Chapter-48 Relic

  Thorin kept his hunts near the safe zone for a few days. Once his heart stopped fluctuating after every hunt , he expanded the radius outward. Many relics popped up in his search through this band. All had already been unearthed and looted, with only the decayed remains of the Magus scattered across the sites. They held nothing of value anymore. Even the bones that Fenrir loved to gnaw on were brittle and grimy.

  But it was a sign and a start. This band had once held treasures. So, Thorin scoured it, inch by inch, with the help of the Direwolf pup’s nose and his undead.

  When he finally found a relic site that looked intact, it didn’t feel untouched. Thorin slowed before he consciously realized why. The mist lay uneven here, dragged and disturbed in shallow arcs that didn’t match the wandering patterns of undead. Boot marks pressed into the ash. Some old, some fresh enough that the edges hadn’t collapsed yet.

  Fenrir stopped beside him. The pup’s ears flattened and nose twitched before a low sound rumbled in his throat. It wasn’t a growl but a warning. Thorin let his undead fan out, attention splitting cleanly. Three possibilities ran through his mind in quick succession.

  Fight, negotiate, or walk away and let someone else bleed for it later.

  He adjusted his stance, casual on the surface, coiled and ready beneath it. If this turned ugly, he’d need to end it fast. If it didn’t, he needed to make it look like he was willing to. A shadow shifted ahead in the mist. Then a voice called out.

  “We were here first,” the man with the undercut-hair said, facing Thorin. The closer he walked, the tenser they got. “Please leave.”

  “By that logic, I was in this area first, so this whole area’s mine,” Thorin retorted with a chuckle. Fenrir howled in agreement.

  Both sides were of the second layer. But Thorin had a disadvantage in numbers against the three on the other side. His undead alone couldn’t replace the combat prowess of a Magus.

  “Be reasonable,” the only woman in their team said. “We don’t want to hurt you.”

  “What’re you talking about? My middle name’s reasonable,” Thorin said, laughing.

  “This benefits no one,” the last man said, frowning. “The longer we argue, the more likely it is to attract other Magi.”

  “How is that my problem if I don’t have any share in the loot?” Thorin countered.

  “What do you want then?” the undercut-hair man asked.

  “Fifty-fifty,” Thorin said. “Equal share.”

  “Dream on!” The woman on their team snapped. “We are three, you’re alone. It’s our goodwill that we’re even discussing this with you.”

  “Is it goodwill,” Thorin said. “Or are you just worried about making noise?” Fenrir howled again, lower this time.

  “This is just a common relic in the outer layer,” one of the men said. “Perhaps of an early-stage Magus. Is it worth risking your life for this?”

  “I could say the same thing to you,” Thorin replied, shifting part of his attention towards Vraak and Enya, his second Ghost.

  While he kept these three busy with banter, fragments of sensation bled back to him. They slipped into the mist, spectral claws passing through soil without friction. The relic site yielded easily. The storage bag lay folded beside the remains, its enchantment dulled but intact, humming weakly as Enya brushed past it.

  Aboveground, Thorin laughed at something trivial and masked his joy.

  Below, Vraak hesitated as unfamiliar mana brushed against him. The battlefield was watching. Enya didn’t care though. She darted forward, fingers closing around the bag as the echo collapsed inward. The site went quiet in a way only the dead could hear.

  The signal reached Thorin a breath later. It was done.

  One of the men shifted, gaze flicking past Thorin instead of at him.

  “Did you feel that?” he muttered.

  The woman frowned. “Feel what?”

  Stolen story; please report.

  Thorin shrugged lightly. “Mist does strange things here. Gets people imagining movement where there isn’t any.”

  The man hesitated another second, then shook his head. “Nothing. Just nerves.”

  Thorin smiled, easy and unthreatening. He’d already decided to leave. Staying any longer would only invite questions he didn’t need answered. “This really isn’t worth fighting over,” he said. “Since I’m not welcome here, I’ll leave. Happy hunting, hope you find something worthwhile.”

  He didn’t wait for a response. He waved them off and walked away with Fenrir. The moment the mist swallowed them, they ran. Vraak and Enya caught up seconds later, carrying a dusty storage bag. The Moonwraith and the Whitehair-Banshee were like fish in the water on this battlefield.

  “I wonder what expressions they’ll have when they realize,” Thorin chuckled, pocketing the pouch. “If they even notice at all.”

  On the way, Vraak grumbled to him about Enya nonstop in his garbled words Thorin barely understood. His second ghost had turned into a Whitehair-Banshee. A beautiful figure with cascading snowy-hair, until she lifted her face. Where eyes should have been, there were only dark hollows.

  But that wasn’t the problem. Vraak’s headache, and by extension Thorin’s, was the personality she retained after evolving. No. It had worsened.

  She followed Vraak everywhere. Pestered him relentlessly. And when he ignored her for too long, she unleashed a screech that sent chaos rippling through the safe zone. Byram had fainted the first time, frothing at the mouth.

  She calmed down after every outburst. Then followed Vraak again.

  Thorin sighed. This wasn’t a problem he could fix right now.

  ……

  The banyan tree responded before Thorin reached the safe zone.

  The mist thinned within its boundary, pulling back as if repelled. Wisps gathered higher in the branches, their glow sharpening as he stepped beneath the canopy. Fenrir paused, tail wagging once before settling beside one of the roots.

  Mana moved differently here. Slower and heavier. But still filled with the stench of rot. Thorin rested a hand against the bark. It was warm—not alive in the way flesh was, but not dead either. Something lingered beneath the surface, vast and patient.

  His brothers were meditating on the side. Quin retched from time to time because of the foul mana, while Clay maintained his nonchalance. They both cracked open their eyelids and glanced at Thorin, then went back to meditating again. They had set up a simple warning spell array around the area that only they knew how to bypass, but they still remained alert.

  Byram had gone back to the Moonstead town to attend to his bulls. He’d left them alone for too long. And since his brothers were busy as well, Thorin quietened his footfalls and lounged on his bed of grass between two giant roots that became his walls. He had to check the storage bag.

  Yet, when he did, his smile of excitement twitched and faded into a sigh. It was indeed a relic of an early-stage Sequence-0 Magus. Besides a handful of mana shards and a few books on different spells, the storage bag was empty.

  “Don’t open the treasures without me.” Quin sneaked onto him and peeked through the aerial roots.

  “It’s not much of a treasure,” Thorin said, tossing him the bag. “I don’t think we’ll find anything good in the relics in this area. We’ll have to head deeper towards the inner circle.”

  “I’ve been saying that for so long,” Quin said, scanning the bag then checking the spell books in it. None were of the Arcanas that the three brothers had. So, they could only sell these in the street market. “What about your cradle? Did you find anything for it?”

  “Nope,” Thorin said. “But I have one that I’m interested in.” He looked up and back at the banyan tree. Its sheer existence on the battlefield that had become the realm of death was an enigma.

  Amid grey mist and death-soaked ground, it guarded its green crown. Even the barren earth had to let the grass grow in its presence. Undead refused to step into its boundary, yet the will-o’-the-wisps nested in its branches.

  Clay and Quin had told him that when they first arrived, a swarm of Wraiths and a whole squad of Walkers and Ghouls had surrounded him; protecting him, watching over him. His mother’s involvement might explain some of it, but not all. It was this tree.

  The fact that his mother led him here was the most convincing reason of them all.

  Thorin wanted this banyan tree to become his cradle. But he kept an open mind for alternatives, especially for any materials inside the inner circle. Because the banyan tree also had an issue. It was already a grown tree. To make a cradle out of it, he needed its uninitiated seed. He’d explored the whole tree, from its roots to its crown to even its trunk. But he didn’t find any fruit. Unless his luck changed and a fruit or a seed dropped on his head while he slept here, this option looked bleak.

  “We’re all healed already,” Quin said. “I think we can head to the inner circle now. You’ll have a better luck finding a good cradle in there.”

  “Before doing that, let’s make a round trip to the street market and refreshen our supplies,” Clay said, joining in. “We can also sell what we got here. We have a heap of ashes of death lying in our storage bags.”

  “Don’t sell those,” Thorin said. “I’ll need them when I initiate my cradle. Also, since they have healing properties, I can probably use them as ingredients once I start brewing potions. Better to have a good stock now.”

  “Yeah,” Quin said. “Since it’s so readily available here, the price won't be good anyway. We’ll be selling them for pocket change.”

  “Alright,” Clay said. “But we still need to sell other materials and empty our storage bags.”

  “Hmm, let’s make a round trip, then we can start planning for the inner circle,” Thorin said.

  “Let’s head out,” Quin said.

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