"Fuck!" Reign cursed aloud as he was suddenly swallowed by a tornado made of black miasma.
He had been flying around, searching for another nest after destroying his 14th one in a row when he suddenly found himself stuck in its eye.
As for how that happened, this dark miasma clearly defied natural order and physics.
The miasma whirlwind wasn't strong enough to harm him, but it threw him off course, messing up his sense of direction and the landscape around him.
With visibility so poor in this place, he was completely lost after that whole fiasco.
"Where is East, where is West?" He kept looking left and right, hoping his gut feeling would guide him, but it was futile.
'Can't believe I got lost,' he muttered, feeling frustrated.
He had been meticulously memorizing his directions all along, using the train tracks as a reference point, but now all that effort was wasted.
As he landed on a patch of uneven ground, his feet sank slightly into the soft earth.
Taking a deep paused, he tried to calm his racing thoughts.
The surroundings were very unfamiliar, devoid of any recognizable landmarks because the tornado had completely reshuffled the sand.
'I need to find the train tracks,' he muttered to himself.
Minutes passed in silence as he contemplated his options.
Then, a plan began to form in his mind.
He would remember this spot as best as he could and pick a direction to travel.
If after a considerable distance he didn't encounter the railway tracks or any other familiar signs, he would backtrack to this starting point.
With that in mind, he materialized a long pole made of bones and firmly planted it into the ground before taking flight again.
This would serve as a marker to help him remember the location when he returned.
SWOOOOOSH!
With a strong flap of his wings, he wasted no time and began flying to his right, or whatever direction it was.
He continued flying, periodically materializing poles made of bones every 5 kilometers and throwing it on the ground .
Each time he planted a new marker, he felt a sense of relief knowing that he was creating a trail.
He continued flying further, and around the 50 km mark, he slowed down a bit because he saw something unexpected.
Up until now, most of the landscape had been flat and hilly, but in front of him was an actual tall mountain.
Reign touch his chins as he examined the series of perfectly formed holes scattered throughout the mountain side.
'These holes are too accurate to form naturally,' he muttered, his curiosity piqued.
Each hole seemed meticulously made, their smooth edges and uniform shape suggesting deliberate construction rather than random erosion.
Intrigued, he approached one of the larger holes and looked inside.
What he had initially thought to be a simple cavity revealed itself to be a narrow tunnel, its walls carved from the solid rock of the mountain itself.
The tunnel extended deeper into the heart of the mountain, disappearing into darkness.
'This hole is a bit small for me.' he thought to himself,
With a mental command, he called back his wings, and his body began to shrink in real-time.
Bones compacted, and his frame reduced until he reached a manageable height of around 5"5 feet. Satisfied with his new size, he cautiously entered the narrow cavity.
The tunnel, once cramped and restrictive, now felt more accommodating as he navigated its twists and turns.
The walls closed in around him, and he had to stoop slightly to avoid scraping against the rough rock.
As he walked deeper into the tunnel, the air grew cooler, and faint echoes reverberated off the stone walls.
Small cracks and crevices in the rock occasionally offered glimpses of other passages and chambers beyond, hinting at how complex the mountain's interior was.
'This must have been built for something, but what for? I doubt humans would bother making this many tunnels,' he mused quietly to himself.
"And where does these tunnels even lead to?" he wondered aloud, his words echoing against the wall.
***
High above the sky, a winged figure soared at a fast pace, her body a blur against the backdrop of miasma.
"A mountain ? " With a quick pivot of her wings, she slowed her momentum and hovered in midair, her gaze fixed on the imposing mass of rock and stone before her.
The mountain stood tall and quiet, its peaks hidden in thin black mist .
"Wow, what is this place? And I can also feel that there's a barrier around it," Zet exclaimed aloud, her excitement evident as her geeky side took hold.
She was a bit down earlier because while flying towards the next city, she encountered a Blight Tornado.
It was mostly harmless given her power, but the real danger came from its trait to vanish and reappear in specific areas.
Plus, this phenomenon was almost non-existent in Tier 4 Regions, so that really took her by surprise.
'I wonder what this place has to offer,' a smile formed on her lips as she quickly flew down.