Chapter 574
Moving towards the ruins Ajax was starting to get some real distance between himself and humanoid kingdoms. It wasn’t easy to notice because stronger people tended to be able to cross a large amount of distance in a short amount of time but Ajax was now thousands of miles away from Gryndor’s borders.
The last week nothing all that memorable happened during his journey. He had fought two high level predators, one a jaguar and another a bear but both were only around level one hundred and twenty and neither managed to put any strain on Ajax since they didn’t ambush him.
The absence of humanoids was easy to see in the food chains that formed. Ajax was surprised that no other Ascended race had culled these lands but then again they were much stronger than humanoids so the distance they wanted to keep from humanoid lands was large enough, but he was reaching a point now where very few humanoids would dare pass through.
As he stood at the top of a tall tree and looked towards the horizon Ajax could just barely make out the ruins. It would be nightfall by the time he got there if he continued at the same speed but Ajax was going to slow down and be more stealthy as he approached. He would most likely be entering the home of an Ascended race and he didn’t want to provoke it any more than his mere presence might.
Much as he wanted to shadow travel Ajax decided that if he was caught doing so it would be seen as a form of attack instead of just a stealthy approach, not to mention that his perception of his surroundings was still affected when he entered the shadows.
It wasn’t more than three hours into his journey when Ajax came upon the tracks of what he assumed to be the hydra, or at least one of the hydras that lived. There was next to no information on the Ascended races in the kingdoms, most likely because any humanoids that tried to study them not only got themselves killed but likely everyone else close to them as well.
The trail wasn’t obvious, Ajax was very much unsure about the size of the creature but it was easily twice as large as an elephant according to the tracks he could put together, for its size it was able to move surprisingly gently through the trees.
Now that he was so close to the lair of what he expected to be a hydra Ajax could also see the difference in the wild life around him change once more. There was almost a complete absence of high level predators. Much like in the humanoid lands where any creature over level fifty would be reported and hunted down on sight for safety.
The prey animals however were left unchecked. As he moved across the land he could clearly make out some sort of farming plots that were spread out here and there. A clear mark that humanoids had once lived in this land.
After his visit to both Deepwood and Sylvanthal Ajax very much suspected that elves had to have been a represented part of the population that lived here. Any tree homes around the farming fields had long been ravaged by time beyond recognition but Ajax’s training as a hunter let him recognise similar patterns to what he had seen in Sylvanthal in the layout of the farming plots.
The big reason why Ajax thought it was elves that had lived here was that they had clearly been taking good care of those farming plots, even after all this time Ajax could feel some higher Mana density in the soil. It was less than the ambient Mana present in a level thirty floor in a dungeon but it was still enough for him to notice centuries if not thousands of years after their caretakers were gone.
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Another oddity Ajax picked up on was that the animals that did live in this area were all large pack animals. Elk, deer and even boars all traveled in large groups with the higher levels reaching one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty.
This was clearly a behaviour the Ascended race living here instilled in them somehow, there was no reason for them to travel in such large packs through an area deprived of predators.
The nightlife brought just as many surprises, the biggest one being that it was almost nonexistent. With the absence of predators there was no need for nocturnal animals, especially since most of those were predators to begin with. Ajax continued his journey through the night, he wanted to reach the ruins before he stopped to rest. His hope was to make contact with any Ascended race before he stopped to rest but he also couldn’t risk being too tired when meeting with them.
The lack of nocturnal predators was made even more obvious by how the packs were comfortable stopping for the night in the open with almost no shelter as if they weren’t bothered by the idea of predators. Ajax was very much interested in how this behaviour was influenced. It was clear the animals weren’t domesticated.
It was a few hours past noon by the time Ajax arrived at the first wall, or at least what was left of what once was a wall. While he had never been able to visit them in person Ajax had taken a class on old architecture where they went over the ruins of old castles in Europe to see how the walls and the cities themselves were integrated, it was fascinating to see how similar time had affected the stone buildings in another world.
Once he was past the first wall Ajax got a much better set of tracks for the creature that lived here. While it’s passage through the forest would have been all but undetectable without his [Tracking] Skill and the training he had gotten from Hatchet he would have had to be blind not to notice the large claw marks on the ground.
The marks he saw only served to reinforce Ajax’s idea that he was dealing with a hydra of some sort. Four-toed feet with three toes pointing forwards and one backwards were easy to make out, judging by how deep they were, Ajax could guess that the creature was extremely heavy or it was very precise with its pathing moving through similar feet placement on multiple trips through the area.
Now that he had made it to the ruins Ajax chose to stop using his [Stealth] and drop the Shadow Mana he was surrounding himself with. More than that he actually pushed to spread out his Aura, while he didn’t yet have the control to impart peaceful intentions through it, it was still enough to announce his presence.
“Anybody home?” Ajax chuckled nervously as he spread out his Aura.
He knew it was a risk to announce his presence but it was one he would have to take if he had any hope of the encounter with an Ascended race not to turn hostile the moment they met.
“Let's see if we can find anything interesting while we wait.” Ajax grimaced as he realized he was making awkward smalltalk with himself, this was not the impression he wanted to give to an Ascended race that could very well be watching him right now. “I wonder if the library survived.”
Now that he was broadcasting his presence Ajax made sure to stick as close as he could to any of the larger rock structures that had remained standing. His whole plan was that they would be sturdy enough to buy him enough time to run away should he be attacked, since they were still standing he had to imagine they would at least slow down the larger Ascended race.
The remains of the city that once stood here didn’t paint a clear picture of how big it had been, as far as Ajax could tell the capital of Gryndor was close to half again as large as this city had been. If Ajax was to guess this would have been the capital of whatever kingdom was here before they provoked an Ascended race.
As he made his way deeper into the city more and more stone ruins rose higher above him. Ajax couldn’t help but freeze as he turned a corner and witnessed what could only have been the path the Ascended race took as it broke into the city.
A clear line of demolition spread from the far end of the wall all the way through the city to what he assumed was the remains of the royal palace. The plants that had grown over the years did a lot to mask the destructiveness of the attack but it was still pretty obvious just how unstoppable the attacker had been.
Ajax moved closer to the remains of the palace in hopes of finding anything of value the royal family might have tucked away when he felt an Aura and a presence wash over him. A strong hiss resounded in the area but Ajax was a little distracted by what he felt coming from the Aura, its presence was vastly different from his own yet he could still clearly feel that same qualitative difference his own Aura had carried from the moment he evolved and joined the ranks of the Ascended.
“A humanoid daresss enter my domain.” The words get Ajax to focus, a strong hiss clearly present but Ajax was glad that the Ascended races spoke the humanoids language. “Even after what happened to the fools who dared try to invade my parent’s home.”