The team left the area immediately towards the main hunter base camp at the edge of the forest. There would be healers. Sari was in condition to move despite the leg wound due to her cultivation, but Olren was not. At first Walden told Kaden to carry him, but Olren furiously refused and Hem did so instead. There was no way Olren was letting Kaden close to him.

Olren tried first explain why to Walden, but Kaden replied with the same excuse. Walden frowned for a moment, but finally told them to settle their differences. Olren and Kaden had never got along well. There was no way to say who was actually right and there was no time to investigate. It probably wouldn’t even yield much results.

“Is there any details of this remnant we are going to?” Kaden asked.

“Not much, there was a volcanic erruption at mount Vesu”, Walden said. “An entrance was revealed. Note that it is not what you would call a natural entrance. It will likely lead into its own space, but I would still expect fire and lava. Then again, it could be absolutely anything.”

“What do you mean?” Hem asked.

“Ah yes, we haven’t gone to any remnants yet”, Walden continued and looked around questioningly. “All of you, what do you know of remnants?”

“I know only the one I was in”, Kaden said. “Stale mana, from hard to impossible to cultivate. Weird things.”

Others said roughly same things. Everyone knew the basic idea what remnants were.

“Basically so, but those tunnels Kaden speaks of are at best a minor remnant”, Walden continued. “That was still an actual ruin built by ancients, just filled with mana. Where we are going, it is just something that likely twisted into existence during either during cataclysm or later due to some unknown reason. Formed from chaotic concepts. Be careful thinking with common sense. That might not apply.”

Everyone quietly expected Walden to continue on the subject and he did.

“Ok… lesson about remnants seems to be in order”, Walden said as they continued forward. “The first rule is to expect nothing. Absolutely nothing. Do that and you might die before you even understand what happened to you. Once you step in, anything can happen. Even something completely ridiculous that doesn’t even begin to make sense why it exists. Want a few examples?” Walden looked around at everyone again.

“If you know anything about ancients, know that they were often bored”, Walden started in sarcastic voice. “They had a world wide information network that we can only imitate. Unlike for us, ancients had lots of pets. They liked to transmit images of beasts like cats in there. World wide concept for cats. Think of that for a moment.”

This started to sound crazy to Kaden and it was the same for everyone.

“Well, several hundred years ago a rift opened right out in the open area in Saint Empire”, Walden continued explaining the strange matter he had brought up. “We sent teams in there. Only one person returned and he kept screaming something about cats. He lost his mind and eventually stopped talking and continued meowing for a few years until he died. Some remote controlled probes were also sent in. The imagery was… strange to say the least. There were cats. Even cube shaped cats flying in the sky emiting rainbows and annoying noises. Cats of all shapes and sizes doing anything you can imagine. The probes broke in a few minutes. One was recovered, but it had become corrupted. Mana inside had infused in it and it was now cat shaped and made meowing noises until it eventually exploded. Luckily the rift disapeared after a few months, it has not been seen since then. So… what do you think?”

Kaden was speechless. That sounded like some lunatics fevered dream after taking some strong medicine.

“Thats what we call a death remnant. It isn’t even livable”, Walden continued. “Mana cannot support anything except whatever is inside. You go in, you likely die soon or start breaking apart as you begin to become corrupted. Another example! There is an old legend of a dungeon that consisted of concept of number three. One person went in, he came back, three times. Three copies of him to be specific. With three arms, three eyes, spoke everything three times, three layers of clothes, three everything. That lasted for a few minutes until he broke apart, each three times. Normal world here cannot support something so completely corrupted and devoid of concepts that are needed to even exist.”

A moment of silence.

“You cannot still say that all other remnants are safe to enter and explore”, Walden continued. “Even a more ‘normal’ remnant can be something from horror stories. In fact, literally. I already mentioned that ancients were often bored and to combat that they imagined up all sorts of entertainment. There was once an extremely large remnant that was technically normal in appearance. Not a death remnant. Yet, it might as well have been one. It resembled a city of ancient build, covered in dense mist. It seemed to part of even larger remnant, but no one was able to traverse the mist. Yet, the part that was available, was also full of artifacts to collect and many wanted to take them, but no one who went deeper came back alive. Their bodies would be recovered later with their faces twisted in horrror at the moments of their deaths. No wounds or any sing of death. It seemed they just died due to terror.”

“What is so special of that remnant?” Kaden questioned. “I don’t think the one I was in was much different. Those ghosts did pretty much same thing to things they caught.”

“Those things? Childs play”, Walden said and waved his hand dismissively. “I’ll continue. The city seemed to completely empty, but if one listened carefully, footsteps could be heard. From a single source. Eventually it was discovered that there was indeed a creature in there. If you saw it, you would keep seeing it. Always closer until it could reach you and kill you. Why was it special? Nothing seemed to stop it. A true magus once wanted to pierce the mist to enter deeper. Yet, his corpse was recovered later in similar state as the rest. People had become convinced that in the deeper parts there was something wondrous hidden. Team of true magi tried the same. Their corpses were recovered later too. Then even archmagus went in. His corpse was later recovered too in similar state.”

“What??!” Hem who was usually calm shouted. “Archmagus died in a remnant?”

“Yes and it didn’t end there”, Walden continued. “With people knowing there was a corpse of archmagus, how many people do you think went inside to recover it?”

No one said anything. Everyone knew the answer. The secrets and mana stored in a body of an archmagus. Even when dead, it would be treasure beyond common imagination.

“Well… they all died”, Walden said with a chuckle. “Greed tends to lead to death. Anyway, eventually a group of archmagi, now very interested of what was in there. Possibly to even subjugate the creature. The group this time even included archmagi from both Sacronan and Saint Empire. I guess at their level they care very little about politics and other such matters. Ten of them went in and only four returned. It is unknown, if they considered it being worth it or if they ever penetrated the mist or if they found anything at all. The remnant became unstable and the entrance collapsed some time after the archmagi returned.”

Seven archmagi perished in that single remnant. To Kaden this was extreme shock. Even those at the peak of human existence could have only reached a bitter victory at best while suffering enormous loss.

“It was entirely normal looking remnant and well known”, Walden continued. “People who were merely at Channel Opening could go in and, if lucky, find something and escape before they went too far or were there too long. Yet, there was something horrifyingly powerful inside there that could kill even an archmagus. Let this be a lesson. Do not underestimate a remnant. Ever.”

Indeed, Kaden considered this as a lesson. There were apparently things in this world that was exceeded human ability. Obviously this included those cursed gods and their direct servants like angels that priests liked to talk about. Yet, these were known matters. A completely randomly chosen remnant could contain something like that and, if he stepped into one, he might sign his death sentence without ever knowing about it.

“Now, you might still wonder why I mentioned ancients and their entertainment earlier”, Walden suddenly pointed out. “Later there was a discovery from entirely another remnant. Some records of these entertainment were found. The entire setting was for a horror story that was nearly identical resemblance to the remnant where the archmagi died and also had nearly identical description of the creature inside. Yet, it cannot be confirmed that this other remnant wasn’t just some odd mirror summary of that large one, but it is relatively common that a remnant resembles something ancients made. Fictional or not. The fictional ones being the more dangerous. The anciens truly came up with some twisted imaginary creatures that may right now exist in some remnant.”

“Luckily the extreme danger remnants are equally rare”, Walden continued. “Yet it makes it extremely clear that expect nothing. Absolutely anything can happen. These were the ones that formed within the maelstrom of chaos that was the cataclysm. World suffered similar effects everywhere, not just in remnants. We should be happy that the entire world didn’t cease to exist until gods came and put it back in order.”

“I will repeat what I just said”, Walden reassured everyone. “Remnants like the ones I just told you about are rare… extremely rare. Just… don’t have any expectations. Exploring remnants is more related to being able to react and think quickly. You can’t get much experience since each time will be different. I merely want to warn you to not underestimate a remnant. Ever. Despite what I just said, until we step in and confirm the matter, I expect the remnant at the volcano, Vesu, to be fiery. The area has dense fire related mana concepts and a remant right in middle of it is the same. It could just as well be frozen or empty void, but external hints point it to being fiery.”

“Shouldn’t most remnants be explored by now?” Hem continued with great interest. “Its thousands of years since cataclysm occured. Dangerous or not.”

Walden shook his head. “Obviosly, many have been explored, specially natural ones, but the unnatural ones might lie hidden within the folds and twists of space. Perhaps they even bubble up from free mana in our world. Eventually appear and then disapear never to be seen again. True nature of remnants still elude us to this day. We mostly just know what can happen in them, which is anything. We just do our best and take what we can while we can.”

At this point Walden suddenly took out his long range communicator and looked at it for a moment, then put it away.

“We will soon reach the hunter camp and get Sari and Olren healed”, Walden said. “We will wait there for a while. Nelsen sent us gliders. We will use those to join in with rest of the attack battalion. From there we will soon enter Sacronan’s territory. Expect brutal combat.”