Chapter 9 - An Anomaly

Having prepared everything I needed I set off just before daybreak. As we already lived in the outskirts of the city I didn't need to go far to enter uninhabited area. I didn't have much of a concrete goal in venturing out so I wasn't in hurry to get to my destination as fast as possible.

And so I started my journey. By foot. Goal for now: reaching the closest marked point on the map I copied, the capital of the Avongale Kingdom, Avongale city. Very creative name I must say.

The Avongale Kingdom was placed about in the middle of the continent depicted on the map and the climate was temperate, not too different from regions in middle Germany. The path I walked on followed the edge of a forest located to the left. The general area was kind of flat thoigh so I could look relatively far ahead. Not that there was much to see though. A whole lot of green.

Something irked me tough. I had been on the move for almost a week now and have not spotted a single animal until now. Not even heard anything. No birds, no anything. Nothing at all. From what I've read yesterday this planet should have somewhat similar wildlife to earth. Not too unexpected to me, but I'm no expert on evolution.

Anyways, I decided to take a bit of a detour and made my way into the forest. Since I wanted to discover anything strange about this world, this aligned pretty well with my goal.

The further I went into the forest the stranger I felt. I couldn't really say why, I didn't notice any abnormalities in the vegetation. Except the missing animals of course. But I felt strange, like I had an itch I couldn't scratch. So I continued onwards.

Soon enough, the I noticed the vegetation around me changing. By now I was already days deep in the forest, a territory that rarely ever sees humans ob normal occasions. The vegation around me seems to be dying. The trees have no leaves and the bushes are withering.

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Now the ambiguous feeling I felt before is way stronger than before. It was both my [Mana Sense] and my [Space Sense] that felt the abnormality. The mana around me felt somewhat ... foreign? I didn't notice it until now since I had no other reference, but mana seems to have some kind of signature to it. Maybe I could also describe it as a different vibe. It's still mana and behaves exactly the same, I even have the same control over it as over the mana I'm used to.

But why are the plants dying? And all the animals probably fled, I didn't find any suspicious corpses after all. Maybe the foreign mana is harmful to living beings? It doesn't appear to be harming me though. And if even animals notice, then I especially should be last one to oversee it. So that can't be it.

It may be what my [Space Sense] is trying to tell me though. I am probably not close enough to the source of the anomaly yet so I can't possibly identify it, but I can't fathom any other possibilities.

I journeyed onwards through the dying forest. By now every once living beeing in sight except me is dead. There is no life here. It feels like I traveled to another planet. I don't plan on stopping though.

And finally, I reached what could only be described as anomalous. It looks like a big rift in space. It not like a clean cut in space or even something like a portal. Instead it kind of looks "shattered", like a pane of glass after being smashed by a hammer.

I felt it clearly though, this was the source of the foreign mana I felt. Slowly but surely it seeped through the cracks in space. From wherever it was coming from. It's most definitely not a good sign though.

Oh.

I finally realize why I am not affected by whatever killed all the life nearby. [Space Affinity] just leveled up from Lv. 0 to Lv. 1. It was the fragmented space that slowly but surely kills whatever it comes across. Except me. I have [Space Affinity]. Weak spatial distortions like this would never be able to harm me, not even taking in account the enormous amounts of mana I had. A completely different story for the forest though. It never stood a chance.

I also just noticed another thing. I wasn't certain at first but after being here for a while now I am now sure of it.

It's expanding.

Please don't.