In the distant edges to the south of the sentinel's forest, six people were standing at the steep slopes of a wide chasm which descended down to approximately 200 meters deep. As for the slopes, they were a bit hard to walk on to, but it was a safer area compared to the crimson forest as there were no hellspawns loitering around.
"Whoa, are we going to go down in this deep hole?" The guy with a blond-haired guy with a handsome face asked.
"Obviously. There is no other way to go through the other side. Unless, you want to go back to the forest." The girl with a long jet-black hair with a face as white and as smooth as a porcelain replied with a plain voice.
"No way!"
"So, what's the plan, everyone?"
The guy with pale skin and scruffy hair who was dressed in dirty, old clothes with some tears on the right side of his body asked the whole cohort. This was the group which were composed of resilient people who had escaped an even bigger hell than the first encounter on the trials. Lloyd, Luna, Shane, Stanley, Ray and lastly, Klaudia; these people who had grown a little bit stronger since the last time they were inside a small cave, had finally travelled beyond the crimson forest. As for why they were in front of a large chasm, it goes way back three days ago…
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Klaudia and the others have returned from scouting outside. There was a grim expression visible on their frowning faces.
"We found both good and bad news. Which one do you want to hear first?" Shane asked.
"Let's hear the good news first." Luna said.
"We have found a way out of this forest. It is to the southern edges which is around a few kilometers away. As for how we found out, we climbed a tall cliff just a little bit farther away from here."
"What about the bad news?"
Their expressions went more intense. The others looked down while Shane paused for a bit before sighing and said something that frightened Lloyd and made Luna a little bit frowning.
"The bad news is we have to leave this forest as soon as possible. I thought that this was just some ordinary forest with weak hellspawns like the sentinels, but we were wrong all this time. This is actually a very dangerous place."
"How so?"
"Because—"
Before Shane could finish, Klaudia interjected and finished what he was supposed to say.
"There is a very high ranked hellspawn sleeping in the middle of this forest. And what's worse is, it can control the space which would make everyone inside the forest unable to leave once it wakes up. There is a high possibility that it will wake up sooner. It's sleeping at an area where trees don't grow and a huge number of sentinels are guarding it. Oh, and its rank is Defiled Emissary."
Silence fell upon the group. Just the elite hellspawn they killed yesterday was already a big menace which made the trials abnormally hard. And now, another bigger menace that had a power to govern a small area could suddenly be the end of them.
The gap between ranks of hellspawns grew wider the higher it became. They might have killed an elite, but they were only able to kill it because they took it by surprise and didn't leave it a chance to counterattack. If they were to encounter another hellspawn of the same rank, they weren't confident that they would be able to escape from it, much less fight and kill it. Encountering an elder or a higher rank would immediately spell doom for them all.
"So, how should we get out of the forest?" Lloyd asked.
"We should go for a detour by avoiding its nest. Both east and west from here are endless sea of trees. That creature probably sealed both directions to prevent its victims from escaping easily. However, once it wakes up, we will have no chance of escaping and death only awaits. I suggest we only fight when forced to so that we can reach the southern edge of the forest as fast as possible."
"Alright. Prepare to depart as soon as possible."
Luna and Lloyd simultaneously turned to nod and agreed with Shane's plan. They have no other choice but to either go back towards the clearing where they have started, or to move forward towards the southern edges of the forest. However, they weren't sure themselves if they could go back there. The defiled emissary hellspawn might have probably sealed the way back to the clearing. Or if they could ever return there, another demonic entity would be welcoming them and feast upon their dead bodies once it was done killing them.
With no time to waste, they packed their things and finally left the cave. They won't be coming back here anytime soon, or never again at all. Just a few minutes after leaving the cave, as they were approaching the middle of the forest where the defiled emissary called 'Ebonbranch the Cursed' was laying still, a large number of sentinels were guarding the sleeping evil tree. It looked like a burned tree monster in the fairytales with a height of more than three meters, no leaves attached on its branches, and instead, at the end point of its countless branches were black bone scythes that looked quite similar to the lowly sentinels' arms.
Klaudia used her Divine Eye and once again, she went blind, but she was able to see the tree's information. She used another ability which was called Shared Vision that allowed her to share the visual information that she saw towards her allies with the exception of blindness. She acquired this ability after fully awakening the soul tree system. They could now see the five brightly glowing soul orbs on its body as well as a red spot just above the soul orbs. The red spot was the heart, its sole weakness. Despite learning where it was located, they wouldn't dare rush in and attack the evil tree since they knew they would not probably scratch its tree barks no matter how hard they hit.
"We should carefully move and try not to attract any hellspawns as much as possible." Luna softly said.
All of them nodded and their pace became much slower in order to dampen the sound of their footsteps, afraid that they might attract a sentinel and became forced to fight it, which will only draw more of them and might even wake up the horrifying sleeping tree.
There were instances where they had been almost discovered by a wandering sentinel when Klaudia accidentally tripped her feet in a small bulging root from the ground. The sentinel heard the sound and immediately swung its scythe towards the origin of the noise, but it only hit the root. They were long gone into hiding in a nearby thick tree, while Luna was crouching in a bush and immediately shot forward with her sword and struck the tree at its heart, immediately killing it.
"Phew, that was close. I'm sorry, everyone." Klaudia sighed and bowed her head.
"It's fine. I should have carried you since your sight hasn't returned yet." Luna replied.
"I'll help in guiding her. We need you to be the vanguard, after all."
Lloyd volunteered and took Klaudia's hand. It was quite soft and smooth, unlike his rough, dirty hands which had been abused in working through all of his life back in the outer district. He blushed as he reluctantly dragged her. This was the first time in his life he had held someone else's hand. And on top of it, it was the hand of a beautiful girl. It would be quite romantic if the scenery and theme wasn't about life and death in the middle of an eerie forest filled with abominations.
"Okay. Thanks."
Klaudia shyly accepted the offer and said nothing more. Even though she didn't want to become a deadweight to the team, she had no choice since she couldn't do anything without her sight.
Soon, they were able to get farther away from the evil tree's nest and more trees were lined up once again. They had no time to rest as they were afraid that night time would come once again and they would have no place to hide on.
Once in a while, they would occasionally be forced into battles and have killed more than they could count. Lloyd looked at his status and saw that the numbers of enemies killed went up from thirteen to thirty-five. He sighed and dismissed the screen. It would take him a while before he could actually reach the required amount to ascend to a higher rank.
Finally, as the sun was setting down and the crimson rocks trees of the forest started to grow dimmer, they finally got out of the forest.
"There's nothing here." Lloyd stated.
Out there beyond the crimson forest, a flat area devoid of any flora species lay wide in sight. There were no structures, no hellspawns, and definitely no people. All they could see was just rocks. And the crimson glow of the forest stopped at its edge, making the barren wasteland in front of them dark and lonely.
They kept walking for some time before finally deciding to stop to camp there to rest as the night grew deeper. A bloody moon rose up to the sky, hidden within the thick smokes, but its silhouette could still be seen glowing an eerie crimson glow. It was like everything in this place was glowing red, with the exception of this barren wasteland.
Tired and famished, they took out their rations once more. Only one remained in each of their stocks and food crisis was not that far to happen.
"We're running out of food." Shane said. "And there is nothing in here for us to hunt. What do you suggest?"
"We still have this."
Luna took out a large bottle from her spatial ring. It was filled with a slimy, green liquid.
"What in the world is that?" Shane curiously asked again.
"Tree sap."
"Wait— tree sap? Did it come from the body of those sentinels we have killed?"
"Yes."
A shocked look was painted on their faces. They looked at the bottle and felt that its contents were disgusting. Lloyd then raised a question to Luna.
"Are you sure we can eat this? What if we get corrupted by the hellspawn disease and turn into one?"
The hellspawn disease he was referring to was the same disease that killed the humans and turned them into hellspawns after dying. However, Luna shook her head as she added another surprising thing.
"An awakened aspirant's soul is more resistant to corruption than normal humans. At least that's what I have heard. Many have tried eating hellspawn corpses before and nothing happened to them. We should be safe unless this specific thing's corpse is literally carrying a miasma that corrupts the soul by getting in contact."
"I see." Lloyd had nothing else to say.
He gulped as he took another look at the large bottle and tried dipping his finger to take a little bit of the disgusting tree sap that looked like the blood of some insects. He reluctantly put it in his mouth and upon tasting it, his eyes widened.
"How is it, Lloyd?" Shane asked.
Lloyd didn't respond immediately as he was still spacing out, trying to process in his brain what he had just tasted. Then he suddenly exclaimed out loud.
"Th-this is so delicious!"
"Really? You're not lying, are you?" It was Ray this time who eyed him with a dubious look.
"I'm serious! Damn it! If I had known this was edible, I would have harvested all of the blood those tree bastards have. I could have stored a lot and maybe bring it back to Asteria and sell it. I would become rich immediately and live in a big, warm house!" He said frustratingly as he cursed and clenched his fists with an agonized expression over the loss of an opportunity.
It was really a regret for someone like Lloyd. His dreams were very simple. He wanted a peaceful and cozy life where he wouldn't have to worry again about food. He sworn to his parents' graves that he would achieve what he wanted and live freely without a care in the world.
The others, convinced by Lloyd, had also tried to taste the tree sap and found out that he was telling the truth. It was so delicious that the rations given to them pale in comparison in terms of taste. They were also regretful for not discovering this earlier. They wouldn't have to worry about starving if only they knew.
It didn't matter that much when Luna took out more bottles filled with tree saps which lit a spark in their eyes. As expected from the descendant of a Reinford, she was pretty much prepared and was built different from them, whether it would be in terms of battle, preparedness, or skills. She was a league above them. They thanked the gods for bringing this very capable woman to their group.
A while later after they were full and laid down inside a tent, Lloyd tried again in creating a random material. The ones he could create would base on the image he would form in his head, or it could go random if he wasn't thinking about anything at all. Since crafting both materials and equipment costed him a lot of essence, he thought hard about what to craft. Since he couldn't think of anything better, he just went through the process of creating immediately and casted his materia generator. Lights flashed in the blink of an eye and a blue block of metal popped out.
"What is this?" He asked randomly.
He tapped on it and a screen came out that displayed its name and properties. It was a metal called Neptune Steel which is somehow related to water attribute. An idea then struck his mind as he thought of creating something that might actually work out well for them.