Chapter 263: Wildfire

I spent the rest of the night refamiliarizing myself with my old, more aggressive style of combat through simulated training. It had been a while since I had adopted the role of a defender and controller as opposed to a more focused attacker, so it felt odd shifting back into this old role. Still, since my simulations did not allow for me to generate teammates yet to fight with, this was the most effective way that I could think of to get back in the ‘groove’.

The next morning, I met up with Diane before her Player logged on, her brand still dim. Seeing the dark circles under the halfling’s eyes, I couldn’t help but call out to her. “Were you not able to create the skill that she wanted?” I asked, but Diane flashed me a bitter smile.

“Oh, I made the first two easily enough,” she said with a wry chuckle. “It was the third, fourth, and fifth that I’m having a hard time with.”

I couldn’t help but blink at that, surprised that her Player had asked for so much. “What type of skills did she ask for?”

“The first one was fairly simple,” Diane explained with a shrug, sitting down at the table as I pulled out the menu for us to have breakfast. “She wanted me to combine the Lightning Infusion skill with Shadow Sneak to create a skill that channels dark lightning through the body. That worked easily enough, and made Black Lightning Infusion. With it, I can use shadow energy to drastically increase my speed.”

“Second, she wanted me to turn that into a movement skill, which took me a little while, but I got it done by channeling the black lightning into my legs with Fast Runner. The others, though… Black Lightning Infusion doesn’t inherently have any offensive properties, but she wants me to turn it into a ranged attack, a melee attack, and a paralysis.”

Diane let out a sullen sigh as she filled out her request for the menu. “I can do it, I’m sure. It’ll just take a little bit more time. I haven’t gotten the hang of creating new skills like this yet. What about you? Did you make any progress with your training?”

I nodded my head, taking the menu back once Diane had finished filling out her request. “I did, yeah. Though, with that said, I don’t think it’ll be that big of a problem for today. Your Player said that the other dungeon we’ll be checking out is a fire one, right?”

Diane paused, thinking it over for a moment. “Ohh, right. The black flames. Maybe I could incorporate that aura skill into what she’s wanting me to make?”

“I wouldn’t do that,” I advised. “Although the color is black, that skill tree doesn’t really have anything to do with shadows. Instead, it is more like an ‘antithesis’ of the given element. If there was a black lightning equivalent, then it wouldn’t be using lightning effects through shadows, but it would be absorbing lightning to empower you.”

Diane let out a huff at that, relaxing back into her seat. “Right. That makes sense. I wonder if Bella’s having any more luck with her own skill creation?”

I let out a brief chuckle, summoning our breakfast. “I’d go check up on her, but the fact that she opted for me to give her the raw meat instead of asking us to visit for meals should mean that she’s determined to see this through on her own.”

With that, the two of us began eating. Halfway through the meal, Diane’s brand lit up, her Player logging in. “Sorry, breakfast on my end got delayed today,” Diane apologized, resuming eating as if nothing had happened. “Are you all set for the fire ninja dungeon after this? It’ll be quite the drive to get there.”

I gave a small shrug, used to long road trips at this point. “Is it somewhere deep in Pyrrhos somewhere that we haven’t been?”

“Actually, surprisingly no.” Diane swallowed the bite of eggs that she had taken. “From what the contact said, this dungeon appeared in Verdantia.”

“Verdantia…” I took a moment to recall that area. “We were there briefly on our way to the war dungeon a couple months ago, right?” I asked, to which Diane nodded her head. “I remember that place was a giant forest. There’s a fire dungeon in the middle of that?”

“Apparently,” Diane confirmed. “From what the contact said, the local nymphs were keeping the overflowing mobs in check before the latest patch. As for what’s happened since then, we don’t know.”

“Nymphs?” I asked in surprise. “Is that the local race of Verdantia?”

“It’s the overall classification of them, at least. There are various types, such as water nymph, tree nymph, and even wind nymph. In Verdantia, nymphs are born when a Fruit of Life is destroyed, whether it is cut open, bursts, or is eaten. The energy of the fruit seeks out a nearby aspect of nature, and uses that to manifest a newborn nymph.”

“Water nymphs will often try to cut open the fruits within a spring. Tree nymphs on the branches of a tree, and wind nymphs high in the air. Granted, this is all research I did overnight while looking into the next dungeon. Aside from this, all I know is that the water and fire nymphs are the ones that were working to contain the dungeon’s monsters. They just didn’t dare to enter themselves, because they only have one life.”

I couldn’t fault them for that. NPCs raiding dungeons was a reckless move, even if they were born with naturally higher levels. One wrong step, and nobody would even know how they died. “Right. Well, if we’re going to be going through Verdantia, I don’t think we’ll be able to use the car,” I pointed out. “Wraith Zone wouldn’t let me drive through the trees fast enough for it to be worth it, so I’ll need to use my dragon form.” I could use Beyond the Veil with my dragon form and bring along whoever was riding me, as I had discovered before.

Diane seemed to have absolutely zero qualms about this. “That’s fine,” she said with a barely suppressed smile. “Since visibility is so limited, it’ll still take us a few hours to fly through the forest to reach our target.”

I let out a small sigh of resignation. Honestly, I should just pick a day and go around, visiting each of the portals on as many different realms as I could. It would save on future travel times, though it would require a heavy initial investment. That said, there were certain realms I would rather avoid, such as Thalassia and Mistralis. With the former, there were horrific monsters lurking within the water that could surely kill me with ease. And for the latter, I still felt chills whenever I thought about the ‘kind farmer’ that I had seen when I used Beyond the Veil there.

Once we were done eating, I teleported Diane and myself to the rift of Verdantia, already under the cover of stealth. Verdantia was a realm of trees with boundless height, the sky replaced with a leafy canopy and glowing fruits. Before we were discovered, I quickly adopted a draconic form, though one significantly smaller than my full size, and Diane climbed onto my back.

Upon triggering Beyond the Veil, the colors of the world seemed to fade away. The trees briefly faded into mist before reforming, though now their bark was covered with what looked like countless screaming faces. The canopy above had lost its leaves, the branches curled in like claws as waves of spirits flew above like clouds.

“Noted, this is not a realm where the spirit world is friendly like Feycross,” Diane grunted, holding onto my neck. “I’ll let you know when we get close to the coordinates. Until then, fly straight in that direction,” she said, pointing off vaguely towards the south.

I launched myself off the ground, flying through the air at high speeds. With a thought, I adjusted the degree of immersion with Beyond the Veil, preventing us from being fully on either side. This brought the trees to a foggy state where I could simply fly straight through them.

Without having to worry about obstacles in my way, I began teleporting ahead every time we passed through a tree, further increasing our travel speed. Diane’s arms gripped my neck tighter as we flew through each one, its foggy form clinging to her skin. This could not have been entirely comfortable for her, but she did not let out a word of complaint.

Given the layout of Verdantia, it could easily take weeks to make any significant travel progress, and normal vehicles would not be able to cut that down by too much. Anything too fast would need to worry about dodging the trees, not to mention the roots on the ground. From a practical standpoint, I would understand if it was more common to visit another realm through a rift, then travel to a different rift and back to Verdantia rather than just make the travel all on one side.

Of course, this was only an option for Players, and I didn’t even know if any Player had established their own kingdom in Verdantia. This was only my second time ever visiting the realm.

I let these thoughts distract me from the monotony of flight, the repeating cycle of teleporting and flying through the trees becoming almost automatic until a message appeared in the corner of my vision from Diane. We’re close. Drop out of stealth, and we should be able to begin looking around.

As she requested, I ended Beyond the Veil, but soon regretted my decision to do so. Not because I was currently halfway through a tree or anything like that, but because everything around us was on fire…

A raging inferno clung to every giant tree, black smoke filling the air. I could hear distant cries, and Diane quickly began to cough on my back, covering her mouth and nose. Without hesitation, I activated Infernal Hellstar, causing the nearby fires to vanish like a lie. I flew down to the ground, making sure not to spread the effects of my skill too far to avoid accidentally snuffing out any fire nymphs that might be trying to save people within the flames.

Once Diane was off my back, I returned to normal and called out loudly. “Is there anyone here?” I shouted, my voice drowning in the roar of the flames. “If there are any fire nymphs nearby, please give some kind of sign! Otherwise, I will be using a large-scale fire extinguishing skill!”

I had no idea if they would have even been able to hear my voice if they were there, but I had to give them a chance. The last thing I wanted to do was be labeled a murderer because I killed a family of fire nymphs trying to save people from a forest fire.

I waited for nearly a full minute as Diane crouched down and coughed on the charred grass next to me. The only thing protecting us was the Infernal Hellstar that I had intentionally narrowed to only protect a few meters around us.

When I did not receive any kind of a sign from anyone in the surroundings, I relaxed my hold on the skill. Streams of red light poured out of the flames, snuffing them out en masse as the lights poured into the black orb hovering over my head. The ground and trees were left charred black, and I lifted Diane into my arms. I activated Water King to douse the area, which caused clouds of steam to briefly rise.

Only once the steam had stopped did I start walking forward, wetting the ground dozens of meters before me while continuing to absorb the nearby flames. Every few minutes, I would shout out again for anyone in the surroundings while sweeping away the forest fire. I even sent out my Ki General to fight the fires in a different direction.

“Something tells me that the ninjas learned how to fight back against the nymphs,” I muttered ruefully, and Diane gave a grunt of agreement.

I was about to call out again for any nearby nymphs when a figure streaked through the air, appearing in front of me like a living gust. Its body was mostly transparent, having a vaguely female shape composed of swirling wind, with blackened leaves in place of eyes. “Stay your hand, friend of the forest,” it spoke in a wispy tone. “A flame colony lives ahead. They heard your cry and sought for me.”

I froze at this, immediately halting my steps. I focused, narrowing the range of my Infernal Hellstar once again. “I’ve brought my skill back, so it will only affect ten meters around myself now,” I informed with wind nymph. “I was told that there was a troublesome dungeon in this area, but there was no mention of this inferno. I take it that the monsters have gotten out of control?”

The wind nymph let out a sullen sigh. “That’s right. Please, follow me outside the blaze. The water elders will wish to speak with you.”