Level 1 Fallen

Chapter 192: Lost Track of Time

I remained high above the ground, staring down at the beasts roaming the land. They seemed completely harmless, but I knew that couldn’t be the case. The demons would never fail to invade an area full of such simple creatures.

As I was thinking about that, a voice appeared next to me, startling both myself and those riding on my back. “Oh my, this is quite a fine dragon.”

I quickly turned my head to the side, seeing what looked like a farmer wearing a wide straw hat on his head. He carried a scythe over his shoulder, smiling warmly at me. However, he was standing on nothing, dozens of meters in the air.

Eilwen gulped slightly, speaking up. “Excuse us, sir..? Who exactly are you? I’m afraid we’ve never met before.”

“Hmm?” The farmer looked over at Eilwen with an appraising gaze. “Yes, I suppose not. Do pardon the rudeness, miss. I’m Elton, and this here’s my land. A bunch’a monsters sometimes walk in through that big portal over there, so I have to come by and clean them up every now and then.”

“Just now, I thought I sensed a few monsters comin’ through, so I came over to check it out. I can still feel them around here somewhere, too…” he said, looking around in confusion. “Don’t reckon that any of you have seen some misty fellas wandering these parts?”

Since this wasn’t Beyond the Veil, we were not ‘fully’ within the realm of spirits, with only one foot in the door. If that was the case, was he sensing us?

“Sorry, I don’t think we’ve seen anyone like that,” Eilwen smiled awkwardly. “My name is Eilwen, by the way. This is Diane and Bella, and our dragon here is named Drake.”

“Eilwen, huh? That’s a bit of a funny name, but I suppose it’s nothin’ too bad,” Elton nodded in greeting. “Anyways, I’m gonna go see if I can track down those monsters. Can’t have ‘em destroyin’ my land again, or else I’ll need to get the army on them.”

After he said that, he turned and floated away at high speeds, moving to circle around the rift in search of… well, us.

The three girls let out sighs of relief, though Diane quickly composed herself and began drawing a mark on my back. “We need to fix this before he comes back. If he can’t find the ‘monsters’ by then, and still senses us, he’ll know that we’re the intruders.”

Once she finished drawing the rune, she placed her hand on it to activate. “This ‘Ghost’ rune should help. It’s one of the ones that I learned in the library.”

I extended my senses out, and sure enough, Elton paused. He looked left and right, before shrugging and flying back to the ground. “So, to explore Mistralis safely, you need a method to blend in with spirits?”” I asked, and the others seemed to agree.

If I were by myself, I could remain here as long as I wanted using Beyond the Veil. There might even be some interesting dungeons or resources here. However, it was out of the question for me to try to bring others along while I searched.

Once the rift changed again, I flew through, maintaining my stealth and immediately teleporting several times into the distance. “Where are we now, Diane?” I asked urgently, not recognizing the area we had appeared. It was a massive desert, similar to Ilsan, but I could make out distant cities with their walls half-buried in the sand.

“I can’t say for sure,” Diane muttered, looking around. “A few of the realms have deserts. We might even be back in the main world. Bella, look over at the city. Can you make out the characteristics of anyone stationed there?”

Bella squinted her eyes, making use of her exceptional eyesight. “It’s too far away, so I can’t be sure, but their silhouette seems odd, like they have dog-like heads? Not like normal beastfolk, but proper dog heads.”

“It’s probably not wrong,” Diane cursed under her breath. “If it’s a desert populated by jackal-men, then we’re in Khetra. Whatever you do, Drake, don’t land. This world is famous for high-level insects that lurk just beneath the sand. I’m going to log out and see which rift connects Abyssis, Mistralis, and Khetra on this schedule to find out how we can get back home.”

After saying that, Diane closed her eyes, and her brand went dim. Her Chosen opened her eyes, looking around with a faint grimace. “Sorry about this, Eilwen,” she said, looking back at the human girl. “We’ll make sure to get you back soon.”

Eilwen blinked briefly, before letting out a laugh. “Don’t worry about it. It was a fun little adventure. And it’s not like I didn’t earn anything from it, either.”

Diane was about to respond, when suddenly her brand lit up again. “Okay, I’ve got it. It’s a bit of a journey for us to get back, but it won’t be too hard. First, we’ll need to go back through the rift we just came out of once it cycles again. That will take us to Pyrrhos. From there… There’s no easy way to say this, but we’ll have to fly to the other side of the planet.”

I couldn’t help but wince at that, already anticipating a painful flight. We could use the car,  but it might take us days to get back if we did so, as opposed to the few hour marathon of me teleporting at top speeds.

“Got it… any specific direction that I’ll need to be heading, then?” I asked, but Diane shook her head.

“Pick a direction and fly in a straight line. The two rifts in Pyrrhos are almost exactly on opposite sides of the planet. I don’t know how long it will take us to get to that rift, so I’ll reference the schedule for that rift when we get there.”

I nodded my head briefly, before a thought occurred to me. “Once we get back… we might need to stay in Fallcry for a little while.”

“Why’s that? You want to train your new skill?” Bella asked, but I shook my head.

“The war in Ella’s nation was almost half a month ago. Erebus warned us that the dragons would likely try to declare war on us as soon as their cooldown period was over. If I’m remembering the days right, that should be the day after tomorrow.”

Diane’s eyes widened, taking a moment to think, before agreeing. “Right. And this time, they know not to provoke the league into action. Even if the other Drake wants your trait, he won’t go for an extermination war. He’ll wage a war of conquest, force you into servitude, and then find some other way to extract your trait once he has you under his thumb.”

I pursed my lips, nodding slightly. “I don’t think Kelly’s as strong as Erebus. She might not be able to hold back all of their grandmasters by herself, even if we can talk her into participating.”

Worse, I wasn’t sure how much help I would be. Although a few more of my skills had advanced since that last war, I wasn’t confident that I could really take on such experienced grandmasters. If I wanted to be able to stand a chance in this fight, I would need a trump card. Something like the Corpse Collector skill. Using that, I could farm an army of minions from the dungeons of Sunset Isles, and release them onto the enemy, empowered by my buff auras. Even a true grandmaster would find that difficult to deal with.

“Once we get back to Fallcry, I’m going to head to the Shadow Field dungeon. I probably won’t be able to come out until the war begins,” I explained to the three on my back. “I’m going to be doing constant training for one of my skills, and I need an area that is constantly littered with corpses to do so.”

The Shadow Field was a dungeon that had appeared around Fallcry, which contained high level shadow monsters fighting amongst themselves. Since this was a resource dungeon, these monsters wouldn’t target me intentionally, so I could pick up the corpses left on the ground. If I was lucky, and managed to evolve my skill to Corpse Collector, I might even be able to use these monsters as a main force in my army.

After saying this, I flew back towards the rift, knowing that it was about time for it to change. Sure enough, the swirling grey mist had been replaced by a burnt orange and red, so I dove straight in, and kept flying in a straight line after arriving on the other side.

Diane and Bella fell silent after listening to my plan, though I didn’t feel that it was unreasonable. This was the fastest way to train a new ultimate trump card. Combining this with my current skills, I might even be able to stand on par with Kelly… if she holds back a little bit.

Shaking my head, I focused on the task at hand, teleporting straight ahead over and over again. The constantly shifting terrain naturally did a number on my head, but I had expected that coming into this. The faster we got back to Fallcry, the more likely I was to be able to get strong enough to resist the looming threat.

In total, the journey took roughly two hours. When we came to the portal, I could see the swirling mismatch of colors that represented Chimeris. Eyes wide, I pushed myself even further, not wanting the portal to change just as I was on the last leg of the journey.

Thankfully, I made it through in time, crashing through the rift and arriving in the familiar landscape. From here, it was just a short flight to Chimeris. Though, with that said, I had to close my eyes, blindly flying south for the moment.

“Are you alright, Drake?” Bella asked in concern, reaching down to stroke my neck. I must have been flying a bit unsteadily for her to notice.

“I’m fine,” I responded. “Just a headache from teleporting too fast like that. I just need to relax my head for a few minutes, and then I’ll be good to go.”

Even though I had my eyes closed, my True Sight skill still let me sense the world around me, preventing me from crashing into any mountains or trees. In the distance, I could sense the city of Fallcry, slowly lowering my body to land just outside of the northern gate. We were still under the effect of Wraith Zone, so nobody within the city saw us.

The girls climbed down from my back, and Bella patted the side of my head again. “You sure you want to do this by yourself?” she asked, to which I nodded.

“I have to. In the meantime, though, there is something that I would like the two of you to do.” When I said that, Diane and Bella both looked over at me. “Diane, I know you learned a lot of runes in the sanctum. I need you to work on defenses for the city. And Bella, you’re in charge of preparing the knights. If they can hold their own against the dragon soldiers, that will make things a lot easier for us.”

Bella had a wry smile on her face when she heard this. “You really don’t like to hand out easy jobs, do you?” she asked playfully, looking at Diane. “You heard the dragon. Let’s go make ourselves useful.”