Arc 2: Journey Chapter 11: Dead Lands Dead Lands. It was a place full of rocks and sand. There is this blinding mist the covers all this region. Death is the perfect description of this place. We already marched a few miles south by now and was camping at a landmark. The Deadlands was once called the central region, this place was also called The Bridge. Trade posts and trade cities made up this region. This location was where the goods from the north and the south region was traded. The north region is abundant in food, lumber, and clean water, while the south was made up of mines housing different metals. It was a give and took relationship where the south could not survive without the north’s resources while the north would not be able to make better and new equipment. The occasional war also occurred back then, but the central region was always safe. The Bridge was the only thing connecting the lives of the south region and the north region. The king of the south was tired of being forced to sell their materials cheaply because of the north threatening to cut off their food supplies. He thought of something, what if they become entities that would no longer require food and water. So, he had his researchers search for a way to do this. Before, they tried to plant farms and other fruit either by magic or by hand, but they still failed. They also tried fishing, but the fish from the seas in the south region contained dangerous monsters that provide more danger than food. They tried and tried. They used magic to sustain themselves. They cast their organs away and tried to replace them with magic. Darker and more desperate measures followed. Suddenly, dark energy came from the head researcher. He was successful. He became nothing but bones, yet he was still alive. Unfortunately, in exchange for this, He would bear an incredible amount of hatred towards living things. The dark energies that they summoned command them to kill all living things and take their souls. The head researcher killed all his colleagues and turned them into skeletons. Soon all the southern kingdom became skeletons. Not just hatred for living beings festered in the southern kingdom — also, their hatred for the north and annoyance at the care-free traders of the central region. With their hatred amplified, the southern kingdom made a march towards the central region. They swept across the land. Killing and turning everyone into skeletons, ghosts, and zombies. After destroying everything in the central region, the king of the south then proclaimed himself king. King of the Undead, King of Death, and the Skeleton King. With a vast army in his command, the Skeleton King planned to wipe every living thing on the continent. The north would not allow this, so they sent all their military to engage the undead army before they even set foot in the north region. Then the most significant war ever recorded occurred in the central legion. Torrents of magic rained on both sides; countless explosions riddled the land. Everything was dying, even the land itself. After ten consecutive years of war, the Skeleton King claimed victory. Even when the Undead Army suffered loss, they just turned their enemies into the undead. Their forces seem limitless. They were about to end the meaningless existence of the humans back then. Suddenly the appearance of the hero along with his paladins changed the course of history. No one knows where they originated. All the humans know was that they prayed and prayed, and their god delivered their salvation. Well, the rest of the story, we already know. I closed the book that I was reading and tried to determine which way should we go. The mist was so thick that I don’t know which way is south or north. We can’t even see the sun even when it’s morning. I just made sure we did not make any turns so that we will keep going south nevertheless. Some monsters and minions of the Skeleton King linger around here. These occasional skeletons and ghosts are roaming around. They don’t have anything to do, it seems. They just randomly float around or lie around here. Without any living things, for hundreds of miles, these guys won’t be seeing any action for a while. I tried communicating with them to see if they will follow me. They did, and I got some 20 skeletons to follow our group. They did not have any equipment of any sort. So, I had them carry the luggage that we were moving on this journey. By the way, I used some old bones that we had in stock from our battles. I now have my standard arms. I wish I got some other skill enchanted bones, but this is fine. . . . After 5 hours of walking in the same direction, we seem to have reached the edge of a cliff. The bottom is nowhere to be found. It’s like an eternal abyss. I mark it in my maps as Unending Abyss. Who knows what kind of spell or event caused this hole to emerge and why does it emit so much negative energy? We circled the cliff. What we saw was something I did not expect.