Chương 482: Chapter 480 – Scouting

Being a mouse was not so bad. Not too different from being a rat. However, Mage Parivar refused to be a rat. As a mouse she at least could still consider herself as cute. Of course, cuteness had little to do with the reason to be either one. Disguised as a Stone Eating Mouse with a gold ring around her middle, she was able to go overlooked by most Demonic Beasts. Too small to be considered a meal for Demonic Beasts that were around her Rank or stronger.

And being A Rank meant that only the strongest of the Demonic Beasts in the cave ruins were a threat to her. Flying as an eagle would certainly let her move across the area faster and gather intelligence for the expedition's attack more quickly, but it also made her a target. Airborne Demonic Beasts tended to be even more territorial than ground beasts. If she tried to cross the territories of any of the many in the large cavern ruins she would be attacked for sure.

However, as a small A Rank mouse, none of them bothered her. When Visneer and Mage Veers approached her for this assignment she had thought she would be going through a cave system. In a way she was. However, the cave system contained caverns that were likely able to swallow entire Green Zone cities back on Nerotath. Of course, that was if you could break up the city into sections and fit it in.

The caverns tended to be long, ten or twenty kilometers in any given stretch, but could fluctuate anywhere between one and five kilometers wide. According to the map she had viewed before heading in, the underground ruins had dozens of areas that wound their way around the central cavern, which was where she was trying to get. Thus far she had not encountered any Alfar or their traps, just Demonic Beasts. She wished she could tell what their Ranks were, unfortunately, she could only guess by how their auras felt.

Most were strong A Rank. Some, she was certain were S Rank, but she could not tell if there were any stronger than that. Mage Parivar took mental note of the locations of the strongest Demonic Beasts she came near and continued on. Slowly, she made her way through the ruins, from section to section until at last she reached the edge of the deepest and most central cavern ruin. As she approached, Mage Parivar found that the number of Demonic Beasts in the area had decreased.

Once she determined it was not because of a stronger beast in the area she realized it was because the ambient mana had dropped further. Strong Demonic Beasts were not interested in living in areas with low ambient mana. To them, creatures of mana, it was like living in an area with too little air to breathe. Considering the area not far from the central ruins had ample mana, Mage Parivar decided to investigate the reason for the decrease in mana before moving forward.

After scrambling around the ruins, slowly working her way to the edge, she found the reason. A null zone. Across an invisible boundary lay a null zone. If it had not been for her caution, she likely would have accidentally stumbled right into it and been forced into her human form and trapped. Luckily, she had been slowly testing the area as she advanced and she felt her paw begin to revert to its normal form as she edged into the null zone. As soon as she felt the change, Mage Parivar withdrew her paw.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Given that she could progress no further, at least not at this entrance to the central ruins, Mage Parivar had to decide how to gather more information. Up to this point she believed it would be possible for the expedition to overcome the Demonic Beasts in their path, provided the team was not swarmed by them. The question was, would they be able to overcome the null zone and whatever was inside it.

To know for sure, she needed to find out who or what created the null zone and what was waiting for them inside. By carefully moving along the edge of the null zone, she was able to map its boundary, but learning what was inside was not so easy. She could not cross into the field, and when looking into the cavern beyond the edge of the field she could not see anything of concern. But she knew that just because she could not see the danger did not mean there was none.

Finally giving up on discovering a means to find a safe way past the field, Mage Parivar found a small corner isolated from view and far enough away from any Demonic Beasts for her to take a chance. The gold ring around her middle was actually her spatial artifact. Wiggling out of it she then reached inside with her magic and pulled out an auto-mapper and tablet that had been provided by the Iblis before she set out.

Slightly different than Damion's auto-mappers, it possessed about the same range as his B Rank versions, but provided more detail on entities scanned by it. Mage Wells' auto-mappers just returned a dot on the map for a Demonic Beast, a different color each for humans and Ferocious Beasts and various other signals for Realm Breaches and other things it detected. The Iblis version of the auto-mappers returned detailed information on the beasts it detected.

Rank, affinity, it even returned information on their size and a general description. Looking at the tablet, Mage Parivar was happy to see she showed up as a small A Rank Demonic Beast with the Stone affinity. She then turned her attention to the null zone. To her surprise the auto mapper returned a definitive signal, but it was a signal that showed a void.

The bubble of the null zone could be clearly seen and with the map on the tablet she could easily calculate how large the field was and she was glad she had given up trying to find a way around it. The null zone was huge. Based on what she was seeing, since it was larger than the auto-mapper's range, the null zone encompassed the entirety of the central ruins. Mage Parivar had no idea how the Alfar could have created such a large null zone, since it was at least fifty kilometers in diameter.

A field that large had to require an enormous amount of mana to power. Unfortunately, she had no way to know what affinities the null zone countered, she at least knew it countered her Transformation affinity, which was a surprise to her, given how rare her affinity was. This led her to believe the null zone was countering not specific affinities, like every null zone she had ever heard of, but all mana.

This theory, above all the others passing through her mind, made her certain that this was part of whatever trap the Alfar had in store. Given that she had no way to gather more information, Mage Parivar stored her tablet and took a third item from her spatial artifact. This one was also supplied by the Iblis, but it was not one to help see through the null zone, it was to make sure the auto-mapper did not fall into enemy hands.

She attached, what Visneer had called an artifact wiper, to the auto-mapper and set a two-minute timer. Once that timer ran down to zero, anyone or anything that approached within one meter of the auto-mapper would cause it go off and erase the enchantments on the auto-mapper. With the timer set, Mage Parivar got her spatial artifact back around her mouse waist and began her long journey out of the ruins. She had learned everything she could.

Leaving the auto-mapper behind would allow them to continue to gather data while the expedition and the Iblis formulated the best plan of attack. What happened next, she would have very little control over.