The scouts arrived hours after the battle.

Six of them. Fast and silent.

They emerged from the forest in staggered formation, their movements cautious but disciplined. Unlike the reckless soldier demons Damien had slaughtered earlier, these ones were leaner and more observant. Their bodies were built for reconnaissance rather than brute assault.

Their crimson eyes swept across the clearing. They stopped almost immediately. Silence spread among them.

The eastern stronghold was gone.

The structures that once stood there — bone pillars, suppression nodes, the central stabilization disk — had been reduced to shattered debris and broken stone buried beneath churned earth.

The forest floor looked like it had been struck by a meteor.

Cracks spread through the ground in jagged lines. Entire sections of land had collapsed inward. Trees had been uprooted and scattered like toys.

One of the scouts stepped forward slowly.

Its claw pressed into the dirt.

It lifted the claw again.

Blood.

Black.

Demonic.

Fresh enough to smell.

Another scout crouched beside a broken pillar.

Its nostrils flared.

"Combat," it said quietly.

The others already knew.

The battlefield reeked of it.

But something about it felt... wrong.

The clearing was enormous.

The level of destruction suggested a massive battle.

Yet, there were almost no bodies.

A third scout walked across the fractured remains of the central disk.

Its gaze sharpened.

"There should be at least a dozen."

There were not.

They searched further.

More blood.

Pieces of shattered armor.

Broken bone fragments.

But very few intact corpses.

One of them eventually found something.

A body.

Half buried beneath collapsed dirt.

A soldier demon.

Its chest cavity had been torn open.

The scout knelt beside it and examined the wound.

"Core removed."

Another scout approached.

"Extracted?"

The first scout shook its head slowly.

"No."

Its claw pressed deeper into the wound.

"From the wounds left on the body, it seems to have been devoured."

The others stiffened slightly.

One more scout located a second body near the edge of the battlefield.

The corpse had been bitten nearly in half.

Teeth marks.

Massive.

Predatory.

"Beasts," the scout muttered.

But that didn’t explain everything.

They continued searching.

Minutes passed.

Eventually they found another corpse.

And another.

All of them were in terrible condition.

Some had been torn apart.

Others partially eaten.

Most were missing cores.

But the numbers still didn’t match.

Too few.

Far too few.

One of the scouts stepped toward the center of the devastation.

Its eyes narrowed.

"There was a captain stationed here."

Silence followed that statement.

None of them wanted to say it aloud.

But the evidence pointed to one unavoidable conclusion.

The captain was gone.

Not wounded.

Not missing.

Gone.

Devoured.

One scout lifted its head and sniffed the air again.

The scent of demonic blood was strong.

But another scent lingered faintly beneath it.

Human.

Its eyes narrowed.

"Human involvement confirmed."

The others turned toward it.

"How many?"

The scout shook its head slowly.

"I smell only one."

That answer unsettled them more than anything else.

One human.

One.

And yet this battlefield suggested the destruction of an entire command base.

The scout captain moved across the clearing slowly, examining the deeper impact points left by the battle.

It paused near a massive crater where the ground had collapsed inward.

The soil there was saturated with blood.

Black blood.

Captain-level.

Its gaze hardened.

"Report this."

One of the scouts nodded immediately.

"Which stronghold?"

"Both left standing."

The scout leader stood and surveyed the ruined battlefield one last time.

"A human is operating within the forest."

It turned toward the surrounding trees.

"Begin wide-range search."

The others dispersed immediately.

They moved outward from the battlefield in widening circles, scanning the forest for lingering tracks, scent trails, or magical residue.

But the search yielded nothing.

No clear footprints.

No obvious direction of escape.

The ground had been too thoroughly destroyed.

The human had vanished.

After nearly an hour of searching, the scouts regrouped.

"Nothing."

"Nothing here."

"Trail lost."

The leader’s eyes narrowed slightly.

The human had not fled blindly.

He had fled intelligently.

And quickly.

The scouts turned away from the ruined stronghold and disappeared back into the forest.

Behind them, the shattered battlefield remained silent.

But word of its destruction would soon reach the other strongholds.

And when it did, the hunt would escalate.

~~~~~

Dozens of kilometers away.

The world felt completely different.

Sunlight shimmered across a wide lake surrounded by tall, ancient trees.

The water was calm and clear.

Reflecting the sky like a mirror.

Bird-like mana creatures skimmed across the surface before darting away again.

The air here smelled clean.

Peaceful.

As though the forest itself had forgotten the violence hidden deeper within it.

Damien sat beside the lake.

A small fire crackled in front of him.

Above it, a slab of thick meat slowly roasted on a metal skewer.

The smell was incredible.

Rich.

Savory.

He rotated the skewer once before cutting off a thick piece with a knife. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

Steam rose from the meat.

He tossed it lightly between his fingers to cool it.

Then took a bite.

The flavor exploded across his tongue.

Perfectly roasted.

He had seasoned it well — salt, crushed forest herbs, and a few spices he’d stored in Luton’s Universal Space.

The meat itself came from a powerful mana beast he had hunted earlier that morning.

Dense.

Strong.

Packed with essence.

Damien leaned back slightly as he chewed.

His body felt better now.

Not fully recovered from the captain fight.

But strong enough.

Lin’s healing had done excellent work.

Across the lake, Aquila stood near the water’s edge, occasionally dipping its beak into the surface to drink.

The massive griffin looked almost relaxed.

Nearby, Luton rested quietly in the shade of a tree.

The slime had expanded slightly after devouring the captain and numerous demons the night before.

Its body shimmered faintly with contained energy.

It was still digesting.

Damien sliced another piece of meat.

He chewed slowly this time.

Enjoying it.

For a moment, it almost felt like he wasn’t deep inside one of the most dangerous forests in the world.

Almost.

He glanced at the sky.

Clear.

No immediate threats.

But he knew better.

The demons would eventually discover the ruined stronghold.

And once they did, they would respond.

They had two captains remaining.

And now they had proof that something was hunting them.

~~~~~

The lake remained peaceful long after Damien finished eating.

The fire had burned down to glowing embers, the scent of roasted meat still lingering faintly in the air. The quiet water reflected drifting clouds above, barely disturbed except when Aquila dipped its beak into it to drink.

Damien sat with his back against a thick tree trunk, watching.

Not resting.

Observing.

Fenrir stood several meters away, its massive white frame partially hidden between the trees. The wolf’s crimson eyes glowed faintly as it stared deeper into the forest, alert to every movement.

The aura surrounding it had changed.

Subtle.

But unmistakable.

Fenrir was nearing the peak of Grade Three.

The wolf had consumed a ridiculous number of demonic cores in the past few days. Between the battlefields Damien had created and the demons they had slaughtered together, Fenrir had feasted more than it ever had before.

The result was clear.

Its body had grown slightly larger.

Its muscles tighter.

Its aura sharper.

When Fenrir moved now, the surrounding mana shifted instinctively around it.

The wolf turned its head slightly and looked toward Damien.

Their gazes met.

Damien smirked faintly.

"Getting stronger, huh?"

Fenrir snorted softly.

It had earned it.

Nearby, Cerbe rested on a patch of scorched earth.

The three-headed hellhound was sprawled across the ground lazily, but the faint flickers of dark flame leaking from its fur betrayed the truth.

Cerbe had also grown stronger.

Unlike Fenrir, Cerbe thrived almost exclusively on demonic essence. Every demon they had killed had become nourishment for the hellhound.

The demonic cores it had devoured had pushed its power steadily higher.

One of its heads lifted lazily and glanced toward Damien.

Another head yawned.

The third simply watched the forest silently.

Damien chuckled under his breath.

"Lazy."

But he was satisfied.

Both summons were improving quickly.

That alone made the time spent inside this forest worth it.

Across the lake, Aquila suddenly launched into the air.

The griffin’s wings exploded outward with a powerful gust that rippled across the water’s surface.

Damien tilted his head upward.

Aquila soared high into the sky before folding its wings and diving sharply.

Halfway down it twisted its body midair, spinning violently before pulling out of the dive at the last second.

Then it climbed again.

Another dive.

Another aerial maneuver.

The griffin had been doing this frequently.

Practicing.

Sharpening its aerial combat instincts.

At first Damien hadn’t paid much attention to it.

But after a while he noticed a pattern.

Whenever Aquila was summoned near open skies, it would eventually begin practicing flight maneuvers.

Sometimes against small aerial mana beasts.

Sometimes against isolated flying demons.

And sometimes, like now, just by itself.

Damien leaned his head back against the tree and watched the griffin streak across the sky again.

"Not something I told you to do," he muttered.

Aquila shrieked triumphantly as it finished another aggressive dive.

"But I’m not complaining."

A strong aerial summon was never a bad thing.

Especially when dealing with enemies that preferred the sky.