The Primeval Era-Chapter 151: Detour I

Sir Alex gazed down at the Threshold Lands passing beneath him with the contempt of someone observing insects.

The massive Pteranodon beneath him cut through the morning sky with powerful wingbeats, its crimson-runed body carrying him toward Mount Vorrath at speeds that would have taken ordinary armies days to match. Wind rushed past his face without disturbing his features, Mana forming an invisible barrier that kept him comfortable despite the altitude.

Behind him, an army moved across the Lands of Stone like a tide of crimson death.

Thousands of Velociraptors surged forward in formations of discipline beaten into both beast and rider. Their clawed feet tore into earth and stone and anything unfortunate enough to lie in their path. The sound of their passage was a constant rumble, thunder rolling across the landscape without clouds to birth it.

Sir Alex smiled as he watched them advance.

This was power. This was purpose. This was what the Lands of Stone had always been meant for, the strong moving across the weak like fire across dry grass.

His nine-pointed pupils swept across the terrain below, taking in the devastation his forces were casually inflicting. Empty Dross tribes lay scattered across the Threshold Lands, remnants of tribes that had either fled or been trampled during the Primal Surge a day ago. Huts stood abandoned. Cooking fires had long since gone cold. The detritus of pathetic lives interrupted sat waiting for scavengers to pick through.

He felt nothing but distaste.

Dross were barely worth acknowledging. They existed in the spaces between true power, scraping survival from soil that real Warriors would never deign to touch. Their lives held no value beyond the most basic utility. Their deaths held even less.

He turned contemplative as a trampled corpse passed beneath his mount’s shadow.

Dross were useful as laborers, he supposed. Bodies to work fields and haul stone and perform the tedious tasks that Warriors couldn’t be bothered with. They bred quickly enough that losses could be replaced within a generation. They asked for little beyond food and shelter, their ambitions so small that managing them required almost no effort.

And when they died, their bodies made excellent fertilizer.

He had seen the Sacred Gardens of the Dominion, those cultivated groves where plants saturated with Mana produced fruits capable of accelerating cultivation. The soil in those gardens was rich and dark, enriched across centuries by the decomposition of countless Dross bodies. The gardeners called it sacred earth. They spoke reverently of how the essence of the fallen nourished the plants that would feed the strong.

Sir Alex found the poetry of it amusing.

The weak fed the strong in death as they had in life. This was the natural order. This was how the Lands of Stone had always functioned and always would function. Those who tried to pretend otherwise were either fools or hypocrites.

His army continued its advance, Velociraptors flowing around obstacles and through narrow passages like water finding paths through stone. The Imperators flew in formation around his Pteranodon, their lesser mounts struggling to match the pace of his bonded beast. None of them complained. None of them would dare.

Hours passed as the Threshold Lands gave way to terrain approaching the regions near Mount Vorrath.

The Mana density increased gradually, atmosphere growing thicker with energy as they neared territories claimed by Noble Beasts. Sir Alex could feel it pressing against his skin, could sense the accumulated power of ages saturating stone and soil and air. The Sacred Mountain was still distant, but its influence reached far beyond its physical boundaries.

A scout approached from the west.

The Vessel Completion Warrior rode a smaller pterosaur, its crimson runes pulsing with the effort of matching the army’s pace. The scout’s expression carried something unusual, a mixture of confusion and wariness that Sir Alex found mildly interesting.

"Sir." 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

The scout pulled alongside the massive Pteranodon, voice raised to carry over the wind.

"More than ten miles west of here, I sensed a region filled with unusual Mana density. Highly concentrated. I didn’t want to approach it without orders, but from the distance..."

The scout paused, as if uncertain how to describe what he had observed.

"It seems like the start of an oasis. Vegetation where there should be none. Energy signatures that don’t match anything in these territories."

...!

Sir Alex’s nine-pointed pupils narrowed.

An oasis? In the Threshold Lands?

He knew this region well enough. The territories between the Sacred Mountains and the borders of the Three Pillars were defined by their desolation. Barren stone and sparse vegetation and tribes too weak to matter. There were no oases here. There were no regions of concentrated Mana beyond the occasional spring that dried up within decades.

The Threshold Lands were called that precisely because they existed at the threshold of habitability. Nothing thrived here. Nothing prospered. That was why Dross settled in these territories, because no one with actual power wanted them.

And yet his scout was reporting something that shouldn’t exist.

"How concentrated?"

His voice emerged cold and curious.

"The density exceeded anything I’ve sensed outside of Sacred Mountain territories, Sir Alex. Perhaps even surpassing some our Scared Mountain Peaks..."

...!

That was impossible.

Or it should have been impossible. The Threshold Lands didn’t produce concentrated Mana. They didn’t support the kind of growth that would create oasis conditions. Something fundamental would have had to change for such a thing to exist!

Sir Alex gauged the direction of Mount Vorrath against the position his scout had indicated.

The Sacred Mountain lay perhaps half a day’s travel to the northeast. His army was making excellent time. The Noble Beasts would have no warning of their approach until it was far too late to mount an effective defense.

A detour of ten miles would add perhaps two hours to their journey.

Insignificant.

And if there truly was something unusual in the Threshold Lands, something that shouldn’t exist, he wanted to know about it before proceeding to Vorrath. Unknowns were dangers. Dangers were to be eliminated or exploited as there was no third option.

"We adjust course."

His voice carried to the Imperators around him without effort.

"West. Ten miles. I want to see this anomaly for myself."

The army shifted direction.

Thousands of Velociraptors turned as one, their riders pulling reins and applying pressure until the entire formation curved toward the west. The movement was smooth and practiced, discipline hammered into beast and Warrior alike across years of brutal training. Within moments, the crimson tide was flowing toward a new destination.

An army meant for the Noble Beasts on Mount Vorrath was redirected toward another direction entirely!