Chapter 519: The Cursed Land.
Traveling over the dunes, Thoren stared at the endless desert with a cold expression.
He only spent a day in Horn Lizard Town before he departed.
His decision to recruit the Twins Party into his Black Water had been a spur of the moment decision.
Previously, the thought of establishing his own faction in the Abyss had crossed his mind repeatedly, but he had never dwelled on it.
Having Black Water in Mantis Town was merely a means to an end and nothing more.
But after encountering the Twins, he felt the impulse to recruit them, and he acted on it.
With the ticket fees, he no longer needed to worry about how he was going to fund his force.
Moreover, Black Water would not be like any other power in the Abyss.
It would deal in goods and information.
Now that the Twins had agreed to become part of his Black Water, he put the matter behind him and focused on his main objective.
Find the Slave Trade Guild and stop them before they did something foolish that would affect them all.
Even though he tried not to become some kind of hero, unfortunately, fate had other plans for him.
Shaking his head, he pushed the thought to the back of his mind and focused his gaze on the endless desert ahead of him.
One day later.
Thoren stood at the top of a massive dune, staring at the distant plain.
To find the Slave Trade Guild, he did not rest or relax. He changed his undead mount every few hours just to keep up with time.
Over thirty hours of nonstop traveling at top speed would have left most people exhausted and barely able to remain conscious.
Yet Thoren did not feel tired.
With food and drinks rich in mana, his body had remained in excellent condition throughout the journey.
Even after traveling for more than thirty hours, his breathing remained steady, and his movements showed none of the fatigue that should have accompanied such an arduous journey.
And now, as he looked toward the end of the desert, he couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief.
For the first time since leaving Horn Lizard Town, he could finally see something different beyond the endless sea of crimson sand.
The landscape ahead gradually began to change.
The endless dunes were slowly giving way to a vast, barren plain stretching toward the horizon.
Thoren narrowed his eyes as he carefully observed the distant terrain.
Although he had not yet found the Slave Trade Guild, he knew he had finally reached the region he had been searching for.
After traveling without stopping for so long, the urgency in his heart did reduce but kept increasing. It felt like he was not quick enough.
There was no telling what awaited him beyond the desert but he had no intention of turning back.
’Move...’
He gave a mental command to his undead mount, a Greater Dune Scorpion and the massive undead immediately responded.
Quickly, the undead Greater Dune Scorpion rushed forward, raising clouds of dust into the sky.
Two minutes later, Thoren arrived at the barren rocky plain.
’Strange...’
The moment he stepped into the barren rocky plain, he instantly felt the difference in gravity and atmosphere.
The air reeked of fresh blood and slaughter.
His gaze moved across the various massive rocks of different shapes and sizes. Staring at them, he felt that the rocks were not ordinary rocks.
They were mysterious, with strange auras emanating from their surfaces.
The faint aura surrounding them made the entire landscape feel unnatural, as though countless battles had taken place here throughout the passage of countless years.
Just as he prepared to command his mount to proceed forward, a couple of meters before him, the space suddenly twisted, and a small red stone popped out of the void.
Thoren’s pupils contracted slightly.
Watching the bizarre scene, Thoren furrowed his brows.
’How is this possible?!’
He stared at the strange scene for a couple of seconds, blinking several times as he tried to understand what he had just witnessed.
Thinking about what he had learned from the Ancient Scorpion, he exhaled deeply and urged his mount to go deeper into the rocky plain.
Thud! Thud!
The undead Greater Dune Scorpion crushed all the smaller stones and rocks in its path into dust.
The strange atmosphere did not affect its movement at all.
Any living creature would have been terrified by the strange atmosphere, but for an undead creature, there was no difference.
It possessed neither fear nor instinctive hesitation.
Although Thoren had commanded his mount to reduce its speed, its pace was still much faster than a normal sprint.
They crossed from one massive rock to another, gradually venturing deeper into the barren plain.
Bloodstones continued popping out of the void and dropping onto the ground from every direction.
Some appeared several meters away.
With each appearance, the strange phenomenon became increasingly common. As for this sight, Thoren had already grown accustomed to it.
Thus, he did not pay much attention to it as he pushed his perception to its limit.
Apart from that, he released a portion of his Awakened Soul to offset the strange aura lingering in the air.
The moment his Awakened Soul spread outward, the oppressive atmosphere around him became slightly weaker.
His perception continued sweeping across the barren plain, carefully searching for anything unusual.
However, the farther they traveled, the stranger the environment became.
The massive rocks seemed to form an endless natural maze, with some towering several meters into the air while others were scattered across the ground like the remains of some ancient battlefield.
Bloodstones continued appearing from nowhere.
The strange spatial fluctuations became more frequent.
Yet none of these things made Thoren stop.
He simply continued forward.
After traveling for another two hours, Thoren creased his brow. His expression gradually became serious as he sensed something unusual within his perception.
Within his perception, he detected something that made his heart quicken.