The Abyss (2)

The joyous mood from the meal earlier disappeared as soon as I asked that. Fiona looked sulky, her face down. Her reluctance made me worried that it was something difficult to talk about. Was it about her birth father, or whatever the hell is in the abyss? The roar from earlier was terrifying. Do we have to fight whatever made it to get out of this place alive?

I patted my back and whispered into her ears reassuringly. "Tell me, Fiona. Don't be scared. Let it all out. Daddy will always be with you. We'll make it out of here alive, but that'll require trust between me and you. I trust your words and you'll trust mine. We'll share and respect our thoughts together, okay?"

The corner of her lips slowly curled up into a smile as she muttered, "How could my shameless daddy ever respect me? All he likes to do is take advantage of me..."

"..." I heard that, Fiona. Is this the result of my trust, a verbal attack on my heart? I made up my mind to take advantage of her more, just for the sake of it. If she thinks a simple sentence would stop me, well, she's wrong!

Fiona drew a deep breath before letting out her thoughts. "That roar was a dragon's roar, and that's probably the thing that scared the cultivator before. Fiona doesn't recall encountering any dragons though, but Daddy mentioned there was a ninth-grade spiritual beast living in the abyss. That roar was the last thing I heard before I blacked out and woke up in Glendora."

"You remember nothing else?" I asked, a frown on my face. A ninth-grade spiritual beast is going to be very difficult to deal with. As per Dragons... well, I expected as much from another world. These mythical creatures do exist, it seems. How come we'd never encountered one back on the continent?

Oh, right. We met a wingless dragon with Burkan, and while Fiona said she'd only read about them,

Fiona shook her head.

I continued. "You've mentioned that you've only seen the wingless dragons in books, then what about the true dragons?"

"True dragons... Fiona doesn't remember a lot. Old daddy only mentioned it a few times and Fiona has never heard about them in books, but..." she hesitated.

"Go on," I urged. "Any information is good right now."

"Fiona overheard some officials in the royal court talking about the other races," she said, after a moment of contemplation.

That shocked me. "You mean, other races as in... devils and elves and whatnot?" I asked. Those were the two most prominent races from the Xianxias I've read. I did not expect that this world would have them two.

Fiona widened her eyes in surprise. "How did you know, daddy? The races include the devils, elves and beast-men, along with the dragon and phoenixes. Those include bloodlines."

"Makes sense." I nodded. "Tell me more about what you heard." This was the important thing, and I expect it wouldn't be anything good.

"Uh, it was something about plans, wars and a betrayal," Fiona replied, a thoughtful look on her face.

Yep. It was not good. "Fiona, have you seen the other races?"

"Fiona has met beast-men before, but they were only slaves in Cardinal Ardor... and there's a suspected underground trade in Glendora for them too."

Sheesh. If we were to piece things together, the most plausible reason for the rarity of the other races was that the humans banished them... after a betrayal and a war? And to the Forbidden Lands, considering there are dragons here? If that were true, things would get difficult. They probably have a terrible vendetta against humans... and that would include us.

No wonder no cultivators have come out alive after entering the cliffs.

I explained my thoughts to Fiona, and she agreed. "It seems to be that way, daddy. Old daddy told me to ignore these matters, but on the day before we left for the party into the Forbidden Lands, he told me to expect a whole, new world there. Maybe that meant different creatures and such."

"So... what do we do now?" I asked Fiona, after we stood in silence for a while. "How do we get out of here, to Glendora?"