Chapter: 695

Jay thought it could be the blood-vine bears home. Or lair. Or feeding circle.

But for some reason he knew he was wrong.

“S-Stop!” his eyes bulged as he tried not to yell the orders, instead screaming them in his mind to the skeletons.

They stopped just before any of them set a foot inside.

The black soil circle somehow sent a wave of fear into his heart. The forest was silent as it was, but here there was an eerie silence. An ancient silence hung around the black circle.

Even the vast spindling tree roots wouldn’t venture into it. It was like the trees knew something he didn’t.

And now, as he sat on his throne at the edge of the circle, Jay felt like he was being watched.

Some of the forest cast a shadow over the black circle, but strangely, the shadow which fell onto the soil was as black as night.

No, darker still. Like an endless void trapping all light.

As Jay looked away, something was moving in the darkness of the shadow on the edge of his vision, but as soon as he looked back for it all he saw was darkness.

“Argh.” he gritted his teeth, trying to remain quiet.

A pain shot into Jays arm – the parasites didn’t like whatever this was either. Jay trusted the parasites; they had a strange sense for danger too.

“I need to leave. Now.” he thought, gritting his teeth and ordering his skeletons at the same time.

He quickly had the skeletons to turn around and move directly away from the black soil circle; he had them running now too.

The fear he felt was so intense; he felt like it would follow him forever, that nothing would be able to stop it from finding him – whatever ‘it’ was.

With an unknown primordial fear gripping Jay’s heart, he even thought for a moment that he should head back to Losla and let the mage hunters catch him, but he quickly pushed the thought out of his head.

Jay couldn’t help but look behind him as he was carried away. He took out deathwalker’s sentry as well, yet it didn’t sense anything.

He even controlled his breathing to try and sound quieter.

Something about whatever he had just found sent a fear deep into his heart. Like he had seen something which his eyes were not meant to see. It was a fear he didn’t understand and couldn’t explain.

“Maybe something intangible.” he thought, wrapping his mind with a coating of mana to try and protect it.

The skeletons seemed unaffected by it though – perhaps because they were immune to fear. All of them were as happy to carry Jay into the sacred black soil as they were to carry him away from it.

“We’ll go around it… Far around.” he thought.

“Glad we didn’t step foot into the soil. I feel like it would have been a violation. An offence of something ancient. Something vengeful”

He couldn’t be sure of course – there was a chance it was just a strange circle of black soil, however, his intuition had began to scream at him, it like it was yelling ‘DANGER!’.

Only after five minutes of having the skeletons rush him away did he now realise his heart was beating wildly.