The second paper was a tattered parchment. The topography of the Untamed Jungle was drawn on it.
It was a map! A part of a map, to be precise.
‘Why does it look so familiar?’
Michael was certain that he had seen a map of the Untamed Jungle before. He accessed his War Rune’s storage space and retrieved a similar-looking parchment.
“It’s not the same,” Michael concluded quickly. The maps were far from detailed, and one could mostly see green dots indicating the treetops of the Untamed Jungle, but it was easy to tell that the maps were not similar. Certain marks and spots on both maps were different.
Michael put the maps next to each other and tilted his head.
‘They should be fragments of the same map…probably…’ He guessed.
Right now, he was more confused than excited. The map could be a treasure map, but then why was there no red cross marking the position of the treasure?
The red cross – if there was one – was etched on one of the missing parchments.
‘Even if I had the map with the marked spot, the map barely has any details to pinpoint an exact position.’ Michael grumbled before he put the parchments back inside the War Rune.
It would have been great if the map was drawn in detail. That way, he would be able to pinpoint his own position, the position of the Lizard cave, the Gogi Lord’s territory, and the habitats of the overlords in the Untamed Jungle’s outer area and middle zone. He and his subjects would have a much easier time evading dangerous areas and coming up with precise strategies against most kinds of threats using a detailed map.
‘Treasure map or not…it’s a little sad.’ He thought with a tinge of regret.
Fortunately, the regret quickly dispersed when he got closer to the Gogi Lord’s camp. He got excited and further accelerated his steps.
Michael paved his way through the Untamed Jungle’s outer area while avoiding the monster habitats. It took him less than an hour to reach the Gogi Lord’s territory with excitement spreading through his entire being.
Unfortunately, this excitement died down the moment he reached the bloody battlefield – or where the bloody battlefield was supposed to be.
“Not even a complete day passed…” Michael mumbled. His eyes shot wide open.
He was stunned and had a tough time processing what happened.
Not even twenty-four hours passed but the entire bloody battlefield had disappeared into thin air. He couldn’t find a single splatter of blood, forget about the corpses or the remains of the dead. It looked like there had never been a battle, in the first place.
“Did I take a wrong turn? Maybe, I am at the wrong place…” He scratched his head in confusion.
A moment later, Michael began to climb up one of the large trees near him. He activated his Eagle Eyes and scanned the vicinity once he found a large branch to stand on. He was more than twenty meters above the surface and could see far in every direction. The Untamed Jungle was densely grown but the vegetation was scarcer at a higher altitude.
Thus, Michael quickly figured that the Gogi Lord’s manor and Summoning Gate were not too far away. They were roughly as far away as they had been the day before. The angle at which he could see the wooden manor and the Summoning Gate were also the same. He was at the right position. This place was the bloody battlefield!
“How can that be?” Michael was utterly dumbfounded. He couldn’t comprehend the situation. It was as if somebody cast a spell on the surrounding landscape to make everything disappear. But that was far from the truth, and he was faced with a mystery to solve.
Thus, Michael jumped down from the tree while his hands began to glow golden. He used extraction in the vicinity while walking around. He recalled the rough position of a few Gogi corpses from the day before because they had been torn apart near a cluster of several densely grown trees. The trees were still there but the corpses, organs and all the blood had disappeared.
Using his Soultrait on the same spot, Michael wanted to find out one thing; Were the traces of the bloody battlefield just hidden, or had they been removed altogether?!
Extraction allowed him to extract everything in a targeted object. He targeted the trees, bushes, and soil with the intention of extracting every last trace of blood.
‘Either someone took the corpses and cleaned up the mess, the Will of the Origin Expanse removed the existence of the Gogi Lord’s subjects, or the Untamed Jungle devoured everything.’
Michael came up with three theories, and it was fairly easy to get closer to the truth using his Soultrait. The Will of the Origin Expanse had nothing to do with this phenomenon if he could extract the blood from the ground. If there was none, the Will of the Origin Expanse was the perpetrator.
However, what if blood was not the only remnant of the bloody battlefield?
The moment Michael used his Soultrait to extract the blood from the ground, a fountain of crimson liquid manifested in his golden glowing hands.
His eyes shot wide open, and he stopped utilizing Extraction for a moment.
‘….w-what was that?’
Michael gulped nervously and subconsciously took a step back. He stared at the crimson blood he had extracted and tilted his head. Goosebumps sprang up on his body, but Michael forced himself to stay calm.
Taking a breath to calm his jittery nerves, he manifested the golden streams of his Soultrait once again. However, this time, Michael focused on the vast variety of substances he could extract from the roots, soil, and bark around him.
“This…”
It was at this moment when Michael realized the truth behind Lalica’s words and the Forest Elves’ warning.
The Untamed Jungle was dangerous. Michael understood that now.
He understood that it was more than just a forest inhabiting ferocious monsters.
It was a living entity…a devourer…
However, the Gogi corpse had already been torn apart and digested by a great deal, and he wouldn’t receive the drops created by the Will of the Origin Expanse either.
‘This is insane…’
Michael had been a little bit confused why the Zentika Empire didn’t conquer the Untamed Jungle to acquire more resources. The Jungle’s trees were very resilient, and he had spent hours getting them extracted. Even a full blow of the Gogi Lord’s battle axe wouldn’t have been strong enough to cut deep into their trunks. That was also what made it so difficult for Michael’s Tierless subjects to cut down the trees.
But now that he found out that the Untamed Jungle was not just a home to many living beings but was also alive, and not just as an ordinary lifeform.
That made him feel oddly fascinated.
It also meant that the Untamed Jungle was sentient, with a certain degree of intelligence, and could devour its inhabitants, which made Michael understand their reasoning.
The Untamed Jungle was a habitat for very powerful existences, according to Lalica. If the Zentika Empire wanted to conquer the Untamed Jungle, they would have to kill, subdue, or drive away the mighty monsters.
However, if the sentient Untamed Jungle lashed out and devoured the armies of the Zentika Empire while they fought the mighty monsters, it would be near impossible to conquer the Untamed Jungle without destroying it.
Did that mean the Untamed Jungle was on the side of the monsters? But it didn’t attack the Gogi Lord’s subjects when they were alive!
Was the Untamed Jungle unwilling to devour living beings, or was it unable to do so? If either of them was the case, why would the Zentika Empire be afraid to conquer the Untamed Jungle?
‘Is it possible that the Untamed Jungle doesn’t consider Lords as its enemies?’ Michael wondered, but he quickly shook his head.
The Lords killed countless monsters and brutally cut down the trees and hampered the environment for their personal gains. It was hardly possible that the Untamed Jungle didn’t consider Lords its enemies – if it was truly sentient enough to sense the difference between Lords and monster habitats.
‘What if the entire ecosystem around the Untamed Jungle is just a symbiotic relationship between the inhabitants and the Untamed Jungle?
…
Michael felt that he was slowly getting nearer to the truth. However, he didn’t really like that feeling. His heart was beating wildly, his throat felt tight, and a thousand thoughts were wreaking havoc in his brain.
‘What would happen to the Lords, who dare meddle with the symbiotic relationship of the Untamed Jungle and its habitants?!’