The Door used the Blood Crystals for its construction. A single blood crystal alone contained immense blood energy that could make anyone go crazy, filling them with bloodlust. A door made from thousands of such crystals was even more dangerous.
Even for Gabriel, who had a lot of blood on his hands due to killing many people, it was hard to keep his mind calm.
Multiple thoughts rushed into his mind, trying to overwhelm him. It was as if thousands of voices were whispering in his ears, telling him to kill everyone who was near him to get immense strength!
Gabriel fought back against these bloody thoughts, knowing that these were the effect of the Blood Door.
"Let me help you!" Alion stepped forward. The door was hard to open. Even with Gabriel using all his strength, the door clearly looked so heavy that Gabriel could only move it a few inches in every attempt.
"Stay back!" Gabriel yelled back. He could at least control himself even when he was in contact with the Bloody door, but it was almost impossible for Alion.
Even though he was opening the door slowly, it was still not bad. After a few minutes, he finally managed to open the crack between the doors enough so that one person could enter at a time.
After opening the doors, Gabriel finally took his hands off, breathing heavily. Just opening the door itself was like fighting a great war in his mind.
He told the others to follow closely behind before passing through the crack in the door, disappearing into an unknown space.
Alion and Jia entered after him, acting cautiously to not touch the door on their way.
****
"This place..."
Alion and Jia appeared in an entirely different space. It was their first time in the Nether Realm but what they saw stunned them thoroughly.
They were still in the outermost layer of this Realm yet they still felt the aura of death pressing down on them! This place was simply heaven for the undead beings.
The sky had no sun, yet this place was bright enough for them to see their surroundings clearly.
The sky wasn't blue like they could see on earth. Instead, it had a reddish yue, as if someone had painted the sky blood red.
Let alone the sky, even the ground here was different. There were no signs of life anywhere. With the atmosphere around this place, it wasn't surprising for them to find not a single blade of grass in this place.
The temperature was also very high, as if they were standing right at the edge of an active volcano.
"This is the Nether Realm?" Jia observed his surroundings. This place was something that she always wanted to see ever since she heard about it. However, now that she was here, this place really didn't look anything special.
"It is just the outermost edge of the Nether Realm. It's obvious you won't see much here," Gabriel casually answered. "However, this place is more mystical than you can imagine."
"It's one of the three mystical realms in our universe after all." Alion nodded. "It's no less special than the Upper Realm that all the gods went crazy for. The only difference is that it's much harder to survive in this place."
"Other than the souls that are entrapped there, what's so special about this place?" Jia asked, following Gabriel and Alion deeper into the Nether Realm.
Since they were still in the outermost layer, let alone finding anyone, they couldn't even see a single structure. They just walked over a barren land that was filled with cracks. Not even a single droplet of water could be seen in this as far as the eyes could see.
"This place is dangerous, but it also contains many opportunities," Gabriel explained while navigating further.
As this realm had no sun or winds, it was very hard for people to navigate through this place and find the right direction to get out of the desolate land. All the directions looked the same after all.
"Once upon a time, this Realm used to be more developed than the Upper Realm. However, something happened which resulted in this place becoming what it is now. Despite that, this place is filled with treasures."
"Moreover, Earth isn't the only world that has a portal to enter this place. There exists one such portal in every world, including the upper realm. Unfortunately, no one dares to come to this place anymore."
Gabriel had no idea if he was walking in the right direction or not. Even his own perception of direction was messed up in this place.
He could only leave everything to his inner sense which was somewhat connected to the souls of Novius and Cylix, hoping to navigate the right direction.
Along the way, just to keep him engaged, he told Alion and Jia about some of the history of this place. Unfortunately, even his own knowledge was very limited.
"If it was more developed than the Upper Realm, then how did it fall to this point?" Jia asked, stunned. She couldn't even imagine the Upper Realm falling to this point out of nowhere while this place supposedly used to be even better.
"I heard that a True Immortal God died at this place," Gabriel let out, remembering a story he had heard when he was in the upper realm. He didn't know how true the story was.
"Ever since that day, the entire Realm changed. From that day onwards, the Realm lost all its vitality, making it almost impossible for beings even more powerful than me to live in this place."
"You want to know why?" He asked, glancing back at the little girl.
"Why?" Jia frowned. She had a feeling that this world was truly not simple. She didn't know what it was, but ever since she entered this place, she had a feeling that something was wrong with her. She just couldn't put a finger on it.
"Because you can't recover your strength in this world," Gabriel smirked. "On earth, or in the upper realm, you can recover your spirit essence from the air around you and use it to cast spells even when you're exhausted once."
"However, there's no such thing here. Once you exhaust all your strength, you can't recover it."
"What's worse is that all your divine treasures are useless in this place. A slightly more talented person can kill you even with an ordinary iron sword while you carry your treasure sword."
"This world is truly dead, and so are all the treasures. That's why, it's useless to carry treasures to this place. They can't help you much. What's even worse is that your divine protection is useless in this place."
"In short, you're no different than an ordinary person after you exhaust all your strength in this place. So you better use your spells and strength only when absolutely necessary. Otherwise, you won't even know how you died!"
