The girl finally turned to him, "Thanks for helping me?”

  Eclipse nodded at her blankly but didn't reply.

  After a few seconds, feeling a little awkward, the girl added, “Uhh… what were you doing here, anyway?”

  Eclipse broke out of his daze and nodded, "I was just looking for something called the Cryptic Amethyst?"

  She lifted her eyebrows, "Cryptic Amethyst? Do you need those?"

  Eclipse raised his eyebrows, then nodded.

  "There are quite abundant further down in the Autumn's End Region, but they're very rare in Dark Autumn."

  "Autumn's End Region?!" Eclipse's repeated, quite surprised. He remembered reading about that in the scrolls. There wasn't much information, but it is said that Autumn's End was located right at the centre of the Dark Autumn Region. Though small, it is said that no one who entered it had come out alive.

  He sighed, "Is there no way to find it then? I need it for…”

  Eclipse started, then hesitated when he realised he didn't want to disclose any more information simply because he didn't want to.

  "I guess I'll help you look for one, then. They're very rare in the Dark Autumn, but it's not completely impossible to find one." The girl didn't seem to mind the pause and didn't press him for any more information.

  "You don't have to, but th…anks." He finally wiped his sweat then surveyed the surroundings. As he did, a single cave, not far from the stream, came into vision. Eclipse's eyes narrowed, "That cave…"

  "Is there something wrong?" She asked.

  "It wasn't there before...."

  “Ah? That cave? It looks like a normal cave to me." The girl tilted her head in confusion and asked.

  Eclipse ran towards it, and the girl followed. It blended in perfectly with the atmosphere, but Eclipse knew for a fact it wasn't there previously. After all, he had carefully searched this region while setting up the trap for the Inferno Bear.

  Did he just not see it?

  Regardless, when he arrived at the cave and looked into the interior, it was a normal cave, as the girl said. From the cobwebs positioned in various areas from the inside, Eclipse concluded that this most likely isn't the den of a beast - if it was, it had either died or it was hibernating. But that didn't mean he could let down his guard, after all, who knew if the spiders which had built these cobwebs were poisonous or not.

  Inside the cave, it looked quite deep. When he stepped through the entrance, a wave of cold air immediately washed over him, sending a sudden jolt down his spine. The ground underneath his feet was soggy, making his feet sink halfway in.

  "This cave looks incomparably eerie… There doesn't seem to be any major sign of life." The girl muttered, looking at the jagged, knife-like stalactites. Water dripped off them and created a pattern in the sounds produced.

  Eclipse's heart thumped. Why was he so nervous? This cave looked nothing out of the ordinary.

  The girl closed her eyes for a brief moment, then opened them once again, "The cave is a few hundred metres deep, and I don't really sense any real danger."

  Eclipse nodded, and he swallowed up his worries, hesitantly walking into the cave. The girl followed. A couple of steps in, he realised he couldn't see anything at all, because no light from the outside reached here. He immediately went outside and gathered a few rocks and a pile of dry leaves. After he bought them back in, he hit the rocks together over the dry vegetation with the intent to spark a fire.

  The girl apathetically looked at him, painstakingly knocking the stones together. After fifteen minutes, a tiny spark came, which then turned into a flame. Eclipse smiled, then diffused the flame onto a stick. It lit up the cave… only for an instant. Next, a wave of cold air came from outside and blew out the fire.

  Eclipse cleared his throat awkwardly, "Ughh… I guess it's too cold here."

  The girl looked thoughtful, then her pupils went bright as if an idea came to her head. She stood still one moment, then in the next, hundreds of cherry blossoms surrounded her in a vortex and spread out into the cave. They then started to radiate a light pink coloured fluorescence which grew brighter and brighter until it brought the full cave into a dim pink light.

  Eclipse was lost for words as he stared dumbfoundedly at this scene, then he started to feel a bit irritated. It's a pretty nice ability, but it would've helped just a tiny bit if she had used it before instead of making him hit rocks together for fifteen minutes.

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  As he looked around, Eclipse suddenly stagnated, his gaze looking straight ahead. Now that the entire cave was in view, Eclipse could see all the way to the end, and a single silver glint had caught his eye. He charged ahead as hope and determination raged in his heart. His feet sank into the soggy earth as he made a mad dash ahead, his breathing heavy with excitement. In less than two minutes, he had already reached the silver glint. He pushed aside the rocks, sure enough, there was a single delicate silver ore in the grasp of a blossoming flower. Eclipse grabbed the orb with shaking hands as his excitement reached its apex.

  "It's… It's the Cryptic Amethyst." He said, a small smile forming across his lips.

  As Eclipse held the Cryptic Amethyst, still trembling with disbelief, a soft gasp came from behind him. The girl's eyes widened, and she bolted forward to check out the orb. But the soggy cave floor made her foot slide on the wet earth, and she stumbled with a small yelp.

  Before she could hit the ground, Eclipse instinctively reached out, catching her by the wrist and pulling her upright. Her face ended up far closer to his than either of them expected.

  The girl froze.

  A faint pink flush crept up her cheeks, but thanks to the pink glow from her cherry blossoms, it wasn’t obvious. The girl steadied herself stiffly, staring directly at him.

  Eclipse blinked in surprise, still holding the orb in one hand and her arm in the other, before awkwardly releasing her.

  Taking his attention back to the orb, he got up and looked out of the cave, 'Alright! Now that I've got this…'

  "Uh, yeah! Let's head back." The girl forced a cough, then turned around swiftly before she made her way towards the entrance.

  Eclipse followed.

  After he had made about ten metres, his pupils immediately shrank as a menacing aura hit him. He instinctively put the orb in his pocket in fear that it might fall out of his hand under these conditions. His adrenaline kicked in as he broke into a cold sweat and started shaking. He fell to his knees, paralysed as his violent heartbeat rang in his ears.

  Within his perception, the cave wasn't the same anymore. What had been merely a few hundred metres now felt like it was a vast and ceaseless abyss stretching on for thousands of kilometres. He dropped down on all fours, breathing hard as light-headedness overwhelmed him.

  The girl, whose perception of the world remained the same, didn't feel anything. What she did see was Eclipse's strange behaviour. One moment, he was happily walking out of the cave, and the next, he had fallen while trembling in fear.

  "What's wrong?" She asked, kneeling next to him, but he didn't respond. His pupils were quaking, and sweat dripped profusely down his forehead.

  Within Eclipse's perception, he was in a boundless and endless abyss. He couldn't see anything, only darkness for what seemed like millions of kilometres now. The malevolent aura tore away at his willpower, making him feel despair and hopelessness every passing second.

  Suddenly, the metallic sound of rattling chains penetrated his ears. He turned around, his movements very stiff and awkward. When he looked behind, the sight caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand.

  In an inclined pitch-black throne, designed with the contours of skulls, sat a single figure of a female. Both of her arms were tied down to the chair with thick chains etched with spikes, which dug into her flesh. Her hair was ink black, and so long it reached all the way to the bottom of the throne. She wore a black attire which covered the entirety of her body; even her face was covered with a black mask. The only distinctive aspect of this figure was that from her left pupil, a murderous blood red glow emitted. It was so radiant that the entire pitch black area was dimly lit in crimson.

  Under the scarlet light, Eclipse stood there, not uttering a single word. Looking at him, the figure narrowed her left eye, and a sudden shockwave washed over him. He immediately bent forward and coughed out a mouthful of blood.

  Subsequently, countless skulls appeared around him, making a noise that made them seem like they were laughing and wailing at the same time. More and more soon appeared, now black in colour and much larger; they howled in glee but moaned in despair at the same time, circling him as if they were about to witness a public execution. His blood red perception slowly turned darker and darker.

  With a disdainful glint in her blood-red pupils, her lips moved. She was saying something! He tried hard to concentrate, but Eclipse couldn't hear her over the fear ringing in his ears.

  His entire body quivered in fatigue and adrenaline, "Who…are…you!"

  He barely managed to get out these syllables when all of the pressure suddenly disappeared. Eclipse shot his eyes open from his trance.

  "Hey! Are you alright?!" The girl shook him.

  He stood up trembling, "I… I'm fine, don't worry about me…"

  She didn't look convinced in the slightest, "Are you sure? You don't look so good.”

  "Yes..." Eclipse said, and he staggered out of the entrance, breathing heavily, “I'm fine. I think it’s just a wound.”

  However, this simply was not the case. Eclipse figured that this girl would make it a big deal if he told her that she had been poisoned by an Emberclaw, so he decided to leave this part out.

  “Just a wound?” the girl asked with a frown, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. Before Eclipse could turn away, she stepped closer, examining the torn fabric and the darkening patch beneath it.

  Without warning, her hands glowed faintly pink, and a sudden swirl of cherry blossoms spun around her fingertips.

  “Hold still…” she muttered with her voice firm. The petals gathered in a small vortex, then wove themselves around Eclipse’s arm, tightening gently into a makeshift bandage.

  “You can do things like this?” Eclipse stared, momentarily stunned. The blossoms glimmered softly as they settled on his skin, radiating a faint warmth, “Thanks, I guess.”

  The girl avoided his gaze entirely, her cheeks pinker than the light she produced.

  “It’s nothing special… just a simple binding technique,” she said quickly, though her hands lingered an extra second to ensure the bandage held.

  By the time they had reached the peak of the mountain, the Bloodmoon Region finally came into view. Several villages and tribes were laid out like specks across a vast painting.

  Eclipse felt the Cryptic Amethyst in his pocket and smiled, but he was unable to relax. A heavy atmosphere pushed down on him, making him feel extreme discomfort. He suddenly felt unusually hollow on the inside. His heart quailed all of a sudden, causing him to instantly grip his chest where his heart was supposed to be.

  The girl frowned, "What's wrong? You're acting all weird again?"

  Eclipse didn't respond. Something felt wrong. Very wrong.

  His gaze then shifted to Grapefruit Village. Near the edge of the village, black smoke was rising upwards. Eclipse's pupils immediately contracted, and he broke into a sprint, heading straight for Grapefruit Village.

  The girl stood there, completely lost, "...you didn't even tell me your name."