Threads of the Soul

Chapter 475 - 475: The Children, They Yearn

Since this Hunter, whose name was Dale but Seth just kept calling Hunter because... I mean really? Dale?Anyways, Since Hunter already knew the details of his secret, and even knew how wide spread the threads of his soul extended through whatever ability he had, there was no real point in keeping up the act anymore.

He was more than eager to oblige Seth's request, so much so that Seth had to stop him from bowing and silence him again to stop this idiot from blabbering away some more religious dogma.

Why... Why was he always surrounded by cults and fanatics?! What was it about him that just constantly attracted these people?

Instead of trekking all the way to the mines, because Seth didn't feel like walking, they simply flew there. However, they didn't fly on Omelette. He was a bit too conspicuous in his full form. Instead, Seth summoned his [SSX Thready] and put the twins on it, while he was dragged through the air by one of his weapons like he used to do.

As for the Hunter, Omelette just half transformed, turning his arms into adorable little wings, while the Hunter hung onto his leg.

The sight of a large, muscular man clinging desperately to the leg of a child with wings for arms... It was simply beyond ridiculous and couldn't help but make Seth laugh despite the serious act he was trying to keep up.

However, as they drew closer to the mines, Seth's serious expression became less and less of an act. His jaw clenched with hidden tension and his eyes narrowed with suspicion at what his senses were detecting.

All of this was because he could feel the mines, before he actually saw them. As they drew closer, he could feel the absolutely horrific amount of mana that was pouring from the mine entrances, which were essentially just holes in the ground.

Not just that, but when he poured his own mana into his eyes and switched his vision, his sight was assaulted with a blinding amount of soul energy. It was so much all in a single instant, that he had to shield his eyes and wince in pain, before opening them once again after adjusting to the blinding light.

How in the world he had not felt such a dread inducing amount of mana before getting this close, he had no idea. It was like crossing an invisible boundary and being smacked in the face with it all at once.

His only reassurance, or perhaps something that he should worry about more, was that it wasn't the mines themselves that were causing this feeling. It didn't blast from its entrances like they had breached a sacred containment.

Instead it just leaked out, as if these were the hints of something much more foul and much more powerful hiding deeper beneath.

"You feel it too, don't you?" Hunter called across to him, worry evident across his face. When Seth nodded in response, the Hunter sighed and looked towards the closest mine entrance with complicated eyes.

"Not everyone does. I don't understand how... But they don't. It's only the stronger people that feel anything, and even then its hit or miss who can actually detect the true scope of it. But no matter who they are, whether they are weak or strong, we can't feel it in the slightest in the city.

We think it's because of the Creeping Crystal."

"Creeping Crystal?" Seth asked with a frown. He could guess some of the properties of such a crystal based on the name, but was he trying to say that it was responsible for the mana... or the suppression? Or was it something else entirely?

The Hunter nodded solemnly, keeping his eyes forwards as he stared at that blinding radiance of soul energy with a grave expression, his voice devoid of its previous joy and reverence.

"You'll see... It's easier to show you."

The Children listened to this conversation, but proving Hunter's words, they had no idea what it involved. None of them could feel what Seth could feel, at least on the same level. What was a horrifying and heart clenching pressure for him, was little more than a slight discomfort for them.

It was almost like the difference between two parties walking into a run down nuclear reactor. One with a Geiger counter, the other without. The latter could walk in without a care, have a look around at the pretty destruction and only come away feeling sick without understanding why.

The former, on the other hand, had to listen to that device click so frequently it was like a singular, continuous noise. Yet he had to delve in further, into the depths of the toxic radiation that was already around him.

Ignorance truly was bliss, sometimes. Although it would never stop anything from killing you. A bullet still tore through your skull whether you were aware of it or not.

When they landed at the entrance to the mine, there were a number of guards standing around the hole, doing their duty with guns in hand. To the side, another pair of guards were pulling bodies from a pile and tossing them into the burning pyre that had been built nearby.

Seth narrowed his eyes in disgust at that, noting the rags that these individuals seem to be dressed in, as well as the fact that not all of them were human. Not in the sense that they were Heteromorphs and appeared inhuman, but that they literally were not human.

Orcs, a race he had only seen a singular member of in the first few weeks of the Apocalypse, made up a few members of this considerable body pile.

The only reason they took the time to dump them in the fire one by one, was because they were stripping the bodies of the shackles and collars that they had worn in life. Taking considerable care when handling the collars, almost as if they were afraid that they were going to explode in their hands.