This was a forest trail. True to Herman’s word, the path showed signs of human maintenance and was relatively neat, yet it couldn’t hide its winding, narrow reality. Carriages of various races—orcish wolf-drawn ones included—differed in design but were similarly sized. On this narrow road, their wheels nearly scraped the edges, inevitably bumping and jostling.
The proper highway bypassed this forest entirely—it was the only route marked on travelers’ maps. Why this hidden path existed was lost to time. Few travelers used it now. A caravan of this scale was a rare guest here.
Darkness fell swiftly inside the carriage. Though twilight seemed near, the interior had been bright just ten minutes ago. Now, oil lamps were needed to see. It felt like the prelude to a storm—as if heavy black clouds had suddenly swallowed the earth.
"Is it going to rain?" Mushiyu stared at the closed window, itching to open it but hesitating. Melissara sat by the low table, absorbed in a book.
"No. The weather’s clear," Melissara replied without looking up.
"Then why is it so dark?" Seeing Melissara’s focus fixed on her book, Mushiyu crept toward the window and reached out a hand.
"The branches are blocking the light."
Melissara still didn’t raise her head. The moment Mushiyu’s fingers brushed the window frame, she yanked them back. A stinging pain shot through her fingertips, as if pricked by needles. She sucked on them, squeezed the hand with her other palm—yet felt nothing. Wiping away a tear, Mushiyu wondered why she’d grown so fragile. Such minor pain felt unbearable.
She shot a glare at Melissara, who remained serene and engrossed in her book. Biting back her resentment, Mushiyu retreated to the bed and picked up a random book, flipping pages listlessly.
Suddenly, she paused. Lifting her gaze from the pages, she stole glances at Melissara. One minute. Two. Five. Ten… It wasn’t her imagination. Melissara’s eyes hadn’t moved an inch. The book stayed open to the same page.
Incidentally, the book was titled *The Ultimate Belly-Laugh Joke Book*.
"…"
*If you’re going to pretend to read, at least pick something serious!* Mushiyu thought, exasperated.
Melissara wasn’t reading at all. Her mind had drifted far beyond the carriage the moment the convoy entered the forest. In another carriage, Loran had done the same.
Both were probing the woods.
Normally, Loran handled such reconnaissance while Melissara awaited reports. But this time was different. A strange phenomenon had caught Melissara’s attention—or rather, any Elvenkind here would have noticed it instantly.
Dead trees.
Every tree in this forest was dead.
"Dead trees" didn’t mean withered trunks. To Elvenkind, all things possessed a spirit—rivers, stones, even bones. "Elves are nature’s darlings" held true: they could commune with anything. The stronger an object’s spirit, the deeper the connection. Trees, second only to animals in spiritual vitality, resonated powerfully with elves. Through one tree, an elf could glean local secrets; a forest’s interconnected spirits revealed every movement within it. In woods, elves were invincible—a key reason their small race endured on the Heavenly Wonder Continent for millennia.
Here, Melissara and Loran sensed nothing. The trees looked lush but were utterly void of vitality. No spirit answered their call. To elves, such unresponsive things were dead. Undeniably, these trees were corpses.
This wasn’t unfamiliar. They’d faced it recently—before defeating Adonis in the Cursed Dragon Gorge.
Before Adonis’s death, the Cursed Dragon Gorge was the continent’s only dead zone. His dark demonic aura had suffocated all life. After his fall, the aura weakened. With purification, that dead zone would vanish—leaving none on the continent.
—Or so Melissara and Loran had believed before entering this forest.
No one expected another dead zone to exist beyond the Cursed Dragon Gorge’s seal. And now, only the two elves sensed the anomaly.
The caravan pressed on smoothly. Herman, the Central Court Empire’s envoy, led the way with a warm smile. Human soldiers brought up the rear. The entire convoy was under human control—ready to react instantly to any threat.
It reeked of conspiracy.
The real question was: how had this forest died?
A dead zone lacked spiritual vitality. Erasing it from a region was simple in theory—but according to elven records, only Demonkind could achieve it. Their innate demonic aura carried death. Powerful demons like Adonis could blight entire continents with stray energy. Even sealed, his aura had turned the thousand-mile Cursed Dragon Gorge barren.
Humans had witches who drained life force, causing decay—but these trees stood lush despite being spiritually dead. That didn’t match witchcraft. Elven archives mentioned human "necromancers," who carried an aura of death. Yet their deathly energy still caused withering, and blighting such a vast forest seemed impossible.
Or… was this not human work at all?
The thought made Loran furrow her brow.
Things were getting complicated.
