Chapter 28: The corpse forest

Riven watched with an impassive face as he observed the undead’s head explode. He wasn’t worried because he could still feel in the connection between them that the undead was not destroyed.

Bones and gray brain matter flew through the air. Only her neck remained, and from that neck grew thick strands of black glossy hair. There were up to seven strands, and each strand was woven with blades as long as small swords.

She kept running towards Kivara, and the seven strands flickered and whipped around her, creating a storm of blades.

“You’re creating a shield and an attack technique at the same time?” Riven said. His eyes were lit even as he felt more drain on his Sigil. “I didn’t know a Grave Knight would be this powerful. I thought they would be mindless zombies at most.”

The Grave Knight tried to close the distance again, this time like a storm of blades. All the plants and trees around her were chopped up, and the ground bore the mark of numerous blades.

Kivara stood still and watched the Grave Knight make its way to her with a narrowed look in her eyes. “I wonder how powerful you were when you were alive. What a good defensive and offensive technique! But mine is better!”

She gestured, her fingers making complicated symbols too fast to see. Behind her, a shadow suddenly loomed. A large snouted mouth opened up, revealing rows of fangs. Kivara was now standing inside the mouth, and the monster was making straight for her.

Riven shook his head. “It appears her intelligence isn’t as good as I thought.”

The Grave Knight reached Kivara’s front, and her storm of hair and blades slammed into the snout, but it did little damage before the mouth snapped shut, and Riven felt their connection disappear.

The maw collapsed and disappeared, revealing Kivara, who nodded at him. “Not bad for a rank two, and that’s only one technique.”

“But you took it down so easily,” Riven pointed out.

Kivara shrugged. “I’m a rank three, and I’m experienced. What do you think is going to happen? Your Grave Knight will beat me?”

Riven didn’t reply. He had gotten what he wanted, which was to use his Command technique. Without trying, he knew he would take some time before he could call another Grave Knight.

So he used his Enhance technique, which was called Bonebound Flesh. It hardened the body with necrotic energy, reducing damage.

He whispered the language and formed the foundation in his mind, and he gasped as his body hardened as if he were suddenly wearing a layer of bones.

“If I punch with this…” He brought his hands together to form a fist, and he heard them creak and groan as if he were force-bending something hard.

With each technique he used, Riven felt more and more excited. It was as if he could taste the revenge already.

“…Easy… easy… Vorin is still far out of my reach… I should focus on my advancement for now… I should try my Shape technique next…”

“Riven?”

Kivara’s voice jarred him out of his thoughts, and he turned to her quickly when he heard the urgency in it. But she didn’t need to say anything—he could see and feel it.

The surroundings had changed abruptly. The sun was covered by something cold that looked like bloated skin, and the green grass on the ground was now dried hair.

A chill ran down Riven’s back as he turned. “Human hair?”

“Look at the trees,” Kivara said in disgust, her hand covering her mouth.

The trees had changed. They had grown twisted, their branches reaching out like skeletal hands. The bark of the trees was white, like bones left in the sun for too long.

But what made Riven recoil with disgust were the fruits on the trees. Instead of the juicy, sweet, fleshy fruits they ate earlier, what was hanging on the trees were other things. Rotting body parts.

Eyes and drooping intestines, shrunken heads, and fingers. There were even slabs of meat just hanging there. The smell of decay hung above everything, creating a thin green fog.

His stomach rolled as the contents he ate earlier threatened to come back up, but he clamped down on it. Riven did not want to know what he ate.

They didn’t say anything as they left the field behind and ran towards the forest. The only thing Riven could guess was that the Catacomb was getting impatient.

“…It would have been better if it just let us keep the memory of eating only fruits…”

By the time they reached the forest’s edge, they felt like vomiting. Riven leaned against the closest tree he could find and bent over, heaving, but fortunately, nothing came out.

They took time to collect themselves before Kivara told him they needed to enter the forest. Whatever happened to the field was spreading, and it would reach the forest.

“It’s so silent,” Riven said as they began walking on the well-worn path they saw.

His voice was low. “Not like the normal silence… I can’t explain it.”

Kivara frowned as she looked around. “I know what you’re talking about. It’s as if there’s nothing here at all. As if everything is dead and still.”

Riven nodded and pulled his tattered cloak tighter around himself. The death aura surrounding everything was so thick it felt as if it was all he was breathing. His Sigil had long since been filled up.

It was getting colder as well, and the darkness was becoming confusing, as if there was a flickering darkness beneath the one they were seeing.

They were Aura practitioners, one of them a Necromancer and the other a Void practitioner, but even then, they couldn’t stop their hearts from beating faster.

Riven felt as if the whole forest was a single entity, and it was dead. “It’s as if we are walking in a corpse.”

Kivara shot him a look, but her pace hastened, her eyes tightening as she looked around.

Then, suddenly, they reached another section of the forest. There wasn’t any warning, but from a certain point, they started seeing things hanging on the thick branches of the trees.

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