Of course, the Teleportation Circle didn’t bring Alistair and Oliver directly to the Wasteland. They first had to take an intermediate stop at a town that had once been in Pharaoh’s domain.
His territorial domain, not his proto-Domain. Alistair was jealous of the ease that the mysterious Egyptologist had with his Dao. Alistair himself was nowhere near the creation of his own Dao field, let alone a proto-Domain.
From what he had gleaned from Dev’rox, a Dao field was the first step to creating a proto-Domain. Unfortunately, his Daos were more conceptual in nature compared to Pharaoh, Alexandra, or Admiral. Any attempt he made to impose his Dao into his surroundings ended in failure. Not an absolute failure--he could do it, somewhat, but it served no purpose in combat. He could fill the air with the Dao of the Fist, but it didn't suddenly create an army of flying fists to smite his opponents. That was completely out his purview.
Alistair started to wonder about that golden gourd that Dragonus had used in their fight. It contained an incense that felt like a stolen piece of the Heavens, fueling his Dao-wrought fires to absurd levels of heat and size.
Maybe if I had that… Alistair thought woefully.
“Hey, I have something for you,” Oliver said as they walked off the Teleportation Circle. Speak of the Devil, Alistair thought. It was the gourd he was talking about, complete with an embossed Chinese dragon. “You need this thing?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Alistair said, taking the jug. He was hesitant to uncork it out in the open, not knowing if the incense would go free. That was if there was still incense, which he wasn’t entirely sure. Luckily, the item would fit inside his inventory. An inspection revealed it was called Heavenly Nectar Incense, and it was a Legendary rarity item. It was fortunate happenstance that he had just vacated his Laser Gun II’s spot in his inventory.
They arrived in Logista, a medium-sized settlement going from the directory. Alistair was going to look at his freehold profile for more information, but a sudden prickle of danger popped up in his danger sense, accompanied by blazing sirens.
They were in a pitch black room, which Alistair could tell was supernaturally dark. His aura sense was blocked by an unknown presence in the air.
Alistair tried moving his arm, but it was stuck. Confused, he looked down, feeling his arm without his vision. There was some kind of chain or enormous band locking his limbs in place. While he hadn’t moved with even close to all of his might, his Strength should have been high enough to shatter almost any restraint a medium-sized town could muster.
While he wasn’t worried for his own life, Oliver’s worst stat was Constitution. Alistair revved into action, seeing through the preternatural darkness with [Eyes of Truth]. Right away, he followed up with his new Skill—[Draconic Roar].
Alistair focused force affinity Mana into the Skill, though most of its force came from his nue. Like how Mana felt like it exited from the soulcore and how Dao energy exited from his Dao Nodes, nue felt like it came from his mind. He imagined it as a misty cloud of intangible creative essence that was bathed in the Logos—his willpower made manifest. The common epithet, killing intent, was therefore somewhat misplaced, though not entirely so. When sharpened by a warrior’s instinct, it took on a different, more belligerent flavor.
The [Draconic Roar] dispersed the darkness and destroyed its source. Alistair cast down a [Lightning of Justice], which was very close to reaching Tier 2. The golden bolt of lightning soared down from the ceiling of what appeared to be a medieval-style tower, striking the ground in front of Alistair and illuminating it.
They were in the lion’s den. A few meters above them, there was a platform with ten men and women pointing bows and arrows at them. At least, that’s what Alistair assumed they were doing before his roar, which seemed to have taken them out.
With their interlocutors unconscious, Alistair broke the chains around him and Oliver with a [Frozen Claw] and his teeth, biting the embrittled cuffs.
“Thanks for the assist,” Oliver said. “I was not expecting that. But neither were they. What do you think happened?”
“I honestly have no idea. But we should clear our names before this becomes more trouble than it’s worth.”
Alistair felt a group of people approaching from behind. He turned around, pressing open the thick door with a single finger.
“Everyone! Stop it! It’s me, Alistair. Why are you attacking us?”
The group of five just outside the door looked like they were on death’s door. Replete in tattered plate armor, they had a weary look in their eyes. There were two women and three men, one of the woman having a clearly strong aura than the others. Alistair primarily addressed her with his question.
She was unusually tall, around his height, with a healthy amount of lean muscle covered by dilapidated bronze plates. Alistair estimated her to be on par with one of his squad leaders, so around level 40.
After feeling his aura close up, she nearly fell over. She bowed deep, apologizing profusely. “I’m so sorry for this mixup. I had no idea it was you. I’m Lexie, the woman in charge of Logista.”
“Why the hell would you think that was a good idea in the first place?” Oliver asked, looking a little more than ticked off.
Lexie grimaced. “Sir, it appears that, well, uh, your aura might have ticked off our sensors. This is a dangerous area and we haven’t fully dealt with the Earth Asunder wave yet. If we were to be attacked from the inside, it would be fatal. I made the executive decision to purchase an aura sensor that would react to Devil Kings and monsters. But I guess it thought that you were an enemy?”
“That’s what I get for being a Necromancer, I guess,” Oliver grumbled.
Alistair pointed at the unconscious people above. “Sorry about the mess. I held back on my roar so I wouldn’t kill them.”
“Thanks,” Lexie said, looking unnerved by how easily he took them out. “What are you doing here?”
“We’re here to help, actually. Why don’t you show me around? I think we can get off to a better start than this.”
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Alistair was astonished by the state of his frontier territories. When he was on-world, he had mostly stuck to the East Coast, and specifically an honestly slim portion of the world. When he had gone out to other areas, it was before the start of [Armageddon], which in the time directly prior they had bolstered their defenses and started actual empire-building.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
If there wasn’t that much of a difference between the core and outlying territories a few months ago, now it was like night and day.
Logista had a population of over fifty thousand, yet their tallest building was three stories. Many of them were half-falling over, cracks and destroyed walls everywhere. Alistair didn’t see any valyrik or ambrosic glass or any other high-end material. In fact, most of them looked like they were constructed from wood in the region itself.
The people were just as downtrodden as their town. Alistair saw a lot of jutting bones and tired eyes among the people. There were whole swaths of blocks that were completely obliterated. He even thought he saw a couple of dead bodies. No one seemed to care, not even Lexie and her group.
It was a sober reminder of the dynamics of power. While New Boston and its nearby territories had suffered greatly over the course of the initiation, they always had Alistair. They had never experienced a total breakdown of society. And before him, there was Sofia. He still felt a pang of guilt thinking about his former boss. While at first, he had thought her cold and unfeeling, in the end he knew that she deeply cared about her people. If only he had been a little stronger, he could have saved her.
“Your town is a piece of shit,” Oliver said nonchalantly. Alistair gave him a pointed look.
“We do what we can,” said a man who followed Lexie the closest. “After Wandering Hobo left us, it’s been difficult.”
Alistair had to mentally adjust “Wandering Hobo” back to “Pharaoh” in his brain, since he had spent much more time thinking of the inexplicable former #1 as “Pharaoh.” He still didn’t understand why that man had chosen that ridiculous name as his moniker, and also how the Corylon Company allowed such a childish act.
Oliver whistled. “So he let you guys out to dry completely? Sounds like an ass.”
“This boy is quite unlike that sheltered otaku that you first met,” Dev’rox wryly commented. As to where the imp learned the word “otaku,” Alistair didn’t even want to know.
To his surprise, Lexie tried defending Pharaoh. “He protected us from the worst. Handing us over to you is better than nothing.”
Oliver didn’t respond to that.
They jogged for several minutes, eventually making their way through the small city and up to a hill in the east. From that vantage point, they could see out in the distance to the horizon.
Alistair now understood why they called it the Wasteland. In its lack of vitality, it reminded him of the dead zone near the serpent cave and Selephita’s flaming dominion, but there were a few key differences.
For one, as far as he could tell, the zone was literally black and white. As in, not the objects inside it were not colored black and white, but the light itself was changing. Somehow, with maybe his understanding of deeper insight or even his sense of smell, he understood that the underlying material hadn’t changed colors. It was an ether in the air, poisoning color itself.
Besides the color, it was plain disgusting. Putrid fumes of dissolving animal corpses wafted in the air, reaching all the way to the hill. Pools of a sickly dark liquid stained the terrain in amorphous formations all over the land.
Though it was named the Wasteland, it was actually less lifeless than the other two special zones he had seen before. There was still shrubbery and with his impressive mastery of life force, he detected some small mammals, perhaps kangaroot rats or desert shrews.
It was a rocky desert, with large cracks. The Wasteland part was still in the distance, though not so far that Logista could feel comfortable. The cracked over and flat look of the ground reminded him of popular images of Death Valley, only with the addition of random puddles.
Death Valley was a good description. Even with the physical rearrangement of the world, Alistair assumed that he had to be looking at a part of the Mojave Desert. The small signs of life were there, but they felt off. Like they were sapped of their life force. Alistair didn’t know precisely how to explain it. Their life force was just off.
“Take it in,” Lexie said. “We forbid anyone from going into it. It’s far too dangerous, even with Vritra gone. This patch of land has been growing ever since the start of the initiation, I suppose, though no one was keeping track of it back then. Once Vritra took over, it ballooned in size.”
“And the other reptiles. I heard they’re going crazy?” Alistair asked.
“That’s correct. Some of the damages you saw in Logista were from raging salamanders. But the primary concern is Earth Asunder. You might be able to understand the problem. Since we can’t go inside because of the remaining beasts, we can’t close the disaster rifts. And if we can’t close the disaster rifts, they keep getting bigger and bigger. And the elemental beasts that come from within the rifts keep getting stronger and stronger.”
The man added, “Honestly, we’re kinda hoping that the elemental beasts and the reptile beasts will finish each other off, but that’s a tall ask.”
“I see,” Alistair said. “But what is the disaster? I don’t really see anything from here.”
“You’re already seeing it,” Lexie said.
Alistair rubbed his eyes and looked closer. Wait a second, he thought. When he first saw it, he thought the black and white appearance was the result of the reptiles. But what if that was Earth Asunder?
“Whatever it is, there’s not a name for it on Earth.” Lexie shook her head. “The records we’ve found call it a Mana Storm. It sucks out Mana and there are periodic surges that make the strongest hurricanes look like nothing. Not to mention, there are pure Mana elemental beasts.”
“Sounds interesting, right, Alistair?” Oliver grinned.
“I suppose,” Alistair said. “How fast is it growing?”
“That’s the thing. It stopped two days ago. We’ve been in the process of evacuating.” Lexie pointed to the division between the black-and-white section and the normal terrain. “People are people. Ever since the growth stopped, the urgency to leave plummeted.”
“We’ll take care of it,” Alistair said. “In the meantime, get everyone out of here. Tell them it’s on my direct orders.”
“Will do,” Lexie said, motioning to her people. “We’ll let you do your thing now.”
They descended the hill, leaving Alistair and Oliver alone.
“Don’t forget me,” Dev’rox said. Alistair groaned internally. There had to be something down the line for the ghost cultivation that would let him shield his thoughts. Though, when he found the time to practice nue, it seemed to help block out the imp, though Dev’rox was coy about whether it actually worked.
Oliver peered over the hill’s edge, a steep, multi-story drop. “I don’t suppose you want to go down like a normal person.”
Alistair was already in free fall by the time the last words reached his ears. “You know me too well.”
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It didn’t take them long to reach the Wasteland. Alistair began to regret jumping off, as Oliver wouldn’t stop bugging him. Surely he had enough Constitution to weather the fall easily, Alistair reckoned. Alistair himself had gotten over his fear of heights out of sheer necessity.
Now that he didn’t have to keep Dev’rox a secret from Oliver, at least the imp could make himself busy distracting Oliver. Apparently, Dev’rox had taken to reading manga. When Alistair asked how that was possible, he only responded by saying that he was accessing the memories of Japanese ghosts that Alistair had felt.
Alistair was the one to take the first step inside. The line between the normal desert and the Wasteland was clearly demarcated, beige soil contrasting with complete grayscale. Alistair tossed a rock over the border. The moment it crossed, it turned a dull gray.
Why don’t—
“Don’t even think about it,” Dev’rox said.
“Fine.”
Alistair took a deep breath. Why was he filled with so much trepidation, anyway? He could feel little animals scurrying about. Clearly, whatever was going on wasn’t inherently deadly.
He lifted his foot and gingerly stepped inside the Wasteland. If he was expecting anything crazy to happen, his imagination would be disappointed. There was no difference except the sudden lack of color.
After seeing Alistair go in successfully, Oliver joined as well. The two of them carefully trekked forward, paying close attention to their surroundings.
“Not so bad, was it?” Dev’rox said.
“Shut up. You didn’t even want to go.”
“I’m not the one with a tough, draconic body. Your life force is like that of an Adept already. My dainty ectoplasmic form would have been swept away by the tiniest surge of a Mana Storm.”
“You know what a Mana Storm is?”
“Of course. They’re quite common in the Asura Hell.”
“And can you tell me what they are?” Alistair asked.
“I can, because you could easily find out yourself. Which is an indictment in and of itself. A Mana Storm is a natural phenomenon that occurs just about everywhere that has a high enough concentration of Mana. It doesn’t take much at all, though I guess this planet would still be too weak. Of course, they scale in strength depending on how advanced the planet is. As I’m sure you recall, Dao archetypes are the reason why there are many similar species all across the multiverse. But it doesn’t only apply to physical or cultural concepts. The patterns of nature—such as storms—exist everywhere.”
“So what’s a Mana Storm look like?” Alistair asked, but even as he said those words, his aura sense stirred as he felt a presence in the distance.
“I think you’re about to find out.”