Chapter 258: The Scars of War

Late Evening - Mid Summer : The Scar, Southwestern Holy Kingdom (The mountain)

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*rrrrumble-FWOOOOOSH* Hurtling down the mountainside with a massive flame trailing behind me, my eyes were locked on the distant rocky peaks peeking through the clouds while my mind continued falling farther down a rabbit hole.

-If the Acardi were here to investigate life's integration with mana, wouldn't that mean it was a foreign energy to them? But if that's the case, how did they know how to create and use antimatter runes? Maybe there were other worlds they investigated that had mana, but life on those planets didn't evolve with it?- Conflicting, unanswerable questions continued ringing through my mind as I sank deeper into thought.

But thankfully, after a few minutes of descending into madness, I finally managed to slow down and take a deep breath. "Haah..." -Right.. the wreckage and that place in the mountains might be able to give me some answers, I just need to be patient...-

According to Hera, the wreckage I was likely looking for was a large one, which she believed was going to bring her to the containment center. -If I'm lucky, it could be a research ship...- But while I was hoping to look more into the Acardi's research and purpose thereof, I couldn't say it would be bad if it were a combat ship. -Regardless, I shouldn't get antsy...-

Looking ahead of myself again, I found myself quickly approaching the tall mountain peaks and turning slightly so I could dive through the clouds without worrying about hitting the mountain range-like outcrop. -This should be enough...-

*vwoom* Finally activating the rest of my vacuum spells, I moved my little-remaining aura in front and finally hit the clouds.

*POUF-CRACKLE-TSSS* The vapor in the cloud condensed into water before boiling almost instantly as I ripped past it.

But this was no surprise.

Ripping through the cloud at nearly 9 kilometers a second, I had enough momentum to destroy a mountain, but I was still completely calm, simply watching my altitude as I descended. -80 kilometers, 70, 60, 50... 40.-

Quickly releasing my thruster magic and spreading my wings to level out, the clouds started to lighten, and I was finally released into the world beneath. *pouf*

With the moon low on the horizon, the dew covering the trees and foliage below glistened, giving the area quite a surreal feeling. It felt a bit like a different world.

But the lighting wasn't the only thing that made the area feel so alien. All over the ground throughout the forest, were dozens of huge creatures I had never seen before, the largest of which being a turtle of some kind with a miniature forest growing like moss on its back.

Almost directly below me, there were three of them, each upwards of 60 meters tall, munching on trees like they were made of graham crackers, with a herd of smaller creatures trailing them while eating the trees trampled by the massive turtles.

It was a truly surreal sight, but unfortunately, I didn't have time to waste admiring it. -Now, let's see if I can find this thing...-

Several minutes passed in a flash as I followed the mountain range all the way to the horizon and didn't see anything too abnormal besides the wildlife, but eventually, I spotted something. "What is that?"

Toward the horizon, there was a sudden, immense growth in the size of the trees, going from about 30-50 meters, to upwards of 200. -They don't look like treants... Are they some sort of relative?-

Hastily approaching the relatively thin strip of massive trees, the mana in the air continued to get denser and denser until it even started to rival parts of Bahamut. -Damn... To get this dense this fast.. is there a really big ancient sleeping in this forest or something?-

The thought was only half a joke. The mana in the air around me was most definitely not aura, but at the same time, I didn't have any better guesses.

Eventually getting over the edge of the strip of trees, I got a better view of what I was looking at, but it only made me more troubled. -What even is this?-

Stretching all the way to the horizon was a four-kilometer-wide, perfectly straight strip of tall trees that dwarfed everything else in eyesight.

Although I wasn't sure what exactly made the dots connect, I recognized it fairly quickly. -Hera was hit by an immensely dense beam of mana.. could this be the result of that beam?-

The ship that hit Hera was most definitely a weapon of war; however, instead of leaving a trail of destruction across the land, it left a trail of environmental prosperity that is still visible more than a dozen millennia later. -The trees must have absorbed the mana left by the beam.. did they end up forming a core and evolving?- It was my best guess for how the mana's density gradient was so much steeper than normal.

-But geez... How much mana did that beam actually have to leave this kind of mark...- At the very least, it would have been several times the amount of mana in the dungeon core that Hera was healing herself with, maybe even more. It was a simply unfathomable amount of mana. -It makes me wonder how they could have possibly contained it...-

Quickly getting curious, I turned around and looked over the ground at the beginning of the strip of forest to see if there were any remnants of the ship, but to my disappointment, there was nothing. -I guess it could be buried, but a ship as big as what Hera described would definitely have parts sticking out of the ground, or areas without trees...-

To try and play it safe, I ended up looping around a few more times to make sure I didn't miss something because it was behind a tree, but I found nothing out of the ordinary. -Damn... Well, at least I know where I am now...-

Finally finishing my last pass over the small section of forest, I turned back to fly over 'the Strip'.

It led all the way to the horizon, and that didn't change even as I flew toward it, but eventually, the tree's height started to taper off. -I must be getting close...-

Hastily coming up on the end of the tallest trees, I kept my head on a swivel looking for any sort of large clearing or wreckages but still saw nothing. -Where is it?-

It wasn't until a couple minutes had passed that Ilios tapped my back. *tap-tap*

-Hm?- Momentarily glancing at him, I saw him looking west and checked that direction as well. -But I don't see anything standing out...-

Feeling like Ilios wanted me to go that way regardless though, I quickly turned west and flew where he was looking.

However, it wasn't long after turning in that direction, that I ended up spotting it.

Blending in with the canopy was a huge, half-buried, black and purple structure with an insane amount of damage and all sorts of foliage growing through it. -That must be it...-

It was around 300 meters wide and 400 meters long, but looked to be only a section of a much larger ship. -Is there another wreckage nearby, or is this all that's left?-

Continuing to look around as I descended, I scanned through the forest to look for any other debris, but not only did I not find any, I didn't even see any animals bigger than rodents. -For how lively this forest is, why isn't there anything here? There is no way nothing lives in the wreckage...-

*Fwoosh* *Fwoosh* Quickly finding a sizable clearing to land in, I descended all the way to the ground and landed, but the moment my legs should have touched down, they sank into the ground like it wasn't there. -What the hell?!- 

*vwoom-CRUNCH* The ground was incredibly powdery, as if it were just a pit full of dust, so the moment I spread out my weight to land, the entire area sank down and compacted.

Thankfully though, while I sank nearly 20 meters into the ground, the surrounding ground didn't collapse in on me. -What the hell is this stuff...-

Looking closer, I noticed it was an odd mix of dirt and rock, but the rock particles were all essentially in the shape of sea urchins with small bodies and long spikes. It was a formation I had never seen before, but it didn't take long for me to figure out what it was.

-Could this be.. rock that condensed after turning into a gas?- At first, it sounded like a shot in the dark, since under normal circumstances, temperatures that high would split the rock into its base components, ripping out every ounce of impurities.

But the addition of mana changes that. -It was rock so hot that it turned to gas, and when it cooled again, it formed these, like a snowflake...- The particle itself was essentially just an assortment of random minerals you would normally find in rocks, with trace amounts of magnetic iron that likely led to the formation of the unusual spikes. -But how hot would the ground need to be for this to be able to happen...-

From what I could tell, the depth of the dust-like rock was somewhere around 70 meters, before meeting a layer of water and an incredibly dense and smooth surface of heavy metals; a common sight in a large crater formed by immense heat, many folds beyond what nuclear power could produce. -I knew the forest looked too pristine from the air...-

Looking up at a tree that was on the edge of the clearing I landed in, I sent some of my aura into the wall to see how it was growing and found huge roots digging down through the rock and dirt before reaching the bottom of the crater and spreading out, likely to absorb the water that settled there. -Life really does find a way...-

Momentarily looking around again, I eventually turned my attention back to the ship, and walked toward it, distributing my weight to the surface to compact the ground as I walked.

It only took a moment for me to get to the incredibly damaged section of the ship, but it was absolutely full of stone and dust, so much so that I started to doubt whether it would have any worth to explore. -Maybe I should just leave and fly northwest to try and find where Holcyon got the fusion artifacts...-

But curiosity ended up getting the best of me. -I guess I might as well run through it while I'm here...-

Finally changing to my humanoid form, I walked up to what seemed to be an exposed end of a hallway and used my aura like a shovel to clear a path.

Unfortunately, the hallway and all adjacent rooms were in absolutely horrible condition, but as I continued deeper into the structure, the dirt and rock started to finally thin out, and I could actually start walking around normally, but there was still not much to see. The entire structure was essentially the same as the laboratory, with tons of residential-related areas and a handful of small, destroyed labs or medical bays, all of which had nothing of value left in them, with some even looking like they were salvaged. -There must have been survivors...-

But as my disappointment started to accumulate from the lack of valuable information I could actually gather, I went to an elevator shaft and was about to simply jump up to the next floor as I had done several times already when I noticed the edge of a very large cable embedded into the side of the elevator shaft.

It was actually the same 'main power cable' I had seen in the laboratory that was used to carry antimatter. -Why would a cable like this be in a residential area?-

Before I knew it, I was following it through the wall, silently being led through the ship before reaching one of the top floors. -Is that.. a reactor?-