Travelling to the formation
Eo and Reya left the building and continued down the path to the rune formation. There were still monsters outside the door, but they quickly destroyed them and moved on. Eo noticed cracks forming on the floor. This was an indication of the infestation spreading.
The Horde Chasm, also known as the First Chasm, was the oldest and most dangerous chasm. It was where the most powerful monsters emerged from. Every few decades a crack, be it underground or a surface fissure, would snake off to some location and erupt, creating what was known as the "local" incursion. These crevices would open up and monsters would crawl out. The Dewspin Peninsula incursion was a mere branching off the First Chasm, whose regions lay permanently veiled in black fog.
In fact, due to the nature of the ancientness and great terror from the First Horde Chasm, the exact epicenter of it was also just a guess. The First Chasm's epicenter was rumored to be the source of monsters with god-like strength and terror.
Now that Eo had noticed the cracks appearing in this desolate town, he had to move much faster. The monster's spawning point was becoming closer and closer to them, allowing for incredibly powerful monsters to emerge.
Reya saw more monsters ahead.
"I'm a bit tired from fighting all these monsters. You wanna just skip them?"
Eo, who was circulating essence inside him passively by now, just laughed.
"You can skip them, but I'm going to benefit from this!"
Eo cut them up in about four seconds.
Reya jogged closer to Eo.
"By the way, how do you manage to manipulate air so well? You're an interesting dual-essence wielder."
Eo almost choked.
"What?! I… my affinity is metal, and metal only."
"Wait… what?! Then how…"
Eo held his palm up while still running at the same pace. Then, he synthesized a paper clip and twirled it all around his body.
"See?"
"That… didn't clear up anything. How do you move it around like that?"
Eo laughed. "It's a secret. I'm still trying to find out something."
Reya rolled her eyes and ran slightly ahead.
"Sure, whatever. Your purple rune formation better not be a trap."
Eo winced at those words and continued running.
After a couple of hours they were out of town and back in more sandy terrain.
Reya knelt down, sweating. She took a big swig of water. Meanwhile, Eo sat on the sand, trying to cool himself off while circulating more essence. Eo had circulated while running for more than an hour at this point. His long run had given him time for his trained essence to almost completely beat back his exhaustion.
Eo got up. "Okay, I'm ready. We're almost there!"
Reya looked at him as if he was a madman.
"Are you serious? Are you not tired?"
Eo shook his head no. "Perhaps I've just got the superior genes!"
Reya's face looked murderous for a split second but then she looked away quickly.
"Huh? Do you… not feel confident about your genes?"
Reya laughed.
"No, that's what all the popular girls told me back home. 'I've got the superior jeans.'"
"Those mean two completely different things."
"I… I know."
"What happened to them now?"
"They're all dead."
Eo suddenly remembered that there was no one with Reya when he had found her. In fact, she was the only other person he saw in the city.
"Incursion?"
"Mhm."
Eo looked down at his tattered pants he always wore. He hadn't really changed at all and they smelled burnt, poisoned, and were discolored a bloody yellow.
Eo, being the insensitive boy he was, decided to follow up on that mournful note.
"Compared to them, I probably have the superior-est jeans!"
Reya's hands twitched, as if they were about to deliver several hundred volts of pure death.
"Can you like, die already?"
"Sorry."
"You're not."
They walked ahead for about ten more minutes before they found several golems, several mounds of dirt, and an Eo-face-shaped crater on the floor. Surrounding it all was a mysterious etching in the sand glowing a faint purple.
"Is this it?" Reya asked.
"Yep." Eo turned his body slightly away from the lumps on the floor.
"We're here. It's the Rune Formation."