The Protagonist Already Knows

Chapter 57: Gate Crash [2]

"..."

Looking at me, she waved her hands up and down and pointed at her motionless legs.

"L-look, I’m u-useless...I c-can’t even m-move."

Not entertaining her words, I simply looked up at the crimson sky, continuing my five-minute interval countdown.

"..."

After a few moments of silence, I finally looked down, my eyes immediately meeting Carissa’s as she gazed up at me.

"It hurts, doesn’t it?"

"..."

She just looked at me.

Avoiding her gaze, I looked away and continued.

"Just go back to sleep."

As the emotions stemming from my mark on Carissa grew weaker and weaker, I suddenly heard a faint, shaky voice below me.

"..I d-don’t want to d-die, yet."

Though her eyes were now closed, feeling a bit of anxiousness from the mark, I responded.

"Then, hold on."

Finishing the countdown, I transformed into a wraith, ignoring the pain surging through my blood vessels as a result of expelling too much mana, and flew upward.

Then...I saw it.

It was beautiful...amidst the sea of crimson-red dots and grey leaves, a cluster of ocean-blue mana particles gathered in one spot, chaotically attempting to escape from each other but pulled back by an unknown force.

Immediately flying downward and re-materializing on the ground, I gently lifted Carissa on my back and sprinted toward the mana particles.

However...22 hours?

It definitely hadn’t been over 7 hours since I had entered the forest, right?

So that means...I had rested by the wall and hacked at it for at least 15 hours.

"..."

Pushing aside my doubts, I began carefully approaching the chaotic mana particles I had seen.

As three minutes passed, I paused for a moment, placed Carissa on the ground, immediately activated Anubis’s Ferry, and surged up into the sky.

Flying toward the chaotic mana particles with my intangible body, I floated above the trees and glanced downward.

"..."

There were four Dreg Demons in the opening, all dumping potions full of a light-blue liquid into the ground.

The light-blue liquid dissolved, transforming into the very mana particles I had seen.

And there...below the mana particles was blood...so much blood that the dirt ground couldn’t even be seen below it.

The blood attracted the mana particles that tried to desperately flee, creating the phenomenon I had seen earlier.

"Ah..."

In the next second, as I began flying back to Carissa...the same thing occurred all over the massive jungle.

I spotted tens of different chaotic mana particle groups, each stemming from different spots all across the massive jungle.

"..."

I had no way to identify the real one...if there even was a real one, yet.

Upon re-materializing next to Carissa...all I could do was take us away from the countless red dots I had seen throughout the jungle.

Glancing at her worsening condition, the purple veins now covering her forehead, I understood that we had to escape...as soon as possible.

Waiting a day or two was not an option.

Unfortunately...the Dreg Demons seemed to know that too.

Then...what? What was I supposed to do?

Feeling myself return to that same pathetic and helpless state in the underground room, I smacked my forehead.

But, except for the pain distracting me for a moment...nothing changed.

Each time I transformed into a wraith, I could probably check one of the chaotic mana spots...but new ones would keep popping up, making it impossible for me to check all of them.

And if I missed the true Gate Crash spot...it would be over.

At that moment, the holographic screen of the Gate Crash schedule popped up in my head.

"..."

Serpents would be sent through the Gate Crash, right?

They were likely placed in a storage ring, for now, but the Dreg Demons would have to let the beasts out at some point to send them through the gate.

After all, Dreg Demons couldn’t pass through Gate Crashes themselves due to the mana composition of their bodies: they could only enter the human realm by creating small portal distortions like the one Carissa and I had entered this realm through.

...

...

...

Flying back up into the air, I was unsurprised to see a multitude of smaller red dots now surrounding each chaotic mana group.

If the Dreg Demons had gone through so much effort to create fake chaotic mana groups, they surely wouldn’t forget to bring decoy snakes to each one.

However...they didn’t know the extent of my ability.

I couldn’t just sense chaotic mana groups like everyone else; I could physically see them.

Seeing the chaotic mana particles in the group I was checking didn’t respond to the serpents, I moved on.

Gate Crashes were random events that connected dimensions as a result of shaky barriers; Dreg Demons could only find them ahead of time, not create them.

How did they find them?

Demonic Beasts.

Because their ancestors originally lived in the human realm, Demonic Beasts were naturally connected to Gate Crashes.

So by releasing the decoy serpents, the Dreg Demons...had helped me.

Over the next thirty minutes, I checked and checked various chaotic mana groups...until I found it.

A small line connecting the crimson-red mana particles of a serpent to the chaotic mana particles lying above a lake of blood.

They had covered it up well...it looked exactly like the decoy.

There were only four Dreg Demons around the Gate Crash, just like the decoys. The Dreg Demons even had the same B-rank orange horns as the ones guarding the other Gate Crashes.

Additionally, there were about 100 serpents obediently surrounding the puddle of blood.

Seeing as the gate had yet to appear, I flew back to Carissa and re-materalized before walking toward the real Gate Crash spot with her on my back.

Stopping only a couple of meters away from the spot while hiding behind a tree, I looked up at Carissa, feeling a bit of fear slip into my body.

But her eyelids were closed.

Ah...it was mine.