After leaving Boris County, Lark kept heading southwest, eventually arriving at a vast, dead plain. Everything was covered in snow by now. But had Lark arrived here before winter, he would have been met with barren ground filled with cracks, without a single plant in sight.
Despite the snow covering the ground, green smoke still wafted in the air. Using his foot, Lark cleared the snow on the ground below him, eventually revealing the cracks in the ground. Poison gas continuously oozed out of them.
"Corrupted willowroots," he mumbled.
The dead land before him was a textbook example of a land infested by corrupted willowroots. Dead willow trees that had been corrupted after being exposed to vast amounts of ambient mana and miasma over the years.
Some considered these underground plants as monsters, while some simply regarded them as large parasitic poison plants whose roots ran several hundreds of meters deep underground. Every time the trees breathed, poison gas oozed out of the soil and destroyed everything it touched.
The vast barren plain was testament to that.
Although corrupted willowroots were commonly seen back in the Magic Empire, this was the first time Lark had seen an infestation of this scale. There were easily thousands of corrupted willowroots living underground the Forbidden Region.
Lark surmised that if they were left unchecked, in the next one hundred years Boris County would eventually be overrun by these underground plant monsters.
Clad with the leather armor and mask he bought from Daxton City, Lark ventured deeper into the Forbidden Region. He brought only the bare necessities with him—a few days' worth of rations, an iron sword, the mithril cubes, and the leather set capable of neutralizing the poison.
The amount of poison gas became thicker as he went nearer the ruins.
Worried that the armor and mask he bought from the city wouldn't be enough, he cast a few layers of barrier spells on his body. This should prevent the poison gas from melting his skin even if, by some chance, the leather armor broke.
Lark stopped in his tracks.
He was almost inside the ruins when he felt something moving underground. A very large creature at that.
Without hesitation, Lark started to cast his spell. A five-meter large magic circle manifested itself beneath his feet, and the moment a worm-like monster shot up from the ground right below him, Lark activated it.
Lark leaped to the side, avoiding the gaping maw of the worm monster.
It was at least fifteen meters long, its mouth large enough to swallow Lark whole.
Dirt and snow flew about as the worm monster roared in anger upon realizing that it had failed to devour its prey. At the same time, the wind spell Lark had cast beforehand swirled around the worm monster's body, bisecting it into several pieces. Yellow blood splattered on the snow-blanketed ground as the worm fell helplessly on the ground, lifeless.
Another one .
Lark felt another worm moving underground. Just like before, Lark cast another wind blade spell and activated it the moment the worm monster shot up from the ground. The wind blade spell swirled around the monster's body and also cut it into several pieces.
In less than a minute, two gigantic worm monsters had been massacred.
He was not even inside the ruins yet, but monsters as strong as these were already trying to kill him.
Lark pondered if he should use concealment magic to enter the ruins but decided against it. The worm monsters proved that the creatures living in the Forbidden Region had a way of detecting him even without eyesight.
It'd be a waste of mana to use a concealment spell in this situation.
Then, the best way should be flight magic.
Lark was about to cast flight magic when he noticed several black dots moving in the sky. After amplifying his eyesight with magic, he saw dozens of monster beetles flying in the sky, forming a swarm. Each of them was twice the size of an adult human.
The swarm flew around, as though looking for prey. Lark ran inside the ruins and hid behind a large slab of stone. Large buzzing sounds were heard as the swarm flew past above him, eventually disappearing from sight.
Carrion beetles.
Back in the armor shop in Daxton City, Lark saw several shields made out of the carapace of those monsters.
They were annoyingly hard to kill, since their carapace were as strong as iron. Furthermore, they were extremely poisonous and moved in swarms.
If Lark used flight magic and encountered those monsters, he'd end up using vast amounts of mana to eliminate them.
On the other hand, he'd also end up expending large amounts of mana if he chose to move through land. Based on what he'd heard from Daxton City, the ruins were home to tens of thousands of monsters. And to make matters worse, each of them were poisonous enough to kill an average soldier with just a single scratch.
No wonder the kingdom abandoned this part of their territory and forbade anyone from entering this region. It was simply impossible to reclaim this land from the monsters.
After some thought, Lark decided to use flight magic to reach the labyrinth at the center of the ruins. Fighting against the swarm sounded much better than battling his way through the ruins while on land.
His body hovered up, then shot toward the direction of the labyrinth.
As expected, the carrion beetles quickly noticed him—the intruder. It seemed the beetle monsters were quite territorial, they angrily screeched as the entire swarm flew toward him.
Lark used more mana to increase the speed of his flight, but to his surprise, he failed to shake off the pursuing carrion beetles. The insect monsters were terrifyingly fast despite their size. Their wings flapped several times each second, creating an ominous buzzing sound.
Below, Lark could see a horde of giant scorpions crawling on the snow-covered ground. And not only giant scorpions—Lark also saw monsters resembling cacti, giant serpents, rock golems, and poison wisps.
The ruins were like a giant monster breeding ground.
Left with no choice, Lark started casting his spell. A medium-sized magic circle appeared in the air, and from it, over a hundred lightning arrows appeared and rained down on the swarm.
As expected, the lightning arrows weren't enough to kill the carrion beetles, but they were more than enough to stop the swarm from chasing Lark any further.
The insect monsters flew around in a daze after being hit by the lightning spell. Lark used this opening to fly further away and eventually, he reached the labyrinth at the center of the ruins.
Lark landed right in front of the entrance.
The labyrinth was even larger than the king's castle in the capital. Its walls were plated with bronze, and at the entrance, two statues stood majestically.
When the royal knights arrived here several months ago, they thought for sure that those two statues were knights.
But Lark was different.
He stared at the two gargantuan statues, his heart filled with mixed emotions—longing, sadness, amusement. The two statues bore a striking resemblance to his two disciples. Without a doubt, these were the statues of Kubarkava—The Dragon Devourer, and ?eurvanu—The God of Poison.
Although they had aged quite a bit compared to the time Lark last saw them, he was sure that the two statues were made in the image of his disciples.
"Those kids." Lark smiled wryly. "Don't tell me… they made this labyrinth?"
It explained why the Forbidden Region was infested by corrupted willowroots—a parasitic monster plant which produced flesh-eating poison gas. It also explained why poisonous monsters were thriving here, why the Forbidden Region became a breeding ground for poisonous monsters.
"The Scylla guarding the treasure in the labyrinth…" Lark sighed. "As I thought... It was the kid who brought it here."
Before coming here, he already had a hunch that that kid was involved in this. And after seeing the statues, everything had been confirmed.
That brat—Kubarkava—tamed a Scylla and tasked it to protect his master's treasured sword for several years.
For a moment, Lark felt a squeezing sensation in his heart. He knew how prideful a Scylla was, and how hard it was to tame one. His disciple must have gone through a lot of hardship just to tame one.
And all of it was to guard the sword of his beloved master.
Really, he didn't have to go to such lengths just to do that.
Lark looked to his rear. Several giant scorpions had surrounded the entrance of the labyrinth, but for some reason, none of them dared attack him. It seemed that he'd be safe as long as he stayed near here.
After another look at the statues of his two disciples, Lark entered the labyrinth.
The first floor was surprisingly well kept, as though it had never been touched by the passage of time. The pillars were plated with bronze, and on the walls were various murals.
Using an orb of light, Lark looked at all the murals on the walls and couldn't help but be moved by the sight.
To the royal knights, these were mere drawings from an ancient era, but to Lark these murals held several years' worth of history. The murals conveyed the history seen by Kubarkava and ?eurvanu before their deaths.
History their master never witnessed.
The murals depicted the death of the Emperor of the Magic Empire, shortly after Lark's death. It also depicted the separation of the disciples after the death of their master.
Dantes, the Ruler of Fire, was the first to leave. He went to search for a certain mythical creature and never returned to the Magic Empire.
Loumen went on an expedition into the land of demons and just like Dantes, never returned. His fellow disciples did not know exactly what happened to him, but according to history, Loumen fought the demon lord and lost his life in the process. All of it was probably mere speculation, Lark knew, since even this mural did not depict his exact fate.
Leonard went to the Land of Savages and founded his own school.
Uurvesk, on the other hand, started waging war with several nations and tribes. Although it was not written in the mural, Lark knew that based on history, Uurvesk—that problem child—eventually founded the Great Empire.
The story shown in the murals stopped at this part of the history. It didn't tell Lark the history of Leanne founding the White Stream Oasis. A paradise in the desert where food and water never ran out. It didn't tell the history of Pollux, who later on became known as the Millennium Magician.
The reason was simple.
?eurvanu and Kubarkava were probably already dead during this time, after their failed attempt to revive their master.
The fact that those two disciples died in their attempt to revive him left a bad aftertaste in Lark's mouth. He leaned on one of the pillars and sighed.
He said in a low, solemn voice, "You should have lived your own lives.
Why did you attempt to revive your master? Fools."
Lark clenched his fists.
He already knew what happened to his disciples, after reading about it in the library of Lion City, but seeing the murals in person had a far bigger impact. It felt as though his two disciples themselves were telling him what happened after his death—what his disciples had accomplished after their master was gone.