Whisker stared at the sea of lava, the heat burning his face. He looked around, unable to make sense of where he was. How could lava be so close to land and not have the entire thing burn to ashes? How could so many poisonous plants be in one forest that was so close to this much heat?

He looked toward the sky, seeing a thick smog that covered everything.

'There's not even any sunlight, but these plants couldn't have grown without it,' he thought. Things only got weirder and weirder for him. 'I have to get out of this place.'

Something about the place worried him more than the poison or the lava. There was something around him, a type of aura that he couldn't explain. He couldn't sense it through any of his senses, including his spiritual sense. It was something that was nothing more than pure conjecture on his part, but he had a feeling he was being watched.

Something was out there, staring at him. Maybe it wasn't focused on him, but its gaze was placed in his general direction.

Whisker had a strange sense that if he were to die here, his essence would not return to Alex at all. If he died here, it would be a true death.

None of that understanding for him came from anything with evidence. It was purely instinct at this point, which he decided to trust.

'I need to find out where I've come to, and how I can meet everyone again,' he thought. Once he calmed down a little, he brought out his talisman to contact Alex.

The talisman burst into flames the moment he tried to use it, causing Whisker to move back in surprise. What had just happened? He tried again with a talisman to contact Pearl, but the same thing happened once again.

Whisker frowned. 'Why are the talismans bursting into flames? Is something stopping me from communicating with others?' he thought. After a few seconds, he brought out another talisman and used it. Once again, it burst into flames.

Whisker blinked in surprise. That time, the talisman had been a simple one meant for recording messages. It wasn't a communication talisman at all, and still, it had burst into flames.

Whisker thought for a moment, wanting to test further. Was it all talismans?

He brought out a defensive talisman and used it. Before the effect of the talisman could activate, it also burst into flames.

"Okay. It's every type of talisman," Whisker thought before stopping. He also wanted to see if formations and artifacts were destroyed in a similar way, but he could do it later. He needed to get out of this place first.

Whisker went around the cliff, not wanting to return through the poison forest. The lava seemed unending in all directions, making Whisker confused about how one was supposed to get in and out of here.

Could they fly? That shouldn't have been possible given the suppression he felt earlier.

'Maybe there's a teleportation formation somewhere,' he thought, going around to search for it. He walked along the cliffside that remained a cliff no matter how much he walked. The drop to the lava was nearly 20 meters down, sometimes even more, no matter how far he went.

After he walked for nearly an hour, he started understanding something scary.

'This is an island, isn't it?' he thought. An island in the middle of a sea of lava. It made no sense how such a thing could exist. Either the lava had to have frozen long ago or the land should've melted away in the heat of the lava.

And yet, it stood.

'I've got to put aside logic for now,' Whisker thought. 'This is definitely the effect of some sort of formation or intent.'

Hell was similar in how weird it was. This was a smaller scale of that, albeit much weirder.

After going around the entire island, Whisker arrived at the same cliff he had started from. He had encircled the entire island, and yet he had found absolutely nothing at all.

"If the shores have nothing, then…" he turned toward the forest, a very bad feeling overtaking him. "I have to go to the center."

He did not like that idea in the slightest, but he had to do it since he saw no other method. Taking a deep breath, he prepared himself and walked back into the forest.

His whiskers were on high alert, and he relied on them more than any of his other senses. His kind were created to be used for their whiskers, after all, so it was the strongest asset he could rely on.

Before his other senses could even pick up the faintest hint of poison, Whisker would have already sensed it from hundreds of meters away, solely based on his whiskers.

There was no safe path through the forest of poisonous plants. Just safer paths. Whisker had to actively make decisions on where to move, all based on what poison he could survive against or had pills to survive against.

A journey of no more than 2 kilometers took Whisker nearly half a day when so many obstacles were laid out against him. Thankfully, he got through them without being poisoned even once.

Finally, when he was past the poisonous plants, he came out into a massive clearing with nothing but a small dais at the center.

Whisker walked toward it slowly, each step more cautious than the next. Then, he finally arrived before the dais, now seeing it more clearly.

The dais was circular in shape, with black and white halves, a sinuous line separating them at the center. A burning yellow sun was etched onto the white half, and a pure white moon was etched onto the black half.

"I was wondering why the island wasn't moving," a voice spoke from far behind Whisker. "Looks like I wasn't alone."

Whisker turned around to see a figure standing far behind him.

"Would you mind climbing onto the dais? I'm in a bit of a hurry."

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