Ethereal Ascendance: A Journey of Transformation

While the space portal on Earth was acting strange, the portal entrance on Eldoria Continent didn't disappear. But it got weird - if you went in, nothing happened. It just looked like a round, see-through ball.

When H-country's military suddenly found out they couldn't go back, they got really scared! They didn't know how the portal worked, so there was some trouble here.

Luckily, most of the important people from the Ilandra Dominion Empire delegation had come back. One of the magic experts with Princess Katarina knew a lot about earth element portals. After checking things out, they said that since the portal entrance was still there, the connection to Earth wasn't totally broken. There was still a chance it could work again. This helped calm down the worried soldiers a bit.

Of course, after the portal started working normally again, all this became old news. When I went to the base office to report to the top commander, General Lange, and explain why I came back, I found out something surprising.

"Irene didn't come back here?"

I remembered Irene was the last one to go into the portal before that vampire died inside. But nobody from the empire group or anyone else saw her come out of the portal. At first, everyone thought she didn't enter the portal in time, but that's not what happened...

"I heard light elves are really good at turning invisible. Maybe the little girl didn't like it here, so she used her power to go back to her village right away?" Princess Katarina thought for a bit and guessed, even though it wasn't very likely.

There was an old, secret light elf village near the empire's border. The empire officials knew about it, but they never figured out exactly where it was.

"I'll go to the village and ask about it," I said. But I wasn't very hopeful. Irene wouldn't leave without waiting for Reed. But after the portal went crazy, who knows what happened to Irene inside. Maybe she got sent to some unknown parallel world, or even died in there!

But before I could fly far from the base, someone suddenly appeared in front of me in the air.

"You're finally back! It's been so long! What happened on Earth?"

"Galadra?"

For different reasons, Galadra's copy couldn't go through the portal to Earth. She looked a bit worried.

After I left, she kept watching the portal closely. Of course she saw when it started acting strange. But the problem wasn't on this side, so she couldn't figure out what was wrong.

"We found Cyra, but now there's a big problem that only you can fix!"

It was good timing - I didn't have to spend time looking for her. I didn't waste time and told her everything that happened on Earth, and that I needed her help to send a group of people back home.

"That's so complicated! Dealing with weird stuff happening across many universes is a big headache for me too!" Galadra frowned after hearing the whole story. Then she surprised me with her answer.

"So if you want me to send all those visitors from parallel worlds back to where they came from, I can't do it!"

"Huh? That's impossible!"

I almost hurt my back from the shock. Never mind the rest, but Nicola from World 14 took a Galadra's Eye and volunteered to take most people home. But now the real Galadra from our world is saying she can't do it?

"Are you a fake... or maybe your soul isn't complete, like mine?"

I looked at her, confused and annoyed.

Even if she's just a copy, this Galadra is much stronger than me, even after I got stronger. I can feel a bit of her power to control Authority now.

But she's the famous Earth Angel in charge of space. How could she not be able to do this simple thing?

"Oh? You got stronger again?"

Galadra didn't answer my question. She stared at my wings, finally noticing the difference. She smiled meaningfully. "Looks like you had a breakthrough on Earth. Now you should be able to use some of Gisphrael's powers."

"Do you know about the 'Holy Ones'?"

Her words reminded me to ask. I don't know much about this mysterious, super powerful race. But Galadra's been alive for over 10,000 years, so she should have heard of them, right?

"'Holy Ones'? Who are they? I don't know!"

Surprisingly, even Galadra looked confused when she heard the name. She blinked and shook her head, looking lost.

I was shocked. If even Galadra doesn't know, it'll be hard to find info anywhere else.

"But with your incomplete soul, ten wings is probably your limit. Unless your soul becomes whole again, you can't really get better at controlling Authority."

After looking at me closely, Galadra came to the same conclusion as before.

I remembered this, but when she sighed and suddenly made a crystal ball appear in her hand, I was surprised.

"This is the original 'Galadra's Eye'. It's a bit different from what Michelle made - she got some unknown tech from somewhere and combined it with the Eye's magic to make a big machine that can swap spaces. But if you just want to cross between worlds and send other travelers home, this original version is enough!"

"Huh? Didn't you say you couldn't do it? Were you lying to me?"

I quickly took the Galadra's Eye and played with it, feeling happy inside.

This was my first time seeing the original, complete Galadra's Eye up close. Looking carefully at the center of the crystal ball, I saw it was super deep inside - you couldn't see the end! For a moment, it felt like my whole soul could get sucked into the ball and sent to some other space somewhere...

"I didn't lie!"

Suddenly a finger snap brought me back to reality. Galadra explained seriously:

"My power is only enough to send those guys back to Eldoria Continent in their own worlds. This Galadra's Eye can do the same thing. But if it's parallel Earth worlds, I can't send them all back by myself."

"..."

Is there a difference? I didn't know why she cared so much about the exact words. A bunch of question marks popped up in my head. But even if she could only send people back to Eldoria Continent, that should be enough. So I didn't ask more.

It's true that quite a few visitors came directly from parallel Earth worlds to our Earth - like World 1. But if they could come here, it probably means their original worlds also have portals connecting Eldoria Continent and Earth.

Now that the source of the problem - the vampire's magic - is totally gone, not just our world's portal should be back to normal. Almost all the parallel world portals affected should work again too.

So if we just use Galadra's Eye to send them back to Eldoria Continent in their own worlds, there shouldn't be any problem with them going back to Earth later if they need to.

In other words, now that I have Galadra's Eye, one of the reasons I came back is solved easily?

I knew Galadra cared about me!

"After the portal goes back to normal, it'll disappear. Remember, there's less than a month left. If you have anything left to do on Earth, hurry up and do it! Also, the celestial weapon can only store so much magic. Return it to me right after you use it!"

Before she disappeared, Galadra nagged me one last time.

"So stingy, I have to give it back?"

I felt a bit disappointed. But I still had a bunch of things to do, so I quickly turned and flew towards the light elf village.

...

Of course, Irene's disappearance wasn't as simple as we thought!

In the light elf village, I saw the village chief Kalati, Elder Gwendolyn who happened to visit, and even Serena leading the First Angel Legion camped around the village. But no Irene!

"So that child is almost certainly lost in the space portal, sent to who knows which world?"

Elder Betty from the elf village sighed, sounding sad as she accepted this fact. Of course, this was thinking positively. Even if Galadra came herself, she couldn't bring Irene back because we don't know which parallel world she's in.