Aurelion moved south, deeper into the swamp. The air was filled with the drone of insects and the smell of decay.
As he moved between the gnarled trunks of trees, a flash of vibrant green on a branch caught his eye.
A snake, its scales the color of new leaves, was coiled there, its head raised slightly as it tasted the air.
He paused, his single golden eye tracking the creature as he passed.
He then start speak aloud, a habit he'd adopted to keep the silence in his mind from being filled by his unwanted guest.
"The true danger of this place isn't that its creatures are venomous," he said to the empty air, "but their adaptation to the environment." He glanced back at the snake. "This one's venom wouldn't kill me, but it would certainly make my head ache more than it already does."
Once the snake was behind him, he turned his focus forward again. "Being able to distinguish their energies ensures my safety," he mused, "but I could encounter a creature that can hide its energy. I must focus on my other senses as well."
He continued on while his senses on high alert. His gaze sweeping the path ahead. It was then that he perceived it.
A faint, green energy, drifting on the humid air like pollen. It was harmonious, calm, and felt distinctly alive.
He stopped, his head turning towards the source. A slow smile spread across his face.
"Found it," he said, and began to move towards the energy.
Aurelion followed the faint energy signature until it led him to the edge of a vast, dark green lake. The air here was still, the water like a sheet of black glass. The trail of harmonious green energy he'd been following was clearly coming from far out in the lake, somewhere near its center.
He scanned the shore. There were no tracks, no signs of life.
"These damned lakes are never empty," he muttered, his single eye narrowing with suspicion.
He unslung his pack and took out the slab of Gulper meat he had harvested. With his dagger, he cut off a sizable chunk. "Let's see what's in there," he said, and with all his might, he throw the piece of meat far out into the water.
The meat sailed through the air and landed with a loud splash, sending ripples across the still surface. The waves subsided, and the chunk of meat bobbed gently. For a moment, nothing happened.
Then, the water near the meat began to churn.
In an instant, the surface erupted in a frenzy of spray and flashing scales. Dozens of fish, each easily fifty centimeters long with wide, powerful fins and mouths filled with razor sharp teeth, swarmed the bait. They tore at it with a savage, clicking sound.
In the blink of an eye, the meat was gone. The water calmed, leaving no trace of the creatures behind.
Aurelion's eye widened in surprise. "Piranhas? In stagnant freshwater? They should live in a flowing river,"
He stared at the spot where the meat had vanished, his mind connecting the pieces.
"So," he mused while a smile touching his lips, "just like the lily, the creatures that benefit from it are also changing."
"Alright," Aurelion said aloud while his single eye scanning the calm surface of the water. "Considering there are hundreds of piranhas between me and the lily, and assuming they're venomous... I need a good plan."
He walked to the water's edge and sat down, crossing his legs. He stared at the center of the lake for a long moment while his mind calculating his next move. "If they aren't more numerous than I think," he murmured to himself, "this just might work."
He brought his palms together. The Seals on his hands pulsed with a faint light. Slowly, the moisture in the air began to coalesce between his hands, forming a small, wobbling sphere of pure water.
"Water manipulation is definitely not my strong suit," he muttered, concentrating to keep the sphere stable, "but this should be enough to work."
Holding the sphere of water steady in one hand, he took his spear with the other. He turned the weapon and pressed the back of his hand against its tip, creating a shallow cut. A line of red appeared on his pale skin, and a single, crimson drop fell into the clear water of the sphere, blooming like a dark flower. He let more of his blood drip into the sphere, watching as the water slowly turned from clear to a murky red.
When the sphere in his hand was sufficiently crimson, he gently lowered it to the lake's surface. The moment it left his grasp, the sphere dissolved, releasing his blood into the lake in a slow, spreading cloud.
As the surface of the water began to turn red, Aurelion continued to channel the bloody water from his hand into the lake, his gaze fixed on the center of the pond, waiting.
Then, the reaction he was looking for began, and the water started to churn. But not where the blood was. It exploded at the shore in front of him.
As Aurelion began to form sparks of lightning in his hands, dozens of piranhas launched themselves from the water, their wide fins propelling them through the air. They soared past the cloud of blood, their crazed, yellow eyes fixed directly on him.
They were aiming for him.
His eye widened in surprise, but his body was already moving. Using the Kinetic Flow technique, he sent a surge of energy to his aching muscles and launched himself backward. He landed nimbly a few meters away, just as the fish rained down with wet, slapping sounds on the exact spot where he had been sitting.
More piranhas erupted from the lake, a frenzied, chaotic display of leaping bodies that crashed back into the water.
The ones on the shore weren't trying to get back to the safety of the lake. They were flopping and writhing, but their movement was a unnatural crawl towards him. Their razor-toothed jaws snapped uselessly at the air, their eyes wide and completely crazed.
Aurelion took a few steps back, watching this suicidal charge with a cold, analytical fascination. He watched as their movements became sluggish, their snapping jaws slowing. After a few more moments, one by one, they fell still.
At the same time, the frenzied churning in the lake subsided. The water once again became a sheet of black glass.
"This is going to be harder than I thought," Aurelion muttered, watching the last of the dead piranhas twitch on the shore. "Their numbers are far greater, and this aggression..."
"These poor things need to feed on meat," the voice echoed in his mind, "but instead, they are surviving on the lily's energy. They are in a state where they would do anything for a piece of flesh."
Aurelion ignored the voice, acting as if he hadn't heard it. He focused his gaze on the faint green energy he could perceive in the air with his void focus.
The energy was dispersing, but at the same time, it was being drawn back towards a central point in the lake. He watched this slow, rhythmic flow, an idea forming in his mind.
He raised his hand and pushed a small stream of his own golden energy into one of the currents of green energy that was being pulled back towards the center. The two forces met, hissing and crackling, but his energy held, carried along the green stream toward the heart of the lake.
"You don't need to do this, Aurelion," the voice said suddenly. "There are many living things here."
"Death is a better fate for creatures crazed by hunger," he projected back coldly.
"There is an easier way," the voice offered. "These creatures do not attack each other because they are all covered in the same energy from the lily. If you could coat yourself in the lily's energy, they would not attack you."
"I won't allow a filthy energy to touch me," Aurelion retorted. "Even if I allow it, it would burn away."
"Yes, it would burn away," the entity conceded. "But this place is saturated with the lily's energy. You could constantly replenish the coating. The danger in this method is prolonged exposure to the lily's energy, but you would not have such a problem."
"Probably," Aurelion thought, acknowledging the logic. "Perhaps I could reach the lily with that method." He then hardened his resolve. "But I told you not to speak until I was done with you."
He focused again on the stream of his energy moving toward the center of the lake, his plan clear. It wasn't a big thing. It was more subtle. "These creatures are not just hungry. They are addicts, dependent on the lily's energy. A direct attack is wasteful... But if I poison the source..."
He intensified the energy flowing from his hand.
"The sin of being dependent on others," he projected, his thought a final, cold declaration, "is death."
He pushed more of his power forward. A thread of golden energy, laced with flickering black sparks, shot from his hand and merged with the green current. It traveled like a vein of corruption through the life giving stream, an elegant venom making its way steadily towards the heart of the lake.
The voice in his head cried out, its compassionate tone now tinged with panic. "You'll harm the lily as well! You need to collect it, Aurelion, not destroy it!"
Aurelion's mental voice was a placid sea of calm. "My mission was to retrieve five petals. If I retrieve the entire plant, there will be no issue."
With that final thought, he cut the flow of energy from his hand. He turned his back on the lake, walked to a nearby tree, and sat down beneath it with a sigh of relief.
He gathered a few dry twigs and pieces of wood, and with a small spark from his fingertip, he started a fire. He then took out the slab of Gulper meat, skewered it on a stick, and began to cook it over the crackling flames.
He stared into the fire, a cold satisfaction in his thoughts as he considered the two fates he had laid out for the piranhas.
"They will either come ashore for the smell of cooking meat and die, or they will die by being poisoned. Either way, you will have to fix the so called natural order here afterward."