Chapter 312: 312

Arran ran through the night, every step he took bringing him closer to the heart of the battlefield .

Even in the dark, the treacherous terrain posed no real problem . He was strong enough to cross even the deepest gorges in a single leap, and his powerful body could easily endure hours of running .

The thickening Essence that surrounded him, however, was a different matter . His resistance to magic was strong, but it wasn’t limitless . And as dawn approached, he felt that the violent Essence was beginning to cause him harm .

He had expected this, though perhaps not quite as soon . Days earlier, he’d already realized that the battlefield held far more destructive power than anything he had encountered in Uvar . And as he neared the heart of the battlefield, it would only get worse .

While the pressure of unbound Essence grew stronger, the landscape grew less chaotic . The land here had been eroded by the violent magic, and although the earth still bore scars of battle, many of those had begun to fade .

Yet even as the terrain grew less hostile, Arran’s progress slowed to a crawl . By now, the pressure of Essence was weighing down on both his mind and his body, and his reddened skin was starting to blister .

When he saw this, he groaned in frustration . Not at the pain, but at what it meant .

There were still days to go before he reached the heart of the battlefield . And if he was struggling even now, then his body would give out long before he reached his destination .

That his destination lay at the center of the battlefield, he knew for certain . If Elder Nikias’s belongings had not been looted already, then they would be where the Elder had fallen . And that could only be at the very heart of the cataclysm . Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click www . webnovel . com for visiting .

Despite his misgivings, he struggled onward for several more hours after dawn, forcing his body to endure the ever-increasing assault from the unbound Essence around him .

Yet by midday, he realized he could not go on . Already, his skin was covered in burns and blisters . And while his injuries healed faster than Negin’s, he knew it wasn’t enough .

Not with days of travel still ahead .

If he continued, the burns would grow worse with each passing hour, draining his strength as his body expended energy to heal . And as he grew weaker, he would heal more slowly, which would make him grow weaker still .

It was a simple yet vicious process, and one he had no defense against .

As it was, he was already nearing his limit . If he continued, he had no doubt that he would suffer the same fate as Negin sooner rather than later . Except he had no companion to carry him back to safety .

He could not help but curse in frustration at the setback . Of all the obstacles he could have encountered, he had not expected unbound Essence to be the one that ruined his plans .

His resistance to magic was among his greatest strengths, and it was the one thing he hadn’t expected to fail him . But now, it did just that .

Arran briefly considered his options, and found them to be depressingly few . He lacked the time to train his resistance to magic, he was unwilling to turn back empty-handed, and continuing onward would cost him his life .

That only left one choice: to use the recruits’ pills . And he already knew those wouldn’t be enough to get him to his destination .

At most, the pills would buy him a few more hours . A day, if he was lucky — and only if he didn’t travel much farther into the battlefield . Which meant he wouldn’t be able to find the treasure he was after .

Yet disappointed though he was, he knew that all was not lost . Not yet .

Elder Nikias wasn’t the only mage who had died on the battlefield . His students, too, had fallen to the Hunters’ trap, killed in the same battle that had taken their teachers’ life .

The Ninth Valley had been robbed of Elder Nikias’s teachings in one fell swoop, with only a single mage still retaining some slight knowledge of the Forms — Anthea’s teacher, who had been a mere novice at the time .

But to Arran, the tragedy presented an opportunity . While he lacked the strength to reach the site of Elder Nikias’s demise, the Elder’s students might have fallen in other places . And if they had, their belongings might still remain there .

Including, hopefully, any notes they had on the Forms .

Arran knew it was a distant hope, but not an unreasonable one . And, more importantly, it was his only hope . Because whatever lay at the center of the battlefield was firmly out of his reach .

His path decided, he took one of the recruits’ pills from his void ring, then gave it a cursory examination . But the pill revealed nothing to his untrained eye, and after a moment’s hesitation, he took it in his mouth and swallowed it .

Several minutes passed without any effect, but then, he felt the pressure of the unbound Essence around him grow slightly less oppressive .

The effect was undeniable, but it was also disappointingly small . Against the violent torrent of unbound Essence that raged around him, it offered no more protection than a silk robe against a sword .

Arran sighed, then took a handful of pills and swallowed all of them .

This time, the effect was better . A feeling of warmth spread through his body as the pills took effect, and the pressure of Essence weakened considerably . It wasn’t enough to block the onslaught entirely, but it would stop his condition from worsening .

For a time, at least . Because Arran knew from Negin that the pills’ effects would only last a few hours . And although he had dozens of the pills, that would still barely last him a day .

Fully aware of how little time he had, he left at once, this time moving around the center of the battlefield rather than toward it . And as he walked, he focused on his sword’s Sense, anxious to detect even the slightest hint of treasure .

It barely took an hour before he discovered something, but he was disappointed to find that it was only a starmetal sword, buried beneath two feet of earth . A treasure to others, perhaps, but all but worthless to Arran — though not so worthless that he would leave it behind .

In the hours that followed, he found several other starmetal weapons, swords and daggers both . All of these were buried beneath the crumbling rubble, which was likely the reason others had not already found them . But with the help of his sword, Arran had no difficulty finding the weapons .

Yet while he found plenty of weapons, there was no sign of void bags or rings . This was not much of a surprise — in his final battle, Elder Nikias had killed thousands of Hunters, while he only had a small number of students .

But even if the lack of success wasn’t a surprise, it still caused Arran some worry . The pills’ effects had begun to fade by late afternoon, and although another handful had renewed his protection, he knew his time was running short .

His worries increased further when his sword detected another shard of Living Shadow barely half an hour later . Avoiding the Knight — if it was a Knight — was a simple matter, but making his way around the obstacle while keeping a safe distance wasted nearly a full hour of his time .

Arran continued his search as night fell, though with each passing hour, his hopes grew dimmer .

The battlefield was enormous — numerous miles of empty wasteland, enough to house a small kingdom . His sword’s unrivaled Sense gave him a chance of success, but no more than that .

Whether he succeeded would depend on luck, and as the night progressed, he began to suspect that his luck had finally run out .

But just before dawn, several hours after he’d swallowed the last of his pills, his sword found something at the very edge of its Sense . A mile or two toward the center of the battlefield, a small enchanted object lay buried in the ground .

In an instant, Arran’s hope was restored . He knew his time was running short, but without so much as a moment’s hesitation, he set off at a run toward the buried object .

The pills’ effects were already starting to wear off, but with success within reach, Arran barely noticed the blisters that were beginning to form on his skin . If a few moments of pain earned him the prize he sought, it was a trade he would happily accept .

When he reached the location where the item was buried, he promptly began to dig into the ground with his sword . He could feel that the weapon did not approve of this use, but he had no time to take his sword’s feelings into account — not with thin strands of smoke already rising from his skin .

Only moments later, he found a small ring, hidden in the dirt . A void ring, he knew .

He snatched the ring from the ground at once, then stored it within his own void ring . There would be time to inspect its contents later .

As he ran away from the heart of the battlefield, there was a broad grin on his face, his joy only slightly marred by the fact that parts of his skin had caught fire .