Wild Era 2, Ch 1: Rising Mist

Undead rushed toward Kelin from the forest.

He’d ticked the dungeon off, and now it was sending everything it had to kill him.

He was near the beginning, so the monsters hadn’t built up to massive numbers yet, but there were still about thirty of them.

All around, there was a green forest filled with a dark mist of necrotic energy that turned it ethereal and ghostly, providing a fitting background for what was charging toward him.

Some of the oversized wolves that were native to this dungeon were still alive and joined the rush, but most of them were undead now, casualties of the monster cores the Sarathians had tossed in here.

There were some skeletons mixed in with them, the things that had killed the original wolves, and he spared a moment to analyze them all.

Mistcoat Dire Wolf. Level 76.

Rotting Dire Wolf. Level 78.

Deathrot Skeleton. Level 80.

Deathrot Skeleton. Level 79.

The living dire wolves were about ten feet long from nose to tail and four feet high at the shoulder with silver and cloudy grey patterned coats. 

Their coloring matched the mists that should have filled this forest, but the silver mists were dark now, mixed with necrotic energy, and the living wolves stood out like silver beacons.

The rotting dire wolf looked like it had been torn apart and was missing chunks of its body, but its eyes blazed with dark blue light. Its body was covered in a dark miasma of necrotic energy that made it look like a moving cloud of poison. 

It was even more ferocious than its original form. Dying hadn’t slowed it down at all and it kept pace easily with the others.

It looked like it was still part way through its transformation. Once it was fully infused with necrotic energy, it would become even stronger.

The Deathrot Skeletons were humanoid, but they had dark bones that were covered in a haze of the same miasma as the rotting wolf. Corrosive smoke rose up from their fingers, which were sharpened like claws. 

That was the source of the poison that had killed the wolves.

Deathrot Skeletons were a difficult type to deal with. The smoke rising from them was a choking cloud that could kill most living things, while their touch was even worse, and it had a paralyzing effect to boot.

Some undead contained their miasma better, but these were designed to spread it as quickly as possible. As long as just one was in the area, everything around it would slowly die and then change into an undead.

By using undead cores to overseed a dungeon and encourage a dungeon break, the Sarathian Empire had broken one of the Edicts of the Path.

That was why Kelin was here now, as well as the rewards this dungeon promised.

A cloak of Wildfire’s rainbow flames surrounded him as he studied the approaching monsters, and two spheres of Soulfire Bolts were in his hands. 

His expression was calm, showing only a gleam of killing intent in his eyes.

The monsters needed to get a little closer for him to unleash the spells he’d prepared, so he glanced at the notification from the Path of Stars, reviewing the information about this dungeon.

You have entered the Rising Mist Chaos Remnant.

Average Level: 80 (76-85).

Elemental Affinities: Wood and Water.

Mana Density: Overflowing.

Relative Danger: High.

Rewards: High.

Notes: This is a natural Chaos Remnant formed from local mana flows and dense elemental essence. Due to the high monster density, a team is recommended.

Requirement: Kill 90% or more of the monsters inside.

Additional Bonus: 100% completion and kill the final boss.

Possible Rewards: Experience, Wealth, Common to Uncommon-grade Items, Alliance Credit.

First Clear Bonus Available: This remnant has just appeared and has not yet been cleared. The first clear will provide higher rewards than normal and more unique items.

Warning: A strong undead presence has been detected in this remnant. It does not belong to the original construction. Take care in exploring it. Additional rewards will be granted for eliminating the undead threat.

Experience was getting harder to come by as he went up in levels, so anything extra from those rewards would be welcome.

He glanced at his status sheet, briefly comparing himself to his enemies.

Kelin Wildfire

Level 85.

Class: Soulfire Warden (Legendary).

Subclass: Arcane Artisan (Rare).

Age: 20.

Title: Lord of Wildfire.

Former Title: Archmage of Souls. General rank in his past life, as well as the title of Archduke and Star Rank Guild Adventurer.

Stars Alliance Rank: Low Steel (Equivalent to Level 100-125). 

Current Army Rank (Reserve): Sergeant.

Attributes:

Strength: 125 

Constitution: 184 (285 with the +55% bonus from his Soulfire Physique)

Agility: 116 (126 with +10 Agility from Traveler’s Boots)

Wisdom: 197

Intelligence: 664

Aura: 276 

Charisma: 102 

It had only been a few weeks since his memories woke up and he’d started to rebuild his power, and there was still a long way to go.

This dungeon was a lucky find, even if the circumstances of getting here had been rocky, but it didn’t matter now.

He would take care of it while he was here.

There were six regular dire wolves, fourteen undead ones, and twelve skeletons in the horde. Normally, that would have been enough to kill any adventurer at his level unless they had powerful artifacts and a class to match.

He didn’t have the first, since his cloak and staff had broken in the fight that led him here, but he did have the second, as well as 5,000 years of experience in dealing with monsters much stronger than these.

His knowledge far surpassed his current level.

As the monsters closed in, he targeted a couple of skeletons and infused the Soulfire Bolts in his hands, tripling the mana cost. Blazing streaks of golden light seared across the distance and the heads of two of the skeletons exploded into fragments.

Then the cloak of rainbow flames around him surged higher, turning into a blaze of Wildfire, and he pointed at the leading wolves.

A sphere of rainbow energy that swirled with yellow and red sparks followed his gesture. It flew across the distance and exploded just ahead of the wolves’ advance.

An inferno exploded upward, washing over the leading wolves and then the second rank behind him. Waves of rainbow soul energy poured through their bodies, disappearing into their souls.

For a moment, nothing happened as the wolves continued to rush forward, but Kelin felt the moment the spell sank into their souls.

It was a searing flame that blazed wherever it touched.

Wisps of rainbow smoke began to rise from the wolves’ fur, even as their legs bunched and drove them forward, and then trails appeared from between their fangs.

Still, there wasn’t much distance left and the wolves were fast enough to close it.

Their lean forms slammed into the golden barrier around Kelin, outlining the ward he’d drawn on the ground. Their teeth flashed as they scored the surface, leaving burning lines in their wake that were tainted with necrotic energy.

The ward reacted to the attack, its energy soaring as it burned away the taint. Kelin’s mana dipped from the impacts as the wolves continued to slam into it, but they weren’t hitting it hard enough to break through. 

The wolves were faster than the skeletons behind them, and they climbed on top of one another, creating a writhing pyramid of fur and fangs as they tried to savage him.

His attention was on the spell more than them as he kept the connection to the Wildfire strong, supporting its burn, and the rainbow smoke grew stronger.

Flames began to flicker across the wolves’ bodies, especially the rotting ones where their insides were visible, and then rainbow light appeared in their eyes, covering the bright blue flames of the undead. 

The wall of wolves exploded into an inferno of Wildfire. 

It was a massive pillar of flame that soared upward a hundred feet, completely obscuring Kelin’s ward at the base. The flames rolled outward in a ring, powered by the energy of the wolves’ souls as they burned, until it stretched two hundred feet in every direction.

The flames washed over the wolves that were farther back, as well as the skeletons, and with so many of them fueling the initial blast, the intensity was high enough that there was no more delay.

The souls of the rest of the horde ignited as the Wildfire roared over them, and then their eyes turned rainbow as well.

More explosions rocked the forest, sending pillars of rainbow flame into the sky.

Kelin kept his focus on the spell, channeling it from monster to monster, and he felt the backlash of the soul energy as it surged back toward him, carrying the same flames.

The backlash struck the wards erected around his soul, which were a labyrinth of magical diagrams and condensing circles, and Wildfire blazed through his spirit.

The energy was pure soul and normally it would have burned through a soul, even his, but instead, it was swiftly drawn into the wards, compressed, and refined.

Wisps of pure golden light rose up from the wards and poured into his soul, healing the traces of damage that were there from earlier in the day and making it stronger.

A notification from the Path chimed in his mind, but he pushed it aside as he focused on the last few enemies.

Within moments, everything around him was still, even as wisps of rainbow smoke rose from the monsters’ corpses that were scattered everywhere.

The pressure on his ward had disappeared.

He was surrounded by a pile of dead wolves and undead, which would make it hard to move, but the earth at his feet trembled and then Gaius rose upward. Slabs of earth rose with him, shifting the piles of the dead to the side like a ship’s prow breaking through the waves.

Kelin gave the elemental a nod of thanks, and then he looked around, scanning for more enemies. Gaius joined him, his connection to the earth resonating through their soul bond.

These had been all of the closest monsters, but far from everything that was in the dungeon. More were still coming.

He could sense another dozen that would arrive within a couple of minutes, and there were probably more beyond that.

A thought to Gaius had the elemental shift all of the bodies farther away, leaving his ward clear, and then Kelin sat down inside the circle to meditate. 

He wouldn’t be able to recover too much mana before they got here, but something was better than nothing. 

The light of his Soulfire Sigil, the signature spell of his class, shone above him, reinforcing his defenses and bolstering his recovery.

A few minutes later, another wave of wolves and skeletons burst through the trees. The living wolves were similar, but the rest of the group was slightly different than the ones he’d just killed.

There were only three of the Mistcoat Dire Wolves. Each of them was injured, either by the skeletons or their undead relatives, of which there were a dozen this time. 

The necrotic energy of these rotting wolves was stronger, suggesting that it wouldn’t be long until they took on a new form.

There were a handful of Deathrot Skeletons too, but there was also another type of undead, one that had a stronger aura about it, so he analyzed it.

Deathwish Skeletal Mage. Level 82.

The skeleton had a thin bone staff in one hand that glowed with dark blue energy. A faint hue of the same light surrounded it, indicating the presence of a mana shield.

In total, this group had 22 monsters. 

He didn’t sense any more behind them, so it should be everything from the local area, but there would be more deeper inside.

His cloak of Wildfire had never died out, only settled down to a shimmer of rainbow light around his body. As he stood up, it flared up again, twisting until it formed a flowing cloak along his back and then a burning crown on his head.

It wasn’t something he asked it to do, just a side effect of his old Law and his authority as the Lord of Wildfire. Ever since he’d gotten his title back, Wildfire had been behaving like that. 

Laws weren’t exactly sentient things, but since he was the only one who’d ever used the Law of Wildfire in the galaxy, he’d left a strong impression on the energy.

Now that he was back, it was reacting to his soul with memories of what had come before and of who he had once been. 

In other words, it was happy to see him again.

He’d been the Archmage of Souls and the Lord of Wildfire, a Level 699 being who was almost eternal. He’d been just a touch from the Seventh Evolution, when he would have become a true Immortal, but it was a step that he’d never been able to take. 

This time around, he was set on making it.

It was the only way he’d be able to rebuild his old home world, the planet where he’d been born and that had been destroyed in the Chaos War.

Irian.

Thoughts of old magic and endless golden forests filled his mind, as they often did, but right now he had work to do, so he set them aside as he focused on the wolves and skeletons.

The mage was interesting, since it was a variant of the Deathrot type.

It suggested that whatever cores the Sarathians had used, they weren’t just one type. Perhaps they were trying to create a more realistic undead environment and they’d tossed multiple cores from a dungeon in here.

If that was the case, the boss might be something different, not just a stronger version of the skeletons or an undead version of what had been here before.

This mage wasn’t anything special, but it did remind him that both of his enchanted bracers were broken, just like his cloak and staff. Otherwise, they would have deflected any basic projectile spells and missiles that came his way.

He’d work on the repairs later.

The mage was the first to attack, sending a black bolt of necrotic energy across the distance, but Kelin brushed it aside with a small mana shield that intercepted it, one infused with just enough mana to deflect it and shatter.

It was slightly more efficient than letting the spell hit his ward.

A Wildfire sphere appeared in his hand and he hurled it at the advancing force. It landed just in front of their advance, covering half of the running wolves and some of the skeletons in an explosion of rainbow flames.

The energy of the last Wildfire was still cycling through the area as they ran forward, and its presence accelerated the flames. This time, the monsters didn’t even make it to his ward before they began to burn.

Explosions of Wildfire erupted into the sky as one after another combusted. The energy in their souls fueled the spell, driving the flames higher and farther as they washed over the other monsters behind them.

More explosions followed as everything burned, but in this inferno, nothing physical was touched. The monsters’ bodies were unmarked as they collapsed to the ground, trailing rainbow smoke.

The backlash of the soul flames struck his wards and was condensed into pure soul energy. 

As everything fell, a notification rang in his mind. This time, he looked at it.

Congratulations, Lord of Wildfire.

You have gained a Level.

You are now Level 86.

Your Soul-Bonded Elemental has also gained a Level.

You gain 1 Wisdom, 3 Intelligence, and have five free attribute points to assign.

He glanced at his attributes and then he tossed the free points into Constitution, taking it to 189. He wanted it to be at 200 before he hit the First Evolution, since that was a standard goal for a mage at that level, and his physique would boost it higher.

Another notification followed, one that combined the gains from both groups of monsters.

You have refined soul energy from the battlefield and gained 4 Aura. 

That was the result of the pure soul energy Wildfire had refined. It was about 0.1 point per like-level enemy, but these had been a bit under his level.

It took his Aura up to 280.

He spent a few minutes cleaning up the battlefield, extracting monster cores, necrotic gems, and a few other bits of loot that he found, including some silver-tinted fangs and the hides from the wolves. 

He analyzed them as he stored them away.

Mistcoat Wolf Fang (Uncommon).

Mistcoat Wolf Hide (Uncommon).

The materials had a Mist Affinity that was fairly rare. 

The hides could be turned into durable and waterproof cloaks or other clothing that took enchantments well, and the fangs could be used for various alchemical or enchanting purposes.

They weren’t suitable as a base for his own talismans, since he preferred Fire or Earth materials that matched his affinity, but they could be sold at the guild.

In a normal dungeon run, these would have been a large part of the rewards, but since the undead were added in, things had changed.

All of the monsters had cores that matched their level, while the rotting dire wolves had small necrotic gems, which were a condensed form of their necrotic energy. 

The skeletons and the mage had larger ones.

He stored them away, meditated for a half hour to restore his mana, and then he set off deeper into the forest. 

This dungeon didn’t seem to be too large, perhaps twenty miles across, which made it just a sliver of a real forest that was imbued with Water and Wood essence, but he could sense distant concentrations of mana and elemental essence scattered throughout it that were much more intense than the ambient energy.

At his current level, they were only faint impressions, but they still stood out.

They were what were commonly called dungeon nodes. 

They were points of interest that could be sensed at a distance, and one of the most convenient ways of exploring a dungeon.

Assuming you could sense them.

To most people, they would have simply blended into the background.

He hadn’t been strong enough until now, but with the improvement to his Analyze ability when it reached Elite and his advancing magical attributes that improved his perception, he was just barely able to.

It was one of the reasons it was important to have a skilled mage or other sensitive class along in a dungeon. Knowing where nodes were could save a lot of time. 

He was currently heading west, and there was one off to the southwest, one to the northeast, and one almost directly ahead.

Sometimes they were essential parts of a dungeon’s defenses, but other times they were rare opportunities. They could be an Elite monster that was stronger than normal, a dungeon challenge, a magical artifact, an elemental locus, or something else.

He would need to deal with all of them to fully clear the dungeon. At the current mana density, they would be harder than usual for the dungeon’s level, but the rewards would also be better. 

Perhaps they would give him something to replace or upgrade his broken gear.

He decided to go in order, so he picked the one to the southwest, which felt like the weakest of the three, and altered his path to head for it.

Regardless of what he found, he wanted to see what the Sarathians had done to this dungeon and how far the undead rot went.

He would also get rid of it if he could.

If he was lucky, he would be able to burn them away before they completely altered things here. That would be the best for the surrounding countryside.

If he wasn’t, then there would be a new and dangerous dungeon on the guild’s books, one that was likely to claim many lives in the future.

The undead were a plague, driven by the laws of necrotic energy that gave them their strange unlife. If their miasma and necrotic energy built up enough, they were fully capable of permanently altering a dungeon’s nature and turning it into a stronghold.

It was the same way they altered the world around them, and one reason they were so feared.

By putting undead cores here, the Sarathians must have been hoping for something like that to weaken Celadon.

Either way, the Sarathian Empire had a debt to pay, just like the man whose efforts had led Kelin here.

Silas Crest, known as Baron Verasun.

He’d sent an assassin to kill Kelin, he’d almost killed three of his friends, and one of his mercenary groups had tried to kill Kelin’s two apprentices, Yao and Naomi.

That wasn’t something Kelin could forgive.

He hadn’t been planning on finding a Level 250 or higher enemy so early in this life. He’d rather have simply run dungeons and slowly rebuilt his power, but sometimes fate plays its hand.

Now he needed to figure out how to deal with him.

Ideally, how to tear his empire down around him while he desperately sought to put out the flames.

Fortunately, he already had some ideas.

At the core of things, it boiled down to dungeons.

Verasun was a merchant baron, like most in the Celadon States, and his wealth came from the dungeons that his men ran on his behalf.

It wasn’t possible to own a dungeon, but running them endlessly as they regenerated the monsters and materials inside was close enough.

Verasun hadn’t known about the undead, but even if he had, it might not have mattered to him. His men had been about to claim this dungeon when Kelin arrived.

Taking it away from him was a good first step.

The rest would come in time.

Kelin whistled a haunting tune as he continued deeper into the forest, one from an age and a world long past that perhaps only he remembered.