CHAPTER 79: THE DARK FOREST

There was one more rule that Cassia had imparted to him before he went on this perilous journey. A rule that she put heavy emphasis on.

“Third,” she said with a hoarse voice, “The more nonsensical and illogical a place gets, the more dangerous it is. Stay away from such places in the Beyond.”

Soren’s lips widened into a silly smile. “Well, I guess that’s kinda unavoidable now, isn’t it?” He said sarcastically as he glanced down at the glowing, enchanted book in his hands.

“Besides, how strange can it really be? Pillars of granite shaped like trees with incomprehensible runes for leaves, white sand beneath my feet that shifts with the soft breeze… Totally things you would see in real life! Nothing here is at all strange—all of it is fine, actually…”

He rubbed his chin, “Now that I think about it, aren’t I the strangest one here? Not everyone has conversations with a book, you know… Wait, doesn’t that make me the most dangerous person in the Beyond? Yep, I should be!”

Soren confidently walked forward, leaving deep footprints in his wake. He had finally entered the Dark Forest, leaving the Runic Constellations and their ever changing runic stars behind.

Although he was putting on a brave face, Soren really wanted to scream right now. The Runic Constellations had already been fairly dangerous, and he had no doubt that danger was about to spike.

But what choice did he have?

Not only was his route back home cut completely, but he was left stranded in a remote location of the Beyond known for being infested by truly nightmarish spirits.

The Runic Constellations themselves had already posed enough problems for him. Aside from the constant hiding from rogue spirits, Soren also needed to watch out from the runic stars themselves. On occasion, they were prone to explode, leaving anything in their vicinity disintegrated into nothing. And what’s worse, the knowledge each one holds was not something he could even access with his own abilities—it was somehow being interfered with or blocked, so there was no way to really know when one of them was getting ready to burst.

He had to simply rely on his luck and intuition when navigating the strange starry array. A few times, he had gotten fairly close to ones on the verge of imploding, only to realize something was up and moving away in time. Eventually, he realized that the rogue spirits themselves also knew their way around the place, so he tried to mimic their behaviors and paths to avoid the dangerous explosions. Not that it didn’t have its own set of issues—after all, rule one of not glancing at spirits still applied. He had to be extremely cautious when observing their behavior.

But now that he had made it to the Dark Forest, his heart had rightfully filled somewhat with relief.

Soren knew however, that it was nothing more than his emotions being out of place. After all, the book he had chronicled that listed information about the different known places in the Beyond described the Dark Forest as truly a monstrous place. Something that not even archmages enjoyed traveling through.

In fact, if he remembered it correctly, the author of the book himself had perished in this section of the Beyond, never to be seen again.

“Maybe we can find his body while we’re at it, right book?” He wanted to smile, but couldn’t find it in him.

Now that he was on the subject of death, it reminded him of his own current situation. Technically, his body was still safe in the natural world, away from harm and protected by Cassia. However, his spirit was currently roaming the unfounded.

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He had heard a lot about this from Cassia’s nagging before he finally managed to convince her. If his body in the real world died, he would technically be stuck in spirit form forever. But the same also applied to his own spirit.

If he died in this strange forest, for example, his spirit would dissipate into nothing, but his actual body would stay alive.

In essence, he would become an empty husk—a hollow human without a soul. To everyone else, his body would continue to exist like normal—all his bodily functions would continue to function on their own. But his mind wouldn’t be there… It would be like staring at a living corpse.

A shiver ran down his spine as he thought about it again… This was the fear driving him forward. He cannot stop—he must not stop. He had to find a way out of here, and the only one he knew about was reaching the Pillars of Heaven.

According to Cassia, Astral Projection requires a will—something that ties their existence to their spirit form. After all, one cannot astral project without separating their Soul Realm from their bodies, which means their True Self was currently roaming the Beyond on its own.

The will Soren has that was keeping his True Self in this rogue existence was fairly simple: reach the Pillars of Heaven. If he cannot do it, then he would continue existing in this form indefinitely.

This was why so many magi took insane amounts of time to prepare before their venture. They had to be sure they were capable of coming back. Otherwise, it would all be for naught.

In Soren’s case however, such logic could not apply to him. He only has a year to deal with his own Soul Chain’s instability.

Soren sighed as he walked up to the closest granite pillar. He examined it closely with his fairy eyes—the levitating book next to him chronicled the information with a mysterious fountain pen.

Memory Tree (Mystery)

Who but the great lord deserves to be enshrined? Who but the one who cowers deserves to die? The preservation of these memories must take precedence over my life. For one day, I will regain them, and may oblivion cover the skies.

Soren stood silent for a moment—his face holding an unreadable expression. However, all that filled his mind was confusion.

“Lord? Enshrined? And what’s this about a coward?” He frowned.

This was the first time he had ever received such a cryptic description for something. In most cases, his ability would simply describe what the object he was examining was, and nothing more. If there was new information to be added, Addendums would be included.

Instead, this description read more like a message, rather than an explanation.

“What the hell are these… Trees?” That was also very odd. His Soul Weapon called them Memory Trees, which would tie very well with the weird description. However, none of these supposed memories ever transferred to him. His Soul Weapon would have chronicled something regarding these supposed memories the trees hold, but it didn’t.

Which only really meant one thing. There was interference. Whoever left these trees behind made sure not to allow those with similar abilities to Soren to understand what was being left here…

“How strange…” He glanced at his Soul Weapon and smiled. “But then again, this place already breaks the logic of the Beyond anyway. What’s a few weird trees going to even do?”

Still, Soren wondered who could have left these things behind in the first place. Was it some ancient demon? Or maybe a very powerful phantasm from the ancient past. Either way, the message it left behind was very clear: whoever it was, he wanted revenge against something or someone—possibly the coward it mentions—and so it left its memories here for the person to come back and remember his own promise.

To bring oblivion to the skies.

“What a scary fellow…” He smiled at his Soul Weapon. “What do you think about all of this, book? Do you think whoever is behind this can get his revenge before this world ends? After all, I plan to live and witness it all.”

The book stayed silent, leaving Soren to dejectedly sigh.

“Fine, keep your thoughts to yourself.” He glanced around to a similar tree in the distance. “Let’s see if we can glean more information with my abilities… Who knows, an addendum might show up.”

Just as he was about to walk over to it, his face plummeted into darkness. Soren glanced up and noticed that the familiar neon gradient sky had fully disappeared—in its place was a pitch black void that had devoured the light.

The only thing keeping him from being completely in the dark were the strange trees with their fractal runic leaves that glowed in an aetherial golden color, basking the white sand into a strange cacophony of shades.

Soren let out a silly yet panicked laugh, “Ah! No wonder it’s called the Dark Forest!”