A Short while later, Casmir left the safety of the cave, passing by the cold lifeless corpse of the Black Viper and into the forest below.
In the sky, the sun was gradually falling leading to the slow dimming of natural light as night approached on this grim day.
Cor'Dana had repeatedly tried to convince Casmir not to leave, as he believed Instructor Redfire would come for them before Zaya died. However Casmir didn't listen, he was unwilling to leave Zaya's life up to fate.
In the end Casmir left with Zaya strapped to his back, his shield covering her back as he held his spear in his left arm. On the other hand his right arm had been set in place with a splint causing it to be rigid and practically useless to Casmir, severely limiting his combat ability
Casmir thought about bringing along the Array Orb Redfire had given them for safety but in the end he decided it wasn't worth it. He couldn't guarantee it would work on every enemy and it gave off a large glowing field that would give away his position to anything nearby, in the worst case scenario it would attract dozens of enemies while not providing any benefit.
He decided to rely on his Soul Flame's ability to accelerate his perception of time, Casmir believed that using it he could react to any situation appropriately and avoid danger.
The main camp was two kilometres through the thick forest, residing in a large clearing near the centre of the region. Normally Casmir could easily cover this distance in 10 minutes flat but right now he could only move much slower than that to ensure he didn't encounter any dangerous animals on the way.
Casmir ran through the forest at a steady pace carefully using all of his senses to search for any creatures nearby. Occasionally he would unintentionally disturb some small animals or weak ferocious beasts like deer or small reptiles but they would quickly ignore Casmir as he circled around them calmly.
More important was how the higher level ferocious beasts reacted to him but when Casmir happened to pass a few dozen metres away from a Grade 2 Dawn Ape, something strange happened.
The Dawn ape was hanging from a large tree and Casmir realised it was Grade 2 from its size, it was likely a family member of the Grade 3 Dawn Ape that Casmir had encountered just after they separated from Instructor Redfire.
When it saw Casmir it looked at him fiercely for a moment before its face relaxed and it simply ignored him, looking down on him like a weakling.
This was odd because even though it was Grade 2 and cultivation wise stronger than Casmir, a human cultivator like Casmir was still a certain level of threat to it.
It took Casmir a while to realise the origin of this strange event was his use of the Soul Flame.
He had been using his Soul Flame constantly, producing a faint blue aura around him as he made his way through the forest. But unlike before Casmir controlled it not to draw in any Qi energy because that would create a stronger brighter aura that would advertise his position to any creature nearby.
This controlled use created a thin layer of Qi energy that actually repelled other Qi energy and containing his own Qi energy perfectly.
Stronger ferocious beasts at Grade 2 and above would use their Qi senses to identify opponents but Casmir's Soul Flame was blocking those Qi senses from detecting him. To others Casmir appeared to have no Qi energy at all, he was like an ordinary human and was thus too weak to be any threat.
Of course this ability wasn't as omnipotent as one might think, Casmir wasn't invisible to them he simply appeared weak, any animal could simply attack him if he came too close and reveal his true strength.
Sure enough, 3 minutes after Casmir passed by the Dawn Ape, a 3m long python around mid Qi Grade 1 in strength spotted Casmir passing by it.
The python looked at Casmir and Zaya like a fine meal that would sustain it for months to come and even though Casmir was quite quick on his feet, the python felt it had a chance to capture him.
After a moments preparation it lunged at the seemingly weak Casmir, whom appeared to not be paying it the slightest bit of attention.
"*Swish* *Thud*"
With one quick clean movement Casmir pierced his spear straight through the pythons head, killing it instantly before nailing its body to a tree.
Casmir quickly stopped as he dispatched the python and carefully observed his surroundings for any sudden changes. Luckily there was no response from the forest and Casmir let out a short breath of relief before he moved on.
It took Casmir 15 minutes to pass two thirds of the way to the camp. On the way he dispatched a few low level ferocious beasts and ordinary animals that recklessly crossed his path but fortunately no higher level ferocious beasts paid him any attention.
This was likely thanks to the disturbance caused by the Grade 6 Giant Shadow Wolf, all of the higher level ferocious beasts had been driven back to their hiding places and didn't care for anything intruding their territory as weak as Casmir.
However as Casmir continued his journey, he suddenly heard movement a hundred metres ahead of him followed by a faint sense of danger. Casmir quickly leapt into a nearby tree, hiding behind a thick branch while he carefully placed Zaya down next to him.
He was going to simply wait until the danger passed when all of sudden Zaya's breathing become unsteady as a tiny groaned escaped her mouth. Likely caused by an aggravation of her wounds when Casmir leapt into the tree and placed her down.
Without a second thought Casmir gently laid on top of Zaya, extended his Qi energy around her and pressed his mouth against hers to control her breathing. He then gently stroked her hair to comfort her while matching her breathing with his own.
A second later two cloaked figures, one larger and one smaller, suddenly stopped below the tree Casmir was on.
"Strange.." The larger figure said.
"What is it?" The smaller figure asked as he looked around cautiously.
"I'm sure I sensed something here a moment ago..." The larger figure explained.
In the tree Casmir was at first relieved to hear a voice almost causing him to relax his Qi energy, announcing his presence to the two people. Fortunately he had grown cautious thanks to recent events and the sense of danger he felt from the pair convinced him to simply observe for a moment.
Meanwhile below him, the smaller figure looked at the tracks on the ground and saw a few footprints which quickly put him on guard until he saw the multiple large imprints of a snake on the ground and relaxed.
"..God Damn.. you had me worried for a second.. Look at how many Shadow Viper tracks there are here? I'm sure it's just one of them hiding nearby." The smaller figure explained.
"We've already wiped out the local watch group so there's no way there's anyone nearby... come on we just finished with the bodies.. I want to get back and have a drink.." The smaller figure then said, his voice lacking any emotion as he spoke of 'the bodies' like animal carcasses.
The larger figure carefully looked around for a moment, even sending his Qi sense into the nearby tree but finding nothing except an unusually bulky tree branch.
"Fine.. but I've told you. Stop drinking before the prayer, you're going to get caught soon enough.." The larger figure finally replied, apparently satisfied by the smaller figures explanation.
They then quickly left, completely oblivious to the pair of cold eyes that watched their every movement, burning their appearance into its memories.
Naturally this pair of cold eyes belonged to Casmir.
He had easily pieced together the fact that these two people were up to no good and they might have even played a key part in this entire event.
So as the cloaked figures left, Casmir quickly dispelled his repelling Qi energy allowing his Qi energy to examine there's. He quietly observed them as the sped away, even analysing the composition of their Qi energy so that he could perhaps identify them later.
'.. plenty of earth affinity.. some animal affinity for the smaller figure.. the same animal affinity again.. and some strange thick red energy from the larger figure...' Casmir noted to himself.
It was fortunate that Casmir's Soul Flame could push his Qi energy outside of his body otherwise he would need to be within a few metres of them to sense their Qi energy properly.
But perhaps more fortunately was that Casmir was a student refiner.
Part of his training with Master Bluefire was to analyse different forms of Qi energy and learn about their application, a normal cultivator at his level would have struggled to even identify the most basic earth affinity Qi energy.
'I swear.. if you bastards had anything to do with this.. I'll find you and kill you myself..' Casmir thought to himself.
Then a moment later Casmir vigorously shook his head, realising that his Soul Flame was influencing him again, before he quickly repressed those thoughts to calm himself down.
Looking over at Zaya, Casmir reminded himself of his current goal before he strapped her on his back once more, carefully avoiding aggravating her wounds before he slowly climbed down the tree and started making his way to the camp.
However his thoughts quickly turned murky and anxious as he realised these two figures had come from the direction of the main camp.
Casmir had assumed the 'bodies' they spoke of belonged to the so called 'local watch group' but perhaps they were referring to the Ellaris Guardship stationed at the main camp. He also started worrying about Cor'Dana and the rest of the students but he could only hope that they didn't encounter each other as he quickly rushed towards the main camp.
The remainder of Casmir journey was relatively peaceful albeit disturbing, he didn't encounter any aggressive animals at all instead he found multiple ferocious beast corpses that seemed to have been mutilated for their valuable body parts.
A 3m tall deer had its hooves and antlers chopped off, a large four legged animal had all of its hide ripped away leaving its muscular fleshy body open to the air.
Naturally Casmir stayed far away from these carcasses now that they had become hotspots for dangerous hungry animals.
Then finally, Casmir reached the clearing where the main camp resided.
Yet what he found only compounded his growing anger, fear and disgust.
Dozens of bodies were left to rot across the battle scarred muddy field, scorch marks and deep trenches in the muddy field were a clear indicator of the ferocious battle that had taken place. Not to mention the dozens of snake corpses resembling that of the Black Viper's, that covered the area.
There was even one particularly large snake corpse at least twice the size of any of the others, which was collapsed over a series of tents with a pair of legs hanging from its mouth.
Casmir recognised that all of the bodies had Ellaris Guardship uniforms on and they were clearly all on the same side. Yet many of the deceased had arrow or blade wounds covering their bodies, clearly portraying their enemies use of weaponry.
This was obviously not the result of a ferocious beast attack but a slaughter by an overwhelming force.
It took a moment for Casmir to recollect himself but eventually he rushed into the camp and started searching through the broken tents for any medicines that he could use.
Then, just as Casmir passed by a couple corpses of people from the Ellaris Guardship, a cluster of hand-like vines suddenly lashed out at Casmir's foot, grabbing hold of him.
Casmir quickly wound his arm back, ready to pierce his spear into whatever had just grabbed hold of him, however when he turned his head all he found was the weak, almost lifeless body of a humanoid plant like creature.
It looked at Casmir with its beady yellow eyes, a terrified pleading expression on its strange face..