Chapter 453 - 453. Expedition
A ship silently moved on the sea between the archipelago and the continent.
The ship was an inscribed item, the formations on its surface offered protection and even some kind of hiding since an eerie fog surrounded its shape.
Noah and his group sat silently on the main deck, they weren't exactly hiding but it was better to reach the continent unnoticed.
Rebellions and claims of independence were happening everywhere on the continent and the three big nations were having a rough time suppressing all those countries unwilling to remain under their areas of influence.
The cause behind those events was the conquest of the Coral archipelago, it was safe to assume that the forces of the three big nations would be more than willing to attack a ship belonging to the Hive.
Of course, that should be prevented by the agreements negotiated four years before but there were many ways to cover the identity of the assailants, one of those was to leave no survivors.
That's why the troops of the Hive would rather stay silent during their voyage and leave the protection of the ship to the elder overseeing them.
Their destination was the border between the area of influence of the Shandal Empire and that of the Papral nation, right next to the mystical fog that divided them.
Noah had access to the records of the Hive, the information about the fog was something that he had studied while he waited for Elder Iris to form the group for the mission.
According to the records, the mystical fog on the border of the area of influence of the Papral nation was a danger zone that seemed to be artificially created by some powerful being in the past.
Yet, just like the mountain range on the border of the area of influence of the Utra nation, it had an area where cultivators in the human ranks could safely cross it.
The mountain range had the city of Slyfall while the mystical fog had the Efrana nation.
No one knew if those two areas were left open for some reason but they eventually became the only connection between the areas of influence of two big nations.
One of them became a corrupted city where everyone could be bribed while the other became a battlefield where mercenary set up tribes in order to prosper.
The ship took a bit more than two months to reach the shores of the continent, the fog around it seemed to match the mystical one that had appeared on the border and that divided the continent into two different areas.
The small gray cloud around the ship fused with the danger zone when it reached the sandy coast, allowing for Noah and his group to jump on the ground completely unnoticed.
The ship then disappeared behind them, the elder hiding in the air had stored it inside his space-ring.
Noah gestured to the group to move, they were going to reach Efrana nation on foot.
The gray fog on their left seemed to affect their senses, it was able to make anyone in the human ranks lost their orientation.
However, the elder in the air would promptly send indications to Noah to make him adjust the direction in which he was marching, it was impossible to take the wrong path with a heroic cultivator guiding his steps.
The group moved quite fast, there were at least seventy rank 2 cultivators and about twenty in the third rank but each one of them had a rank 4 body, eliminating the need to rest at short intervals.
Their march was virtually uneventful, they were on the borders of a danger zone after all, magical beasts and humans would avoid that area.
It took a few months and a relatively tiring journey but the group successfully managed to reach the center of the continent without encountering any danger.
It must be said that Noah was so used to that kind of travel that he could observe the Kesier rune as he walked, it was enough to use Heilong senses to keep track of where he was going.
That behavior earned even more the respect of the members of his group, some of them had only heard stories about the Demon Prince of the Chasing Demon sect but almost everyone had heard the rumor that he was the one to retrieve Divine Demon's inheritance.
No official news had been released about the matter but everyone was quite sure about that fact, it wouldn't be possible to explain all the privileges that Noah had otherwise.
Noah, on the other hand, didn't care about the respect of those around him, his mind was only focused on the hindrances that stood in front of his path to power.
His Earth Tribulation drew closer with each passing day, his sea of consciousness continuously enlarged due to the liquid "Breath" inside his mind, adding the Kesier rune to his training was just a way to further hasten the breakthrough at that point.
"Proceed east for about an hour and you will enter its borders."
Noah listened to the mental message through his inscribed notebook and gestured to the group to follow him in the pointed direction.
The group followed Noah's orders and, in a bit more than an hour, the gray fog around them dispersed, allowing them to see the environment of their destination.
It seemed a wasteland, grass grew sparsely on the red ground which had dark shades.
No matter how much Noah looked at it, he couldn't help but find similarities with the color of the terrain and that of the human blood.
'This should be a phenomenon similar to that of Arolyac forest, the blood of powerful beings has tainted the terrain, forever changing its color. It should be different though, Arolyac forest became red due to the death of a powerful magical beast but here the color changed due to the death of many human cultivators. This truly is a war zone.'
Noah thought as he moved his gaze in the distance.
A series of small mountains could be seen on the horizon but, apart from some small tree, he couldn't see any trace of life.
The Efrana nation appeared almost completely barren at first sight.