The deeper they went into the rift, the higher and heavier the weight of the suppression got. Warden could feel it pricking against his skin, prying into his energy and continuing to suppress it.
As far as he was concerned, the suppression in the camps was below 1% barely anything to affect a ranker. However, here it clocked closer to 10%, more than enough to feel regular rankers tried.
Even with his tough form, Warden was having such an effect. The suppression would be tougher for a mage class ranker, considering it would be equally hard if not more to form spells in this environment.
On top of that, they finally came across another obstacle in their path. Monsters.
Warden's eyes could find over a hundred of them as he stared at the vast desolate expanse before him. The only time he had seen so many monsters at the same place was inside a dungeon.
What was worse was that the suppression did not affect these creatures as much as it did to rankers. Well, it affected regular rankers, as for Warden...
After checking out his surroundings, he sat down and channelled the baleful particles present in the air. A far deeper cold prickling sensation jabbed through his channels the more he channelled the baleful energy.
He didn't know if it was that common of an occurrence, or because of his special physique. But it improved his Void Vanquishing Physique whenever he channelled these baleful particles through his body. Of course, the improvement was subtle, and Warden hadn't even seen 1% of improvement, but he could feel it in his gut.
Perhaps I can train my Physique with this, he thought. Sadly, channelling the baleful particles did not make the suppression avoidable. Well, he was intrinsically aware, that the suppression was the unique circumstance for him to improve his physique.
Warden turned to the captain, who had been frowning at the hundreds of beasts from time to time. Considering it was only a scouting mission, she would want to avoid any confrontation with the creatures. Which reminded Warden, he actually did not know what they were scouting for.
Agnes shot the demonic creatures below another glance and sucked in a deep breath. Warden didn't know if she did it naturally or if it took practice, but the ambient energy of the surrounding sucked into her form. Of course, that included the baleful particles as well.
Her expression remained peaceful, with no subtle change if she felt pain, pointed out that he didn't need to be worried about her falling ill. Well, considering she had been on the front lines for years, she probably knew what she was doing.
However, what surprised Warden was how she was breathing the ambient energy as if it were only natural. He could also do that, though only in that ethereal flow state. The others did not seem to notice the peculiarity of their strange and revered captain.
Is it an intrinsic ability of the darkness element, which engulfs everything in its path? June might have an answer to that.
"We wait for the nightfall," the captain announced. "Then we advance to traverse to the next fold of the rift. Everyone rest up. It's unlikely we'll be able to avoid a fight."
The sun was already on the dying horizon. In about an hour or two, a thick blanket of darkness covered the desolate expanse of the front lines. However, they still waited for a couple more hours for the demonic creatures to settle down.
The captain stood up, battle-ready. "It's time," she said and began discussing their plan.
She didn't say much if Warden had to put in one sentence, it would go something like this: Avoid the creatures and advance toward the warped way.
Then they moved into lying monsters. A tangible blanket of Darkness flew out of the captain's body and covered them all. Her darkness became one with the darkness of the land, hiding all their forms.
They began moving in a slow, steady creep.