As the rays of the sun continued to pierce the ground, Lynn stood in a shadow cast by a massive boulder, recovering his strength. He had been running for several hours to evade the dangers of the plain, but the heat of the sun wasn't helping. He knew the blazing afternoon wasn't the best time of the day for a long distance journey on foot, but he couldn't linger around his demolished village. The threat of the antherions still loomed heavily on his mind.
After deciding on his need for a small break, he sat on a small stone beside the boulder and opened his satchel. He brought out a piece of roasted rabbit leg, and a urn of deepwater he received from Wynter, his dead uncle.
From his vantage point, he could see the outskirts of the Ivory hills, his destination. But considering the dangers of the roads, he knew the journey would take him several weeks to complete. So for now, he had to be extremely careful and conserve his energy as much as he could. If he was to survive.
His eyes were drawn back to the plains before him. A quick inspection yielded no sign of any danger, but deep down, he couldn't shake the feelings of deadly eyes watching him. A few minutes of watching, still nothing.
He was about to dismiss his unease as an effect of the heat, when he heard a deep low growl. There was no mistaken the depth of the power of the canine, larger and far more powerful than the tiger he fought the other day. It had to be an antherion. He could almost picture its imaginary face as having cold, deadly green eyes and long, sharp teeth. Where there was one wolf, there would be many in the area.
A terrible feeling rose up in his mind, but before his mind could seize up, his legs took over and he ran. He raced over the plain, at first not caring which direction, caring only to put distance between himself and whatever was making the growls.
He headed down the gully until he saw a suitable place to climb out of the lower section of the hill. This was no safe place, but he needed a higher spot, above the ground level, to see whatever was after him. Bounding up the incline, he sent rocks and dust sliding down behind him. His hands found dry grass that he used to pull himself up while his feet found supporting holds. Before long, he was off.
With his fear ebbing a little, enough to allow his mind to notice he was heading south—the direction of the dark forest—a small cry of frustration shook him and he turned left towards the Ivory Hills. His back itched. He feared that at any moment the beast would appear and tear him apart.
He tripped over another mound of grass, scrambled to his feet, and was off again. Besides the pounding of his feet and his own breathing, he heard nothing else. No sounds of growling or howling pursuit, making him heave a temporary sigh of relief.
As the sun continued to blaze harder, he dared a look back, not stopping his flight, but looking over his shoulder as he ran. That was when he saw a shadow, scuttling out of the gully. It stopped and stood tall at the rim of the ravine, neither moving nor coming after him. It was just watching him.
"That's a Worg. Well, in case you're not aware, a Worg is not just any wolf but an antherion which had reached the half-transformation level. That's way higher than your level. And wherever one appears, other lower-level wolves followed. So, you better run for your life." The voice of The Remnant sounded in his mind.
Gripped in fear, Lynn ran towards the other direction, the eastern sky brightly lit behind him. The breeze, whispering through the grasses all day, suddenly grew to a full wind, pushing at him from the right. It sent stinging dirt and sand into his eyes but he didn't slow down or stop. He wiped at the muddy tears and continued running. Better to run blind than stop. Despite the burning difficulty, he closed his mouth and breathed through his nose to keep the dirt from his mouth.
The land began to rise a bit, and his legs started to burn. He'd only taken a bite out of the baked roasted meat since morning—and barely nothing then. His heart seemed to be beating all the way into the top of his skull, and he could not bring enough air into his body. His face twisted into a rictus of pain, but he forced himself onward.
He reached the top of the hill and began his descent on the other side. The pain in his legs eased a little as he went down the slope, but soon he was going too fast. He almost fell when his foot hit a hillock of grassy plant hard, but righted himself and kept going.
He had not gone more than a few yards when his foot hit the mouth of a hole—probably some sort of animal made—and he went down. The dry grass cushioned the worst of his fall, but the impact, drove what little air he had, from his lungs.
A sudden gust of wind hit him, almost as if the wind itself were laughing at him. He pushed himself to his feet, and noticed the trembling in his legs in panic. Knowing he couldn't keep this pace up much longer, he looked up, searching for a resting place but all he saw was an empty plain in every direction.
There might well be other dry gullies, running like cracks throughout the plain, but dwellers would never see them until they were on top of them.
He forced himself onward but reduced his pace a bit. This allowed him to see the hole at the nick of time. He'd been lucky. Another foot into a hole and he might have broken his ankle. As a boy, he'd seen it happen to low-functioning horses, and if a healer wasn't around, there was nothing to be done but a quick jab to the thick vein along the horse's throat, and it was over.
Lynn took a quick glance over his shoulder, and saw pale things flitting over the plain to the north. They almost blended in to the plains despite the sunlight. Only their movement gave them away—and they were heading for him. He turned and headed south, following the shallow valley between the two hills, away from the wolves. But he'd seen how fast they were moving. Unless he found somewhere to hide, they'd be on him in no time.
He had only gone a quarter of a mile when he saw a phantom shape passed him to his right by a dozens of paces. Two more ghostly shapes off to his left.
They were surrounding him in the circle of death. He glanced behind him and saw four others a hundred paces behind him. They were not close enough for Lynn to make out their distinct features, but he could tell that they were large canines, larger than any wolves he had seen.
Each of these wolves was far larger than a courser horse. Their grey furs and deep blue eyes were enough for him to know they were antherions, wolves which had been harnessing the power of Ether.The ones to his sides put on a sudden burst of speed that propelled them closer to Lynn. Soon, he could hear them salivating as they closed in on him. At this point, he was tired and worn out, but he continued to run towards a small hill, overlooking a narrow valley to the north.He collapsed against the base of the hill and turned around before using a few seconds to catch his breath. Just a stone throw from him, stood the largest member of the wolf pack. The wolf with its head low to the ground, stayed still, watching Lynn. A deep growl rumbling from its throat. Lynn stopped and drew out the steel sword he took before leaving his clansmen. He'd seen wolves take down prey before, and it wasn't a pretty sight.The huge wolves circled him, pacing and watching, ever drawing closer. They continu
Lynn couldn't wrap his head around what he guessed was in the dark shadows. The sound from the creature was like that of a rat, yet not like a rat—indeed not like anything he had ever heard about rodents.Clinging to the statue, he tried to look around. It had aspects of a great rodent in its squeal, and Lynn began to picture a giant rat ready to attack, sending a chill down his spine.Slowly, he began to gain control of his frayed nerves. He recalled the basic lessons he had learned from his father many years ago which proved useful to him in his miserable life.So with urgency, he began climbing with more energy.After another squeal sounded too close to where he was, he stopped climbing and glanced at the dark tunnel behind him. Then he saw the eyes. Two great red orbs stared at him from the darkness. Each seemed as large as a melon. They remained upon Lynn, unblinking, as he clung to the back of the statue. The eyes continued to bore into him, and he felt the cold bile of terror r
The huge underground cavity, the incomparably tall and straight pitch-black trees, and the faint blue light that was as bright as the stars, but more numerous than the stars.Although Lynn was standing here for the second time, he was still shocked by its incomparably magnificent and beautiful scene.Coming to the front of the stone chamber, Lynn took out the stone box from his spatial belt and said to The Remnant. "Guardian, its now five days, I want to take out the undergarment and see the effect of the silkworm on it."Afterwards, he took the undergarment out of the spatial storage, and with a flick, there was no moisture left on the undergarment. It was really looking good, Lynn thought. If all clothes have this effect, then washing clothes would be a much easier thing, and one didn't need to dry them.The Remnant then released a trace of divine consciousness. "Good. The effect is really good to see. This undergarment can only resist the attack of third-level attacks before now, b
At this moment, Lynn felt uncomfortable as if his whole body was on fire. He kept fanning his body with his clothes."Child, don't panic." The Remnant also felt a surge of energy circulating around in Lynn's body, and said. "Sit down and cross your leg. Now according to your usual conveyance method, slowly guide that energy and the essence of the confluence will run in your body according to the class of your essence attributes, and then digest and fuse it, bit by bit."After listening to The Remnant's instructions, Lynn immediately sat down cross-legged and practiced according to his guardian's words. He needed to hurry up, since it was really hot and uncomfortable. When he worked at a furnace site in his previous life, he had never felt so hot before even working under the sun.The conveyance method taught by The Remnant to Lynn was known as the Immortal Saint. It could absorb the essence power hidden in nature when the day and night timelines alternated in the sky. The time known a
After two months inside the cave, Lynn became eight years old in this new world. If he was in his old world, he would be eighteen years old. It was also an important day for him to condense the first essence crystal in his young reincarnated life. The quality of the essence crystals that he was going to create today would directly affect the height that he could climb in his level as a conveyor of essence in the future.He sat quietly in front of the stone house. Two months of harnessing the power of Ether had raised his essence capacity by a whole level, almost equal to what he had gained from the previous four or five years of conveyance.This surprised The Remnant. No wonder the divine archmage said in the book that when harnessing ether here, the lower the essence, the faster the growth rate.Lynn had been able to practice conveyance since the day he came to this world, and he was already very engrossed in it. After two months of hard work, he had become proficient. This level had
"Bad omen in the cloud, my lord." The Shaman uttered in fright after tracing her boney fingers across the blue sky.When Kaiya, the leader of the Ironwood tribe, saw the terrified look of the village Shaman, he had a dangerous premonition which sent a chilling tingle down his spine.He was clearing his thoughts when he suddenly heard an alarming sound inside his head. Immediately, he stopped running forward, arched his waist, covered his ears with both hands, and screamed in pain. But as quickly as it appeared, his pain vanished.When he adjusted his body and slowly raised his head, he found that the movements of everyone around him had surprisingly slowed down.He glanced at his wife and son who were running in front of him, and knitted his brows together in a frown. Although they looked eagerly anxious to get away from the danger, their movement was extremely slow. What was happening? Looking around, he saw his clansmen in running stances, but it appeared as if they were walking in
"Attack! Don't let a single one of them escape." Seeing they had been discovered, Germeyes, patriarch of the bear clan, shouted at the antherions, and at the same time flew towards the Ironwood tribe with Harbonok, the second son of the dragon clan.The bear antherions who were on the ground, after hearing Germeyes's order, roared from different directions and rushed towards the Ironwood tribe.One of the fourth-level bear antherions, Yaka, took the lead and ran at the front. He could perform partial transformation into human form, but because of his low magical power, he was grouped among the inferior antherions. Although he thought his conveyance was high and strong, at most he was just doing some errands for high-level antherions.This time, to launch a cleanup on a small tribe, for him, a fourth-level monster, it was also a simple matter. In the past, when his level was lower, he had had participated in many similar fights. Except for one or two humans who were essence masters, al
Harbonok immediately condensed his essence power and spread his awareness around. He covered the battlefield, every corner of the area, every tree, and every grass. Every fleeing human was examined with his advance perception. Even the mice hiding in the dark didn't escape his perception. Still, no traces of the human essence master.Harbonok scanned every corner of the Ironwood tribe, but found no essence fluctuations. He really escaped? Harbonok's teeth gritted with hatred. As soon as he looked up, he saw the bear antherions patriarch, commanding the battle not far away."Germeyes." Harbonok immediately shouted towards the chief of the bear clan."Yes, second Son." Germeyes flew over immediately after hearing the words, and said excitedly."Did you notice anything different here?""Ah, yes. The weapon of the humans. It looks like a bow but it's more powerful. These humans are showing their strength, but we're winning." Germeyes said proudly, but found that Harbonok's face was gloomy