The tension was suffocating.
Aric's breaths came shallow, his eyes darting through the trees.
"What… what the hell just happened to Sera?" he muttered, voice tight. "She's a Rank Two being—she shouldn't—she shouldn't lose control like that."
His fingers trembled as they brushed the hilt of his blade.
"This isn't normal. Something's wrong. Way worse than last time. Way worse."
"My mana's corrupting faster than I can cleanse it. Its spreading—I can't keep up…"
He swallowed, glancing back at the others, then at the trees—twisting, silent, and watching.
"We can't even track time in here. My head—feels like its spinning. What if… what if we're just going in circles?"
His voice cracked. His hand clenched the blade tight, knuckles pale.
"I don't think this forest wants us to leave."
Aric had turned to me, rage burning in his eyes, and drew his blade with a sharp hiss.
"You were the one who brought us here," he had growled. "You were the one who wanted to study the Dark Forest. To understand it."
His voice had cracked as anger took hold of him, his jaw clenched, teeth grinding.
The others had stood frozen, still reeling from what had just happened. Their eyes flicked between the two of us—uncertain, afraid.
I had scoffed.
"I gave the mission," I had said coldly. "You were the ones who accepted it."
When he moved, I knew I was going to die.
I couldn't fight him. I'm not even a full Rank One—he'd carve me in two before I blinked. I thought I was dead before forest might kill me. I really thought—this is it.
But I didn't die.
I survived—even the things that those far stronger than me couldn't.
Maybe it was fate.
Maybe I was meant to live… to carry this burden. To tell the world what I discovered of the dark forest.
One of them had stepped in, stopping Aric before he could make a rash move. He reason with him, saying I was more useful alive than dead.
Aric was on edge maybe all of us were, but no one was ready for what came next on our final day.
Day Four. Aidan stopped, his fingers lingering above the next page. He didn't turn it—not immediately.
He just sat there, letting the weight of everything he had read settle in.
The words were still echoing in his head—Aric's panic, the corrupted mana, the way even second-rank beings had lost control. Aidan could feel a chill run down his spine. The deeper he went, the more real it became.
The forest wasn't just dangerous—it felt alive, as looking at those who entered.
His jaw tensed. He exhaled slowly, grounding himself.
"What the hell is this place…?"
It was our third rest, marking the start of the fourth day, when one of our members suddenly went missing. We searched everywhere, but it was as if he had vanished without a trace.
Just when we thought he might be dead, Aric discovered a footprint leading somewhere.
We hesitated for a moment, then chose to follow the trail.
A lake came into view—not like the rotted, acidic streams we had seen before. This one shimmered, pristine and impossibly clear, as if it had poured straight from the elf empire itself.
And there he was—the missing member—swinging in the water, enjoying, as if nothing had happened. When he saw us, he smiled and waved, beckoning us to join him.
Something felt wrong. Deeply, fundamentally wrong. I didn't move.
But Aric, tense for so long, suddenly smiled. He stepped forward, almost relieved. Another man followed behind, more cautiously, eyes flicking to the water's surface.
I wanted to stop him. I didn't know why—I just knew.
The moment Aric's foot touched the water, it was too late.
He was swallowed whole.
No time to scream. Just a splash—too clean, too quiet. Droplets landed on the man behind him, who staggered back in shock.
A voice cut through the silence behind us.
We turned, stunned—
The missing man stood there, watching us, tears streaming down his face.
When he saw that we were looking directly at him, he screamed.
"Can you see me now?"
I stepped forward, trying to speak. "What do you mean?" I asked.
But the words didn't matter.
Because in that moment—seeing his face, hearing his voice and what he said next—I understood.
And the fear took over.
Whatever hope I had left of escaping that forest shattered right then.
He said he hadn't disappeared.
He had been with us the entire time—walking beside us, watching, and calling out to us. We just didn't see him. Didn't hear him.
The weight of that truth settled over us like a suffocating fog. It wasn't that we lost him. It was that we were blind to him.
And that meant something far worse—
We had walked ourselves to death.
Step by step.
By our own hands.
Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, the missing man's face twisted in terror as his eyes widened, fixed on the man who had followed Aric.
I turned and saw the spot where the water had splashed—completely dry, as if it had sucked the energy out of the ground.
I looked at the man—the water had touched him too. Slowly, the life drained from him. He tried to step forward, to reach us… but before he could, he withered, collapsing into a dry, lifeless husk.
A laugh echoed from a tree beside the lake—tall, ancient, and gnarled. Hanging upside down from one of its thick branches was a woman, her eyes locked onto us with eerie smile.
The tree had multiple corpses hanging from its branches, each with a face frozen in despair.
I knew her.
She was one of the most terrifying entities in the Dark Forest. Only Rank Four beings had the strength to survive an encounter with her—some say not even a Rank Three being a noble could hope to stand a chance when in front of her.
Aidan paused, his eyes narrowing at a word he hadn't seen before—Noble.
"Noble…?" he murmured under his breath. "What's that supposed to mean?"
He shook his head, brushing the thought aside for now, and focused back on the page.