Chapter 298: Exiting The Forest
(Time-stilled world, 170 kilometers from the forest entry, Day 14)
It took another fifty hours after leaving Cipher behind for the team to finally reach the edge of the Forest of Death, as they brought their long march through cursed terrain to an end.
The tree-line began to thin as they neared the edge of the forest, with the twisted roots and dense underbrush finally giving way to firmer, drier soil.
For the first time in days, the sky above broke through the thick canopy, and light, which had failed to penetrate the cursed forest for so long, fell upon their skin.
Slowly, the complexion of the entire world around them changed, as they removed their night vision goggles, and blinked against the sudden exposure, feeling happy to be able to see the world through their own eyes again.
But despite the relief of light, peace didn’t follow.
For the last two days, even after ditching Cipher deep within the forest, the team had been relentlessly pursued by monsters, leaving them utterly exhausted by the time they reached the edge.
By now, Leo had become sure of it.
Raiden was the problem.
There was no other explanation. The attacks were too precise, too relentless.
Leo had been silent about his suspicions until now, but deep in his mind, he knew for sure now, that the monsters weren’t drawn to them as a group, but were rather drawn to Raiden in particular, as he was behaving like a kind of beacon to attract them.
Because of him, traversing the Forest of Death had been ten times harder than it should have been— and Leo had grown increasingly bitter about it.
’If we don’t stop being pursued relentlessly after exiting the forest, I’m going to kill Raiden in the next two days,’ Leo decided, as he too felt too tired to keep up with this charade any longer.
In the past five days, the most he had slept at a stretch was 10 minutes, and his cumulative time spent taking a break was not more than two hours.
He was constantly on the move, and over half his day was spent fighting dangerous monsters, which eventually took a toll on his body.
This world was punishing enough on its own without the added burden of a teammate who attracted trouble like a beacon, and so Leo decided that if the situation didn’t improve after they left the forest, he would get rid of him.
But thankfully, it seemed like the situation did improve after they left the forest, as once they left the periphery of the forest, entering a stretch of ash gray plains once more, the monster attacks seemed to pause once again.
—---------
"So what’s our play after this? Are we supposed to make our way towards those giant floating platforms next?" Leo asked Raiden once they left the periphery of the forest, as stretching just a few kilometers ahead of them was an unbelievably long canyon, with massive floating platforms drifting gently across the air, rising and falling at varying speeds like pieces of a broken sky trying to fit back into place.
Raiden nodded while adjusting the straps of his gear, his eyes fixed on the ever-moving formations in front of them.
"Yes. That’s our next challenge," he replied, as his voice remained calm despite the stakes. "Those floating islands are the only path forward. Some are small, barely large enough to stand on, while others are the size of football fields, but they all shift constantly, as the weird gravity currents above the canyon keep them constantly in flux."
Leo narrowed his eyes as he watched the drifting platforms carefully, noting how none of them remained in place for more than a few seconds, while the gaps between them fluctuated wildly from a single step to several hundred meters wide.
"There’s no bridge?" Leo asked again, just to confirm.
"No bridge," Raiden confirmed. "You time your jumps right, or you wait. That’s the rule. And if you miss the right moment, it might take a week, or even two, before you get another chance at the same pattern again."
He paused as he pulled out a folded navigation scroll from his pouch and glanced at it once more.
"If everything lines up, we can reach the other side in five days. That’s assuming perfect timing, minimal error, and no serious injuries mid-jump."
"And if it doesn’t?" Leo asked, already knowing the answer but wanting to hear it out loud.
Raiden shrugged slightly while folding the scroll back with care.
"Then we’re stuck here for up to two months... maybe more."
Leo clicked his tongue softly, as he looked ahead again.
The canyon was deep—impossibly deep—with no visible bottom in sight, while the floating islands above it drifted in and out of alignment like an unsolvable puzzle, as if daring them to try.
One wrong jump could mean death.
One delayed move could mean waiting for weeks.
And if any monsters waited on those islands... the difficulty would only multiply.
Still, Leo said nothing.
As he knew that forwards was the only way to go.
—---------
As the team slowly approached the periphery of the canyon, Leo couldn’t help but recall the notes of a senior assassin he had read back in the Black Serpents Library, as that journal contained an entire section dedicated to the floating steps and the canyon ahead.
According to the journal, the assassin and his team had reached the canyon’s edge like everyone else, but instead of attempting to time their jumps across the floating platforms as most did, they decided to get creative.
Believing it might be safer to traverse the bottom could they reach it, they sent one of their members down into the canyon using a long coil of rope, hoping to determine how deep the drop truly was, and whether traversing the bottom on foot before climbing up the other side could be a viable alternative.
Altogether, they had enough rope to lower him down to a maximum depth of five kilometers.
However, just after they had lowered him roughly one to one and a half kilometers, the weight on the other end of the rope suddenly vanished.
In a panic, the team began pulling the rope back, only to realize that their teammate was already gone.
Whether he slipped and fell, whether a flying beast took him, or whether the world itself swallowed him whole, no one could say for sure.
However, even after shouting and waiting for him for a full day, there was no response to be heard.
That day, although they did not find out as to how deep the canyon truly was, what they did understand very clearly was that descending into the canyon was not an option.
As in the end, they had no choice but to cross the canyon using the floating steps like everyone else.
’During night.... The canyon sings to you.... Allures you with thoughts of suicide and tempts you to take the plunge..... resist it!
Don’t look down trying to gauge its depth.
Always keep your eyes towards the sky–’ The old assassin had written, as Leo held those words close while approaching the boundary.