It was the first time I had this strange dream after leaving the forest. Last time, I had heard the voice of my brother, who said that he was going to marry soon.

But this time, the voice I heard was definitely Maa's. There was one more voice—a child's voice—beside her. She said I had been sleeping for five years, but it had only been one year since I came here.

---

"Raj, you must be missing your mother," Ume murmured, gently embracing me.

"Thank you, Ume," I whispered, accepting her hug.

After staying like that for half a minute, we rose to our feet and decided to enter the city.

"Vivi, does the time here and on Earth flow differently?" I asked inwardly, walking beside Ume.

"The two worlds are at an incalculable distance from each other, so a difference in the flow of time is possible."

"And how much is this time difference actually?"

"Vivi can't answer that since Vivi doesn't have access to Earth."

While I was having this conversation with Vivi, Ume and I had already reached the gates of Dreadspire City.

"Halt! State the purpose of your visit!" the guards at the gate demanded. One guard had a round moustache, while the other had a long beard only on his chin.

"Purpose? We are here to take over this city," I replied nonchalantly.

"Huff... another one of those idiots," the moustache guard sighed. "Banished from the mainland and trying to target the first city your eyes laid on."

"How should we deal with this one?" the chin-beard replied.

"Hehe~ let's catch him. Wait a minute, look at that beauty behind him. Have you ever seen such peerless beauty before?"

"Idiot, you only noticed her now? I saw that masterpiece from miles away."

Releasing a groan, I moved in front of Ume, hiding her behind me, and muttered, "One more remark about her and you two will be eating dirt."

"Hah! Are you her bodyguard or what?" the moustache guard scoffed.

"Let's kidnap him and take that—"

Before he could complete his statement, I grabbed the two by their heads and smashed them together, knocking them unconscious.

"Hmph, stupid bastards!"

Oho~ what did I just witness? Were you jealous because they were looking at me?" Ume teased, her face tugging into a smug smile.

"Naturally,' I murmured. "You are mine. I don't like random admirers looking at you that way."

Without replying to my possessive remark, she covered her mouth and giggled adorably.

I hastly stepped forward and pulled at the gate to open it.

"Huh? Why isn't the door budging?"

I increased the strength I was using to open the door, breaking the ground beneath me, yet the gate didn't budge at all.

"It won't open like this," Ume said, who was silently observing the situation. "There is a seal cast on the gate similar to the one on the underground gates."

"Hmm, it must be Theon who created this seal. But what's the use of it when we can easily cross the gate by climbing the wall?"

I moved back, and as I was about to jump, Ume stopped me by the shoulder.

"Don't be hasty."

She moved towards the unconscious guard, grabbed their weapon, and threw it towards the city from the top of the city wall.

The moment the weapon passed the wall, a blue flame ignited on it and engulfed it completely in mid-air.

"Ohh! Thank God you stopped me!" I gasped.

"This is the reason I came with you," she hissed, flicking my forehead.

While I was rubbing my reddened forehead, she moved to the gate and, with her finger, drew some patterns of her own, overwriting the ones that were already engraved. After a moment, the door glowed and opened by itself.

The city inside wasn't that different from Forlorn City. The building designs were similar, with the only difference being that their size here was larger compared to the buildings in Forlorn City.

The streets had more guards than people roaming around, eating food, drinking liquor, or just sleeping on the road.

Being aware that investigating the guards would take a lot of time to find the entrance to the mines, I grabbed the small chit Ume had given me for a situation like this and announced in a heavy voice, using the paper to lace my voice with Soulforce.

"My name is Lucifer Morningstar, the leader of Forlorn City! Nyx and Theon waged a war on my city and pathetically lost both the war and their lives. I'm your new leader now! Show me the way to the mines if you don't want to end up like them!"

As I made the announcement, several people left the buildings and gathered on the streets.

They realized I wasn't an ordinary person because I could channel Soulforce through my voice, yet most of them still refused to believe a word I said.

"Hah! There's no way El Dorado can be defeated!"

"Nyx is the most powerful awakener in the Abandoned Lands. And she even gathered an army of more than two thousand awakeners to attack Forlorn City. Do you think we will believe nonsense like that?"

"He must be a survivor who managed to run away from the war and came here to scam us!"

The guards scoffed and laughed, drawing their weapons, and began surrounding us.

Taking a brief sigh, I murmured, "I tried to solve this like a gentleman, so don't blame me for getting ruthless."

Turning to Ume, I said, "Wait for a moment."

"Don't act cocky when you ran away from the war!" one of the guards shouted as they rushed at me.

Lightning flared in my eyes, and in the very next instant, streaks of electricity tore across the area as I crushed them with my punches using Blink.

It didn't even take me five seconds to beat the crap out of all the hundred guards.

"Here, this is for you," I said, offering an ice-cream cone to Ume, which I had taken from a nearby shop while fighting. And yeah, of course, I placed the money on the counter before leaving.

"Ice-cream!!!" Ume exclaimed in joy, her eyes shining with delight, and in the very next moment, the cone was already gone from my hand.

While she was having an intense battle with the cone, I moved towards one of the guards.

Raising the half-dead guard in the air by the neck, I asked again, my voice sharp, "Now tell me where the way to the mines is. I won't ask you twice since I have a hundred others to ask."

The guard shivered in fear and instantly blurted, "I will show you the way, so please don't kill me."

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