(Second Book Complete!) Runeblade: A Delving & Skill Merging LitRPG

A blooming wall of red growth cut a line of slaughter across the horizon, more imposing than even Baanswell’s wyrdwall. Backlit by the bleeding hues of the rising sun, the high-mana zone held Kaius enraptured.

Kenva had spotted it first when she’d gone above decks for some fresh air after they’d finished their breakfast. They’d been out of their seats and up the stairs in seconds at her shout.

Leaning on Porkchop’s shoulder, Kaius soaked it in. It looked unnatural, a virulent cancer sprouting from the gentle green and autumnal golds of the duchy. There was no gradient — only a cutting barrier, where maple and oak alike swelled to thrice their normal size in the space of a single stride, supping deep from malignant power. Outside of its border, the wind howled joyously, kicking up the leaf litter and bowing branches in its path. Yet as the southerly rammed into bruised purple conifers, and the cutting edge of bladed red oaks, it seemed to shirk back — barely rustling the twisted giants.

That too caught his eye. It was autumn, yet even the deciduous giants held onto their leaves jealously. They cared little for the touch of winter, as if fueled by something deeper and darker than the grace of the sun.

Vainblood Forest.

“Well, it certainly strikes a certain chord, doesn’t it?” Ianmus murmured, leaning on his staff as he stared. “I knew high-mana zones were striking, but reading it in a book doesn’t quite prepare you for something like that.”

It did not. The unnatural colour and vibrancy of the woods was only the half of it, especially since they were distant enough that it was hard to pick out any other oddities in more detail. At least with his mundane eyes — his mana senses on the other hand…

He couldn’t wrap his head around it — the sheer, bloody potency of it radiated from the forest like a bonfire. The System had said it had equalised mana density following the integration — and it had. In terms of simple quantity, Vainblood was only moderately denser than the ever present glow of mystical energy that existed everywhere.

But there was a richness to it he had only ever experienced in the Great Depths. Even from leagues away, he could see it saturated the environment utterly — from the soil, to the gnarled trunks straining for the sky. Its affinities too — the rich ruby of Blood, the pulsing vibrancy of Nature, and even the stalking grace of Primal. Those three stood dominant, but Kaius could see the presence of rarer, closely aligned, affinities. Slaughter, Growth, Predation and many more. They soaked through the very fabric of Vainblood, so different from the largely pure mana that swirled beyond its border, threaded through with thin streaks of dozens of different affinities.

Deep in its reaches, Kaius spotted a hulk of bone-white hide flash between the trunks, before it vanished behind a stretch of bramble. It hadn’t been visible for more than a moment, but the beast had been large. At least as tall as he was. He frowned. Size wasn’t any indication of level, but there was no guarantee the creature was weak.

It didn’t matter that the mana surrounding them seemed watery and thin compared to Vainblood, the fact remained was that there was still a lot of it. Before the phase change, high-tier beasts would have suffered discomfort if they left the high-mana zone. Now? He wasn’t so sure. Maybe the lacking…richness would be unpalatable, or slow their growth slightly, but he couldn’t be certain. He had no doubt that there would be far more powerful creatures in the outskirts of the forest than there once had been.

“Let’s go get suited up,” Kaius said, still staring at the spot where he’d seen that creature. “I want us ready for war before some bullshit falls out of the heavens to ruin our day.”

“See, that’s just paranoia — when has that ever happened to us?” Porkchop replied, looking over his shoulders to waggle his eyebrows exaggeratedly. It looked utterly ridiculous.

Ianmus swung his staff at Porkchop’s head without looking, smacking him on the forehead.

“Hey!”

Shaking his head and smiling, Kaius turned around and headed below decks. The rest of his team followed quickly. Getting their gear on wouldn’t take long, but he hadn’t been joking about being ready.

Vainblood looked dangerous, and it would be far less predictable than the Depths — at least in terms of the difficulty of their opponents. Depthsborn were consistent in their immediate aggression, they came in thin level-bands, and they lacked skills. Beasts could be far more cunning, and far more varied in their methods.

Oh, he was more than confident they could handle anything Vainblood could throw at them — as long as they didn’t run into any third-tier’s — but even a wyrm could fall if it ignored a wily hunter. They had to focus.

Kaius all but threw on his scalemail, eager to watch their approach. Within ten minutes he was back on deck — the last to arrive. Porkchop and Ianmus had very little that they’d had to prepare, and Kenva’s armour was far less involved than his own.

As the Pegleg charged forward, the leagues dissolved away, and Vainblood transformed from a red smear on the horizon to a towering forest that consumed the land. When they were within a league of the place, Kaius saw far more of what awaited them.

He didn’t like it. Not one bit.

The ground was choked with underbrush — each a weapon in its own right. Brambles that could have swallowed Porkchop whole, sprouting dagger-like thorns with glinting razor-edges; ruby -ed nettles, their needles oozing a blood-like liquor that burned bright to his mana sight, and melon-sized bulging, fibrous growths. A quick use of Truesight let him know they were called blightballs — a name that did not inspire comfort.

He blinked as a common fox, lacking any sense to avoid the edge of the hellpit, brushed against one of the blightballs. A roiling cloud of dark brown mist erupted as the growth ruptured. Kaius watched the fox keel over silently, blood fountaining from its eyes and mouth. Over the course of a minute, bone, skin, and muscle liquified, seeping from its body to water the earth. Given the lack of bones he could see littering the forest floor, those wouldn’t last much longer either.

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Rotten roots — what in the hells were they walking into? The fox couldn’t have been more than a Copper, sure, but…

“Watch out for the blightballs,” he said grimly, trying to wipe the image out of his mind.

“I saw that,” Kenva replied, just as unimpressed with what they’d witnessed. “Have you seen the vines?”

When he shook his head, Kenva pointed out a tangle of creepers that was choking one of the oversized trees. Dark and mottled purple, they almost looked like veins — though ones that were covered in bright pink flowers the size of a round shield. They were grotesque, but he couldn’t see why they had caught Kenva’s attention specifically.

She tapped his shoulder a moment later, pointing out to their right. “Watch those birds — I spotted another one using the same hunting strategy a few minutes before you came up on deck.”

He spotted them a moment later. A small, black swallow-like bird with a long, drooping red tail was screaming towards Vainblood. Right behind it, a blue-plumed hawk — the same kind he had seen dotting every forest they had passed through on their journey here. He furrowed his brow, watching intently as the swallow beast dipped and dodged, staying just out of reach of the hawk. The hawk dove, mana shining on its claws. They lengthened, raking towards the swallow.

The smaller bird shrieked, bursting forward with the use of some kind of Skill. They hit Vainblood a few moments later.

The hawk followed, and Kaius did his best to track it through the dense gloom — had the population nearby learnt some sort of trick specific to the local plantlife?

As the Pegleg drew ever closer, the birds aerial dance continued. Bit by bit, the hawk gained on the swallow. Kaius could tell the smaller bird was exhausted — every twist and turn it took seemed just a little less graceful than the one before. It swooped up high into the canopy, trying to throw its pursuer off with the tightening branches.

It didn’t work — the wind leapt to the hawks command, weaving it through the boughs with uncanny grace.

The swallow dove, breaking for one of the dense patches of bramble.

The hawk followed, pulling out of a dive with a snap of its wings. It banked, pulling tight to the trunk of a nearby vinewrapped tree, mana simmering in its wings for the final push!

Kaius jolted in surprise as one of the vines struck out like a viper. A single, blushing pink bloom snapped shut as the hawk disappeared in a puff of feathers. Languid and slow, the vine retracted, settling back against the trunk as the flower bulb clenched tighter and tighter. Blood oozed from between the petals. Moments later, the dainty swallow fluttered back into view. It landed at the base of the bulb, lapping at the spilled blood.

“What,” Kaius said, still staring in disbelief. He’d heard of carnivorous plants before — but predatory ones?

“Yep,” Kenva said. “Pretty ingenious, really, playing bait like that.”

“It’s definitely not something you see every day,” Ianmus agreed, watching with intrigue. Kaius hadn’t realised they were close enough for the man to see. “There’s a pair of fish that do something similar in Mystral’s bay, but a bird and a flower? Odd.”

Kaius just sighed — he was far more concerned about what horrors beyond mortal comprehension they might find further in, if they were seeing shit like that on the furthest outskirts of Vainblood.

Predatory bloody plants. It wasn’t right; this whole damn forest gave him the creeps — if only he could spend the next decade levelling the thing with Starfall. But no, they had a job to do — and an important one.

About a quarter league from the edge of Vainblood, Kaius called the Pegleg to a halt. The trees were growing thicker, and by that point manoeuvring around them would take longer than just walking there.

First to jump to the forest floor, he already had his blade in hand, ready for battle as he scanned their surroundings. He could definitely hear things: the creak of trees bending in the wind, a far off roar — something reptilian, by the hissing basso of it — and that constant, low drone of life that was familiar to him from every living forest.

Nothing close though. Not yet.

“Want me to scout ahead?” Kenva asked, dropping down next to him.

He studied her face. “You want to? Place gives me the creeps.”

Kenva grinned and shoved him. “What, you scared? Yeah, it’s gross, but we haven’t seen anything out of our capabilities just yet — I won’t go far, just want see if I can spot us any beasts on our way in.”

“Just stay close enough you can keep in contact with Porkchop,” Kaius said, rolling his eyes at her taunt.

He wasn’t scared — it was just ominous.

Plus, Kenva would be a hell of a lot faster alone, and while they needed all the levels they could get, it was far more important they found Brokenlights camp as quickly as possible. For now, they were heading straight in until they reached the border regions of the Midnight Crater: the most dangerous area of Vainblood. Once there, they’d circle right, and keep their eye out for the camp.

Just knowing it was on that edge would be enough. Ianmus might have been city-born, but the rest of them were woodsmen to the bone — they’d find it.

Summoning her bow to hand, Kenva didn’t bother standing on ceremony. She vanished into the trees on a burst of wind, melding into their murky depths as she leaned on The Mother’s Shadow.

When Porkchop and Ianmus had joined him, Kaius returned the Pegleg to storage — the ball-tipped chain he had belted around his waist. He stared into Vainblood. The ground was a thick muck, pooling with stagnant water. At least, he hoped it was water — the canopy filtered the light, turning the puddles a rather familiar shade of red.

“To adventure and glory!” Porkchop declared, setting off.

“Don’t forget the dashing heroics!” Ianmus replied, following as he smiled.

On the gods, was he the only one who was bothered by the very air tasting like fresh wounds and mayhem? Though, he supposed he was the only one of them that could taste and smell mana. The rest of them would be able to sense it just fine, but his synesthesia made it all the more visceral.

Sighing, Kaius took the rear, keeping Ianmus safely sandwiched between them. He grinned a bit at Porkchop’s enthusiasm. He supposed it wasn’t all bad. The ambiance might have been grim, but still — a genuine high mana zone.

Hopefully it would actually have a challenge for them.

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