Jude and Iris started their trek in the direction of where the corruption first began by following the path Mythrini had taken in his journal, the same place the host of Fae had died without being able to so much as utter words of their plight.

When they looked up as they walked, they saw some birds flying above them. They remembered when they first had entered the forest, when they heard the sounds of birds but never saw them. Now, the small contingent was scouting ahead for them. The birds hoped to spot The Devourer first so that they could warn Jude and Iris, but The Devourer never appeared that day.

Because Iris and Jude had leveled up, they could maintain what could be considered superhuman speed for a long time. They ran all day, and eventually, the birds turned around, headed back for the tree.

As they moved forward, the rot became thicker, and with every step, they kicked up a cloud of red dust up to their knees. Everything was dead where they were, and yet, they saw no sign of The Devourer. Eventually, it got dark.

They took a page from Mythrini’s journal and found the tallest dead tree they could. After that, they set up watch on the highest, most stable branch. Iris and Jude would alternate sleeping like they had done earlier that month.

That night, they heard the howling of The Devourer, but they saw nothing stalking the darkness. The rot had taken everything where they were, so there were no leaves on the dead trees. For that reason, they had a relatively unobstructed view of the surrounding area, but still no sign of The Devourer.

The first night went by without any progress.

“We can hear it, so why can’t we see it?” Iris asked in frustration when morning broke.

“It didn’t sound like it was close.”

“But the howling didn’t change directions either. What the hell is going on? I remember that first night, and that thing was all over the woods.”

“We’ll find out once we get to it. Let’s just be prepared for anything.”

“I really don’t like this,” she said in a sigh.

They continued trudging on, following Mythrini’s direction. The forest around them was becoming so dead that not even the red of the rot remained. Everything was black, except for what looked like veins of red coursing through the ground. They pulsated like a heartbeat.

“This is… There’s no account of this anywhere,” Jude said after approaching one of the veins.

They came in all sizes. Some were thick and covered large swaths of ground, while others were thin and snaky, slithering over, into and out of dead wood, but they all pulsated in unison.

“Disgusting, but if we think of it as actual veins, then they are feeding something.”

“Let’s follow them,” Jude said somberly.

“I agree we should, but this is becoming more complicated than we originally thought. Is everything around here this dead because the veins are sucking the place dry? Again… There’s just so much we don’t know,” Iris said in exasperation.

“Yeah, and I don’t have a good feeling about what’s at the end of this.”

“Neither do I.”

They followed the pulsating veins, but they slowed down their pace considerably. Without knowing exactly what was at the end of the veins and having learned nothing of the veins prior, they decided to be more cautious. Iris even took samples of the veins and found out a few things about them in the process.

First, the veins weren’t conscious. They didn’t recoil from the scalpel she had created. Instead, they remained in their pulsating state, much like normal veins. Second, unlike normal veins, they closed the incisions Iris made almost immediately. In fact, she had to coat the scalpel in panacea to maintain a wound open, which brought them to the third conclusion: white magic was poisonous to the veins. They were not things that would have survived or thrived under the watch of the Fae.

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Another day went by, and they covered less ground than the previous one. With nightfall, they searched for another large, dead tree to set up camp. It didn’t take them long to find one, and they repeated the watch from the previous night. Again, they heard the howling of The Devourer, but this time it sounded even more guttural, almost like gurgling, and louder. They were on the right path, but still, The Devourer didn’t show that night.

Morning broke and they continued on their way. The amount of veins increased significantly as they walked, and they started walking on top of them, which was a bizarre experience between the squish of their footsteps and the pulse of the veins against their feet.

“This is so gross…” Iris said.

“I’m gonna need a long, LONG, shower after this,” Jude agreed.

“I’m gonna have to burn the soles of my feet off. This isn’t the kind of smell you can wash off.”

The area itself smelled rancid and slightly metallic, like an open, festering wound.

“It doesn’t get this bad in the hospital?”

“Oh, it does! But it’s not like I have my feet deep in the muck of it all there.”

“We can shower together.”

“Wai-what?! You wanna flirt now?! I feel so gross!” Iris replied, but added almost as if in protest of their current situation, “Fine! We will! Happy?”

“Very much so!”

After Jude said that, he picked her up to carry her. His strength stat was high enough that he barely felt her weight.

“You don’t have to do this, y’know? I can handle it.”

“It’s fine. It’s like I’m carrying air.”

“Yeah, right. But I appreciate it,” and as she said that, Iris kissed his left cheek.

Jude carried her for about half an hour before setting her down again. He wasn’t tired, but Iris didn’t want to burden him all the same. In fact, she had only agreed to be carried not because she had wanted to escape the veiny ground, but because the weight of his body against hers soothed her. Once she felt the adrenaline within her ease, she was ready to get down.

Another day passed without sign of The Devourer. By now, they were making very little progress during the day. They couldn’t run because the ground was almost completely covered by veins and unstable and they still wanted to be cautious in their approach. However, three days of the week were gone. They were about to start the fourth, so their time was running out.

At night, the gurgling howl was even louder. It felt like The Devourer was right there, and because of that, they had come to the conclusion that they would find it at the end of those veins.

“One more day?” Jude asked Iris when the two were about to set off that next morning.

“Maybe even today, but I don’t know if that’s a good thing.

“Why not?”

“I don’t like the sound of those howls. They seem warped somehow.”

“I agree. Somehow I get the feeling of death throes when I hear them.”

“Yeah… But why would it be dying?”

No answers came to them.

It was the morning of the fourth day, and the previous night, they had judged the sound to be within a day’s reach. Because of that, they both remained very serious the entire day. There was no playfulness in their conversation, only restrained anxiety. They knew that whatever they found would scar them.

It took almost the entire day for them to reach the area where all of the veins converged. Light was already setting on the horizon, and the red glow of the sky outlined the horror of it all even more. They had found The Devourer.

The creature lay nearly dead at the center of the veins, or at least that’s what they assumed. The Devourer was a large beast. It had pitch black fur, but its jaw was completely exposed to the bone, as if it had a perpetual smile, like the Cheshire Cat of Alice in Wonderland. Its front paws almost looked like furry hands with opposable thumbs, and they had long, sharp claws in each finger. The rear legs were completely gone. In fact, all of its lower body was completely gone.

The Devourer was still alive, but now, they could see where the veins were coming from: the opening in The Devourer’s body, where its midsection should have been. The creature was alive, but half of it was gone, and there was flesh and guts on the ground around it.

“What the hell is going on?” Iris broke their stunned silence first.

“Do we approach it?”

“You wanna get close to that?! I’m gonna be sick…”

“We need to know what happened.”

“It’s almost night, and it’s still alive. How about we just watch it from above for now,” Iris suggested.

“You’re right. Let’s watch it tonight, and tomorrow, we kill it.”

“That’s a plan I can get behind.”

They watched the creature the entire night. When daylight was gone, the thing trashed and howled against the floor. It bit into the veins and lapped up the liquid that oozed out of them. Because it never stopped biting, the injured veins could not heal through the attacks.

However, when morning was about to break once again, both Iris and Jude noticed something strange happening with The Devourer. It was the morning of the fifth day, and both of them got a system notice at the same time.

[Warning: Boss Spawn Imminent]

[Scenario Mission: Survive 30 Days - 28/30]

[Bonus Mission: Kill the Boss - Difficulty: Impossible]