Chapter 683 - Dusk Horizon

After returning to the 9th floor, I send a scan through the area after seeing the base is gone from the place where I appear. My scan finds the mark, the kind we developed locates only markers we have made. It has a huge range, uses little mana, and since it looks only for these markers, it is hard to notice as well.

Doing that, I take a few steps and find a small pile of rocks against a tree. Buried under it is a small sheath of metal with carved words on it.

“We had to move again because of Skippy. Be careful, he might be in the area. We are temporarily in the Dusk Horizon village.”

Right away, the noises of the jungle sound more dangerous. It feels like Skippy could be hiding behind any of the trees.

And I really don't feel like meeting Skippy.

I reduce my mana signature even further and start moving just by walking toward the demon village. I know it will take me a few hours to get there, but I do not hurry. After weeks of constant grind in Beyond, I take it as an opportunity to rest. But even so, I do not stop and start examining my mind techniques.

As funny as the thing with Mapthaniel is, it also makes me cautious. Even now, I think my mind is the most important part of me, so not fully understanding parts of it annoys me and could be dangerous.

I have a theory, though. I have long known that powerful active skills gradually change your body. Not to the extent of passives, at least not at the low level mine are. I have a reason to suspect these changes active skills bring could be greater at higher levels, especially as some take years to level up just once, giving the skill enough time.

So I wonder. Could my low constitution and my powerful skills be doing that already, if only slightly? I know they do it, but maybe to a greater extent than I thought.

If so, should I stop raising my constitution to allow it to happen at a faster pace?

I suspect it could be [Manifestation] or [Focus] that causes my split minds to behave this way, especially the ones I keep running for longer periods. I still do not think it is anything close to what happened with Duplicaniel, and I do not think it will ever reach that level. It is probably just my mind evolving, maybe something you need to go through. But that does not mean there is no chance for it to go terribly wrong. Faora was a good example, with pieces of herself trapped and tortured in her Mind Palace.

Maybe 9th floor Nathaniel will finally be the first to beat the living legend, the 3rd floor Nathaniel. Damn, that guy was cool. I wish to be like him one day.

Do you agree, Mapthaniel?

There is no answer. Thankfully.

For now.

I do not know what the hell is happening anymore.

***

The tribe we are staying with is called the Dusk Horizon, as is their village. Tess would probably know why, but I do not. I did not bother asking.

The demons stay mostly on the six trees that are near each other, often connected by powerful branches. The place is relatively safe thanks to the fact that the main tree, the one the others grow around, eats monsters.

If anything bigger than a human-sized snack comes close, it opens its single huge eye on the trunk, and crazy shit happens. I have not seen it in person, but Dennis and Aaron swear it is super metal.

Otherwise, the flesh-eating tree does not attack, likely because the Dusk Horizon tribe feeds it. I would not be surprised if it demanded sacrifices, but they just lure in monsters, which started avoiding the area, cutting out the source of protein for the tree.

I do not know the exact level of the tree, but it shows as three question marks, so at least it is below 450, though probably not by much.

It does not care when demons climb, sleep, eat, or do other things all over it, and it needs to be seriously damaged before it reacts. It also does not like fire, not at all. Dusk Horizon members mostly have gravitational demon hearts, so that works for them. Similarly to Malika, they have strong bodies and move in a way not dissimilar to Min-Jae.

Even though Min-Jae is not aggressive enough for their liking, they probably like him the most out of group 4. They seem to respect and challenge Lily the most, but spit on the ground when Tess walks around. They really do not like lightning primordial energy users.

I think Tess beats the crap out of one or two demons per day, but never gives in to the urge to push further, so they pick on her, exploiting her kind heart. Now that I think of it, she might do it on purpose and use them as training. How scary.

Meanwhile, on my first visit here, I almost killed ten of them. This tribe is shameless as hell. I expected one-on-one challenges, but after I said, “Let’s make it quick, just attack all at once,” they did it, and came at me as a group of ten.

I mean, I know I said it, but I did not expect them to actually do it. I guess it is the result of growing up in a tight knit tribe, and behaving slightly differently than the demons I met so far. As I noticed over time, they even take things you would not expect seriously. So if you tell them to attack all at once, they think you are either powerful enough and it is okay, or you are dumb and deserve to be fed to their tree.

In the area, I can already join the web of Ley Lines. It is a secret cupola-like construct that Sophie and I set in multiple places that could serve as defensive zones.

[Ley Line] is used to create the base, and everyone from group 4 gets a mark that allows them to connect to it. They can then use some of the functions. My skill makes the construct long lasting, with some nodes filled with my mana every time I leave. We also modified it so Sophie or the twins can charge and connect to it as well.

Soon, Min-Jae might be able to do it, and I saw how much that annoys the twins. This is something they are good at, and Min-Jae is catching up to them. I think it will only make them push further, so it is a good thing.

The web we made is heavily inspired by the Veil from the 5th floor and multiple defensive arrays, including the Academy one. So far, no demon has noticed it, or they just ignore it. Either option could be true.

Not far from the main tree, I brace myself and take a few deep breaths.

As almost every time, a bunch of demon kids come rushing in while screaming. They all have white hair, red eyes, and thick, short horns. They are tall and slim, leaping from lower branches or hovering down as if they can levitate.

“Two-hearted one!” one of them shouts.

“Human demon!”

“Nya!”

“Mana Daddy!”

“Who the fuck said that!” I look around.

Giggles echo, and a bunch of demon kids aged three to twelve laugh as they circle me. A few try to sneak in some punches, but I just absorb the impact.

“You were away for a long time!” A five-year-old girl jumps on my back and climbs higher. As always, when she does, she goes through my hair, searching for horns, still refusing to believe I am not a demon who dyes his hair.

The smallest one, a three-year-old boy, clings to my leg and bites me right above the knee, leaving drool everywhere.

That is new.

I start walking with the girl on my back and the boy clinging to my leg, while the others move along with us.

“I went to train,” I answer. As always, I am a bit curious how much the system truly influences the natives when an attendee leaves for Beyond. Some of my excuses no normal person would believe, but when it is connected to Beyond, the system seems to make them accept it more easily.

“Did ya, kiw somewan stronk?” The boy stops biting my leg and looks up. His red eyes look huge.

“A few strong monsters,” I nod.

He giggles happily and starts biting me again.

“Still no horns,” the girl sighs, disappointed, and taps my head multiple times.

“He told you many times he is not a demon!” one of the older girls shouts at the little one.

“My mom said he must be born with hidden horns, and my auntie said she will one day try to check if he is not hiding it in his pants!” the girl on my back insists, stubborn as ever. She shakes my head left and right while digging through my hair again. “Maybe they're just late to come out.”

“They are not coming out,” I answer.

An older boy snorts. He is probably around twelve, his horns already longer than the rest. “It does not matter if he has none. He fought ten of my uncles, and they lost.”

The hell? Was it his entire family that grouped up on me? What a vile bloodline. I should have known from how he was punching harder than the others.

The group goes silent for a moment. Then the little one, still chewing on my leg, pipes up through a mouth full of cloth. “He tastes like metal.”

Some of the older kids burst out laughing so hard that a few nearly fall from the branches. The girl on my back tugs harder, frustrated. “No, he is hiding them! I will find them!”

At the same time, the three-year-old finally lets go of my leg, leaving spit everywhere. He grins up at me, red eyes glowing faintly in the shade. “Can I have your horns when they grow?”

“They will not grow,” I answer, shaking my head.

“Yes, they will!” the girl insists, and now two more kids start digging through my hair while others shout bets about when the horns will appear.

The one from the vile family smirks. “If they do come out, I get to be first to fight you to the death.”

The others cheer at that, voices overlapping as if it is the most natural thing in the world. Fight to the death, laugh about it, then run back to play.

“Sure,” I say flatly. “If I ever grow horns, you can line up behind the rest of your family.”

The girl on my back taps my head again. “See? He admits he has horns.”

“I did not,” I mutter, but no one listens.

Another kid shouts, “When they grow, we will all fight you!”

Great. I can already see them setting up a little death tournament the second I sneeze wrong.

The drool monster at my leg looks up, still chewing on my pants. “If he dies, can I keep his bones?”

I sigh and kick my leg with enough force for the drool monster to lose his grip and fly into the air. While he is up there, I use [Redistribution] to freeze him in place. Before his movement fully halts, his face twists into a wide, happy grin.

The girl on my back moves and tries to dig my eyes out with her hands. She always does that.

I freeze her movement as well and take a step forward, leaving her body hanging in the air in the position she had been clinging to me.

The remaining kids charge at me all at once. Someone kicks at my crotch, someone else pulls out a dagger, and the vile one tries to punch me with gravitational energy surrounding his fist.

All of them freeze in the air.

It looks like some twisted painting. A bunch of white-haired, red-eyed kids with horns, attacking with wide smiles on their faces.

Knowing she hates it, I step toward the girl who was searching through my hair and start poking her tiny horns. I tap them multiple times. From the ground, I pull a bunch of grass and put it on her hair. Noticing her mouth is slightly open, I shove a few flowers inside. I finish by moving her hair into her eyes so she cannot see anything.

I walk between the floating kids, hands in my pockets.

The drool monster gets his nose tapped, then I wipe the spit from my pants onto his forehead in an awkward motion while lifting my knee high into the air. For good measure, I press a patch of grass between his teeth so he looks like he tried to snack on the lawn.

The dagger kid gets a quick poke in the ribs. Then another. Then another. I keep going until I’m satisfied he’ll feel it the second he unfreezes.

One of the older girls has her mouth slightly open. I drop a tiny pebble inside. Not big enough to choke her, just enough to make her spit it out in disgust later.

I do similar things to all of them, and finally, I step back, satisfied. I am not even sorry. Not in the slightest.

A cackle escapes my mouth, and I secretly use invisible near-threads of mana to tie their shoes together, weaving them just wide enough so they can wobble. I set it to dissolve after one hour. After that, I release my skill and teleport away.

I stop by where the leader of this tribe is. An old demon man with his name showing three question marks. I walk towards where he usually is, in a house made of wood, built at the top of the man eating tree.

I’m sure he sensed my presence as soon as I approached the village. There, I greet him with a simple nod, but respectfully.

After looking at me for a moment, he nods back, and I leave, teleporting into our temporary base. As scheduled, everyone is here, sitting around the table with some snacks on it.

“Hey,” I greet, and get multiple greetings back.

(Food!) Biscuit sounds the most excited out of all, and he jumps onto my lap the moment I sit down. He expands in size until he is as big as a Labrador and snuggles against my whole body.

I wait until he settles, then look from behind him at the others. All are a bit quiet, as if waiting for someone else to start first.

Tess takes that role. “Before we have our meeting, I think we should share the information Sophie was able to gain.”

Her tone sharpens my interest, and I glance at Sophie, who gives me a strange smile.

And Tess continues, “It seems that our first Beyonder will be participating in the 3rd tournament.”

***

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