The Lone Wanderer

Chapter 606 – Chaotic battlefield

The creature lunging at Percy’s host looked a bit like a cuttlefish that had pincers at the end of its many tentacles, and it was the first beast that had actually taken the initiative to attack them since coming here.

Having missed its first strike, the Green mollusk was already circling back for round two. Fortunately, Percy didn’t have much trouble bisecting the creature’s soul with his invisible Harvester, putting the poor thing out of everyone’s misery.

Scanning the area, he realized that this type of scene was much more common here. Creatures of all shapes and sizes were attacking each other, plunging the sea in carnage. Beasts looked more willing to go after those of their own grade too, despite the abundance of weaker food. Was it an attempt to eliminate competition, perhaps?

‘Hey, doesn’t it look like those with dimmer scales are on the losing side?’ Micky asked.

It was true. Some creatures clearly had an easier time overcoming the defences of their prey or shielding themselves from their predators, and that appeared to be strongly correlated with how much of the strange substance they had absorbed.

Perhaps delving into the red region was a necessity here for any beast that hoped to strengthen itself enough to survive the carnage, though that still didn’t explain why anything would bother coming back out into the mundane water, or why the creatures were less inclined to attack each other inside the magical zone.

‘Let’s keep going,’ Percy suggested, curious to see if there was anything interesting this way.

‘Do you want me to awaken our host’s second core while you’re busy swimming?’ Micky offered.

Percy considered his friend’s suggestion for a while before nodding. The reptile was already living on borrowed time, and it was possible that they would run into trouble when they attempted to explore the red region later, so strengthening their body and extending what was left of their lifespan wasn’t a bad idea. Then again, he doubted that their second core would start higher than Red – or maybe Orange if they got lucky – so its impact would be negligible.

At the same time, it wouldn’t cost much. Green mushrooms were practically dirt cheap across Remior by now, so investing a few into this trip wasn’t a big deal. Besides, Percy fully expected to fill up his spatial seal with as much of the strange substance as it could fit by the time he was done, so freeing up more space wouldn’t hurt.

Not saying anything else, Micky began summoning mushrooms inside their host’s stomach, mouth, or clenched inside the creature’s webbed digits, carelessly discarding the shrivelled fungi as soon as the Moirais’ Decree was done draining them of their life mana.

Meanwhile, Percy resumed swimming through the aquatic battlefield, eliminating anything dumb enough to attack them. For most opponents – their fellow Greens included – he didn’t even have to use his scythe.

It quickly became clear that his host’s shell was harder than most, making other creatures less inclined to try their luck against him. It probably wasn’t that strange, considering that he and Micky had found the lizard inside the red region where the miraculous substance was more abundant.

It did, however, make him wonder why some beasts still stubbornly chose to attack, despite clearly not standing a ghost of a chance against the superior Green. The only explanation that Percy was able to come up with was that consuming a beast with a stronger shell was a shortcut to absorbing a lot of the material quickly.

‘Shall I try to eat a few of the bigger ones too?’ he asked.

‘Go ahead. I’ll stop absorbing mushrooms for a few minutes,’ Micky replied.

Percy focused on other Green creatures with the most vibrant scales that he could find. Comparing them with his own host’s limbs, he knew that they had absorbed less of the material than him, but that was fine. He wasn’t looking for a meaningful upgrade – he just wanted to understand the process.

Butchering the beasts wasn’t difficult, as no amount of physical reinforcement would offer any protection against the curved edge of Percy’s spectral weapon. Borrowing phantom mana from his main body also made the scythe’s maintenance laughably easy, allowing him to go all out.

Consuming his victims was more challenging, however. Even though Percy’s host had absorbed more powder, its thin fangs threatened to shatter against the thick hide of his prey. Not particularly concerned with the lizard’s dental health, Percy still bit off as many scales as he could, swallowing them whole and flooding his stomach with beast mana to dissolve them faster.

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Almost immediately, his host’s body started burning and itching all over, though the feeling was more concentrated along the creature’s scales, claws and fangs. Some of the cracks that he had just suffered began mending in real time, the lizard’s whole exterior feeling a little harder by the time the strange sensation faded.

The difference was admittedly small, so Percy guessed that they would have to consume thousands of creatures at this level if they wanted to experience any tangible improvements, and this was already after having picked the juiciest targets he could find in the area.

‘I suppose that’s because of our host’s higher starting point. Hopefully there’s a more efficient way for us to keep growing,’ Percy reasoned.

Either way, he was definitely a fan of how easy it was to absorb the powder. He just had to make sure that it was compatible with life on other planets – or just humans, really – and that there weren’t any adverse effects.

Pausing the experiment for now and allowing his friend to resume consuming life mana, Percy continued travelling in what he hoped was the same direction as before. The water kept growing darker and closer to blue for several days, the battlefield getting more chaotic by the hour as the concentration of the magical powder plummeted.

Percy doubted that his host would survive for more than a month in total, which meant that they would probably have to turn back pretty soon if they didn’t find anything interesting this way.

Thankfully, the concentration of the red substance began climbing again at some point, causing all the recent changes to start occurring in reverse: their surroundings grew brighter, the number of beasts fighting around them dropped, and the water gradually reddened once more. This continued for a few more days as he and Micky approached what Percy guessed were the outskirts of another red region.

‘Are we sure that it’s a different one?’ Micky suddenly asked. ‘Maybe we just lost our way and headed back by mistake.’

‘Beats me…’ Percy admitted. ‘But there’s a way to make sure that doesn’t happen again.’

Tapping into the deepest recesses of his mind, he activated Ludwick’s Compass, planting a huge, crimson pyre in the middle of the ocean. Hopefully, the mark would allow him and Micky to retain their bearing as they kept travelling.

Sadly, there was no landmark to place the illusionary flame on, so it was debatable whether it would stay in place or slowly drift away as they distanced themselves from this spot. After all, the mindset relied exclusively on their own senses to memorize the path away from the marks.

‘Well, it should be fine,’ Percy reassured himself as much as he did his friend. ‘Ludwick’s Compass has even allowed us to find our way back to distant planets while travelling through the soul plane. There’s no way it’s going to get tricked by a few hundred kilometres of swimming inside a physical ocean.’

‘Agreed. So, what do you want to investigate next?’ Micky asked.

‘Hmmm… our body should still have a few weeks left,’ Percy replied.

His companion had already repaired the Moirais’ Decree and cleared the first few channels leading to their host’s abdomen, revealing a Red mana core with a water affinity.

As expected, it wasn’t anything crazy, but it had probably added an extra day or two to their time here. More importantly, if they released all of their water mana at once, it should give them a small burst of speed in case they needed to flee from something.

‘Do you want to take some time to check out the surface too before diving into the red region? I doubt we’ll find anything interesting there, but it’s probably best to leave the most dangerous part of the journey for last,’ Percy reasoned.

After confirming that his friend was on the same page, he began swimming upwards.

It took far less time for their environment to grow brighter again, though the change was caused by rays of mundane sunlight piercing through the water from above, instead of the ominous glow of the omnipresent substance. If anything, the concentration of the alien resource plummeted even more rapidly, causing their surroundings to shift into brighter shades of violet as they approached the surface.

Percy fully expected to swim into another chaotic battlefield, but that didn’t happen. Life grew scarcer rather than more abundant – almost as if there was something at the end of their path scaring all the other creatures away.

It didn’t take him and Micky long to figure out what.

Just as Percy was racking his brain to make sense of the changes, he caught sight of something ahead that made him freeze in his tracks, while also conveniently answering a few of his questions.

The sunlit surface was finally right before his reptilian eyes, separated from him by only a couple hundred metres of seawater. Even so, neither he nor Micky were in a rush to cross the last stretch, unwilling to offer themselves as a snack to the giant shadows leisurely swimming over their head.

There were dozens – no… hundreds – of them, and each was larger than a small house. These beasts clearly weren’t the three demigods that Percy and Micky had seen while entering the planet, but their grade was still markedly higher than anything else that was supposed to exist in this world.

‘Hey, didn’t we make sure that there was nothing above Green besides the quasi-divine beasts?’ Micky suddenly asked, echoing Percy’s feelings.

Percy nodded while swallowing hard, though reality clearly didn’t agree with him or his friend. The school of giant reptiles barring their path were Blue. Every last one of them.

‘What the hell is up with this place?!’