Azrie Merry Christmas everyone!
Hundreds of vines flooded my vision, and headed into the maw of darkness; where the dozens twisted monsters resided, all of them ready to attack at a moment’s notice. The salvo of vines streaked through my vision, like deadly projectiles laced with nothing but death. With a final roar the monsters moved forward, and met the vines— blood flowed, splashes of red filled my vision as I heard pained shrieks, but others were missed and charged forth.
I gripped my bow and pushed my mana into it, nocking three arrows simultaneously. I pulled back the luminescent string with a loud creak, and with a small frown, I fired.
A lycan charged forward past the vines, and in an instant the arrows connected— vines sprouted everywhere, digging onto its flesh— insides, sides, nearby monsters and taking the space of the entrance. It staggered with a yelp, and using that brief window I made my command. Burn. I felt my mana sizzle for a moment as it combusted, it started at the base of the lycan but like an instant spark, my vision was engulfed by red.
An all-consuming fire exploded forward, consuming all the vines like candle wick, igniting everything in its path with a fiery blaze. The vines chained onto each other as everything in front of me became a crimson hell — shrieks, yelps, wails of pain hammered through my ears like an unceasing headache.
Meanwhile the vines from the treant dug and carved into the enemy line.
I snorted and took more arrows out as I saw the lycan take a knee from the pain. I readied my bow once more, but this time I only fired once. The light arrow hit its head and sprouted into tendrils, Mark of Death pulsated as they dug onto its head and then: I fired two more shots, both of them containing Ayas Azalea seeds, the all consuming flowers that would eat everything to fuel their spread.
A crimson bed sprouted and ate away at the lycan and nearby monsters. I frowned as I noticed a wolfe make it past the door— I switched onto my spear with some annoyance and immediately activated Frenzy. The wolfe pounced, and I met it with a grunt shoving my spear onto its throat.
“You know, now would be a good time to act. Light Maker.”
“It’s The Light Maker.” He corrected me with an annoying tone from my side. Standing still like some sort of puppet. “Now’s not the time to act, not yet anyway.”
With a shallow grunt, I threw the wolfe away. My arms flared with pain at that moment, I was unsure if it was because I wasn’t healed, or the sheer strength of it — thankfully I had a 15% strength bonus, but still — I switched to my bow and held another group of three vine arrows. But at that moment, the vines from the treant began to snap mid air, and at that moment I saw them drain of color and slowly disintegrate as if they were ash. The gray dust billowed as a different monster charged through, it was like a deformed boar of hatred, with its limbs uneven and its back had protruding bones of hatred.
[Blight Corrupted Morsbest. Lvl. 151]
I all three arrows and like a bola they hit its legs and coiled around, twisted — mutated — they shifted onto different things as the morsbest lost grip and slid across the entrance and at that moment everything went awry. Monsters unceasingly began to pour into the place, my heartbeat quickened as I commanded the plants to combust once more, but the unceasing flames that clung onto the vines of the treant made no difference.
“Now would be a good time to do something!” I called out The Light Maker only to receive no reply.
Three wolfes rushed towards me, with a grunt I pushed mana into my bow and welled it up, exploding it forward with a bright flash of light— flashbang. A myriad of pained shrieks entered my ears at that moment, and just as I was opening my eyes I heard a voice.
“Luckily for you.” It was calm and chilly, with a flare of deepening intensity. “I cannot be blinded.”
The Light Maker.
Within my vision the monsters became nothing but shadows for a split second before they were drowned by the unceasing white light, everything became an empty radiant void, the shrieks distorted into a static buzz within my ears. And then, I blinked— the white went away as I saw wisps of smoke and floating mana towards the ceiling. The entire place became charred, and the monsters were long gone, erased from the face of the planet. And then, the notifications came as I stared at the clear and empty cave.
[You have assisted to kill: (C) Blight Corrupted Lycan. Lvl 139.]
[You have assisted to kill…
[You have…
[You have assisted to kill: (C) Blight Corrupted Lycan. Lvl 129.]
Huh?
[Level up: You have achieved level 86. Prophecy Bonus: +2 WIS +2 VIG]
[Level up: You…
[Level up: You…
[Level up: You have achieved level 92. Prophecy Bonus: +2 WIS +2 VIG]
My mind paused. Wasn’t this a bit too free? Everything died— just like that. Wiped. It had been erased as if it never existed in the first place. All by the light. By the person who makes light, The Light Maker. A title received from a Grand Feat carried truth to it. Realm Breaker—
“Realm Breaker.” The Light Maker called. “Help me a bit, won’t you?”
I turned only to see him struggling to stand. His armor was somewhat burnt, and his posture was slightly broken. He heaved inaudible labored breaths that could only be seen from the way his chest moved, and that’s when it clicked on me. Mana Depletion? It didn’t make that much sense to me, but maybe— I stopped thinking and rushed to his side before I got an idea.
“Treant, help him stand with some vines.” I commanded my companion, who was severely burnt and at death’s door.
Its vines waddled over and supported The Light Maker, though it was evident he didn’t want to be helped in such a way. I shook my head and took out two mana potions that I handed to him.
“Wait, you carry those?” he asked with surprise.
“Why wouldn’t I? They are pretty cheap.” Well, my mana felt sort of infinite now with Elasia’s help, so they had fallen out of relevancy rather fast. “I am surprised you don’t have them.”
“The higher level you become, the more pointless they are.” He turned away as he moved his helmet. “Besides—” he removed his helmet and his voice distorted and became normal. “I have a skill that helps me regenerate mana, however it requires me to sleep. Just one hour is enough.”
“Uh huh.” I tilted my head. “That sounds pretty bad, might as well carry a lot of potions.”
“Not everyone gets to have a spatial ring, they are pretty damn rare.” He grumbled.
It was rare? Elasia had tossed it across the room as if it was something she could dispose of. Huh. Just as he was about to put it into his mouth, I decided to ask something that sort of bothered me.
“If you killed me… what would be the punishment?”
He paused before drinking the vial. “Death. I would die if I killed you. That’s why it was an oath.” He downed the potion. “I regret threatening you, but I needed information and to understand things. If you die I die, you see? At first I thought it would be easy to keep you alive, but turns out you are quite the impulsive one.”
“Right, that’s true.” I bit my lip with some annoyance. “At least I found the corruption source.”
He uncorked the second vial and drank it. “Yeah, but imagine this: You make a contract with an innocent person going about their trial, knowing the laws surrounding trials and knowing that it's best to stay uninvolved, you decide to trust the fact that they can leave after level 100. Naturally, they won’t rush to do anything, and you can sit back, plus you get much important intel that you need because failing at your task is a death penalty— so yes, I had no problem betting my life on it assuming you were a normal person.”
I felt a bit stung from what he said, but at the same time, he was kind of right. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head and put on his helmet, his voice became system-y. “Now’s not the time for apologies.” He stretched and the vines let go of him as he stepped forward. “Instead it is time to possibly find new shelter, or maybe outright try to kill the stupid corruption.”
“So we are going now?” I asked with some skepticism.
“We are. As soon as your treant is recovered anyway.”
My treant? I slowly craned my head back as I saw the Sangir Tree standing. Its woven wood was fractured and falling apart, the wisp flame was constantly flickering and threatening to die out, its branches were mangled. And that’s when I blanked out a bit.
How was I supposed to heal a plant? I scratched my head.
“Funny thing…”
“You don’t know how to heal it.” He sighed.
“Yeah…”
He took a breath. “Alright, I’ll explain and you listen carefully.”
◇ ◇ ◇
Plants are living beings, like any living being they have a lifespan, a life to live. They start off as seeds, and grow into full fledged adults before succumbing to natural causes thousands of years later or dying to changes in their environment, or well just dying:
Dying from the onslaught of a different species, or getting burned with the destruction of the planet. Plants, like many other things, have a lifespan, though its length is dozens of times longer than most beings in the wide universe. Like any other living being however, they eventually perish, but nevertheless they never stop growing. Like a child into a teen, into an adult and into an old man, all of them have the same capability to age, given that, plants also age and grow, they grow new branches and limbs—
Eventually, regenerating anew, like any other being, they heal from their wounds with time. It was logical information, but something that well, I never thought about. With that in mind however, I was able to give more mana to the treant and urge it to sprout— or age rather. With a hand touching its trunk, its wood shifted and grew thicker, some of the broken parts on it were melded—covered by new wood that wove itself into the trunk. New branches emerged amongst its crown and new vines hung.
The treant was completely restored in just a minute. I turned to The Light Maker with some skepticism.
“How did you even know about that?”
“I’ve worked with plant affinity and dark plant affinity users before.” He shook his head. “But at the same time you’re also awfully naive.”
I frowned. “That’s not very nice.”
He shrugged. “It’s just the truth. You should maybe do some research on the dark plants or just plants in general.”
I shook my head. “Well no time now, let’s just go.”
“I’m just saying.”
◇ ◇ ◇
It took a few hours and a lot of conversation, but eventually we neared the desert— the direction in which the sapling was. There were no monsters to be seen, and I just walked by the dark plants while The Light Maker kept a few meters of distance away from the line.
I decided to ask him about the Empire of the Legacy of Brilliance, as he later referred to it as. Empire of Brilliance or Legacy Empire for short. Apparently they were the sole rulers of the star cluster— which meant the section of planets or whatever that the Crimson Stretch was in, though at the same time it also covered my planet too— it was very big and I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it. Apparently they owned multiple suns, which didn’t sound very possible to me. It was a sole monarchy, or a tyranny almost.
The Light Maker was a government official for them, part of the Quarantine division or whatever, so he knew a lot of laws and stuff, rules to follow in order to not die from what I got. It was a bit strange to me, but apparently I had to be worried about them too.
Meanwhile I told him about my Integration and the Grand Equilibrium, or whatever, and he seemed to nod with some confusion. Commenting that he had heard rumors about a new D grade Planet emerging, which brought me to— planetary grades.
Apparently, D grade planets were already incredibly rare, let alone C grade, or B, or A. According to The Light Maker, in the entire star cluster there was only a single A grade planet, and it was the residence of the emperor— the true emperor. Well, I didn’t really get it aside from the fact that the planet was bigger and had more energy and stability.
At the same time, it sounded like things were going to become a mess as soon as the Continental Challenges ended in the New World. As soon as the barriers dropped and someone became a ruler, things were going to go bad.
I thought for a few more minutes before eventually shaking my head. It didn’t take long before we arrived at the dark plant island . After circling around it, finally we reached the end of the forest.
The Light Maker gasped as he saw the Blight Corrupted trees, and then he saw it. At the edge of the forest we stood, as we saw the pitch black tree loom over the dark sky.
[U̷̮̽ǹ̶̤͜k̴̩͙̽̓n̷̳̊̇ô̷͔̰ẃ̸̙ń̶̗̽ Corrupted Sapling.]
It was just like I remembered. A stick of nothing but the darkest of blacks. The Light Maker peered at it.
“Yeah, that is going to be difficult…”
“You think so?” I absentmindedly asked as the treant caught behind me.
The looming sapling rattled ever so slightly with the wind and with a billowing cloud of sand, more monsters came. This time instead of there being just a few dozens, there were hundreds.
“I think this might be out of my… caliber.” The Light Maker said by my side.
“No shit.”
A long stretch as far as the eye could see of twisted amalgamations of bone and flesh. Figures of nothing but the deepest of hatred of life, all of them looking at us with craned necks, lifeless beady eyes, and yet every single one of them emanated bloodlust. The wind blew, and the branches of the sapling creaked— at that moment, roars filled my ears. There was only one thought in my mind at that moment.
How were we even going to destroy the sapling?
Azrie
BLAIR GOT SOME FANART, HOLY! I'M SO HAPPY! AAAAAA.
Drawn by Pieyabonk on Twitter
You can read the entirety of book 2 (up to chapter 155) on patreon!
I also opened a ko-fi, where you can read from chapter 137 onwards!
Blair now has a discord server, join here
Azrie Merry Christmas everyone!
Hundreds of vines flooded my vision, and headed into the maw of darkness; where the dozens twisted monsters resided, all of them ready to attack at a moment’s notice. The salvo of vines streaked through my vision, like deadly projectiles laced with nothing but death. With a final roar the monsters moved forward, and met the vines— blood flowed, splashes of red filled my vision as I heard pained shrieks, but others were missed and charged forth.
I gripped my bow and pushed my mana into it, nocking three arrows simultaneously. I pulled back the luminescent string with a loud creak, and with a small frown, I fired.
A lycan charged forward past the vines, and in an instant the arrows connected— vines sprouted everywhere, digging onto its flesh— insides, sides, nearby monsters and taking the space of the entrance. It staggered with a yelp, and using that brief window I made my command. Burn. I felt my mana sizzle for a moment as it combusted, it started at the base of the lycan but like an instant spark, my vision was engulfed by red.
An all-consuming fire exploded forward, consuming all the vines like candle wick, igniting everything in its path with a fiery blaze. The vines chained onto each other as everything in front of me became a crimson hell — shrieks, yelps, wails of pain hammered through my ears like an unceasing headache.
Meanwhile the vines from the treant dug and carved into the enemy line.
I snorted and took more arrows out as I saw the lycan take a knee from the pain. I readied my bow once more, but this time I only fired once. The light arrow hit its head and sprouted into tendrils, Mark of Death pulsated as they dug onto its head and then: I fired two more shots, both of them containing Ayas Azalea seeds, the all consuming flowers that would eat everything to fuel their spread.
A crimson bed sprouted and ate away at the lycan and nearby monsters. I frowned as I noticed a wolfe make it past the door— I switched onto my spear with some annoyance and immediately activated Frenzy. The wolfe pounced, and I met it with a grunt shoving my spear onto its throat.
“You know, now would be a good time to act. Light Maker.”
“It’s The Light Maker.” He corrected me with an annoying tone from my side. Standing still like some sort of puppet. “Now’s not the time to act, not yet anyway.”
With a shallow grunt, I threw the wolfe away. My arms flared with pain at that moment, I was unsure if it was because I wasn’t healed, or the sheer strength of it — thankfully I had a 15% strength bonus, but still — I switched to my bow and held another group of three vine arrows. But at that moment, the vines from the treant began to snap mid air, and at that moment I saw them drain of color and slowly disintegrate as if they were ash. The gray dust billowed as a different monster charged through, it was like a deformed boar of hatred, with its limbs uneven and its back had protruding bones of hatred.
[Blight Corrupted Morsbest. Lvl. 151]
I all three arrows and like a bola they hit its legs and coiled around, twisted — mutated — they shifted onto different things as the morsbest lost grip and slid across the entrance and at that moment everything went awry. Monsters unceasingly began to pour into the place, my heartbeat quickened as I commanded the plants to combust once more, but the unceasing flames that clung onto the vines of the treant made no difference.
“Now would be a good time to do something!” I called out The Light Maker only to receive no reply.
Three wolfes rushed towards me, with a grunt I pushed mana into my bow and welled it up, exploding it forward with a bright flash of light— flashbang. A myriad of pained shrieks entered my ears at that moment, and just as I was opening my eyes I heard a voice.
“Luckily for you.” It was calm and chilly, with a flare of deepening intensity. “I cannot be blinded.”
The Light Maker.
Within my vision the monsters became nothing but shadows for a split second before they were drowned by the unceasing white light, everything became an empty radiant void, the shrieks distorted into a static buzz within my ears. And then, I blinked— the white went away as I saw wisps of smoke and floating mana towards the ceiling. The entire place became charred, and the monsters were long gone, erased from the face of the planet. And then, the notifications came as I stared at the clear and empty cave.
[You have assisted to kill: (C) Blight Corrupted Lycan. Lvl 139.]
[You have assisted to kill…
[You have…
[You have assisted to kill: (C) Blight Corrupted Lycan. Lvl 129.]
Huh?
[Level up: You have achieved level 86. Prophecy Bonus: +2 WIS +2 VIG]
[Level up: You…
[Level up: You…
[Level up: You have achieved level 92. Prophecy Bonus: +2 WIS +2 VIG]
My mind paused. Wasn’t this a bit too free? Everything died— just like that. Wiped. It had been erased as if it never existed in the first place. All by the light. By the person who makes light, The Light Maker. A title received from a Grand Feat carried truth to it. Realm Breaker—
“Realm Breaker.” The Light Maker called. “Help me a bit, won’t you?”
I turned only to see him struggling to stand. His armor was somewhat burnt, and his posture was slightly broken. He heaved inaudible labored breaths that could only be seen from the way his chest moved, and that’s when it clicked on me. Mana Depletion? It didn’t make that much sense to me, but maybe— I stopped thinking and rushed to his side before I got an idea.
“Treant, help him stand with some vines.” I commanded my companion, who was severely burnt and at death’s door.
Its vines waddled over and supported The Light Maker, though it was evident he didn’t want to be helped in such a way. I shook my head and took out two mana potions that I handed to him.
“Wait, you carry those?” he asked with surprise.
“Why wouldn’t I? They are pretty cheap.” Well, my mana felt sort of infinite now with Elasia’s help, so they had fallen out of relevancy rather fast. “I am surprised you don’t have them.”
“The higher level you become, the more pointless they are.” He turned away as he moved his helmet. “Besides—” he removed his helmet and his voice distorted and became normal. “I have a skill that helps me regenerate mana, however it requires me to sleep. Just one hour is enough.”
“Uh huh.” I tilted my head. “That sounds pretty bad, might as well carry a lot of potions.”
“Not everyone gets to have a spatial ring, they are pretty damn rare.” He grumbled.
It was rare? Elasia had tossed it across the room as if it was something she could dispose of. Huh. Just as he was about to put it into his mouth, I decided to ask something that sort of bothered me.
“If you killed me… what would be the punishment?”
He paused before drinking the vial. “Death. I would die if I killed you. That’s why it was an oath.” He downed the potion. “I regret threatening you, but I needed information and to understand things. If you die I die, you see? At first I thought it would be easy to keep you alive, but turns out you are quite the impulsive one.”
“Right, that’s true.” I bit my lip with some annoyance. “At least I found the corruption source.”
He uncorked the second vial and drank it. “Yeah, but imagine this: You make a contract with an innocent person going about their trial, knowing the laws surrounding trials and knowing that it's best to stay uninvolved, you decide to trust the fact that they can leave after level 100. Naturally, they won’t rush to do anything, and you can sit back, plus you get much important intel that you need because failing at your task is a death penalty— so yes, I had no problem betting my life on it assuming you were a normal person.”
I felt a bit stung from what he said, but at the same time, he was kind of right. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head and put on his helmet, his voice became system-y. “Now’s not the time for apologies.” He stretched and the vines let go of him as he stepped forward. “Instead it is time to possibly find new shelter, or maybe outright try to kill the stupid corruption.”
“So we are going now?” I asked with some skepticism.
“We are. As soon as your treant is recovered anyway.”
My treant? I slowly craned my head back as I saw the Sangir Tree standing. Its woven wood was fractured and falling apart, the wisp flame was constantly flickering and threatening to die out, its branches were mangled. And that’s when I blanked out a bit.
How was I supposed to heal a plant? I scratched my head.
“Funny thing…”
“You don’t know how to heal it.” He sighed.
“Yeah…”
He took a breath. “Alright, I’ll explain and you listen carefully.”
◇ ◇ ◇
Plants are living beings, like any living being they have a lifespan, a life to live. They start off as seeds, and grow into full fledged adults before succumbing to natural causes thousands of years later or dying to changes in their environment, or well just dying:
Dying from the onslaught of a different species, or getting burned with the destruction of the planet. Plants, like many other things, have a lifespan, though its length is dozens of times longer than most beings in the wide universe. Like any other living being however, they eventually perish, but nevertheless they never stop growing. Like a child into a teen, into an adult and into an old man, all of them have the same capability to age, given that, plants also age and grow, they grow new branches and limbs—
Eventually, regenerating anew, like any other being, they heal from their wounds with time. It was logical information, but something that well, I never thought about. With that in mind however, I was able to give more mana to the treant and urge it to sprout— or age rather. With a hand touching its trunk, its wood shifted and grew thicker, some of the broken parts on it were melded—covered by new wood that wove itself into the trunk. New branches emerged amongst its crown and new vines hung.
The treant was completely restored in just a minute. I turned to The Light Maker with some skepticism.
“How did you even know about that?”
“I’ve worked with plant affinity and dark plant affinity users before.” He shook his head. “But at the same time you’re also awfully naive.”
I frowned. “That’s not very nice.”
He shrugged. “It’s just the truth. You should maybe do some research on the dark plants or just plants in general.”
I shook my head. “Well no time now, let’s just go.”
“I’m just saying.”
◇ ◇ ◇
It took a few hours and a lot of conversation, but eventually we neared the desert— the direction in which the sapling was. There were no monsters to be seen, and I just walked by the dark plants while The Light Maker kept a few meters of distance away from the line.
I decided to ask him about the Empire of the Legacy of Brilliance, as he later referred to it as. Empire of Brilliance or Legacy Empire for short. Apparently they were the sole rulers of the star cluster— which meant the section of planets or whatever that the Crimson Stretch was in, though at the same time it also covered my planet too— it was very big and I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it. Apparently they owned multiple suns, which didn’t sound very possible to me. It was a sole monarchy, or a tyranny almost.
The Light Maker was a government official for them, part of the Quarantine division or whatever, so he knew a lot of laws and stuff, rules to follow in order to not die from what I got. It was a bit strange to me, but apparently I had to be worried about them too.
Meanwhile I told him about my Integration and the Grand Equilibrium, or whatever, and he seemed to nod with some confusion. Commenting that he had heard rumors about a new D grade Planet emerging, which brought me to— planetary grades.
Apparently, D grade planets were already incredibly rare, let alone C grade, or B, or A. According to The Light Maker, in the entire star cluster there was only a single A grade planet, and it was the residence of the emperor— the true emperor. Well, I didn’t really get it aside from the fact that the planet was bigger and had more energy and stability.
At the same time, it sounded like things were going to become a mess as soon as the Continental Challenges ended in the New World. As soon as the barriers dropped and someone became a ruler, things were going to go bad.
I thought for a few more minutes before eventually shaking my head. It didn’t take long before we arrived at the dark plant island . After circling around it, finally we reached the end of the forest.
The Light Maker gasped as he saw the Blight Corrupted trees, and then he saw it. At the edge of the forest we stood, as we saw the pitch black tree loom over the dark sky.
[U̷̮̽ǹ̶̤͜k̴̩͙̽̓n̷̳̊̇ô̷͔̰ẃ̸̙ń̶̗̽ Corrupted Sapling.]
It was just like I remembered. A stick of nothing but the darkest of blacks. The Light Maker peered at it.
“Yeah, that is going to be difficult…”
“You think so?” I absentmindedly asked as the treant caught behind me.
The looming sapling rattled ever so slightly with the wind and with a billowing cloud of sand, more monsters came. This time instead of there being just a few dozens, there were hundreds.
“I think this might be out of my… caliber.” The Light Maker said by my side.
“No shit.”
A long stretch as far as the eye could see of twisted amalgamations of bone and flesh. Figures of nothing but the deepest of hatred of life, all of them looking at us with craned necks, lifeless beady eyes, and yet every single one of them emanated bloodlust. The wind blew, and the branches of the sapling creaked— at that moment, roars filled my ears. There was only one thought in my mind at that moment.
How were we even going to destroy the sapling?
Azrie
BLAIR GOT SOME FANART, HOLY! I'M SO HAPPY! AAAAAA.
Drawn by Pieyabonk on Twitter
You can read the entirety of book 2 (up to chapter 155) on patreon!
I also opened a ko-fi, where you can read from chapter 137 onwards!
Blair now has a discord server, join here
