Chapter 290: Sweet As Raspberry [I]

Another day passed.

The rest of the climb down was as uneventful as it could’ve been.

Vince somehow managed to not fall off the cliff for the

third

time.

Yes, I know. Miracles do happen.

By the end of the day, we found ourselves even deeper into the jungle.

The trees here were taller than they were on the upper plateaus, and the few creatures we encountered were far,

far

more ferocious than anything we had seen until then.

I’m not joking.

Some creatures we fought were so dangerously powerful that they made the Tree King and the Fog Monster look like bad jokes.

The haunting crimson light of the bleeding moon barely reached this region. Even the shattered sky was hardly visible through the thick canopy overhead.

The whole forest was now swallowed by the darkest of shadows.

And I’m not even exaggerating.

Everything was so dark, visibility was

so

drastically reduced, that even seeing just a few feet ahead felt like a struggle.

But even scarier was the fact that there wasn’t much noise here.

And by

’not much,’

I meant

none

.

There was no noise.

None

at all!

Not the distant shrieks of hidden beasts.

Not the hissing of overgrown insects.

Not even the rustle of leaves or the

swoosh

of wind.

Everything was so unnervingly silent that it was beyond creepy. It was straight-up scary.

Yeah, I admit it. It was scary.

I don’t care how brave someone pretends to be, but when a jungle as dangerous as we were in suddenly becomes pitch-black and silent, you feel it

in your bones

.

Because it only means one thing:

There were no prey here.

Instead, the entire area was filled with predators — each one much deadlier than the last. And each one too wary to draw any attention to themselves.

That’s why nothing in this region made a sound. Nothing.

And we didn’t want to be the ones to draw any attention to ourselves either.

So we also didn’t make any sound.

We walked in near-complete silence.

•••

I noticed that the deeper we went, the heavier the air became.

Temperature was already a fickle thing in the

Noctveil Wilds

, changing back and forth between chilly and scorching from region to region.

But here, in this region in particular, the excessive humidity felt cold instead of warm. Thick instead of damp, like the moisture in the air had turned stagnant and old and rotten.

On top of that, I kept feeling a strange sensation crawling across my skin, making the hair on my neck stand on end.

...It felt like I was being watched.

And I guess I wasn’t the only one, because after a few minutes, Lily suddenly stopped.

Michael, walking next to her in formation, halted as well and raised a fist, signaling the rest of us to cease all movement.

We quickly did.

For several long seconds, Lily stood unmoving.

She didn’t speak at first. She just turned her head slightly.

Her eyes were glowing faintly in the deepest, most uncanny shade of violet, just like the runes on the Origin Card floating beside her.

Vince and I exchanged a subtle glance.

Not a word was needed to be spoken... because we all had come to know that look on her face.

It meant something wasn’t right.

"Don’t react. Don’t look back," she whispered. Her voice was a little shaky. "There’s something behind us. It’s been following us for a while."

My skin prickled instantly. That slow, icy crawl I’d been feeling on my neck spread through my whole body, like someone had dunked me in cold water.

Now that she’d said it, I could

feel

it.

I could

feel

something standing behind us... watching us...

Everyone else paled a little.

Lily repeated, "Don’t. Look. Back."

Vince

immediately

tried to look back.

I smacked the back of his head. "She said don’t—"

"I panicked!"

"Then panic

forward

!"

Crack—

All of a sudden, a twig snapped somewhere far in the darkness behind us.

Except... it

wasn’t

far.

Even though it sounded distant because of the deafening silence, I knew the noise had come from only a couple dozen steps away.

Everyone froze. I felt a chill run down my spine.

We were silently contemplating if now was the right time to panic, when—

Alexia cracked her knuckles, completely unbothered. "Should we fight it?"

All of us stared at her.

All my life, I’d heard that the house of Zynx was filled with muscleheads who all instantly resorted to violence when faced with even the smallest inconveniences.

I never believed that rumor.

I assumed it was a baseless stereotype.

Every noble house had one.

For example, common folk believed all Theosbanes were egoistical, materialistic, jerks. And that’s not true in the slightest. Look at me.

So I didn’t believe the rumor about house Zynx either.

Then I met Alexia.

She was either the calmest, most saintly person in the room... or ready to throw hands with everyone present.

We ignored her suggestion and resumed walking slowly.

Michael shook his head. "Whatever it is, it’s only following us for now. I don’t think we should risk fighting it. Stay in formation and keep moving. Lily will warn us if it tries to attack, and we’ll deal with it then."

Deal with it then?

Right. Great plan.

I loved this plan.

I would’ve loved it more... if it didn’t

suck

!

Now, I know what you’re thinking:

’Oh, then, Samael, why don’t you suggest a better plan?’

You’re right.

I would’ve suggested a better plan... if I had one.

But since I didn’t, I had no choice but to go along with Michael’s suggestion.

Hey, I never claimed to be some genius schemer! Sue me!

•••

We continued our fast but careful trek through the dark, rotten-air stretch of the jungle.

We tried our best not to make a sound, but considering we were moving through a forest, that was easier said than done.

Still, nobody spoke. Not loudly, at least.

We whispered, or communicated through military hand signs.

And since we needed to move fast and discreetly but also without being reckless at the same time, we stopped every five minutes to

look

at,

listen

to, and

smell

our surroundings.

It slowed our pace down a

lot

, but that was standard Hunter procedure while operating covertly in hazardous terrain. So we followed it.

Despite our best efforts, however, nightmarish beasts

still

ambushed us multiple times.

We didn’t see most of them until they were nearly upon us — or, in some cases, we never saw them at all.

Sometimes shadows swirled into shapes and lunged at us.

Other times, slit-pupiled eyes glowed in the dark ahead of us before closing in.

Some beasts moved too fast to track. Some were completely invisible. Those were the worst because you didn’t even feel them coming.

One moment, a screech echoed from somewhere above the treetops. The next, something massive slammed into the ground hard enough to shake the soil.

Or something skulked along the underbrush, looking vaguely humanoid but wrong in all proportions, before vanishing the moment anyone could raise a weapon.

And this one time, we didn’t hear or see or feel

anything

at all.

The air just suddenly smelled of fur and decay, and something metallic and sharp brushed past our arms and legs — so fast and quiet it could’ve been imagined.

Then we were shredded into minced cubes of flesh and died horribly.

...Or we

would’ve

died, if not for our seer.

I can’t stress this enough.

No, really. I

cannot

emphasize enough the importance of having someone in the party who can see the future.

Really.

Look, I’m not downplaying anyone else.

We survived many encounters thanks to Michael, Alexia, and me.

Michael moved with deadly certainty and cut through the darkness, anticipating strikes the rest of us couldn’t even perceive.

His sword was a beam of motion that sliced open paths through the invisible terrors that seemed to loom from every direction.

He truly fought like the protagonist he was.

Half the time, he was the difference between life and death.

But sometimes, even

he

couldn’t handle the pressure alone.

So Alexia joined him on the frontlines.

Her destructive prowess was on full display. Her punches were brutal enough to crack open boulders, and her kicks hit like thunder.

She moved like a living storm.

Yes, she wasn’t as powerful as a [

B-rank

], but she absolutely held her own against

any

beast unlucky enough to cross our path.

And I supported them by shaping the very landscape to my will.

The others were also just as useful.

Especially Vince.

He used this strange set of Spell Cards that conjured small floating orbs of light. Though they were utterly harmless on their own, they could be maneuvered remotely, buzzing like fireflies under Vince’s control.

In the dark, those little orbs either blinded predators... or lured them away from us entirely.

So yeah, everyone contributed a lot.

But we still would’ve died ten times over in that dark region if not for Lily’s foresight.

Even if she could only see three to five seconds into the future, that was enough to dodge a killing blow or avoid a crushing weight falling on us from above.

More than once, she redirected us completely out of ambushes we would’ve had zero chance of surviving.

I can’t overstate it — having her with us was basically a cheat code.

No wonder she was considered the brightest future star in Luxara.

I’m so glad I didn’t kill her when I first opened my eyes on day one.