He read the essence within it.
The swamp was occupied.
Not sparsely. The essence signatures distributed through the dark water had the density of a habitat that had been developing without significant disruption, the mana beast population within it having the layered quality of an ecosystem with multiple grades occupying different depth ranges and territory sections. Some of the signatures were familiar in the way that things you could categorize were familiar. Some were not.
The not-familiar ones were the ones in the deeper sections.
He sat on Fenrir's back and looked at the swamp for a moment.
He could go through it.
That was not in question. He had Fenrir, who did not care about swamp terrain. He had Cerbe, who made the ambient temperature argument for things that preferred water to reconsider their position in the surrounding area. He had Luton, whose relationship with liquids was categorically different from any physical creature's relationship with liquids.
