The Bandit's Shadow Prowls the Forbidden Forest
Jin Chen plunged forward, cutting through the blanket of darkness like a blade through mist. All of a sudden he stopped dead in his tracks.
Sybel, trailing right behind, halted as well. The moment he did, something came charging at them from every direction at once.
Skritch-skritch-skritch-skritch! A chill crawled up his spine as the creatures rushed forward.
Only when they were right in their faces did their true shapes come into focus thanks to the thick darkness.
Bright red eyes. A protruding snout. Teeth like saw blades driven deep into their jaws.
Even with their backs bent at a severe angle, their strangely long and pitch-black claws stood out against the tall, human-sized frames of the monsters.
They looked like a twisted mix of rats and wolves.
Jin Chen clicked his tongue once and swung his axe in a short arc. “What a bunch of weirdos.”
Boom! Whack! Thud! Thud!
The axe blurred at blinding speed, slicing cleanly through the monsters’ necks.
Squelch! Splurt!
Skritch-skritch-skritch-skritch!
Their numbers were enormous. They poured in from every side, all eyes locked on Jin Chen and Sybel.
None of them carried weapons. Just long claws swinging wildly, darting in whenever they spotted an opening to go for the nape of the neck.
Sybel narrowed his eyes and kept swinging his sword without pause.
Slash!
Every time the blade moved, the monsters split cleanly in half, spraying dark red blood everywhere.
The blood looked like it would make a man vomit, but it was far worse. It was a deadly nerve poison that caused foaming at the mouth and violent convulsions on contact.
That kind of poison only affected normal people. Jin Chen, who had long since achieved immunity to all poisons, and Sybel, the ultimate life form known as a dragon, felt nothing.
Even if they had been revolted by the blood, Jin Chen and Sybel showed no sign of it.
Swoosh!
Jin Chen and Sybel moved like lightning, carving through monster after monster.
But the monsters never backed down even an inch. It wasn’t like the orc horde they had smashed through earlier.
In those crimson eyes burned not madness or slaughter, but pure, ferocious hunger and thirst.
Only one instinct drove them: fill their bellies with the flesh of the prey in front of them and quench their throats with its blood.
And it wasn’t just these few. A full month had passed since they entered Death’s Forest.
The darkness made it hard to keep track of time, but Jin Chen had a perfect living being beside him.
If that dragon could confirm the passage of a month, then it had to be true.
No matter how you looked at it, the monsters they had faced in that month alone numbered in the dozens of varieties.
All of them were twisted and deformed, every single one charging only to eat.
Like starving wolves.
“Tsk, I wish the ones looking for us would show themselves instead of these freaks!”
Jing-jing-jing-jing!
Jin Chen’s axe began to ring. At the same instant he swung it with terrifying speed, crimson qi exploded outward in all directions.
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom!
Hundreds of monsters came charging at the same time and were sliced in half by the sudden blast.
The sheer power was terrifying. The darkness that had been so thick a moment ago was now blasted away, leaving the scene of utter devastation in full view.
Skritch.
Even with their halves torn apart, the monsters crawled forward, still driven by that same unquenchable hunger and thirst.
“Ah, damn it! How long are you gonna keep this up?” Jin Chen brought his axe down, chopping the head off a monster that had crawled all the way under his feet.
“Death’s Forest is huge. Finding those bastards in there isn’t easy.”
“So you want to keep wandering like this?”
“I’ll be able to sense them soon. Even if they’re black mages, they can’t move around Death’s Forest like it’s home. There has to be some kind of trace they left behind…”
Jin Chen cut Sybel off. “Forget it. From now on I’m doing it my way.”
“Your way?”
“Make as much noise as possible. Even if they’re just curious, they’ll crawl out.”
“No, that won’t work. We have to conserve our energy as much as possible…”
“Chasing monsters while running around like this? You really think that’s the way?”
Sybel fell silent. Jin Chen’s statement wasn’t wrong.
“From now on, make as much noise as possible and move fast. Don’t start whining if you can’t keep up.”
“There won’t be any of that…”
Sybel shook his head, then suddenly his eyes flashed with cold light.
The moment they entered Death’s Forest, the detection magic he had maintained without a single cancellation for the entire month activated.
The single source of mana that had never been detected within that vast, hidden area suddenly appeared.
Sybel’s eyes widened. Jin Chen smiled coldly in return.
“Which direction?”
“West. It’s coming toward us.”
“Then we should hide for now.”
Sybel looked at him in surprise. Jin Chen chuckled.
“What? Did you think I was going to catch and beat them?”
“I knew it.”
“That’s only if we’ve found them. We only just caught the tail of it. We can’t do that.”
“Good. You don’t have to drag this out.”
“I have enough brains to know that much. Hide your body and stay low. Don’t bring unnecessary trouble to others.”
“Hmph, I recognize how strong you are, but that’s something I can do better than you…”
Sybel quickly shut his mouth and scanned the surroundings.
After a month, he had grown somewhat used to the darkness. He still couldn’t see far, but he could reach the spot where Jin Chen had been standing.
But right now there was no sign of Jin Chen anywhere.
Where did he go?
Before the thought finished forming, Jin Chen’s voice came from behind.
“What are you compared to me?”
“Uh… no.”
He had almost forgotten something obvious.
Sybel shook his head and cast the invisibility spell.
Swish.
His body instantly turned transparent and vanished into the darkness.
Come this way.
Jin Chen’s voice pierced his brain. Sybel looked in the direction it came from.
On a towering dead tree that looked like a mummy, he could sense Jin Chen’s presence.
Once he realized Jin Chen had deliberately revealed himself, a groan escaped his lips.
What a terrifying guy.
If they had fought like this from the very beginning, without hiding their appearance, Jin Chen’s dragon heart would have been torn out by now.
Thinking that, Sybel floated up with the fly spell and landed where Jin Chen’s presence had been.
A moment later, the sound of something brushing against dry grass echoed from all directions.
Sasasa.
Not a trace of human presence was visible anywhere.
It wasn’t just Jin Chen’s eyes. Sybel saw it too.
Only the detection magic, Detect Magic, picked it up clearly.
About ten shadowy figures were carefully examining the state of the monsters they had just killed.
Sybel’s face showed his shock.
They had completely assimilated with the corrupted mana!
Had they created a new spell? Or discovered a special method?
Even as monsters, their stealth was astonishing. Without the mana inside their bodies, Sybel wouldn’t have been able to find them at all.
Sybel’s expression turned serious.
For a thousand years he hadn’t known. These guys had been preparing something like this in this very place.
The thought filled him with deep gratitude toward Jin Chen.
If he hadn’t met him…
This world would have become a living hell.
The figures examining the dead monsters began to slip away quickly.
Sybel looked at the spot where Jin Chen’s presence had been a moment ago.
He was about to open his mouth when he realized his own presence had vanished.
“They’ve started moving, it seems.”
He nodded. Jin Chen’s voice answered at once.
“Start. I’ll follow right behind.”
The moment he heard the reply, Sybel launched himself into the air.
And began stealthily trailing the monsters from behind.
***
In the center of Death’s Forest lay a place no one in the world knew about.
A vast crater left by a meteor strike.
From it poured forth an unending stream of pitch-black energy.
It was the very spot where, a thousand years ago, countless demons and monsters had been slain.
The corrupted mana that gushed out of the crater spread endlessly across the entire forest.
Swaaaah!
The chill-inducing mana spread in all directions.
Surrounding the area were black-red rocks, shaped like cooled lava-hardened granite.
And grotesque creatures were also present, harvesting the black-red ore.
Clang-clang-clang-clang!
With terrifying strength they shattered the rocks, never stopping, repeating the cycle of mining and hauling like puppets programmed with endless repetition.
Krrrooo.
One of the monsters suddenly shook its head violently, then charged straight at another nearby monster.
Kya-a-a-a-a!
Gulp. Gulp gulp gulp!
It bit into the neck of the other monster, then drank its blood like a madman.
Even that didn’t satisfy it, so it tore into the flesh and ate with wild abandon.
Gulp gulp gulp.
The other monsters’ eyes slowly turned red as if lit by burning coals.
Krrrooo.
A ferocious hunger and thirst began to gather in those red eyes.
When their gazes turned toward each other, twenty shadowy figures appeared around them.
Figures wearing monster leather skins twisted around their entire faces and upper bodies.
From their mouths came a single, unknown incantation.
“Ba-turam paira. De irajido. Pa-ku-ra-ma!”
The voices of the figures filled the space completely. The monsters’ eyes began to lighten to gray.
“Ra, ma-kuu. De-ri-a-ra!”
The moment the figures’ cries ended, the monsters resumed their work as if nothing had happened.
The figures who had calmed the monsters looked back at their leader and spoke.
“Leader, these guys will probably have to be scrapped soon.”
“Correct. The number of times the instinct-suppression cycle breaks is increasing.”
“If this continues, they might go mad like before.”
The leader’s face twisted at the words.
“For now, hold on as long as possible.”
“Leader! It won’t be easy.”
“You know they’ll hit their limit soon, right?”
“I know. That’s why I reported it, but the upper echelons ordered us to wait.”
The subordinates looked bewildered.
“Then what are we supposed to do with the dark blood stone?”
“They’re the only ones who can mine it. Even if we swing at it with all our strength, we can’t even scratch it.”
“There are complete chimeras filling the base, yet we’re ordered to do nothing…”
The subordinates’ complaints continued. The leader’s eyes gleamed.
“Once those things reach the scrap stage, we’ll stop the work too.”
“Stop…? You mean—”
“That’s right. The great work is about to begin. The harvest we’ve waited a thousand years for!”
“Aaaah! Finally!”
“Just a little longer and we won’t even have to wear these filthy skins!”
“That’s right. Soon we’ll be the rulers of this world.”
Everyone was unable to hide their excitement when someone interrupted.
“So our chimeras will finally be released into the world!”
“Exactly. That’s why the upper echelons ordered us to halt the consumption of chimeras.”
“Finally our creations will see the light of day!”
“Don’t get too excited yet. The ones at the front will be jiangshi, not chimeras.”
The subordinates’ faces hardened at the leader’s words.
“Grrk, things we’ve never even heard of are popping up…”
“If we had just a little more time, we could have created the ultimate chimeras.”
“Hah, I don’t know why the master accepted the dark elves’ proposal.”
The leader’s face hardened at the subordinates’ words.
“This is the master’s decision. We have no right to question it!”
At those words the subordinates quickly fell silent.
The leader, continuing the line, spoke.
“What the master wants is one thing only! To bring the world they desire into this one! That is our goal and our hope! Understand?!”
“Yes, Leader.”
“Remember this well. What we are to do is what the master wants…”
The leader’s face suddenly hardened as he looked sharply in one direction.
“Who’s there?!”