CHAPTER 236: THE WORLD OF THE RUEN

’What’s the rank of this world?’

Jason asked this question while getting off the floor and dusting himself off. He already dreaded hearing another ’Rank III’ from the system, but he released a sigh of relief when the system sent back that this was only a ’Rank II’ world. That meant it wasn’t that different from Earth, and the people of this world had only discovered magic a few years ago. Jason called on Ragnar, and the large dragon appeared from his Alternate Dimension in all its glory. Ragnar flapped its wings excitedly and raised a gale wind that blew dust around, and Jason leapt off the ground onto Ragnar’s back.

"Let’s go!"

Ragnar pushed off the ground with a massive flap of his wings and he soared through the sky at a quick pace while Jason kept his eyes on the notification tab beside him that showed him the way to go. As they moved, Jason caught sight of various creatures down on the ground. There were some large beasts that looked like lizards with two heads, and they skittered through the desert and buried themselves under the sand once they saw Ragnar’s shadow pass over them. Another area had a herd of beasts that were eating a weird brown patch of leaves that grew out from a sand dune. There were some creatures that looked like men and women with green skin standing around the grazing monsters, and they all looked up in surprise and screamed in shock when they saw Ragnar!

Jason didn’t pay any mind to the inhabitants of this world, but he felt his eyes travel down when they got close to an oasis in the middle of the desert. There was a wall built around the oasis, and various beasts adorned with velvet clothes and gold chains were standing around calmly. There were guards with long polearms looking up at Jason suspiciously, and inside the oasis, three naked women were having their bath and laughing together.

Their figures were very similar to what a beautiful woman on Earth would look like with their large breasts and wide hips, but the only difference was that they had green skin and bright yellow eyes that shone in the desert sun. They all looked up at Jason with awe on their faces when Ragnar passed over them, and one of the girls grew slightly red when she met Jason’s eyes. She put one hand over her chest to hide her breast and waved up at Jason with a smile, and the other two girls laughed as they joined her to wave at him! Jason only spared them a glance before he directed Ragnar to speed up, and Ragnar let out a loud roar as he took off even faster!

It took less than three minutes for Jason to reach the location his system had directed him to, and Ragnar landed with a heavy thud and let out a huff of smoke as it bent its head for Jason to get down. Jason slid off to the sand and immediately sent Ragnar back into his Alternate Dimension.

[The user has arrived at the designated position. Releasing a significant amount of mana [2000 Magicules] here will open the Dimensional Tear.]

Jason put his hand forward and unleashed more than two thousand units of magic, and he watched as a long blue line formed in the sky! The line split open into a Dimensional Tear, and Jason’s eyes narrowed in focus as he walked through the Tear.

...

[The World of Ruen]

[The Wild Plains of the Immortal Lich]

The world of Ruen was a dark world with a sky that was completely covered with a blanket of smoke and clouds that blocked out the sun and cast the floor below in darkness. Its landscape was desolate, and the only signs of life that could be seen in every direction were wild trees that had adapted to survive in the harsh and unforgiving environment. The smoky sky did not allow any rain to fall to the soil, so the trees had deep strong roots that siphoned the water out from deep underground, and this made the soil even more flaky and inhospitable for every other species.

Unlike other worlds that possessed various forms of life in both intelligent people and less intelligent magical beasts, Ruen was one of those worlds that had been completely taken over by one creature that was far more powerful than everything else in that world. And in the case of Ruen, the creature that took over it was known as the Immortal Lich. To the people of Ruen, the Immortal Lich had appeared like a plague upon them on a completely random day. Like an unnoticed and unstoppable force that managed to eradicate more than ninety percent of their world before they could even begin to mount a proper defense against him. The first people to encounter the Lich were a couple of Ruens who had been hiking through the mountains as they tried to enjoy their peaceful marriage. The Ruens were tall creatures with the upper body of men and the lower body of goats. They enjoyed wine and nature, so you could always find them in the mountains and the surrounding forests.

The female Ruen had seen the Immortal Lich first. He was standing at the peak of the mountain while staring up at the sky longingly. He was wearing a long black coat that prevented them from seeing what he looked like, but the moment he brought his head down to look at them, they felt terror pass through their bodies when they saw his bone-white skeleton face! The Immortal Lich raised his hands and unleashed his mana towards the two Ruens, and the Ruens immediately turned to run away. But before they could even take ten steps, they were already dead.

The years following the Immortal Lich’s appearance were the worst in Ruen’s history. Ruen was a world that had only learned about magic a few decades ago, so they were still learning how to use Magic Crystals and Artifacts properly, but even with the power that they had gained, they were no match for the Immortal Lich. The Immortal Lich cast death and destruction upon them all. He blackened the sky and destroyed the land with his mana. The trees shriveled to death, and the lakes dried up across the world, leaving the people with nothing but sand and dust! The last of the Ruens went into hiding in the dark corners of the world, and they remained underground for hundreds of years while trying to hide from the Immortal Lich’s sight.

But the smarter members of the race knew that they were not actually hiding from the Lich. They knew that the Lich was a monster unlike anything they had ever encountered before, and if the Lich actually wanted to find and kill them all, he would have done it already. No, what the Lich was doing was an experiment. The Immortal Lich was keeping them alive and allowing them to thrive underground for his own benefit, and every few years, when one or more of the more foolish Ruens would go out to search for adventure or freedom, the Lich would take them and use them for his experiments. They were nothing but livestock, and the Lich was their herder.

But the Immortal Lich hadn’t always been the Lord of the Dead. Once, a long time ago, he had been nothing but a small-time researcher who worked in the Magical Institution of a ’Rank III’ world known as T’laina, more than three hundred Dimensional Leaps away from Earth.