Urasmus led the way as the carriage proceeded towards a safe area where they would make camp for the night.

He has been really efficient throughout the journey, even though he does talk quite a lot, and most of the heroes seem to like him.....

But Zorat wasn’t one among them.

As a demon, his senses are more keen that regula humans, and for one at his realm, even if he cannot channel up to a smidge of his perceptory abilities, he could still smell the stench of desperation from a mile away.

The man was doing fine hiding it, but he was really desperate about something, and also equally anxious, even if Zorat wasn’t sure what.

There was also his weird fascination with the hero of healing light..... Lily.

But he has never led them the wrong way since commencing this journey, and he also has a lengthy reputation for satisfying those who had sought his services....

So Zorat chose not to pay attention to him for the meantime since he was, most importantly, not presently getting in Zorat’s way.

That’s all that mattered to him.

Urasmus cheerfully led the group while regaling them with his many tales, as usual, to the base of a small mountain.

There, they began to set camp for the night.

As they were already at the point where the forest of no return began, they needed to be extra vigilant now, since the realm of monsters they would begin to encounter now would be at least, in the master realm, all the way to even the paragon realm, mid to late level.

And if they were supremely unlucky... they might even encounter the one peak level paragon realm beast in the forest of no return.

But with Urasmus leading the way using his expertise, it was unlikely that they would encounter anything they were so unprepared for.

Zorat had made note of two possibly inconvenient situations..... Maybe just one..... The other one might just be an opportunity.

Jacob was clearly trying to ’accidentally’ assassinate him with the guise of an innocent misfire.

Zorat would have commended his efforts if it weren’t so bland and uneventful.

Now he was considering simply putting an end to the young man’s misery to stop him from irritating him even more.

He expected more from the young man since he thought this person might have a knack for evil machinations to maybe bring even him some dreadful delight....

But some repeated missfiring in his direction fails to meet that expectation.

Even the other heroes were beginning to see the weirdness, as the young man who prided himself on his smartness wasn’t even being too subtle anymore about his overt actions.

But considering what might be going through his head, with what Zorat had made him witness. Zorat was willing to afford him some leeway to become more inventive and impressive him before he sees absolute zero value in having him around.

There was also another who seemed weirdly interested in Zorat as of late. And though she acted sleek about it and stealing looks when Zorat wasn’t paying attention, she still couldn’t escape his perception.

But having this person’s attention serves only beneficial purposes going forward for Zorat, unlike Jacobs attention.

After sharing a quick dinner of hunted game by the fireplace and sharing in lighthearted conversation for the better part of an hour..... Everyone began to set up their tents for the night, with the knights on duty doubling in shifts as they were now in a more dangerous territory.

With Zorat’s target in sight, as soon as everyone retreated into their tents for the night, Zorat vanished from inside his tent as he cast his void domain spell.

He leisurely moved through the camp, and then, continuing, he passed through the boundary separating the forest of Algove from the forest of no return and walked right through it, arriving completely inside the forest of no return.

But his business didn’t simply stop at entering; Zorat slowly moved deeper inside until he was satisfied with the distance he had covered.

There, he consciously unleashed his perception on full blast to cover a region of several hundred meters around him with him at the center.....

Staying still for a few moments, he read the incoming signatures of beast life and their individual realms until his senses picked up an appropriate target for his hunt.

Moving in that direction for several minutes, Zorat finally came upon a large cave entrance, and he proceeded to walk right into it.

After going for a few extra meters inside its narropassageway, illuminated warmly by bioluminescent rocks, Zorat followed his senses and soon stepped into a massive inner open space, and right at the center of that space..... Was a massive serpent of about ten meters in length, coiled around itself, and appeared to be sleeping peacefully.

This was the beast Zorat had been tracing.... A half-step paragon-realm serpent just at the precipice of crossing over fully into the paragon realm.

This beast would serve his purpose perfectly.

Even though the heroes had been able to tag team and kill mid to late stage grandmaster-realm beasts when they were only at the Adept realm.....

And now that they are at the master realm, if they work together, they should be able to also kill beasts at the late to peak stage grandmaster, and even half-step paragon realm beasts, or maybe something higher if their lives were on the line.

But alone?

None of them is currently that overpowered. Maybe when they start being able to use their divine skills, they can possibly put up a fight, but definitely not now.

And that’s why Zorat had selected this lucky serpent beast for Ariana.

He wanted her to feel helpless, like she was definitely going to die, but not actually let her die, and a half-step paragon realm beast just hits the sweet spot.

Picking up a rock from the cave floor, Zorat leisurely tossed it at this massive sleeping beast’s head.

Slowly, the serpent’s eyes sprang open as a look of irritation crossed its face at the sudden disturbance.

"Ssshhhaaa..." it hissed viciously.

It then looked to see that just in front was the culprit...

A half-naked and barefoot young human man, who was only at the master realm.

This angered the beast even more that such a weak human would actually dare to do such a treacherous thing.

Not even wasting a single second, the serpent darted at immense speeds at the weak young human, its mouth wide open to bite his head off as recompense for their audacity.

But it was strange, even as its jaws were about to close around the human, both his hands were still behind his back.

He must be a stupid human, the serpent thought