Chapter 442 442: Exploration (2)
The beauty of Lorienya stretched endlessly, but gradually, almost imperceptibly, it began to fade. The green grew darker. The rivers lost their shimmer. The air thickened, not foul, but heavy, as though it carried the weight of a breath held too long.
And then the border came into view.
Where the roots of the forest met the dry plains, the world simply stopped. One side was alive; the other, dead. The grass ended in a perfect line, beyond it, gray dust and twisted soil stretched into a barren expanse. No sound. No wind. Just silence and stillness.
Ashwing's growl echoed faintly through Lindarion's mind. "This wasn't like this last time."
"No," Lindarion murmured, leaning forward, eyes narrowing. "It's spreading."
They descended slowly, wind curling off Ashwing's wings as they landed near the border. The impact sent a small cloud of dust spiraling upward, the smell of decay faint but sharp. Lindarion stepped off, boots pressing into lifeless soil.
The moment he crossed the line, his core pulsed, the mana in the air was wrong. Unbound. Mutated.
[System: Environmental Anomaly Detected.]
[Classification: Corruption β Unknown Source.]
[Recommendation: Purify or Withdraw using the skills of The World Tree]
Lindarion ignored the warning. He crouched, brushing his fingers against the ground. The soil was dry but pulsing faintly, as if something beneath it breathed.
"Dythrael's magic doesn't leave traces like this," he said quietly. "This feels older."
Ashwing sniffed the air, smoke curling from his nostrils. "Smells like something's been eating mana itself. Like it's starving."
"That would explain the spread."
He rose and walked forward. The air darkened with every step β not visibly, but in feeling. It pressed closer, humming with dissonant energy. The ground began to crack in long, thin lines, faint light seeping from beneath.
Then came the sound.
A whisper. Not a voice, not speech, just movement, like roots scraping against stone. Ashwing's wings tensed. "We're not alone."
The cracks widened.
Figures began to crawl from the fissures, warped, thin silhouettes of what might once have been elves or men. Their bodies were stretched, their faces hollow, skin burned to black ash and flickering with red veins. The corruption had made them half-mana, half-flesh.
Lindarion's golden eyes narrowed.
They hissed as one.
And then they lunged.
He didn't even draw his sword.
A pulse of power rippled outward from his body β a ring of golden light wrapped in shadow. The first wave of creatures disintegrated instantly, torn apart mid-air, dust scattering like smoke. The second wave came faster, their claws glowing with corrupted mana.
Lindarion lifted one hand.
[Skill Activated: Heaven's Veil]
A shimmering barrier unfolded before him, not made of light but of absence, every movement beyond it slowed, distorted, dissolved. The monsters that struck it simply vanished, their forms erased from the world like ink wiped from glass.
Ashwing let out a deep, rumbling laugh. "You said you weren't fighting!"
"This isn't fighting," Lindarion said evenly, stepping forward through the storm of dust. "It's cleaning."
[Skill Activated: Astral Rend]
A thin line of golden energy extended from his fingertips, invisible at first, then expanding into a wave that stretched across the plains. The horizon split silently. A thousand meters of corrupted earth fell away in a perfect, gleaming cut.
The world went still.
The only sound left was the wind, faint and fragile, whispering through the ruin. The corrupted mana that had once filled the air was gone, dispersed, neutralized.
Ashwing landed beside him, shaking his wings. "Remind me never to annoy you before breakfast."
Lindarion's eyes remained fixed ahead. "This isn't victory."
"No?"
He shook his head. "This was just the surface."
He turned his gaze south, beyond the horizon where faint black clouds coiled like smoke. Somewhere beyond those clouds lay Dythrael's domain⦠and the prison that held Luneth and his mother.
The wind shifted again, carrying the faintest scent of frost. It lingered only a moment, but it was enough.
Lindarion's hand tightened around his sword. "She's alive."
Ashwing's head tilted. "The elf girl?"
"Yes. But not for long if we wait."
He stepped back toward the dragon, golden light rippling faintly beneath his skin. "We return. I need to prepare the others."
Ashwing crouched low. "And after?"
"After," Lindarion said, climbing onto his back, "we fly south again, not to scout." His voice turned quiet, like steel drawn in the dark. "To break open hell itself."
The dragon's wings spread wide, cutting through the gray air. The soil cracked again beneath their lift, but this time the fissures glowed with faint gold instead of red, the last remnants of his purging light.
Ashwing rose, carrying him back toward the green edge of Lorienya, toward the army that waited and the council that feared.
Behind them, the corrupted land began to tremble, as if something beneath it had felt the intrusion.
Something vast. Something awake.
Lindarion didn't look back.
Ashwing cut through the morning air like a blade of living night, four wings trailing arcs of gold where sunlight met his mana. The forests of Lorienya unfolded beneath them again, green, breathing, unaware of the rot clawing at their borders.
Lindarion said nothing as they flew. His cloak fluttered in the wind, white hair rippling like frostfire, golden eyes half-lidded as he replayed what he'd seen: the perfect line where life ended and death began.
The hum of corrupted mana still clung to his skin like smoke, faint but lingering, and though his core's purity burned it away, the memory of that imbalance remained.
When they reached the city in the trees, sentries on the upper boughs sounded horns. The sound echoed through the forest, low, melodic, a welcome and a warning all at once.
By the time Ashwing landed on the marble platform before the council spire, dozens of elves had gathered, their faces taut with questions.
Nysha was the first to appear, stepping from the shade of a pillar. "You're back early," she said quietly. Her crimson eyes searched his face. "And judging by your silence, you didn't like what you saw."
Lindarion dismounted, boots striking the polished stone. "It's worse than I imagined," he said. His tone was calm, but beneath it ran a restrained fury. "The corruption isn't spreading like an infection. It's feeding. Growing stronger with every breath of the land it consumes."