The sealed letter from Lord Valerius felt like a brand in his pocket, a tangible reminder that his every move was now being monitored by the city's highest authority. The 15 gold coins from the quarry quest were a heavy, metallic counterweight. He was accumulating wealth and influence at a dizzying rate, yet he felt more constrained than ever.
He spent the remainder of the day in methodical preparation. He purchased a rugged travel pack to replace his bedroll, stocked up on high-quality rations, and acquired a hooded oilskin cloak for the damp Murkwood. Each purchase was a deliberate act of committing to this new, double life. He was no longer just passing through; he was building the kit of a professional adventurer, a disguise he intended to wear for the foreseeable future.
At dawn, he shouldered his pack and left Whitepeak by the western gate. The road to the Murkwood was less traveled, the air growing heavy with moisture and the scent of decay. The cheerful, open plains gave way to a landscape of gnarled, moss-covered trees and ground that squelched underfoot. The very light seemed to struggle through the thick canopy, casting the world in a perpetual, gloomy twilight.
The caravan master's report had been vague: "aggressive, twisted wildlife." It was a description that could fit a dozen natural horrors, but Kaito knew better. He could feel it the moment he crossed into the wood's influence-the same ragged, chaotic mana signature he'd encountered in the wolves and the quarry elemental, but here it was thicker, a cloying miasma that clung to the bark and pooled in the stagnant water.
He didn't have to search for long. A guttural hiss echoed from the shadows between the trees. A creature emerged, something that might have once been a large wildcat. Now, its fur was patchy and slick with a foul-looking sap, its eyes glowed with the same sickly yellow as the wolves, and thorny, bark-like growths erupted from its spine and shoulders. It moved with a pained, jerky gait, driven by a feral hunger that was more than natural.
This was not a simple mutation; this was a corruption. The wood itself was sick, and it was making its inhabitants sick.
The creature lunged. Kaito didn't raise his staff. He simply looked at it, and with a thought, he pulled. He didn't drain its life force, he targeted only the invasive, chaotic energy-the "poison." A wisp of violet light streamed from the cat-thing into his outstretched hand. The creature stumbled mid-leap, its aggressive snarl turning into a confused mewl. The yellow light in its eyes dimmed, and the thorny growths on its back seemed to loosen, becoming mere brambles caught in its fur rather than part of its body. It shook its head, looked at him with ordinary, fearful animal eyes, and then scrambled back into the undergrowth.
He stood for a moment in the silent, dripping wood, the faint residue of the feral mana dissipating from his fingertips. This was his purpose now. Not to kill, but to heal. To silently, secretly, administer the cure for a plague he had released. He looked deeper into the Murkwood, where the oppressive feeling was strongest. The epicenter of this infection was there, waiting. He adjusted his pack and moved forward, a lone warden stepping into the heart of the blight.
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The Heart of the Blight
The deeper Kaito ventured into the Murkwood, the more the world twisted. The air grew thick and hard to breathe, not from humidity alone, but from the sheer density of corrupted mana. The trees were no longer simply moss-covered; their bark was split and weeping a dark, viscous sap that pulsed with a faint, violet light. Strange, phosphorescent fungi clustered at their bases, their glow a sickly counterpart to the natural gloom. The very silence was unnatural-no birdsong, no scuttling of insects, only the occasional, pained rustle from something hiding in the shadows.
He continued his work, a silent physician in a forest of patients. He found a family of boars, their tusks overgrown into grotesque, crystalline structures that forced their jaws agape in a perpetual scream of hunger. A gentle siphon of the corrupting energy and they fled, the crystals crumbling to dust. He encountered snakes with scales like jagged slate, their movements stiff and pained. A touch of his will and they slithered away, their scales softening back to a natural pattern.
It was methodical, quiet work. He was not here to conquer the wood, but to cleanse it. Each creature he restored was a small victory, a tiny patch of balance returned to the ecosystem he had thrown into chaos. He moved with a predator's grace, but his purpose was that of a healer.
The trail of corruption led him to a small, stagnant clearing. In its center stood the source. It was not a monster, but a tree-or what had been one. The ancient oak was now a grotesque monument to the blight. Its trunk was split open, and from the wound bloomed a pulsating, violet crystal formation, the same substance he'd seen in the wolves and the elemental. Thin, root-like tendrils of corrupt energy spread out from its base, leaching into the soil and poisoning the land. This was the heart of the Murkwood's sickness, a focal point where the wild mana he had unleashed had festered and taken root.
As he approached, the forest around him came to life-not with natural sounds, but with the aggressive snarls and hisses of every creature he had yet to encounter. They emerged from the gloom, their forms twisted by the crystal's proximity: wolves with hides of splintered wood, birds with beaks of sharpened stone, all their eyes burning with the same mindless, yellow rage. They were drawn to the crystal, corrupted by it, and now they would defend it.
They did not charge individually. They moved as a single, coordinated hive, a final, desperate defense of the blight that sustained them. Kaito stood before the corrupted tree, the Leviathan Staff held ready. This was no longer a mission of subtle pacification. This was a surgery, and the infected body was fighting back. He would have to cut out the heart of the sickness, and the entire forest would try to stop him.