THE RUNIC ALCHEMIST

“What.. happened? Where are we?” Lifewarden asked.

Seeing that he was okay, Damian got up and walked back to the entrance, sitting down before replying, “Seems like the dungeon threw all of us out. I’m afraid we’re no longer in our own world.”

“That heavenly voice.. and that red energy..”

Lifewarden spoke while recalling his last moments. His breath was steady, but it was still hard for him to talk. Thankfully, Damian had already given some of his food rations to him and he ate them slowly, washing them down with a glass of water Damian had placed next to him to regain his strength. His mana core was almost depleted, but unlike before, where it had been dwindling slowly, now it was recovering.

“I also sensed a massive presence.. It was similar to our commander, but it felt different. More menacing. Much more oppressive. Did we get him back?” Lifewarden asked hopefully.

“I don’t know.” Damian replied truthfully. “Something powerful walked out of the Waygate.. but it immediately killed Windcarver. If it really was Land Breaker, I don’t think anything human was left in him. The mana radiating from that thing was pure darkness..”

“Then we failed..” Lifewarden muttered, looking away.

“Worse.. We might have done something Land Breaker himself wanted to prevent by locking himself in this place.”

Lifewarden’s eyes widened. “He left.. for us,” he murmured.

Damian didn’t know what was going through the man’s mind, but at least he was handling it better than he was. Guess after centuries of life, one learned how to deal with unexpected situations. Or at least learned how to stay calm while facing them.

“You saved me.. I will not forget this favor, young Runesmith.” Lifewarden finally spoke, as if coming to some sort of conclusion in his own mind.

Damian just nodded. Not like he was going to let the man die in front of him.

“Regain your strength. We have to find the others.. and figure out how to get back.” Damian said, not looking back.

He gave Lifewarden an hour to recover his mana pool. He needed a break from constant flying anyway. There was no clear direction to move forward, so it wouldn’t matter if they took some time. If Lifewarden had been thrown north of him and hadn’t moved, then the others who were hit by the wave after them should be further north as well—at least, that’s what logic dictated. It was better to have some direction than to wander aimlessly in this desert.

Damian had a Waygate tool stored in one of his supreme spatial storages, but it was locked to his mana signature—only he could use it. Worse, it didn’t have an environment mana-gathering function. Without his mana liquid, he couldn’t power it up. He still had materials left to make more mana liquid, but first, he needed to craft the steel box required to generate mana.

He cursed himself for not making extra. He had anticipated the need for more raw materials, so why hadn’t he thought of preparing additional generator boxes?

It would take half a day to create and assemble all the necessary components. If they didn’t find the others by nightfall, Damian decided he would spend half a day making the mana generator and use it to reach them.

“Where are we going?” Lifewarden asked.

“North. Find the others.” Damian replied once they were ready to move.

Lifewarden had already recovered nearly a third of his entire mana pool. Considering he had probably over 150,000 points worth of mana, his recovery rate was insane.

When Damian opened a wormhole using his runic scroll and handed Lifewarden a glass vial with a potion inside, the man took it with a confused expression. Then Damian pulled off the top half of his clothing.

Rather than explaining, he decided to show. He drank the potion, and within seconds, wings sprouted from his back.

Lifewarden’s jaw dropped. “What in the—?!”

“Save your mana. We might need to fight. We fly this way, with wings.”

After staring for a few more moments, Lifewarden finally pulled off his armor and clothing, then drank the potion while muttering, “That’s Morph Vialist alright..”

Jumping into the wormhole, they started flying north.

Damian wasn’t worried about running out of potions—he had plenty. They glided for hours, but as expected, they found nothing of real importance. Just monsters roaming the endless desert, with the occasional rock mountain breaking the monotony.

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There were faint signs of man-made structures, but they were so withered and eroded that it was impossible to tell for sure. It had been a long, long time since anyone had lived here.

“Is this really their world?” Lifewarden asked when they stopped for a short break under the intense afternoon heat.

They ate some smoked jerky from Damian’s storage and drank as much water as they could. Even Lifewarden, with all his power, was showing signs of fatigue under the relentless sun.

“We’ve traveled well over forty kilometers. Wherever we are, it’s not the dungeon. That’s for sure.”

Lifewarden was silent for a moment before muttering, “Never thought Bloodedge of all people would be part of them.. He was one of my closest friends.”

They were resting in a cave on a rock mountain—high enough that fewer monsters wandered around. They had no desire to waste energy fighting unnecessary battles.

“Them?” Damian turned to face him. “You know who they are? Who have your people been working with?”

Lifewarden’s face darkened. “They are not one of us!” he growled. Then, realizing he had lost his composure, he sighed and looked away.

“For a long time, we suspected the Highswords were being manipulated by some hidden spies. We didn’t know who they were or what they wanted. People who were once close started suspecting each other. No one trusted anyone. Everyone started forming groups. We became worse than those noble political pawns. The idea of sending us to help the nations kept getting pushed at High Table meetings—so much so that we suspected they wanted to separate us for a reason. And now it’s clear why.”

His expression hardened.

“We were a thorn in their path. They wanted us gone.”

Lifewarden clenched his fists, his voice low with quiet fury. “We suspected two or three people of betraying us.. but never in my wildest dreams did I think more than half of us had been playing us all along.”

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