CHAPTER 1376.BLACK HANGINGTREE

---Minas Mar---

“A black Hangingtree?” he asked, surprised.

Seth had researched fitting ballads for the rest of the day and began trying around using this morning. The blacksmith was practically done with the armor blueprint for Faenys by the time he was interrupted by a call.

Leana had called him shortly after Alison and her team reported back about their finding in the southern forests. The description of the place raised the hair on his nape, reminding him of the time when he had to run for his life.

The black forests filled with darkness were still vividly in his mind. But there was a darker conclusion he arrived at when he heard about it again today. At the beginning of his journey, Seth rarely had time to question his adventures and the scenarios happening around him.

Not that he really wanted to do so either. He was glad when he didn’t have to think about the time when his life tended to hang on a thin thread. But hearing about the black forests again, and the creepy beasts that lived inside, jogged his memory.

The Corruption. An unknown force that tended to appear in the world across the Patchworks. Where it appeared, it started to taint and defile the local land and anything living on it. The first explanation of this Seth heard ages ago, from Puffles’ family.

Ivicer were a race created by the god of the sky, not unlike angels in mythology. Their god died fighting the corruption that emerged on their land, and the nightmare centipedes kept watch to keep the source from spreading.

At the time, he had faced the undead corpses of former warriors and kings that had been forced to leave their graves by the Corruption. He had even faced a corrupted Ivicer at the time. The similarities were striking.

Looking back, it was clear that the black forest he travelled through after leaving B-City was touched by the power of corruption. It had created the weird griffin beasts and probably other, similarly ugly monsters.

The fact that Alison and the others actually found another black forest, so far from the place he saw it, meant that it was either emerging from several places, or spreading across an enormous area. Considering what he knew about the Corruption, this was no good news.

“It’s probably a sign of Corruption. We have to act quickly and send a team with the appropriate equipment to set up a barrier formation,” Leana said to his surprise. For a moment, he was surprised that the princess knew what the Corruption was, then he remembered who she was.

As a princess from Chrona, she spent most of her life learning how to manage territories across the System Worlds and actively doing so. Thinking about it, it was most likely the Starta Village that had kept the corruption in the forest, hindering it from spreading further into the continent…

“The corruption is-“ Leana was ready to explain, but didn't get to.

“I heard of the corruption,” Seth mumbled, interrupting her without really paying attention. He was too occupied with being annoyed by what it meant to have a source of corruption in their world.

As if they didn't have bad shit left and right. Now they even contracted the world-ending disease from the Pathworks.

“Then you understand the urgency of this matter. We need to act quickly and contain it.” The princess skipped the explanation and went to what had to be done. However, although Seth had heard of the corruption before, he didn't have some supreme god to throw at it lying around.

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“Do we even have the means to do something?” the blacksmith asked curiously. He guessed that the System Church may know something, but did their congregation have the same means as the original System Church from Chrona?

“It will be a little sparse, but Simon has what it takes to put up barriers to buy some time,” Leana assured him. “But we have to act quickly. We need to find the magnitude of the outbreak and contain it so it can't spread further than it already did,” she insisted.

Seth thought of his theory that there might be several outbreaks and not just one. The alternative being that more than half the forest was already contaminated. That would be an area the size of several districts

“What if it's already too late?” he asked and explained his worries.

“It's not unusual for the corruption to emerge at several places in an area, but if it's already swallowed half the forest, it would have already formed a chasm,” Leana explained grimly.

“ A chasm?” Seth asked with furrowed brows. He felt like he had heard something similar from the Ivicers, but he wasn't sure what it was.

“It's a phenomenon that happens when the corruption grows especially strong in an area. At first, it only taints and defiles the local life, then the land, and then it creates a literal black chasm. It's a hole that nobody knows where it leads, but it will constantly spew out more obscure monsters and the power of corruption.

Things will become incredibly hard if that already happened and when things go unhindered...” Leana made a theatrical pause. “ We may have to face a beast of corruption,” she said ominously, as if Seth was supposed to know what that meant.

“What would the Best of Corruption be like?” he asked, obviously not knowing what it meant.

“It's like the descent of the divine avatar of an evil god, but actually worse. I only read about them in some old book, and the descriptions differed from being a massive skeleton covered in tar and flames to a black slime the size of a mountain. The point is that these things will actively spread the corruption with incredible force.”

Seth sighed.

“As if we didn't already have enough problems at hand. Okay, send reinforcement to Alison's team and do everything we can to contain that. This gets top priority,” the blacksmith said after hearing the possible consequences.

“I actually already prepared a team, but...” Leana hesitated a moment.

“What?” the blacksmith urged her to continue.

“Fin and Mina are insisting on being on the team,” the princess revealed. She knew how much they meant to Seth, so she hesitated to send them without his consent. The bard fell silent, and his lips became thin.

He knew exactly why the girls wanted to go on this mission. Both had gotten their new toys just recently and wanted to test them out, but this was not just about the items he gave them. Their pets had also hatched.

There was no problem with Mina's wolf puppy. It already showed the strength one would expect of such an expensive pet, despite still being a baby. However, Fin's Behemothling needed more food. Although they managed to provide the bare minimum thanks to Karina and her disciples growing trees for it to eat, it was only growing slowly.

Seth was 99% sure Fin jumped at the chance to feed a forest to her Pet, and Mina decided to go along. Did he want them to run into danger like this? No. If he thought he could, he may have tried to stop them. But who was he kidding?

The blacksmith took a deep breath, trying to come to terms with the fact that the only thing he could do in this situation was trust them, their skills, and the items he made for them. He would have gone along, but his role was not in the field.

“If they insist, then send them along, but make it clear that the first go is just a reconnaissance mission and they are not to engage with anyone,” the bard cautioned her.

“Of course, then I will get everything ready to send them to Alison,” Leana nodded with a wry smile.

“What about Mike's team? Aren't they the closest?” Seth asked when he thought of the other team in the south, but Leana already shook her head before he finished speaking.

“Mike and the rest are already past Beta, going further into the Unclaimed Mountains. They would need ages to get back for support,” Leana explained, having already considered that option. “However, maybe you could try contacting Ceres and Puffles?” Leana suggested.

“Puffles?” Seth asked, surprised. He understood Ceres, whom he had sent to support Mike in his siege, but why Puffles?

“You didn't read the report...”

“I got the summary!”

“Puffles met Ceres on the way and accompanied him to help Mike. Puffles should also be somewhere in beta right now,” Leana explained.

“So that's where he was playing around,” the blacksmith exclaimed in realization. He didn't know what made Puffles go along with Ceres, but if they were close, it would calm him a lot, knowing that Ceres and Puffles were there to back up Fin and Mina. Of course, the others, too.

“Sure, I will contact the two to join the support team in Thres.”