Chapter 153: I Rember You! I
Sir Alex studied the anomaly before him with calculating eyes.
The transition from barren Threshold Lands to verdant paradise was stark and unnatural, a line drawn across the earth where desolation ended and abundance began. On one side, the familiar stone and sparse vegetation he had been trampling for hours. On the other, greenery so vibrant it almost burned to look at directly!
What the hell?
He extended his senses forward, probing the Mana density with the precision of soone who had spent lifetis learning to asure power.
The readings were grand.
This concentration exceeded the lesser Sacred Mountains. It approached the levels found in the cores of the great peaks, where power had accumulated across ages beyond counting. The atmospheric density alone would accelerate cultivation by factors that made his mind race with possibilities.
A Holy Land.
That was the only classification that fit. The Neolithic Empires maintained such places jealously, gardens and groves where the favored could advance their cultivation at speeds impossible elsewhere. The Dominion of Crimson Stone possessed three. The Covenant of the First Stone possessed five. The Obsidian Throne guarded their locations with paranoid intensity.
And now here was another, sitting unclaid in the worthless Threshold Lands.
Sir Alex made his decision.
He rose from his throne of bone and scale, those nine-pointed pupils blazing with hunger that had nothing to do with food. The Pteranodon beneath him slowed its flight, descending toward the edge of this impossible paradise. Wind rushed past his crimson robes as altitude bled away, the ground rising to et him with promise he intended to claim.
He jumped.
His body cut through air with the casual grace of soone for whom gravity was a suggestion rather than a law. Mana cushioned his descent, and he landed on soil that felt different from anything he had touched in the Threshold Lands before.
Vitality surged up through his feet.
The earth itself seed alive, pulsing with energy that made his cultivation stir in response. Rich and dark and saturated with power, this soil could grow Sacred Plants without any additional preparation. The gardens of the Dominion would weep with envy if they could sense what he was standing upon!
He looked around at the vegetation surrounding him.
Crimson-leafed trees stretched toward the sky, their foliage catching morning light and scattering it into fragnts of color that danced across the undergrowth. Golden-trunked giants rose among them, their swollen bodies suggesting stored resources beyond imagination. Blue grass carpeted the spaces between, swaying in breezes that carried the scent of growth and clean water.
In the distance, those massive pillars dominated the horizon. Trees so large they pierced the clouds themselves, their canopies lost in mists that glowed with faint blue light. Seven of them, scattered across this paradise like monunts to abundance.
A light of conquest and power shone in Sir Alex’s star-filled eyes.
"Such a holy place must be secured."
His voice erged soft, reverent, filled with greed that he didn’t bother to conceal. There were no equals present to judge him. There were only subordinates who knew better than to question his desires.
His mind turned to darker thoughts as he surveyed this wonder.
Imagine if useless Dross had managed to find and live in a place like this. What a waste that would be. Creatures incapable of cultivation, incapable of appreciating the Mana saturating every blade of grass and every drop of water, squatting upon resources that could elevate true Warriors to heights of power beyond imagination.
It would be like pigs inhabiting a palace. Like vermin nesting in sacred shrines.
The very thought offended him.
Such places were ant for the strong. They were ant for those who could actually utilize what they offered, who could absorb the dense Mana and transform it into advancent. Dross would simply exist here, breathing air they couldn’t appreciate, walking on soil whose value they couldn’t comprehend.
If any Dross had sohow claid this territory, he would consider it a rcy to remove them.
He waved his arm in a sweeping gesture.
Imperators descended from their flying mounts, landing around him in formations. More than a dozen Vessel Completion Warriors took positions at his flanks, their crimson armants gleaming with contained power. Their eyes moved across the paradise before them with the sa hunger he felt, greed poorly concealed behind masks of professional composure.
Behind them, the army began its advance.
Thousands of Velociraptors surged forward at their riders’ commands, the crimson tide flowing toward the edge of this impossible garden. Their clawed feet found the transition point where barren stone gave way to fertile soil, and they pressed onward without hesitation.
The army began to enter the Cradle of First Flas.
Grass crumpled beneath their advancent, blue stalks bending and breaking under the weight of beasts bred for war. Vegetation that had stood pristine monts ago was trampled into the earth, beautiful growth becoming mulch beneath clawed feet. Thosw controlling the Velociraptors showed no appreciation for what they were destroying. They were tools, and tools did not admire.
Their eyes were filled with greed as they looked around at trees heavy with fruit and streams sparkling with clean water. So of them were already calculating how much they could strip from this place before moving on to Mount Vorrath. Others were imagining the rewards they would receive.
None of them intended to preserve what they were finding.
They intended to consu it!
Sir Alex walked deeper into the paradise, his bare feet pressing against soil that seed to welco each step. The Mana density increased the further he went, concentrations climbing toward levels that made his cultivation circulation accelerate without conscious effort.
This place was extraordinary!
This place would belong to the Dominion of Crimson Stone before the day was done!
But as he walked, as his army spread out behind him like a crimson stain upon green canvas, none of them noticed sothing subtle occurring beneath their feet.
The ground was slightly vibrating.
Not enough to be obvious. Not enough to trigger alarm in Warriors focused on the treasures around them. Just a faint tremor, a pulse that matched no natural rhythm, movent that suggested sothing other than simple earth.
None of them realized that the Mana bathing everything here was under the control of another.
The energy they were greedily absorbing, the power they were already planning to harvest, all of it flowed according to patterns established by soone whose blood saturated every inch of this transford landscape. The soil rembered. The vegetation recognized its source. The very air carried traces of essence that did not belong to the Lands of Stone in their natural state.
None of them understood that this entire paradisiacal landscape could be controlled by another.
They walked deeper into the garden, trampling beauty and calculating value.
And above them, hidden within clouds that had begun to darken with gathering storm, sothing watched their advance with fury that grew colder with every step they took.
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