’What even is this creature?...’
Ever since Rio came to this world, he has studied many books on monster anatomy.
The academy had a compulsory subject that would give you knowledge about all types of monsters and beasts that you may end up finding in the dungeons.
Thus, Rio has learned about many strange monsters and beasts.
’I swear this is the weirdest creature I have ever seen in my life...’
Not only did the creature not have any internal organs or any proper metabolism structures, but it was also constantly producing miasmic filth and vomiting it out when it didn’t even have a stomach!
It was literally vomiting its black blood out constantly!
’This thing... it’s only alive because miasma is forcefully keeping it alive...’
Rio knew since a long time ago that miasma was a very horrific force of nature; it was cruel and liked to make a mockery out of living beings.
But even he had never thought that miasma would straight up forcefully make a creature immortal just so it could be tortured for eternity!
Every time it’s about to run out of blood, miasma forcefully pours in and gives it energy to make more blood, then makes it suffer all over again...’
’This is... deliberate torture...’
Standing on a boulder and watching the creature suffer from far away, Rio felt extremely uncomfortable.
Only now did Rio understand why Kevin Flash was screaming, ’Insanity!’ Insanity!’ after he got a small glimpse of the insides of this hellhole.
This place is not something that a normal person should see or even talk about; just knowing about what’s happening here might be enough to cause mental corruption.
’The corruption in this place is highly contagious... moreover, even this creature is blasting out powerful mental and soul attacks!’
Every time it screamed and vomited, massive amounts of mental attack waves would be blasted out in all directions; just standing near it would be enough to corrupt most people!
’Are all creatures inside the spirit realm good at doing mental and soul attacks? Even those weird snakes before were the same...’
Rio could not stay still anymore; he needed more information for this weird area. Thus, he rushed towards the weird creature and tapped it with his flute.
His flute was obviously just his transformed sword, and the moment it made contact, an extremely powerful sword intent rushed into the monster’s body.
[Sword Intent: Precision Approach!]
[Elemental Sword Art: Soul Type: Soul Memory Sweep!]
Rio wanted to know what this monster actually was and where it came from, and to find its origin, he needed to access his soul and its memories.
Just when Rio was about to look through its memories, the weird creature trembled all of a sudden, and the miasma inside it went berserk!
*BOOOM!!!*
Its entire body burst apart like a popped balloon, and its soul shattered on the spot before Rio could even react.
Meat and body parts flew in all directions, and the black ground was splattered with black blood!
The massive mouth was blasted to bits, and only a few pieces of it remained intact.
*ahhhh!!! Ahhhhh!!! Ahhhh!!!!*
Even those small pieces started crying and screaming as if they were in immense pain before going completely silent as if they had lost all energy.
Eyeballs the size of Rio’s head fell on the ground and looked at Rio with pain and helplessness in them as they melted into miasmic filth with each passing second.
"Tch... maybe having the ability to read others’ emotions is not something advantageous in this place..."
The emotions Rio was able to witness from the creature’s dying soul were extremely real and extremely sad.
Sometimes, it’s better if you don’t know what others are thinking in their minds at particular times, as it can affect your sanity.
’Thankfully I was already covered in sword intent or my entire body would have been soaking in this black filth...’
Rio sighed and found a nearby boulder to sit down and calm his head.
’Phew~... so from this I can conclude that miasma does not want me to help these creatures... it would rather kill them then let me read their memories...’
’What is hiding in their memories that is so secret, I wonder?’
Miasma is a very arrogant and horrible power; it won’t actively hide its deeds for no reason.
It’s likely already sensed that Rio is capable of manipulating miasma, and if he accesses the memories of these monsters, he might learn something that’s meant to be hidden.
"Your reluctance is making me more curious..."
Rio shook his head and looked at the dead monstrosity before thinking,
’Good thing I didn’t bring anyone else with me; this place isn’t a picnic spot... it’s more like it’s the entrance to the abyss or something...’
Rio looked at the dark and dim surroundings, looked at the miasmic clouds in the sky and raging void storms in various directions before shaking his head.
’I am quite surprised that living creatures can even exist in this horrible environment...’
’But this scene has also increased my worries... can Liam’s soul even survive in this place for more than ten minutes?’
Link and Liam both have powerful legendary skills that can obviously protect them from miasmic corruption and can be used to travel or stay in this miasma-filled place.
But the biggest problem is obviously mana consumption.
The two of them don’t have as much proficiency as Rio; their legendary skills consume a tremendous amount of mana to be used.
Even Liam, who can theoretically replenish his mana using ’Mana Field’ infinitely, would run out of mana in this place, as the entire area is filled with miasma.
In this place the density of miasma is so high that there are barely any traces of mana in the surroundings; once you are out of mana, you will not be able to fill your tank with this small amount of mana in the environment!
’The most horrible thing about this place is that even the elementals are suppressed in this place...’
Rio’s elemental sword art mainly works by manipulating various types of elementals present in the environment and boosting them with mana.
But this place is different.
Due to the high density of miasma here, there are barely any elementals in the area, which will reduce Rio’s elemental sword arts ability to manipulate elementals to a very low level.
’This place is basically a nightmare for the mages who are heavily reliant on the elementals present in the surroundings for using magic...’
Just mana alone is not enough to cast elemental magic; you need elementals too.
’The only solution would be to bring many elemental rich crystals with you to cast your spells...’
SS-rankers usually don’t face the problem of needing elementals, as they are able to use ’world authorities,’ but those below rank SS have to bring crystals that are rich in elementals if they want to cast spells.
This is why Liam’s ’Mana Field’ is so overpowered; you don’t need to be an SS-ranker, and you don’t need any world authority; you can just use it to order mana and elementals to gather around you at will.
’Aside from these few problems... I feel that the other ’laws’ of the ’world’ are also being suppressed in this place...’