According to the history of the region, this was once a site of an ancient battle. A grand war happened here, but there was no single record about it except for these rumours and mythic tales.
William didn't know if these stories were true or not, but he knew the main problem still was the inner zone. Not a single master who went there ever managed to come back, not even those at the pinnacle of power.
There wasn't a single useful intel about this zone except the description of it. The inner zone was marked by a gigantic toxic green cloud that covered a grand area of almost a hundred kilometres in radius, with thick tongues of thunder hammering through the green fog all the time.
William knew such a scene would be a marvel to behold and witness. As for what was inside this cloud, he knew it would be a very toxic and eroding atmosphere, one that wasn't any different than the one he came through towards this world in the first place.
One reason for his selection of starting with this dangerous zone was because it wasn't under the control of the dark forces. Another reason was for this deadly fog in the inner zone. He felt its resemblance with the toxic fog that appeared before at the Novistic kingdom's capital.
andasnovel.com Back then, touching this toxic fog stirred up his dormant snake spirit, instigating a merge between his two spirits back then. He wanted to see if by going there, his sealed spirits would go berserk and break the seal or not.
His chances were even as he lacked lots of intel about that place. And yet he was willing to take the risk. Just walking around with one tail and one element at a time was really quite dangerous for him.
William wasn't concerned just about this world, but when he'd return back to his tiny world. The Nightmare monster was already strong, and he had to struggle using all his might before to take his clone down.
If he went back with such power, he'd be screwed. So, William moved towards his destination with a single idea in his mind, to solve the problem of this annoying seal once and for all.
*Roar!*
"Get away from my sight, damn monsters!"
But the journey he thought of as a walk in the park before started to take a rough turn. His fighting ability and pattern changed drastically, and he had to struggle to take monsters down.
He kept using his dash technique all the time, but without the support of his spirit, he was like a turtle compared to before.
Not to mention his fighting strength shrank by a great margin. The main element he used in fighting was fire, letting monsters burn from inside out, die with a single hit. Yet he had first to break their defences before doing that.
He kept alternating between his elements, using different techniques, to wear monsters' thick defences down. The moment an opening showed up, a deep wound or something, he'd not hesitate and unleash all his might through it, melting the inner organs down and killing the monster.
If he tried to use his fire element attack on the full and intact monster, the might of the attack would go weak. Not to mention many monsters he faced were quite intelligent, using techniques instead of coming straight at him using brute force and their giant bodies.
He had to suffer under their claws, suffering lots of wounds while steadily walking forward. He crossed lots of distance towards his destination, leaving behind a long trail of dead bodies and scars of fierce battles.
"At least I'm gaining progress at my spirit power," this was the only good piece of news he got since starting his adventure. The cores he got didn't wait for a day or two before he absorbed them. And made him gain lots of spirit points, not like how he got before after waiting for weeks.
He spent two weeks just to cross half of the distance he was supposed to cross. Monsters didn't appear for the first couple tens of kilometres, but after that it was like fighting bees and not monsters.
William had at many occasions to ditch lots of cores away, not collect them, or else he'd lose his life.
Being weak wasn't the only problem he faced, but the large number of monsters that flooded his path every single time he started fighting a group of them. He didn't know why, but monsters in this area seemed to have strong senses, detecting his presence so damn fast, and gathered up to attack him.
So, he had to run away with his life, running from lots of monsters whenever he found the situation grew intense for him. In the end, and after fighting for two weeks, he gained just a couple of hundred cores, adding three more thousand points to his spirit power.
"I only lack two thousand and then I'll enter the dark gold realm," William knew the task that he thought to take longer time didn't take that long actually. And that was all thanks to this world's monsters.
Yet in the last few days, he noticed that the amount of spirit power points gained by devouring each core decreased greatly. He didn't find it surprising. After all, the higher his power rose, the less his Devour ability's effect became.
He was resting inside a cave in a big mountain. The last battle and run lasted for three days straight, and he just ended up devouring the rest of his cores by now.
He ate his dried-up meals, drank water, and looked outside to check if monsters followed him here or not.
Thinking about sleeping or getting a few hours of rest was something dangerous for him. He had to keep travelling all the time, even at night.
When he first left the city, he thought that the journey towards the Swamp zone would be quite smooth.
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