Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 237: Mystic Garden

“Remember, this array will only keep the entrance stable temporarily. You need to get out of there within a week, or you’ll be stuck until Lord Atwood can get you out,” Alea said as she looked down at the array that kept the spatial tears in check.

“I know,” Ogras muttered. “Your boyfriend better have collected a war hoard’s worth of loot. I’m becoming destitute over here.”

Alea only glared angrily at Ogras in response, making him snicker in glee.

“Well, I’m off,” he said as he stepped into the transportation array leading into the Mystic Realm.

Ogras’ sight was blocked by darkness for a minute until he suddenly was in a shrouded area. His feet barely had time to land on the ground before he melded into the darkness, disappearing from sight.

After he hid himself he took a quick look around, trying to discern what type of realm he had entered. There were many types of Mystic Realms, but they were generally split into two categories; Wild and Cultivated Realms.

Wild realms were pocket dimensions untouched by man. Sometimes they were just large deserts devoid of anything of value, but other times they were like primordial forests teeming with life. If it was the latter there was a high possibility of finding natural treasures. Of course, where there were treasures there were often beasts as well.

Cultivated Realms were pockets of space that had either been cut off from the main dimension or turned into residences by powerful warriors. These were generally extra sought after since ruins of high-grade civilizations could contain tremendous amounts of treasure without the high risk of the Wild Realms.

But unfortunately, he saw that he found himself in a cavern rather than some ancient ruins, and when he discreetly exited to the mouth he only saw a forest in the distance. However, Ogras didn’t exit the cavern since there were a few things odd with the view.

The first odd thing was the silver lines up in the sky. The sky was like a mix of his own homeworld’s red and Earth’s blue, having a deep purple color. But where there should have been clouds or stars there were instead long crisscrossing silver lines stretching all along the horizon.

Ogras couldn’t make heads or tails of the things, but judging by how it looked the lines must be enormous, spanning tens of kilometers. He had also never heard of anything like that forming naturally, which indicated this place might actually be a cultivated land even though its lack of structures.

The second odd things about the outside were the trees. They were large and had an abundance of branches, each being veritably filled with leaves. Ogras could barely see the trunk due to the thick growth on them.

But something was wrong about the trees. He could barely see any movement, and his senses just told him something was off. At first, he thought they were illusions, but he soon realized that wasn’t it. The reason the trees felt odd was that they were huge. He couldn’t be sure from this distance but he was sure that they were all at least hundreds of meters tall, perhaps even larger.

His heartbeat sped up in anticipation when he saw the titanic trees. The silver streaks in the sky were troubling, but the trees gave him high hopes. The atmosphere was teeming with Cosmic Energy, and vegetation seldom grew so big without Nexus Veins in the ground beneath. Both were indicators of there being a lot of natural treasures abound.

However, when there was this much energy there was also seldom just flora. Judging by the intensity of the energy it was a real possibility of there being top tier E-Grade beasts around, perhaps even a D-grade alpha at the top.

Greed was battling with fear in his heart as he hid in the shadows looking for anything that might pose a threat to him. Ogras knew that he had led a pretty cushy existence for most of his life. All his cultivation resources had been given to him or bought at auction, and he hadn’t ever really risked his life apart from the all-out battle with that cultist that cost him his hand.

Exploring a Mystic Realm was to risk everything, and it wasn’t something he was used to. But soon he grit his teeth and moved forward, quickly descending the small hill his cave was hidden inside. He already knew that he needed to earn some achievements if he ever wanted to push through his bottleneck.

After he’d descended the mountain he found himself in a vast field, though it might as well be called a forest. The blades of grass reached over three meters into the air, almost completely obscuring his vision. Ogras’ spear was already in his hand as he walked toward the forest, his eyes darting every which way to avoid an ambush.

It was as times like these he wished that he had the monstrous luck that Zac must possess. His 37 Luck wasn’t bad, but it clearly wasn’t enough to get those warnings signals that Zac seemed to get during battles. He was forced to rely on his senses and his mind instead.

He therefore immediately melded into shadows the second he heard a slight rustle from his left, and the next moment a black shape flew straight past him with enough speed to be a blur. The attacker landed ten meters away, and Ogras saw it was a completely unknown being.

It had six long and thin legs that were roughly a meter long. Each had three joints and like the rest of the thing they were covered in short brown fur. The body was extremely elongated, and it was almost four meters long, with its torso being extremely thin. It was almost like a snake had gotten insect legs.

Its head was extremely odd as well, with just a large hole in its face with rows and rows of small fangs. There were also six small black beads that Ogras assumed were the eyes. The thing was built for speed, but the rest was so odd that he couldn’t place the thing at all, so Ogras quickly used [Omniscient Eye] on it.

Ocodon Worm.

Level: 73

Most used skill: Wind walk

Highest Attribute: Dexterity

Ogras was shocked that the thing was neither some mammal or even a legged snake. Instead, it was some sort of worm. For a second Ogras wondered if The Ruthless Heavens had gotten drunk and misnamed the thing in front of him. But then again, the isolated nature of Mystic Realms sometimes made beasts evolve in unconventional directions over the eons.

Knowing the thing was only level 73 he didn’t hesitate anymore, and multiple shadow spears struck out at it. It clearly wasn’t prepared to be attacked by its own shadow, but its speed was spectacular. It displaced itself in an instant, causing air to swirl around its legs.

But if there was one thing that Ogras excelled at it was his speed, and soon the running worm was lying dead on the ground filled with puncture wounds. Ogras quickly dissected it to look for any poison sacks or other hidden threats or valuables, but there seemed to be no such things. He quickly threw the odd corpse in his Cosmos Sack and hurried toward the forest.

As he traveled through the field of overgrown grass he also kept his eyes peeled for any hidden herbs, but as he ran he had to admit that the flora was unusually coherent. There was only a single type of plant; the high swaying grass. There were no flowers, no roots, no vegetables, not even any weeds.

He encountered a few more of the worms as well, but since he understood them better he had no problems in making short work of them. He was also curious to note that they still seemed to live underground even though they had grown legs. One of them managed came straight out of the ground to attack him, it’s legs folded around its thin body.

Yet there were no other beasts Ogras encountered as he finally entered the forest. The trees were truly humongous, as he walked below their crowns he knew they were around three hundred meters tall. Their trunks were also extremely thick, and Ogras judged they had a diameter of twenty meters or so.

Ogras had never seen trees like these before. Usually, trees of this size only had leaves and branches far up in the sky, but these ones had branches starting just a few meters up in the air. Ogras could even easily jump up to the branches if he wanted, though he was more interested in walking the forest floor in search of valuable herbs.

But he was soon disappointed because there was simply no undergrowth in this forest. What was even odder was that there seemed to be a precise distance between the trees, making them form long even lines. It truly looked like this forest had been planted by someone, but why would someone want to grow these things?

Finally, Ogras climbed all the way to the top of one of the trees in search of answers. As he climbed he looked for anything of note that would make these humongous trees worth planting. But no fruits or flowers were growing on the tree, and nothing was living in the trees that might be worth money either.

He did, however, see something that he hadn’t noticed when he stood in the cavern earlier. There was a wall. A huge silver wall that stood beyond the forest, stretching almost as far as his eyes could see.

As he gazed around him Ogras started to understand that he might actually be in an enclosed space rather than a wild forest. The vantage of the tree allowed him to get a better understanding of the area than what he could see earlier from his starting point.

He was in a circular space that was mostly occupied by the evenly planted forests, with a large field in the middle filled with grass. The only oddity was the dirt hill roughly in the middle of the field, and Ogras guessed it was caused by the spatial distortions of the weakened dimensional membrane.

Perhaps the whole field had been filled with trees once upon a time, but spatial tears had destroyed everything and caused the forest in the middle to be replaced by the grassy plains instead. Ogras also guessed that the silver wall stretched all around the forest, but unfortunately he couldn't see what lay beyond since the walls and the trees were roughly the same height.

He could also finally see that the odd silver lines in the sky were connected to the wall and formed somewhat of a dome that covered the whole space. Ogras truly couldn’t make heads or tails of the situation, which was a bit disconcerting. Since he couldn't understand the purpose of this place or the lines, he also couldn't assess the amount of danger he was in.

It started to feel like he stood in an enormous garden, but why was nothing of value planted? These trees were huge and their wood might make decent timber, but that was about it. The density of Cosmic Energy would be able to support far more valuable things, so it felt like a waste of an effort to create something like this.

Ogras quickly started to climb down the tree before he set out toward the wall in the distance. It took him thirty minutes to get through the rest of the forest before he finally saw the end of the tree line, so he hesitantly stopped by one of the trees.

There were no signs of life around the wall, and there were no roads or gates either. The surface of the wall was completely smooth and it seemed it was made out of some metal. There also were a row of fractals running along the middle of the wall, and fractals seemed to stretch along the whole thing.

Ogras tried to discern the function of the fractals for thirty minutes, but they were completely unknown to him. But as far as he could tell they weren’t part of a slaughter array. Besides, few people would leave the fractals for a defensive or offensive array visible, since it would make them far easier to break.

Finally, he took a deep breath and flashed forward, blending with the shadows until he reached the wall. There were no alarms or incoming attacks, only the eerie silence of the forest. The wall was cold to the touch, and after testing it out Ogras realized it was shockingly durable.

He couldn’t identify the type of metal but judging by the hardness it was a material or alloy that should be at least E-Graded just judging by its strength. His eyes glanced sideways and watched the wall stretch into the distance.

The enclosed forest was so large that he could barely discern the curvature of the wall. The scale of it all was mindboggling. Even if the wall was only a sheet a few centimeters thick the amount of E-Grade material required to build the wall was staggering. He couldn’t even calculate the cost of such a thing.

Both Port Atwood and Clan Azh’Rezak would turn destitute after only erecting a portion of this wall, and its only function was to enclose this seemingly unimportant forest. Just dismantling the wall would make him a fortune. But more importantly, who could afford this sort of extravagant spending, and what was there outside the wall?

Just what kind of place was this?