Chapter 57 - A Crack?
Seeing that they were ready to go, the young elemental elk slowly walked in a particular direction.
Avery, Yue, Lia, and the rest of the small group elves followed while making sure that the surroundings were safe.
As they followed the young elemental elk, Yue tried to talk and find the reason why it was captured by the goblins.
It was a bit difficult trying to communicate with the elk.
However, as they were taught they used its facial expression and body language to interpret its meaning.
But that alone was not enough as the majority of the information they got was by reading the small amount of mana the elk was releasing as it spoke to them.
It was perhaps a spell used by the elk to help it communicate with them.
Going back, the story the elk said was that the elemental elks lived in a secluded dimension that was powered by their den.
It helped them avoid confrontation with the Nightmare Wolves as a skirmish between the two always led to devastating damage on both sides.
The young elk wanted to see the world outside its dimension, however, its mother refused repeatedly due to the danger it posed.
It was only until one day a small crack appeared in the dimension.
The elk used that to escape and go out of the dimension, it then explored the forest before being unfortunate enough to have encountered a trap set by the goblins.
"A crack?" Avery muttered with a frown on his face, among the things that the elk said. It was what caught his attention.
Seeing her big brother's expression, Yue asked concernedly "Is there something wrong big brother?"
Avery nodded and shared his thoughts, "Cracks in a dimension are not normal, it's usually a sign of destabilization that would lead to the collapse of the said dimension."
"Does that mean…"
"Yes, there's a high chance that the dimension collapsed or is in the process of collapsing."
As if understanding what the siblings were discussing, the young elk suddenly realized something before emitting small waves of magic that indicated its worry. 'Mother!'
Before they knew it, the elk casted [Elemental Dash] to suddenly rush ahead of them.
"Wait!" Yue called but the elk simply ignored her and continued running.
"I guess we have no choice but to follow," Avery sighed before looking at Lia and the other elves behind them.
Lia simply nodded in understanding.
With that Avery and Yue now chased after the young elk.
Lia and the rest also followed behind.
After a while of running, Avery and the rest noticed the distortion of space ahead.
"Looks like I was right," Avery said while looking at the distortion.
Normally, dimensions are hidden from the outside world, but the distortion made them visible to the naked eye.
Another effect of a distortion is the passageway.
This means that the dimension would let anyone through without needing permission from someone inside. Thus making it susceptible to attacks.
Without hesitation, the small expedition force rushed into the dimension.
As they entered the dimension, what greeted them was a sight that they did not want to see.
A battlefield with hundred and hundreds of corpses.
Fallen trees, burned grass, and blood was seen all over the forest in front of them.
Dead bodies of fully grown elemental elk were seen here and there.
Their bodies were covered in blood as wounds of what appear to be bite marks were seen.
Some of the elks had their head completely eaten off.
While others had their entire gut open as if something had just eaten their insides.
However, elks were not the only corpses seen.
Corpses of the perpetrators of the death of the elks were also seen scattered around.
With deep black furs and strong bloodied fangs, the corpses lay there motionless.
The corpse had an appearance of a wolf, but they were larger in size.
One thing to say was that the appearance of the wolf was horrifying. It looked like a demon from hell.
"W-wha…" Yue and the others were speechless seeing the scene in front of them.
Avery was able to get quickly get a hold of himself as he had already seen worse than this in the past timeline.
"Nightmare Wolves." Avery mentioned, snapping the others back to reality.
After calming for a while the others looked at Avery.
Yue asked "The nemesis of the elemental elk?"
"Yes. Their history goes way back, but that is a story for another time." Avery said and walked forward as he inspected the battlefield.
"Hmm… it looks like the elks were caught in a surprise attack thus suffering a huge disadvantage. The elks did fight back, but still lost due to the sudden attack by the Nightmare Wolves." Avery explained his observation.
Yue nodded in understanding before realizing why they ran in the first place.
"Big brother! the young elk…" Yue asked in concern, despite the short interaction with the young elk, she was starting to get fond of the said creature.
"Alright, we should look for it."
"Big brother do you think…"
"No need to worry, the young elk should be fine," Avery said before looking at his surrounding, "After all the fight seems to have already been over."
Avery then looked at one of the elves that came with them. "Send a message to the rest of the expedition force to head here immediately after they are done with their task."
"Yes, your majesty." The elve said before quickly leaving the dimension to deliver the message.
"Lia, I want you to gather whatever information you can here."
"As you wish, your majesty," Lia said plainly.
As Lia and the rest searched and inspected the battlefield, Avery and Yue searched for the elk that they saved.
After a while, Yue asked Avery, "Big brother, do still have mana to cast a life-detection spell?"
"Yes. Wait for a second." Avery said as he held one hand up and casted the spell.
"Hmm…" Avery hummed before looking in a direction, "There are multiple readings there"
Yue nodded in understanding before moving in the direction her big brother pointed.
Avery followed closely behind.
After a while, they finally found the young elemental elk grievingly looking at a gravely injured elemental elk.
What's different was that elk was greener and it had nature growing from its antlers.
It was laying down on the grass, and its expression showed severe signs of mana deficiency.
[See Image Here]
Avery tried to inspect it with the system.
[Name: ???]
But… that was all he got.
The adult elk suddenly looked in their direction.