Barren Landscape

Chapter 123: Barren Landscape

The first thing Mercury saw when he woke back up was pitch black darkness. He found that every bone in his body still ached, and he couldn't currently move at all, but he was still alive. Barely.

[The individual has been recognized as conscious.]

<Appraisal>'s familiar sound shook Mercury out of his stupor slightly. Where was he? His mouth tasted dry, his tongue feeling fuzzy and thick. He couldn't quite tell where up or down was, and most of his body felt faint, like it was still asleep.

His fur seemed to be covered by... something. It clung to it, pulling at it and making his entire skin prickle. He was sure it would have been pain had he been able to feel much of anything at all.

[Due to the individual's muddled state of mind, they are encouraged to regain their bearings before commencing further interaction with the system.]

Right. Mercury took the words of his trusty, if moody companion to heart, taking a moment to meditate. He focused on his breathing, noticing how shallow and ragged it was, causing slight stings of pain whenever his chest moved. Soon though, his muscles relented. The stings he felt grew dull, feeling less like needles, and more like the tips of a fork being pressed into him.

Bit by bit, the fog on his mind lifted a little. He recalled how he'd started learning from Yasashiku, how he had swung his mind's hammer, and how he was beginning to see a path forward. And then...?

For a few days, he remembered feeling something slightly off. Then... shit, the assassins!!

Immediately, adrenaline coursed through Mercury's veins again, chasing away the lingering unclarity, and bearing his memories down to the last detail. He'd gotten a quest to deal with the attack, then tried his best to save his new teacher, before calling a blood eclipse.

If he could move, Mercury would have bitten his lip in anger. That sure was his damn brightest idea. The last moments were blurry, he was so focused on surviving that only the things he was immediately looking at remained in his memory. That, and the damn voice singing the song.

[The individual has regained their clarity. Sending notifications.]

[Your Skills have levelled up! <Bloodlust lv. 3 -> 4>, <Sneak lv. 5 -> 8>, <Thread lv. 1 -> 2>, <Intuition lv. 1 -> 2>, <Limitlessness lv. 8 -> 9>, <Quiet lv. 4 -> 7>, <Unfatigued lv 1 -> 2>, <Heightened Mana Regeneration lv. 1 -> 2>, <Steady Heart lv. 6 -> 8>.]

-

[Sudden Quest: "Attempt on your Life!" completed!

Evaluation: All assassins dead. The individual has survived. Through trickery and by taking great risks they have overturned the odds and gained another chance.

Rewards: <Talent>, <Survivor>, escaping affinity increase, 2 levels (character).]

-

[By braving extraordinary circumstances and pain, the individual has received additional rewards. Get: 10 Willpower, 5 Wisdom, 3 Dexterity, 3 Agility, 10 Luck, 300 Skill Points.]

[The individual's Willpower has surpassed 100! Your mental fortitude grows stronger.]

[Acquired the Skill <Talent lv. 1> through a quest. Skill already owned. Fusing Skills.]

[Acquired the Skill <Talent lv. 3> through fusing Skills.]

[Acquired the Skill <Survivor lv. 1> through a quest.]

Before Mercury even had a chance to think of <Appraisal>, the information was already inside his head.

[<Survivor>: This Skill allows the individual to better escape situations the more dangerous they are. They boast increased recovery, especially towards severe wounds. They regain consciousness sooner when unconscious, and their mind becomes clearer in dangerous situations.]

Taking it all in, Mercury took a deep breath. Very suddenly, he felt quite a bit better, especially knowing he had five full character levels in his back pocket for when he needed them. Right now though, he needed things to help him recover. He quickly summed the top of his status page.

===

Hp: 150/510

Mp: 431/692

Sp: 87/334

===

It wasn't exactly the prettiest sight, but at the very least he could slowly watch the numbers tick up. As of right now, he was only blinded, unaware of where he was, with pain in all the body parts he could still feel at all, and completely in the dark as to what kind of enemies might be all around him, but at the very least, he was not bleeding out.

Giving a quick thought of thanks to <Appraisal> for all the information that sweet, sweet Skill gave him, Mercury focused again. Given that he couldn't feel most of his body, disregarding it was easier than usual. Soon, he managed to slowly expand his mana outside his core, probing the air with tendrils of it.

The feeling wasn't exactly the same as his skin would give him, but he could still gain valuable information from it. The first thing it brought to his awareness was the fact that he was currently trapped in a cocoon of black string, dangling from somewhere. His entire body was wrapped with sticky string, creating the sensation of something pulling on his skin. It was just gravity.

Other than that, he could tell that the air outside was as stale as it was quiet, with nothing he could feel nearby. It was oddly quiet, in fact, meaning he was probably inside some sort of structure.

Moving on to the floor, Mercury could tell it was hard and warm. Some type of rock, if he had to guess, though covered in a thin layer of flakes. The softer layer also seemed undisturbed, so whatever had brought him here, it hadn't moved around the cave very recently.

Which brought him to the question of how long he had been unconscious. <Appraisal>?

[28 hours.]

That seemed rather short for how uniform the floor was covered. Either the nightmarish creature that had brought him here was a master at stealth and could move through the covering unperturbed, or more of it was created quickly, like fresh snowfall.

After having a rough grasp on the outside of his cocoon, Mercury focused on himself. Being unable to feel most his limbs was unsettling, and he soon found the reason for it. He was currently paralyzed with some sort of poison.

Although his mana usually proved an invaluable helper, this time it was his stamina that allowed him to find the issue instead. Since it spread throughout his cells naturally when he made use of the strange substance, it gave a much clearer picture of his body's current state.

Now, while knowing about his predicament was progress, seeing how battered up he was didn't fill him with confidence. He could tell that most of his body was bruised, probably from being dragged along the floor by his captor, and the toxin in his system only hadn't killed him because he was lucky.

The venom was on the strings that made up his cocoon, meant to preserve his body rather than kill him, since his captor probably assumed he was dead already. Coupled with the generalised antidote from the shop, his healing potion, the heightened regeneration from his larger vitality stat, and a few of his Skills, he survived.

While he was unconscious, his wounds had begun to slightly heal, and his body was finally beginning to break down more of the toxins than what entered his blood through the air and his skin. Over time, he would surely regain his strength. Now, all he had to do was either wait, or cut himself down.

Mercury couldn't do anything about his current state, knowing no healing spells. If there was a target, he could have used <Usurp>, but that was more likely to just make whatever he targeted angry at him. If he escaped immediately, there was also a higher risk of being discovered and attacked while he was still vulnerable.

Having made his decision, Mercury remained trapped voluntarily for now, though he did conjure up an additional layer of his own <Thread> to cover the cocoon. He used it sparingly, to avoid changing the colour or looking conspicuous, but with a little luck, it would make people less likely to look at him, messing with their perception, and slowing down their thoughts.

Then, the mopaaw focused on his stamina. Feeling it rhythmically pulse throughout his whole body seemed to be a better way to go than the fixed pathways for mana. Closing his eyes, he tried to imagine it as he had done his core before, finding himself staring at the well he called a vessel.

From deep down within the structure, he could see the glint of crystals, the ones he could use to increase his stamina, but he could also feel some of the liquid sloshing around the well by itself. Some of it would spill over, spread around, and fight off the toxin wherever it encountered it.

Slowly, Mercury tried to find the rhythm. His eyes were long closed, and after a little while, all he could hear was the back and forth of the stamina. First, nothing changed, but bit by bit, he decided to help it out a little. When it pulled back, he relaxed, and when his stamina slightly surged, Mercury led it to expand.

After a little while, the small amounts that had spilled over increased, as his breath synced up with it. Then, his heartbeat, too, entered the same rhythm, beating when it ebbed and flowed.

Only a few moments later, Mercury found that even his mana begun slowly travelling, even though he didn't command it to. It wove its way into the veins made for it, and began to travel alongside the stamina, helping it reach the target like a network of roads.

Mercury could feel the air, stale as it was, enter into his lungs, as his vessel released stamina, guided throughout his body by his mana and his blood. He could feel it latch onto not just the poison, but also his wounds, and he could tell they were beginning to close faster, too.

After quite some time of meditating in that way, Mercury felt much better. He could feel his entire body again, and most of the wounds on his skin were at least covered with scab, while some had even begun healing. The tip of his tail still felt a little numb, but since he could still mostly use it, he felt spending any more time in his current situation would be dangerous.

To escape, he simply opened up his inventory and withdrew one of his sharpest rocks, using <Telekinesis> to carve away more and more of the webbing that held him. It was less flexible than spiderweb, but in exchange quite a bit harder, so he could consider himself lucky he had something to cut them with. Trying to rip these apart would not have worked at all.

Only a bit of painstaking labour later, Mercury finally found himself free, as he ungraciously plummeted to the floor, his fall cushioned by layers upon layers of what seemed to be ash. A quick look around told him he was in a cave, and given the heap of gnawed bones in a corner, it wasn't exactly abandoned.

There were a few more of the cocoons in the room, but the eerie silence told Mercury all he needed to hear. All of them were filled with corpses, nothing more and nothing less.

Taking his eyes off the rather disturbing sight of death, Mercury instead took a few gulps of water and then looked for a way out, finding a large opening in the cave wall not much later. He could think once he was somewhere a little bit safer than some damn monster's den, for now he just needed to escape.

As quickly and quietly as he could, Mercury began making his way through the passage outside. It seemed barely big enough for whatever brought him here to squeeze through, which was good for him, since it meant he probably wouldn't encounter anything much larger than that creature. The thought sent a shiver down his spine, but Mercury suppressed his fear and simply continued, soon coming to the end of the winding passage.

Exiting a final, narrow crack in the rock, Mercury finally made his way to the surface.

The outlook there seemed... bleak, at best.

It was a desolate landscape, with no sign of civilisation. The floor was made from black stone, covered in ash which perpetually seemed to fall from the sky or rise up from the floor below. The landscape was dotted with tree shaped growths, yet all of them were thin, wiry, and most importantly, carved entirely from grey rock.

Rather than blue, the sky above was red and grey, with dark clouds and a crimson circle as the only donator of light. The sphere stood high above, seemingly unmoving, painting Mercury's white fur an eerie shade of red, almost as though he was drenched in blood. Breathing was harder on the surface than in the cave, given the ash floating through the air, but even if it wasn't, the smell of iron and sulfur would have made it unpleasant anyways.

With a displeased frown, Mercury started to look around for any landmarks to latch onto. Even something sinister would do, like an obsidian castle, or a blood covered spire, yet he was not lucky enough to find either. No, the only interesting things in his surroundings were a few hills that could serve as decent vantage points.

Unfortunately for him though, it seemed this place was not kind enough to let him simply reach any of the hills. The ash surrounding them was dyed slightly more red than most of what he could see, indicating spilled blood, and when he looked at them, both <Intuition> and even <Survivor> seemed to ring slight warning bells in his head.

Once he heard the bells though, Mercury's head began to spin faster. If there was blood, there were doubtlessly creatures about. But he couldn't see any. In fact, other than the ashen rain, he didn't see anything move at all.

Mercury made a mental note of the extreme quiet, as he placed his back up against a rock wall. He wanted to be upset and angry, yet his survival instinct shoved those feelings down again. First things first.

His highest priority was finding a clear water source. He still had some in his waterskin, he kept it stocked all the time, after all, but it wouldn't last him any longer than a couple days. Second was food. He was already hungry, and with his body being quite fit, he could probably last another little while, but eventually, the hunger would sap his strength.

Now, to find either of those, he would need to understand the lay of the land. If he were a better magician, maybe he could expand his mana that far, but alas, he was not. That left him with some very average, disappointing options, being mainly his eyes.

So, after some deliberation, his next target would have to be the nearest hill, whether it rang warning bells or not.

At least the trek through the wasteland there was uneventful. The clouds in the sky remained still, as did the sun, although the ash did continue to rain down. Strangely, it seemed as though the level of ash covering the ground didn't rise, no matter how much of it fell from the sky. Mercury was thankful for that, his fur was already long stained grey, and being completely submerged would have been even more horrendous than making the journey as is.

Strangely though, the distance between him and the hill also shrunk much more slowly than it felt it should. Somehow, his steps carried him less distance than normally. It felt almost familiar, too, knowing he was taking steps and yet making very little progress.

Shaking his head, Mercury shoved the thought aside for now. He was still wary of this place. No matter how quiet it seemed, something about the atmosphere made him feel quite on edge. Like something was lurking, just waiting for him to lose his cool, or exhaust himself on the journey.

Luckily though, Mercury found himself not getting much more tired. He was used to long journeys, given that he'd done quite a bit of travelling since he was reincarnated on Chronagen. This, while exhausting, was just another path forward he had to get through.

With a quiet sigh, Mercury renewed his focus, laying his eyes on the hill that grew closer ever so slowly. He didn't worry about the time his trip would take, instead allowing himself to be motivated by the distances he covered. Whenever he passed another stone-tree, it was one bit closer to the hill, and eventually, after what felt like hours, he had made it.

From up close, the difference in the floor was quite clear. The ash didn't go any higher around the hill, still being only around 10 centimeters thick, but it was very clearly stained red, as he guessed it was around all the hills he could see. Not just that, but from up close, Mercury could see that the red stains formed an almost perfect circle around the foot of the hill, with only streaks going higher up.

Hearing his <Intuition> ring out more loudly, the frown on Mercury's face deepened. Before taking another step forward, he retrieved a stone from his backpack, tossing it towards the hill. A moment after, it passed the circle of blood, then continued soaring through the air, until it popped down on the ground with nothing else happening.

In fact, so little happened that it made Mercury suspicious. There hadn't even been any noise when it hit the floor. The mopaaw's eyes narrowed for a moment, before he pulled out a second rock. He kept his paw on it, barely touching its side, while levitating it with <Telekinesis>. Slowly, he brought it over the barrier, and once he did, he could feel something about it change.

The stone had begun vibrating lightly, feeling faintly warm against his skin.

Mercury looked at it for a little while, and once he confirmed that barely anything about it changed at all, he decided that taking a risk was necessary. He needed to get to higher elevation. Aimlessly wandering would only serve to make him starve. Very slowly, he placed his first paw past the circle, and noticing nothing wrong, he stuck his head in.

He regretted the decision very, very quickly.

Past the bloody barrier, Mercury's head began aching as though he had a strong migraine. His ears rang, and he could swear he felt his skin vibrate. Unfortunately, he found that he couldn't retreat.

The air above the circle of blood had turned solid, a grey, translucent sheet separating him from the outside. Gritting his teeth, Mercury decided that he had to move forward.

At least, there wasn't anything attacking him yet.

Given his splitting headache, Mercury guessed that it was some sort of sonic attack, low enough to be imperceptible, but loud enough to shake his very bones. When the mopaaw grit his teeth and took another step forward, he could actually feel his fangs grinding against one another.

Once Mercury was fully inside, he saw the barrier perfectly close behind him, sealing him in and leaving just one path. To follow the trails of blood from his predecessors and hope for the best.

Adapting quickly, Mercury ignored the ringing in his ear, and began stepping forward, when he felt a liquid begin to streak down his head from his ears and eyes. After the second step, the headache grew stronger, and he felt another trickle from his mouth and nose.

Touching his face, his paw came away red, alerting him of the fact that he was beginning to shed tears of blood.

Mercury's frown deepened, his teeth clenched hard, as he continued his journey forwards, leaving his own streak of blood behind. After all, he didn't exactly have anything better to do than see the top of this hill now, did he?