"Damn! MIRA! CHEN ZE! CAN YOU HEAR ME?!" He shouted once again, hoping that someone would answer from afar. Unfortunately, the only answer he got was just a series of weak echoes of his voice from afar.
"… Hear me… Hear me… Hear me…"
"Shit! I need to find something, anything that could give me a clue of what is going on here!" Unfortunately, even after spending a few minutes – or probably hours, Levin didn't know – exploring around, he could only see the endless sea of clouds without anything here. It was as if everything he experienced before was just a dream and disappeared instantly. "Is this really a death?" His will started to shake up here.
That was when suddenly, Levin's eyes caught the three young saplings in front of him. He didn't know what happened and where those came from, but right now, he was just too happy to finally find something other than the endless cloud around here.
"Fuck! Finally, there is something! Hahaha!" Levin was about to cry on the spot. "This is a small tree! This is a fucking small tree! Hahahaha!" If anyone witnessed this, they all would think that he was crazy here.
After steadying his breath and trying to regain his composure, Levin finally started to think clearly. Somehow, he felt ashamed for losing control like that. Still, he couldn't help it. Being in a void like this for thirty minutes without anything to do was enough to make him crazy. He didn't want to imagine what would happen if the saplings in front of him didn't appear.
"Still, what is this?" Levin frowned a little, observing all three saplings from every direction. "How could it be here?"
Of course, just by looking over it, there was no way he could figure out anything. So, after mustering his courage, Levin moved his hand cautiously, using his index finger to touch the first sapling on the left.
"Ouch!" Levin retreated his finger quickly. "That is hot!" He widened his eyes in shock.
This was probably the strangest dream Levin had ever experienced in his life. First, it was the endless sea of clouds, and now the sapling that could burn his skin? He even touched the sapling once again to make sure that he was not imagining himself, and once again, the burning sensation attacking his skin forced the soldier to drop the sapling immediately.
"What about the other two?" He glanced sideways, curious.
As he picked up the second sapling, he felt the cold sensation attacking his skin as if he were about to be frozen on the spot. Hell, he could even see a crack of ice form on his hand, and he threw away the sapling immediately.
"Shit! That hurts!" Levin waved his hand in panic, trying to make the blood there run normally, just like before he touched the sapling. After everything went back to normal, the soldier now stared at the third sapling with a complicated gaze. "If the first burns me and the second tries to freeze me to death, what will you do next?"
Of course, even if he was far more cautious than before, he was too curious to not touch the third sapling in front of him. Well, it wasn't just because of curiosity, but also from the fact that he had nothing to do in this void plane.
However, just as he touched the leaf of the third sapling, Levin somehow felt a burst of vitality rushing toward his body, giving him so much energy that his body couldn't receive it all in one go. Not just that, the entire world suddenly crumbled, and before Levin knew it, the sky started to shatter slowly, and the sea of clouds fell one by one as if it was the end of the world.
Of course, seeing this, Levin tried to run. However, he felt like something nailed his feet on the ground, and he couldn't move his body at all. It was like a horror movie where the main protagonist witnessed the apocalypse helplessly as there was nothing he could do.
"Shit, shit, shit! What the hell is going on here?! I am stuck!"
His panic reached its peak as the cloud in a radius of five meters also started falling, and when he felt like he lost his foothold on the cloud, Levin closed his eyes immediately, bracing himself for a free-falling dive into the unknown.
"Shit! I am falling! Aaargh!"
He didn't know what happened, but in the next second, he suddenly heard a panicked shout from Mira. "Uncle Levin, we are under an attack! Wake up quickly!"