*One Day Later*
*ROAR*
Under the bright light of the sun, a giant fanged wolf growled loudly in pain as it felt a sharp sword stab through its chest, exiting it from its back. In a moment, the monster fell to the ground, unable to move or breathe, dying rather quickly.
Arthur retracted his blade as he looked up with a sigh. "Fuuh, is that the last one?" He asked as he turned to look at the others. Isla sliced one wolf's head as she nodded. "Yes, there are no more."
"AGH, my back. These things never end." Herculia cracked his back.
"We have come across a huge number of monsters the past day. They're getting more frequent and stronger." Emmy replied.
After starting their trip again, the group immediately noticed that the forest had started spitting out even more enemies in their path. The monsters were more aggressive, stronger, and seemingly smarter than the ones before.
That naturally led them to believe that they were reaching the deeper parts of the forest and the difficulty was picking up again.
However, the group was far stronger than before and so it didn't pose much of a challenge for them except for some wasted time that they couldn't avoid. Every enemy that came across them ended up dead very quickly.
In fact, their pace was considerably faster than before as if they were only getting better and better at it rather than getting exhausted and wrung out with the passage of time.
After finishing off the round of enemies, they all returned to their horses except for Arthur who stood there, staring at his sword.
"Arthur? Aren't you coming?" Herculia asked him.
"..." But, the boy didn't answer.
"Arthur?" Emmy called for him again, very confused.
But still, he didn't respond as if he didn't hear them talking to him. That naturally raised suspicion between them.
"Are you ok, Arthur?" Isla jumped back and approached him curiously. There, she noticed that he was deeply in thought, examining his sword. Squinting her eyes, she looked at the spot he was examining. There, she noticed something interesting.
The sword had a very small crack at the edge of it. The crack was very minimal and most likely not even going to make the sword perform worse, but it was still there.
They couldn't see what was beyond or where the pit led them from this distance.
Isla looked ahead with a cold expression. "It does seem so." She replied.
"... Well, this is new," Herculia commented. "Finally, some well-deserved change. I got bored of all this forest."
"Don't get too excited yet." Emmy hit his shoulder gently.
"I'm going to check," Arthur said as he jumped down from his horse and walked ahead of them. Reaching the edge, he peeked at the bottom.
"...!" Arthur's breath stopped for a moment. He went completely silent.
"What are you seeing?" Isla asked.
"... Arthur?"
"Guys, I think you might want to see this." He said in a weird tone. "No, you definitely would want to see this."
The others looked at each other confusedly before they jumped down and approached him.
"What are you seeing ma-" Herculia who reached him first didn't even finish his sentence. "... Dear god..."
The rest followed after and their reactions were a varying degree of the same thing... Shock.
After all, the pit that they assumed was perhaps the end of the path only gave them a view of a massive area that stretched for as far as the eye could see. Stretches of land that looked like a plain, covered by a thick layer of white mist that covered most of its scenery.
Trees peeked out of the mist everywhere, looking menacingly big and oppressive. It was like staring into giant clouds wrapped in nature. The temperature dropped sharply and they could feel it even on that high cliff.
"... A swamp..." Herculia muttered.
"No." Isla shook her head with a frown. "This is a cloud forest."
A//N: Don't forget to give the book some golden tickets for good luck! :3