Sovereign of the Ashes

Chapter 985: Shocking Discoveries

The gray monster fled.

It was not that Sein had intentionally let it go. He had planned to capture the creature alive to study its body structure when, all of a sudden, the girl in his arms clung to him tightly.

The gesture was instinctive—almost as though it came from the depths of her soul.

Her eyes remained shut, but the flower of death behind her head trembled softly.

Just as the gray monster had avoided harming the girl, she seemed to harbor a similar, inexplicable need to protect it.

A single drop of gray slime fell from the retreating creature and landed on the girl’s cheek.

Sein could not tell if that was its tear or blood.

When he tried to get up and give chase, the girl tightened her grip around him and whimpered, “Big Brother...”

In truth, Sein had not entirely lost track of the creature. He saw it escape into a sewer on the western edge of the fishing village.

It was a foul-smelling tunnel filled with dirty water and trash, leading directly to Blackwater City.

What surprised him was the sight of strange, black fish swimming in the polluted waters. Each of those ugly creatures was no larger than a palm.

The main ingredient of the fish soup he had been drinking these past few days mostly came from these very fish.

The girl had not caught them alive; she had simply gathered the dead ones.

That explained the faint toxin in the broth, as well as its unusual color and taste.

The sewer itself was dark, oppressive, and reeked of decay, so Sein previously saw no reason to venture inside.

Yet, he never expected a monster with combat power close to Rank One to be hiding there.

More than that, the creature’s physiology was... peculiar.

As it escaped from Sein’s grasp, he noticed its two-meter frame shrinking to roughly one meter seventy.

The reduction in size caused its aura to weaken significantly.

If that creature returned, it would not pose the slightest threat to him.

Sein stood at the edge of the sewer, gazing into its dark, uninviting depths for a long time.

In the end, he decided that he would wait until his body recovered a little more before going in to uncover the truth lurking within.

When Sein returned to the cabin, the little girl was still lying on the bed, her body curled up just as before.

The gray slime, potent enough to corrode the wooden floor, had dripped onto her skin—yet her body, infused with necromantic energy, seemed unaffected by the corrosive substance.

Even so, Sein wiped her cheek with his sleeve.

By day, the girl appeared ordinary—pitiful even, due to her thinning gray hair.

But now, under the moonlight, her pale face seemed to glow faintly.

Beneath the layers of neglect and hardship, the girl’s features were surprisingly delicate. Her beauty had been obscured, not absent.

Sein's gaze shifted to the flower of death behind her head.

The weak necromantic energy that had attempted to paralyze him earlier was not her doing; it had been an instinctive reaction from the flower itself.

He began to understand why the villagers feared and rejected this child.

Any living being who drew too close would become nourishment for the flower of death.

Rooted deep in the girl’s soul, it fed on her life force while hungering for the souls of others.

The power of the soul—this flower needed it in order to grow.

Sein reached out and brushed the delicate flower with his fingertips. The petals instantly contracted, and at the same time, the girl whimpered softly in her sleep.

The relationship between the two became clearer to him.

By day, the girl could barely maintain control of herself. But at night—especially under a full moon like tonight—the flower of death’s influence grew stronger, tightening its grip on her mind.

Her erratic behavior and strange behaviors were clear signs that the flower’s control was steadily deepening.

As Sein gazed at the sleeping girl, he was reminded of the black mages of Blackhaven.

During his time as a Rank One mage, he had spent a brief period on the outskirts of Blackhaven.

Even now, he remembered rumors of how Blackhaven’s mages were notorious for cultivating magic ingredients within living human hosts.

After all, humans were merely renewable resources to them.

The black towers in Blackhaven did not rely on crude methods like ordinary black mages.

Instead, they created vast catacombs and threw thousands of bodies into them!

The resulting torrent of resentment and death energy gave rise to countless undead creatures and rare necromantic magic ingredients.

Compared to the crude methods of most black mages, this approach was far more efficient.

This was the fundamental difference between the major black towers and ordinary black mages who operated in small workshops or as traveling merchants.

Sein, already deeply wary of this unfamiliar world, now felt his unease intensify.

Could it be that the power system and the so-called powerhouses here were no different from the black mages of Blackhaven?

His brow furrowed slightly as the thought took root.

His gaze shifted from the sleeping girl to the east.

Beyond the rhythmic crash of waves against the shore, his eyes settled on the cluster of small wooden houses scattered throughout the fishing village.

“With some of my strength restored, it’s time to leave this village and see what’s out there,” Sein murmured.

***

Two days later, along the eastern coastline of the fishing village, several fishermen in shabby clothes lay collapsed at Sein’s feet.

As a formidable mage who had studied “Mirage’s Almanac of Souls” in his early years, Sein naturally had ways to extract information from the minds of these native beings.

These fishermen were not dead—just plunged into a deep, dreamless sleep.

In his weakened state, Sein’s cautious nature kept him from causing a major commotion or stirring up trouble prematurely.

Even if he were at his peak, he would think twice before acting recklessly in such a vast, unfamiliar realm.

By combing through the fishermen’s sea of consciousness, Sein discovered that the village was called “Mora Village”—a small, seaside settlement with fewer than a hundred residents.

A few decades ago, Mora Village had seen better days. It once boasted a population of several hundred and a small port that attracted thousands of merchants and adventurers from across the region.

That prosperity, however, ended with the arrival of the Black Tide, plague, supernatural disturbances, and terrifying incidents.

Now, only a handful of old fishermen—descendants of the village’s original settlers—remained. Outsiders kept their distance.

But where had the Black Tide and the plague come from?

Sein found no answers in the fishermen’s surface memories.

However, from the fragmented recollections of a few villagers in their forties, Sein glimpsed faint, shadowy images.

In those blurred visions, he detected distinct traces of death energy.

Necromantic abilities were not exclusive to the necromancers of the Magus World.

Across the vast expanse of the Astral Realm, countless extraplanar creatures had discovered methods to manipulate death energy.

The Astral Realm itself was composed of countless elemental particles.

The type of elemental power a civilization wielded depended largely on how its magical system was skewed.

Aside from the fragmented images that lingered in the fishermen’s memories, Sein uncovered something else that piqued his interest—their knowledge of Blackwater City.

Sein raised an eyebrow and mused, “Temple of Storms, Church of Bones, Church of Shadow Blade? Are these the three major organizations that govern Blackwater City?”

The villagers of Mora Village, being fishermen, naturally worshiped Ysor, the God of Storms.

Even their earlier attempt to banish the girl had involved seeking intervention from the Temple of Storms.

Yet when the temple’s knights finally arrived, they did nothing. No explanation, no action—they simply turned and left. No one understood why.

Of course, knights existed in this world. But unlike those of the Magus World, who cultivated battle qi, these templars wielded “divine power”.

Aside from knights, this world had priests, thieves, archers, and warriors in this world.

But what truly shocked Sein was the existence of magic.

Had Mora Village not once been a bustling port frequented by adventurers, these villagers would never have known so much about the world beyond their shores.

In their memories, Sein also caught glimpses of fierce sea beasts and strange oceanic creatures.

Clearly, sea races also existed here.

Perhaps their sightings were rare because the village dwelled near shallow waters, far from the depths of the open sea.

“What kind of world is this?” Sein exhaled softly, his gaze drifting toward the distant sky.

Truth be told, he was tempted to capture a native mage and investigate their methods of elemental manipulation.

Could a Magus World powerhouse have arrived in this world before him and introduced magic to this world?

Then again, mana utilization was never exclusive to Magus World mages.

In fact, mages from the Magus World had long admired the elves of the Elven World for their unparalleled mastery over elemental power.

The dragons of the Magus World were also natural masters of elemental forces.

Sein recalled discovering a new type of magic during his studies in Sky City—Draconic Magic.

It was a distinct and powerful spectrum of magic pioneered by the dragons of the Magus World.