20 The Mist (3)

In the depth of the bone forest, on the outskirts of Bone Islands, Willem was lost. His face seemed very dark, but his long years of experience allowed him to maintain a semblance of dignity. Days passed already, and his body was now covered in mud and dry blood. He lost count of the number of murlocs he had encountered, their viciousness accentuated by the impregnatable mist that prevented regular vision. 

Thankfully, he possessed the spell [Eye Of Darkness], which allowed him to survive to some extent.

However, he was losing composure.

Not only did he lose both his companions in the mist, he was now facing a murloc shaman with terrifying spiritual force.

"So you have tracked me...A part of my soul wanted you to track my companions instead...You are trapped too, so why hunt for us?", Willem spoke

A vine spear tried to encircle him, but Willem was prepared this time. He also knew better than be grazed by its thorns, seeing that Baerys had been poisoned to a terrifying degree, and would have died if it were not for Ourin's fast response.

"Damn it...If only he was here", Willem cursed, regretting the absence of the young body refinement acolyte who showed incredible composure and determination in the past expeditions, even in the face of danger. 

It had been his mistake to lose sight of them. Truth to be told, his attention had only wavered for a couple of seconds, after he recognized a rare magical ingredient, a [Mangra Root], which could fetch several magical crystals in the market floor of the Mercifura Tower.

The bone forest was not particularly infamous for its lethality. However, this was similar to a closed off area, where those who entered the mist almost never got out alive, until the elder bone trees were satiated. Because of this reason, there were plenty of magical plants that had been growing without being harvested by human acolytes, or eaten by magical beasts, as they were similarly entrapped.

Willem dodged the vine proficiently. It was a powerful attack, one that had the potential to bring a human to his knees in a matter of seconds. However, once you were used to its speed and used the bone forest as obstacles, it was possible to dodge those vines. 

*GWARRG*

The murloc screamed in frustration, but it only made Willem more confident in surviving the encounter. Jumping from Bone Tree to bone tree, those magnificent plants made out of cartilage and negative energy, he was starting to widen the distance. 

The murloc shaman started to chase after him, but just a few minutes later, it lost tracks of the experienced acolyte. It was as if he had vanished altogether.

*SWOOSH*

A massive arrow made of shadows hit its chest, and looking down, the murloc shaman realized with horror that a fist-size hole appeared on his chest. His heart was completely annihilated, and it collapsed on the ground. 

From a distance, Willem smiled with pride: "Take this, monstrous beast"

Willem had single-handedly defeated a level 2 murloc shaman by himself.

A soon as the murloc shaman touched the ground, the nearby bone trees collapsed gently around the fresh corpse, probably as a mean to make the soil absorb it and nourrish the elder bone trees. The mist was, after all, just a mean to capture magically gifted creatures and absorb their nutrients.

If Ourin was nearby, he would have cursed, as it was his first opportunity to get a drop of Murloc Essence, the necessary ingredient for brewing the elixir that allowed him to progress further down the path of body refinement. Only after four expeditions, did he finally find a murloc shaman, only for its body to be stolen by a Bone Tree.