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the monster (log 096.2)

  Right now, I am dragging Trevor to the cot in my room. (I have been spending weeks in the place. There is no way to do it without a cot.) The man took the worst time to lose his consciousness. If I were capable of doing anything at this moment, I would have been forced to ignore the man. Well, I have to admit that I am feeling pretty useless at this moment.

  At the moment, there is nothing that I can do to help out the others. I don't want to take any hasty actions. After all, my fellows can take care of themselves. There is no need to put them at risk by doing anything stupid. The problem is that at the moment I can't even tell if they are feeling this. I am sure that Eric must have already felt it, but I don't know about the others.

  Right now, there is a massive source of death mana coming from somewhere in the east. I don't know what is emitting that mana. More importantly, I can't even tell if that mana source is moving in our direction. All I know is that if it is moving, then it's going to take the full strikeforce to hold it back from the ship.

  I have to assume that whatever is coming is hostile. The only issue is that I don't know what I am supposed to be doing here. I have no way of fighting the creatures. I have no way of informing the factions about the creature. If Trevor was awake, I could have maybe sent him to the searchers. Even if I did that, I would have probably been too late, but it would have made me feel like I was doing something. All I can do is hope that Eric informed the others about the creature. (You never know what they can do to screw over each other.)

  Other than my mana sense, the only thing that I can do is to access the formations in the control room. Even that is useless since I don't have the mana to keep the ship running. The mana on the ship is too little for me to do anything with it. All I can do with it is to see the mana that is slowly trickling into the mana storage.

  The process is very slow as well. It takes about ten seconds to gather enough mana to match what would have taken a second anywhere else. At the moment, the only thing that I can do is to look at the world in my mana sense. Even that is not too useful at the moment. I can look at things, but they are so blurry that I can't learn anything useful from them.

  There are simply too many undead for me to keep an eye on. All of them merge in my vision as I keep trying to differentiate one from the other. Well, I have a little something to make this process a bit easier. The only problem is that I don't know what it will cost me. I just know that it is not something that I should be doing easily. Well, even if I were to know the location of all of my enemies, what can I do with it?

  Right now, there is no way that I will be able to communicate with anybody. Normally,. I make use of my troop to send messages across the entire field. They are all separated by their respective factions.

  The only person I have with me is Trevor, who is unconscious. Wait a second, I can feel the man stir. I open a bottle of water and empty its contents onto the man. (Naturally, there is a small preservation formation on it to keep the water clean. I made it to pass some time.)

  That is enough to shock the mana into getting up. His hand goes to his head as he takes stock of his surroundings.

  "Good, you are finally awake.", I speak. "How long were you thinking of sleeping like that?"

  "Well, I presume that we have crashed.", Trevor speaks.

  As he does so, the man tears the sleeve of his shirt. I see that he uses it to make a small bandage over his head.

  "Well, I need you to carry a message for me. To the searchers. They are to quickly rush to the east. Tell them that something at the level of the false giant is approaching in that direction.", I speak. "Scratch that, call upon Captain Anthony and his team first. The legion should already be there."

  "Captain...." Trevor starts.

  "I need you to hurry, Trevor. The creature could be on top of us.", I reply. I am getting a bit annoyed. The man normally listens to me in times like this.

  "Cap..." Trevor begins.

  "Will you already leave, man?" I snap. Why is the man not off on his task already?

  "The searchers already know what you want them to, captain.", he starts, an edge of irritation in his voice. Why is the man getting irritated now? "If you had let me speak, I would have told you that I am in communication with the searchers as we speak."

  "How?" is my only reply. I have never really seen Trevor get annoyed. Angry, yes, but never annoyed. It is enough for me to stare at the man.

  "The searchers have established something known as a mind web, captain." Trevor replies, a bit calmer now. "I am sure that everybody in the legion would know about a mind web. The scholars maintain one for you guys."

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  "I have a passing idea. It is supposed to be a type of magic that allows multiple people to speak to each other. I know that it is kind of a mental magic.", telling the man what I know on the topic. I wait for him to confirm or reject it.

  "Well, that is a way to think of it." he replies. "I had come to inform you that right now I have formed a mind web with the searchers. Right now, the searchers are in contact with every faction. We all already know about the monster in the east."

  "Well, that is good. I assume that Eric warned you about the creature.", I ask.

  "Yeah, soldier Eric warned us about the mana source.", the man replies. "He has been keeping an eye on it. He claims that there is nothing to worry about. It has not moved since we landed."

  "Could it be the necromancers?" I ask. "They are the ideal distance to throw magic at us."

  "Soldier Eric believes that it is unlikely. The man has direct eyes on the creature, and he has confirmed that it is an undead. It doesn't seem like anything a necromancer can make." the man replies. "Eric is of the belief that it is just checking us out."

  "Still, there is something off about the creature. Well, I have a way of confirming that." I reply to this. "I would say that it won't be pleasant for me, but will you communicate it to the others?"

  "Certainly. That's literally why I am here.", the man replies as he sits down.

  As he does so, I wonder how exactly Trevor managed such advanced magic. I don't know much about mind webs, but I know that it takes a lot of mana. A lot of mana needs to be manipulated very precisely at that. Thus, I ask the man as I go to retrieve my sword.

  "How exactly are you sustaining this web?" I ask. "I thought that using a mind web consumed a lot of mana."

  "Well, the mana consumed by a mind web is directly proportional to the distance it needs to be established across." the man speaks. "Since we are so close to each other, the mana required is minuscule. At least compared to true mind webs."

  Well, as the man keeps speaking, I hold the bloody fang in my hands. The thing shines like a beacon in my hands. I guess I can use today to give clarity about one aspect of the sword. The sword can act as a reservoir for vital mana. All the vital mana that I absorb from my enemy is stored here.

  I make use of my formations to convert this stored vital mana into blood mana. Even as I am recording this, I am steeling myself to draw my sword. I have not activated the sword since entering the Bone Valley. That is because there is no way to replenish my sword here. Naturally, none of the undead here has any vital mana.

  I guess that I could use the strikeforce to replenish my sword, but they are already quite strained. The sentinels would certainly lose their minds if they were to see me feeding. It would also turn all of them against me quite easily. That is why I can only use the sword when I have no other choice. Well, even as I grasp the sword, I can feel the blood mana flow into it. It is like a shock as my senses sharpen. You would think that I would have already gotten used to that. No such luck.

  Well, it is going to be much worse now. I am going to try something pretty crazy. I grasp my sword as the blood mana flows into me, merging with my vital mana. Once this happens, I begin to circle my vital mana. Right now, I am going to empower my mana sense with the vital mana.

  I don't know what the consequences of this are going to be. I have enhanced my mana sense like this many times before. Too many times to be honest. The problem is that my mana is right now merged with blood mana. I don't know what the effects of my enhancement could be. It could even cause permanent damage to my soul as well.

  Well, I am just scaring myself now. Screw it, I tell myself as I circle my vital mana. Thank the gods that I had sat down. I would have buckled under the weight of my mana sense. As I have told you, I have enhanced my mana sense like this quite a few times. This time is much different from all of those other times. I can feel my mana sense take over every other sense.

  Suddenly, it feels like all the colors have faded, every sound muffled. I swear, even my hands feel a bit numb. In place of all of this, I can feel the vital mana of all the people who are fighting outside. I can feel the mana flow from their bodies into their weapons and spells.

  Feeling this, I am almost tempted to take my sword and plunge it into Trevor's neck. Have you ever had a delicious meal right next to you? Now imagine that you are starving and nothing is keeping you from digging into the meal.

  Right now, my situation is something like that. I need to focus now, though. Now is not the time to allow myself to be distracted. Saying that, I force myself to look away from the people of the strikeforce. (The temptation to stab my sword into the man next to me has also reduced somewhat.)

  It takes me a few moments to get used to looking at the world through my mana sense. If before everything was a blurry mess, now it is crystal clear. I am sure that I would be able to see each undead individually if I wanted to. That much mana passing into your mana sense is pretty deadly.

  I shift my focus to the east as it almost feels like I need to squint for a second. That is how much mana is being emitted there. I can feel something similar to sunspots appear in my eye as I try to focus in that direction. What I am doing right now is kind of like trying to hear a man whisper in a room full of screaming monkeys. You can't do this without training for a few decades. I have had a lot of practice with the sensory formations, though.

  It takes me a few moments to recognize what I am seeing. Well, calling it seeing would be wrong. I can feel the mana that the creature is emitting. It is roughly humanoid in shape, though I can't place it based on its size. It is too large to be a human (or a demi-human.). It is too small to be a giant.

  The most noticeable thing that I can see is the two horns on its head. That means that it has to be some kind of a demi-human undead. (There are supposed to be a few that are this big. Most of them are legends, though.) Unless it is one of those unknown creatures from the pits.

  Just as I am trying to get a better view of the creature, it looks at me. Don't ask me how I know the creature is looking at me. I just know it can. That is not a worry, though, as I realise why I can look at the creature so easily. The damn creature is channeling its mana.

  The only reason it could be doing something like that is to cast a spell. Almost as if to confirm my suspicions, the creature raises its palm as a massive amount of mana leaves its body.

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