Rex and Liliya arrives at the Lightless Marsh,
The place is a swamp and just as the name sad, it is devoid of light with ink-black trees that have no leaves can be seen filled the place.
With just a glance, one can tell that this place is not habitable.
Although the Lightless Marsh is moist, dark with shallow water wherever Rex’s feet land, the place is full of mutated animals.
Rex can sense many mutated animals around him, and staying here is a task of its own.
“Will you be okay going back alone?”, Rex said to the military man.
He then continues, “The death of the driver will make you go back alone, are you up for it?”
Hearing this, the military man smiles assuringly and said, “His name is Gustavo, and yes I will be okay going back alone you don’t have to worry”
“Gustavo huh…”, Rex mumbles before he bid the military man goodbye.
The dead driver’s name is Gustavo, and Rex will remember him as a true fighter of humanity.
After the military man leaves silently, Rex and Liliya walk into the Lightless Mash with a map in Liliya’s hand.
“You don’t look surprised”, Rex said.
Liliya look at Rex with a questioning look before Rex continues, “Seeing that I’m an Awakened”
This is the first time Liliya saw him using his Black Lightning element, and he didn’t even try to hide it anymore because the SCO definitely knows about this.
And knowing her, she certainly didn’t watch Rex’s tournament before.
“The Green Messenger told me”, Liliya said nonchalantly.
Hearing this, Rex slightly widened his eyes in worry.
He wanted to ask for more but then, Liliya added, “He said that you’re an Awakened, but you will still be a member of the SCO organization”
Rex nodded his head,
Liliya seem to also doesn’t like Awakened, but thankfully she doesn’t act weird around him.
It will break the team more if Liliya becomes weird to Rex, especially after Devan got kicked out of their team after the SCO realizes that he’s not a human.
Although Rex looks calm, his head is filled with thoughts, ‘Will I be put in a different team? Why did they let me off so easily?’
But soon, Rex shakes his head and focuses back on the mission.
He’s currently not in the human territory, so anything could happen and he will not be rescued by anyone if he’s in danger here.
“Do you know of these Northern Black Head?”, Rex asks changing the topic.
Back when he’s in the university,
He didn’t have the time to check on this creature on the internet because of the canyon, and he has never heard of these Northern Black Heads in the university.
It should be a low-ranking one, because Rex has never heard of it.
Liliya look at the map and said, “All the Green Messenger told me is that, their body is covered with a black hood and their legs are white tentacles”
“Black hood? Is that somekind of clothes for them?”, Rex asks.
Liliya shakes her head, “It’s their skin, their skin somehow mutated and creates a black hood that covers their face”
Hearing this, Rex frowns.
“And we have to get their tears? Without even knowing how their face looks like?”, Rex said with a troubled look.
Rex then continues, “And what is this creature capable of? Did the Green Messenger told you about it?”
Liliya pause as she’s reading the map before she answered, “The tear is said to have some kind of hallucination properties, but I don’t know the details”
Rex then put into thoughts, ‘What are they trying to achieve here?’
He also thinks about how to extract their tear,
If these Northern Black Heads have eyes, then it will be easy for them to extract their tears.
Such a way is to rip their tear socket from their eyes or poke their eyes to force the tear out, but that only applies if they have eyes.
So they need to see the creature first before finding a way to extract their tears.
‘I’ll just ask the system later, the system will probably know’, Rex thought.
In these kinds of times, it’s okay for him to rely on the system.
So far, the system has never been wrong when it is assessing Supernaturals or even humans so he believes that the system knows of this as well.
Liliya points to the left before she said, “We’ll just have to take a look first, it shouldn’t be that hard because they’re only a low-ranking Supernatural”
After saying that, both of them walk carefully inside the Lightless Marsh.
Their shoes are already wet and muddy because of the terrain, and it becomes even more slippery the more they go deeper.
Mutated birds with gruesome eyes are hawking at them from the trees,
But Rex and Liliya ignore them because they are unlikely to attack, they’re not that dumb enough to attack something stronger than them.
PLOP!
“Hmm?”, Liliya frowns before she looks to her feet.
Her feet felt something under the shallow water, she wanted to take a closer look before suddenly,
SPLASH!
Rex looks in Liliya’s direction and finds that she suddenly disappears from his sight, something pull her inside the water.
It caught Rex off guard because he thought that the water is shallow,
So there is no way they got pulled inside the water, the water only covers their feet so this situation shouldn’t happen.
“LILIYA?!”, Rex shouted.
He tries to jump into the water but before he has the time to,
SPLASH!
Liliya came out of the water with heavy breaths, she looks around trying to find Rex before she said, “I’m okay, the water is deep here and for some reason, it is heavier to swim up”
Hearing this, Rex tries to step closer to Liliya and find out that it’s true.
He can feel his feet clinging by the end of a cliff or some sort which mark the water becomes deep, ‘No wonder, she must’ve slipped’
They then try to circle around the place and manage to find another shallow water.
Because of the incident before, they proceed their journey with extreme caution knowing that there is deep water here and there must be something down there.
It doesn’t make sense if nothing lives in these waters.
After walking for a couple of hours, “We need to find a shelter, it will be bad if we have to rest in this kind of terrain”, Rex said.
Hearing this, Liliya nodded her head in agreement.
The place is filled with mutated beasts, but many of them for some reason only look at them from the side without attacking them.
It’s like they’re afraid of the murky water, and they prefer jumping from tree to tree.
Rex and Liliya are thankful because of this, they don’t need to fight mutated beasts that will attract stronger ones.
It will be bad if they attract other stronger ones, and it will be worst if they meet Supernatural here.
Finding a shelter here proves to be difficult,
Nothing like some land or even a rock that they can sit on came to their vision, only endless swamps with dead black trees filled this place.
“There! We probably can rest there”, Liliya said while pointing at a tree.
The tree is thicker and bigger than the others, and it will certainly be able to sustain both of them.
They then climb up the tree after Rex clears the big three,
As they observe before, the mutated animals here like to jump from tree to tree so for this big tree they’re currently on there are many mutated bugs, lizards, and other animals that need to be cleared before they rest.
“I’ll keep a watch for the night, you go on ahead”, Rex said.
He doesn’t need sleep as normal humans do, so keeping a watch for him will be easy.
Liliya didn’t argue as she touch her arm before a red mark appeared, she then also put another red mark on Rex’s arm before a notification appeared.
<Stats has been increased by 20%>
After doing that, Liliya lie down on one of the branches and closed her eyes.
The journey here is tiring, and she even waits for Rex for days in the Great Barricade so that must’ve made her tired.
‘Let’s just meditate then’, Rex thought before he closes his eyes.
~
Meanwhile, Faraday University.
Kyran is currently meditating using the breathing technique given by Rex, he’s intoxicated by the feeling of getting more powerful.
He’s sitting on the bed while closing his eyes while Ryze is lying on the corner.
Ryze already came back from the infirmary and he already recovered from the incident before, but he still feel afraid of being close to Kyran.
That is why he’s on the corner of the room with a pillow.
He doesn’t want to sleep in the same bed as Kyran fearing that Kyran will hit him again,
There is another bedroom inside Rex’s spacious top-ranker room, but Ryze still hasn’t asked permission from Rex yet so he can’t sleep there.
Ryze can only sleep in the corner of the room with a meek look,
If someone was to see this, they will be pity Ryze to live with a group of Werewolf that he doesn’t even realize yet.
On the other room,
Adhara is sitting on her bed meditating,
She looks graceful sitting on her bed while the moonlight illuminating her, but then her eyes tremble as she opened them.
After opening her eyes, she slam her body on the bed feeling tired.
She touches the bedsheet on her side feeling weird that Rex is not here, and she is all alone in this huge bedroom.
Adhara then started to play with her fire elements to improve her control.
The purple fire blaze on her hand beautifully like a dancing beauty, she tries to condense the purple fire into a ball shape but she suddenly frowns.
She tries to condense it more but it is so hard, she can only condense it to as big as a volleyball that is still not enough.
Feeling that this is a challenge, she sits up and tries to condense it.
The frown on her forehead becomes even evident as she tries to condense it, but the purple fire refuses to as if they didn’t want to be condensed.
Adhara tries for almost half an hour before she finally gets the hang of it.
‘This time, I think I can do it’, she thought before she summon her purple fire again.
The purple fire dances on her hand before it turns ball-shaped, then Adhara grit her teeth and tries to condense the purple fireball smaller.
Her hand started to tremble as she desperately tries to reduce its size.
The purple fire resisted heavily unwanting to get anymore condense than it already is, but Adhara forced it even more.
When suddenly,
SWISH!!
The purple fireball is condensed as small as a tennis ball, and it started to glow brightly.
Adhara’s interest was piqued as she look at the glowing purple fireball, she never saw this happening to her element before.
She tries touching it when suddenly,
BOOM!!
The purple fireball exploded burning Adhara and the bedsheet, it shocked Adhara for a second because of how sudden it is.
CLANK!
Adhara recovers from the explosion as she kills the burning purple flame.
She fans the smoke from the burn bedsheet away before suddenly she saw something, there is a purple stone that appeared on the bed suddenly.
From the energy it emitted, the stone is definitely created by Adhara’s element.
Adhara takes the stone and brought it closer to her face, she studied it for a minute before she widened her eyes in shock, ‘This is…’