Chapter 463: Something Beneath The Forest

By noon the following day, Greyfen had stopped trying to kill them, and Rowan was the first person to become uneasy about it.

Since leaving the ruined valley where they had killed the Gloomstrike Mantis, the group had travelled steadily north through increasingly ancient woodland.

The trees were larger here, their roots rising from the ground like walls, while curtains of moss hung from branches high overhead. Yet the deeper they travelled, the fewer signs Rowan found.

For most people, that would have made travelling easier. For Rowan, it made him slow down. He crouched beside a patch of damp earth beneath an enormous root and brushed away several leaves, following a set of broad, three-toed impressions for several yards before they abruptly changed direction.

The creature had approached from the east, reached this point and turned almost completely around. Rowan moved twenty paces farther north and found another trail, then another, and by the fourth Lucan had noticed the pattern.

Resting one hand against the pommel of his sword, Lucan frowned at the disturbed earth and asked, "They all turned back?"

Rowan nodded without looking up and answered, "Different times, different species. This one is at least four days old. The first was probably yesterday. None crossed farther north."

Mina studied the forest ahead before asking, "Could something have marked this as its territory?"

Rowan rose and brushed the dirt from his fingers. "If it had, I would expect territorial signs. Scent, kills, damaged trees, remains deliberately left where other Magic Beasts could find them. Something powerful enough to claim this much land would also move through it. I’m finding nothing."

Sage glanced upward while Rowan spoke, and that was when he noticed the silence. There had been moments earlier in Greyfen when monster calls faded, particularly after battles, but the forest itself had never become silent. Birds had cried from the canopy. Insects hummed beneath leaves.

Small creatures moved through brush. Here there was only the sound of their boots and the occasional creak of ancient trees. No birds circled overhead, no insects crawled across the enormous trunks, and no distant roar from a 4th Order Elite Beast disturbed the forest.

Iris noticed it almost simultaneously. Her gaze travelled across the moss-covered trees before she quietly said, "I haven’t seen a single flying insect since we crossed that stream."

Lucan looked around with growing discomfort and remarked, "I would normally consider fewer insects an improvement, but Rowan has successfully ruined peaceful forests for me."

Rowan ignored him and walked toward a nearby tree.

He examined the bark, then the roots, before scraping away moss with the edge of his knife. "No feeding marks, no nests and no fresh droppings. There should be hundreds of smaller creatures around a tree this size."

Mina lowered her voice instinctively as she asked, "So everything left?"

Rowan returned the knife to his belt and answered, "Everything that could."

They continued north, but the atmosphere had changed completely. Rowan no longer needed to guide them around roaming Magic Beasts because there were none.

Twice they found old tracks belonging to enormous creatures, but both trails curved away from the same region. At one point they discovered a nesting hollow large enough for Mina to stand inside, with shattered eggshells scattered around it.

Rowan crouched inside, examined one shell and found the inner membrane dried black.

"This wasn’t attacked," he explained as he turned the fragment between his fingers. "The parent abandoned the clutch before anything hatched. Several weeks ago, perhaps longer."

Iris’s expression changed. She stood and slowly extended one hand as a faint blue glow appeared around her fingers.

Sage felt her mana spreading outward, but instead of forming a spell, Iris released it into the surrounding air in extremely thin strands. She remained still for nearly half a minute before walking several steps north and repeating the process.

Then she tested east, returned west and performed the same exercise again. By the fourth reading, fascination had begun replacing concern on her face.

Sage knew that expression. It was the same look Iris wore whenever she discovered a magical problem complicated enough to make sensible people leave.

Watching her reach into her satchel, Sage asked, "What did you find?"

Iris removed a small crystal disk engraved with concentric runes and answered, "The ambient mana is wrong."

Mina moved closer and asked, "Too much?"

Iris quickly shook her head. "No. That’s what I thought initially, but density isn’t the problem. Mana naturally moves through an environment. Plants interact with it, living creatures absorb it, underground veins carry it, and water can influence its direction. Even when mana appears still, it isn’t truly stationary."

Iris placed the crystal disk flat against a stone. A pale glow appeared within it, but instead of spreading evenly across the engraved circles, the light gathered heavily along one side. Iris stared at the result, rotated the disk and watched the glow shift again.

Lucan leaned closer and said, "Judging by your face, I’m assuming it isn’t supposed to do that."

Iris barely looked at him as excitement entered her voice. "It absolutely isn’t. The surrounding mana isn’t merely flowing north. Something is drawing it. The pull remains consistent regardless of how I orient the measuring disk."

Rowan folded his arms and asked, "Could that be what the Magic Beasts sensed?"

Iris tucked the instrument into one hand while already reaching for her notebook with the other. "Possibly, but one reading isn’t enough. I need to determine whether the pull becomes stronger as we approach whatever is causing it."

For the next hour, their investigation became stranger. Iris tested the mana every few hundred yards, and every result pointed toward roughly the same region.

More importantly, the effect became stronger as they travelled north. Mana within the vegetation and shallow underground currents appeared to be drifting toward something ahead.

When they crossed a narrow creek, Iris abruptly stopped in the middle of it and crouched, pressing her palm against the surface while water swirled around her boots.

Her eyes widened as she looked toward Sage. "Even the mana within the water is being affected. The water itself continues downstream normally, but the mana contained within it is separating from that natural flow."

Sage’s attention sharpened as he asked, "Where is it going?"

Iris looked down at the ground beneath them and answered, "Below us. Much deeper than I can properly sense."

Lucan looked at the perfectly ordinary soil beneath his boots and grimaced. "I preferred the murderous mantis."

Mina gave him a puzzled look and reminded him, "You didn’t like the mantis when it was trying to cut you apart."

Lucan glanced toward her and replied with complete seriousness, "Mina, there are different degrees of dislike. At least the mantis had the decency to stand where I could see it."

Rowan almost smiled, but Sage’s attention remained on the ground. They had enough evidence now. Something beneath northern Greyfen was affecting mana across the surrounding forest, and Sage possessed a way to see far more than Iris’s instruments could reveal.

Sage stepped away from the others and told them, "Give me some space. I want to see where these currents are going."

The group moved back while Sage closed his eyes. Mana gathered behind them, and when his eyes opened again, the world changed. The Aetheric Insight Eyes stripped away the ordinary appearance of Greyfen and revealed the mana moving through everything around him.

Ancient trees burned with faint currents of green and blue. Thin streams of energy travelled through stone and soil. Iris shone like a concentrated mass of elemental mana, while Mina, Rowan and Lucan possessed distinct internal flows shaped by years of training. Sage barely noticed any of them.

His gaze dropped beneath the ground, and for several seconds he forgot to breathe.

Mana veins spread beneath Greyfen like the roots of an impossible tree. Some were narrow threads winding between layers of stone, while others were enormous natural currents stretching farther than Sage could immediately perceive.

They crossed beneath hills, followed underground water, passed through mineral deposits and branched across miles of wilderness. Under normal circumstances they should have travelled independently, dividing and reconnecting according to the natural terrain.

They weren’t.

Every one Sage could see was bending.

He slowly turned his head and realized the phenomenon wasn’t confined to the silent region around them.

It extended for miles. Mana that should have followed separate natural routes was being pulled toward the same distant point beneath northern Greyfen.

Some currents curved only slightly, but others had been dragged dramatically away from their natural paths. The farther north Sage looked, the stronger the distortion became. It resembled countless rivers being forced toward an unseen ocean buried beneath the world.

Sage focused harder.

The world beneath him expanded, and far below the forest floor the mana streams descended through layers of stone before disappearing beyond the range he could comfortably perceive.

He couldn’t see their destination. He could only see hundreds of currents flowing toward it, with smaller branches joining larger veins until everything converged upon the same underground region.

The strain behind Sage’s eyes intensified until he finally released the ability. The luminous world vanished, leaving ordinary trees and afternoon light behind.

Mina approached first, concern visible across her face as she asked, "Uncle Sage, what did you see?"

Sage rubbed the bridge of his nose and answered, "Iris was right. Something is pulling the mana underground."

Iris immediately stepped closer, fascination returning as she asked, "How large is the affected area?"

Sage looked north before answering, "Miles. Much farther than your readings showed."

That silenced even Iris.

Rowan’s expression hardened as he asked Sage to explain, and Sage crouched to draw several lines through the soil. "There are natural mana veins beneath Greyfen. Normally they travel independently through the land, but every major current I could see is being redirected."

Sage dragged each line toward the same point and continued, "They’re all flowing toward one underground location."

Lucan’s humor disappeared as he stared at the crude diagram. "Do you know what’s down there?"

Sage shook his head. "No. That’s the problem. I can see where the mana is going, but not what it’s going into."

Iris knelt beside the diagram, staring at the converging lines with open fascination. "If something has been drawing mana across several miles for this long, the concentration at the center could be enormous."

Sage looked toward her and replied, "Assuming it’s accumulating. We don’t know whether something is storing it, consuming it or transforming it into something else."

Rowan turned toward the silent forest ahead. Every instinctive creature capable of leaving had apparently done exactly that, while those farther south were being displaced from their territories by the spreading disturbance.

Rowan suggested returning with more people, but Sage considered the idea only briefly. Sending dozens of Adventurers into an unknown phenomenon before understanding what they were dealing with could turn uncertainty into a massacre.

They needed information first. Sage stood, brushed the dirt from his hand and looked north toward the invisible point where miles of mana veins were converging beneath Greyfen. "We’re close enough to know this isn’t normal, but not close enough to understand what’s causing it,"

Sage said, his expression becoming serious as the others watched him.

He adjusted his coat and started toward the silent trees ahead. "We need to go deeper."