Petra wandered through the devastated terrain with sparkling eyes.
Everywhere she looked, traces of a fierce battle remained.
Even though the actual battle had long ended, she could still feel countless lingering auras drifting through the surroundings like invisible residue. The air itself seemed contaminated with different powers all layered over one another.
For her, this was not simply a battlefield.
This was a treasure trove!
Hahaha!
Petra immediately began investigating.
She flashed around, jumping back and forth repeatedly.
Wind and Mell watched as she blinked from place to place in a frenzy.
They shared a look, then stepped forward to make sure that she didn't run off.
The first thing her grubby little paws focused on was the large assortment of substances that had accumulated in the surrounding area.
Some toxins were thick and viscous, others slithered across the surrounding surfaces like living creatures, while others crystallized and spread, growing directly onto the surrounding environment.
One poison continuously shifted between a liquid and gas state every few seconds, while another had somehow merged itself into the surrounding natural energy of heaven and earth to hide itself.
Petra's awe-filled eyes widened further, and further the more she examined everything.
Whoever created these poisons possessed terrifying skill!
Her little toes tapped on the ground as she looked around at the pale distortions continuously drifting throughout the air like transparent ripples. This pale, ethereal, ever-changing light was the manifestation of uncontrolled soul force, the force of the soul that is 'normally' used by necromancers.
While turning her head back and forth, Petra was surprised by just how much there was.
This quantity of soul force was clearly abnormal, even for necromancers, which made Petra immediately question the class of the combatants. It was likely they used a different method to manipulate the soul force in the surroundings, but Petra was unclear about the specifics. Some areas caused faint whispers to appear in her ears, while others produced emotional interference that attempted to alter her mood.
Petra crouched down and repeatedly swiped her hand through one such area, looking a bit like a child failing to catch a butterfly.
Just as she was about to coat her hand in a strange blue substance, Petra got distracted.
There was a decaying property in the spiritual energy here, likely the reason so many trees had been destroyed.
Petra had always been interested in this kind of transmuting ability.
Spiritual energy was a special type of energy that could be controlled by Will, but it also had another extremely unique trait, which was to act as a carrier for a number of informational properties, such as emotions, weight, viscosity, state, acidity, and a large number of other things that gave it a unique form. This was also where the term 'aura' came from, because the spiritual energy surrounding each person would unconsciously be tainted with the existence of the person, therefore creating this unique aura.
Unlike ordinary spiritual energy, the spiritual energy here had become unstable and rotten. It spread slowly throughout the air like contaminated blood mist, causing nearby plants to wither and die.
Petra had also discovered that certain toxins had forcibly attached themselves to the spiritual energy, fusing with it, then carried by it and circulated through the environment, creating a chain reaction that continuously degraded the surroundings.
Seeing this, Petra frowned, then made sure that all of the girls had immunity to this strange type of spiritual energy. If they absorbed it, then it would be unknown if she could help them after it was willingly taken into their bodies and spread around.
She made a mental note to find a countermeasure for this kind of poison in the future.
Moving on…
The glowing green puppet strings were even stranger.
These thin green threads stretched throughout the terrain like abandoned spider silk. Some were buried beneath the earth, while others remained attached to shattered stones and fallen trees.
Petra carefully picked one up, only for the thread to twitch slightly in her fingers before crumbling into powder.
"Interesting," She muttered, her eyes flashing.
After skipping away, next was the green poison that was spreading down the river. This was an incredibly aggressive venom, and just as Petra suspected, it was an organic by-product of some creature repeatedly bred for exactly this purpose. If she had to guess, it was created like raising Gu, but then using that Gu to raise more Gu, then doing this for hundreds if not thousands of years. Anyway, it continuously spread and consumed the surrounding matter like a hungry mold. Nearby, several partially melted trees were still dissolving despite the battle already being long over.
Petra discovered that this poison contained traces of regenerative qualities mixed together with a cold corrosion, but it also had the ability to spread and adapt.
Whoever used this poison didn't seem to care if it spread throughout the Secret Realm or not.
The black poison, meanwhile, was much quieter and more ominous. It didn't spread aggressively. Instead, it hid and played dead. It seeped silently into shadows and cracks while slowly consuming vitality over a long period of time.
Petra watched a small beast accidentally crawl across a contaminated stone before immediately jumping away, but she could tell that it was slowly starting to shrivel into dust.
After recording these two poisons, she absorbed some, stored some, and then moved on.
After looking at a few more things, Petra looked at the last thing that truly interested her.
Her big black eyes turned up.
This one was a strong Curse.
Unlike poison, Curses were a higher-level power that was formed from a fusion of multiple energies, much like Mana. Petra discovered several strange 'symbols' hidden throughout the battlefield that only became visible when viewed through a special perception.
She currently lacked the ability to interact with curses, but that didn't mean that they didn't interest her.
Because there was no information on the cross-continent, at least from what she had found so far, she would have to wait until Levy taught her about them.
As for these 'symbols', they were different from runes.
Some triggered emotional responses when just being looked at, while others attempted to anchor themselves to spiritual energy like a parasite. These things didn't seem to have much to do with the darkness element, but Petra felt as if they had a lot in common. In addition, these were just the natural properties of the curse energy. The actual curse was particularly nasty and attached itself to everything that moved, causing whoever touched it to become progressively slower over time. This was not just a slowing effect; it was also a kind of degradation of the mind, like a withering aura that messed with the senses and slowly turned those cursed into trees.
Fortunately, Petra had a near immunity to curses!
Yay Witches!
After she looked around again, she noticed that the entire terrain felt dead in an inexplicable way.
The surrounding fog also seemed to avoid these areas instinctively, so it was likely that this curse could be transferred through the fog. But while most people would feel uncomfortable and instinctively step back, Petra's eyes were practically glowing.
"…Amazing!"
"This is such a unique feeling!"
"I can feel so many things trying to invade my body—!"
Even for Petra, this was a first. She had never experienced so many hostile powers all trying to drill into her body at once. If not for a certain black sea sleeping in her sea of consciousness, then it was likely that these things would truly succeed.
Even her immense amount of mental energy was struggling to keep them all back.
As more and more strange things attached themselves to Petra, it was inevitable that some could slip through the net and actually enter her sea of consciousness. But fortunately, none of them could find her soul, so they could only drift around aimlessly in the shadow garden she formed around her inner library.
Immediately afterward, she began running around the battlefield in a blur, aggressively collecting things.
She collected strange crystal-like poison powder, scraped liquid residue into bottles, and stole several partially melted beast bones. She dug up glowing black moss from beneath a crater, stuffed several poisonous insects into jars, and harvested fragments of broken curse marks from the surroundings, storing them on special parchments. She cut apart a dissolved tree root that was still secreting toxic sap, and she even bottled the contaminated fog.
At this point, Petra was even seen licking a strange purple liquid off her fingertip while deeply thinking.
Her eyes narrowed as she purred in delight.
But as she happily looted the battlefield—
Hum!
—Dozens, no hundreds, no, thousands of historical echoes suddenly emerged from the surrounding fog!
It was also at this point that the foggy forest suddenly became quieter.
Petra, frozen with her small finger still in her mouth, looked around and began to sweat.
Petra: (⚆ _ ⚆)
It wasn't completely silent; no, there were still some sounds, but as they looked around, an ominous aura began to spread. The distant drip of poison. The bubbling of corrupted rivers. The faint rustling of ethereal robes brushing against dead grass.
Somehow, those tiny noises only made the forest feel even more unsettling...
Petra slowly turned in place.
Everywhere she looked, figures were very slowly emerging from the fog.
At first, there had only been a few—a few with only their eyes appearing, but now that some time had passed, the forest was strangely full of them! Ancient soldiers wearing rusted and broken armor silently wandered between the trees. Some carried broken spears, while others dragged long swords behind them. Their bodies were translucent and fading, like distortions on a heated road.
None of them spoke…
They didn't even blink…
They simply walked around aimlessly…
Tap!
Tap!
Tap!
The sound of footsteps echoed through the mist.
Wind unconsciously grabbed Mell's sleeve, and Rose and Lira both stepped back.
"...L-little master?"
Petra did not answer immediately.
Her black eyes slowly swept across the surroundings.
Something was wrong…
Something was very wrong…
Why were they attacking?
These historical echoes weren't moving, they were just watching from the depths of the fog.
Lira's ears flattened against her head while her tail puffed up nervously. "…I_I don't like this place anymore! C-can we move on!"
Rose silently nodded.
Even Mell's expression became serious.
The devastated forest around them had slowly transformed into something resembling an ancient graveyard. The drifting fog rolled between the countless ghostly figures while pale silhouettes continued appearing deeper and deeper within the forest's fog.
They did not stop...
Countless echoes appeared one after another…
Petra's eyes flickered with a green light, ready to make a move, but just then—
Tock!
Tock!
Tock!
A horse walked out from the fog.
No… half a horse, because its lower body was missing entirely!
The ghostly beast silently dragged itself across the ground as an equally damaged knight sat atop its broken back. The knight's head slowly turned toward Petra's group as it painfully pulled itself past them.
Crunch…
Crunch…
Its broken armor scraped together mechanically as Petra stared back, but she didn't move.
The knight just stared at Petra as several long seconds passed.
It slowly continued walking past them, treating them as if they didn't even exist.
Soon, it crossed the battlefield and disappeared into the distance.
"…That's creepy," Petra muttered, her hair still standing on end.
Hum!
The fog shifted once again.
This time, entire groups formed from dozens of echoes began appearing.
Archers, messengers, and mages. Wounded soldiers carrying bodies. Some had no faces, and some had missing limbs. Others looked completely normal, only paler and emptier than the others, like old memories that had been completely forgotten.
There were too many.
Far too many!
Wind slowly looked around, her face paling.
"We're surrounded!"
Petra pursed her lips.
Looking carefully, she finally noticed it. The historical echoes had unknowingly formed a massive ring around them. No matter which direction she looked, ghostly figures drifted through the trees. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands. An entire army silently wandered over from the fog-covered forest. Every single one of them was unconsciously moving toward Petra and the others.
They didn't step out of the fog, but they were undoubtedly gathered.
The forest floor softly creaked.
Tap…
Tap…
Tap…
The endless footsteps continued approaching, each echo reaching far further than it should.
Lira swallowed nervously.
"…Should we run?"
Petra rubbed her chin thoughtfully.
"Mm…" Then she nodded. "…Probably?"
Although she felt as if she could fight them, if another monster like the Azurefell Family's Old Man appeared, then she might just be in a bit of trouble!
Nobody objected.
The group immediately began quietly moving away from the battlefield.
Not too fast.
Not too slow.
Almost instinctively, everyone lowered their breathing to their weakest state while carefully weaving through the countless wandering echoes. Only one of the historical echoes stopped a few meters away from Petra. It was a young woman wearing ancient Imperial armor while carrying several folded letters tightly held against her chest.
Her face was blurry, and her identity was indistinct…
She slowly turned toward Petra, and Petra stared back curiously.
For some reason, Petra felt as if she had a certain special identity, but this identity had no fate with her.
The messenger stared silently for several moments. She seemed to be thinking about handing it over, but in the end, she chose not to, before slightly stepping aside.
Petra stepped aside, making room for her to pass.
As more and more people began to appear, Petra and the others were slowly forced to step back.
Petra's eyelid twitched.
"…Why do I feel like we're being led away intentionally?"
She received no answer, because they all felt it, too. These historical echoes were trying to guide them towards a certain direction. The countless historical echoes drifting through the fog continuously shifted around the group, subtly opening pathways while blocking other directions.
It was a bit like shepherds herding livestock...
Wind's long ears trembled slightly.
"Little master…."
"…I know."
For the first time in a while, even Petra's playful expression faded slightly.
Not because she was scared, but because she genuinely couldn't understand what these things wanted.
Could it be some kind of ploy by the master of this fog?
Did it want to trick them into a trap?
No, it didn't feel like that…
The group continued walking through the endless sea of wandering ghosts while being subtly led.
* * *
Time passed strangely…
Eventually, the fog ahead suddenly began to thin, and the oppressive atmosphere weakened.
The countless footsteps gradually faded.
Step!
Petra walked forward and froze.
Like walking through the curtain of a waterfall, the fog-filled forest simply cut off! Bright sunlight poured down from above. Looking up, Petra saw the bright blue sky of the secret realm. Fresh air filled the field, and a cool breeze brushed past her hair. The scent of fresh flowers and shifting air filled the wind, while an incredibly refreshing wave washed over her body.
Petra blinked several times while standing at the edge of the forest.
She only now realized just how disoriented her sense of time had been.
Behind her, the endless army of historical echoes silently stood within the fog, motionless, obscured, watching, and waiting. Then, slowly, the fog converged and quickly closed. Soon, the ghostly army disappeared completely from sight.
Only silence shifting with the wind remained.
Petra stared for several seconds before scratching her cheek awkwardly.
"…Well… we're out! Hehe…"
She looked back toward the others.
"That was weird..."
"It seems as if we're the first ones out?"
"Yeah…"
Petra looked ahead—
There were no signs of footsteps, indicating that they were the first feet to leave the forest.
Mell asked, "Do you think that by hitting the old man, and then escaping, it counted as some kind of pass? Maybe it allowed us to trigger some kind of mechanism and leave the fog?"
Petra frowned.
"If that's the case, doesn't that mean that not many people will be able to enter the inner ring?"
Wind shook her head thoughtfully. "It's possible that you just need to fight a historical echo with a similar strength level to yourself. If that's the case, then most of the people who entered the forest should be able to move on…"
Mell nodded her head, "It also explains why we were the first to leave the forest."
Petra closed her eyes as they adjusted to the light.
When she opened them again, she looked ahead.
A massive field stretched into the distance. This was a crossroads. Three separate paths branched outward beneath the bright blue sky, one leading ahead to the mountains, one leading to the eastern highlands, and one leading to a western ravine. These three destinations were an equal distance around the core area, telling Petra that she had arrived at the inner ring.
At the center of the crossroads stood an old wooden signpost.
Petra slowly looked up at it.
She blinked…
* * *