In a sense, the forest itself was not much better than the suffocating air. Reddish brown in colour, the trees, with the lowest of their branches hanging three or four meters above his head, far beyond his reach, often looked like they had been soaked in blood. Coupled with their strange shapes, often taking the form of beats, and even humans—or maybe it was just his imagination— they looked a little menacing. Especially so with their size.

From what he had seen while flying with his master, the trees were at least twenty to thirty metres tall. Some were even as tall as fifty metres. But their thickness was even more impressive. Even the thinnest of those trees were so thick that he could wrap only a quarter or so of its trunk with his arms, while the thickest tree he had seen so far was at least five metres wide.

And as if they were not menacing enough on their own, they even surrounded him in groups, letting out quite a gloomy air of oppression. The scariest thing about those trees though was how they kept popping in front of him without any warnings, often forcing him to change his direction at the last moment. Then there was the strange undergrowth near the roots of the trees, that often seemed like tiny insect type Oren Beast more than just normal shrubs and weeds.

One time, Alnea had even seen those weeds decomposing an Oren Beast’s corpse at a rate visible to naked eyes. But that was a rarest of rare case. After all, with the thick foliage of the trees, coupled with their branches interlinking with each other in an intimate manner, the canopy of dark green leaves that covered the forest was enough to block out most of Enn’s light from reaching the ground on normal days. And on a day when most of Enn’s light had already been blocked out by the dark clouds in the sky, the forest was truly dark as night.

Yet even the dark and thick canopy was not enough to hamper Oronir’s blessings, bending down from the weight of the accumulated snow on the leaves, or the branches, delivering them to the ground in batches. And yet, even that snow had to give way to the countless roots springing up all over the ground, becoming just a decoration, spoils of the victors of the roots, as they formed a complex criss-cross network of their own.

Many a times, Alnea had often found himself stumbling in the web of these roots, falling right on his face. At other times, he had come across small animals trying to reach towards the storehouse of the wild species of grasses, and insects, under these roots, only to end up getting trapped, and become sitting prey for Oren Beasts.

Of course, those small animals themselves could also be a trap prepared by some of the smarter Oren Beasts. After a painful experience, which had seen his right arm almost torn out of its socket, Alnea chose to remain clear of such animals whenever he found them, no matter how much sympathy he felt for them. This was a cruel world, and the sooner he learned to be cruel himself, the better it would be for him, and those around him.

But just staying clear of the small animals was not enough. He also had to keep his eyes out for other traps that the Oren Beasts might have prepared for him. Although Infant Stage Oren Beasts, whom he was most likely to encounter in the forest, were generally not intelligent enough to prepare a trap, he still could not take things lightly. The number of injuries that he had suffered just because of his carelessness…

Injuries were still fine, but the look of schadenfreude on Cecilia’s face, as the scolding that he would get for falling into such ‘dumb’ traps, made it so that Alnea always remained cautious of any sort of traps that Oren Beasts could prepare, while varying his strides to match the network of roots, as he made his way through the dark trail of the forest, towards the cabin where his master was waiting for him.

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Engrossed in his thoughts about the forest, and its dangers, Alnea soon crossed the halfway mark to the cabin, both in the distance covered, and the time that he had allotted to himself. He just needed to complete that last part, and then—

Just as Alnea raised his left leg to take another step forward, he heard something strange in the air. It was masked by the sound of the wind blowing with the snow, but it was unmistakably there; the sound of something rushing towards him from his side at an extremely fast pace. Caught unprepared by the sound, he hesitated a little, thinking of turning towards that sound to face whatever was coming at him, when he felt air around him solidify, trying to hold him in place.

“Inkah’s breath,” Alnea cursed, feeling death breathing down the back of his neck. Fortunately, slow as he was, he still had been running through the forest. As such, with the help of the momentum of his run, and all of his strength, he was able push himself out of the confined space of air. Unfortunately, his sudden actions made him lose his balance, causing all his strength and momentum to get directed towards the ground, making his fall a rather painful one.

However, he did not have the leisure to complain, or groan. With enough presence of mind, he hastily rolled forward just as he fell down, avoiding the attack on his back by mere inches, before he forced himself back on his feet. And though the roots jutting out from the out from the ground meant that his roll was anything but smooth, a bumpy roll, with a few bruises on his back, was much better than taking the direct attack of an Oren beast.

Using the momentum of the roll, Alnea put some distance between himself, and his attacker, before he allowed himself to look at the Oren Beast. In the form of a monkey, half as tall as him, the Oren Beast had had four arms and four legs, with two tails on his back. The fur on its back was blood red, with hints of silver on its chest, and gold on its tails, while the mane on its neck had a bit of both.

“Eight Armed Blood Monkey,” Alnea mumbled, recognising the Oren Beast from its fur, and eight limbs. Famous for their frightening fighting potential, the Eight Armed Blood Monkeys were said to be the descendants of the Golden, and Silver Origin Defying Apes, one of the strongest Origin Beasts in the Age of Gods. Supposedly, that was where their golden and silver fur, along with their frightening fighting potential came from.

In the peak stage of its Adult form, an Eight Armed Blood Monkey could fight evenly against an average First Stage Mystic Wanderer. And the fighting potential of the monkeys increases even more when they become Beast Lords. It was no wonder that they were considered to be one of the overlords of the Bright Light Forest. Especially with their tendency to stay in packs, and take revenge for even the smallest of grievances.

Other than that, another defining feature of the Eight Armed Blood Monkeys was their tails. These monkeys not only had eight limbs, but they also had eight tails, with each tail granting them different Innate Oren Abilities. Unlike their limbs though, they were born with only one tail, with the rest of their tails growing along with their growth as Oren Beasts. At just the Infant Stage, they would grow two more tails, with five more tails at their Adolescent Stage, for a total of eights tails. And only when all their eight tails were grown, would these monkeys reach their Adult Stage.

Yet the most frightening thing about these Eight Armed Blood Monkeys was not their fighting potential, or their Innate Oren Abilities, but the fact that they always lived, and moved, in packs. The stronger their leader was, the larger their pack would be, but even the smallest of the packs contained at least twenty to thirty Adult Eight Armed Blood Monkeys. Encountering them in a Forbidden Area—not just the Bright Light Forest, but any Forbidden Area— if the Wanderers were not at the Mystic Rank, then their death would be certain.

But that was true only for other people, not for Alnea. Even though he clearly recognised the Oren Beast in front of him, and the danger that its presence meant, he still did not panic, nor did he hastily look around to search for its mother. There was no need for doing either of those things. Because he knew that the little monkey was alone. Though his master kept telling him to solve the unexpected situations on his own, and kept arranging for Oren Beasts to fight with him, she would never pit him against certain death. Besides, having encountered such situations multiple times a day over the past month, he knew what to expect, and what not to.