The sun rises on the seventh day of the journey to the end, Kai gets up from her sleeping bag and decides to check on the pieces of armor that were crafted by Efe and Ari. There are five iron chest plates, five pairs of iron boots, five pairs of leather pants and five leather caps. Almost all are enchanted with low level enchantments. There are pickaxes, a couple of axes, swords and shields; Efe's been busy.

Kai goes to the bathroom and washes herself before taking a piece of bread. She goes over to her brewing stand and finishes brewing potions, her brain failing to function properly from the exhaustion. In the end, all efforts will be worth it.

Alex wakes up, she sees Kai working and walks up to her.

Al: Good morning. You're… Already on the grind.

K: Hi, yeah, everything is almost done. I think we can go get the dragon today if we do stuff fast enough.

Al: Hmmm… Makes sense. Just make sure to take it slow and… I don't know. I'm gonna go finish enchanting our gear.

Kai proceeds to spend the whole morning brewing and messing with potions, while Alex enchants more of the equipment. They stop after a while for lunch.

Ar: What are the plans?

K: Probably leaving today. If we work fast enough, that is.

Ar: Then we're leaving tomorrow. There's no good in being in a hurry, that's probably going to make us do things wrong.

K: To be honest, I agree. I'm just a bit nervous since we're on the seventh day out of ten and we still haven't even gotten to the stronghold where the portal is… We'll get there when we get there.

The girls each do their part, organizing the equipment and supplies for the mission so they can leave the next day. Being immersed in the work, no one expected the sun to set as fast as it did. What's left to do now is go to bed and rest for a long day.

The girls get up early and fill the bags and backpacks with the remaining gear, they put on bits of armor and load the chests on the llamas and Climb.

Kai covers an ender pearl with blaze powder, making an eye of ender. She launches it upwards, it floats towards the west and the girls follow the direction it showed. The process repeats itself two more times before the eye breaks midair.

The jungle nearby makes the journey fairly difficult. All the vines, bushes, leaves, and trees make the walk harder for the animals. The vines tangle around the leaves and branches get stuck on the clothes, carpets and bags. Eventually, this part of the journey ends, the girls find themselves in a forest, with leaves scattered on the ground and a couple of patches of wildflowers around.

Now, with the trees not being as tall as the ones in the jungle, a couple of eyes keep getting stuck on top of them. After the forest, the group enters a taiga. They run into a couple of packs of wolves, wooly pigs, and families of foxes. The spruce trees clear and an extensive field, bathed with gold from the sunset opens up. The group walks a bit more, with the angle of the eyes changing significantly. They decide to set up camp near a river.

The sky gets darker, and soon the stars appear in the sky, along with weird screeches. Nothing can be seen for a while, the group stands up, looking around.

An unidentified winged creature dives down and flies through Kai, she falls to the ground in pain.

Al: Kai!

Ar: What was that!?

Alex draws her sword and gets ready to attack.

Al: Kai, have you been sleeping well lately?

K: What does this have to do with anything?

Another one of the winged creatures dives down again, there's a full group of them above. Alex manages to hit it with her sword.

The girls try to run back to the forest for cover.

Al: Have you?

K: Not particularly.

Al: Not particularly?

K: What does sleeping have to do with what?

Al: Wait, you don't know about phantoms?

K: …No?

E: Phantoms?

Al: Oh my– When you don't sleep well, these things appear. They're, like, a physical-ish manifestation of sleep deprivation. I have enough experience with sleep problems… And the undead.

K: Oh, I didn't know that.

Ar: How long have you gone without sleeping?

K: Uhh–

Another phantom sweeps down, the others get their weapons and start trying to defend themselves.

K: I… actually haven't been keeping track. I think–

Al: Okay, what's important now is that we try to maintain you alive for the night. Those things destroy you from the inside bit by bit.

K: Can't I try to sleep right now?

E: With those things screaming in your ears?

Al: They also won't go away unless we all sleep, and we need at least one person awake to take care of them. Just try to keep them away, they'll start attacking everyone else after a while.

The night goes by, the girls take turns fending off the phantoms in duos with just enough rest to survive the night. Luckily, no visits from any other monsters coming from the forest.

The sun begins to rise, the phantoms start to burn as the light hits them.

Al: Okay, NOW we have to be a bit more careful, those things will burn us if they touch us before they die.

After a couple of seconds and a few attacks diverted, the phantoms disappear completely. They leave behind silence, followed by a loud sigh coming from Alex.

Al: How many days do we have?

K: We're on the ninth day now.

Al: I'm sorry, but we can rest when we are finished with the dragon.

K: The portal stays in an underground stronghold, we will know we're there when the eye of ender floats down instead of up.

The girls cross the entire plains biome while throwing the eyes. One of the eyes goes down into the ground, then rises to the surface in shards when the group reaches a beach.

K: We found it. We just have to dig.

Efe takes a pickaxe from her bag and starts to dig a diagonal tunnel down. A few minutes later, she reaches a wall of very neatly organized pieces of stone. She breaks into it and comes face to face with a spiral staircase going down.