I paused for a moment to expand my senses, trying to measure the thickness of the necrotic energy surrounding me, intending to pick a direction opposite of it. I didn’t like venturing into the unknown compared to taking a known quality, but I was willing to make an exception when the known factor was the undead.
Whatever the unknown party, it couldn’t be worse than the undead.
Or, I hoped so.
With a sigh, I started moving, deciding to trust my luck once more. After all, it was only a sign of my luck that I managed to survive after that deadly ambush — though it was easy to argue it was my bad luck that I ended up outside of borders.
I was tense as I walked forward, the limited range of detection making it a struggle to detect what was going on around me. The sudden loss of my Perception didn’t only impact my crafting abilities, but also reduced the number of details that I could detect in my surroundings, like I had fallen into a dark pit while looking at the sun.
The difference was remarkable, and not in a good way.
“Maybe I should be glad for the undead,” I muttered mockingly. After all, it was thanks to their efforts that there was foliage to block my view, giving me a relative sense of security in this unfamiliar environment.
I moved perpendicular to the dimensional border, still remembering the glimpse I had gotten from outside, with most borders already covered by necrotic energy. I wasn’t completely sure, but it was safer to assume that whatever non-undead beings would have been found deeper into the landscape.
Fifteen minutes of walking later, I was yet to walk out of the dead remains of the forest I found myself in. Even when I climbed the remains of a particularly tall tree, I failed to see anything but the dead remains of a forest, with no hint of life.
But, the lack of life once again worked to my benefit, allowing me to notice a small stream that would have otherwise been concealed by the hulking trees. I climbed down and dashed forward, anxious to quench my thirst. Technically, I could stay alive for a long time even without water, relying solely on the proto-HP I could generate from mana for weeks, but it would have been an uncomfortable sensation.
However, the closer I got to the stream, the stronger my frown got. The stream was radiating necrotic energy, thick enough to drown me even without touching.
Enough to force me to cast a shield. Luckily, while the radiating energy was strong, it was undirected, easily pushed away by a bubble of Arcana mana. I walked forward, undisturbed, and soon, I was at the riverbank, examining the stream.
It was cloudy and unappetizing, and not just because it was filled with necrotic energy. With every single living it touched dead, there was nothing to hold back the earth, allowing the water to pull enough particles to be technically defined as mud.
Yet, as I examined the water, I could easily feel that the thickness of necrotic energy was not accidental, or just a natural occurrence. The mana inside was packed too thick to be accidental. “The question, is it cast actively, or a ward is responsible,” I murmured.
The difference was not just technical. It was clearly weaponized to kill the forest — which was a task that had been accomplished with great effect — but it was still continuing. It didn’t matter much if it was just a ward that had been left intact, but was different if it was maintained actively.
It meant that they had something to destroy downstream, which would give me a potential direction.
Or a location to avoid.
Either way, I had a lot of time to examine the flow as I fashioned a large bottle out of the earth, using Arcana and my hands — which was considerably harder than just casting an earth spell to create one, but I was rather reluctant to rely on elemental spells after what I had experienced during my escape.
I didn’t know if the fragmented plane hold the same intense attraction for the elementals as the main material plane, but it was certainly not something I wanted to test at the current juncture.
After I crafted my earth bottle, I created a complicated ward, consisting of several layers alternating between Arcana and pseudo-HP, Arcana layers were responsible for getting rid of the mud and the dust particles, Tantric mana responsible for binding and breaking down the necrotic energy, with one last layer of pseudo-HP to keep it clean.
It was not a cheap structure, but I wasn’t exactly trying to keep the mana spending minimal. The air was filled with mana I could catch easily, and the taint of necrotic energy was ultimately unable to resist the purification. I even tested pulling some Aether from the Aether dimension and breaking it down to mana.
It was harder to break down than the necrotic energy, but after dealing with Primordial Aether, it still felt particularly easy.
I had faster ways of cleansing the water, but I didn’t use them. First, it was better to have a tool that I could use continuously rather than a one-off. Back in the material plane, the little delicate structure of interlocked wards would barely survive a few minutes without any external reagents, but here, I expected it to survive for days easily.
However, the real reason was my time requirements as I observed the river carefully. It turned out to be a useful decision, as after ten minutes, I noticed a sudden dip in the density of necrotic energy, which lasted a few seconds before returning to the earlier intensity.
I might have assumed that it was just a ward, but the shape of the necrotic energy changed. The function stayed the same, but there were enough structural differences to guess that the caster had changed — just like a letter, changing handwriting halfway.
It might be a ward, but they were clearly replenishing it, meaning there was a high chance that something interesting was downstream. Leaving me with the question of avoiding it or following it.
I was tempted to avoid it, and if my earlier lookout gave me any safer clues to follow, I might have done that. Unfortunately, I had no idea just how long I had to walk randomly, and time was precious.
While I hoped that the weird corrupted angel had bigger priorities than targeting Silver Spires, I didn’t expect that to last forever. The sooner I could find a method to go back, the better.
I decided to follow the stream, which was the better of the two clues I had. The other was going reverse, and confronting the undead, which was hardly something I wanted to do as anything but the last resort.
I continued moving, my senses sharp, hoping to catch any kind of wildlife, failing continuously for several hours even as I walked forward. As I moved, the sun had set, leaving its place to darkness…
Which didn’t exactly help me suppress the sense of discomfort I was feeling. I continued walking, using the spear as a walking stick — more of a distraction than a habit, though lessening the energy every step took was not a bad idea as well.
Not when I had no idea when I would have my next meal.
I wasn’t exactly idle as I walked. I used my power constantly to tap into Aether, getting more and more mana to purify and store in the wards, until I had more than ten thousand mana in various wards. I could technically store more, but it was the most I trusted myself to control in combat…
I could just eject the extra, but a huge flare shouting my presence was hardly something I needed intensely.
The first sign that I was finally going to meet a difference was the changing thickness of necrotic energy, floating aggressively, searching aggressively for living beings, only to fail — with the sole exception of myself, but I had the ability to block it successfully.
It took another hour for those particles to float toward anywhere but me.
The target, a large tree, which was, for all intents and purposes, dead, yet the rush of the particles continued.
I walked to touch it, using my mana to dispel the thick necrotic energy that filled its trunk, to see if there was any sign of life, but the best I could find was remnants of flickers, showing it had been a while since its death.
Though, the tenacity of the energy showed that the size of the tree was not its only exceptional feature — which was towering over every other tree by a considerable margin, even as a naked trunk. The fact that even a flicker of energy managed to last despite the intense flow showed an intense magical presence when it was alive.
I wished I could see it then. No doubt it would have created a fascinating view.
I continued walking, but not too long after, I noticed the first sign of wildlife, charging forward.
Though, I quickly amended my thoughts as I looked at the rotting corpse of a wolf. It was certainly wild, but the life part was rather doubtful.
“Again, zombies,” I thought as I raised my spear, preparing for combat.
[Level: 36 Experience: 631374 / 666000]
