Depthless Hunger

Chapter 251: Approaching the Inverted Oasis

The rhythms of training had lulled Kai into a false sense of complacency, tricking him into thinking that he had time. But of course he didn't. Even if Zae Zin Nim was finally free of her pursuers, they had so many problems tumbling down toward them...

It was just as well that Ceryyn couldn't arrange to take them immediately, because he needed to clean up. If the elves who guarded the Inverted Oasis were anywhere near as uptight as the others, he needed to make a good first impression. So he bathed thoroughly, shaved, and put on the nicest clothes that fit him. Hopefully this trip wouldn't ruin them.

Before they left he informed Zae Zin Nim, just in case. She wanted to go with him, but seemed very impatient to finish her cultivation, which didn't surprise him. He was more taken aback when he went to go meet Ceryyn and found Omilaena there as well. She had cleaned up much better than him.

"I might as well come along," she said with a shrug. "Without you, I'll start slacking off in my training again."

"I suppose we don't know how long it will be." Kai smiled at her, then turned to the elves. "Ready to go?"

This time the distortion seemed even more dramatic than before, since they were crossing almost the entire continent. The Inverted Oasis sat on the eastern end of the Elven Wilds, up against the mountains. That was about all he knew about it and he could only hope that he would know a lot more by the end of the day.

On the other side, he discovered yet another new face to the Wilds: rocky bluffs without any sand or plants in sight. The ground was ruptured in multiple places, with jagged rocks thrusting skyward or threatening ankles. He didn't feel any of the distortion like he remembered from the Frontier, but it was definitely the least hospitable place he'd seen on Rosemount so far.

"Someone should notice us eventually!" Ceryyn peered around, then spotted someone he couldn't see. "Ah, there we are! We don't know what they'll say, so I'll stick around to help if I can." Still, she held back, meaning she and the other elves faded into the background and left them to face the wasteland alone.

He spotted someone approaching an instant before an immense burst of power took them closer. It looked like they would smash into the ground like a meteor, yet somehow at the last second the figure landed lightly. This one was an elf with similar skin to the others, but he had hair the color of blood.

Not to mention, when the man moved enough for his cloak to part, Kai realized it was the most muscular elf he'd ever seen. Yet all that muscle still looked unnaturally graceful, more like a statue of a god than a person. The elf must have some sort of shroud, because he was completely impervious to Kai's spiritual sight.

"I understand you want to visit the Inverted Oasis," the elf said in a surprisingly soft voice. "We don't get that request often, much less from outsiders."

"I intend to be completely open with you from the beginning," Kai said. He stepped closer with his arms raised on either side. "Are you familiar with the Frontier on Deadwaste?"

"No. Our work is here."

"It's a distorted wasteland where monsters roam. And every seven years, more or less, monsters flood from the center and threaten to consume everything. We call them monster incursions, and they threaten to destroy the entire continent. Does that sound familiar to you?"

The elf watched him coolly, giving no indication of his thoughts. "We experience a similar pattern. But why are you here?"

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"I want to learn from you. I don't need your strength and I don't want to take anything. Just looking at this place could help us solve our problem on Deadwaste."

"There is nothing to be solved. The Inverted Oasis is a void of power that spawns monsters. They can be stopped by sufficient strength. If your own is insufficient, we cannot help you."

"That's why you could help us." Kai could hear the desperation in his own voice and it wasn't faked. "You seem to have solved your problem completely, whereas it's apocalyptic for us. Just studying what you do might give me some insight that could save Deadwaste."

The man continued to watch him, then started to shake his head. When he opened his mouth, Kai spoke first.

"What about the center? At the exact center of the Frontier, there's an enormous pit, a perfect circle. Do you have one too? Do you know what's at the bottom?"

Finally he seemed to get through to the elf, who might not have believed him until that moment. The man - who Kai couldn't help but think of as a Frontier elite - sighed and gestured to a side. One of his pieces of jewelry must have been a spatial device, because a long stone column popped into the air beside them.

"Step aboard," the elf said. "You can observe our operations, but no more."

Kai thanked him and stepped onto the column. He expected it to transform into some sort of vehicle, but the elf just leapt up onto it and balanced. Good thing he'd been doing so much stability training lately. Omilaena jumped on behind him and they both wavered as the strange vehicle rose into the air.

In seconds they were high over the land, Ceryyn and the others tiny underneath them. Yet the mountain range still loomed high overhead, disappearing into the clouds even at the far end of the range. Kai pulled his eyes away and tried to investigate this foreign Frontier for anything he might use.

The most obvious difference was that there was no wall, no clear border between the Inverted Oasis and the rest of the continent. Yet from this high up, Kai almost thought that he could see a shading difference in the land. It was obvious in the bluffs, where life appeared again far enough to the north. When he looked into the mountains he saw a strange sort of reverse tree line: there were no trees in the lower reaches and then they resumed higher up.

Looking at all of that evidence, he saw roughly a circle of dead space. Once he made out the overall shape spread across the mountains, he only had to find the center... then he spotted it, a dead forest tucked into a valley. It looked as though the trees had all been frozen into black glass and he couldn't see anything within.

They were flying toward a set of buildings perhaps a mile away from the dead forest and the center. He couldn't see what was going on in the complex well, but he could feel the power even from here. Elites training and cultivating, preparing to continue their endless battle. Given the raw strength he felt, they definitely seemed like they could handle a monster incursion.

But not the apocalyptic incursion he'd witnessed. Not the beings who had come to fight over it.

"As you can see, we have no tricks," the elite told him. "We struggle to maintain sufficient strength mostly due to Council politics. An incursion would do much more harm to the eastern Wilds than the west, so support is always uneven."

"What do you know about the incursions?" Kai asked.

The elf didn't answer. They were floating lower, as if aiming for a spot in between the black forest and the compound.

"How often are your monster waves?" Omilaena asked. He'd almost forgotten she was there in his focus on the area.

"Approximately every three years," the elite said. "Our numbers dwindle between waves, then we build up again as the next approaches. Perhaps this could be useful to your people."

Clearly, the Inverted Oasis wasn't the sort of existential threat that the Frontier was. For a moment Kai wondered if Rosemount was just that much more powerful, which wasn't impossible since he'd seen so many people as strong as the Frontier elites. Maybe this was the equivalent of a rat infestation, just a nuisance in most parts of the world that his home was too pathetic to fight.

But he couldn't let it end like that and couldn't accept such empty answers. "What about the center?" he asked. "Can I see it?"

"Very well." The elite elf sighed as if surrendering and turned his vessel toward the dead forest. As they drew close he stepped off, so Kai did the same. The outer trees were oddly silent, devoid of all life but also frozen as if time had stopped. Instead of the sensation of the world twisting, here it almost felt as though there was no world at all.

Eventually he spotted it: a vast pit stretching between the trees. He could see the smooth wall on the opposite side, disappearing into darkness. Before anyone could stop him, Kai hurried forward and looked over the edge.