The Kingdom of the Malaise (15)

Just returned to school so don't expect to many chapters

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Waking up in the morning due to the shining sun light that beamed through the hole in the forest roof I created after seeing mana.

My rested body creaked and groaned as I popped all my bones in place, several repeated cracks appearing from my joints as I felt my body become more limber.

And now that daylight had dawned and the surroundings were significantly brighter, enough to not need to strain my eyes to look for enemies in the darkness.

Before I jumped down the wooden platform and back down to the ground where I had absolutely hell on earth of an idea of where I was.

I would check the map and use the unknown rune.

In hindsight I should've checked the map last night.

But due to the various events that happened such as the sudden explosion that led to the creation of a giant crater, the fight with an elite slasher, the subsequent escape to the trees and discovery of mana.

I was really fucking tired.

Now that I was awake and alert though, I could now understand the situation and now opened the map.

On the blue screen displaying the map, it showed my discoveries on the trees showing my current location and the locations I had discovered.

From the giant crater that was now marked on the map, a linearish path from the crater to the trees appeared to my current location on the wooden platform on the tree tops.

The words [Promenade of the Condemned] hung on top of the map, acting as the name and title of this place.

Much like the Toxic Sewers I was previously in.

Seeing the name I looked down off the platform and saw the area beneath.

Hanging off several low hanging branches of the tree that I had used as platforms for my ascent.

Were several chains that were either rusted and broken or continued to fulfil their duty faithfully and hang giant spiked cages of rusted iron.

A good majority of corpses were hanging off the chains having already deteriorated to the point that the flesh on their bodies began to decay and revealed bone.

Seeing the grisly corpses that were not surrounded by insects despite what their appearance would surmise, I frowned.

Trying to wipe the image of the decomposed corpses from my mind, I went back onto the platform and took the rune out of my inventory.

Better use it now than never, I didn't know when I would be as free and safe as I was now.

Unless I went back to base but by doing so I would get rid of lots of hard spent effort to get here.

I took a curious look around.

'Besides, I should look around'

Mouth shut I hesitated for a moment before taking a piece of silk from my inventory and wrapped it around my mouth as a form of a gag.

Providing me a place to bite down so that I wouldn't draw blood accidentally.

Hurriedly building walls with deceptive strength and lightness to them, I looked around upon having finished all the preparations.

There was nothing else to do.

Sitting down cross legged in the middle of the wooden room lit up by nothing but torch light, I held the Rune in my hands.

I had no doubt that I could make more improvements to my surrounding but they would take to long and would be rather small improvements.

Thinking those thoughts I admired the rune carved onto the orb.

Although this, I glanced at it's displayed name, [Teleportation Rune] was also a rune, it was much different than the Vine rune that I currently possessed.

The Vine rune was a set of strange runic letters on top of a flat slate of rock, bits of plants growing from the stone itself as it manipulated plants.

This teleportation rune however wasn't present on top of a slate of rock and instead was carved onto a black sphere.

Emanating purple strands of energy I stared at the glistening black orb that had the carving of a man inside a box that had a halo above it.

The symbolic significance of someone being transported was not lost on me.

Not sure what the box was for though.

Holding the round black orb in my hands, I didn't stand or rather sit on ceremony and crushed it.

Feeling the relative ease with how the orb shattered in my hands like glass candy, I braced myself for the inevitable pain.

And than it struck.

Having been tempered by pain coming from all sorts of sources such as getting my face mauled by a wolf, several zombie claws and skeleton arrows, eye of Cthulhu's rush, Arrow explosions, Heart crystals and the Vine Rune.

I was ready for the pain.

So this time instead of hollering in pain due to the transformation of Heart crystal and Vine Rune.

I silently gritted my teeth and bit the fabric as pain coursed through my body.

Mostly on my upper chest area where a searing sensation akin to someone carving out my flesh appeared.

Silently suffering in agony, I endured the agony that appeared due to my actions and focused.

It was much harder to do so now that there was a constant pain distracting me but I persevered and opened my eyes to the new world of mana.

As bright blue sparks filled my vision, I realized belatedly that I didn't know what the orange sparks were.

But it was to late to do so.

Feeling my concentration slip away, I hurriedly focused and looked at myself.

Due to my position, I could clearly see the flow of blue mana surging to the middle of my chest, just above the stomach and below the ribs.

And when I saw where the mana was going, I couldn't help but be surprised.

Because right above the hand where I had crushed the teleportation rune was a floating rune akin to the glowing carving that was present on the black orb.

Blue mana floated to the rune before being directed to the space on my chest, growing much brighter as more mana as it did so.

I noted that alongside the Blue mana that was being directed to the rune, orange sparks followed.

Strangely enough the rune rejected the orange sparks and rebounded them off as the mana moved around.

Noting that peculiarity down, I watched the rune move in the air and slowly near my chest as more and more mana gathered around the rune and was directed to my chest.

By now the pain I felt was basically negligible as I felt completely absorbed by the things that the rune was doing.

The Rune had formed several strings of blue that connected both it and my chest together, more mana entering through the front and traveling the strings.

Leaving behind strings of blue themselves.

This continued until the runic carving finished on my chest.

By now the mana surrounding the rune had reached such a concentration that it was nothing but a ball of blue light connected to my chest like a stake made of blue light.

And I guess that was the purpose as the stake of light suddenly thrust itself into my chest.

Caught off guard, I was blind sided by the immense pain that struck my senses.

Because I was focused on something else the pain was all the worse.

Feeling my mind go blank, I fainted on the wooden floor boards as the pain was to much for poor little old me.

'What the fu-'

Feeling my consciousness slip away to the darkest pits of my mind, I fell into the realm of dreams.

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In the middle of a large floating void where nothing but a deep darkness existed.

A series of fragmented islands were floating in the eternal abyss.

On those islands were a series of strange esoteric structures that had no use at first glance besides decorational purposes.

On second glance however the structures seemed to have a use to them besides as they were set in a proper way.

in front of one of these strange cumulation of bench like structures was a woman.

That woman was wearing a bone white hollow mask, a cloak of tendrils handing off of their back.

Looking through the eyes of the white mask, they silently thought to themselves while surrounded by nothing but the silence of their thoughts and the constant grinding of the gears.

Grabbing a few items from the middle of space they took the items out and put on top of the strange bench structure that had various poisonous creatures contained within the glass containers.

Watching the metal bar and the strange leaf leave their hand, the materials seemed to shift in the air as if clay.

Turning into small dust particles and reforming into small metal containers.

The grey particles than sunk into the metal container, the container closing around itself and forming a series of bullets in the air.

A series of glowing magical carvings appeared at the ends of the bullets, creating a strange aura about them.

Feeling satisfied they put the bullets into some invisible space as the bullets seemed to leave this reality, the constant ticking noise continuing in the background.

Turning around they headed to the source of the continuous ticking noise, they faced a giant machine made out of various gears.

With obvious joy to their step, they briskly hopped to the strange machine.

Standing much taller than her it was nearly triple her own height.

Taking a large gear with various carvings of unknown origin on it's metal frame, the gear subtly glowed as the ones already within the machine also subtly glowed.

Holding the gear up, the gears within the machine resonated as the subtle glow turned into an eye catching one.

The giant machine made up of the shell and it's innards separated itself apart, allowing the bronze gear to float up with no problems and join the rest of the group.

Completing what it was brought here for, the giant machine reassembled itself with the new addition to the fray, the gears quickly and firmly sliding into place.

With zero problems to their additional member the constant sounds of ticking coming from the gears returned.

Seeing that it had done it's job, the woman quickly put her hand on the giant machine and the gears suddenly accelerated their motions.

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Tree