I fly closer to the floating forest as the dark void falling down on me expands and descends at a constant rate.
While it appears at the far edges of my perception, hundreds of kilometers in the air, it's still rapidly descending, and my assumption is I only have a few more minutes to find a way to transport the trees with me before they're engulfed in the void of nothingness too and I lose my chance.
With soul energy and yellow divine threads powering my footsteps through the air, I make my single focus the small clump of obsidian trees.
Many thoughts race through my mind about how they'll react to my spatial magic. I compile multiple tests in an order in which I'll follow them, just in case the seeds at their cores are harder to capture than I initially anticipated.
The next few minutes go by in a blur.
I push myself and make it to the floating forest just in time as the endless void is less than a dozen kilometers overhead.
With under a minute to perform my tests, I use my heightened senses to open up various spatial magic portals to test things out.
Some of the trees have grown as high as 100m into the air from where their seeds float in the water, while others have just begun to sprout and haven't even grown as tall as my greater form.
I target the smaller trees first.
Every time my aura of yellow divine energy or even leftover threads from my footsteps comes in contact with any of the trees, they immediately pull them in and reach for the sky.
Surprisingly, not a single purple thread leaves my ring. They all stay tightly intertwined with me.
I test out a few soul energy-imbued skills, as well as pure Qi and pure mana, and I find something very interesting.
The dark black obsidian trees don't react to these tests at all.
It's as if two equally strengthened solid non-magical objects are hitting each other when I try some offensive attacks out of curiosity.
The mana and Qi bounce off the tree unaltered, and the trees are always left without a dent or even a scratch.
Following this test, I let one of the smallest saplings fall into my item storage, and it freezes inside in a state of suspended animation just like a normal piece of wood.
Whatever these organisms are, they only react to divine energy.
As the black sky falls closer and closer, I decide I can figure out exactly how they work another time. For now, it's best I get as many samples as I can for future tests.
I completely suppress all of my divine threads behind my limiter and begin opening up spatial magic portals left and right to allow over a dozen black obsidian seeds to fall into my item storage.
By the time the last one within my senses falls into my possession, I don't waste any more time to wait around. I crush another teleport crystal in my fist to bring me away from the ocean and all the way down the enormous mountain back at the very start of the construct.
Immediately, I look up to the sky to make sure I traveled far enough away and let out a relieved sigh when I see the sky above me is still blue, so I have a little bit of time left before the construct dissolves down to this point too.
I re-activate my divine energy-infused aura and allow it to spread throughout the entire forest below the mountain.
When I first entered this place, I couldn't even perceive half of this black jaguar-infested forest; now I can see every rock and tree inside it with perfect clarity all the way to the cliffside.
Considering the speed at which the void was descending above before, I most likely still have less than half an hour in these woods before this entire construct disappears.
Far off in the center of the forest, I get an enemy detection reading of a lightning mage slowly making his way through the thick trees.
I smirk while blasting off with divine energy-powered airsteps in its direction.
In the surrounding woods, and up the cliffside, there are a few other stragglers from the Vice and Veridian regions still farming, because technically there are still a few days left in this 28 day long event. However, no one could have foreseen what's happening to the construct now.
I ignore them all and blip through the air with a single focus in mind.
I clear over a hundred kilometers into the center of the forest, and once I finally get within range of my target, the sky above turns dark again.
I dive down into the trees and don't even try to keep myself hidden or my intentions subtle as I come crashing down into the rocky forest to create a massive crater in front of the still badly injured hunter being torn apart by red divine threads from the inside. He's clearly going through the withdrawal symptoms from eating the red fragments without his body being ready.
Once the dust clears and I stand before him with my arms crossed, the apex hunter's eyes widen and he coughs up even more of his blood.
However, that doesn't stop him from charging his body with electricity and pulling a handful of red and orange fragments from his item box.
"It's- You! I knew I'd find you! The Bedrock Region will pay! All of you will pay! I can finally get my revenge! I'll show you once and for all the Apex Region is greater than all the other regions combined." He yells out with sleep-deprived eyes and a battle-crazed stare.
I let out a sigh as he brings the fragments to his lips.
My gaze moves to the sky as I still sense the void descending, and shake my head while whispering under my breath. "I gave you more than enough chances to change, this is truly just who you are... It's time for you to give up, Trax. This is getting sad."
I activate my mana manipulation skill, binding its malleable form with yellow divine energy and telekinesis to perfect the fine movements and shoot out an orb of energy toward the blood-stained hunter to knock the handful of fragments out of his grasp.
Next, the yellow orb of light expands and turns into many impossibly tough yellow ropes that wrap around the hunter's neck, arms, and legs. I lift him in the air, unable to move, with an angry and disgusted expression on his face while I push him up against a tree about 5 meters away.
He starts to yell out again, presumably an insult or degrading other regions for no good reason, but I shut him up by activating intimidation and confusion to blast his psyche with an attack that would knock out an enemy ten times his strength.
The hunter's eyes turn white, and he falls to the floor of the forest while I use plunderer and lifesteal to bring both his MP and HP below 5%.
The moment they do, I get the mythic grade absorption notification that allows me to steal skills without killing the enemy, and I allow the red soul energy to wrap around his body without hesitating at all.
Seconds later, a skill orb with extreme grade lightning summoning falls into my storage.
I think about whether or not I should kill him here and send him back to the association asleep like this, or let the mysterious void envelop him.
Either way, there's a risk that he'll tell this story, and my meticulously crafted hunter identity will be linked to someone who can take skills from people's status. While it wouldn't be the end of the world, it would be a waste of time and effort for putting up this facade for so long.
My mind races while the endless void continues to descend.
Then, a perfect idea comes to mind.
I pull out an item from my storage that I crafted by accident when I was first playing with the limits of my mythic grade plunderer skill, then read its description.
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[Enchanted Lizardman's Claw Pendant][+55% Mental Strength][Plunderer Attribute][Cursed]
[Cursed Item Created!] The holder of this item will lose 1% of their remaining MP every minute. If the item holder hits 10% of their original max MP with this cursed item still on their person, even if MP is restored and the item is removed, the item effects will not leave the user's status.
---
I rename the pendant to [Unknown Item][Cursed] and in my mythic grade craftsman skills editor interface, I completely scramble all of its descriptions with question marks and random jumbled letters.
Next, I use telekinesis to place the cursed item around Trax's neck, and it appears on his status instantly, and the slow MP drain activates automatically.
Without any indicators of what exactly this item does, it at least covers my tracks and the disappearance of his skill can be attributed to an incurable curse rather than someone's skill.
I pull my blade from my item storage and shove it through the unconscious hunter's chest the next moment, and show a satisfying smile as he disappears and leaves the construct. This arrogant hunter will never wield lightning magic again, and will certainly not live up to the standards of being the chosen one of this year's top Apex Region B-Class applicants.
"Glad that's over..." I murmur to myself while staring up at the sky, putting away my sword and crushing a teleport crystal to come back to the edge of the forest with the cyan blue rift within my sight.
I walk over, letting out a divine energy-imbued fireball behind me to destroy the last remaining teleport platform, then stop about 20 meters in front of the rift that leads back to the association.
There's just one more problem I have to solve... If I walk through this rift without my partner Emrie Carter from the Bedrock Region, there are going to be quite a lot of questions I'm unable to answer.
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Author's Note:
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There's custom chapter art for every new daily upload too!
Thanks for reading:)
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