Drowning in the Starless Lake

The Black Valley is the other side of L-05, which is commonly regarded as the source of brilliance and entertainment center of the fifth strata. The Black Valley is not a piece of land to play around with, nor is it meant to be a place to relax. However, the Black Valley is much better known as a land focused on the world of adventure, a place for those who like to seek pleasure through extreme means, whether with challenges that can take their lives or games that can kill their sanity.

However, the land also provides gifts that can not be imagined in its greatness.

All kinds of crazy games and challenges are there, along with the rewards they can get if they survive.

The Black Valley was only famous among explorers.

However, explorers rarely can be made up of a group, they prefer to travel alone. In the end, not many know whether these travelers managed to get what they wanted, or even disappeared in the middle of their adventure and died without a word.

They may have many acquaintances, or even friends. But not many of them would take other people with them. Not many travelers knew each other, though they usually knew each other's names. After all, the majority of travelers were not from the human race. They are much tougher, stronger, and better able to withstand any kind of situation if bad things happen, in stark contrast to humans.

Some creatures can even survive without eating or drinking anything for a week without feeling the slightest loss of energy. Humans would not be able to be in such a situation.

Another reason why the Black Valley was difficult for many types of creatures to touch was because of the ingestion of concrete information. The stories were only passed down from one traveler to the next by word of mouth. No one ever knew what they were going through, whether it really happened or just their gibberish.

Because sometimes, even in this layer of soil, anything can happen. The stories they tell still sound very improbable. Sometimes too, there is no clear evidence that proves whether the travel stories really happened or not.

There is no evidence of real objects that could make the stories considered real.

Nobody knows what lies within the Black Valley. All kinds of travelers who made it out of the valley could have told different stories, but they rarely tell the same things. They always have a different experience every time they come out of the valley.

That made it even more difficult for other travelers who wanted to get in there.

The valley is unpredictable.

They can only guess, go straight in with recklessness, and come back with the unexpected, or maybe the worst ending is ... they never come back.

Countless travelers tried to enter the Black Valley region and never returned until this moment. Even if they managed to get whatever they wanted from there, there was no definite chance that they would ever make it out of the valley.

Jane knows old stories about these travelers. It wasn't the first time she had almost died because she wanted to get a certain object out of other layers of soil. But all this time, the opponents who had almost killed her were just ordinary creatures guarding the things she wanted. She could still fight back because she knew ways to fight them or even trick them.

But this time the case was different. The enemy she was now facing was clearly a different creature.

He was a person who had met Jane before, he was a person who knew how weak Jane had been in the past, and that girl also knew very well how invincible the person before her was.

She could never forget how desperate they used to be and how bad the incident was that happened long before they were transferred here.

"So that's all for now~" Jane thought as Lingga let go of the grip on her neck.

The girl fell from a height equivalent to the full moon. Her eyes stared into the moon's silence, her lips curled into a faint smile. Perhaps this would really be the end for her. This kind of death ... wasn't as bad as she thought either, because she could still see the beautiful shimmer of the full moon and a man with a sculpted prince-like face was smiling at her.

"I wanted to destroy that handsome face with a knife if only I could."

Jane's eyes instantly closed completely as her body fell drawn into the pitch-black lake. The first thing she realized was that the lake had no bottom, and the water... felt so thick. The girl tried to hold her breath as hard as she could, but when she started to run out of breath and opened her eyes, the rate of breath from her nose changed. She realized something new; that she could stand in the lake, and she ... could also breathe.

Just as she stood up, she couldn't feel the thick textured water that had previously been embracing her. She no longer felt that she was falling slowly, like she was being swallowed by something rubbery. She no longer felt the water pulling her body deeper and deeper.

When she stood up, everything seemed to have stopped trying to swallow her.

The girl looked at her surroundings, which were pitch black. She couldn't see anything. She had even rubbed her eyes until they hurt, but she still couldn't see anything when she opened her eyes. Even when the girl was walking, it felt like she was standing on nothing and couldn't touch anything. There was nothing holding her down as if she were floating, nor was anything pulling or pushing her to suggest that there might be something else nearby.

"He—hello~" Jane froze when she heard her own voice bouncing, as if she was in a large room with no footing or anything. It was probably like being able to stand in the air, though Jane herself didn't know exactly how she could stand in the air and feel like she wasn't on anything.

"Am I dead?" she thought subconsciously.

The girl tried to walk with both hands. She was pointing everywhere. She was hoping that she could find something to touch, hoping that maybe she might trip over something and fall.

But nothing, Jane... really can't feel or touch anything.

What was more annoying than this was that everything was pitch black; she couldn't see anything.

"Am I ... blind?"