Apotheosis

As Zen and Dorothy left the auction house, Jermain suddenly stood in front of them and blocked their way.

"Zen, do you have something on the Ear Mouse race?" Jermain asked. The young man was truly curious as to why the Ear Mouse had been so kind to Zen.

Although the Ear Mouse race did not give Zen the Other Shore Key, he was given permission to enter the Grand Sky Temple for free and even bring one person along.

This free pass was no simple arrangement. The Ear Mouse race was overly cautious especially given what happened at the Grand Sky Temple recently. Their set entry fee would be steep and only rose as time went on.

Zen shrugged. "I don't know much about the Ear Mouse race."

"Then...why did they let you enter the Grand Sky Temple for free?" Jermain asked.

"Maybe they need something from me?" Zen answered. He didn't show it on his face but his tone made it obvious that he found the conversation quite dull.

"What would they want from you?" Jermain continued, not willing to back down with his questions.

"I don't know," Zen repeated with a shake of his head.

The Ear Mouse race's invitation was really directed to Zen's corporeal body.

But he didn't know why they needed his corporeal body. He was telling Jermain the truth.

Nevertheless, he agreed to the invitation and even requested that he be allowed to bring a companion with him.

The Ear Mouse race thought that Zen's companion was the corporeal body they so wanted to see, so they allowed it.

They had no idea that Zen was actually going to use his corporeal body to enter the Grand Sky Temple and the companion he would be bringing with him was Dorothy.

This arrangement was rife with misunderstanding, but the results were set to be the same.

Seeing that Zen was truly clueless, Jermain had to back down. He still had one more thing to ask, though. "You can take one more person with you, right? Who are you going to take? If you don't have anyone, can you bring me with you?" he requested.

"I already have a suitable candidate," Zen replied, turning his gaze to Dorothy.

Jermain's brows furrowed. "Is the person you're referring to Dorothy?"

His tone was incredibly serious and before Zen could reply, Dorothy opened her mouth. "Why? Is there a problem? Do you think I'm unsuitable to go to the Grand Sky Temple?"

"Of course you're not suitable!" Jermain exclaimed, no

.

Like Zen and Dorothy, they too must be headed to the Grand Sky Temple.

The two of them travelled for quite some time. After covering over a hundred miles, Dorothy suddenly pointed southwest. "Zen, look! It's so dark!"

Zen turned and found a huge, black ball in the distance.

It seemed to be devouring the land, casting eternal night on the Other Shore.

"That's the Dark Region," Zen remarked as he stared at the absolute darkness.

As they went on, the area shrouded by the Dark Region grew. The road they ventured on was reasonably wide, but they felt great pressure upon them as they walked.

As a kind of experiment, Zen decided to release a bit of his spiritual sense and tried injecting it into the Dark Region.

However, the moment his spiritual sense touched the border, it immediately disappeared. Zen didn't bother doing it a second time.

It took the two of them almost half a day to complete the journey. To their relief though, they soon saw the Grand Sky Temple in the distance.

The temple was located at the very edge of the Dark Region. This put it in danger of being devoured fully by the darkness if it ever decided to expand again, but for now, its unique location made it serve as a passageway to the Dark Region.

Dorothy pouted her lips as they approached the Grand Sky Temple. "Why are there so many creatures here?"

"All the Souls of Light we saw on the way were heading towards the temple," Zen said.

True enough, thousands of Souls of Light waited by the gate, densely packed and eager to rush in as soon as the temple opened its gate.