Is this really a Game?!

Reign groggily reached for the communication crystal, his mind still clouded with sleep. He activated it and heard Gabriel's voice echoing in his mind.

"Reign, wake up. The corruption is spreading again. I can sense it entering the jungle from multiple locations."

Reign's eyes snapped open, the fog of sleep dissipating in an instant. He quickly roused his companions, explaining the situation to them as they gathered in his room.

"We need to move fast," Reign said, his voice urgent. "Gabriel can sense the corruption spreading, which means we have a chance to track it back to its source."

The group quickly gathered their gear and made their way back into the jungle, following Gabriel's directions towards the locations where the corruption was entering. As they traveled, they encountered signs of the corruption's presence – twisted trees, tainted soil, and a palpable sense of dread that hung in the air.

Greenie's gloves, which he had once again put on to better sense the corruption, were still working, guiding them, even though that was not necessary thanks to Gabriel.

Still, it was better to have them on, after all, Gabriel had said that he was unable to sense all the corrupted areas while the gloves could.

Eventually, they reached a clearing where the corruption was particularly strong. Dark tendrils of energy snaked through the air, coalescing into a swirling vortex of darkness. The group cautiously approached, ready for what they would find in front of them.

This was different than any other corrupted area in the jungle they had seen, mostly because it was still spreading, and they were witnessing how it spread for the first time ever.

Reign and the others glanced at one another before moving into action.

They spread in three teams, one would stay here and take the corruption down, which shouldn't be too difficult as they were all Tier VI combatants now, and the other two teams would go outside the jungle and try to find the source of the corruption.

Greenie was in one of the two teams that were leaving, as was Reign.

Even though he didn't have the gloves or anything else that could lead him to the corruption like Greenie had, his senses were very sharp and he could pick up a trace of the corruption, which could lead him to where it was coming from.

The corruption was coming from multiple sources, at least that was what Gabriel was feeling and how it was inside the jungle, but who could say for certain that it wasn't a trick from those who were spreading the corruption?

Who was to say that in some way, they managed to split the corruption before having it go to the jungle?

There was a possibility that there is only one source of the corruption, but also the possibility that there are multiple, and for that reason, Reign went with Shadow and Tank while Greenie went with Mia and Beast, leaving Wolf to deal with the corruption together with Aelrinder and Laura.

Greenie's team went to the southeast while Reign's went southwest, all of them determined to locate the source, even though it could already be late and the perpetrators were gone.

They came as quickly as they could, the Behemoth had not made a move so that the corruption could spread and leave a trail, but even then, there was a good chance that those spreading the corruption had already finished what they were out to do and had left the area.

They couldn't know that for certain without looking for them, however.

They exited the jungle relatively quickly, only needing about 4 minutes to do so before continuing to pursue the corruption. Reign's senses were sharp and he was able to find a trail, as weak as it may be.

Leaving the jungle led the two teams to enter the wilderness outside of it, which was a dense forest.

As Reign, Shadow, and Tank followed the faint trail of corruption, they moved swiftly through the dense foliage, their eyes scanning their surroundings for any signs of movement. They knew that time was of the essence, and that they needed to find the source of the corruption before it could spread further and cause irreparable damage to the jungle.

The trail led them deeper into the wilderness, and with each step, the sense of foreboding grew stronger, as if they were drawing closer to something dark and sinister.

Suddenly, they heard voices ahead, low and murmuring, echoing through the trees. Reign signaled for his companions to stop, crouching low as they listened intently.

They couldn't understand what the voices were saying, but all of them had serious expressions on their faces.

It seemed that those who had spread the corruption were still around, and they were close to them.

Reign glanced at the two men before nodding his head and then exploding forward with full force, appearing near the source of the corruption.

It looked like a hole.

A hole that seemingly had no bottom and was spewing corruption non-stop.

There seemed to be no end to the volume of corruption being spread by the hole, and unfortunately, there was nobody around the hole.

The voices that Reign and the others heard were still present, coming from the hole itself.

It was as if the hole was a portal or something, leading to some other place.

At least that was how it seemed to Reign who was staring at it with disgust. The corruption was coming from it, and the feeling one would have when being in its presence was disgusting.

"Alright, so how do we close this?" Shadow asked as he appeared next to Reign and stared at the hole.

"Do we just plug it?" Tank asked, prompting the two men to glance at him and blink twice quickly, to which the tall man replied by laughing.

"I'm joking, just joking!"

"I'm not sure how we can stop it, let's try attacking it first, and see how it reacts." Reign said before conjuring a spear of lightning that he hurled into the hole, only for the spear to simply get swallowed by it.

He then conjured two more spears, one made of light, and another made of darkness.

He launched the one made out of darkness, and it got swallowed as well, but this time, there was a reaction from the hole, it had stopped spewing the corruption out for a moment before continuing.

Lastly, he sent the spear of light to the hole, and that was where a change occurred.

The hole stopped spewing corruption right before the spear arrived, and the corruption, instead of making its way toward the jungle, actually moved, creating a barrier to stop the spear from reaching the hole.

"Light is effective against you, huh?" Reign asked with a dangerous grin before suddenly conjuring a hundred spears of light and sending them all to the hole.

The spears collided against the barrier, and it only took a second for the barrier to be broken through as the volume of corrupt energy present was not enough to stop the spears for long.

The spears then rained down on the hole, causing a large cloud of dust to rise up.

The dust settled, revealing the hole still there, but now with cracks running along its edges. The corruption had ceased spewing from it, and it seemed that the onslaught of light spears had weakened it significantly.

Reign, Shadow, and Tank cautiously approached the hole, ready for anything. As they got closer, they noticed that the voices coming from the hole had stopped, replaced by an eerie silence.

Reign raised his hand, ready to strike again if needed, but as he reached the edge of the hole, he saw something unexpected. The hole was not a portal to another place, at least not anymore, but rather a deep pit dug into the ground, lined with strange runes and symbols.

"So that was how they do it, they use those symbols and runes to create the source, but still, that doesn't explain those voices that we heard coming from the hole, there has to be more to it." Reign said as Shadow nodded his head.

"Maybe this is what creates the portal, and through it, those on the other side can guide the corruption here?"

"That could be the case, we should copy the runes and symbols present, perhaps Laura or somebody back in the base can identify them."

"What about the Enclave, do we share this with them as well, after all, Gabriel did say they are not the ones responsible for this, we can trust them, at least when it comes to the corruption, right?" Tank asked Shadow and Reign who stood still for a moment.

"Let's not do that right now, even though Gabriel has said that he hasn't sensed any corruption from them, he could be wrong, or he is being tricked, after all, he can't sense all the corrupted areas in the jungle, so there is no saying whether someone could fool him or not."

"I still don't fully trust Ishmail, and I would rather we keep this information for ourselves, at least for a little while."