(Time-Stilled World, 140 Kilometers from Entry Point, Outer Rim of the Forest of Death)
The remainder of the journey toward the Forest of Death passed without much incident, as the team encountered no sudden ambushes, no storms, and no hidden traps— just a slow, grinding march across ashen plains and the occasional ridge, where a few more mutated lizards crossed their path.
But these beasts were nothing compared to the man-beast they had slain. Though fast and armored, they lacked the feral cunning and brutal tenacity of that tainted assassin, and with the team's coordination steadily improving, such threats were dealt with quickly and cleanly.
By the end of the second day, they had covered the full 140 kilometers from the drop site, arriving at the edge of the Forest of Death— an expanse that looked as haunting as any graveyard.
Their clothes were caked in dust, their boots dulled by the ever-present ash, and their nerves thinned by the pressure of this cursed world… but they had made it.
All of them.
And that's all that mattered for now.
—-------------
The first impression Leo got from the Forest of Death was simple— the trees here were just... wrong.
They weren't simply tall, but unnaturally vertical, rising like the spine of some ancient beast rather than anything birthed by nature.
Their trunks were bone-white, streaked with black veins, and the canopy above was so dense it strangled out the last traces of light long before it reached the ground.
The Forest of Death might as well have been called the Forest of Darkness, because after just twenty meters past the tree line, Leo could barely see anything around him at all.
"Alright, time to pull out your night vision goggles," Raiden said, voice low but firm, as one by one, the group complied.
Thanks to the field notes left behind by past expeditions, they already knew the rules to survive in the Forest Of Death.
No loud noise. No sudden movements. And never— under any circumstance— light a fire for vision.
That was why Raiden had made sure each of them was equipped with night vision before even setting foot on this cursed land.
One by one, the lenses slid into place, bathing the world in shades of green, as Leo blinked against the static and felt his sight return.
"From here on out, we move in a single file," Raiden instructed, his tone heavier now. "Step only where the guy in front of you has stepped. No detours. No tomfoolery."
He didn't explain why.
He didn't need to.
Because the moment they moved deeper— just ten more steps into that suffocating blackness— every single one of them felt it.
The shift.
The weight.
The slow onset of dread.
The Forest of Death didn't warn you.
It simply pressed in on you, quietly, relentlessly— until your sanity began to bend.
And in such a place, their only strength was each other.
*Crunch*
Their boots crunched softly against the mulch-like ground, each step deliberate, as Leo scanned left and right with growing discomfort.
The trees felt alive.
He sensed it in the way the bark seemed to faintly pulse when he passed too close and the way the vines coiled ever so slightly, just enough to register in his peripheral vision.
It wasn't dramatic.
It wasn't overt.
But it was there.
Like the forest was breathing.
And watching.
No one spoke for the first thirty minutes.
Until—
"Huh? Did you hear that? Someone's laughing up ahead—" Karl muttered, glancing to the side.
"No, there isn't," Cipher snapped instantly, not even looking over.
"That's one of the illusions of the forest. Ignore it. It's not real."
Karl nodded shakily, forcing himself forward again, though Leo noticed the twitch in his stride.
Five minutes passed.
Then Leo stopped cold.
"I see figures moving between the trees," he said, voice tight and focused.
"Illusions," Raiden replied immediately, his pace unbroken. "Ignore them."
But it wasn't that simple.
Because illusions or not, they felt real.
The shadows drifted just slow enough to be seen. They didn't charge or lunge. They just watched. Always lingering between trees. Always just far enough to be unreachable and untouchable.
Leo tried activating [Absolute Vision]— once, then twice.
Both times his mind was flooded with static, the feedback crashing into his brain like blinding heat, forcing him to shut it down.
However, his real eyes weren't any better.
Everywhere he looked, silhouettes danced and twisted just outside his reach, taunting him with the uncertainty of what was real and what wasn't.
'This is insane... If I don't know what's real and what's not, how the fuck am I supposed to react to danger?' Leo thought bitterly, his fingers tightening around his daggers as sweat pooled between his fingers.
Somewhere behind him, Bob muttered under his breath.
"They're calling my name."
"What?" Patricia whispered.
"They said it again. Just now."
"No one said anything, Bob," she replied, her voice quieter now— tense and fragile, as the truth began to settle in.
The forest was fucking with their minds.
Ten more minutes passed.
The group stayed in formation, breaths controlled, blades half-drawn, but their nerves were stretched taut, and the illusions weren't letting up.
They were relentless.
Even if they never attacked, they gnawed at the mind— breaking down focus, eroding composure, whittling sanity into splinters.
Then—
Leo felt it.
A cold, wet sensation brushing against his boot.
He looked down and there was fog.
'Huh? Where did this come from?' he wondered, as he was sure that he did not see them walking into a fog field.
Which meant that this fog wasn't drifting from ahead, nor descending from above, but rather rising from the ground beneath them.
It coiled slowly around his ankles, pale and wispy at first, then thickening with each step forward, as his instincts began to scream 'Danger'.
Raiden stopped.
So did everyone else.
"What... is this? Cipher?" Karl asked quietly, his voice trembling.
"I don't know," Cipher replied after a pause, as that silence said more than his words ever could.
Because no one understood what this was.
Not Raiden.
Not Cipher.
Not the guild records, not the expedition logs, not even the oldest fragments Leo had ever studied.
This fog wasn't in any of the documentation.
Which made it the most dangerous kind of threat…..
The threat of unknown.
Leo stared down as the mist reached his knees, its chill seeping into his clothes and numbing his skin.
His senses were already shot.
His vision was compromised.
His instincts were screaming.
And yet, the forest around them remained eerily still.
Almost like it was holding its breath for a big event to unfold.