The Record of Unusual Creatures

When you are standing on any street in Greenway, be it the deepest most oppressive of places, the moment you look up to the borderlands towards the Black Forest, you could see the verdant green glow.

That was the ‘Verdant Barrier’, an enchanted wall built out of a gray crystal rock unique to the south of the Empire and thirty thousand slabs of elven rune bricks were encrusted in it as it protected the city from being consumed by the forest. It had a very unique, repelling effect against the cycle of life and that ensured that the land was completed separated from the Black Forest, and this scene was one of Greenway’s trademark views.

Of course, Hao Ren and the rest too were drawn in by that great wall that was visible no matter where you are, and now upon listening to Awenna’s description of the city and the Black Forest, his interest was piqued even more.

“The Black Forest is one of the biggest mysteries of the Dragon Empire, even the imperial scholars were unable to explain the nature of this forest. No one knew then this dense forest was formed but ever since the imperials pushed their borders down south, it was already there.” Awenna looked at the scene outside the carriage, explaining as she enjoyed the scene, “The forest’ vitality confused the elves that called themselves the children of the forest. No matter if it was chopped or burnt, the Black Forest would simply recover after a few days, and at times the moment you fell a tree, you could even see it sprout right before your eyes, and the deeper into the forest, this unusual vitality was getting more obvious than ever…”

As she got there, Awenna stopped as she pointed towards the buildings afar, “You see that city? That’s Greenway, it was originally part of the Black Forest, but as it is on the borderlands, the cycle of life is weaker there, and the imperials paid a huge price and finally managed to separate and stabilized it, but any further in, even those elven rune bricks are helpless against the forest’ infestation.”

Charlemagne then added, “That’s why the imperials had given up developing the forest. It is like a stubborn dragon holding fast to its territory and the humans, after spending a fortune had managed to pry a few scraps from its claws. It was pretty much a loss-making venture.”

Vivian then laughed, “Seems like that emperor with the dragon soul had to bow to the Forest Dragon eh?”

On the other side, when he heard that, the first thing Hao Ren thought of was of course.. The First Borns.

Those legendary creatures would send their tentacles out to the planet’s surface from time to time, and when they did so, they would send the tentacles out as a forest, or a giant tree as camouflage. The plants that evolved from the tentacles usually had a very powerful life force, just like the Twisted Grove back in Holletta.

But this is L’Haronne, a place far away from the Plane of Dreams. There was no possibility of a First Born here, and Nolan’s scans had already proven that.

Then there was something interesting about the unusual life in the Black Forest.

“So if this Black Forest is that brimming with life, why didn’t they totally consume the empire?” Lily asked, “And I saw that Verdant Barrier just now and it was only blocking the path towards Greenway but the regions without barrier did not see the forest encroaching.”

“This is the second unusual part of the Black Forest,” Awenna said with a faint smile. She seemed to be very enthusiastic about introducing these to them, if not for her position as a princess, she would have been a five-star tour guide. “The Black Forest’s life force is very strong and if destroyed it will quickly recover, but other than that, it will not expand. Its area is fixed and it has not changed for the past thousands of years regardless of the weather or any change to the land, it never expanded nor did it shrunk. Of course, the few developments along the edges of the forest were pretty much the only ‘marks’ against it, but compared to the forest, this tiny damage was nothing as it was barely even one percent of its entire landmass.”

“The so-called encroachment was actually what the people of Greenway said themselves, they were taking land originally belonging to the forest,” Charlemagne shook his head, seemingly disapproving of the locals.

“Neither expanding nor shrinking huh…” Hao Ren rubbed his chin as he went into deep thought.”

“I don’t know how you all live in that Basilica of the World Tree, but you people sure are cut off quite severely from the world that you don’t even know about the famous Black Forest.” Awenna shook her head. “When I heard your titles I thought all of you were hiding in the Black Forest itself, as that temple’s name actually sounded similar to the legend of the Black Forest.”

Lily’s interest was piqued, “The Legend of the Black Forest? Tell me, tell me…”

“It’s pretty much a mishmash of nonsense adventurers and third rate scholars had cobbled together,” Charlemagne shrugged, and while as a properly educated royalty he too had some understanding of the legend, but he never believed them, “The forest’s vitality cannot be explained by normal means, so many people started having wild guesses. Some said a ‘Wellspring of the World’ lay in the center of the forest, and that wellspring is the source of all life on the planet, and its powers formed the Black Forest. The legends say that if you take a sip of the spring water, you will gain immortal life, so there was another addendum to that legend. Emperor Berentine was supposedly not the Dragon Soul, rather he had taken a sip from the spring and gained immortality.”

“Some say that there is a sacred temple inside the Black Forest, called the Sacred Temple of Life, and the contents are pretty much the same as the Wellspring of the World, but the saying is that you need to spend a night meditating to gain immortality.” Awenna smiled. “But everyone thought that meditating is much more troublesome than just drinking water, so the story of the wellspring stuck.”

Hao Ren massaged his temple as he went, “Listening to the last part makes neither sound convincing at all…”

“They are mere legends, you cannot be serious to believe them.” Charlemagne thumbed his nose, “While the Black Forest is dangerous, it is not unassailable, and in fact due to the efforts of so many generations, the imperials have managed to find a few more stable routes across the Black Forest, while there will be brave adventurers exploring unknown paths in the Black Forest, most of them made it back, but no one actually discovered any wellsprings or temples. Plus there are also many scheduled skyships flying over the Black Forest, and you can see the entire woods from above, there’s nothing of the sorts.”

Hao Ren was wondering how does his crew would make their way through the Black Forest when he heard the legends of the place, and after hearing Charlemagne mentioning about paths within the forest that he realized something, but his curiosity soon followed, “There are paths within the forest? Didn’t you say the deeper into the forest the stronger its life force is? And any traces left behind by men will be wiped out almost in an instant?”

“Those paths are not man-made, they were there all along,” Awenna explained. “This is also another unsolved mystery of the forest, the pathways have clear signs of being created by hand, with the roads paved and lit, some of the paths even have stone houses and the likes, but these were all there before the imperials discovered this forest. Some people are guessing it is a relic of a bygone civilization, but this guess is even vaguer than the wellspring of life… and does not explain why the paths are not consumed by the forest…”

Hao Ren and Vivian reflexively exchanged glances.

This explanation… was probably the most plausible of the lot.

“The stories about the Black Forest is almost endless,” Charlemagne noticed that the caravan was already approaching the Verdant Barrier, and decided to cut the topic short, “There are many forks in the Black Forest, I have already planned out the best route northwards. If you are really curious about the forest, you can have a look yourself once we get in.”

While Greenway was a wondrous city that was worth visiting, but the group clearly did not linger as the caravan passed through the city’s central road and after clearing the necessary procedures they headed to the city’s northern exit.

In that direction, the great Verdant Barrier held the forest at bay, while underneath the wall were twelve great gates. The gates had a clear elven influence as the glorious story of the humans and the elven smith working together to create this miracle city was engraved on the tall and elegant gate. The first group of human pioneers was long dead, but the elves in that ‘Pledge Of the Gate’ were still working for the city, and their main duty was to monitor the changes of the Black Forest beyond the wall and to guard the gates alongside their human compatriots.

And these long-lived elves were loyal to their duty.

These pointy-eared, elegant race were scattered all across the land and were said to once have a powerful empire, but now the ancient elven empire was now a legend, and aside from a few tiny kingdoms hidden within the forest isolated from the world, most of the elves had already assimilated into the human realms, and the elves of the Dragon Empire were the most assimilated of the lot. Probably due to the fact that this country had an immortal emperor, and could better understand the thoughts and habits of the long-lived elves. The elves within Dragon were actually doing very well.

There was almost no line waiting to go into the Black Forest, and of the 12 fairways, only 3 were opened. Looks like while the Black Forest had an abundance of produce, the danger and mystery of the forest kept many away.

There were only three kinds of people that dared to enter the forest. The first was the Greenway locals, they were familiar with the situation at the borderlands and were harvesting ore, lumber or medicinal herbs in a set location for a living. The second ones were veteran adventurers. They will go deeper into the forest, just by a bit along the pathways in the forest to look for beast lairs or locations where monster sightings were reported. They will not deviate from the path too far and are still able to hunt for various valuable monsters, and a successful foray can make everyone rich for at least half a year. The third group was travelers or merchant caravans taking the shortcut inside the forest heading west or north. This was to bypass the expensive skyship fees, and unless they were downright unlucky to run into a migrating monster horde, following the pathways in the forest were still considered safe.

Hao Ren and his team were masquerading as a caravan and getting permission to enter the Black Forest.

As the line was short, the caravan soon reached the imposing gate and Hao Ren saw before the gate were a group of soldiers clad in light, black armor and elven woodwalkers clad in a green ranger garb. But the most eye-catching of the lot were still the heavily armored Knight of the Ebon Blade, with their trademark chainsword hanging by their waist.

This was after all an important southern city, and having the Ebon Blade knights to guard them was expected.

The soldiers coming on board to inspect the caravan were little, and if there were any problems, Rheia could force the soldiers to let them go with her powers, so Hao Ren was not too concerned and lay on the window to look at the view outside.

And a few hurrying imperial officers caught his attention.

The few officials walked passed the sentry post ahead of them, and by their getup looked like military officers, and seeing how the soldiers nearby saluted them, their rank was probably quite high too.

The previously calm and proud imperial officers were looking very nervous as they were engaged in a deep discussion while walking hurriedly past the sentry post as if there was an emergency. Hao Ren immediately focused on to listen to their conversation.

Just as he was about to do that, Lily, who was seated even deeper within the carriage started verbalizing what she heard, “We have lost contact with the Ebon Blades sent to Greymountain… Count Naaem is refusing the conscription order… We can be sure that Greymountain now stands with the princess… the signal of war… it’s pretty much all about this.”

Charlemagne and Awenna gave Lily a surprised look and did not understand why the latter was telling them all of that. They had not noticed the imperial officers outside, and could not listen to the hushed conversation from afar.

“Seems like the civil war had reached the south,” Hao Ren explained with a whisper, “Lily had heard a few officers discussing the matter, and as you predicted, Count Naaem of Greymountain had sworn fealty to Princess Constance and may have already killed the Ebon Blades emissaries sent to Greymountain.”

“Hiss….” Charlemagne reflexively breathed in hard. He never thought the situation would change so rapidly, and his next action was to look at the green gate not too far away. The caravan had already been inspected and needed to wait for a few minutes before the three carriages could pass through the gate and into the Black Forest.

But suddenly a feeling of foreboding welled up in him. The gate before him suddenly seemed so far away as he felt some sort of danger was close by, and this smooth trip so far was about to go totally out of control.

Hao Ren too had noticed the changes in the prince’s expression and with his instinct being sharper and more accurate than a mortal like Charlemagne, a chilly feeling drove him to open the screen at the back of the carriage, and looking at that direction.

A squad of black-armored Ebon Blade knights was riding wildly towards them.

Yet, the imperial soldiers guarding the Greenwood Gate had already inspected the caravan. An Ebon Blade knight, escorted by two soldiers, went into the carriage as he scanned everything with an ice-cold gaze.

Everyone nearby, soldiers and civilians alike could not help but turn their attention to the seemingly inconspicuous merchant caravan. Well more accurately, their attention was attracted by the ten charging knights and they quickly noticed the knights’ target.

The charging knight spurred forward as two red glows appeared on his visor. He pulled out his black chainsword from his scabbard as the blade roared into life, as heat capable of melting armor gathered around the blade. A hoarse roar then came from under the helmet, “Stop those caravans! Kill them all!”

Inside the carriage, the inspecting knight suddenly stopped as a red glow appeared on the eye slit, as a strong surge of hostility and killing intent rushed out.

Rheia, who was pretending to be asleep suddenly opened her eyes and stared at the knight dead in the eyes. “Let us go!”

The Ebon Blade knight suddenly shuddered as he tried to use his willpower to resist the sudden surge of power, but a mere second later, a defeated voice came from under the helm, “Let them…”

The two soldiers noticed something was wrong and queried, “Sir?”

The roar outside the carriage soon became clear, “KILL OF ALL THEM!”

The knight who was resisting Rheia’s control suddenly gained second wind as he heard the voice, and after a violent shudder later he stiffly placed his hand on the hilt of the chainsword on his waist, following an activation trigger later, the blade hummed and he drew the sword and charged towards Hao Ren in a furious rage, “Executing… orders!!”

The two soldiers in the carriage quickly broke out of their stupor and the moment the knight attacked they too drew their weapons and charged!

Charlemagne placed himself before Awenna, his arming sword already drawn. “Stay back, I…”

Everything then happened in an instant, and facing the out of control situation, Rheia could only sigh, “Aih…”

In the sigh, every weapon pointed at her, including the chainsword and the two imperial longswords disappeared.

The Ebon Blade knight fell onto the caravan floor stiffly, while one of the two imperial soldiers were smashed out of the carriage by Vivian’s lightning orb, while the other was pounced upon by Lily and tossed out after having a few bones broken.

Hao Ren smacked the protective screen at the back of the carriage. “Charge out!”