Reincarnated in a novel: I am the villain!-Chapter 277: Mana Dampening

The transition between the black bridge and the Iron-Blood Clan wasn’t gradual, rather the scenery change was jarring to say the least.

One moment, the ground was the familiar, blood-soaked crimson grass of the Vane domain.

The next, it was dead earth, choked by grey ash and littered with rusted scrap metal.

The air grew heavier here, tasting of sulfur, oil, and the copper tang of electrified mana.

Damien adjusted his mask, his internal filtration system humming softly to scrub the toxins from the air.

"Welcome to the Wastes," Captain Vesper whispered, his voice tight. He signaled his squad of five elite Blood Knights to spread out in a loose skirmish formation.

"From here on, we have to be careful. If we are spotted, the alarm will be raised before we can draw our swords."

"It’s quiet," Isabelle noted, walking a step behind Damien. Her red eyes scanned the jagged horizon of scrap piles and distant smokestacks.

"Too quiet. Where are the patrols?"

"The Iron-Blood don’t patrol like we do," Vesper muttered, his hand resting on the hilt of his rapier.

"They don’t use eyes thanks to their technology, rather they use sensors"

Damien looked at the ground. To the untrained eye, it was just dirt and debris. But to his specialized vision, honed by years of studying magitech blueprints with Hephaestus, he saw the truth.

Buried amidst the rubble were faint, pulsing lines of mana. Tripwires. Seismic sensors.

"Stop," Damien ordered, his voice low but absolute.

The Vane soldiers froze instantly. Vesper looked back, confused. "Baron?"

"You’re about to step on a pressure plate," Damien said, pointing to a seemingly random sheet of rusted iron half-buried in the mud three feet in front of Vesper.

Vesper squinted. "That? It’s just trash."

"Elian," Damien gestured. "Show him."

Elian Vance, huddled in his cloak, scurried forward.

He pulled a small metal ball bearing from his pocket, a trick he used to test trap depths in abyss and tossed it gently onto the metal sheet.

*CLICK.*

**BOOM.**

A concentrated blast of fire erupted from the ground, incinerating the ball bearing instantly.

It wasn’t magical fire like they were used to, this was a chemical explosion, fueled by pressurized gas hidden beneath the plate.

The Vane soldiers pale, stepping back.

"Landmines," Damien said coolly, stepping around the scorching crater.

"Crude, non-magical, and deadly because your mana-sense can’t detect them because they don’t emit mana until they detonate."

"Tech," Vesper hissed, staring at the crater with a mix of fear and disgust.

As a clan used to magic, they were obviously outclassed at this moment.

"They turn the very ground into a weapon."

"Stay in my footprints," Damien commanded, taking the lead. "I know this design."

He recognized the trap. It was another skewed version of the Dwarven technology, another symbol of proof the empires or at least the surface world’s connection to the orcs.

Seeing his own world’s technology used to turn the Abyss into a minefield left a bitter taste in his mouth.

They moved forward, a single file line snakes through the graveyard of industry.

The journey was grueling. The landscape of the Iron-Blood territory was a nightmare of industrial waste. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Rivers of sludge flowed sluggishly through canyons of piled junk, broken golems, discarded armor plates, and gears the size of houses.

"This layer..." Elian whispered to Damien as they walked, his eyes wide as he looked at a distant mountain that had been strip-mined into a hollow shell.

"It wasn’t always like this, Master. When I was last on Layer 4, it was once a plain of red flowers. "

"The Orcs... they’ve eaten it. They’ve consumed the land itself."

"Should I say as expected of orcs," Damien said dryly.

"Even technology can’t change their ridiculous appetite ."

"It’s ugly," Isabelle spat, kicking a piece of rusted pipe.

"And it smells dead."

"It smells like war," Damien corrected.

As night began to fall, or rather, as the purple sky deepened to a bruised black, Damien signaled a halt near the wreckage of a massive, ancient Siege Crawler.

Its hollowed-out hull would provide cover from the wind and the sensors.

"We’ll rest here for four hours," Damien announced.

"Remember, No fires and no light spells."

The Vane soldiers slumped against the metal walls of the wreckage, exhausted.

They were used to short bursts of high-speed combat, not this slow, tension-filled marching through hazardous terrain.

Vesper approached Damien, who was sitting near the entrance of the wreckage, cleaning dust from his Pantheon Sword.

"Baron," Vesper said respectfully.

"We are making good time. But the closer we get to the Altar, the stronger the anti-magic field becomes. My men... they are already feeling it. Our blood arts are sluggish."

"I noticed," Damien said. He had felt the dampening field too.

It pressed against his skin like a heavy blanket, trying to smother his mana, yes even regular mana as well as abyss mana was affected..

Fortunately it didn’t affect him as much as his Celestial Life Physique and generated its own internal mana cycle, and his Will operated independently of mana but for the others, who relied on external blood mana manipulation, it was crippling.

"The Iron-Blood Emperor knows his weakness," Damien said.

"He knows he can’t beat House Vane in a magical duel, so he turned off the magic."

"Can you..." Vesper hesitated.

"Can you fight in this? If we are engaged?"

Damien looked up, the empty eye sockets of his mask staring into the darkness of the Wastes.

"I don’t need magic to kill, Captain," Damien said softly.

"But you do. So stay close, and pray we don’t meet the Emperor before we meet the Altar."

Vesper nodded grimly and retreated to his men.

Damien closed his eyes, extending his Sensory Intent outward.

He didn’t search for mana signatures, rather he listened for the hum of engines, the grind of gears, the heavy thud of hydraulic boots.

Thinking of the Sanguine Heart, he felt he needed to have this item.

The ability to control blood... to him, it wasn’t just a weapon. It was the key to unlocking the next stage of his physique.

"Three days," Damien calculated. *Three days to cross this hellscape and reach the Altar.*

As he said this, Somewhere in the distance, a steam whistle blew, a lonely, mechanical shriek that echoed across the dead plains.

"Get some sleep, Isabelle," Damien whispered to the girl dozing on his shoulder. "Tomorrow, we have a long day ahead of us."