Baik karena suasana hati yang sedih di Abaddon, di mana tak terhitung nyawa baru saja dilahap oleh berbagai abominasi, maupun karena lukanya yang parah, Lex tidak menunjukkan banyak reaksi terhadap notifikasi Sistem.
Memang bagus tahu kalau teorinya cukup masuk akal untuk mendapat pengakuan Sistem. Tapi fakta bahwa Sistem tidak mengonfirmasi kebenarannya, dan masih butuh verifikasi, justru menenangkan.
Saat ini, apa pun alasannya tak mengubah realitasnya. Buku Lore mungkin menarik, tapi sekarang dia tidak mengerti mengapa dia harus mencatat rahasia semesta.
Mungkin dia tenang karena tanpa masuk Recovery pod, proses sembuhnya akan memakan waktu lebih dari setahun. Dia tidak bisa tetap lemah, tapi juga tidak mau melewatkan kesempatan pesta jiwa itu.
Yang terbaik saat ini adalah memakai teknik penyembuhan pada dirinya sendiri dan mengurangi pengorbanan tenaga. Saat dia bilang pada Z kalau akan fokus sembuh, Z seolah memutar mata. Lex, tentu saja, sadar apa yang dipikirkan Z — minimal dia tahu teori Z kalau dia itu Demi Dao Lord.
Masalahnya... kalau Lex menyangkal, Z justru semakin yakin. Kalau tidak menyangkal, Z akan terus bersikap begitu, dan itu bisa menimbulkan kesalahpahaman.
Akhirnya dia putuskan mengabaikannya. Mereka menarik kastil kembali ke dalam bola salju, dan mech itu pun hidup lagi, mengikuti para tentara bayaran yang berbaris cepat menembus tanah kosong.
Kesunyian yang memekakkan terasa aneh, dan ketiadaan belalang membuat Abaddon terasa lebih suram dari biasanya. Lex melirik tanah itu sekali lagi, menelan pemandangan betapa biasa saja tanah terkutuk bisa terlihat, lalu menutup mata dan mengedarkan teknik penyembuhan, memulai proses pemulihannya.
Gelembung berwarna-warni yang samar terbentuk di sekitar Lex, menciptakan penghalang pelindung antara dia dan dunia luar. Duduk bersila di bahu mech, Lex menenangkan kesadarannya, kehilangan rasa waktu.
Tentu saja, itu hanya berlaku untuk kebanyakan kesadarannya, bukan semuanya. Di tingkat hampir sadar, dia tetap menjaga kewaspadaan terhadap Inn, di mana dia memperkirakan pengguna Sistem akan memasuki Obsidian kapan saja. Koneksinya ke Jack juga ada, tapi mengingat Jack sendiri dikurung di ruangan saat menuju Alam Artica, tidak ada banyak stimulasi di situ.
Untuk melengkapinya, aliran waktu yang terus berubah di antara kesadaran ganda miliknya membuat semuanya kacau sehingga saat dia memasuki kondisi meditasi mendalam, seolah kesadarannya benar-benar tertidur.
Jam, hari, mungkin minggu atau bahkan bulan berlalu bagi Lex, tapi dia tidak sadar. Sambil dia sembuh, pasukan terus menembus tanah, sekarang mencari reruntuhan serta cawan suci.
Seperti janjinya, minggu pertama setelah pesta jiwa berlalu dengan tenang. Baru setelah seminggu mereka menyentuh klan kecil ladybug liar dan harus bertarung lagi.
Kehadiran ladybug itu — sebenarnya mereka mungkin bukan ladybug, mengingat masing-masing berukuran tiga setengah kajak dan memiliki tiga mulut — sangat tak terduga karena mereka tidak memiliki kelaparan khas makhluk Abaddon.
Mereka tetap sangat hostil, jadi mereka dibunuh begitu saja. Darah mereka mengandung vitalitas sangat tinggi, dan akan menjadi ramuan ajaib bagi apa pun di bawah alam abadi, serta ramuan penyembuhan yang cukup bagus bagi yang sudah di alam abadi.
Saat itu terungkap, tidak satupun yang tersisa hidup, dan masing-masing diburu habis.
Tapi keanehan tidak berhenti di situ. Tak lama setelahnya, mereka menemui koloni semut mutan, tertarik oleh bau ladybug.
Kaemon sudah bertemu sejumlah makhluk lain di Abaddon jadi dia tidak terlalu kaget dengan kehadiran makhluk lain, meskipun ketiadaan kelaparan itu patut diperhatikan.
Pertarungan dengan semut itu jauh dari mudah, dan mech Midnight harus bergabung dengan tentara bayaran untuk memastikan mereka tidak terluka parah. Tidak membantu bahwa semut itu jadi lebih kuat berdasarkan apa yang mereka makan, memungkinkan mereka tumbuh tanpa batas.
Beberapa bahkan memiliki kekuatan unik. Hampir seperti semut itu keluar langsung dari komik populer tentang hunter, atau level up sendirian atau sesuatu.
Aneh.
Tapi keanehan tidak berakhir di situ, karena berhari-hari pasukan terus bertemu semakin banyak serangga saat maju. Yang lebih, untuk pertama kalinya sejak memasuki alam batu melayang dan geometri tak bernasib ini, di mana medan berbelit dan berubah bentuk tanpa alasan, pohon-pohon tiba-tiba tumbuh tegak lurus. Jalan melengkung logis. Bukit-bukit berkelok seperti seharusnya. Jalur mengikuti gravitasi. Kekacauan berhenti, dan pada tempatnya ada logika.
Itu... koheren. Dan di Abaddon, itu sangat tidak alami.
Ini berlanjut hingga siklus siang alami Abaddon berakhir, dan senja mulai turun. Langit merah muda berubah merah darah, dan rasa lapar mulai memenuhi udara.
Barulah mereka memperhatikan, di kejauhan, hutan rimba hijau yang memanjang tak berujung. Pohon-pohon seperti menara, menjulang tinggi ke langit, dengan daun lebat yang menciptakan kanopi tebal.
Bahkan dari mil jauh, hutan itu memancarkan aura vitalitas begitu kaya hingga membangunkan Lex dari dalam gelembungnya, hampir mengejutkannya. Tampilan kehidupan begitu nyata hampir seperti penodaan di tempat seperti ini.
"Pernah nemu yang beginian?" tanya Lex, padahal dia sudah tahu jawabannya.
"Tidak, belum," jawab Singa Magma, acuh tak acuh. "Tapi aku bisa bilang, apapun di dalam sana, itu menarik kita langsung ke sana, atau kita tidak akan nemu begitu gampang. Medan terlalu konstan untuk alasan lain."
"Jadi ada banyak kehidupan di sana juga, dan itu menciptakan titik jangkar raksasa di Abaddon di mana lingkungan tidak berubah," teori Lex. "Dan apapun di sana itu menarik kita masuk. Aku tidak punya bukti, tapi ada kemungkinan mereka menarik kita untuk memperkuat jangkar mereka yang memperkuat Abaddon di sekitar mereka."
"Kira-kira begitu. Tapi ada satu masalah besar dengan teori ini. Yakin aku tidak perlu tunjukkan."
"Ya. Bahwa hutan raksasa itu, penuh jiwa tak terhitung, adalah umpan terbaik untuk apapun di Abaddon. Jadi either mereka punya cara menolak serangan, atau ada yang sangat salah dengan hutan itu."
Kesunyian menyusul, karena mereka semua memikirkan hal yang sama. Kalau mau, mereka bisa berbalik ke arah lain. Ada peluang menghindar hutan. Cuma satu masalah — mereka tidak tahu apakah cawan suci ada di hutan, dan satu-satunya cara tahu adalah masuk.
"Aku tidak tahu perlu bilang atau tidak, tapi ada satu masalah lagi kalau kita ke hutan," kata Lex.
"Aku mengerti. Makhluk di hutan tidak akan mengikuti aturan makhluk Abaddon. Kalau kita masuk, kita mungkin hadapi Heaven Immortal bahkan Celestial Immortal," jawab Kaemon. "Tidak perlu terburu keputusan. Menurutku kita selesaikan ritual menghubungi Condottiere dulu, baru kita putuskan."
Keduanya, satu pria dan satu Singa Magma, menatap hutan dengan mendung, tatapan brooding mereka menular ke kedua kemah.
"Um, Tuan Lex," suara anak-anak yang aneh membisik ke telinga Lex lewat indra spiritual. Seketika Lex tercengang karena belum pernah mendengar suara itu dan tidak tahu milik siapa. Lalu dia sadar — Little Blue bicara padanya!
"Tuan Lex, maaf mengganggu, tapi ada camilan enak di hutan itu, dan ada orang gemuk besar menawarinya permen. Aku benar-benar mau permen enak itu, tapi aku tidak tahu harus jawab atau tidak. Menurutmu aku harus gimana? Aku merasa ada Nyonya Gemuk di hutan yang mengundangku juga."
Lex memutar leher, lalu menatap mech itu aneh. Little Blue adalah bagian formasi mech, jadi tidak terlihat langsung, tapi Lex bisa bayangkan ekspresinya saat bicara.
"Aku punya ide..." tiba-tiba Lex berkata pada Kaemon.
Whether it was due to depressive mood in Abaddon, where countless souls had just been devoured by numerous abominations, or as a result of his injured spirit, Lex did not experience much of a reaction to the System notification.
It was good to know that his theories were plausible enough to receive acknowledgment from the System. At the same time, the fact that it didn't confirm that this was the truth, and that the System still required verification, was also reassuring.
Either way, it made no difference to his reality right then and there. Maybe that's why he didn't have much of a reaction. A Lore Book might be interesting, but at the moment he did not understand why he might want to record the secrets of the universe.
Perhaps the reason he was subdued was because without entering a Recovery pod, his healing process would take well over a year. He couldn't afford to stay weak, but he also hadn't wanted to miss the opportunity of missing out on the soul feast.
The best he could do for now was use a healing technique on himself and reduce his own exertion. When he told Z that he would focus on healing, he seemed to roll his eyes. Lex, of course, was aware of what he was thinking - at least he was aware of Z's theory of Lex being a Demi Dao Lord.
The problem was… if Lex denied it, Z would believe it even more. If he didn't deny it, then Z would continue to behave this way, and that might lead to misunderstandings.
Ultimately, he just decided to ignore it. They withdrew the castle back into the snow globe, and the mech once again came to life, following the mercenaries as they quickly marched through the empty land.
The deafening silence was eerie, and the absence of any locusts made Abaddon somehow seem even more desolate than it usually felt. Lex gave the land one last look, taking in how mundane even an accursed land could look, before closing his eyes and circulating a healing technique, beginning his healing.
A faint, multicolored bubble formed around Lex, forming a protective barrier between him and everything outside. Seated cross-legged on the shoulder of the mech, Lex subdued his consciousness, losing his sense of the passage of time.
Of course, that was only true for most of his consciousness, but not all of it. On an almost subconscious level, he maintained his awareness of the Inn, where he was expecting System users to enter Obsidian at any time. His connection to Jack was also present, but considering how Jack himself was confined to a room while he traveled to the Artica Realm, there was not much stimulation there.
To top it all off, the ever changing flows of time between his many awarenesses made it so confusing that as he entered his deep, meditative state, it was almost as if his consciousness had completely gone dormant.
Hours, days, maybe even weeks or months passed by Lex, but he remained unaware. While he healed, the armies marched through the lands, searching now for ruins as well as the chalice.
As promised, the first week after the soul feast passed by quietly. It was only after a week that they stumbled onto a small clan of feral ladybugs that they once again had to battle.
The presence of the ladybugs - they probably weren't actually ladybugs, considering each of them was the size of three and a half kayaks and had three mouths - was highly unexpected since they lacked the distinct hunger which was common in Abaddonian creatures.
They were still highly hostile, so they were killed either way. Their blood contained highly concentrated vitality, and would be like a miracle elixir for anything below the immortal realm, and a pretty decent healing elixir for those in the immortal realm as well.
When that was discovered, not a single one of them was left alive, and each one of them was hunted down.
But that was not the end of their unusual encounters. Soon after that, they encountered a mutated ant colony, attracted by the scent of the ladybugs.
Kaemon had already encountered a number of other creatures in Abaddon so he wasn't too surprised by the presence of other creatures, though the absence of the hunger was noteworthy.
The fight with the ants was far from easy, and the Midnight mech had to join forces with the mercenaries to ensure they suffered no excessive injuries. It didn't help that the ants grew stronger based on whatever they ate, allowing them to infinitely grow stronger.
Some of them even had some pretty unique powers. It was almost as if the ants came directly out of some relatively popular comic books about hunters, or leveling up alone or something.
Weird.
But the weirdness did not end there, for over the days the armies kept encountering more and more insects as they went. What's more, for the first time since they'd entered this realm of wandering stone and nonsense geometry, where the terrain had twisted and reshaped itself with no rhyme or reason, the trees suddenly grew upright. Roads curved with reason. Hills sloped like they ought to. Paths followed gravity. The chaos had paused, and in its place was logic.
It was… coherent. And that, in Abaddon, was deeply unnatural.
This continued until the natural day cycle of Abaddon was coming to a close, and evening was beginning to set. The crimson sky was turning sanguine, and a sense of hunger began to pervade the very air.
That's when they noticed, in the distance, an ever stretching verdant jungle. The trees were towers, stretching directly high up into the sky, with thick bushy leaves that created a thick crown.
Even from miles and miles afar, the jungle radiated a thick aura of vitality so rich that it awoke Lex from within his bubble, almost startling him. Such an obvious display of life was almost sacrilege in a place like this.
"Have you encountered something like this before?" Lex asked, even though he knew the answer already.
"No, no I haven't," the Magma Lion answered, unbothered by the visage. "I can, however, tell you that whatever is in there, it's been directly pulling us towards it, or we'd have never found it so easily. The terrain has been far too constant for it to be anything else."
"So there's a bunch of life here as well, and that's created a very large anchor point in Abaddon where the environment doesn't change," Lex theorized. "And whatever is in there somehow pulled us in. I have no evidence to base this on, but there's a possibility they want to pull us in to strengthen their anchor which solidifies Abaddon around them."
"Pretty much. But there's one very big problem with this theory. I'm sure I don't need to point it out."
"Yes. It's that such a big jungle, brimming with countless souls, is the greatest bait for anything and everything within Abaddon. So either they have some way of resisting the attacks, or there's something seriously wrong with that jungle."
Silence followed, since all of them were pretty much thinking the same thing. If they so wished, they could turn around and head the other way. There was a chance that they could avoid the jungle. There was just one issue with that - they had no idea whether or not the chalice was in the jungle, and the only way to find out was to enter it in the first place.
"I don't know if I need to point this out, but there's one more issue we'll face if we go to the jungle," said Lex.
"I understand. The creatures in the jungle won't obey the same rules as the creatures of Abaddon. If we go in, we may face Heaven or even Celestial Immortals," responded Kaemon. "There's no rush to make a decision. I think we should complete our ritual to contact the Condottiere first, and then we can make a decision."
The two, one man and one Magma Lion, stared at the jungle ominously, their brooding stare infecting the rest of the two camps as well.
"Um, Mr. Lex sir," came an oddly childish voice, whispering in Lex's ear through his spirit sense. For a moment, Lex was stunned for he had never heard that voice before and didn't know who it belonged to. Then he realized that Little Blue was talking to him!
"Mr. Lex, sir, I don't mean to bother you or anything, but there's a very yummy snack in that jungle up ahead, and there's a big fat guy asking me if I want candy. I really want that yummy candy, but I don't know if I should respond to him. What do you think I should do? I feel a Mrs. Big-fat-guy in the forest inviting me as well."
Lex turned his neck, and then turned to look at the mech oddly. Little Blue was a part of the formation making up the mech, so he couldn't directly be seen, but Lex could imagine what he looked like while speaking.
"I have an idea…" Lex suddenly said to Kaemon.
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