Chapter 289: West of the Western Border
Lightning went through her equipment one more time.
Flint and tinder. Bandages. Two daggers. Maps, folded tight. A bag of rations packed with dried beef—more than a day’s worth.
She looked at Maggie. “Your turn.”
“Goo!”
Maggie plunged her hand into the bag that somehow lived in her hair regardless of what form she wore. Lightning had stopped trying to understand this. Since the moment Maggie transformed, her clothing and pack vanished—but the contents of her bag somehow survived the transition and traveled with her, retrievable even in bird form. The bag was apparently not subject to the normal rules.
What emerged from it now: jerky, shredded dried pork, two drumsticks, a whole fish, three eggs.
“Oh, God.” Lightning stared at the pile. “We’re going on a scouting flight, not a wilderness feast. Bring at least one weapon.”
“Googoo!” Maggie pointed at her beak.
“Your beak is not a weapon against a Judge in full plate armor.” Lightning pressed her fingers to her forehead. “Fine. It’s a one-day trip. We probably won’t encounter anything. Let’s go.”
“Goo goo!” Maggie turned pigeon immediately, ran three steps, and launched herself into the air—then climbed slowly, laboring slightly with the weight of the food she’d packed.
So it does slow her down after all. Lightning filed that away. She pulled her windproof glasses into place, gathered her feet beneath her, and leaped—and flew ahead.
The forest south of here was where she’d first seen Maggie. The air chase, the effort it had taken to finally catch up and land on her. That had felt like a real contest then.
Now she could have closed the gap in two seconds.
Can’t let her get lazy. Lightning reduced her speed slightly so they could fly side by side. In the future, she’d carry more of the equipment herself and make sure Maggie had no excuse not to exercise.
“Goo, goo?”
“Speak—I’m slowing down.”
“Where are we going, goo? Which part?”
“The western end of the Concealing Forest.” Lightning unfolded the map and held it out, the edges snapping in the wind. She pointed to a blank space on the left margin. “I want to see how far the forest actually extends. We’ll fill in this gap. We might also be able to find the Redwater River’s source—see where it comes from.”
Maggie had returned from the Fjords only recently, and Lightning had begun preparing for this the day she arrived. During free practice time, His Highness never monitored where they flew. But there was a reason Lightning had waited for a companion—a reason she had not explained to Maggie, because explaining it meant admitting something she did not want to admit.
She was afraid of going alone.
The stone tower. The dark interior of the forest. The thing they had found there. Since that night she had developed a specific, stubborn fear of deep forest—a fear she could not argue herself out of, because it was not in her head. It lived lower than that. She knew the creatures were real. She knew what they could do.
Lightning was the daughter of the greatest explorer in living memory.
She was also, apparently, afraid of the dark between trees.
Thunder had told her once: approach the fear. Observe it. Understand it. The monster is always smaller once you’ve seen it clearly. All obstacles, he said, were rooted in the heart.
So she had planned a route along the riverbank—never into the forest, only along its edge, with open sky above and the glinting thread of the Redwater always visible. Low risk. Controlled exposure. Maggie beside her made it more bearable, though Lightning had not said this.
Next time she would go alone.
And after that, she would return to the stone tower, and draw the whole map.
She kept their speed at roughly sixty kilometers per hour. At that rate she could sustain flight all day. The Redwater River moved below them like a belt of hammered silver, the forest’s dark green edge running parallel on their left, and the fear that lived in her chest was smaller in open air and sunlight, and grew smaller still with Maggie chattering beside her.
“Mountains! Mountains up ahead, goo!”
They were still distant when Lightning first saw it—a mass that rose above the horizon with unmistakable scale. The nearer they flew, the more of it resolved: white at the peak, perpetually white, the kind of height that put its summit among clouds. The mountain stood where land met the ocean, its roots descending to the coast, the river narrowing and accelerating as the surrounding terrain compressed.
“It’s enormous,” Lightning said. Not with pleasure—there was something about the mountain’s sheer size that deflated rather than inspired. She’d seen impressive mountains. This one felt like a different category of object. “The Redwater must come from its snowmelt.”
“The forest ends!” Maggie’s wings beat faster. “Look—the forest ends, goo!”
Below them the dark green stopped. Beyond it: a stripe of light green—grassland—and then something that made Lightning drop altitude fast to see clearly. A vast darkness covered the ground ahead, spreading toward the mountain’s base. Not shadow. The ground itself.
She landed, pulling Maggie down with her.
The surface was black stone. Not gravel, not loose scree—individual pieces, sharp-edged and clean-cut, covering the earth so densely that almost no soil showed through. It extended across a space many times larger than Border Town. Toward the mountain’s foot it thickened, the density increasing, the black spreading until it swallowed the horizon.
Maggie pecked at one piece experimentally. “Not food, goo.”
“Obviously not food.” Lightning picked up a piece and turned it in the sun. Heavy, but not quite as heavy as ordinary stone. Under light the surface caught a faint metallic sheen. Sharp fracture planes. Dense. This wasn’t volcanic slag or ordinary rock—
Ore? But it’s lying on the surface. And it’s everywhere.
“Take two pieces,” she said. “His Highness should see this.”
She rose back into the air, made her records, sketched the terrain. The mountain was two hundred and forty kilometers from the edge of Border Town—well past Longsong Stronghold, far beyond anything on existing maps. And the mountain behind the mountain, the ranges extending inland—
What’s on the other side?
She told herself: next time. This was a reconnaissance flight, not an expedition. But the thought had already lodged. Once a thought like that lodged, Lightning had learned, there was no removing it.
She gave Maggie strict instructions not to move, then increased her speed to the limit. The magic burned down fast at full pace; the wind stripped her hair flat against her head. She went far enough out over the sea to look south and east around the mountain’s flank.
Half an hour’s flight. Long enough.
What she saw stopped her.
At the far horizon, above and beyond the mountain range where land met ocean—a layer of reddish-brown fog. Not a weather formation. Not the evening light. The color of old dried blood, dense and settled, clinging to the mountains as if it had always been there. It extended westward in both directions as far as she could see. It had no visible end.
Lightning flew back at full speed, her heart going faster than the wind.
Chapter 289 West of the Western Border
Lightning, in charge of her own “adventure equipment”, checked it over once more.
Flint and tinder, bandages, daggers, maps, as well as a bag full of rations stuffed with dried beef.
“What about you?” She looked at Maggie, “Check it again.”
“Goo!”
Maggie put her hand into her bag – this cloth was usually hidden in her fluffy hair, in the end, it was hard to determine just how many things she could actually put into it. Since the moment she turned into a bird, all her clothes and bags seemed to disappear without a trace. Even though Lightning’s ability to fly was restricted by a weight limit, Maggie, however, didn’t seem to be affected in the least. The best proof of this was that she pulled far more out of her bag than Lightning.
Jerky, shredded dried pork, drumsticks, fish, eggs, all were piled up in front of Lightning.
“Oh, my God,” Lightning shouted in disbelief, “We are going on an adventure, and not on a barbecue in the wilderness. At least take some weapons along with you.”
“Googoo!” Macey pointed at her mouth.
“Do you want to say that your beak is your weapon?” Lightning sighed, “If you encounter a judge dressed like a can, it’d be a wonder if you could ever peck open his armor! Hey, forget it!… It’s only a one-day trip anyway, we shouldn’t encounter any danger, so let’s get started.”
“I see! Goo!” Maggie immediately turned into a pigeon, ran two steps, and started flying close above the ground before slowly rising.
Uh, maybe the weight did have an impact on her.
Lightning pulled her windproof glasses down, gently leaped into the air and then flew to the front.
I can still clearly remember when I had seen Maggie for the first time. It was just south of here, in the woods that we started our air chase. Even though she couldn’t escape my hands in the end, but I still had to spend a lot of effort before I was able to jump on her. Nowadays, I’m afraid I would be able to catch her in the blink of an eye.
This cannot go on, it’s already so rare to find a partner to fly. In the future, I have to bear the responsibility for the adventure equipment alone, the little girl thought, but it does seem she is in need of a good exercise.
“Goo, goo?”
Lightning reduced her speed and flew over to Maggie’s side, “Alright let’s speak!”
“I want to ask, what area are we going to explore, goo?” The pigeon’s mouth opened and closed repeatedly.
“The western end of the Concealing Forest. I want to see how big the forest actually is in the end,” Lightning said, she pulled out a map from her bag and spread it out in front of them. Pointing at a blank space on the western side and said, “We will also be able to fill out this missing piece as we pass by, and maybe we can also see where the Redwater River comes from.”
When Maggie had returned from her mission to the Fjords, Lightning immediately began preparing for the expedition. Whenever they had free practice, His Highness never cared where they flew off to. Furthermore, the little girl also had a secret in her heart which she couldn’t tell her counterpart – she was afraid of exploring the forest alone.
This was simply an extraordinary shame and humiliation for an explorer.
But she could not deceive herself, ever since her trip to the stone tower she had a developed a fear of the deep forest. At the thought that the horrible monster might be hidden in the woods, she could not help but want to escape as quickly as possible.
Fortunately, she was still the daughter of the greatest explorer.
Thunder had once mentioned to her a method of overcoming fear. Which was by approaching it a bit, then observe it, and coming to understand it, ultimately, you will discover that your “fear” is not so terrible.
Because the roots of these obstacles are all planted in your own heart.
This time the adventure was exactly Lightning’s attempt to get rid of her fear and together with Maggie as a companion, she felt that at least her heart was a little more emboldened. The route she chose was also very secure, flying westwards along the Redwater River, never going deep into the forest, which she presumed would make it very unlikely for her to encounter any Devils. After they’ve taken the route once, Lightning would try it alone next time. She totally believed that one day, she would be able to go out alone to draw a complete map of the Western Territory, visit the stone tower again, and also uncover the truth about the Holy City Taqila.
…
All along the road, Lightning contained their speed at around sixty kilometers per hour. Nowadays, she was already fully able to accurately control her speed through the amount of magic power she released. And according to the current consumption, she could continue to fly all day.
Also, flying along the river and only at the edge of the forest made it a lot more relaxed compared to the last search for the stone tower. At that time, her entire field of vision had been filled with dark green, giving off a gloomy and depressed feeling and making it impossible for her to distinguish direction and height. Today however, under the waves of bright sunlight, the
Redwater River has turned into crystalline silver belt, coupled with Maggie’s constant chatter in her ear, Lightning’s fear was quickly fading.
“Quick, look, there are mountains in front, goo!”
At last, Lightning also saw the incomparable Mountain – even though it was still far away, its dusky body already showed its majestic appearance. The mountain peak was next to the ocean, as if the land had crept over to the water. The closer they came to the Redwater River, the more the hills close to the river’s waters rapidly shrank away, until they finally became one with the silver belt.
“This mountain is just a bit too big,” she could not help but sigh in sorrow, with the shortening of the distance, the contours of the mountain also became increasingly evident. Its peak was snow white, appearing to go straight into the clouds. Even though it wasn’t like the Impassable Mountain range which with its ups and downs went on for thousands of miles, but regarding height, it was even higher than three to four mountains put together. The hillside south of it was only one extending part of its mountain ridges, the source of the Redwater River also came from this magnificent high mountain.
“It’s the end of the Concealing Forest!” Maggie screamed excitedly.
Just like Maggie had said, the piece of dark green finally came to an end under their feet, the earth was also restored to a light green – which should be a slice of grassland. Further ahead however, at the edge of their line of sight, it unexpectedly changed into a pitch-black which covered the whole area up till the foot of the mountain.
“Let’s go down and take a look,” Lightning shouted, and pointed down before she dived towards the dark earth. She quickly discovered that the ground was entirely formed out of black stone.
“What is this?” After landing, Maggie immediately pecked twice at it, “It looks like it isn’t something to eat, goo!”
“Of course, you cannot eat it,” Lightning said and picked up a black stone to take a closer look. It had a sharp and clear-cut look, and even though it had a
pitch-black outward appearance, Lightning could still see a metallic sheen when she turned it in the sun. And this kind of stone was everywhere, together with a few patches of mud. At first glance, it looked like the earth has been soaked in ink. “It might be some kind of ore, take two pieces along and we’ll let His Highness take a look.”
It was then time for drawing work, so she returned to the air and began to record the terrain in the vicinity.
It had taken them almost half the morning to arrive from the edge of Border Town to the foot of the mountain. In other words, this place was close to two hundred and forty kilometers away from Border Town; much further than Longsong Stronghold. And this mountain… Within Lightning’s mind an idea suddenly emerged, with such a gigantic mountain, how would the scenery look like? Is it a vast jungle, or undulating hills and mountains?
After her fear disappeared, it became hard for her to suppress this idea once it had appeared.
Crossing the mountains would obviously be somewhat challenging, just the peak covered in white snow was enough to make people shrink back. But, there was also one other route, bypass it by sea. By doing this, she wouldn’t even need to fly to the back of the mountain, she would only need to travel onwards to the middle of the sea, and she could put the rear of the mountain in her line of sight.
Lightning called Maggie over, then repeatedly warned her not to move about randomly. She put on her windproof glasses and raised her speed to the limit the next instant – her magic power quickly drained, and the oncoming wind swept her short hair to the back of her head, the land beneath her continually receded, and the blue ocean filled her entire field of vision.
After about half an hour’s flight, she was finally able to faintly see the scene behind the mountain. Behind it, it seemed that there was a succession of mountains that separated the sea from the land, but then, Lightning saw something which made her blood freeze inside of her veins.
At the end of the horizon, there was a layer of reddish-brown fog which covered the mountains, looking just like blood. The fog extended all along to the west, making it almost impossible for her to see its boundary.