75

"Wow, so this is what you call a new world," Izumi comments, slightly surprised, looking around. "I've seen very similar places in the Land of Snow. Are you sure we're not in some remote northern location or on some unexplored continent?"

Akira, who has appeared next to the woman, says, "I'm more than sure, but if you want irrefutable evidence, just look up."

The woman, heeding the suggestion, looks up, and is surprised to find a huge green moon, clearly visible despite it being daytime. "What the hell… Um… Are we really in a different world?"

The man simply nods and begins walking in a random direction, signaling for her to follow, "There's no point in lying to you. This isn't something I expected to find out either. I don't know what awaits us in this world, so keep your eyes peeled and don't remove your new mask for anything. It has a special air filter, as I'm still not 100% sure we won't encounter some dangerous pathogen."

Izumi quickly catches up to Akira, adjusting his mask tightly and making sure it's leak-free. "This is amazing. So it was all thanks to an accident involving one of the apostles. Why didn't you bring Kiyoko?"

"I didn't tell you before, but in case you haven't noticed, there's no chakra in this world," the man exclaims.

The woman stops in her tracks and stares at the ground for a few moments. "That's true, I don't feel like I can recharge my chakra reserves. That means I could be defenseless if I end up using it all up."

"In Kiyoko's case, it's worse, since her eyes still use up too much chakra, and her sensory technique depends on using chakra in the air. She wouldn't last long in this place," he adds.

"And what about us? Do the armor batteries need to recharge too?" Izumi asks.

"That's the great thing about my artifacts, since they use a minuscule amount of chakra; the vast majority is natural energy, and that's abundant in this world. Just be careful not to overuse your Sharingan and rely more on your armor and weapons. Also, remember to be alert to potential dangers and immediately use emergency teleportation if necessary."

The woman nods, and they both begin walking toward the unknown. The terrain is the same everywhere they can see, with a thin layer of snow and small bushes widely separated from each other, between snowy mountain ranges that seem to surround a vast, desolate plain. The steps are made a little difficult by the snow, but the most uncomfortable thing is the cold that begins to bother them both, so they activate the armor's heating system, bringing the temperature to a comfortable 24°C.

After a couple of hours of walking, the two encounter a change in the terrain, with more abundant vegetation and larger trees, very similar to pines. The consensus is clear, and the two continue on the path of abundance until they come across the disappearance of the snow on the ground and the presence of a huge river.

"It must be over 200 meters wide, and it also seems deep," Izumi comments, observing from the riverbank.

"This is an excellent sign," Akira says, observing the life around him, highlighted by birds in the trees and a few fish peeking out of the clear waters of the river. "I suspect we're going to find intelligent life in this world."

"What do you want to gain from all this?" the woman asks, sitting on a rock to appreciate the view. "This is all amazing, but you tend to have rather devious plans for everything you get involved in."

The man laughs, then replies, "That's very prejudiced of you, although true in most cases… But I have to admit, I have no idea what I want from this world, and I don't have any devious plans for its inhabitants, if they exist at all… It's simply amazing to find a new place. Can you imagine a civilization existing here?"

"Have you visited other worlds?"

"This is the seventh," the man says without hesitation.

"Was there anything in those places?"

"Only desolation and the inability to sustain life. There are also two I don't dare travel to because they're too scary," Akira's tone changes to seriousness.

"It sounds scary, but it's still amazing, and I have a suspicion we're going to find something amazing here," Izumi says. "Where are we going, upriver or downriver?"

The man takes a coin from his storage system and spins it in the air, then catches it in his hand and looks at the result. "Lucky says we go upriver."

The two continue their journey, heading against the flow of the river, staying close to the shore. The vegetation remains normal, but as they advance, several recognizable mammals begin to appear, such as rats, squirrels, deer, and even some small felines.

Suddenly, the landscape changes abruptly, with the disappearance of most of the animals as they reach a lagoon-like area housing a massive waterfall nearly 30 meters high. The two decide to rest at the edge of the lagoon, where Akira approaches the water to take some water samples, apparently for study back home. But everything is interrupted when something enormous begins to emerge from within the waterfall: a sort of blue reptilian head nearly 5 meters tall.

"Is that what I think it is?" the man asks in a serious yet calm tone.

The woman stares at the enormous beast, which begins to reveal a robust body, with enormous legs and a thick tail, and also responds calmly, "It looks like a dragon, but its body is too wide… should we run away?"

"It looks like a Western dragon. Try to control it with your sharingan, use mangekyo if necessary," Akira exclaims.

Izumi, sitting on a rock at the edge of the lagoon, reveals her red eyes through her mask, staring at the dragon, which seems unaffected and continues its approach. The eyes change shape, revealing the pattern of the Mangekyou Sharingan, but again the beast doesn't seem affected in the least. Then, in a display of incredible power, the dragon stops dead in its tracks, a layer of black ice covering its entire body.

"It's impossible to control," the woman says, displaying extreme exhaustion.

The man, for his part, takes out a metal cube from his storage system and throws it towards the forest, then extracts an unsheathed sword, which begins to emit a strange transparent aura, visible only by the distortion of the light, while he looks at the frozen dragon, which now begins to vibrate and fracture the ice, "Prepare to flee, this beast seems to be in a completely different league."

When the dragon manages to free one of its legs from the ice, Akira acts, launching an invisible sword attack directly at the beast's exposed limb, striking it squarely in the thigh, unfortunately only causing a superficial wound.

"Okay, we're screwed, let's flee immediately," the man concludes, and they both disappear from the scene simultaneously.

The dragon finally frees itself completely from the ice, enraged, but all it finds before it is the absence of its enemies, provoking even more anger from it, which it ends up unleashing with a great roar towards the sky.

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