Lord of The Mysterious Realms Chapter 1200

"There are plenty of ancient legends in this region, but absolutely none of them describe an effect ."

Alexia, suspended in mid-air, answered Jenkins’s question. She continued with considerable certainty:

"What's more, even I don't know the origin of that contract scroll. As for the ritual it describes... I doubt anyone in this era could explain where it came from."

"The Enchanters of this era don't know..."

A faint crackling sound drew their attention. Looking down, they were shocked to see ice forming on the soles of their shoes. Alexia quickly pulled Jenkins higher into the air. Jenkins, in turn, willed flames to lick at their feet, but the eerie frost proved impossible to melt. The fire only managed to slow its relentless creep.

He hurriedly kicked off his own shoes, then reached over and pulled Alexia's off, tossing them both downward. The two pairs tumbled through the air, freezing into solid blocks of ice before they even hit the ground.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that Alexia wasn't wearing any socks, leaving her two small, bare feet exposed. She must have caught his glance, because she gave him a sharp tug. Jenkins immediately looked away, but not before seeing a faint blush color her cheeks.

Before Jenkins could stop it, the cat scrambled out of his coat. Digging its small claws into his clothes, it scaled his chest in a surprisingly rough, almost vertical ascent until it reached the top of his head.

Chocolate let out a long, defiant cry. Jenkins didn't feel a thing, but Alexia's sharp senses picked up on something strange. Though it was only afternoon, she could faintly see the outline of a full moon in the western sky.

But in the blink of an eye, the moon vanished. She stared in disbelief at the cat perched on Jenkins’s head. Its claws were tangled in his hair for balance, and though the cat was small, Jenkins could feel a few sharp pricks.

"Hey, Chocolate, what are you doing?"

he demanded, annoyed by the cat's ill-timed antics. Since Alexia was still holding his right hand, he could only reach up with his left. But just as he raised his arm, the weight on his head vanished. He looked up. The cat was gone.

He froze. In that single moment, a boundless wave of regret threatened to drown him. An indescribable pain and emptiness hollowed out his chest. He held his breath, stopped moving, as if by doing so he could freeze time itself.

He looked down, trembling, but didn't see the heartbreaking sight of a frozen cat plummeting to the ground. The world below was a sea of white, but there was no sign of Chocolate.

"Chocolate didn't fall."

Alexia’s voice pulled Jenkins back from the brink of despair. Without looking at his face, she tilted her head upward:

"Your cat just jumped. It leaped incredibly high and then... just vanished right above us. It's strange. I didn't feel any trace of spatial distortion, and there was nothing that looked like an entrance to a Mysterious Realm..."

"Chocolate just... vanished?"

Jenkins's first thought was that his cat had finally grown tired of tagging along with him. But he immediately dismissed the idea as impossible. He had promised Chocolate a delicious meal in Ruen, a promise he had yet to keep. Chocolate would never leave him.

He craned his neck, scanning the sky, but saw nothing. No spiritual aura, no physical object—only the endless expanse of falling snow.

He thought for a moment, a suspicion forming in his mind. He asked Alexia to pull him a little higher, then tried calling out into the air:

"...The Dawn Express?"

There was no response. Jenkins narrowed his eyes in thought for a moment before calling out into the empty air again:

"We'd like to board! We're not looking to travel, just to have a look around... and to find my cat..."

Nothing happened. Aside from Alexia glancing around nervously, the air remained still and silent.

He took a mental inventory of his Sin Coins and was dismayed to find he only had a single Soul Gold and one Ring of Greed left. He didn't even have enough Blasphemy Seeds to form a complete coin; he hadn't encountered any sufficiently powerful creatures lately. Thᴇ link to the origɪn of this information rᴇsts ɪn noᴠelfire.net

A deep rumbling and the shriek of a steam whistle immediately answered him. Against the backdrop of strange whispers and murmurs from the ground below, a winding, spectral green railway track materialized from the upper reaches of the sky. The same ghostly green steam engine he had seen just days before plunged down the track at a forty-five-degree angle, its front coming to a halt directly before Jenkins and Alexia.

A side door slid open, and the conductor appeared, one hand clamping his hat to his head against the frigid wind, the other gripping the doorframe to steady himself. His uniform, the same spectral green as the train, flickered in the blizzard like a will-o'-the-wisp. This signaled that the train was currently in a state where it could be influenced by the "present," rather than its usual, untouchable observer status.

"Have you seen my cat?"

"Yes. The Dawn Express experienced a minor malfunction. For a brief moment, the train entered the 'present' timeline, and your cat happened to leap aboard at that exact instant... I do apologize."

The conductor replied, looking incredibly nervous. For some reason, his face was beaded with sweat, which Jenkins attributed to the powerful heating inside the carriage.

After speaking, the conductor stepped aside, clearing the doorway for them. Jenkins immediately knew the conductor's story was a lie. He was certain the man had deliberately lured Chocolate aboard as a way to entice him—and his Sin Coins—onto the train.

As soon as his feet touched the solid floor of the carriage, he casually tossed the gold coin—the Soul Gold—to the conductor. The man fumbled to catch it. With Jenkins's back turned and Alexia looking around in fascination, neither of them saw the conflicted expression on the conductor's face—a look of desperate want warring with fear.

"Chocolate, come here."

Once aboard, he spotted his cat. Chocolate was crouched in the passage connecting the engine to the next car, its eyes fixed on Jenkins. Jenkins immediately crouched down and clapped his hands, beckoning the cat over. To his surprise, Chocolate turned and bolted.

Jenkins immediately gave chase, leaving the front car. Alexia, however, remained behind, brushing the snow from her clothes as she surveyed her surroundings.

"Alright, out with it. Who wants to see us... or should I say, who wants to see me."