They moved on, and as they did; the forest worsened after that, the insects grew quieter and wildlife signatures thinned.

Feral-class demons became scarce, and the few they sensed were moving away from the eastern direction rather than toward it. Twice, Smoke picked up movement nearby only for the creatures to flee before any confrontation could occur.

That alone bothered Liam.

Demons were aggressive by nature.

Even weaker ones often attacked prey stronger than themselves if hunger or instinct pushed them hard enough. But here, they were avoiding contact.

Not from intelligence alone, but from fear.

And fear, in an ecosystem like Nalim, meant something had trained them.

Eventually, they came across a small clearing.

It wasn’t the same one Charlotte had described before, but damaged enough to make both of them stop.

The trees at the edge had been bent outward, not cut, not broken cleanly, but forced aside by sheer impact. A large patch of earth near the center had been gouged open, and dark blood stained the soil in scattered streaks.

At the far edge of the clearing lay a demon corpse.

It was an Advanced Horror.

Or it had been.

The body was bulky, almost boar-like in shape, with thick plated shoulders and tusks curving from a wide jaw. Its back was covered in hardened ridges, and its limbs were powerful enough to suggest it could have crushed trees by charging through them.

Yet now it lay on its side, unmoving.

Its chest had been torn open.

Charlotte stopped at the edge of the clearing.

"Would you look at that," she said quietly.

Liam glanced at her.

"You recognize it?"

"Not this specific one," Charlotte replied. "But I fought one like it yesterday."

She swallowed slightly, her expression tightening.

"They’re strong. Very strong. One nearly crushed me before I switched forms properly."

Liam approached the corpse carefully, as Smoke moved beside him, body low and tense.

The wound in the chest was brutal.

Not surgical like the smaller Horror from earlier. This one had resisted. The surrounding armor plates were cracked and bent outward. Flesh had been ripped apart. The ribs were shattered, some broken inward, others torn free entirely.

But the core was gone.

Liam crouched beside the corpse, studying the wound.

Charlotte stayed near the edge of the clearing for a moment longer before forcing herself to follow. Her usual confidence had thinned further now.

"This one fought back," Liam said.

Charlotte looked at the destroyed chest.

"Clearly didn’t help."

"No," Liam said calmly. "But it gives us information."

Charlotte stared at him.

"You are the only person I know who looks at a corpse with its chest ripped open and says it gave us information."

"But it does though," Liam said in an almost a plain matter of fact tone.

"Stars help me."

Liam ignored her and placed his hand against the corpse’s shoulder plating. There were burn marks along the edges of the broken armor. Not from flame. They were too thin, too jagged, spreading outward in branching lines.

Like cracks.

Like energy had moved through the body before tearing it apart.

Charlotte noticed his focus.

"That’s the same scent," she said quietly. "The metallic one."

Liam nodded slightly.

"Lightning-like discharge."

"From a Berserker?"

"Possibly."

Charlotte looked at the corpse again.

"And you still want to go there."

"Yes."

She rubbed her face with one hand.

"I hate brave people. I hate smart brave people even more."

"I’m not being brave."

"You’re right. Brave sounds too generous."

Liam stood again.

Before he could say anything else, Smoke’s head snapped toward the trees on the northern side of the clearing.

Charlotte immediately turned as well.

Liam’s hand lowered as he prepared to summon a dagger.

A shape emerged from the forest.

Then another.

Then three more.

Horror-class demons.

But something was wrong with them.

They were not the same species.

One moved on four elongated limbs, its body narrow and twisted like a starving hound. Another had a hunched humanoid form with thick arms dragging near the ground. The third resembled a reptilian insect, its carapace cracked and leaking black fluid. The last two were smaller, skeletal things with long hooked claws.

Five demons, all different kinds, yet moving together.

Charlotte’s eyes narrowed.

"That’s not normal."

"No," Liam agreed.

The demons did not attack immediately.

They spread out around the clearing, watching the corpse more than Liam and Charlotte. Their nostrils flared. Their eyes shifted toward the open chest. Hunger radiated from them like heat.

"They’re here for the body," Charlotte whispered.

"Or what remains of it," Liam said.

One of the smaller demons moved first, crawling toward the corpse with twitching urgency.

The hunched humanoid one struck it instantly.

Its long arm snapped outward and crushed the smaller demon into the dirt with a wet crack. The others reacted at once. The clearing erupted into motion as the demons turned on one another, snarling, biting, clawing, and tearing.

Charlotte stepped back slightly.

"They’re fighting over scraps."

Liam watched carefully.

"No," he said. "They’re fighting over traces."

Charlotte looked at him.

"Traces of what?"

"The core."

Even though the Berserker had taken the core, residue would remain. Myst residue. Fragments of power absorbed into the flesh around the core cavity. Enough to attract lesser demons desperate to consume anything that might strengthen them.

That explained the chaos.

The food chain was collapsing inward.

Cannibalism spreading from the top down.

One of the demons noticed Liam as its head snapped toward him.

Then it lunged.

Liam moved.

His dagger appeared in his hand as he stepped forward and cut through its throat in one clean motion. A second demon attacked Charlotte from the side, but she ducked beneath its claws and kicked off the ground with sudden speed. Her hand shifted partially, claws extending as she slashed across its face, then drove her foot into its chest hard enough to send it skidding backward.

Smoke took the third.

The shadow wolf slammed into it with silent brutality, dragging it down before crushing its core beneath his jaws.

The fight did not last long.

It was messy rather than difficult.

The demons were too focused on hunger and each other to coordinate properly. Liam killed two more with precise strikes to the core, while Charlotte finished the one she had knocked back by tearing through the vulnerable underside of its neck.

Within moments, the clearing fell quiet again.

Charlotte stood over one corpse, breathing lightly, her claws stained with black blood.

"I really hate this place," she muttered.

Liam looked at the bodies.

The five demons had not come as a pack. They had been drawn here, just like Charlotte said.

His gaze shifted east.

The forest beyond the clearing seemed darker than before, though the sun still hung above the canopy.

Charlotte followed his gaze and immediately frowned.

"Don’t."

"I didn’t say anything."

"You’re thinking loudly."

Liam looked at her.

Charlotte pointed toward the eastern trees.

"That direction smells worse than before."

Smoke growled lowly.

Liam could feel it too now.

A faint pressure in the air.

Not close, but just... there.

A heavy, metallic scent beneath old blood and far deeper within that eastern stretch, something pulsed faintly in the Myst.

Like a heartbeat.

Slow, distant, and wrong.

Very wrong.

Charlotte stepped closer to him and spoke quietly.

"We stop here for now."

Liam did not answer immediately.

She turned toward him fully.

"I mean it. We keep going like this and we’ll reach the bad part before evening. That is stupid. We need daylight, rest, and a plan."

Liam remained silent for a moment.

Then he looked back at the damaged corpse, the missing core, the burn-like lightning marks along the broken armor, and the demons that had been drawn here by residue alone.

The signs were becoming clearer. Too clear to ignore.

But Charlotte was right, pushing forward without preparation would be careless.

"Fine," Liam said at last. "We stop nearby."

Charlotte exhaled through her nose, visibly relieved but trying not to show it too much.

"Look at you making a healthy decision."

"Don’t make me regret it."

"No promises."

They moved away from the clearing before the smell attracted anything else.

Smoke scouted ahead while Charlotte searched for a place that felt less exposed. Eventually, they found a narrow slope beneath several intertwined trees, where thick roots formed a natural barrier around a shallow hollow in the ground. It wasn’t as secure as the rocky outcrop, but it would work for a temporary rest point.

Liam inspected the area carefully and he found notbing worth considering dangerous.

Charlotte dropped herself onto one of the roots with a tired sigh.

"I miss your cave already."

"We left it this morning."

"And I emotionally returned to it ten minutes ago."

Liam ignored her and crouched near the edge of the hollow, looking back toward the east.

Charlotte watched him from the root.

"You’re not going to sleep tonight, are you?"

"No."

"Of course not."

Smoke settled near the entrance of the hollow, his glowing eyes fixed toward the deeper forest.

For a while, none of them spoke.

The eastern forest stood ahead of them, quiet and darkening, filled with signs of violence that were no longer random. Something was killing Advanced Horrors and taking their cores. Something powerful enough to reshape the behavior of everything around it.

And somewhere deeper within that territory, the answer Liam had been searching for was waiting.

Charlotte leaned back against the tree root and closed her eyes halfway.

"Just so you know," she muttered, "if we die because of your curiosity, I’m haunting you."

Liam’s gaze remained fixed east.

"If we die, that won’t matter."

Charlotte opened one eye.

"That was not the point, bae."