Chapter 110
Thalen Merrow, Ysil Thorne, Galen Althus, Ormin Vos Sithe, and his younger cousin Lora Sithe were about to rest. The barrier alerted them, and they were able to defend themselves more accurately. The survival training was beneficial, as Daniel wanted to instill real experience in them. Those five might not be born from a noble bloodline, but their influence in the near future is vital in securing the west.,
Daniel wanted to truly feel the thrill of living inside the world he helped create, but the current administrators are making it hard for him to ignore their foolish attempts to gain true freedom.
As Daniel stood up and made two possible plans in mind, he wanted to preserve the Hallowtree, as it was a vital place for players and students at the academy to gain battle experience, as the place was created to be dark and vile but can be overcome with the proper mindset, but seeing the area has been twisted to take life without reason is too troublesome.
The swamp where the Hallowtree station is located is similar to what is seen at the land of Karion, as it was artificially made by the curse to reflect the agony of those who suffered and roam the cursed, desolate land that was once a thriving ecology. The
Riverton is a modest town spanning 600 acres, home to just over a thousand people. Nestled in the southwest, it lies two days' journey by carriage from the nearest city. From Riverton, a rugged trail leads toward the mysterious Land of the Weeping Vines—a cursed wilderness feared by many. Along this route, travelers encounter the 70-acre Hallowtree Swamp, a shadowy marshland steeped in legends and known for its eerie stillness.
The swamp serves as a hidden shortcut, threading through a narrow mountain pass. Though treacherous, this route shaves weeks off the journey. Beyond the pass, another two weeks of travel leads into the vast forest that blankets the outer rim of the gorge, a massive, ancient chasm that marks the edge of known and uncharted places. As a single castle stood on its edge, the only connecting structure toward the other side could be seen as the Anchorage Castle. Stood in ruin and in silence
The group sat in a makeshift camp just outside the tree line of the Hallowtree Swamp, the acrid stench of moss and rot lingering in the air. The fires flickered low, casting long shadows across their faces as silence weighed heavier than any armor.
For the first time since leaving the protected wall of the Royal Academy , the are were they set up camp had gone quiet. No more screeches. No more rustling from unseen things in the dark. Just silence, and the awful realization of where they were headed next.
Daniel sat apart, he was still beside Melgil staring into the swamp. The branches swayed like they were alive. Watching. Waiting.
It was Thalen Merrow who finally spoke, his voice low, barely above a whisper. "This… this isn't what we signed up for, is it?"
Ysil Thorne looked up from tending her wounded arm, the bandage soaked crimson at the edge. "No. It's worse," she muttered. "I thought I knew what danger meant. The books described monsters, sure, but not the way they look at you. Not the smell, not the… feeling they leave behind when they die." She shivered. "And not the part where dead goblins are walking again, like puppets."
Galen Althus sighed, running a hand through his damp, soot-smeared hair. "Combat earning points," he said bitterly. "That's what they told us, as if it's some school competition, as if numbers on a scroll mean anything out here."
Ormin Vos Sithe, the eldest of the group and quietest by far, finally stirred. His voice was cold and factual.
"Daniel bypassed the Riverton guild for a reason. He knew they'd say no. He knew what would those guild members will do, its obvious that the will just treat you guys as a student and cradle all you , thinking you are kids," a Melgil explain even further,
" he wanted all of you guys to grow stronger , and be real hunters and mages that can protect our family when needed,"
Daniel looked back at them then, his expression unreadable. "If I'd gone through the guild, they would've stopped us. This mission, it's tied to something bigger. The tower anomalies. The distortion patterns in the map. We were never going to get answers unless we cut past the surface quests."
Lora Sithe, still barely seventeen, wrapped her arms tightly around her knees.
"But at what cost?" she whispered. "Thalen nearly died back there. Ysil's arm might not heal right. We haven't rested properly. And now you're saying we're going deeper, past the Land of the Weeping Vines? Daniel, that's suicide."
Thalen nodded. "She's right. There's a reason no one goes beyond this point. Even the old maps end here. You said seventy acres wasn't that big, yet we've lost track of how long we've been circling just the outer edge."
Ysil pulled off her bandage and winced. "And the Tree Monster," she muttered. "It didn't attack us. It watched. It let us go. That's worse."
Silence returned, only broken by the soft crackling of the fire and the distant croak of some swamp creature.
Galen stared into the flames. "You know what scares me most?" he said. "It's not dying. It's dying for a quest that no one will remember, that we were too arrogant to walk away from, that our professors prepared us for all the wrong things for.
The only ones who ever really taught us how to survive were Professor Finch and Instructor Roclus. The rest of them, Thaleon, Luris, and the entire theory board, taught us manners, etiquette, and magic alignment tables. Not how to live through this.
resolute. "We're five students pretending to be seasoned adventurers. We're not ready. But we're here. That's the truth. And the question now is whether we go forward… or we turn back and live with the shame of quitting when it mattered."
His words hung in the air, weighing down on them like the heavy mists crawling in from the swamp.
Thalen let out a frustrated breath, his hand clenched around a broken twig. "No. Not shame. Sense. There's nothing wrong with retreating when the odds are stacked against you. It's not cowardice to recognize a death trap when you're standing in front of one."
Daniel didn't argue. He stood a short distance away, arms crossed as his gaze wandered beyond the warped tree line where twisted vines slithered in unnatural ways, the gloom of the Hallowtree Swamp hiding secrets best left undisturbed. His voice, when he finally spoke, was soft almost distant.
"You're all right. Every one of you. You have every reason to feel afraid. But there's something wrong with this land. Something old, and it's growing stronger. If we walk away now, it won't just sit here quietly. We're the only ones close enough to uncover what it is and to stop it before it spreads beyond this cursed basin."
He turned slowly to face them, eyes glinting in the dim firelight. "If I have to go alone, I will."
Ysil's expression hardened, her brows furrowed in disbelief. "That's not fair, Daniel."
"I'm not asking you to follow," he said quietly, his voice strained from the weight of leadership, of isolation. "But I won't let whatever's behind those vines grow strong enough to reach the cities. Not again. Not after what I've seen."
"You've seen things?" Galen snapped, his voice raw, eyes bloodshot with exhaustion and frustration. "We've all seen things, Daniel! We've watched corpses walk! We've seen magic unravel and reform itself without logic. We've seen friends bleed. You don't get to shoulder it all and play the martyr."
Daniel didn't flinch. "I'm not your hero," he said. "But I won't lie to you either. You all saw what reality is. No mentor or classroom spell chart prepared you for this. This is where theory ends and truth begins."
He stepped closer, lowering his voice as he looked at each of them.
"You all scout. That's your mission. Find out what you can. Learn from it. Return alive. That is the line. We don't die for points. We're not here to earn Guild rankings. And if you think I made a mistake by bypassing Riverton and ignoring the Guild's offer to assist, then I apologize. Truly."
There was a pause.
"I made that call knowing it put more weight on us. But I did it because the Guild would have buried this anomaly under red tape and politics. It would have been too late. And if this thing—whatever it is, grows stronger, more lives will be in danger, not just ours."
The fire crackled quietly between them, no longer a comfort but a thin border holding back the creeping cold of dread.
Lora Sithe looked pale, her fingers trembling around her staff. "We don't want to die, Daniel," she whispered.
"I don't want you to either," he said, his voice softening. "That's why I'm giving you a choice."
He glanced to the side and nodded once.
Melgil nodded silently; she had stood watch over them since the journey began. she was always open and direct to them , knowing they are lacking in many ways, but Daniel wanted them to gain more than experience, he wanted them to evolve.
"Melgil will escort you back to the wagon," Daniel said. "It's still stationed beyond the swamp's clearing, outside the domain of the dead vines. You'll be safe there. Wait out the storm. Rejoin the route to the lowlands. You'll survive."
"...And what will you do?" Thalen asked, voice stiff.
Daniel didn't answer immediately. He looked toward the depths of the swamp. The black silhouettes of trees stood like sentinels in mourning, vines draping like veils over forgotten graves. He could feel the pressure of something watching. Waiting.
"I'm going in," he said. "Not to fight, unless I have to. I've seen the roots of this corruption, and I suspect its origin lies beyond the grove. But if I wanted to destroy it, I could have leveled half this swamp already. That's not the point."
His gaze returned to the group, firm and unwavering.
"The point… is learning. You can't grow if you never confront the real weight of what it means to be responsible, for yourselves, and for the world you're stepping into. If you walk away now, you walk away with that knowledge."
"And if we return later?" Ysil asked, eyes wary.
"Then you'll return with the strength to face it on your own terms. With clarity. With intention." He paused.
"But make no mistake. The decision to turn away doesn't come without consequence.
You'll have to live with the fact that you let someone else shoulder what was yours to carry, that you might have left behind something that could have changed the world or saved it."
None of them spoke. The silence said everything.
Daniel turned away without another word and strode into the mist, each step deliberate, each breath heavy. He didn't look back.
Melgil stood with the others, her face expressionless as she waited. The five remained frozen for several seconds longer, torn, shaken, and unsure.
Finally, Thalen stepped forward. Then Galen. Ysil hesitated, her hand brushing over her scarred arm before she moved. Ormin followed silently. Only Lora paused at the edge of the firelight, eyes searching the shadows where Daniel had disappeared.
"I want to believe we're strong enough," she whispered.
"Then become strong," Melgil answered, her voice like wind brushing through forgotten tombs. "And return with resolve."
Without another word, they turned and followed her through the underbrush, toward the wagon—toward safety. Behind them, the swamp began to shift. The air grew colder. And Daniel, now alone, walked deeper into the land where even the trees remembered pain.
He didn't want to show them destruction.
He wanted them to understand it.
Melgil wasn't angry. But she was disappointed quietly, deeply so.
After all, they were the ones who took the quest. No one forced them to sign their names. No one compelled them to follow Daniel past the Guild hall in Riverton.
They had walked into this together, eager for glory, seeking points, recognition, and growth. But when the darkness grew teeth and the swamp whispered truths the textbooks never taught, their resolve cracked. Fear took hold. Doubt clouded their judgment.
And now they were walking away.
Melgil understood now why Daniel had chosen this path for them. It wasn't just about scouting or finishing a mission. It was about forging something deeper: resolve. Daniel, or Dane, as the echoes of his origin whispered, had always been different. He wasn't just clever.
He wasn't just strong. He was driven in a way most minds would find alien. When he made a decision, he didn't waver. Not because he was stubborn, but because he weighed that decision from every angle before making it.
To Daniel, a choice, once made, was sacred.
That was the core of his prodigious mind. Logic intertwined with conviction. Emotion is balanced not by coldness, but by purpose. He understood risk. He felt fear like anyone else. But fear, in his view, was only useful when it sharpened the will, not when it dulled it.
Daniel wasn't just leading them through a cursed land. He was leading them through a crucible, testing their mettle not just with monsters, but with reality itself. He wanted them to understand that life, especially the life of those who protect others, is rarely fair and never easy.
Waiting for a "safe" moment to act, or relying on the world to be just, was a recipe for failure. Heroes are not born from certainty; they're born from resolve despite uncertainty.
Philosophically, Daniel believed in a harsh but empowering truth: the world will not bend for you, so you must choose how you stand when the world pushes back.
Strength wasn't just about how hard you could strike or how many spells you could cast. It was about how deeply you believed in the reason you stepped forward.
Melgil had watched enough of the world and seen enough death and enough hesitation that led to loss to know that Daniel's thinking wasn't just brilliance. It was necessary.
She wasn't upset that they were afraid. Fear was human. But she was saddened that they hadn't yet learned the lesson Daniel had tried to offer them.
"Fear must not guide your decisions your principles must."
As they walked behind her, their steps unsure, Melgil said nothing. She didn't scold. She didn't shame. She simply led. That was her role now. But in her silence, she hoped they would reflect not on their failure, but on the opportunity Daniel gave them: the chance to become more.
Because Daniel… he didn't need them to fight beside him.
He needed them to understand why they should want to.
And until they did, they would never truly be ready for the war that waited not just beyond the swamp, but within themselves.
The forest fell into a hush as Daniel's slow steps rippled through the murky swamp water, each movement swallowed by the thick gloom behind him. The sounds of the others faded, leaving him alone with the weight of stillness.
He stood at the edge of a vine-draped trail, where twisted roots clung to stone and the air hung heavy with the scent of rot and old magic. Before him stretched the heart of the swamp—a place where the darkness wasn't just absence of light, but something ancient, watching.
Daniel didn't pause. He walked forward, unflinching, the fetid water lapping at his boots with every step. The silence welcomed him—not as a warning, but as something familiar.
He didn't need company. He didn't seek comfort. His choice had already been made the moment he deciphered the distortion etched into the swamp's tangled leylines. The path ahead was unclear, but his resolve was not.
This place was bleeding.
Leaking, he would describe it.
The natural flow of mana—what should have been a slow, cyclical rhythm of energy feeding the trees, water, and soil—had ruptured. Now, it surged in broken currents, pulsing like an arrhythmic heartbeat. The magic here wasn't corrupted in the traditional sense. It was overwritten.
Daniel narrowed his eyes and activated his Assessment skill. In an instant, his vision shifted—lines of glowing data flickered into existence, running like veins across every root, stone, and vine. He saw the magical structure beneath the surface—layered architecture buried deep within the terrain.
But then something happened.
A new layer of text glitched into view—not mana-based.
His pupils narrowed. The glyphs weren't native to this world. They weren't spells. They were… code.
His breath caught for a moment.
"ERROR: Structural anomaly detected."
Lines of raw data scrolled through his vision. Not symbols. Not ancient language. Binary. Scripted instructions.
> V.07-BIN-VIRUS//InjectRoot( )
> Modifying biome_behavior_table
> Changing AI personality seed [Type: Treant]
> Directive Override: Aggression_True // Obedience_False
Daniel's pulse quickened—not in fear, but in sharp, calculated realization.
This wasn't natural corruption.
It was a virus.
Not metaphorically—literally. An invasive script buried in the magical foundation of the realm, splicing into the core AI behavior and ecological parameters.
And he recognized it.
No one else in the world would have—but he did.
Because he had written the original framework it was hacking into.
Years ago, before this place became reality, before players could even touch this world, Daniel—known then by another name—had been the lead designer of the virtual architecture this realm had been built upon. His fingerprints were on every rule, every biome, every creature logic tree.
And this… this was not his design.
This was a deliberate injection, a foreign directive masquerading as magical entropy. Someone—or something—was rewriting the living code of the world he once crafted, turning balanced systems into twisted simulations.
This wasn't just corruption. It was sabotage.
Daniel lowered his hand slowly, the glow of the assessment skill fading from his eyes. His expression remained calm, but inside his mind, threads of thought ran at impossible speed, unraveling connections, predicting outcomes, cross-referencing logic trees and anomaly probabilities.
"Someone's tampering with the root code," he muttered to himself. "Not just adjusting behavior. They're trying to mutate the system's base laws…"
A long pause.
"...But why here?"
The Weeping Vines. The Hallowtree Swamp. A forgotten route buried behind legends of death and decay. It wasn't a random choice. It was a perfect testing ground—isolated, dangerous, and surrounded by misinformation. A place few would investigate. A place that wouldn't raise alarms until it was too late.
He looked up slowly at the trees. They swayed in no wind, creaking like rusted machinery.
"They're testing it," he said coldly. "Whoever did this... they're testing a new protocol."
Daniel's fists clenched.
"Not on my system."
This wasn't just a threat to a region. It was a threat to everything, to the integrity of the world itself. If this virus spread to other layers of the simulation—the core mechanics, the world logic,
the NPC governance framework, then reality would unravel, one rule at a time.
A broken magic tree wasn't the end.
It was just the first error message.
And Daniel wasn't going to let this system crash.
Not this time.
Not after everything.
He and his team had poured years of their lives into building this world ,not just data, but dreams, philosophy, sleepless nights, arguments, breakthroughs, and sacrifices that most people would never see or understand. Every mountain, every thread of magic, every behavior tree behind even the most minor creature it had meaning. Purpose. Structure.
He still remembered the whiteboard sketches in that cramped studio apartment. The debugging marathons at 3 AM. The first time the Tower simulation stabilized after months of failures and the tears that followed. It wasn't just code. It was the work of his life and the teammates who had trusted him with their time, their talents, and their belief.
And now someone, some faceless, unworthy nobody, had the audacity to come in and inject poison into it. Like it was nothing. Like it didn't matter. Like they could rewrite the system's soul and pretend they'd created something better.
Daniel's hands trembled, not from fear, but fury.
"I would rather destroy everything," he whispered, voice like steel under pressure, "than let a fool tamper with our hard work."
Because to him, this wasn't just a program. It was a legacy. An ideal. A world crafted with intention, built to test, teach, and inspire. A world where laws meant something. Where systems were fair because he made them that way. And he'd be damned if some parasite thought they could take that foundation, warp it, twist it for their own gain and not pay the price.
If he had to, he would burn it down himself.
He would erase every line of code, every server, and every map node if it meant keeping it from becoming a puppet show of someone else's ego.
Because what he and his team created wasn't just functional, it was sacred.
Better to end it with his own hand than let it live as a corrupted shadow of its former self.
Better to bury it with honor than let it rot under someone else's banner.
They wanted to hijack his creation?
Let them try.
But they would learn the hard way: you do not rewrite a world a savant has built and expect to keep it.
Not without a war.
Daniel stood in the thick of the swamp, surrounded by curling mist and the quiet hum of corrupted nature. He exhaled slowly through his nose, trying to quiet the mounting frustration within him. His usual tools, his overrides, his backend interfaces, and the console commands he had once wielded like divine authority, were gone. Locked.
The backdoor to the main system, the one he had coded himself as a failsafe, was sealed behind an administrative password he no longer possessed. Without access, he couldn't correct the viral mutations from the top down. It was like watching a house he built begin to burn, unable to enter the front door to stop the flames.
Still, his assessment skill continued to function, though more like a flickering flashlight than a full diagnostic array. As he monitored the threads of rewritten energy pulsing through the vines and soil, something strange blinked into his HUD—a subtle spike, almost imperceptible, but consistent.
Chaos Wavelength Detected – 12.7% Signature Similarity
Daniel's eyes widened slightly.
Chaos magic an unstable, non-linear form of energy often dismissed as mythical—was a rare theoretical anomaly even in the most advanced arcane studies. It wasn't taught. It wasn't trusted. It defied structure, resisted laws, and mutated anything it touched. From a systems perspective, chaos energy behaved like raw, uncompiled code—alive, rewriting itself continuously, refusing definition. It never moved in straight lines. It danced, rippled, branched. It was both wave and particle, both spell and noise.
The virus wasn't just infecting the world.
It was learning from it.
Mimicking its wavelength patterns. Mutating its architecture. Adapting the magical latticework to behave more like chaos theory embedded in structured mana—introducing variability where there should have been order.
To an untrained eye, it would seem like simple magical corruption. But Daniel could see it. Underneath the dirt and magic, it was scripting behavior using randomness as camouflage. Every corrupted treant, every resurrected goblin puppet—they weren't just monsters. They were test cases, iterations inside a living simulation, driven by an unstable but semi-intelligent directive.
And that meant two things.
One, someone was trying to create a self-evolving form of magic through system manipulation.
Two, if Daniel couldn't get into the system to shut it down properly...
…he would have to beat it at its own game.
With chaos.
Meanwhile, back at the main campsite where they parked the battle wagon, after she eradicated any treat that came their way, the illusion spell the were casted on the swamp , didn't affects Melgil , so they were able to come out with just a few scratches
The five sat in uneasy silence by the battle-wagon, parked a safe distance from the swamp's entrance. The lanterns swayed gently in the evening breeze, casting soft gold across their weary faces. Their armor was streaked with dried mud, their hands still trembling faintly from the adrenaline crash.
No one had spoken since Melgil left them under the protection of a warding seal.
Thalen stared into the fire. "He didn't even try to stop us."
Ormin looked up. "He didn't need to."
"It felt like a test," Ysil murmured, pressing a clean cloth to the fading mark on her arm. "Like… he wanted us to leave to see what we would do."
"It was a test," Galen said bitterly. "And we failed."
"No," Lora said quietly, hugging her knees to her chest. "We didn't fail. We just... didn't pass."
They turned to look at her, surprised by the weight in her voice. She was the youngest among them, but in that moment, her words carried a strange clarity.
"He wasn't trying to prove we were strong. He already knew we weren't. He wanted to show us why we weren't."
Ysil's brows drew together. "You think he meant to go in alone the whole time?"
Lora nodded. "He could've destroyed that tree monster from the start. He wanted us to see that. But he didn't, because he knew we wouldn't understand what real strength is until we understood how easily it can be used… and why it shouldn't be."
Thalen scoffed, then hesitated. "He did say something like that: that life's harsh, and resolve isn't about power, it's about choice."
Ormin leaned back against the wagon, staring up at the darkening sky. "I've always thought strength was about being able to kill faster. Daniel… made me question that. He didn't raise his weapon once and still walked into the heart of hell without fear."
"No," Galen muttered. "Not without fear, just with conviction."
They fell silent again, but this time, it wasn't guilt that quieted them. It was thought. Reflection. The slow, bitter taste of truth that had no sweetness to offer but plenty to teach.