Arden didn't join in his group's conversation. Rael was laughing with Nyra about how the Juggernaut had looked like a fat boar in its final mont, and even Zephyra rumbled sothing close to a chuckle as she pawed at the cooling earth.
But Arden's gaze stayed low, distant, his thoughts far from the victory they had just earned.
He shut them all out as he slipped back into his life sense, stretching it like threads across the ground. The pulse was still there— faint, slippery, like sothing deliberately hiding.
He pressed deeper into the awareness, blurring everything else until the world beca nothing but quiet ripples of energy.
It felt wrong. Not chaotic like a beast's frenzy, not natural like a leyline flow.
The resonance throbbed steady, then faded, then reappeared, always from the sa vague direction. Arden exhaled slowly, opening his eyes.
"Below…" he muttered under his breath. "Of course it'd be underground."
A crooked smile tugged at him as he crouched. "Guess all those boring geology lectures weren't a waste after all." His voice was dry, almost mocking himself. "Never thought I'd be grateful for a soil chanics class."
He placed his palm against the earth. Nothing. Just heat and faint traces of warped fire affinity, probably lingering from the Juggernaut's presence. He shifted, moved three steps to the right, crouched again. Palm flat. Again, faint ripples, but no root of the pulse.
His team had gone quiet now, watching. Nyra tilted her head. "What's he doing?"
Rael folded his arms, grinning. "Sa thing he always does, proving we shouldn't doubt him."
Zephyra's fla-lit eyes followed Arden's hand as he pressed against the dirt once more. She growled, low and approving, like a beast recognizing a hunt that was closing in.
The Crimson Fang were less entertained. Selira spat to the side. "Look at him, crouching like so mole. If there was anything here, we would've found it already."
Kaelen scowled, jaw tight. "Shut up. He's not acting for show. If the envoys are watching him this close, then it ans sothing."
That made Selira's face twist, because he was right. The envoys had gone utterly still, their gazes pinned on Arden as if trying to read his every motion.
One of them, a robed man with a silver clasp, whispered to another, "He's isolating an energy flow. Look at how he keeps shifting positions."
"Energy flow?" the other envoy frowned. "There's no pattern here. The elental balance in this land is warped all over. It doesn't explain why he's…" She trailed off as she noticed her own senses prickling, faint differences in the aether she hadn't registered before. "Wait."
Curiosity sharpened the air around them.
A few extended their own senses, so even released fragnts of their elental affinities into the ground.
All they picked up was what they already knew, the territory was unstable, flows twisted.
But now, standing where Arden moved, they realized there were sharper breaks in the pattern here than elsewhere. Subtle, but undeniable once he'd drawn their focus to it.
"Strange boy," one envoy murmured. "He sees things others miss."
anwhile Arden crouched a third ti, fingers sinking into the soil, and this ti a flicker jolted up his arm. He froze, lips curving into a slow grin. "Bingo."
The world inside his sense rippled. His system responded.
[Item Detected: Crimson Parasite Bloom (Corrupted Herb)]
[Location: Subterranean Root Cluster – Buried beneath scorched soil, feeding on elental affinity from the land.]
A flood of details poured in, but Arden kept his eyes half-lidded, expression calm as ever while he read.
So that's it. A parasitic plant. Feeding on the beasts, warping the land. Over-saturating affinities until everything snapped into berserk states. He clicked his tongue softly. "Figures it wasn't sothing simple."
He lifted his palm off the dirt and dusted it against his pants, speaking just loud enough for his party. "Found our culprit."
Rael leaned forward, interest lighting his eyes. "So? What is it?"
Arden smirked. "A plant. Ugly one too, if the description's right. Crimson Parasite Bloom. Burrows in deep, feeds off the land's flow, then poisons everything with the overflow."
Nyra's brows furrowed, thoughtful. "That explains the beasts. They weren't just rabid. They were being pushed past natural limits."
Zephyra rumbled low, fla flickering from her maw. Parasite. Burn it.
Arden gave her a nod. "Might. But let's get hold of it first."
On the other side, the Crimson Fang cursed under their breath. Lysandra clenched her fists, unable to hide the bitterness. "We searched this ground a dozen tis. But he finds it in less than three days…"
"Shut up," Doran hissed, though his tone was just as sour. "The envoys are listening."
And listening they were. The older envoy in silver clasp whispered, "Parasite Bloom? If that's true, this boy may have just uncovered the root cause of the trial imbalance."
"Impossible," another muttered, but his gaze didn't leave Arden's hand where it had touched the soil.
Arden straightened slowly, dusting his palms. His voice was calm, but it carried enough for those close by to hear. "This is the kind of thing people overlook because they're too busy trying to prove their strength. You don't find parasites by swinging swords. You find them by paying attention."
Rael chuckled. "You an we don't get to punch the dirt until it confesses?"
Arden allowed a thin smile. "No. But you can help dig it out once I pin down the roots."
His party laughed, lightening the tension, though their eyes never left him with that sa pride. Nothing Arden did was wasted.
He crouched again, palm glowing faintly as he funneled life energy directly into the soil, letting the resonance thread downward like roots of his own.
His breath steadied, and soon the outline beca clear. A cluster buried deep, drinking from everything around it, tendrils spread like veins through the scorched earth.
The pulse he'd felt wasn't just random. It was the plant feeding. Each beat was a siphon of life force.
Arden's eyes opened, sharp and certain. "There you are."
A/N:
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