After an unknown time, Enigma felt someone pat her shoulder. Raising her head eagerly, she felt disappointed realizing it was Sarah.
Varian was placed in a healing pod that Sarah retrieved from her storage ring. And even though his indicators weren't bad, they were slowly but surely going down.
Enigma wiped away her tears and looked at Sarah with a puzzled expression.
Sarah pulled her up and gave her a hug. Enigma wasn't expecting this at all and fell into the hug.
When she was about to ask what was even Sarah thinking, she felt a pat on her back, as if comforting her.
Sarah's trembling but soothing voice sounded in her ear. "I-I'm sorry. I kept my distance from you and never saw you as a friend."
Sarah broke her hug and held Enigma's hand even as the silver-haired girl was still confused.
"E-Even though it's ridiculous, I believe we'll get through this. I believe Varian will do a miracle once again." Sarah's voice was filled with hope. Not the normal hope. But the hope of the desperate.
"He'll survive. He must. We'll return to our home. And once we do, I hope we can be good friends." Sarah said.
Enigma felt the sincerity in Sarah's shaking voice. Perhaps this was when Sarah truly accepted Enigma as a part of her family.
Since they took the vacation, Enigma wished to be friends with Sarah. But it never really happened because of the distance Sarah maintained. She'd smile and talk but never really treated as someone close.
Now the distance was finally removed, but Enigma couldn't feel any happiness.
She looked at Varian's sleeping face and put her hand on her aching chest. "Maybe he will really do a miracle."
Sarah nodded and wiped away the tears from the corner of her eyes. Crying now would mean she gave up. She didn't. She still hoped.
It's not hard to believe in something when it's dazzling in the sky. But when it falls into the depths of the Abyss, would that belief remain?
Hope doesn't concern itself with logic. It need not be rational. Why should it be?
Sarah's belief in Varian even at this point was irrational. She knew it too. But she believed in him anyway.
Because logic says he wouldn't survive. So, she clung to hope that says he would.
After calming their emotions, the two women continued their search with renewed hope and energy.
Perhaps it had been minutes or just seconds, but they saw it. A structure that was pushing the space currents.
It was a long, long tunnel inside this chaotic space. It was almost a mile in diameter and seemed to stretch on infinitely. Even with her best attempt, Enigma couldn't fathom how long the tunnel actually was. But the conservative estimate was a hundred thousand miles.
"Wait, is that…" Sarah pointed a finger at the tunnel and fired a light beam. The light beam flew above the tunnel and illuminated it.
Made of gray material, the tunnel had small cracks all over it. But what caught the attention of the two women were the ancient but familiar runes all over the tunnel.
"…Deva script?" Enigma took a deep breath to calm her racing heart. "Why here of all places?"
Enigma was pretty clear about where they're currently at. They're on the border of Layered Space and Inner Space. Basically, they're on the verge of entering Inner Space but didn't.
In front of them was Inner Space where even Sovereigns would die. Behind them were the final bits of layered space where only peak level 9s could survive.
Logically, their location should have space currents fiercer than peak level 9s. Preferably, equivalent to Sovereigns. But it didn't. It didn't make any sense until this tunnel was found.
"It's influencing the space currents in this area and making it less dangerous." Enigma sighed. "We're lucky."
The tunnel was actively pushing the space currents away. This made the radius of a thousand miles around the tunnel safer.
Still, Enigma and Sarah needed shields to survive here. Had there been no tunnel, they'd have died on the spot.
But it's not like they're lucky. They couldn't go to Inner Space. Only Celestial Rankers could survive there.
They couldn't go back to Outer space through the Layered Space either. Once they leave the thousand-mile safe haven of the tunnel, they'd have to face the space currents only peak level 9s could face. They'd die in seconds.
"We're unlucky if anything." Sarah shook her head. "During the space crack, we worked so hard to pick the safest route. But see where we ended up."
Enigma went silent for a moment before giving a wry smile.
Varian would've ended up in the Inner space, but Enigma and Sarah intervened in the last moment and messed up the space crack.
They didn't mindlessly destroy or expand it. But rather, they used their gravity and time sense to check where they'd end up with every little change they made to space crack.
Even a minuscule change to space crack would greatly alter the destination.
It's like tilting an airplane during takeoff. Just a small shift would make the plane end up in a different city!
For that very reason, Enigma and Sarah worked hard in the little time they had with the space crack.
Enigma would change the gravity by 1% and sense the destination on the other side of the space crack with her gravity sense. Then she'd change it by 1.1% and repeat.
It's like putting in a different input and checking the output, then doing it again and again. Since they're level 9s, they could do such changes thousands of times in a single second.
Enigma and Sarah literally searched more than a hundred thousand locations before they picked the safest route.
They thought they'd end up in a relatively dangerous place that they could get out of with relative ease.
They didn't expect to land here at all!
Now, they couldn't go forward or back.
What to do?
In this situation, the only breakthrough was the tunnel.
"What exactly is this structure built by Devas thousands of years ago doing in this chaotic location?" Sarah narrowed her eyes.
The white barrier moved closer to the tunnel and the two women started scanning the tunnel to dig in some information.
After some observation, they concluded it had decayed due to neglect but still remained functional.
Enigma had previously worked on collecting the secret message from the Ruins and was more familiar with the Devas' legacy.
So, she could roughly understand the words on the tunnel. From her rough translation, the guests were supposed to open a portal to this location and enter the tunnel for interstellar travel.
The whole setup was similar to an underground tunnel connected to a city, the city being the solar system. And Varian's trio happened to break the ground and reach the tunnel.
They suddenly had an option of picking this tunnel for travel.
"This is risky." Sarah frowned.
"Compared to the other two options, this doesn't have a 100% death rate." Enigma shrugged.
Sarah looked at the Inner Space and Layered Space before letting out a helpless sigh. Piggybacking Varian, she flew to the tunnel.
Enigma floated beside her and they both stepped into the tunnel at the same time.
The tunnel shook for a moment before it lit up. A white light engulfed Varian, Sarah, and Enigma before they disappeared.
