Before the second crystal energy arrow could streak from the bow of the winged light figure atop the temple ruin island, a dark shadow suddenly darted from behind a golden cloud bank at Davin’s side.

Clang!

A dimension-gleaming dagger flashed swiftly, deflecting the crystal arrow so that it veered far off into the sky. The winged figure on the cliff grunted softly, then flapped its crystal wings, shooting away to vanish behind the thick fog without a trace.

A startled Davin instantly assumed a defensive stance in the open air. Yet, before he could retaliate, a hand wearing tactical gloves grabbed his coat collar.

"Don't move if you want to stay alive, Newcomer," a firm and cold female voice whispered in his ear.

The woman pulled Davin straight through a curtain of inverted waterfall—where water poured heavily upward toward the sky—and into a hidden cave tucked behind the floating island's cliff wall.

The atmosphere inside the floating temple cave was quite spacious, illuminated by blue crystals clinging to the stone walls. In the corners of the room, several people sat resting near a small campfire floating in the middle of the room without touching the floor. They wore tattered explorer outfits from various different eras and worlds.

Davin was shoved gently until he dropped to one knee on the stone cave floor. He scrambled up immediately, staring sharply at the woman who had dragged him.

She was in her late thirties, with long black hair tied in a ponytail and a faint burn scar on her left cheek. She wore a thick leather coat and wielded the dimensional dagger that had just deflected the enemy arrow.

"Who are you people?" Davin asked coldly, his right hand bearing the hourglass symbol tightening.

The woman sheathed her dagger, then crossed her arms, staring at Davin with a probing gaze. "Calm down, kid. If we wanted to kill you, you'd have been ash back there facing The Sentinels. I'm Valeri. Leader of whatever's left in this place."

"Valeri?" Davin repeated, narrowing his eyes.

"And before you ask why we grabbed you," Valeri continued, pointing with her chin toward the symbol on the back of Davin’s hand, "it's because we saw the light of that cursed book on your hand. Only a handful of people ever get dragged into Aethelgard with The Ledger inside them."

Several members of the resistance group near the campfire began to approach, observing Davin with a mixture of deep curiosity and profound despair.

An elderly man with a white beard stepped forward, looking at Davin with pity. "How long have you been trapped jumping worlds, son? Do you remember your original world?"

Davin fell silent for a moment. His memories of the white laboratory in his original world felt increasingly blurred—the effect of the 30% permanent memory stripped away by the system's transcendence tax back in Neo-Veridia.

"I... don't remember everything," Davin answered quietly, his voice sounding bitter. "I only know I have to keep moving forward."

Valeri let out a long sigh. She walked over to a stone table in the center of the cave, where an ancient digital projection console hummed softly, casting a dim blue light.

"Welcome to the club of wretched wanderers," Valeri said cynically yet without malicious intent. "All of us here used to be humans from different universes. Some from rural fantasy worlds, some from high-tech futuristic cities, and some from modern eras like ours. We thought we were exploring an infinite multiverse."

Davin rose and approached the stone table. "Isn't that how it is? We move from one dimension to another."

Valeri snorted softly. "That's the biggest lie sold by the system."

She tapped several buttons on the ancient digital console before her. The projector beamed a massive three-dimensional holographic map into the cave air, displaying all the worlds previously visited by explorers—ranging from Oakhaven's circular landscape, Neo-Veridia's cybernetic megacity labyrinth, to Aethelgard's fragmented islands.

Davin studied the holographic map closely. His brow furrowed deeply. When Valeri scaled down the map to display the macro structure of all connected parallel worlds, the network's overall shape abruptly shifted.

The energy lines and dimensional coordinate paths connecting those worlds did not form random galactic patterns or cosmic expanses. Instead, those lines curved, branched, and folded into one another, forming a deeply familiar anatomical structure.

The map formed a three-dimensional image of a massive human brain, complete with temporal lobes, a cerebellum, and glowing neural synapse pathways.

Davin stunned, his breath instantly hitching in his throat.

"You see it?" Valeri whispered softly, looking at Davin with a gaze carrying profound horror. "This map was compiled from the data of our predecessor explorers before they perished."

Valeri pointed to the central region of the brain map, where the simulation points of Oakhaven and Neo-Veridia lay.

"The worlds we visit... the places where we suffer, fight, and lose the ones we love... aren't physical universes out there," Valeri continued with a trembling voice. "All of them are merely simulations inside the mind and collective consciousness of humanity lying comatose in the original earth. We never went anywhere. We're just spinning around inside the head of someone who is dying."