7 Bloody lynx Lake

The next day, Emperor said goodbye to Space and promised once again to keep the location secret before ascending the stairs to the exit.

Once up there, at the edge of the cliff, he put into practice what he had learned the day before. He looked down at the ground far below him, focused, and put a feet down in the empty space in front of him. Instead of falling, his feet touched the ground.

It worked, it only took him one step to get down from higher than the trees. If he had failed he would have fell from so high, he was glad it worked. He had trained a whole day to do this so he was pretty sure he would be able to do it but still, he felt relieved.

While he smiled at his own success, he went back to the place where the giant creature had collapsed. Wherever the creature had slithered, the land was devastated, the trees were torn off the ground and nothing remained aside from mud and rubbles.

The only exception was were the head of the thing fell. There, the blue liquid had spilt from the hole in the boulder and watered the surroundings. Inside the head, only half the liquid remained and outside, not a drop. Everything had been absorbed by the earth and a true mountain of flowers and grass had grown around the skull in the span of a night. It was magnificent to look at aside from the gruesome scene in the center of it.

A poor squirrel was standing at the edge of the hole in the skull. It had drunk some of the blue liquid and a small tree had grown out of its stomach. Its entrails ripped open from the inside to let the branches and roots through, killing it in the process. It was saddening to see but Emp had learned something important from it. In no way should he ever drink that liquid!

He got the poor squirrel out of his mind and put the whole head into his bag. Good thing the liquid was already in a convenient container. He only had to touch the head and it disappeared in the bag.

Afterwards, he followed the trail of destruction back to the river where he had first met the monster. He used the opportunity to continue his training with Space's blessing. He wanted to do it again and again until the movement came to him as naturally as a normal step would.

The river wasn't the same as how he had left it. Part of it had dried because most of the water was caught in the giant hole the creature had left behind. He curiously examined the hole before swiftly moving on. He still followed the river upwards until in early afternoon when he found the road Chinui had told him about. All he had to do now was to follow it. He moved quickly and nothing else disturbed his travel that day.

The road was heavily angled but with his new technique, the climb wasn't that tiring. The next day, the road still went upwards, zigzagging between mountains he couldn't see.

That day, he saw an enormous bug, as big as himself. It was a beetle possessing arms like that of a scorpion but instead of pincers, they ended with two heads. Where it's head should have been, in-between its two arms, there was only a huge sharpened horn not unlike a spear. The bug was pale green with many teal spots and possessed a fat and round body supported by many thin and tiny legs. Both of its heads were equipped with a pair of sharp mandibles and small black eyes that looked like beads on top of tiny viscous tentacles.

When it got out of the woods far behind Emperor, it instantly decided that the human would make for a good snack and went after him. Once he got over his initial surprise about finding yet another strange creature, Emp ran.

He was still unarmed and didn't feel like risking his life more than necessary. Also, he had no idea what that creature was capable of. If he couldn't take it out in one hit with the hammer, he was done for. Even the weakest creature in the world would easily take him out once the hammer drained all his energy. The only reasonable thing to do was escape.

Anyway, he already had a monster on his hunting card, there was no reason to fight this thing. Even if it was the source of something valuable, Emp felt that the fertilizer combined with the money Chinui had given him were more than enough for what he needed. Of course, he had no idea what he needed yet aside from not ending in the bug's stomach. He was sure he would find something to do with it.

He daydreamed about what to do with the money while he was chased but tanks to his space walking and the slowness of the bug, he easily escaped even without really thinking about what was happening. After night came, he asked the book about the bug. the next time he would encounter one, at least he would know what it was.

"The twin-headed impaling beetles are common asexual bugs that hunt alone. Their usual technique is to firmly grip their prey with their two pairs of mandibles and impaling it on their horn. Their back shell is hollow and used to house the eggs of the creature instead of wings. At the end of their life cycle, they gather in breeding grounds were they form offspring before carrying the eggs away for the hatching. The larvae eats the parent before dispersing.

The shell of the bug, contrary to its appearance, is brittle and a sword can easily cut through it. The horn can be used for a decent spear tip but aside from it, there are no other known use for this bug. They usually fight to the death but if one of the heads dies, they always run away. They make for a perfect prey for many predators."

What a strange creature. If he had been armed, he should have been able to defeat it. He closed the book, and did not think about it again.

In the morning, Emp climbed as high as he could in a tree to admire the surrounding scenery. On either side of the road he was following, mountains rose beyond more mountains that peeked from behind yet again more mountains. They were so tall he could barely see the top of them through the clouds. The road followed a pass between two of them. He suspected that such a convenient path did not appear between each of them, the road was probably following the weakest point through the natural wall the mountains made.

Emp observed the clouds cutting themselves in half on the mountain peaks for a while. Once again absorbed by a sight he had never experienced before. The clouds just ran into the peaks without slowing down, fearless in front of their demise. Was it brave or just foolish? Maybe they didn't care at all. Maybe it wasn't as bad as it looked and they could just easily heal afterwards.

After getting back down, he noticed the temperature was warmer than it had been before, it now felt too hot to travel. Since the road had left the river, there was nowhere to fill up his canteen anymore. He would have to wait for the next water source but he didn't feel stressed about it, there should be many more on the way. He was moving quite fast as well, it would take no time at all to reach one.

It was still early but he was already drenched in sweat from the heat. He just wanted to lie down somewhere and wait for the temperature to go down. In the end, he continued to walk anyway, it wasn't smart to lie down in the woods and he had a long way to go still.

The road went up and down many times before it finally started going downwards for good in the afternoon. Many empty spaces started to show up in the tree line. The trees grew in small patches and in between each of those, many ponds and tall grass took the place. Many of those ponds were made of stagnant water but some flowed through the grass into more ponds situated lower. The water here didn't seem as good as the river.

Mosquitoes harassed him by millions and sometimes, on the other side of the many ponds, he could get a glimpse of an animal or creature going for a drink. He had not seen many living creatures since his departure but here, they were everywhere. Was it because they were harder to see in the dense forest or they were just more numerous here?

The sound of the toads had buried the chirping of the birds and the road twisted and turned to dodge all that water. It failed many times and Emp's boots were quickly covered in mud but at least, the things he could glimpse in his surroundings ignored him. That was what he thought until he crossed path with a second beetle.

This time, the beetle appeared in front of him, he would have to bypass it to move on. He forgot to breathe once again as the beetle charged at him. Emp had two choices, either he could quit the road and find a way around it or he could try to space walk past it. He didn't want to fill his boots with water so he went for the second option. When the bug would be about to reach him, he would step either on its left or right and it would become easy to escape it. Now that he was mentally prepared, he only had to wait for the bug to catch up to him. He was about to do it when something unexpected happened.

The beetle sank into the mud or rather, the mud moved on its own to entrap it. The monster struggled against the earth but it had no effect on the mud slowly creeping up its legs. Once the creature understood it would never be able to cross the mud pit, it tried to back out of it but it only helped the mud creep on its back. Annoyed, the insect opened and closed its shell in quick motions to throw off the mud but the thing refused to let go.

Emp could clearly see that the scene in front of him was everything but normal but the insect was too dumb to realize. It only understood it was in danger when the mud crept from his back all the way to its twin necks. Panicked, the creature shook and trampled the mud but never achieved to get rid of it. In the end, the beetle tried to bite the mud off but only managed to get more of it on its heads.

The living mud quickly covered both of its heads. Emp could only watch, scared to death as the insect died slowly asphyxiated by the ground itself. The monster fell powerlessly and the mud covered it entirely until it looked like a large bump in the road.

Emp was petrified on the spot, unable to understand what had happened. If there ever was any more of those strange mud pit and he put a feet in it, would he be able to get out? If he Spacewalked into such a trap, would he be able to do a second one to get out? How was he supposed to make sure he wouldn't end up like the bug? He had been so lucky the bug was there to prevent him from walking into the trap.

He was way too scared to move a single inch forward or back. All he did was shake his feet a little to make sure he wasn't stuck himself. After a quick look around to make sure there were no other immediate danger, he took the risk of getting the book out right there to ask what was that mud.

"The mud traps are in fact a type of slime in the category of mimics. They are the most fragile of all slimes, they compensate by hunting in groups. They gather by the dozen and mimic mud until a suitable prey comes into contact with them. Not as corrosive as their many cousins, they can only smother their victims to death. They then slowly absorb the prey and use it's matter to divide themselves into more mud traps. The mud traps aren't particularly aggressive and never follow a prey that manage to escape.

They are considered fragile since they do not possess a good control ability over their own body. The nucleus that animates them always finds itself in the most active part of a mud trap meaning that the part that extends from the main body towards the prey is always its weak point. If the nucleus is damaged or removed, the mud trap dies. Since the mud trap does not only posses the appearance of liquid mud but also its consistency, it is somewhat easy to destroy. Their nucleus is used in many magic discipline."

The book told him they were weak but he had just witnessed them win over a bug as fat as a bear. Besides, the book had also called that insect weak. Did it have a different definition of weak than Emp? If those were weak, himself was completely inoffensive.

He didn't want to risk attacking the nucleus empty handed and since there were more than one in that pool, the hammer was out of the question as well. He thought that a good staff would do the trick, maybe a large stick but now, he was surrounded by mud and water. He would have to get into one of those ponds to rummage for a stick and who knew what was hiding below the surface. He shouldn't leave the road.

He searched his bag for anything that could be used for a weapon. Against the beetle it would have been useless but against the mud trap, anything at all would be useful. Unfortunately, he didn't find anything usable aside from his small knife and the fishing rod. The fishing rod was out of the question, he couldn't replace it if he ever lost it and he needed it to get himself food. The knife, on the other hand, was so small that if he ever missed the nucleus, the mud trap wouldn't have any problem to grip both the knife and his hand. It wasn't much better than fighting empty handed.

He still got it out of the bag, it wasn't exactly the best but it was still better than nothing. Then, he spacewalked to the other side of the mud pit and resumed his travel ever so slowly. Stressed at the idea that at any moment, the ground itself could rise up to swallow him, he had a hard time enjoying the scenery like he did before.

The next day, the swamp became forest again and Emp scrambled to go find a solid stick so that the events of the prior day would not repeat themselves.

The heat was still uncomfortable but less than the last day and the clouds were thickening. Rain was coming.

Emp advanced with at a good pace even if his leg was still hurting him. It had a pretty ugly look to it now but he had no idea of what to do with it besides to let it be. He traveled eight more days before reaching the lake. In those eight days he saw all manners of incredible things and got soaked by the rain many times.

For example, he saw a hill that looked a lot like a rolling wave and formed some kind of overhang over the road. It was an ideal place to protect yourself from the rain and rest but there wasn't much greenery growing under it.

Of course, he saw many branching paths going left and right, some clearly more used than others. He kept going on the main road like Chinui had told him to do.

Once the road got to a river again, he saw the first bridge of his life. It was very large and Emp thought that it was probably used a lot. Since the river here was much larger and deeper than the one on the other side of the mountain, that bridge was very useful. Large tree trunks were used as pillars to keep it above the water, thick boards were tightly nailed together to form the path and there was even a sturdy railing. The rail had all the spaces between its posts filled with more wood and was so thick Emp couldn't wrap his fingers around it. At each end of the bridge, a lamp stood above the last post of the railings. Even in the afternoon, when Emp passed on the bridge, the lamps were lit. He wondered who took care of them but since there were no houses nearby, the answer remained a mystery.

Aside from interesting scenery, he also saw more creatures. Every day since got on that side of the mountains, it seemed, he came across a new one. A big bird, orange and green with a human head flew above him. Twenty or so small grey-skinned men with strangely long faces and wearing skins watched him pass from the top of a nearby hill. He came near a field covered in rabbit sized rocks with faces carved on each of them. They turned on themselves to always look his way as he passed by.

On the other side of the river, he saw a group of four birds bigger and larger than him while he was filling his canteen. They seemed viscous, dripping a foul pinkish brown liquid from the tip of their wings. They had a long and curved crystal beak they held up high as they paraded in front of the one with the lightest pink color. Then, a giant pincer came out of the river at lightning speed and caught one of the birds right by the midsection and brought it back into the river easily, scattering the rest. If the birds were bigger than him and the pincer had been large enough to grab one of them, how big was the thing to which it belonged? Emp quickly got back to the road and chose to walk a little further away from the river. If he had known such a thing lived in the river beforehand, he wouldn't have filled his canteen here.

He also saw around fifteen giant ants with the heads and legs of a deer instead of their own. He didn't go near them either.

He started to encounter actual people as well. They traveled in large groups of at least ten wagons. They were always escorted by a large amount of armed people, sometimes riding horses. The wagons were always covered by cloth, forbidding him from seeing what was inside of them. Emp was very curious to see but, not enough to brave the guards. The majority of the time, they stayed on guard against him and he had to step aside from the road to let them go by.

Most of them wore swords or bows but some had more exotic things like a pick or a trident. Since they weren't wearing any uniforms and all of them had their own set of strange armor, Emp could easily guess that they weren't soldiers. Maybe they were mercenaries, or death seekers. Sometimes, one of them would come to him to talk, probably to ask him some questions but Emp didn't understand any of them.

When he had met Space, he had wondered if he needed to know another language. Now he was certain, it was really frustrating to not understand what everyone was saying. His interlocutor always gave up quickly in front of the clueless Emp and the caravan went by without minding him too much. The only thing he was able to confirm was that his clothes weren't that strange compared to them all.

And then, the day finally came where he was able to see a big mass of water at the end of the river. It was the bloody lynx lake. From the road, looking towards the lake, he could see water and only water until he could see no more. If he had not been sure it was a lake, he could have believed that the water went on forever.

A misty fog rolled lightly above the lake pushed here and there by the wind giving the sky a grayer and grayer tint the lowed you looked towards the horizon, stopping him from witnessing the true size of it all. It was surely a paradise for the fishes. The lake was so vast, it was impossible for them to complain about their living space.

The pincer had vanished from his mind long ago and Emp left the road to walk on the rugged beach. Once his feet touched the water brought by the waves, he bent himself to grasp some water in his hands. This wasn't the same water than the water he had gathered in the same way on the other side of the mountains but, however, it looked the same. The sparkling was missing because of the mist but aside from that, it was the same. Would the water on the other side end up in the same kind of place as the water over here? There were hundreds of millions of droplets here, reunited after a glorious trip through mountains, swamps and forested rivers. They now all rested together in the lake, waiting for the fog to take them. It was pretty but Emp also found it a little sad.

After all those efforts, the only thing left for that water to do was to calmly await it's end in a shroud of grey mist. Were the waves that attacked the beach nonstop a last ditch effort for the water to escape its fate or only a way to pass the monotonous time they had on the lake? Wasn't the trip better than the destination? If Emp was like a droplet of water following the river, would becoming an emperor be his lake?

Maybe he should stretch the trip as much as possible. He felt scared of the silence ruling over the lake. It was not the same silence as the one he remembered from the serene clearing nor was it the agonizing silence that oppressed the surroundings of the woodland horror. It was only an empty silence, the silence of the end. He had the wrong question when he stood in the river.

If the two rivers could join like that, he had asked himself, could they part again later? If that was the case, how did the water droplets know which of the two branches they belonged to?

Now he wondered, how was he to know were those branches were going? How could he choose the one that didn't end up in the lake?

Emp took a deep breath and hit the road. It was too early to think about it now, he was still at the start. He had plenty of time to figure out which way to go. However much he would think about it now, he wouldn't find an answer. Better get back on the road instead and let the current bring him further.

Later that day, the rain finally decided to fall, drenching him and clearing some of the fog. Now that his vision wasn't hampered anymore, he could see much further and truly appreciate the vastness of this place.

It wasn't only the first time he saw that much water, it was also the first time he saw such a big area without any trees. Even around the lake, they had cut down all the trees to grow fields. They spread far and wide around the lake, circling dozens of watchtowers as if it was a second lake grown out of wheat and potatoes. Around it all, many groups of twenty soldiers in armor patrolled to protect the slaves working there and the harvest they collected.

Here, at the end of the furthest fields from town, was the most dangerous place to work. If a monster got out from the woods, they would be the firsts in line to die. Chinui had explained it to him, when a monster appeared, the nearest watch tower had to light an alarm fire. The nearest soldiers would see it and rush to repel or kill the creature but often, by the time they got there, at least one worker had died.

To account for that, the fields had been classified in order of importance. The nearer it was to the city, the more the crops grown there was valuable to it, leaving the less valuable crops further to absorb most of the troubles. In the same manner, the nearer you got to the protective walls of the town, the less slaves there was, replaced by paid workers. This way, the nearer to town the field was, the more profitable and safe it was.

The road Emp followed passed through the fields in a mostly straight line making it so that he lost the sight of the lake because of the tall crops. He would soon be into town.