Reborn as an Extra

Chapter 563: The Curse of Eternal Suffering. Part-2.

All Rio could do was just stand there and watch them rip each other apart.

If he tried to purify them of miasma or tried to heal them, miasma would blow their body apart from inside out.

’The more I get to know about miasma, the more hateful it becomes...’

Miasma being so horrible is the main reason why everyone feels uncomfortable whenever Rio uses it in the outside world.

Everyone knows how horrific of a power it is; it doesn’t even let demons live in peace, let alone others.

’Even after reaching such level of strength, I am still quite helpless against the forces of nature...’

The current Rio could shatter mountains, change the flow of rivers, destroy cities in one swing of his sword, and rip apart anyone below rank SS into pieces.

Yet, even he was incapable of opposing the natural order of the world itself.

As long as mana exists in this world, miasma will also exist, and as long as there are people who benefit from mana, there will be beings who will suffer due to miasma.

It’s the natural order of the world itself; there’s no way to change it.

Alverto was trying to change it, but even his idea of the ’new order’ was flawed; a world is never ’perfect,’ it always has some flaws in it that make life unfair for many.

’Sigh... I need to find Liam fast or he will suffer the same fate if he’s left here...’

Rio shook his head and moved on after taking a deep breath.

The closer he got to the distant, dilapidated town, the more dragon whelps Rio saw in the area.

One of them was heavily injured, but its comrades didn’t care; they pushed him down and started eating him instead to satisfy their hunger while he was still alive and crying in pain.

There was an ape-like monster holding one shadow dragon whelp by its tail and constantly swinging it around and smashing it into other dragons.

The whelp in its hand was heavily injured and on death’s door, but miasma wouldn’t let it fully die or live either.

And the worst part of it all was that Rio could do nothing for them, as they would die if he got close to them due to miasmic corruption.

When Rio finally reached the main entrance of the town, he noticed that some whelps who seemed to have succeeded in their hunts took the body of the dead monster and dragged it inside the town.

Once inside the town, none of them fought each other anymore, and they all piled up the monster corpses on a massive altar located at the very center of the town.

Rio could not see a single adult shadow dragon anywhere; there were only just some passed-out older shadow dragon whelps resting in the heavily damaged and roofless houses of the town.

When Rio entered the town, he noticed engravings and architecture styles that were very similar to what he had seen in the dragon valley back then.

But as most of the houses were too damaged and barely had any walls and pillars standing, Rio couldn’t properly distinguish the uniqueness of the architecture of the shadow dragon race.

Everything in the town was bizarre.

Only the heavily injured shadow dragon whelps who were already on the verge of death were resting; everyone else was either out hunting monsters or was busy stacking corpses on the giant altar.

There were even some fellow shadow dragon corpses mixed among those monster corpses, which showed that they were not distinguishing between friends and foe.

Even the corpses of comrades were being used here.

’But where the heck are those adult shadow dragons? I can’t sense their presence anywhere....’

Standing on a giant pillar near the main altar, Rio looked in all directions, but he couldn’t find anything relevant.

Rio came from the south direction of the town, and up in the north was a massive valley stretching far and wide.

And right after the giant valley was the Big Plateau that Rio saw in the memories of that evil spirit.

The plateau was insanely big, and its top was completely hidden by the miasmic clouds in the sky; thus, Rio couldn’t even see its top.

The worst and most jaw-dropping part was that the entire valley below was filled with liquid miasma, which was flowing at a very slow speed like a river.

’This place is worse than I expected... it’s almost giving me a boss area vibe...’

In many games, there’s a final town where you can change up your equipment and save the game at the checkpoint, and then right after that is the final boss of the game, who’s so strong you die hundreds of times to it.

That’s the kind of vibe this place was giving to Rio.

’Is that big shadow dragon king located on that plateau’s top?’

As Rio was now only just a few dozen kilometers away from the top of the plateau, he could already feel a very powerful presence from there.

The pressure of the dragon’s might was insanely powerful, and Rio was using his stealth abilities to the maximum limits possible right now so as not to get noticed by that powerful creature.

’But I can’t stay hiding either... I have to go and confront it sooner or later...’

Rio was not in a hurry to directly confront that big, powerful lizard right away; he needed to gather more information first.

’If I can find those adult shadow dragons or some clue about Ellie’s location... I can avoid the trouble of confronting it head on...’

All Rio needed was just a single stab at that big dragon’s body, and he would read its memory to find Ellie, but to be able to do that, he needed to have a proper plan.

’By the way... what is this weird altar for?...’

Rio had seen an altar in the Spire of Ascension, but that one was completely different from this one.

The one Rio saw before was what Alverto had tried to use to change the world, but this one seemed much simpler and less power-consuming.

’The flow of miasma is heavily concentrated around it... perhaps it’s been here for a very long time; thus, miasma naturally became denser around it...’

’Hmm... that magic circuit and those mana nodes... is this some kind of teleportation circle?’

Rio had learned a lot about various awakeners and their methods of combat in the academy’s courses.

One of them was about the types of magic circles and circuits that were generally found in various types of dungeons and ancient ruins.

As a powerful awakener, it was very important to learn what kind of magic circle would do what.

Many dungeons have magic circles that teleport you from one place to another inside them, and there are some traps that activate using magic circles too.

Those who don’t study this subject properly suffer a lot later when they actually have to go into dungeons and deal with it all in real life.

’If it’s a teleportation altar, then why are they stacking corpses on it... where is it connected to-’

Suddenly Rio thought of something, and his eyes widened in shock.

’Wait... don’t tell me that all these dragon whelps are teleporting food for that giant dragon sleeping above the plateau....’

’Is this a sacrificial circle that sends food directly to that dragon’s mouth?...’

A deep frown appeared on Rio’s face when he thought about this assumption.

’But why would it need others to send it food... can’t it live on miasma alone?.... it’s heavily corrupted by miasma and should be using it for its energy source, right?...’

’And even if it’s hungry, it should be able to hunt for itself as it’s so strong... how odd...’

Rio flew in the air with extremely slow speed and circled around the entire town to inspect everything in detail.

The town was surrounded by a circular stone wall, which was broken and damaged in many places, and most of its streets and roads were covered in a lot of debris and dried-up black blood.

Miasma from the massive miasma-filled valley would sometimes create massive miasmic bubbles to carry the miasma up in the air and then burst it right above the town to splash the entire town with a lot of miasma.

It was a horrible place to stay at and was being constantly eroded and targeted by miasma.

Even those injured and resting dragon whelps were covered in extreme miasmic rot, and most of their body was already decaying even when their brain was still alive.

’They are putting their dead comrades on the altar... does that mean that the giant dragon would even eat its own race’s people too?...’

’No wonder that evil orc spirit was favoured by it... they are both cannib*ls!’

Now Rio is quite sure that the evil Orc spirit that fell in the spirit realm got converted into an evil spirit by that giant shadow dragon with its own miasmic powers.