30 The Alternate Realm

But first and foremost, Kivas needed to check upon the content of his newest purple orb.

'Finally!'

[Blight Expansion] was one of the options. Seeing such a long awaited boon to appear in his doorstep, Kivas had the terrible urge plus reflex to just choose it. Inevitably though, he decided to subsidize his urge for this one. After all, he was only 2 purple orbs away until getting his first red orb.

'Patience is the key to virtue.' Kivas nodded in agreement to himself. 'Practicing conscience is the key orb's color anew.'

Cruising the sea of grass, he shortly arrived at the front of the white portal that was just a few meters away from the mask. Checking left and right, he entered one of his feet into the ink-like whirlpool, slowly getting himself drowned into it with every step that he did to advance forward.

With the full gauge of the Hidden Takamagahara, Kivas felt more confident than he usually was when it came to exploring a totally unknown area.

'It's all or nothing.'

The moment he entered the portal, his 10 meters range of torch's illumination managed to capture the essence of the wormhole that he went through. Mystical phenomenon was sighted, balls of outer dimensional layers accompanied Kivas with the geometrical will-o-wisp diving in and out of Kivas range of perception as Kivas skydived into a perpetual cliff of no return.

'I can get back, right?' Kivas began to get a little bit worried about the rodent lass. 'Because if it's somehow there is a chance that the hooded one is an imposter, she needs to keep the original away from her operation. But the fact that they were both in the same forest tells me that the imposter might go for the real one and kill her to preserve her identity.'

There was a chance that the one Kivas met early was the real imposter because of how barely competent she was despite having an explorer get up.

Although, it would be far idiotic if an incompetent explorer like her was trying to be in the same region as the original if her goal was to spread the defamation to the original.

'There might be a chance that both of them are twins and they were coming to this palace together, but the incompetent sibling got lost and the competent one either didn't want to force the other to be in the vicinity of danger, or she just don't care and happy that the baggage was gone.'

Still in the skydive, Kivas began to notice a couple of details within memory that make up his deduction.

'No, the incompetent one didn't have any sibling.' Kivas gritted his teeth.

Kivas might need to see either one of the doppelgangers to finally settle on what he ultimately wants to do.

Just one more glance at them, to finally see through their layered hidden nature.

After 2 minutes of waiting, Kivas' body was fully engulfed by darkness. Later he knew, he immediately got transported into the front of the portal gate in the forest.

Instead, the gate frame was not white. It was pitch black, and the green grass that was scattered around Kivas was that of a light pink.

'Woah! That dive might be trippy, but this one is more trippy!'

Not long after that, Kivas acquired his fourth purple orb. The ritual dance could wait, so he focused most of his mind into exploring and comprehending the surroundings.

Kivas immediately scoured the area, looking for all kinds of shapes for clues. Surrounded by the very same kind of trees like the one outside of this world, albeit with a rather radical coloring such as gray leaves instead of the usual reddish green and yellowish blue instead of the white and brown barks.

Kivas felt like he had just entered an alternate world where everything was the opposite.

With that in mind, Kivas followed the trail of footprints that was left behind by the hunting group.

'Strangely enough, I don't see any carnivorous plants nor any bongus,'

Every place that was dwelled by the Snappy Plants were left vacant with nothing but soil above the ground. It seemed like this world could only copy a lower sentence lifeform such as normal trees and plants and not anything else.

At some point, he began to notice that the trail of footprints suddenly stopped. Either that they suddenly disappeared out of nowhere or flying after one of their members had a foot cramp, it was an inevitable truth that Kivas could no longer track them down using everything in his arsenal.

'As if it isn't obvious enough, something fishy is going on here!'

Kivas looked left and right, he strode there and left to the right, circling and mapping the whole alternate biome inside his head. Not a minute later, Kivas was surrounded by a dense mist, with only one path side revealed as if it was urging Kivas to go that way.

He then tried to put his focus onto the dent on the soil that was made by anchoring his crustacean limbs. In other words, his footprints.

Slowly but surely, he began to notice that the new footprint that he made began to go back to its former state.

'I guess they all got lead like this.'

Not afraid to step into the unknown, Kivas walked toward the path that was forged by the mist. The scenery was eerie and disturbing, as if there were ten if not hundreds of eyes gazing at him.

The strange thing was, Kivas felt like the gaze was coming from the sky.

'I wonder how many purple orbs that I can get after I solve this mystery.'

Trying to pursue the imposter was one thing, Kivas' goal was to acquire 5 purple orbs ASAP and get his hand to the red orb.

And so, like a determined tracker, Kivas tried to gather as much as hint and information as he was guided by the mist. There were several humanoid shaped shadows in the distance beyond the mist, but Kivas felt no gaze nor malice whatsoever from them. Because again, all of the stinging gaze he felt was coming from above.

Unless something sinister was roaming the sky with thousand eyes while pulling the strings, Kivas couldn't really picture anything else beside that.

'I hope that I don't die after I make it this far…'

Three days, it was not only his farthest run he ever did, but it was also one of the run that he put the most effort into surviving.

It didn't actually matter to him if he lost the Hidden Takamagahara, but it would be a huge blow to his pride if he were to let himself be led astray by the illusion of his perpetual cycle of death. Not to mention, his fantasy goal of roaming another world and exploring the wonders and meeting with its inhabitants.

Subconsciously, Kivas was producing a dense amount of Impurity in his trail. He either noticed it and let it be, or his mind was fully preoccupied on trying to stay alive, waiting for any lunging traps or beast who sought for his life.

Soon enough, he arrived at the entrance of an extremely vast purple glade.

'Woooaaahoho!!!' As soon as his torch birthed the fifth purple orbs, Kivas' anxiety dropped faster than a planet falling to a blackhole. 'Yeaaaah! That's what I've been waiting for!!!'

He didn't know that the one waiting for him in the middle of it all was an almighty stoic entity, with the body that was bigger than the tallest mountain.