Chapter 37

Rian and Kael left the rotting ogre corpse behind and stepped deeper into the darkness. The forest was no longer a place of life. The trees were blackened, dry, and twisted, and the ground had lost its life, turned gray. In the silence of death, only the two of their footfalls echoed unpleasantly.

“Master, the energy is getting stronger and stronger.”

Kael adjusted his grip on the dagger at his waist and spoke quietly. His senses kept firing danger signals.

“I know.”

Rian’s answer was short. His eyes were not on the forest’s surface but beyond it. The mana particles floating in the air, beyond scattering in fear, were now being consumed and corrupted by black spores. The whole forest had become a vast incubator, breeding the plague for its further growth.

Then, something crawling out of the underbrush made a sound. The two hid at once.

What came into their sight was a ‘something’ in the shape of a wolf. It would originally have been a Dire Wolf, a lower predator of the monster forest. But now its form was horribly twisted. Its fur was all gone, and its skin was blackened, rotting and festering to the eyes. Its eyes were empty, and from its whole body black spores rose like heat haze.

“Grrr….”

It was not a living creature. A corpse animated by the plague, walking disease itself.

‘A parasitic type magic? Draining all of the host’s life force, controlling the corpse and spreading spores…’

Rian analyzed the situation coldly. It was a crueller and more efficient method than any dark Magic or curse he knew.

The infected Dire Wolf staggered and headed somewhere, as if drawn by something.

“Let’s follow it. That thing will lead us to the source.”

They carefully trailed behind. How long had they walked? They reached the forest’s deepest part, a clearing ringed by massive rocks. And in its center, Rian finally faced the source of all this disaster.

There stood a figure in human shape. He wore a patchwork ragged robe sewn from head to toe and held a staff made of animal bone. Around him tens of infected monsters stood like the dead, guarding him.

The robed figure planted the staff in the ground and murmured an unintelligible chant. Each time he spoke the spell, black energy rose from the earth and soaked into the monsters’ corpses, and from those corpses black spores bloomed, contaminating the area. All his actions were part of a massive ritual that killed the forest and ‘produced’ the plague.

And the ritual’s energy was converging toward one place: the distant mountain range where the Red Dragon Ignis slept.

“Trying to… contaminate the dragon?”

Kael’s voice trembled with horror. If even the ancient dragon, guardian of the forest, were consumed by that plague, the Aster estate and the entire north would turn to hell.

“It’s not a simple contamination.”

Rian’s eyes shone coldly.

“That’s the process of planting a ‘seed’. They intend to plant the plague’s seed in the dragon—the most powerful and massive host—to ‘harvest’ an unimaginably catastrophic disaster.”

The robed one turned his head. Under the robe’s shadow, two red eyes pierced Rian and Kael exactly.

“Heh heh heh… Interlopers have come. Who would have thought petty worms would meddle in preparing a sacrifice for my great lord.”

His voice was grotesque, like the scraping of rusty metal.

“Your fresh flesh will make excellent nourishment for my little children.”

At his gesture, the infected monsters charged the two in unison.

“Kael, aim for their hearts. The head is meaningless—they’re only corpses.”

“Yes, Master!”

Kael gripped his dagger and vanished into the shadows. And Rian, for the first time, unleashed his true power awakened from sleep. Blue mana swirled around him like a storm.

“O arrogant stranger.”

Rian’s voice echoed through the entire forest.

“In my hunting grounds, for holding your ritual without the lord’s permission, I’ll make you pay.”

The shadow’s wrath finally revealed its blade toward the source of the plague.