The bone pits are not one bit how I had expected it to be. I had expected it to be an apocalyptic vision. I had expected the land to be covered in volcanic ash. I had expected random spikes of rock and random lava pools in the ground just to make traveling hard. I had expected the entire thing to be riddled with holes like the giants had a war here.

  There is nothing like that here. I would say that the land here is an empty plain, much like the Soldar Plains in many ways. (Nothing would grow here, though.) The entire plains is suffused with death mana that gives the place an eerie vibe.

  At least one of my assumptions stands true, at least. I had expected hordes of undead to be roaming the land, attacking anything that was moving. That the land would be a battlefield the likes of which we haven't seen in a while.

  There are entire hordes of undead below us. (not that the air is particularly free of these creatures as well.) If anything, the fighting is even more terrible than I had expected it to be. Entire hordes of undead clash against each other with a kind of mad fury.

  Incidentally, Most of the corpses fighting here are those of humans. They are wielding swords and armor, though they are so old that I would say they are centuries old. (Well, most of those weapons would have to be centuries old.)

  Most of the human corpses would be the corpses of the people who have settled here. The farmers, the villagers and the soldiers who thought that they could brave the bone pits. These brave souls were killed and consumed to become a part of the bone pits.

  There are a significant number of beasts as well here. Most of them are creatures that I do know. That is good since the unknown ones are supposed to be significantly stronger. Most of the beasts here are not from the bone pits as well. Most of these beasts here are also beasts that accidentally stumbled into here. They would have been quickly killed by the undead in these lands.

  These undead that were not created in a bone pit are supposedly much weaker than those that were created in one. This also means that these non-pit undead can survive with significantly less mana. I guess that I have spoken enough about the creatures here. Well, I have to admit that I had wanted to start this record at a better time.

  After all, there is so much to talk about the bone pits. I have been learning so much about the place since I entered. (Let's just say that Trevor thinks that I am now ready to accept this information.)

  Right now, I am not in the prettiest of states. At the moment, I would say that I am exhausted enough that I can feel my thoughts slow down. It is not enough to make me make any mistake yet.

  I won't be able to keep the ship up for much longer. My exhaustion will not be a reason for this. I have piloted the ship in even worse conditions. (Mainly that stupid trip that I had to take to the frozen peaks.) Right now, we are being overwhelmed by the undead. When they said that the bone pits would be covered in undead, I was expecting something else. Something that would be a bit more manageable.

  The original plan was that we would land on the ground and make camp. That plan has already failed if I am honest. If I were to let the ship land right now, we would be surrounded by hundreds of undead on the spot.

  Each of them would have to be held back. The only problem is I don't think I will have a choice in this. Now I should be able to keep us in the air for much longer than a single day. After all, my ship is still an airship. (Regardless of how haphazardly it was made.)

  Fuck, I think in my head as I swerve the ship to the right. My heart begins to pound as a grey flash appears in my senses. It would have hit us if I had not swerved at the last moment. It is a risky game that I am playing with the creatures, if I am being honest. I can only afford to go this fast.

  Right now, the main threat that I am facing is the seventeen undead that are chasing us. At the moment, the only thing that is keeping us away from their talons is my piloting. They seem to have some kind of magical ability similar to Dash. I am surprised that they dare to use it now. They are really low on death mana right now. Any dash of theirs could be their last.

  I guess I should describe the creatures before complaining about them. These undead are kind of like massive eagles. Each is large enough that I would be able to comfortably lie down on its wings. There is no way that these creatures are not from a pit. No eagle is naturally that large.

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  I wonder where these creatures originate from. If I am honest, they feel like some crazy mage's experiments. They could also be from a pit. I don't believe this, though. I have heard undead from there are supposed to be pretty mind-boggling and nonsensical. (Naturally, I have not seen one of these creatures for myself yet.)

  Now, normally, I should be able to shoot down all of these eagles in a matter of a few seconds. After all, they are not flying in a particularly tricky path.

  The problem with that is that my reserves are dangerously low. My mana storage was at eighty percent capacity when I entered the bone pits. We were attacked by an entire horde of these creatures. I would estimate there were at least fifty of these when they attacked us initially.

  The only way to proceed was to shoot them down. So there is no mistake on that front, at least.

  My fault was that I had not noticed just how my reckless shooting had burned through our reserves. In my defense, I had assumed that I would be finding a place to land relatively quickly. A place that the rest of my strikeforce would be able to defend pretty easily. I had also assumed that wrecking so many of their numbers would have forced them to disband. Even that turned out to be a wrong assumption.

  The problem has been that I have not found such a place. The entire place is plain, filled with these creatures in every inch. Just landing on the ground means that the undead in the surrounding few kilometers will find us. If we are not careful, that would mean hundreds of them will be after us.

  Now the mana storage of my ship is barely at twenty percent. With the way that I am going through my reserves, I will be running out in a couple of hours. (I could run the ship for much longer at a slower speed, but that would expose me to the birds behind me.)

  That is if I don't use any of my mana reserves to power my cannons. At the very least, I am a skilled enough pilot that I can just dodge them. I don't need to shoot my cannons at the creatures anymore.

  As I am recording this, I twist my ship, dodging some kind of wyvern. The creature is about as large as a couple of these eagles. It is a massive creature, but that makes it slow and a bit more easy to dodge. (At least compared to those damn birds.)

  Just as I am thinking this, a group of five eagles abandons pursuing me and chases the wyvern instead. They do that a lot. The Wyvern has enough death mana to power them for a few weeks at least. The thing is, they will come back after us once they have eaten the creature.

  I have been keeping barely ahead of them for almost half a day now. Well, I had expected the birds to have already run away, focusing on other prey. Much like everything else in this land, they starve for death mana. Right now, the twelve birds that are chasing me should be starving. Their death mana must be depleting. Still, the damn creatures keep following me. It is almost as if something is compelling the creatures to attack.

  The creatures down below do not like to starve. The creatures seem like they are in a frenzy, the way that they fight and feed on each other. You would think that they would drop dead from starvation in a few moments. That is the desperation with which they gouge out the death mana from their victims.

  All of that raises the question. Why are the damn birds still following me? What exactly does my ship have that keeps these creatures following? How are the necromancers involved with this?

  The air is still relatively clear of undead, thankfully. It would have been hard to deal with any more undead. There are very few things that can be a threat to us up here. The few that are there are busier with hunting the creatures on the ground. If only the damn birds stopped chasing after us.

  The eagles are not exactly a threat since they can't exactly reach my shil. They might be massive creatures, but they are still pretty small compared to the ship. A single bird hitting my ship would cause quite a bit of damage to my ship. It won't be able to bring it down, though.

  Now that they are a fraction of what they had been originally, I am not too worried. Looking at their mana reserves (Which is not easy at all in this place), I think it is clear they are on the verge of death. If I can keep ahead of them until they fall to their death, then I can finally relax.

  That is why I would now say that my mana reserves running out is a more immediate problem. I can allow the ship to run until I reach ten percent of my mana storage. Any lower than that, and I will need to worry about doing permanent damage to my formations. That means that I will need to think about landing the ship soon.

  Right now, the issue is that I am not sure if the strikeforce is up to defend the ship. They were injured more than I expected in my fight with the false giant. That is why I don't want them to fight any enemy until they are healed.

  I mean, I am sure that they will hold a defensive line pretty well. The problem is that just holding back the creatures is not enough. I don't want them to fight on my ship as a battlefield. That would be a very disastrous thing. You never know how they could damage the ship. Fixing anything they break is going to be a nightmare. (Especially since I need to do it alone.)

  At the moment, it looks like I will have to revise that particular decision. Well, they are supposed to be the elite of their respective factions. I am sure that they can manage these few injuries. Well, it is a gamble if I am being honest. If it succeeds, nobody is going to notice this risk I have taken. If it doesn't, well, all of the blame will fall on me. Especially if the ship were to fail in any way.

  Well, at the moment I don't think that I have any option left. We would be crashing to the ground if the mana storage were to run out anyway. Maybe I can justify the damage from landing now. That would be better than a crash, I am sure.