Ming Xin moved across the gray-brown desert, every step as light as the wind.
His fused senses had elevated his awareness of the environment to an entirely new level.
--
He could "hear" the faint scraping of tiny metal particles carried by the wind and sand. He could "smell" the complex scent drifting from distant wreckage, a mixture of rust and decaying organic matter.
He could even "feel" the faint flow of Geomantic Energy deep beneath the sand—a sickly pulse of energy twisted by Chaos corruption.
This Energy Field... is very strange.
Shadow Fiend's consciousness whispered deep within his soul, its voice clearer than before. The Chaos corruption isn't evenly distributed. It's more like... a living tide.
What did you sense? Ming Xin responded inwardly while remaining alert and scanning his surroundings.
Movement. The movement of energy. It's faint and chaotic, but there's some kind of... pattern.
Shadow Fiend seemed to be struggling to organize its still-fragmented perceptions. Like an injured beast. Its breathing may be erratic, but it still has a rhythm.
Ming Xin stopped and closed his eyes, expanding his fused perception to its limit.
Shadow Fiend was right.
The Energy Field of this seemingly lifeless desert was not completely still.
Centered on himself, within several miles, he could sense at least three distinct currents of energy moving slowly.
--
One came from the northeast, carrying an intense scent of corroded metal;
One came from the southwest, mixed with the stench of some kind of biomass; the last came directly from the west, the direction of the Rust Heart that he had chosen to avoid.
That current was the strongest and the strangest. It was not as relatively "pure" as the first two.
Instead, it contained dozens of different energy signatures—metal, organic matter, spatial-temporal fluctuations, and even a