Chapter 357: Fear

Late Evening - Late Summer : The Scar

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*vwoop-WOOOOSH* An immense blast of cold, damp wind forcefully unfolded my wings the moment we exited the void near the western base of The Scar, about fifty kilometers above sea level.

That evening, the skies were extremely clear, with the only visible clouds being barely over the horizon opposite the mountain, but with the winds, I didn't have to ask why. -Holy shit...- Pushing upwards of eight or nine hundred kilometers an hour, winds being focused up the mountainside were so immense that, while there was plenty of moisture and dust, the water couldn't condense properly. -That moisture must be condensing on the other side of the mountain. I bet it's made one hell of a storm...-

But, assuming I'd be heading over there in a moment anyway, I shifted gears back to the mission at hand: 'Find the entrance into the mountain.' The issue was that the entrance wasn't necessarily going to be visible, and that meant I would need to fly over the mountain at a very low altitude. -Taking into consideration that I can only accurately control my aura out to 25 kilometers or so, and read it for even less.. this might be troublesome...-

However, it was an opportunity for me to rewire my brain like Hera had instructed, even if it was going to make for a miserable experience. "Ugh..." -She was probably aware of that before she sent me here, too...- Knowing her, she probably already knew where the entrance was but sent me to find it regardless so that I'd stretch my legs and strain my brain under the excuse of finishing her task in a timely manner.

Although I couldn't deny that it was something I had been needing to do. -I've been lax on how hard I've pushed myself when I don't need to recently... Maybe she noticed...-

*tap-tap* *fwoosh* Eventually pulling me out of my thoughts, Ilios jumped off my back, leaving a trail of spontaneously formed clouds in his wake before landing on the sanded stone mountainside below.

"Ah, right..." -I got sidetracked...- Looking down, I found his gaze aimed back up at me, filled with excitement as if the insane winds slicking his hair back meant nothing. "Haha," Letting out a soft chuckle, I finally started shifting gears. -I guess it's time we start the race then, huh?-

The moment that thought flowed through my mind, however, he disappeared as if he heard it. *CRRRACKKKK* Halting the winds for a moment, an absurdly deafening shockwave blew over me, and a huge section of the mountainside shattered. In the blink of an eye, Ilios stretched into a blur and zipped around the edge of the mountain, leaving a huge trail of U-shaped clouds in his wake.

It was the sound of the starter pistol, and suddenly I felt like I was someone caught with their pants down as their opponent sprinted ahead.

But I wasn't so fond of losing.

*flash* Changing to my fenririan form as a competitive spark lit a fire in my chest, I turned down the face of the mountain and flapped my wings. -I can't just let him win, now, can I?!- *CRRR-WOOOM* The game was on, and while I still hadn't totally switched gears, it only took a couple minutes and a deep breath for my competitiveness to finally get hold of me.

"Hooohhh..." -It's now or never...- *VW-W-WOOOM* "ACK-" Instantly feeling the familiar sensation of neurons ripping themselves apart as I spread and began reading my aura, I had to grit my teeth and tensed my body. The pain was blinding, but unless I wanted to just waste time, I couldn't just mindlessly fly around the mountain. -I need to focus...-

However, that was far easier said than done, and, unlike what I expected, finding the entrance was much.. much harder than I had anticipated.

Before I knew it, half of the time I allotted myself with Hera was gone. A full week had passed. -What the fuck... Am I looking for something that doesn't exist?! WHERE IS IT?!-

Zipping just over treetops, I was flying slow, and using my aura to scan deep into the ground. Having already scanned a majority of the mountainside above me up to about seventy kilometers, I decided to try looking closer to the base, but regardless, had no luck whatsoever. -I'd lick a thunderbird's talon if one told me where to find it at this point...-

Of the things I found, I found simple caves, huge dungeons, and even tiny ones housing things on the level of goblins, but after focusing my aura into the entrances of anything that could fit something sizable, I found nothing abnormal. -Am I really about to have to start searching through the tiny dungeons too?-

However, just as I was about to start landing at the entrance of the tiny caves to start more closely inspecting them as well, I sensed one deep underground containing a thin, but still ambient mana. -Huh?-

It was out of a cave barely big enough to fit five or six humans shoulder to shoulder, and looked like a tunnel made by a tiny dungeon core. -But now that I think about it.. haven't I seen other tunnels that look.. almost the same?-

As I traveled around the mountain, I had found dozens of caves that were almost identical in size, but none of them caught my eye since they felt empty, like small, dead dungeons, something quite common. -But this one...- While I couldn't be sure of what I was sensing, it felt like it was filled with ambient mana that was left by something's aura. -It's certainly.. odd... I guess it wouldn't hurt to check it out...-

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Early Morning - Late Winter : Eastern Area of The Scar

(Several Hours Prior)

- Astren Ravenna ~

"Brrr..." A chill ran down my spine as I tightly gripped the reigns of my horse, trying to keep blood flowing to my fingers. "Are you sure we shouldn't find somewhere to rest and warm up?" It had been a week since we left Sol at that point, and while our trip was periodically delayed by the absurdly frigid conditions to give us a chance to warm up and recuperate, we hadn't stopped in close to two days, and the cold was getting to us.

"I agree, we should find a place to stop for now..." Even Mag was nearing his limit.

But the guide didn't break stride. "We are getting close, please deal with it." Although we hadn't spoken much with the guide outside of his duties, it was clear that he was getting sick of traveling.

-To him, we're probably moving at a snail's pace...- Over the last week, he had guided us through conditions so terrible they made us want to quit and simply return the money we were given by the church to go home, and we were thankful he also acted as our bodyguard, protecting us from all kinds of monsters we would have struggled to fight given the conditions.

But he was sick of us. *pat-pat-pat-pat* Running along the surface of the soft snow as if he were weightless, he picked up the pace, getting ahead of us before stopping in front of a small cliff, only about four meters tall.

-Hm?- Above the cliff was nothing but a wall of snow, reaching several meters up the side of trees, but as we approached the entrance, the snow went from close to a meter thick to a couple centimeters. -Is this the place?- But as I looked around, I didn't see anything like a cave entrance.

"Please dismount your horses." The guide spoke nonchalantly as he looked up the cliff before glancing back at us while we followed his instruction. "From here, we will walk on foot. Please follow me one at a time. You will not fit otherwise."

We all gave him a confused look before he finally turned back to the wall and nonchalantly walked through the wall as if it didn't exist.

""W..what?"" Elizabeth and Michael instantly went wide-eyed.

It was illusion magic, but it was so convincing it was horrifying.

"I-I'll go first..." Reluctantly volunteering, Mag put an eye cover on his horse and followed after the guide, walking through the fake wall with ease.

"I.. guess I'll go next then..." Eventually following after him, I closed my eyes as I walked into the wall before suddenly, the air changed, becoming dry in an instant. *tap-clop* *tap-clop* Hearing Mag in front of me, I finally opened my eyes to see.. nothing. "Did I go blind.. or..."

"It's just really dark..." *flicker* Using a tiny fire rune to create a candle-sized flame, Mag illuminated the inside of the tiny stone tunnel, only two and a half meters wide and 3 meters tall.

A ball of doubt quickly formed before twisting my stomach with anxiety. -Is this really.. the right place?-

But it was too late to turn back then.

Eventually letting everyone inside, we got walking down the horrendously dark tunnel, using magic to give ourselves a little light while the guide led us into complete darkness through a maze of tunnels

After walking for what felt like an eternity though, the cave eventually started expanding until the ceiling was high enough for us to remount our horses.

The thing was, when we remounted, we all expected to be just a few minutes from our destination, but as the cave got bigger, it seemed to get exponentially longer.

Over the course of the next five hours, we ran through the cave system at full speed and eventually found ourselves running through a tunnel almost two hundred meters wide and a hundred and fifty meters tall. -The mana is getting thicker too...-

"This tunnel.. gives me a really bad feeling..." Eve stared past me with an anxious expression as she spoke, just loud enough for us to hear her over the noise of our horses. "I feel like we're being watched..."

"You have good senses." Our guide spoke calmly, leading our horses forward at full speed while he seemed to be casually jogging. "What an interesting elf..."

Her anxiety instantly worsened as she looked around, trying to peer through the darkness, scanning the dimly lit walls of the cave for anything at all. But not long after, she spoke again with reluctance. "What are those.. streak marks on the walls?"

The guide didn't take long to respond. "One of our elders recently left the roost through this entrance, and his wings scraped up the walls."

We all froze instantly as the visualization of such an unbelievably massive creature came to mind, and we were finally hinted at what to expect.

The beings we were about to meet were from a realm far outside the fathomability of something as insignificant as a human.

*Clop-Clop-Clop-Clop* Continuing for another hour, the cave seemed to stop expanding, but more and more of the walls were covered with symbols that none of us could understand until, eventually, we spotted light ahead of us. -Is that the end?-

As we neared it, we came to notice it was a huge, meticulously carved room with a ceiling nearly 400 meters tall, lined with colossal statues of humans, wolves, monsters, and various birds, the largest of which stood in front of a comparably small door you could only reach by walking under it.

Quickly coming up to the room, the guide had us stop just before entering and walked in and bowed. "I have brought the ones I was ordered to bring." *flash* After a sudden, blinding flash, the light faded to reveal a towering, 60-meter-tall light grey and brown feathered bird bowing his head in front of the statue three times his size.

-So that's.. who our guide really is...- Just laying my eyes on him made me feel under pressure, although nothing compared to Sir Balatos.

The others, however, didn't have experience in a presence as suffocating as Sir Balatos's.

At least.. all but one.

To my right, Michael sat on his horseback, looking around at the inscriptions on the walls and inspecting the statues with a carefreeness in his eyes that made me really question who he was. -Is he.. a dragon?-

But I was immediately pulled from my thoughts as my instincts suddenly screamed at me, and I looked up to see the massive bird statue in front of the door suddenly looking straight at us. -H..huh?-

I instantly froze before my skin crawled with fear. -W..what the hell.. is that...-

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