Chapter 310: Residues

The massive serpentine form of the dragon moved through the upper atmosphere with a silent, terrifying grace that belied its impossible size. The clouds themself seemed to dissolve before it, as if the very presence of the creature was an affront to the natural order of the sky.

Madoc and Osmund stood behind Finn on the obsidian-scaled head of the beast, looking out over the horizon with expressions that fluctuated between awe and a growing sense of insignificance. The world within this tear was vast, stretching out in directions seemingly endlessly.

“This place,” Osmund muttered, his voice barely audible over the rush of the wind this high up. “It is much larger than I ever imagined. We have been traveling for nearly a full day and the terrain just keeps going. It feels as though we are moving through a whole world of its own, not just a pocket of space contained within a tear.”

Madoc nodded in agreement, but did not respond immediately. He was looking at the same horizon Osmund was looking at.

“This is most definitely a world of its own, not just a pocket space,” he finally said. “The Transcendents may have been defeated by our Gods, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that they wielded enough power to create marvels like this…”

Finn, standing at the front, listened in silence as Madoc and Osmund spoke. And though he quietly agreed with Madoc’s analysis in the recess of his mind, that wasn’t his concern. His thoughts were elsewhere, thinking back to the previous day, right after they had just crossed the Stagnant Sea.

Before they had committed to this long flight toward the center of the tear, Finn had taken the serpentine dragon and performed a systematic sweep of the prehistoric forest they had just left. Finn had pushed the beast to its limits, covering the entire expanse of that ancient, prehistoric greenery within a single hour.

He had been using his Error Vision at its maximum output, peering through the canopy, the undergrowth, and the very soil itself. He had been looking for any trace of the Husk Leader or the rest of those grey-skinned abominations that had hounded him during his last visit.

But despite his scrutiny, he had found nothing. No magical footprints, no spatial decay, no nests, and no lingering scents of their void-touched existence. If the Husks were still alive, they had vacated the forest entirely for some unknown reason. Finn was very sure of this. His Error Vision ensured there was no trickery or high-level concealment at play. If there had been, he would have seen some anomalies at least.

But no. The creatures were entirely gone, leaving the forest to the normal prehistoric beasts and fauna that were too primitive to understand the change in the hierarchy.

Finn’s attention returned to the present as he felt the dragon beneath his feet shift its weight. He had finally decided to give the creature a name during their long journey across the sky.

Ryuga was the name he settled on.

When he looked at the dragon’s serpentine form, its massive coiled frame, and its behemoth size, it reminded him of the myths of Eastern dragons from his last life cycle back on Earth. The name felt right. It carried a weight that matched the creature’s predatory elegance and ancient soul.

After traveling on Ryuga for nearly a day, they had come upon a spectacle that changed the entire tone of their journey. In the distance, rising out of the flat plains like a jagged, lonely hill, stood the large calcified remains of what used to be a massive creature. It was a mountain of white bone and hardened calcium, stark and morbid against the sky.

And on the plains before it lay the undeniable tells of a terrible battle. The ground was scorched, cratered, and physically torn.

Even before they had drawn close to the war-torn expanse, Finn already had a cold, lazy smile playing on his lips. His eyes glowed with a deep, incandescent green as he looked directly at the sky above certain areas of the battlefield.

He could sense obvious traces of spatial destruction hanging in the air. The world had sealed over and was trying to heal itself, but even from that distance, Finn’s senses could not be fooled. He sensed multiple distinct powers that had clashed here:

First, there was the familiar, dead spatial residue of the Husk Leader he had been searching for. It was a crude, biting energy that felt like a serrated blade made of void.

But overlapping it was a greater, much more refined, and terrifyingly powerful residue. This signature was exquisite in its complexity, nearly blotting out every other trace from Finn’s senses with its sheer authority. This was definitely Casmir. There was no one else who could manipulate space with such precise and overwhelming skill.

As they drew close enough, even Madoc and Osmund sensed the spatial chaos. Their faces paled as they realized their original fragment holder had been here. They immediately began employing their own spatial magic to try and decipher the echoes of the fight, their own fragments vibrating in fear and reverence.

While they were focused on the spatial ripples, Finn’s gaze had turned to a different spot. Off to the side, near the direction of what looked to be the scorched remains of a camp, he sensed a lot of chaotic soul masses roiling. Long-dead Arcanists had turned into mindless, chaotic soul masses. But that wasn’t his concern. His eyes were focused on a specific spot on the ground not far from the camp.

There, he could feel a trace of something that made him smile genuinely in surprise. It was a signature he knew well, one that felt like a calming, ordered pulse amidst the chaos.

“Althea…” he had muttered softly, his smile widening.

From there, he had also sensed signs of life. Human signatures coming from the direction of the hill-sized calcified bones in the distance. Quickly, he headed towards it, hoping to find people who could tell him what happened here.

Before he even got close, he had spotted and analyzed the few people he could see.

Ossuarists.

Just the sight of them made him even more certain they’d have tangible information to give…

But in the end, the whole thing had been a serious hassle. The Ossuarists in question were Adepts who had literally shat their pants the moment they saw a creature the size of a long mountain bearing down on them from the clouds.

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