Chapter 152: Let Rest for a While
It was smoking.
Thin strands of black smoke rose from all over its body and drifted up into the sky.
Ryan stared at it for a long ti.
It did not move.
It would not move again.
Ryan closed his eyes and let out a long breath.
Then he released his hold on the trunk and leaned back against the fork of the tree.
His legs were still trembling. His hands were trembling too. Every muscle in his body felt as though it had been torn apart and stitched back together, every single one aching. But he did not want to move. He just wanted to lie there and feel his heartbeat slowly drop from a frantic gallop, to feel the burning in his lungs gradually fade.
So he lay there, looking up at the sky above. The layered canopy was still there, and flecks of light filtered through the leaves, swaying as they landed on his face.
“Well done.”
Syl’s voice sounded in his heart.
Ryan grinned.
The movent tugged at the cut on his face left by the force of those claws, and the pain made him suck in a sharp breath.
“Not bad,” he said inwardly. “I didn’t die.”
Syl did not speak again.
The stream of Mana that had been pouring into his body had already stopped. Ryan could feel that presence weakening, like an oil lamp that had burned too long and was down to its last wavering fla.
He did not disturb him again. He simply lay there, staring up at the sky.
The canopy was still there, layered upon layered, with bits of light slipping through the leaves.
Those shifting patches of light fell across his face, swaying gently. Sotis one flashed into his eyes, forcing him to squint.
In his ears was the soft rustle of the wind moving through the leaves, so faint it sounded like distant whispers. There was also the sound of his own breathing, gradually evening out, changing from a ragged wheeze into sothing almost normal.
Just rest for a while.
Just for a while.
He rolled onto his side, dragged his backpack in front of him, and fumbled around inside until he pulled out a waterskin and a piece of dried ration bread.
There was not much water left in the skin. When he shook it, he could tell it held less than half. He twisted off the stopper and took a small sip. The water was warm. It rolled across his tongue and slid slowly down his throat, easing the dryness a little.
The ration was as hard as stone. He bit off a piece and held it in his mouth for a while, waiting for it to soften with saliva before chewing. He ate slowly, counting each bite. When he swallowed, he could feel the food sliding warmly down his esophagus.
A little at a ti.
Gradually replenishing himself.
His strength was returning. Slowly, but it was returning.
After he finished eating, he reached into the inner lining of his clothes. Several hidden pockets had been sewn there, stuffed with the most important potions: healing ones, antidotes, and the explosive potions he had used earlier.
Those could not be kept in the spatial magic tool. If he needed them in an ergency, there would be no ti to dig them out.
He felt through the hidden pockets. The two healing potions were still there, their glass vials pressing against his palm through the cloth. The three antidotes were still there too, round and unmistakable to the touch.
The explosive potions were gone.
That pocket was flat now.
All three had been used up. He needed to replenish those.
Then he drew out the short blade and looked at it.
The edge was full of chips.
Large ones, small ones, deep ones, shallow ones. It looked as though sothing had gnawed along its length.
So sections had even curled over, badly enough to make it look like a saw.
The creature’s muscles had been too hard. Hard enough that even a blade forged from refined steel could not withstand them.
Ryan ran a finger lightly over one of the curled sections. It was rough and sharp enough to scrape skin if he pressed too hard.
This one was finished.
He still had a few backup blades in his pack, but they were made of the sa material, forged with the sa craftsmanship.
Enough for ordinary magical beasts.
Not enough for that thing.
That thing—if it existed outside this place—would have been at least a Mid-Tier Magical Beast, perhaps even brushing the threshold of High-Tier.
The hardness of its muscles. The speed of its bursts of motion. Even among High-Tier Magical Beasts, such traits were rare.
But one thing had been deeply strange.
It could not use Mana.
From beginning to end, it had fought with nothing but its body. Charging, clawing, biting—pure beastly instinct.
There had been no spellcasting, no elental manipulation, not the slightest fluctuation of Mana. It had only slamd, rolled, and torn.
Outside, the stronger a magical beast beca, the more Mana it possessed. So of them could even cast spells like humans, flinging fireballs and ice spikes with ease.
But this thing, despite possessing a body comparable to a High-Tier Magical Beast, could not even spit out the tiniest fla.
Too strange.
Ryan thought about it for a while and ca up with nothing. So he stopped thinking about it, reached into his chest, and pulled out the palm-sized box.
He sent Mana into it, and the lid sprang open with a click. He reached inside, felt around for a mont, and drew out a long saber.
When he pulled the blade free, the sunlight fell across it and cast out a sheet of cold white light, like winter ice.
Faint纹 patterns ran across the blade, like cracks across frozen water, or perhaps like the scales of a dragon.
Frost Dragon Pattern.
That was the saber’s na.
Now he had no choice but to use it.
Ryan set the saber beside him, then reached into the box again and took out several replacent potions, stuffing them into the hidden pockets of his clothes. Then he sealed the box, put it away, and closed his eyes once more.
His mind kept replaying the battle from earlier.
The way that thing had pounced. The way its claws had spread in midair. The way blood had dripped from its fangs.
And that final jump—when its claws had been less than ten centiters away from him.
Even now, just rembering it sent a cold chill across his back.
After more than ten minutes, he moved.
He rolled over and sat up, then strapped the long saber across his back. Next, he pulled two backup short blades from his pack and tucked them into his waist, one on each side, easy to draw at a mont’s notice.
Then he checked the hidden pockets in his clothes, making sure every potion was still in place.
Only after doing all that did he begin climbing down.
His feet braced against the trunk while the short blade stabbed into the bark again and again, anchoring him as he slowly slid downward. The drop was more than thirty ters, and he descended carefully. After every short stretch, he stopped to look below and find the next foothold.
The bark split beneath the blade, exposing pale wood beneath, and a little clear sap seeped out. The sap was sticky. It clung to his hands, and when it dried, it tightened the skin.
The lower he went, the stronger the scorched sll beca.
By the ti his feet touched the ground, it hit him head-on—a bitter stench of burned charcoal mixed with sharp sulfur and the foul odor of roasted flesh.
It tightened his throat. Ryan suppressed the urge to cough and looked around.
This place had changed completely.
The ground had been burned black and cracked open like the bed of a dried-up river. The trees the creature had smashed down lay everywhere, all of them burned to charcoal.
So still retained the shape of trees, but their entire bodies were pitch-black. Others had collapsed, crumbling into heaps of blackened fragnts. So places were still smoking, thin blue strands rising from the charred piles and drifting skyward.
The moss was gone. The shrubs were gone. Everything was gone.
Nothing remained except blackened ground, and in the center of it all, an even greater mass of black.
Ryan stepped across the scorched earth and walked toward that larger patch of darkness.
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