Ingenuity is a human’s greatest strength. They are the weakest race and consistently are looked down upon, but I respect the Draoidh as worthy. As humans, the Draoidh are naturally crazy, but put their backs against a wall and force them to innovate—you’ve lost the war.

~Cernunnos, Lord of the Wild Things

Crow sped around the swamp like a little demon, occasionally thumping against solid land. The problem was the surface of the water areas was covered with foliage that mirrored the solid parts. He could guess that parts were water based on how level the land was, but that was no guarantee.

It amazed him that trees could even grow in this cesspool, and the smell was awful. If Crow used fire, it compounded the scent to make it even worse. A few times, he passed by mushrooms and felt his vision distort. It forced him to travel in a half-state of cultivation to prevent the hallucinogenic effects.

Overall, this swamp was a nightmare on so many levels. During the day, monsters stayed hidden, and at most, he’d see the water churn in places. He rarely anything living, between the snakes and bugs he wasn’t a fan of either. At night, he sought any place he could to hole up. The sounds from the swamp left him terrified, and he was sure those sounds definitely came from ghosts.

He tried to maintain an easterly direction but quickly realized the difficulty of heading east. There was a tall ridge, so he knew it was impossible to head in that direction by boat. Unsure of which direction to go, he finally turned himself north. The main reason was that he was very interested in seeing the Plunge.

Paddling was a tiring chore, and unlike the Shield trial, he didn’t have Nin to help. The journey was more arduous than before, but he had become stronger. Even pulling the paddle through the swampy mud water didn’t impact him as much as the river. Then again, the slower pace through the water meant he had to do most of the work to propel the craft forward. Even with improved physiology, he couldn’t paddle day in and day out.

Soulburn was also no longer a factor. It was something that would be with him forever, but he could ignore it. However, he paid attention to its ability to draw more heavenly flame from the tower. It wasn’t a fast process, but as long as he cultivated, he could feel it pulling in more and more flames.

The other factor he ignored was that he was strong in both elements of wood and fire, which were ideal for becoming an alchemist. Not that he intended to do so now, but once he met up with Song Lin, it was something he should think about learning. Somewhere in the formation of his Shield, he realized that his Wood affinity was close to rivaling his Fire affinity. Even his Soulscape was a strange balance between the two.

The other elements were present inside, but they weren’t as prevalent.

Splash.

Crow’s head snapped up, breaking from his thoughts and looking around cautiously. Water swirled as something large moved below the murky surface. Bubbles appeared in a line heading right toward him. His mind processed the information quickly and tried to think of what usually lived in terrain like this.

Because of the number of trees and foliage, his bow wasn’t practical, so he’d long swapped it out for his falcata. The blade’s handle stuck out near his right butt cheek, making it easy to reach down and draw if needed. Outwardly, it’d seem silly to wear his weapon when he could just remove it from his Shield or Vortex Pin, but he made a discovery during his fights with the Daemons. Pulling gear from a spatial item used mana, and those were the kinds of things that could kill him if he was in stealth. It was safer to wear the item so he could surprise his enemy.

Paddling to the side, Crow tried to strike land. The plant-covered water and land made it hard to tell where anything was. The one thing he didn’t want to do was fight that thing in the water. While its first strike missed, he knew that wouldn’t happen again. The churning underwater scared him because that thing was big and never needed to surface to turn around.

Infusing his arms with mana, he rowed as hard as he could. The boat shot forward so fast it caught both him and the beast off guard before it slammed against the hard ground, and the front end bounced up, tossing him over the side. Grabbing onto the boat, he slogged through the stagnant water and mud to reach the shore.

Once he could set his feet on something solid, he turned and flipped the boat up to cover him as he squatted in a horse stance and braced himself.

Bam!

Crow stumbled back a dozen steps before stabilizing himself. Thankfully, his gamble paid off, and the boat remained unharmed. Peering around the side of the boat, he saw a massive white snake whose body was wider than his own. He couldn’t tell how long it was because most of its body was still under the water.

“Fuck, just how deep is that damned swamp!” Crow growled and reached down to slide Mor-Rioghain from its sheath before charging forward. “I’ll play with you, princess.”

The giant white snake couldn’t believe a human had the audacity to attack it. Its white scale-like texture gave it the appearance of having scales but was, in fact, just thick leathery skin. Crow’s blade sliced across it, leaving a thin red line. A bright red drop of blood beaded up on one side before rolling down the pure white flesh. The damage wasn’t worth mentioning, but Crow managed to slice it another three times before it finally regained clarity of thought.

Seeing it move about, Crow ducked behind his boat again and chuckled while feeling like a cheater. The thing wasn’t much bigger than a two-man canoe, and it was reasonably light. The cheat was that whatever it was made of couldn’t be damaged by low-level beasts and cultivators. This time, he braced the end of the boat against the ground and angled it.

Hisss!

The sound was the only warning he had before bracing himself and stepping to the left. The snake struck the boat, but it was a glancing blow at best because of the angle and Crow’s sidestep. The snake wasn’t even sure what happened because while it was intelligent, it hadn’t yet figured out how to turn that into cunning.

Or so Crow thought. The snake shook off its confusion and circled around Crow as more and more of its body came out of the water. He kept turning with the boat to keep it between him and the serpent. By the time two coils had wrapped around him, Crow realized he’d been careless. Unexpectedly, Crow laughed and slid his body up under the crossbar of the boat and hid away in there. He was weirdly confident that the snake couldn’t harm the boat.

After several more coils looped around him, Crow wedged his body against the sides of the boat and made sure the crossbar was against the stop of his chest. Not that the coils gave him much wiggle room to fall out, but that he needed a position to strike from.

Using his falcata, he slashed, prodded, and gouged the snake as much as possible. Even burning it with his makeshift fireball. All the while, the coils squeezed tighter and tighter. The boat didn’t even groan, so he wasn’t worried about it getting crushed, but the coils were so tight there was a chance he’d suffocate.

Splash!

“Did that fucker just dive into the water?” Crow slashed with renewed frenzy. Based on gravity and the movement he was experiencing, he realized something vital and laughed his heart out. The damned snake couldn’t pull the boat under. Every time the boat wrenched, he knew the damned thing was trying to dive, which made him cackle even harder. This boat is a fucking cheat! Ha!

Opening up a large wound in the creature, he shoved his falcata deep into its body and felt the warm spurt of blood drench him from head to toe. No matter how much it thrashed, Crow used his cheat of a boat to his advantage and kept striking the snake until it finally relented. The thrashing finally stopped, and the tightly wrapped coils sagged, creating a gap from him wiggle through before dropping the boat into his Vortex Pin.

The moment the boat disappeared, the snake started sinking.

“Oh, don’t even fucking think about it!” Crow roared with his adrenaline still high. He grabbed the snaked and realized it was much too heavy to drag to shore. Without overthinking it, Crow shoved into his Soulscape. He only realized how dangerous that was after he’d already committed to it. Squinting his eyes and ready for the pain, the snake exited this world and entered his. The transition was so smooth that it left him reeling in shock. It barely used a fourth of his mana, but he did feel his soul aching, which he took as a warning not to go overboard.

Crow did not know what type of snake he’d just killed, but if it was an albino, it could have been any number of species. It was definitely a beast with its size and intelligence, but he wasn’t sure beyond its coloring. So he entered his Soulscape to check out his treasure.

Separating himself from the Fireheart Oak, he moved to the head of the beast and realized it wasn’t an albino at all. The eyes were all wrong and blue in color.

He didn’t immediately identify it because he was positive this was a Snowmoon Serpent, supposedly a made-up myth. It was one of a twin called the Kundalini, which was represented as a staff called Caduceus. The Snowmoon’s pair was the Ashsun Serpent. If the myth is true, if a Snowmoon and Ashsun are paired, they can produce an egg that takes thousands of years to hatch. Anyone lucky to take the egg will ain an unparalleled beast companion—a flying serpent. It was said that an adult could rival a dragon.

Sadly, Crow already killed this one. Unsure what he’d do with the thing, he skinned and butchered it. Crow was forced to do it in sections because of how large it was. Reaching its stomach, he removed it, not wanting the bile to spoil the meat, and then moved to its head to remove its beast core.

Cocking his arm back, he threw the beast’s core at the moon. In the real world, a throw like that would be impossible, but he controlled everything here and sent the core into the center of the moon. He did not know if it’d do anything, but if it didn’t, he could always retrieve it later.

After preserving the meat, he tossed it into his Vortex Pin, not wanting it to spoil. Now that his Soulscape was a fully functional world, he didn’t want to risk spoiling the meat. The only exception was the organs and pieces he didn’t care about. The snake’s flesh was so damaged, he tossed it aside, and then the stomach… The stomach was double the size of Crow, and he worried about rupturing the thing.

Not wanting acid and stomach bile to taint his Soulscape, we went to the closest mountain and dug a tunnel with a deep pit in it. Using his mana, he infused his body to increase his strength. Gently, he carried the stomach to the hole and tossed it in. It burst when it hit the jagged bottom, but it was the smell that nearly killed Crow. He coughed, gagged, and vomited all at the same time.

Covering his mouth and nose with a piece of cloth, he peered into the pit after hearing the hissing sounds fade away. His carefully dug hole had its sides corroded, and at the bottom were piles of bones and rotting flesh. The only reason he didn’t toss this garbage out of his Soulscape was that he felt its contents could be helpful to this world’s growth. He would expand his trash dump below the surface when he had time because his Soulscape needed more natural essences. Trash had a lot of reusable traces of different and rare essence types—most were neglected by their previous owners. Even toxic elements were beneficial but too dangerous for most people to handle.

Crow didn’t pay much attention to the mess in the pit before he left, afraid the fumes of the place would harm him. Because of his inattention, he did not see the black and white egg floating among the acid and debris.