Once they had finished burning all the bodies so that the orb couldn't possess them again, they got right back to moving. They didn't want to spend more time in this forest than they needed to.

Even though it was still morning, the sunlight barely penetrated the dense canopy above, leaving everything in a dull twilight. Mist hung between the trees like breath on glass, and the air felt thick and heavy with silence.

Even though they had made some distance between themselves and the clearing where everything had happened, the thoughts about the situation didn't fade, and no one wanted to speak.

Not only did they have to worry about the bandits that hid in the forest, bandits that were much stronger than others they had fought before, but this new magical orb of light was a source of danger.

This lowered the morale of the soldiers a lot, and while Alina tried to keep morale high by chatting with them, making jokes, and even giving out extra rations, Morena could tell her sister was worried, too.

Thankfully, given the estimates by the AI and the path they were currently on, Morena was certain they would be out of the forest within a few days. The only issue was the bandits.

She worried about what the man had said before, that they were just scouts, and if they had stronger bandits waiting further in the forest, she didn't want to encounter them.

The easiest way would be to go around them, taking a different path; however, she didn't know where their base was. None of the bandits gave up the information, even after being tortured, so the best they could do was walk blind.

Still, that didn't mean she didn't plan ahead. She took a path she believed they were less likely to be on; given that they came from the Empire and fled into the forest, she believed they would most likely be along the most accessible path via the Empire's side.

So she avoided that path.

It added an extra day to their trip, but it was a risk she had to take to avoid running into their base.

Aside from that, she still had the AI scan her path constantly, trying to find better paths and even dangers ahead.

'AI, scan ahead, same parameters as before. If you detect anything out of the ordinary, alert me immediately.'

[Understood.]

The response echoed faintly in her mind as she continued forward. The horses snorted, uncomfortable, their ears twitching with every shift in the wind.

At first, there was nothing unusual, but once a scout that was tasked with keeping an eye on their sides called out, her attention shifted.

"My lady! You'll want to see this!"

Morena slowed her horse and moved forward. The scout stood near a patch of undergrowth, his expression uneasy.

As she approached him, he pointed towards a patch of dirt with the edge of his spear.

When she saw what he was pointing at, she felt her stomach twisting in disgust; it was a reaction that came naturally at the sight.

Bones and flesh.

White and red, blood and guts; they weren't picked clean like an animal had eaten them, but rather ripped apart like something played with a corpse. Dozens of them. They were scattered across the ground like something had torn through a pack of animals and left the remnants behind to rot.

They had fur, flesh, guts, organs, all of the things that would normally be eaten still littering the ground.

Some were old, some were still fresh, but the scent of it all mixing together was disgusting.

"What kind of animals are these?"

Morena couldn't even tell what some of the animals were because of how badly damaged the bodies were, but the scout could make out some of the bones.

"Hard to say for certain."

The scout replied, covering his face as he leaned closer to get a better look at the bones.

"Some of these are deer... but there's others too. Wild boar, maybe even wolves. I think that one is a direwolf, too. All torn apart."

Morena dismounted and crouched beside one of the larger carcasses. It did look a lot like the direwolves she had fought before, but the flesh had been ripped apart like it went through a shredder. The bones were cracked, crushed in odd angles.

Whatever had done this wasn't eating the animals, it was destroying them, killing them for the sake of killing them. This was pleasure, or rather, instinct, not hunger.

Some of the bodies had claw marks, but others had weapon marks. Yet, they weren't all the same, some claws were different, some weapon wounds looked different.

Whatever had done this didn't use the same source to do it; it changed it often.

It wasn't human, and there was only one thing she had seen in the forest that matched.

She touched the edge of one broken rib, frowning at the clean fracture.

"These weren't killed for food. They were killed just to die."

Adolf came up beside her, his expression dark.

"You think it's that light again?"

Morena stood, brushing dirt from her hands.

"It has to be. It matches the pattern of how it's been acting so far, irrational, simply attacking whatever it comes across. It seems much more hostile than I originally thought."

She looked at the bones again, her voice low.

"Perhaps it doesn't even know what it's doing."

The captain knelt by another carcass, pushing aside some leaves with the end of his spear. Beneath the dirt, more bones showed, fresh ones this time, blood still wet around them.

"These are recent. Couldn't have been a day."

Morena's brows furrowed.

'AI, confirm. Any traces of energy nearby?'

[Residual mana detected. Faint and scattered. Energy signature matches previous entity pattern. Strength declining.]

"Declining?"

She muttered under her breath.

So it was nearby, but weaker.

"Whatever that thing is, it's not stable. It needs hosts to keep itself moving. I believe that unless it possesses a body, it eventually dies; which is why it keeps body hopping."

Adolf crossed his arms.

"So it kills to survive?"

"Instinctively, maybe."

She looked at the corpses again, her thoughts distant.

"Think about it; it jumps from body to body. When the body is damaged, it flees. When there's no body, it fades. It doesn't think like we do, it doesn't try to communicate, and it doesn't even plan before possessing a body. It's acting on instinct alone."

Adolf nodded slowly.

"A creature that doesn't know what it is... dangerous because of what it doesn't understand."

Morena's gaze drifted deeper into the forest, her hand tightening around her spear.

'If this is a Wizard's doing, then they're either experimenting with something beyond control, or they've already lost it.'

Morena's thoughts shifted to what she had originally suspected. That the orb was some sort of magic used by a Wizard, however now she had other beliefs.

'If this isn't something made by a Wizard, then it's something natural... something born from mana itself. And if that's true, then it means we're heading straight toward whatever spawned it.'

The group continued moving after that, slower than before. Every few hundred steps, they found more remains.

A broken antler caught on a branch, a wolf's skull split down the middle, a bear's body, half rotted and blackened, lying in the middle of the trail.

Each one was the same; drained, twisted, destroyed.

The smell of rot hung in the air stronger with every step. Even the trees seemed to be dying the deeper they went, their bark peeling and blackened as if something had sapped the life out of them too.

One of the soldiers muttered under his breath.

"This isn't natural..."

It wasn't natural, something had been affecting the forest in an unknown way. Whatever it was seemed to have originated from the Empire because it only grew stronger the more they went.

As the sun began to sink, they stopped to make camp again, but this time, no one spoke. Even the usual laughter and muttering that came with setting up tents was gone.

The men worked in silence, their eyes constantly glancing toward the forest's edge.

Morena stood apart from them, staring at the horizon through the mist. Her mind wouldn't rest.

What was this creature? A tool? An experiment? Some sort of magical being she had never seen before?

If it was a Wizard's experiment, then what kind of mind would think to create something like this?

Or worse... had it been created at all?

'AI, based on what we've seen, could something like that exist naturally?'

[Insufficient data. However, given its unstable nature and residual mana pattern, it may be an autonomous manifestation, an energy cluster that gained partial awareness.]

"An energy cluster..."

She muttered.

So it wasn't alive, not in the way they were. Just something that wanted to be.

Something that didn't know what it was, but needed to exist.

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