Over the course of Finn's travel to leave this region, he had encountered many monsters and he had personally slain some of them. At this point, he was very familiar with the smell of monster blood, now there's a scent he couldn't recognize.
The smell of blood almost clouded Finn's head with unwanted thoughts, making him rush to find and devour the source, but Finn was used to this feeling to an extent and he could suppress it a bit. This was the effect of owning the spider's memory and mind.
The surroundings here weren't like the luminescent forest that Finn was familiar with, this place had normal sized trees that didn't obstruct the night sky, had grass fields here and there, and some rocky areas.
Finn controlled his energy and used the darkness to conceal himself, navigating his way to the where the profound smell of blood was permeating.
Finn's control over his Shape Shifting skill wasn't good enough, if not, he would have turned his fur color to black, improving his concealment. He could only change form back to that of a Jellyfish's instead, using its small size to his advantage.
He didn't know what he was facing, he couldn't take any chances.
He shot webs out of his six tentacles towards the direction he was heading. His Web Senses along with his True Mana Sense gave him impeccable results.
Finn could now see where the blood was.
The location was similar to Finn's surroundings. What mostly stood out were the corpses littering the area-corpses of monsters and young children of different races.
There were about 25-30 children of different races, littered amongst corpses of different monsters.
The corpses looked fresh, as though they had just died within recent days. Flies were already perching the corpses, and the skins were yet to peel. For now, this wasn't enough to attract the monsters to feed on them.
It was a gruesome scene. It seemed to be the result of a battle.
Finn would have imagined he'd frown at such a scene, but he was met at dismay. He wasn't sure if it's because he was familiar with corpses now, or maybe the spider and jellyfish nature had corrupted him.
He still felt uncomfortable though.
Within the ranges of his senses, Finn didn't see any living, so he approached the scene.
Coming closer, he saw the sad and panicked faces of the young ones. 'Why are they here?' Finn questioned. He had expected this world to be dark, he just didn't expect it to be this dark.
The dead faces of these children looked innocent and unwilling to face death, unlike what you'd expect from people who must have been prepared for this. This made Finn believe they did this against their wills.
Their astral bodies were long gone, only leaving the weak remnants of their souls to be roaming about.
While hovering in his Jellyfish body, Finn willed all the echoes within his area of control to enter within him. Albeit a little, Finn could feel their emotions. He wanted to free them of this twisted world.
Finn didn't know what to do with their bodies, so he just left. Burying them would attract monsters nevertheless, it was better he didn't waste time.
Moving further, Finn was now aware that this path could lead to the outside world.
As he moved, he actively kept his senses at alert while launching more webs to increase the distance he could sense.
He was also in his White Fenrir body because it could move way faster than the jellyfish body. He avoided using his human form for now.
The further north Finn went, he saw more children's corpses in the surroundings.
Some were resting their backs on a tree as if they couldn't run further and gave up, and there were others who didn't relent in running, but abruptly collapsed in the midst of their retreat, then died.
Finn also began paying attention to this corpses. Asides from the monster injuries that led to their death, there were multiple healed up injuries and scars that looked like it was caused from beatings. There were also fresh injuries done from weapons made by people.
Maybe if only one or two corpses had something like that Finn might have shrugged it off, but many of them had their scars and fresh injuries of different sizes caused by man-made weapons.
With bitterness and disgust, Finn had an idea, "Could they be slaves?"
The idea of slaves wasn't what Finn disliked, the idea of the young and innocent being slaved is what was truly unsettling. The more he saw the corpses, the more bitter he felt.
Moments later, Finn felt a reaction from one of his webs. The extended webs carried information and brought it back to him.
His web senses pinpointed the location of three human men.
They were all armed with either daggers or swords, and wore light armors. Attached to the waist of two of these men were whips.
They all spoke in an unknown language, but Finn could still feel their intentions through mana to an extent.
Ahead of them, further into the direction of where the men were approaching, in the midst of the bushes, a young girl was whimpering. She was evidently aware of the men that were closing in on her location. She was scared.
The influence of the spider's mind affected Finn's final decision.
Using webs to improve his speed, Finn moved faster, wanting to reach the men as soon as possible.
- - - - -
"This girl is such a stress!"
"She really is!"
"Dammnit, and we were ordered not to harm her! She really needs to be taught a lesson"
"Let's just get her and get this over with. Beasts should be coming towards this region soon."
"Yeah, we need to set the traps for them, we can't miss such a haul!"
As three men discussed the target they approached, they paid attention to their environment as they couldn't underestimate this region.
"Hey, look up there." One of them said, pointing towards the top of a tree.
They all looked at the direction, their hands on their weapon, prepared for anything.
Towards where they were looking, they saw a beast that had the body of a wolf, but was way bigger than what they were familiar with.
Its beautiful white fur with little blue streaks swayed gently under the influence of the night breeze. The moonlight only enhanced its beauty and highlighted the beast's piercing blue eyes.
Unlike their true nature, they momentarily forgot to joke about how much this beast's parts would sell.
Before they could even think or adore further, the heads of these men left their body, slowly falling into the embrace of death.
- - - - -
Finn coldly watched the death of these men with disdain.
He was yet to enter the outside world, but it was already proven to him; the strong will always try to trample the weak.