From the Weeping Hills to the Lake of Rot, they crossed all manner of treacherous terrain in Caelid. But Torrent's speed defied common sense. The spectral steed ran over swamps as though they were solid ground and leaped across cliffs and chasms as though they were little ditches. The rotting creatures roaming the swamps barely had time to look up before that gray blur was a hundred meters away.
The Tarnished looked up. He was drawing ever closer to the silver streak in the sky. But as they approached the Lake of Rot, the smell of decay grew increasingly strong. It was no longer a simple rotten stench, but a strange, cloyingly sweet and pungent odor that burned his lungs when he inhaled. The dark red sand beneath them gradually gave way to purplish-black sludge, and the scattered puddles glowed with an eerie pink fluorescence.
Then a red lake stretching beyond the horizon came into view.
The Lake of Rot.
It was a bizarre body of water. Its thick, pink waters bore an oily sheen, constantly bubbling. Every bursting bubble released a small puff of pink mist. There were "islands" in the lake-actually the caps of giant fungi. The smaller ones measured only a few meters across, while the larger ones spanned dozens. Huge, thornlike ridges grew along their stalks, pulsing slowly.
Radahn's soul flew straight over the Lake of Rot.
"Radish, can you manage?" the Tarnished asked softly.
The spectral steed snorted indignantly and leaped resolutely onto the lake, its hooves treading the air above the water without raising a single splash.
The Tarnished lowered himself over its back, gripped the reins, and kept his eyes locked on the silver streak above.
The gap was closing.
Thirty meters, twenty, ten...
The Tarnished took the Glintstone Orb from inside his