“Doesn't the forest look kinda... not okay?” James asked hesitatingly, looking at the horizon. At the suggestion of Lyxiss, they had made a

“Doesn't the forest look kinda... not okay?” James asked hesitatingly, looking at the horizon. At the suggestion of Lyxiss, they had made a detour on their way back to see what happened to the undead that had suddenly vanished without warning.

In the distance, close to the horizon, the verdant green seemed to take on a dull gray hue, as if something sucked the color out of the world.

“Isn't it just because it's so far away?” Jess asked doubtfully.

“No need to argue, we are getting closer to it anyway,” Evee commented. The place where she lost contact with her subordinate was a little further up ahead, so they would get a better look soon. They had almost reached the place when the elf asked a question.

“Did any of you ever see a beast like that?” Lyxiss asked curiously, pointing a little further behind them, where a black silhouette had appeared in the sky. Everyone except Evee, the driver, turned to look at the beast Lyxiss was pointing at.

The creature had the muscular build of a lion and the head of a bird of prey with a massive black beak. It seemed to have several tails and flew with big leathery bat wings, fitting its black skin, glinting like polished leather.

“I feel like it resembles something Seth mentioned a long time ago,” Alison said, unsure.

“I also think Seth mentioned something like that before,” Bulko agreed.

Griffin of Corruption lv.85

“It's pretty strong, “ Edward commented, having appraised the pursuer. It wasn't just lv.85, but its attributes were higher than its level suggested, making it closer to an elite beast, if they were in a dungeon.

“Aren't we close to the place you undead vanished? Maybe it was that thing?” Edward suggested. A monster of that level with elite stats wouldn't have any problem killing a lv.80 zombie soldier in a single attack. At that size, it might have just dived and bit the head off.

“Should I take it down for now? It seems to be hunting the shuttle.” Jess suggested getting rid of the pursuer for now.

“Maybe it is better if I do it. If we want to check it out, we should have an intact corpse,” Alison said, bringing out her own staff. Jess specialized in fire magic, while the wizard/alchemist was proficient in all elements.

“Vacuum Prison,” Alison said coldly, finishing her spell with almost no casting. The black beast was suddenly surrounded by a ball of vapor swirling around it at rapid speed. As the name suggested, it was a magically created sphere of fast winds that created a near-perfect vacuum inside.

When the beast lost the support of air below its wings, it fell, but not far. The moment it touched the rapids surrounding it, it was flung around, like a wash cloth in the washing machine. They could hear the breaking of bones even at this distance, as its wing got sucked into the wind and its whole body began rotating so fast that the whole spell looked like a black ball exuding white vapor.

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“Where in the world did you learn such a spell?” Lyxiss asked, horrified. She knew the spell Air prison, which was similar, but had never heard of this abomination of a spell.

“Obviously, you never heard of it. I made it myself based on my knowledge and the knowledge from Minas Mar's library,” the wizard bragged. Alchemy wasn't the only thing she did all day long. Since Neeco was even busier than her, she would spend much of her free time in the library and sometimes experiment on spells.

“We should fly closer to the sphere, so we can collect the corpse, once I deactivate the magic,” Alison added to Evee. The necromancer nodded and steered the shuttle to fly back toward the trapped heap of misery left of the beast.

“I will collect it,” Edward said, coming forward for the task of catching it. Timing it with Alison, the wizard deactivated the wind sphere. The moment the flesh-tearing magic vanished, Edward gave the black beast a slap to collect it into his inventory. However, it didn't.

The slap echoed loudly, and then the mangled mass of black leather started falling to the ground, distinctly not entering his inventory.

“Shit, it was still alive after that?!” the faer exclaimed inadvertently. Nobody blamed him; everyone was shocked that the thing actually managed to survive the spin cycle Alison subjected it to. Edward looked back at them awkwardly.

“Should we land and get it?” he asked hesitantly, feeling a little bad for not properly catching it. However, Alison shook her head.

“It's not that important. I don't want to get down there just to look for a half-dead beast. What#s more interesting is that tree line..” the alchemist said, pointing at the horizon. What James commented on had already become much clearer to see.

“See, I told you,” James said to Jess, when he was proven right. The trees in the distance were fading to gray, while the horizon had become a black line. It was indisputable that something weird was going on with this forest.

“This is concerning. What do you think could cause this?” Bulko asked the two potion makers who had the most plant-based knowledge on the ship. However, neither Evee nor Alison had any explanation at hand.

“That's why I'm saying we should put our attention to that, rather than some random beast. I have a bad feeling about it,” Alison said honestly.

“Now that I see it, I feel like Seth also mentioned black trees at some point. Do you think this could be the griffin-like beast he mentioned?” Lyxiss suddenly mentioned the blacksmith again.

“Right, he did, but he came across that close to B-City. That is still far away from here,” Alison said doubtfully, but also remembering the blacksmith's story. To this day, Seth was the only known survivor who managed to get out of Avernum.

The district was on the eastern end of the continent, half a continent away from them. This couldn't be the same black forest the blacksmith had been talking about. The bigger problem was that Seth also never seemed to have known the cause of the difference in the forest.

“Let's take a quick look and then return,” Evee suggested. Since they were already this close, they could spend another 30 minutes to have a look at the gray and black trees on the horizon. They all agreed to get closer for now.

As they got closer to the border in the middle of the forest, they also came across more corrupted beasts like the griffin. Some were more like distorted birds, others like malformed bats. The latter often resembled monsters that spontaneously sprouted bat wings on their back instead of having them from birth.

They didn't pose a threat to the party, but the change was disconcerting nonetheless. But it wasn't the worst news they got by getting closer to the black forest. When they were finally close enough to see the transition from green to gray to black, they saw something else in the distance, deep in the black forest.

“Well, this is just our luck, isn't it?” James commented amid the curses of the others.

Off in the distance, amid the giant black trees, stood one tree that towered above all others. Apart from it's black crown, it was a familiar sight. They had found what they were looking for, technically.

At the horizon stood a black Hangingtree exuding an ominous aura.