Chapter 1,387 – Bleeding Through

“No sense of self-preservation,” Zac muttered as the carcass of the Peak E-grade bird in his hand faded into an illusory shimmer.

Surprisingly, the low-grade attacker dropped an item—a footstool missing a leg. Like all the other trinkets that had dropped over the past hours, it was a mortal-grade item without any engravings or innate spirituality. Not a single one of the nearly two hundred slain birds had dropped a Corruption Crystal.

Zac wasn’t sure if birds were less tainted than landlocked animals thanks to the rain, or if the flock simply was too low-leveled to gather a nucleus of corruption. The crystals he’d collected so far all came from Beast Kings, and there seemed to be a direct correlation between grade and the chance for a crystal to drop.

Out of the thirty-six crystals he’d collected during their trek in the jungle, only one came from an Early Beast King. In contrast, Zac already had three Peak D-grade crystals after getting another one from a solitary Peak Beast King. The haul was decent, and he was quickly figuring out the rules of his new cultivation resource.

“Will you stop that?” Idiche said with disgust as Zac wiped the blood off his face.

“Don’t worry, I’m done,” Zac promised.

He’d more or less confirmed that blood wasn’t the important part in stirring the intent. It was the instigation of a draconic bloodline that allowed Zac to reap the reward. The flock of blue-feathered birds had an ordinary background—by the standards of the Left Imperial Expanse—and it was completely useless for his purposes.

It wasn’t just bloodlines that worked, either. The Peak D-grade Beast King he fought earlier actually possessed a powerful toxin empowered by an Earthly Dao. The combination made Zac queasy despite his multiple layers of resistance, and it was even more effective than drake blood at triggering a response from the foreign Killing Intent. Zac assumed anything powerful would work, from Daos and Soul Attacks to dangerous natural forces.

“How are things on your end?” Zac asked after having cleansed himself.

The reason they were attacked this time was that they’d remained in place for almost five minutes. They stood at a crossroads of dimensional layers where Esmeralda and Idiche couldn’t agree on which route to take. Their plan of following the trail of destruction left by the drakes had failed within five minutes when the tracks stopped out of nowhere. Most likely, Idiche had led the drakes through a spatial passage or dreamrealm that no longer existed.

Instead, Idiche and Esmeralda used various methods to look for the forest’s hidden paths while Zac eagerly took on the task of dealing with the wildlife. Progress was slow, with the corruption adding an unavoidable layer of uncertainty to any calculations. Both Esmeralda and Idiche’s deductions were repeatedly proven wrong.

They even found themselves back at the beach after two hours of trekking due to an especially unfortunate twist inside a warped formation. The scorched section in the distance confirmed they’d only moved a dozen miles north. Still, each setback was a lesson, and there seemed to be rules governing even the Lost Plane’s influence. The mountain in the distance was already looming up ahead. They just needed to break through the final layers of the Natural Formations to reach their first pit stop.

“We think we have it. Neither option is currently the right one. We’ll have to wait a minute or two for the paths to fuse,” Esmeralda said with an uncharacteristic lack of certainty. A series of mistaken assertions had left the toad humbled. That embarrassment had quickly turned into barbed jabs at their new companion. “We wouldn’t have needed to go through all this if someone had bothered placing guiding flags through the formation. You know, as any proper adventurer would know to do when exploring a complex environment.”

“Hey, don’t blame me. As I told you, I can’t control or even remember exactly what my sleepwalking self is up to,” Idiche scoffed. “Without me, you’d probably still be at the beach with how your calculations are going. So much for being a master.”

Zac only listened with half an ear. His wandering gaze had caught on something odd with a nearby tree. He walked over and traced his hands along the bark, focusing especially on a particular branch. Then, he began pushing away the grass with his foot.

Idiche walked over, looking at his actions with confusion. “What is it?”

“This branch has been grafted on, I’d say, a few years ago. There are some new shoots on it, but it must have been nearly completely withered before. Not only that, look at the scarring. Something was hanging from the branch at the time,” Zac said as he kept digging. “Here we go.”

The three looked down at the two feet of rope that had been hidden behind a layer of loam. It looked like it had been burnt at both ends. Zac picked it up and infused some energy, at which point it immediately disintegrated. A weak hint of unstable Temporal Energy appeared for a moment before disappearing.

Zac hummed and kept digging. The only thing he found after turning a whole garden patch upside down was a cracked cobblestone. It held up against a spiritual infusion, but it was clearly just a decent E-grade material. What mattered was the barely distinguishable aura it held—the same one they’d felt from the [Peregrine Gondolas]. The tile wasn’t an illusion, nor was it from these parts.

“Overlapping timelines,” Esmeralda said thoughtfully. “The breach must have been highly unstable, nothing like what we saw back in the Transformation Docks.”

“What’s so interesting about some pavement?” Idiche asked, not following the conversation.

“Think about it,” Zac said. “Why would there be pavement on this island?”

“Someone has obviously built a—”

“Exactly. Our enemies seized their dimension’s island years ago, and they’ve built roads and Heavens knows what else,” Zac sighed and got to his feet. “And look at the items. The otherdimensional branch was almost completely withered, the rope looked like it had been left to wither in the sun. Even the tile had cracked from intense heat. There hadn’t been any rain for a while where these things came from. Whatever the invaders are up to with Sevona’s Hunting Lodge has been years in the making.”

“We better hurry. They probably know this place a lot better than—” Esmeralda stopped as all three of them turned in the same direction.

Two bedraggled disciples, one man and one woman, emerged from the illusory mist that covered large swathes of the forest. It took them a moment to realize they had escaped the Natural Formation. There was not much relief on their faces, considering the formations in the outer parts of the island hadn’t been proven very dangerous so far. It was the beasts lurking outside in the shadows that posed the real threat.

Zac didn’t recognize either of the two Late Hegemons, but he did note the ring on the man’s hand. It was the same signet ring he wore himself. Zac silently prepared a sliver of Corruption, thinking this was an opportunity to test his ring’s hidden function. It wasn’t like people used the identity confirmation in the signet rings inside Adventurer’s Cove. The feature was there to confirm allegiances when meeting strangers on the seas.

The two disciples noticed Zac’s group shortly after, except for Esmeralda, who had disappeared somewhere.

“Vice Leader Levos, is that you?” the young man said with relief and excitement.

“Mikas, you look like you’ve seen better days,” Idiche sighed.

“This place,” Mikas grimaced. “I’m demanding a refund from the Intelligence Office when we go back.”

“You’ll have to get in line,” Idiche laughed, glancing at the woman sticking close to her companion. “I assume this is Veisa?”

“It’s a pleasure, Miss Levos,” the young woman said.

“Wait,” Zac suddenly said, stepping between Idiche and the approaching pair. “Present the ring.”

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“Who are you?” Mikas said with a frown, glancing at Idiche questioningly.

“It’s our newest member. Just humor him. Besides, can’t be too careful in this odd place,” Idiche smiled.

Mikas slowly nodded and infused his ring with energy. Zac did the same, adding a sliver of corruption. Only his own energy emerged while the corruption activated the hidden patterns in his ring. The two forces met, and Zac felt a confirmation in his mind when the forces returned. The corrupted array seemed to scan for something in Zac’s own energy. When it couldn’t find it, the corruption simply dispersed. Throughout, no one seemed to notice a thing.

“Happy?” Mikas said with a raised brow.

“Almost. You too,” Zac said, turning to the woman.

“Ah, I’m not a member of the Guild. Mikas and I are—” Veisa’s explanation turned into a shocked shriek when Zac suddenly turned into a blur.

Mikas was already drained and distracted from overcoming the formations, and he was too slow to react to the punch that rushed toward his temple. The punch landed with such force that Mikas spun in place before falling lifeless to the ground. Veisa joined him just moments later. She’d frozen up, seemingly caught between wanting to save her Dao Companion and running for her life. Zac made the decision for her.

“What the hell are you doing?” Idiche swore as she hurried over to the unconscious duo. “Thank the Heavens, they’re still alive.”

“Of course, I know how to control my strength,” Zac said as he placed his hand on Mikas’s chest. Esmeralda had already appeared to the side, holding the man’s signet ring.