Rebirth: Awaken, Milady

23 - Alena's Condition (1)

"Return," Aria stretched and sighed.

She received more information from the late Queen, but it didn't answer any of her questions.

If anything, it just made more problems sprout inside her head.

The Queen seemed to have noticed something after her life energy started draining.

Aria didn't know much about spirits, but she knew that they were all sourced from the same place.

"The Fountain of Life.. was it?" Aria muttered.

The Fountain of Life was a term coined late in the years.

To explain the connection between the Fountain of Life and the Spirits, one had to understand the concept of a Spirits' birth.

A short explanation was that there was a link. A thread connecting a Spirit to its life source, the Fountain of Life.

As long as the thread wasn't broken, spirits could live for as long as they wanted.

Of course, the higher the spirit's rank was, the harder breaking the string was.

"For a Snow Queen's thread to be forcefully severed.. And an identical world that exists somewhere with a connection to the gates," Aria had taken the System's help, for it granted her power. But now, her suspicion was brewing like no other. 

The gates were definitely made by someone on purpose. It couldn't be a natural occurrence. According to the Queen's story, the spirits had split up. However, some gates were inhibited by more than two elementals. Sometimes even three.

If the gates' monster were all inhabitants of another world... 

One thing. She knew one thing for sure.

The so-called 'monsters' aren't like that without a reason. Although you can't call the aggression justified, it was obvious that they would be aggravated when they saw the current humans, who bore a similarity to those who oppressed and slaughtered them in the other world. 

Even if it wasn't the same world.

Aria experienced a headache. 

"I'll just.. Be careful for now. I won't be able to challenge the System at this moment anyways," Aria resolved. A friend had passed. 

Right now, she was powerless against the System.

She looked down to her tattered clothes and her sigh deepened.

...Should I make a resistant suit?

No. Humans' current technology won't be able to withstand the monsters' attacks... Besides, it'll look ugly.

She headed towards the closet and grabbed a casual outfit.

She contacted Rael through her mind.

Rael?

Master.

Where are you guys?

In front of Gate F-012.

Aria had data'ed all the Gates' in Country M and assigned them a code number. A letter to represent the rank and a number that showed the turn it was data'ed on.

Okay. I'm coming. Stay hidden for now.

Understood.

— Gate F-012

I'm standing right on the coordinates. Come out.

Rael didn't reply, but his figure was soon revealing itself from behind one of the trees.