Last Life

THANKS TO THE ACID SMELL, nothing bothered me all night. Still though, I sometimes spotted movement among the leaves, and felt like a lot of things were watching me. Most of them were clearly carnivores.

I spent the night awake, sitting cross legged in the middle of the cage and squeezing the short steel bar in my hand. At points, the broken ends were very sharp, so in the next battle against these creatures, I would be even deadlier.

I took some time to consider the situation I found myself in.

To be perfectly frank, it was not how I pictured my first journey to the Shadow. But now I knew for certain that even those who prepared and got good equipment often ended up naked and unarmed.

I figured the problem was wrapped up in the dark storm cloud covering the untainted land with a flow. It was a kind of barrier that destroyed everything in its path or triggered the transformation processes everyone kept talking about. Honestly though, for some reason the wave of darkness did not affect me. But I could not say the same for my items. And as for the cage, I had just one explanation — the metal it was made from had been mined here in the Shadow.

But alas, my nighttime brainstorming session just generated more questions than I had before coming to the frontier.

For example, I was curious why strykers were the only gifted people who could cross this barrier. Was it all down to the purple energy and special armor or was there something else. Or for another example... What would happen to a stryker if their armor got damaged while beneath the Wing of Strix?

Basically, so far, I had only questions and no answers.

While observing the healing crimson mana circulating through my energy channels, I decided to experiment. I wanted to see if my reservoir would accept amber bruts.

Picking up the tiniest grain of amber, I drew the mana from it very carefully. As I did, I tasted something slightly sour with bitter notes on the tip of my tongue.

Silvery growths sprouted from my channels to cautiously accept the amber mana but slowly, with every little mass, the particles of the foreign energy began to glow and spread through my body.

Beyond slight dizziness and dryness in my mouth, I experienced no discomfort. But a few minutes later, those side effects also went away.

When the little amber crystal had transformed into gray dust, I looked closely at my energy system. I didn’t see any dramatic changes. I really hoped I hadn’t wasted the valuable brut for nothing...

“Was one ‘grain’ maybe not enough?” I whispered to myself.

It was no problem to check. In the light of the shadow moon, another two small amber crystals glimmered on my hand.

This time, the silvery shoots swallowed up the yellow mana without trepidation. I didn’t feel dizzy or get any dryness in my mouth, either. There was just a sour flavor on my tongue, but no bitterness. And that was all... I didn’t feel or see anything else.

Shrugging in disappointment, I breathed a faint sigh. Was I perhaps missing something?

Emerging from the meditative state, I decided to stretch out a bit. Not dropping the metal bar, I lowered my left hand to the cage floor and immediately pulled back with a hiss. The pads of my fingers felt like they’d just touched fire.

“Damnation...” I gave a muffled curse through my teeth, watching as my skin covered with red welts.

Due to the slight inclination of the puddle of ant acid, it started running in thin rivulets down the floor of the cage. And I accidentally touched one of those rivulets with a finger.

The acid and poison took effect instantly. My hand, burning in pain, slowly started to go numb. I had already reached for the red brut but stopped myself to observe the curious process.

My energy started to react aggressively to the “invasion” all on its own. The toxic yellow spot eating through my skin and seeping into my blood was held back by an onslaught of silver energy.

Before that day, if a toxic substance made contact with my body, even a small amount, I needed to give the problem maximum concentration. Then came a rough period of aftereffects and rest that lasted several days.

But this was different... My energy system was functioning autonomously. As if it came preprogrammed with this set of actions. And the amber bruts were like an activation key.

Beyond that, I was pleasantly surprised by how fast the toxin was neutralized. And that was despite it being clearly very concentrated ant poison.

While observing, I distantly thought that I would be curious to see how my body would react to Swamp Queen’s Kiss now after my experience being poisoned with it in the Pit on Lord Darem’s orders.

Within one hour, the toxic spot ceased to exist, leaving behind red welts on my palms and the same acrid stench. That and pain from the burn, but I was willing to accept that.

I again scanned my hand and smiled with satisfaction. The secret of the amber energy had been revealed.

What if...

Over the next few hours, I fed all the little amber crystals to my reservoir one after the next until finally, the shadow sun began to rise. After each absorption, I dipped my fingertips into the puddle of acid to see how my body would react.

After grains four and five, a burn appeared on the pad of my thumb similar to what I would have gotten from touching a hot metal teapot. Then it faded.

After crystal seven, my ring finger just went red and stung. After ten, the buzzing and stinging went away, but the numbing sensation remained. After the twentieth amber brut I absorbed, my skin reacted to the acid with just a slight reddening, fully retaining its sensitivity.

Overall, the one bothersome factor, not counting the slight reddening of my skin, was the acrid stench that clung tenaciously to the area.

To keep the experiment scientific, I touched the tip of my steel bar to the middle of the largest poison puddle. The steel hissed loudly and gave off smoke.

“Very nice,” I whispered with a smile.

* * *

When the first rays of the shadow sun came peeking through the dense leaf cover above, I decided it was time to move out. It was a pity, but my clothing and boots had practically disintegrated. Over the night, the fabric and leather of the boots turned to scraps. And so, I started down the tree barefoot and practically in my birthday suit.

Also... After my experiments the night before, I got an idea. Now that the red ant poison could no longer harm me, why not use that?

Before leaving, I spent another few minutes smearing my body with the yellow liquid. I stank so bad my eyes teared up. And that was a good thing... Last night, that smell did a great job scaring predators away from my cage. Hopefully, it would last a little while. And then, maybe I’d get lucky and find some more ants. My sixth sense was telling me that I was going to come across a lot more nasty stuff.

Before heading out, I climbed to the top of the tree that had served as my shelter for the night and looked around. As far as the eye could see, there stretched an endless dense forest. But alas, the tree I was on was not the tallest, so I couldn’t tell what was happening out on the horizon. But that didn’t matter. I would make it to the next green giant and again look around.

I decided to go back. Or rather, to stick to a westerly course. Walking on the ground was worlds apart from flying through the air.

I wondered how long I was passed out, and how far the flying stingray was able to carry my cage from the border. And most importantly, how many days would I need to travel back? I really wanted to believe that it was a matter of days and not, for example, weeks or, worse, months.

In one way or another, I needed to secure a supply of food and water quickly. At night, I tried chewing on leaves and bark from the tree I was sleeping on. They tasted extremely bitter but, crucially, were not poisonous.

And for the record, I ran a detailed scan on all the plants around me and concluded that most of them had two-color energy structures — emerald and amber. Their intertwined energy channels grew thicker toward the root end and led somewhere deep beneath the earth. I was afraid to even imagine the size of their reservoirs. Considering that every species of plant and tree had a shared energy system, the bruts powering them were most likely enormous. I made a note for the future to think that over thoroughly.

But other than the two-color ones, there were also one-color plants with pure emerald energy systems. For example, like the tree my cage fell on. And that gave me hope. Most likely, I would manage to harvest something edible and less disgusting to eat from those.

Slowly, in a series of calculated moves, I came down to the ground. While I climbed, I watched with satisfaction as small insects and somewhat larger creatures scrambled to get away from me. Even the colony of acid slimes occupying one of the thicker branches started unhurriedly dislocating when it saw me coming.

When my bare feet made contact with the soft decaying leaf litter carpeting the ground below, I stopped for a few seconds straining all my sense organs. The forest had no reaction.

The air below was more humid and heavier, but that was the least of my worries. In my past life, I had spent a lot of time in jungles. The air there was almost identical to here.

With a light pat goodbye, I left the tree that had sheltered me and set off on my journey. My human nature stepped aside to make room for the vulpine. That aspect had never let me down in situations like this before.

Slowly but surely, I made for the west. Actually, if I wanted to go straight to where the Duke left me, I should have been going more south, but I had a different plan. Because while I was flying, I caught a glimpse of a small river below which stretched like a giant snake toward the northwest. I didn’t care exactly where I left the Shadow. All that mattered was getting out. Following a riverbank would facilitate that.

* * *

It had been approximately three hours since I came down from the tree. All that time, I was being very cautious. For the first few minutes, I tried to work out the optimal speed but concluded that there was no such thing in this forest. I had to stop a lot to listen and keep a constant eye out. On top of that, I always had to watch where I placed my feet. Because I just had to let my guard down a tiny bit and the forest would punish me with a protruding root, a pit covered with dead leaves, or a poisonous creature slithering around. Thanks to the ant acid, I didn’t have any problems with animals. But there were times I got ready for a fight.

The first time, ten steps away from me, a huge black snake slithered out from behind a tree. The second, I nearly got myself caught in the web of a large brown spider. But both times, I managed to avoid a fight. The acid smell was still too strong. Though I could already tell it was starting to wear off.

Three hours later, the forest shifted. It was like I’d walked into a new location. I must have reached the giant trees that were blocking my view before with their sky-scraping crowns. Long vines hung down like thick ropes from a hundred feet up. Wisps of gray sky peeked down in places through the black tree cover.

It was very humid and smelled of decay. There were lots of old tree trunks lying on the ground and others hanging from tenacious vines, pocked with whitish mushrooms. I saw a few rotten moldering tree trunks suddenly slam loudly into the ground.

I did not like that section of forest. At first, I wanted to climb up one of the trees to take a look around, but then I decided against it. I might pass out and break something. And that would spell my death.

An hour later, I left the dirty forest behind and found myself in a large relatively bright glade with trees that were strikingly different from those I had seen before. They were clearly younger and, most importantly, nearly all of their energy systems were the same emerald color.

I decided to stop there and take a closer look. My detailed scan a few minutes later revealed small meaty growths with their own energy systems on the trunks of the young trees, while the largest of them even had their very own reservoirs. The reservoirs were approximately the size of small peas. Based on how the growths were drawing energy from the trees, I concluded that they were parasitic. Most likely fungi.

“Lucky me,” I whispered to myself with a happy smile and made for the nearest tree.

An hour later, I was sitting on a wide branch of the tallest tree, savoring the porous flesh of a mushroom.

In total, I managed to gather eighteen dark emerald bruts, which were packed full of mana. Beyond that, the mushrooms were edible, juicy, and filling though they had no flavor whatsoever. Essentially, I had just killed two birds with one stone, slaking my thirst and sating my hunger. A great way to end a day.

I decided to stop for the night in the bright glade and got set up in the leafy canopy of the very tallest tree. It was early enough to keep going, but I was not sure I would find such a good place to spend the night again. Here it was less stuffy than in the old forest. Beyond that, tomorrow I could eat a big meal of mushrooms for breakfast.

That night, I slept with one eye open like an animal. The emerald mana really helped to keep my energy system in shape. Honestly though, I ended up drifting off just before morning. So I didn’t understand right away that the voices coming from below were not in my dreams.

With a sudden shudder, I shot to my feet like a monkey and, carefully pushing a wide branch aside, peeked down out of my shelter. What I saw made my heart pound.

Between the trees, happily laughing and chatting placidly, were a group of... People?!

I shook my head. No, not people. But they looked a lot like them. Lithe sinewy bodies, long black braided hair, ears with slightly pointy long tips, and pale green skin — most likely I was now seeing the descendants of the people who once lived here, altered by the Shadow over many centuries.

I counted up a dozen of the natives. Four men and eight women. The men wore only loincloths, while the women had on leather tunics. Beyond that, I got a good look at their shell, and fang jewelry. All the men were armed with short spears, while three women held longbows. The others, not counting the short knives on their belts, were unarmed. The women also held small baskets in their arms.

Based on how the natives looked at the tree trunks, they had come here for the parasitic mushrooms, which I had harvested a good number of the night before.

When I saw one of the women’s faces stretching out in disappointment when she sighted the fresh bar marks I’d left on the trunk, I winced. What the natives did after that was not hard to predict.

The woman shouted out loud and they all whipped into a frenzy, running to and fro.