by L. M. Kerr
That tapping grew louder and louder, methodic thuds that echoed out in a repeating pattern.
Finally, after several seconds, the tapping paused.
A moment later…
A walking skeleton emerged from the shadows of the cave.
This skeleton had a frail humanoid appearance, beyond the fact that it was just made of bones. It wore a once-resplendent purple robe and a stained white necklace, both looking as if they were just a few days away from dissipating. It stood a little higher than the average human, at roughly 1.9 meters tall.
On the skeleton’s white forehead was a black circle with an ‘x’ engraved within it. This symbol glowed ever so faintly in the noon light, but otherwise gave off nothing else.
“…this is what woke me?” The skeleton’s voice warbled out of its mouth, a grating tone that must’ve been powered by some type of magic.
“No…” The skeleton bent down as it examined the Blue-Eared Goat’s corpse. It picked the dead body up for a few seconds before casually tossing it to the side.
“No, it’s coming to me now.” The skeleton took several steps forward as the Blue-Eared Goat’s skeleton hit the cave wall and dissipated into dust.
Despite the fact that the skeleton’s face was unable to show emotion, it gave off a feeling of intense glee as it clapped its hands together.
“A Toren… I sensed the presence of a Toren!” The skeleton cackled out loud,
“Finally, after all these years, I can escape these cursed mountains.” Its face gave off a rictus of a smile as it attempted to grin.
“It’s not that broken freak either, it’s a different Toren that I might be able to take. It felt pretty weak…” The skeleton talked to itself as it walked out of its cave and then sat down on the ground.
There was a small clearing between the cave entrance and the surrounding grove of trees, just enough room for a large boulder to sit out, wedged in the open. The skeleton sat atop this boulder as its eyes began to glow; a series of strange words uttered from its mouth.
“Hasin… soroth… talsumna…” Motes of light began to flutter around its head, shining down with blue light.
A bright flash of azure energy shot out from its eyes, crackling out loud in the air. This energy vanished after a few seconds, leaving the elated skeleton alone in silence.
“Huh?” The skeleton’s happiness seemed to freeze over as it stuttered to a halt.
“I can’t… I can't get a trace on it?” The undead being seemed to be at a complete loss. It could vaguely sense a Toren’s presence to the west… but it couldn’t actually pinpoint a location.
“NONSENSE!”
A loud yell ripped free from its mouth, carrying with it a huge wave of explosive energy. The boulder the skeleton was sitting on exploded into stone shards while the nearby trees were blasted to smithereens. A huge, 10-meter-wide crater formed as waves of light pulsated around the undead skeleton.
“HASIN… SOROTH… TALSUMNA!” The skeleton recast its magic chant from before as it stood in the smoldering crater it had formed.
Just like the previous time blue light glowed out from its eyes. And, just like before, the skeleton stuttered to a halt.
“Bastard Torens…” A dangerous silence swept over the skeleton. Tension began to build up as it stood there, its fists clenched. Blue energy began to swirl around its arms and legs, glowing out from its eyes once more.
Its body began to tremble.
“I’ll hunt you down and shred you myself!” The skeleton’s voice built up to a crescendo, causing the nearby air to shake once more.
Right after that…
It transformed into a dragon.
A huge, undead dragon.
Its slightly above-average stature rapidly expanded as it grew to stand a huge 8 meters tall, with a body that was longer than 15 meters. It had two massive, boney wings that ended with hooked spikes. Two long, pointed horns adorned its reptilian head, hundreds of jagged teeth edging across its mouth.
Unlike a normal dragon, it had no scales, muscle, or tissue. Instead, it was composed entirely of stark, white bones with black claws and teeth. Blue light glowed out from its eyes, giving it an ethereal appearance that looked incredibly intimidating.
“You can’t hide forever!” Its voice transformed to a huge, massive roar as it crouched on its hind legs, bending forward.
A moment later, the rocky mountain ground exploded in a spiderweb of cracked stone as it shot up into the air. Its boney wings, despite having no skin or muscle, were somehow able to keep the creature aloft, letting it soar up into the sky.
The undead dragon then began to fly in the general direction of the Tansol Pass.
.. .. .. .. .. ..
A thin layer of fog coated the rocky walls off to Micheal’s left and right as he followed his Guide. Eerie growls and odd, warbling echoes bounced through the air, giving this long, stone path a vaguely unsettling feel.
It had been an hour since he, and the rest of his group, had left Tansol City and entered the Tansol Pass.
Reaching the Pass had been quite easy. After they left the Leaving Courtyard, it was a short, 5-minute walk to the North Gate, and then from there they jogged for about 10 minutes before reaching the entrance to the Pass.
Because it was noon, the sun was at its highest peak up overhead. With it beating down on them, the magical fog that shrouded the Dragon Mountains was weakened slightly, dissipating under the natural fury of the blazing star above.
The Tansol Pass started at the foot of one of the mountains within the Dragon Mountains. However, instead of sliding between two mountains down a valley, or crossing over a mountain, or something like that, the Pass had a rather unique setup.
The first part of it was found by walking into a man-made cave, bored through the center of a mountain.
This was the start of the pass. By following this unnatural cavern, one could safely traverse from the outer edge of the Dragon Mountains to a point roughly 10 miles deep.
The outer edge of the Dragon Mountains was where the most Magic Beasts could be found. The deeper one went into this range, the more scarce Magic Beasts became. However, at the same time, the more powerful Magic Beasts became as well.
By completely avoiding the outer edge of the Dragon Mountains, they were able to dodge a large number of Magic Beasts and skip past any type of early combat.
They were also able to move pretty fast when underground, where the need for caution was much lower. As a result, it had only taken around 20 minutes for them to cross through the tunnel section of the Pass. After that, they had found themselves on the lower edge of one of the fog-enshrouded mountains.
Because the fog wasn’t as concentrated, many Magic Beasts chose to rest during this period of time. The magical fog that covered the Dragon Mountains acted as a sort of ‘energy blanket’ for Magic Beasts. They could absorb energy from it to actively increase their strength, health, and energy level, becoming more powerful as time went on.
By resting when the fog was thin, they could conserve their active energy for later, only moving about when the fog was concentrated. This wasn’t a conscious decision by most Magic Beasts, but ingrained instinct built up over thousands of years, picking out the most optimal survival route.
It was also part of why very few Magic Beasts left this mountainous region. To them, fogless areas were akin to a desert, a barren area where survival and improvement would become more difficult. The fact that Magic Herbs, one of the staples of a Magic Beast’s diet, could only be found in areas like the Dragon Mountains added to that reasoning.
An hour into their journey and Micheal had yet to even see a Magic Beast. They were currently following a winding path along the edge of one mountain, sticking low to the ground as they furtively crept by.
All things considered, he was feeling pretty great. Everything was going perfectly.
‘Come on now…’ His gaze never wavered as he kept up a stringent lookout, constantly scanning his envir
onment.
‘Just 5 hours left…’
.
Chapter 30
‘Whelp, this isn’t good.’ Two and a half hours later and Micheal’s optimism had waned considerably.
Their Guide had led them well thus far, avoiding too many encounters with Magic Beasts. They’d only spotted two Magic Beasts throughout their journey through the depths of the Dragon Mountains.
The first one was a Mid-Tier Magic Beast, a White-Stone Raptor. They had been sneaking through the middle of a deep valley when the lean, only 2-meter-tall monster appeared in front of them.
The raptor looked much like a velociraptor from Micheal’s home planet of Earth, though one without any feathers. It was covered in small white scales, with a large, hooked claw on each foot. Unlike normal raptors, this one was incredibly muscular, giving off a sense of raw, untethered strength.
And, at this time, the creature had paused, frozen as it stared at Micheal and his motley crew. Tension rose in the moment as the two parties looked at each other, sizing the other up.
The raptor was a Mid-Tier Magic Beast, not a Low-Tier one, though only barely. That meant that it had the raw strength, at the bare minimum, of an average Second Rate Warrior.
On its own, it wasn’t an extremely dangerous Magic Beast to Micheal. Micheal was confident he could take it on using his glove and metal threads, if nothing else, even if it was stronger and faster than him. In fact, even if their entire group worked together without him, they would stand a chance at defeating it, though they’d likely suffer several casualties.
It was a Mid-Tier beast, but its main strength lay in its speed and versatility. The Byrens here were all experienced warriors that would gang up on it as one, forcing it to suffer multiple attackers.
However, combat would make noise, and noise would draw attention. They had, thus far, managed to avoid attracting any attention in their journey. A battle now would throw in many uncontrollable variables.
As soon as the creature crossed their path, Micheal had begun to prepare for the worst. His entire body had tensed up as he zeroed in on the Mid-Tier Magic Beast, ready to jump into action at the drop of a hat.
Thankfully, though, the reason he had hired a Guide proved its worth instead.
“Scatter! Flee! Off with you!” A voice broke the tension of the moment, full of powerful intent. While the speaker wasn’t yelling, they were speaking with conviction, just loud enough for everyone within 30 or so meters to hear clearly.
The Guide was standing confidently, his arms outstretched and his chest puffed. As he spoke, the plain mask he wore began to glow with white light, shining softly in the afternoon air.
The White-Stone Raptor looked at the guide curiously for a few seconds, its body crouching as it prepared to launch itself. It was a very keen beast and could sense that no one here was stronger than it, purely in terms of physical power. In the animal world, physical strength and mass were two of the biggest factors in most fights.
However… as soon as the mask began to shine, the raptor froze.
Its entire body began to shake as it stared at the Guide’s mask. Slowly, it began to creep backwards, its eyes never leaving the plain visage on the warrior’s face. It kept its head down, its shoulders slouched, doing everything it could to project that it wasn’t a threat.
Only when it was completely out of sight did Micheal hear its frantic scampering as the Magic Beast fled in terror.
The Guide took this in stride as he turned back and made sure everyone was still alright. He called for a brief break to let everyone calm down before they moved on, his manner quick and practiced.
Micheal nodded in appreciation.
Guyren Masks. That was the name of the unique Artifact every Guide was assigned to wear. These Artifacts were strange ones, unique tools that were bonded to the Soul of each Guide. In order to deepen that bond, Guides wore them at almost all times, doing their best to increase their control over the mask.
Guyren Masks were named after an infamous ‘Demon’ named Guyren Shalgo. Guyren wasn’t actually a Demon, an actual species of creatures, but instead a fallen Toren that had left behind remnants of several experiments.
A majority of those experiments had to do with the psychological aspect of the concept of fear. How to inflict it upon others, how to resist it, and so on. These Guyren Masks were able to emanate a feeling of raw terror that would spread to any sufficiently powerful Magic Beast.
When confronted with such feelings, ones that seemed to arise naturally, any Magic Beast’s first instinct would be to flee. In the wild, there was no such thing as honor, only survival. Unless a Magic Beast understood the intricacies of each Guyren Mask, they would never be able to resist it.
When traveling through the Tansol Pass, you would be considered lucky if you only encountered half a dozen Mid-Tier Magic Beasts over the full, 6-hour-trip. If you didn’t have a Guide armed with a Guyren Mask, you would have to fight for your life against each Magic Beast, drawing attention and potentially even more enemies to yourself with each battle.
The White-Stone Raptor was well and truly gone, leaving them free to travel without issue.
It was only after that incident that Micheal’s worries began to grow.
For, as they were in the middle of traversing through a sparse forest on the side of a grand mountain…
His necklace had begun to hum.
This humming noise was audible only to him, carried on energy-filled wavelengths that connected to his Soul. The noise was noticeable, but only barely, and wasn’t something that would annoy him.
What that noise represented, however, made his heart go cold.
When people used an Ability, or any type of Spell, Magic, Ritual, or some other mystical way to search for him, they would automatically run into the Aura Nullification Necklace he wore.
This Artifact essentially scrambled his location, energy signature, and Soul resonance, making it flatly impossible to track him down. Given the plethora of ways that people could track other people that Micheal knew of, he wore this necklace with him at all times, under almost all circumstances.
Normally, he wouldn’t be able to sense the efforts of those trying to find him. His Artifact did a splendid job at what it did, a one-trick pony that reigned near the top.
However… when a being that was significantly more powerful than him, or using a Legendary Artifact, tried to look for him, his necklace would undergo a certain level of stress.
This transformed into a level of pressure that he could sense, straining his Soul and warning him with a ‘humming’ noise.
Micheal’s Soul was strong, even for the Second Layer; he could easily handle the increased strain. His Aura Nullification Necklace came from the Shop, so its limits were well known to him. The Artifact wasn’t in any immediate danger of breaking right now… but it wouldn’t last forever.
Even with all of that said, it still meant, common things being more common, that an extremely powerful being was looking for him here on the Second Layer.
That wasn’t exactly optimal.
‘Who could it be? Did I anger the Divine Might Sect, somehow?!’ Micheal first focused on the territory he had just left. He immediately discarded this train of thought, however, unable to come up with any plausible scenario that made sense.
Even if one of the higher-ups in the Sect became aware that he was a human… so what? Why would they care about him, especially enough to rouse their hallowed Lord? In the Divine Might Sect, only that warrior was strong enough to do something like this.
If a Legendary Artifact was used, their Lord might not necessarily be involved, but Legendary Artifacts didn’t just grow on trees. Any Artifact that possessed that moniker was a one-of-a-kind tool that was absurdly strong at what it did, far more so than most other equipment.
As far as Micheal knew, there was exactly one Legendary Artifact on the entire Second Layer that could allow this… and it was still locked away inside the Soul King’s Inheritanc
e. Baron Fortuna only obtained it during the infamous Tree Conflict, a drawn-out clash between Syndicates that took place far in the future.
That meant his situation was likely caused by either one of the Six Lords or an extremely powerful being that was incredibly skilled in some type of mystical power.
Regardless of who or what, Micheal still found himself in the same quandary.
Nothing he had done, publicly, should’ve roused such figures to act.
He could only conclude that this was happening because of Yvvtal’s Inheritance, somehow. Activating and using the Inheritance was the only ‘major’ thing he’d done. There had to be something related to it that he didn’t know about.
Unfortunately, that was all he could determine. Without more information, he was forced to remain in the dark.
Micheal kept moving with the group, his guard raised to maximum alert. His Artifact necklace hummed off and on with only small breaks, meaning whatever being was looking for him was searching continuously.
And that was what led to the second Magic Beast they encountered.
An enormous undead Dragon.
“SHOW YOURSELF, WRETCHED TOREN!” A staggeringly loud shriek crashed through the air, forcing Micheal and everyone down to the ground by the sheer dint of power within those words.
They had been in the middle of sneaking through another forest on the side of a random mountain, following a well-worn path, when this monstrosity of a beast showed up, far in the sky above.
Its presence was immediately noticeable. As soon as it came within eyesight, a wash of emotions slammed into everyone present.
Fear, horror, terror, a litany of grim feelings that were inexplicably devastating began to spread.
Micheal instantly recognized this, a well-known Ability possessed only by certain creatures out of legend:
Dragonfear.
It was, rather ironically, quite similar to the way the Guide’s Guyren Mask worked. The huge creature up above was emanating special energy waves that sank into the subconsciousness of every being present, actively forcing emotions upon them.
That terror kept almost everyone in Micheal’s group frozen, unable to even move an inch as they struggled to withstand the emotional onslaught. Even the experienced Guide stood stock still, his breathing ragged as he weathered the unearthly pressure.