There was something in the air, an infectious uneasiness that gnawed and probed. It was like wading through murky water filled with sand and debris, unseen irritants from all sides. It was not something as unreliable as a premonition or as vague as a gut feeling. It was as if the senses were redirected and masked with an indiscernible illusion that felt real but was nonetheless distinctly fabrications.

She was drowning, but she knew had no need for breathing. She was warm, but she knew her skin was ice. She heard her heart beat, but she knew was already dead.

Rana cried out in frustration as she swung her crescent staff across the empty and broken down room, carving a large slash mark across the rune filled walls. The runic-patterns lost their form and so too did their power, dispelling the lake of deceit around her. She took a deep breath knowing that it was pointless, but it still calmed her mind. The experiment turned out to be quite an unpleasant experience, but it was something that needed to be done. She examined the runes carved on the walls and sighed, giving it one last look before lighting the room on fire and leaving the broken down hut.

It was as bad as she feared. The runes worked and they worked just as intended. The ones she etched into the walls were far more potent than the ones found in the abandoned research facility, and what made her worried was how she was able to recreate those bastardized runes. She spent a few weeks trying to leave the borders of Aodh and an entire month investigating the runes in the empty homes of another abandoned village. She was confident her knowledge and expertise in the ancient arcane, but there was no reason it should’ve been this easy.

While it was true as a zombie she had no need for rest, making the one month longer than what most humans experience, but there was no way it should’ve been this fast. Her capability helped, but the real reason was that the man-made runes had rules that could be discerned and methods that could be tweaked. There was already a formula behind those runes. It made the requirements less strict than normal runes and easier to complete. The barrier of entry for these runes was low and could be completed by just about anyone. What she saw that night on the walls might only be the surface of the experiments being conducted.

Rana stared at the flames as it dyed the dying grass red. This was the right thing to do. When she finished the runes, there was no doubt a sense of power swelled inside of her, as if she was in control of something beyond what was possible. However, it also felt wrong. She knew there was something evil lurking behind those abominable signs. It reminded her of something and she dared not try to remember it.

She closed her eyes and cleared her mind. The issue with the corrupted runes was a concern but it was not an immediate one. There were far more pressing matters. She learned that her sister was in charge of those research, and although she did not know why her sister would do so she knew she had to stop them. The issue was that she was still far too weak. Mara was alive and had a hundred years of time to gather experience and increase the power of her mark. That was too long of a gap and the amount of time itself was too much for any normal mark. Humans had only reached the ascended level of a mark, but there was no telling if there does not exist a higher level of power or simply that no one discovered it yet. If there was something above an ascended marked one, Mara was definitely close to it, if not already reached it. Even if Mara stopped leveling at this very moment, Rana was already too late and could never catch up. That was also wishful thinking. She would not assume the enemy would stay idle.

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The only silver lining was that the mark had unlimited potential but not unlimited power. There were strict conditions to become an ascended. Reaching the level requirement was difficult but rather straightforward, the true test lied in the specializations. The more powerful a specialization, the more difficult it was to acquire. The same was true for everything involving the System. Skill and Spells had tougher and more complicated runic-patterns the stronger the ability. The more devastating a monster attack was the more of a warning the marked one had to anticipate it. That was not to say there were no exceptions, but it was the general rule. If she managed to discover the truth behind the mark, she could formulate a plan to take her sister down. There was also the possibility of not needing to kill her sister but simply stop the plan. The former approach was simply much simpler.

However, with all that said, it was still true that Rana was weak. She managed to defeat her enemies through wit and skill, but there were some fights that would be determined by the power of the mark alone. There was no way a low-level rogue-class could overcome an ascended marked one warrior-class if the latter had the Unyielding Talent. No matter how many strikes of the weapon or Skills the rogue-class cast, the warrior-class could literally stand still and receive no damage. She was fortunate to be in a mage-class and had access to Spells that could overcome some of the numerical disadvantages found in the disparity between stats, but that was not to say the situation would stay the same.

There was a way to become more powerful and she knew how. It was a stroke of luck she managed to have her mark mutate into something akin to a fiend’s. She could level up without the need of an Altar. However, as she had just decided there was no real reason to power level. She was already too far behind and that approach cannot be done. It was too slow. This was also not mentioning the many difficulties she would have. Even if she were to ignore the ones shared by every marked one, such as not having enough worthwhile targets to kill, her lack of health regeneration made it not worth the risk.

That was not to say she was out of luck. Rana knew that her sister was raising Dungeons with the Foundation Rings. This information informed her of what her immediate goal was. She had to trace Mara’s steps and through those steps, discover what Mara had planned and retrieve those rings of power in the process. The question was where should she go? It was not as difficult as it seemed to figure out. Sure, she lacked the means of acquiring direct information, but there was something equally as informative.

When the invaders marched on Aodh and when Tree of Ashen Falls was destroyed, this news would definitely reach the other territorial lords. There was no doubt the kingdom would be put on high tension, with the threat of war looming above their heads, but the territorial lords ruling over these new Dungeons the dark paladin raised would no doubt have other more pressing matters to address with their resource than simply protecting their borders. She would use what she and Alpheia did in Aodh to fish out the information she needed.

Then, there were gallops in the distance closing in. It was the movement of a large group of armed soldiers riding and headed directly towards her direction. She was surprised she did not smell them, but she realized she stunted her zombie senses when experimenting with the corrupted runes. She weighed in the risks of meeting them or not and decided it was best not to.

Rana sighed. It was time to play dead.