Chapter 725
“-Still, no matter how good things seem, you’ve gotta remember that this is a dangerous world, even beyond the whole invasion thing,” Pato warned as their talk went on. “I’ve seen and been through some crazy stuff since getting here.”
“Yeah? You’re not alone there but that’s actually kind of nice to hear. People who live on this planet seem to think it would be pretty sunshine and rainbows if not for the invasion but I’m pretty sure I’ve had to deal with a couple attempts on my life each year since I arrived. Seriously, having to avoid being murdered constantly is not normal.”
“...No it isn’t.” Pato agreed, not having gone through any of that himself but was open to the chance he may have just been getting lucky on that front. “But there’s some downright bizarre crap out in these woods too, I’m honestly a bit worried we’ll just stumble into something else on our way.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Man, it’s hard to describe if you don’t see it yourself, it doesn’t really capture the feel unless you go out to it, but since I can teleport at such a high level I get sent to do a lot of stuff. Transport and deep expeditions like this aren’t unusual but one of the ones that stands out the most is when we were sent to examine this one area. A huge place, should have been teeming with beasties but was left completely dead and desolate save for the plants around it.”
“Okay, a little weird but the ecosystem of this planet is kind of a nightmare from the hundreds of alien species that were dragged along with the survivors when the gods brought them here. It’s possible that some predator moved in and whatever was already living there just wasn’t able to compete.”
“Not a bad idea but that's not what it was. Once you got to the heart of this dead zone, you’d find something. A giant wall, built right in the middle of the woods with nothing else around it surrounded by red earth, the entire area stained by the sheer quantity of blood that had been spilled there.”
“...You don’t say,” Ben responded, trying to sound casual and sculpting his face to keep any reaction from giving away that he already knew what Pato was talking about as well as who’d been the cause of it all and to his luck it seemed the other didn’t notice, too invested in going on with his story.
“Trust me, you don’t really get the scale unless you see it for yourself but that wasn’t even the worst of it. On the same expedition that sent me out there, me and the others were also sent to look at another area that was maybe even worse. Seriously, just close your eyes and try to imagine this. You’re walking through the woods when you start to notice something strange. You can’t place your finger on it at first until it hits you, there’s something wrong with the trees! All of them have branches that are unusually straight until they start turning at sharp right angles, bending themselves so they all look like cubes.”