Death Forest

Inside the Fire Cloud Forest, Nan Jue's group — their military decorations marking them as soldiers — appeared to be the first to arrive at Flat-Topped Mountain. Yet they wandered the Fire Cloud Forest without direction, seemingly lost from the moment they set foot inside.

The truth was, none of them had any idea which way to go once they arrived. All they could do was drift aimlessly through the trees. The elder who had once entered this place had told them only that the Fire Calamity Fruit would appear deeper in the forest — where the temperature was highest and the vegetation densest.

"Does anyone hear that? Like some creature flicking its tongue?" asked a bronze-skinned officer.

"Stop imagining things. In this heat, what Demon-Beast would actually live here?" said the female officer at the rear of the column.

Her forehead was already drenched in sweat, wrung out by the newborn sun — and this was only morning. By midday or afternoon, this place would be a furnace capable of roasting a person alive.

"Ye Zi, do you have any water left? Let me have a sip — Ye Zi?"

The bronze-skinned officer at the front turned around. There was no one behind him.

He looked down. Among the fallen leaves, he spotted drag marks. The color drained from his face, and he bolted forward to report.

"Commander Nan Jue — Ye Zi, our rear guard, she's gone." The bronze-skinned officer's voice was frantic.

Nan Jue raised her hand, signaling the whole unit to stop. Her gaze swept the silent, motionless treeline.

"Let's go back and look for her. She may have just fallen behind."

Nan Jue shook her head. Every person selected for this team was an elite of the Dunhuang Garrison — not only extraordinary in ability, but utterly disciplined. There was no conceivable reason one of them would slip away without a word.

"It's bad — Xu Dong is gone too. He was just out ahead, scouting for us." Another officer came sprinting back with the news.

Nan Jue's expression went tight. She addressed the entire group at once: "There may be considerable numbers of them. We move — now!"

"What about Ye Zi? We're just going to leave her?" the bronze-skinned officer shot back. "How can we abandon a comrade like that?"

"If you want to die here with her, feel free to go dig up what's left of her." Nan Jue's voice was ice.

The order was given. The group immediately moved to retreat from the oppressively dense stretch of forest.

But even as they pushed to escape, members continued to vanish — one after another, with no explanation.

Only then did they truly feel the weight of this forest's horror. The entire unit had kept no more than a few meters between each person, yet everyone who disappeared was simply gone in an instant — no screams, no blood. The only evidence left behind was drag marks pressed into the carpet of fallen leaves.

Nan Jue was a Mage of formidable power, and yet even as her people were disappearing around her, she had detected no trace of any Demon-Beast in the vicinity. That pointed to one conclusion: whatever was hunting them possessed strength far beyond any of them.

She shared this assessment with the group, sending a fresh wave of dread through the survivors. But the bronze-skinned officer still had one question: "If it's that far out of our league, why bother picking us off one by one instead of just killing us all at once?"

"Because it's savoring it. It's toying with us — the way a cat plays with a mouse. If we'd stayed where we were, it would have taken us down one by one until there was no one left." Nan Jue's tone left no room for doubt.

"What kind of cursed place is this? At this rate, we'll all be dead before we find a single Fire Calamity Fruit. Whatever's lurking in this Fire Cloud Forest is going to wipe us out first."

The leaves of the Fire Cloud Tree thrived on merciless sunlight. They even drew heat from the surrounding air, converting it all into nourishment for the whole tree. But each leaf could only absorb so much — after roughly seven days, its lifespan would end, and a fresh set of Fire Cloud Tree leaves would take its place. The result was that all of Flat-Topped Mountain was carpeted in these crimson leaves, brilliant as autumn maple, draped across the slope like a vivid scarlet blanket. Walking across them, you felt both unusual warmth and an unexpected softness beneath your feet — nothing like ordinary ground.

The moment Mo Fan stepped into the Fire Cloud Forest, he regretted it. The forest was a perfect maze — every tree looked exactly the same, right down to their size, and the endless carpet of fire-red fallen leaves made it impossible to get one's bearings. By now, he had completely lost track of the cave entrance that led into the mountain's interior.

His legs ached. He sat down for a rest and turned the idea over in his mind. *Maybe I should head back to the Flame Enchantress and ask her to show me the way when she has a moment. Anything's better than blundering around in circles.*

He pushed himself to his feet — and froze.

His hands felt strange. Sticky. He raised them and felt his stomach drop: both palms were smeared with vivid red. He brought them to his nose.

Blood. Human blood.

Mo Fan quickly looked down at the patch of leaves where he had been sitting. The leaves here burned an even brighter shade of red than the rest of the carpet — so vivid they blended seamlessly into the surrounding color at first glance. But hidden beneath them was a massive, horrifying pool of blood.

He searched the area. Buried under a thick layer of leaves, he found a severed hand — still dripping red. From the bone structure, it appeared to belong to a woman.

Mo Fan had seen enough corpses to keep his composure. He judged that she hadn't been dead long. *Someone else must have already made it this far,* he thought, as he carefully uncovered more of the body from beneath the surrounding leaves.

Eventually, he found something that resembled a military decoration. That confirmed her identity — she was a Military Mage.

"This forest isn't just a maze you can't escape. There are man-eating Demon-Beasts nesting in here." He cast a glance at the dense, silent trees. *I hope Xinxia and the others haven't wandered in yet. If they have, they're in serious danger.* He buried the body without ceremony.

Burying the dead was a code of honor among Hunter-mages. Those who lived and died by the hunt rarely knew which job would be their last — which assignment would end with a Demon-Beast leaving their body to rot in the wilderness. So whenever a Hunter-mage came across the remains of a fellow practitioner, they made it a point, without complaint or hesitation, to give the body a proper burial. A small effort. A quiet act of solidarity. In a way, an investment — because the odds were good they'd end up the same way themselves one day.

A grim joke of an insurance policy. But it reflected something true: every Mage who chose the hunter's life had already made peace with the fact that death could come at any moment.

Others might still be holding out hope for the Fire Calamity Fruit. Mo Fan, for his part, had lost interest entirely. For one thing, the Flame Enchantress guarding it was monstrously powerful — going up against her for the fruit was just asking to die. For another, she had saved his life, and he wasn't so far gone as to repay that kind of debt with a knife in the back.

All he wanted now was to find Xinxia and the others, grab a few local curiosities from the Blazing Plains, and haul himself back to Shanghai to sell them — enough to kit himself out with some decent Enchanted Gear. Then he'd go back to school and absolutely destroy every last one of those idiots who spent their days making his life hell. That would make the whole trip worth it.