Chapter 222: Chapter 222: Entering The Orrath Forest "The moment the beast dies, place the jade directly onto its corpse. The runes will draw the fleeing spirit in and trap it." She pressed the precious stones into his hand, her grip firm. "Then, just bring it back to the tribe. Once you are safe behind our walls, the entire Council will stand with you and help you subdue it." "Understood," Sol said, nodding thankfully. He took the Blood-Jades, examining them carefully. To his Crimson-Sight, they were pristine. They didn’t have the oily, black void of the poisoned stones, they were beautifully empty vessels, practically humming with a clean, hungry resonance. He carefully tucked them into a secure, inner pocket of his leather tunic, right over his heart. As he finished adjusting the straps on his bone armor, Kira stepped up to him. The stoic warrior princess looked incredibly conflicted, her hands fidgeting near the hilt of her sword. "Sol," Kira began, her voice tight. "I know you said you want to go alone. But... let me come with you. I know the outskirts of the Great Orrath better than anyone my age. I can at least watch your back." Sol looked at her. He genuinely liked Kira. She was straightforward, fierce, and fiercely loyal. But having her there would ruin his entire strategy. He needed to be alone to test the limits of his Golden Liquid core and his Domination cheat. He had to decline, but he needed to do it smoothly. Fortunately, years of writing fantasy tropes gave him the perfect dialogue tree. "I need you to stay here, Kira," Sol said, his voice dropping into a solemn, heroic register. He placed a hand gently on her armored shoulder. "This is my trial. But more importantly, the Zharun Vanguard is out there. If there is a traitor or spies lurking... the tribe needs its best warriors guarding the walls. I can only venture into that darkness because I know you are here, protecting my back from afar." Kira’s breath hitched. A faint dusting of pink crossed her scarred cheeks. Her posture straightened, the heavy burden of duty overriding her anxiety. "I understand," Kira said, her voice firming up with renewed resolve. She stepped back and slammed her fist over her heart. "May the Ancestors shield your path, Sol. We will hold the line here." "See you soon," Sol nodded. He turned his back on the altar, the Elders, and the safety of the singing moss. Gripping his heavy obsidian spear, he walked directly into the churning, impenetrable wall of dark fog. ... The transition was immediate and visceral. The moment the silver mist of the Shamanic Grove closed behind him, the ambient temperature plummeted. The comforting, low hum of the singing moss vanished entirely, replaced by a profound, oppressive silence that felt thick enough to choke on. This was the Great Orrath. The massive, endless jungle that dominated the world, a place where primitive tribes clung to the edges of survival and ancient, intelligent races waged brutal wars in the shadows. There were no grand cities here, no sprawling kingdoms of stone and steel. There was only the canopy, the roots, and the blood spilled in between. Sol oriented himself. The Chief had warned him about the Eastern Swamps where the Dreadwings nested. He didn’t want to walk directly into the jaws of a Lord beast’s pack right out of the gate, but he also didn’t want to head directly opposite to the absolute safest areas, as it would be meaningless for his goal. For a moment he couldn’t decide which path to go, so he closed his eyes and used a tried and tested method found on earth. He took a breath and extending the index finger of his right hand, he... he... he spun on the spot, "eenie, meenie, maine moo, Which way should I go?" When he stopped, he found that his finger was pointing towards the northeast. "Okay. North by Northeast, I knew this method was reliable, now let’s go." Sol spoke with a grin, adjusting his path. In fact it was pure luck or fate that it happened to be a tangent. Close enough to the danger zone to catch a stray high-level spawn, far enough away to avoid the main aggro radius. Maybe I’ll get lucky. He pushed deeper into the jungle, leaving the temporary safety of the outskirts behind. Once again, the sheer scale of the environment was utterly alien, a brutal reminder that humanity was nowhere near the top of the food chain in this world. The trees here were simply gigantic, making the massive trees back at the tribe look like a potted sapling. Their trunks were as wide as modern skyscrapers, stretching up into an impenetrable ceiling of silver-green leaves that blotted out the sun entirely. Their bark wasn’t brown, but a sickly, bruised purple color that felt strangely warm and fleshy to the touch. From deep fissures in the wood, the trees wept thick, heavy drops of glowing amber sap. Where the sap pooled on the ground, it hissed faintly, slowly dissolving the moss and dirt beneath it. The root systems above ground were as thick as paved roads, creating a treacherous, multi-layered maze. They were covered in slick, bioluminescent fungi... clusters of glowing cyan mushrooms and throbbing violet lichen... that provided the only illumination in the perpetual twilight beneath the canopy. As Sol walked, he noticed the fungi weren’t just glowing; they were breathing. They puffed microscopic clouds of shimmering spores into the heavy, ozone-rich air, forcing him to breathe shallowly, his instincts warning him that the dust could be a hallucinogen or a paralyzing agent. So, he obediently avoided them as much as he could. Every single step here required absolute, razor-sharp focus. Because the flora here wasn’t just weird, it felt actively, maliciously hostile. He bypassed a grove of massive, bulbous flowers that smelled intoxicatingly like roasted meat. As he watched, a falling, heavy leaf brushed one of their crimson petals. The flower snapped shut with the mechanical, bone-crushing violence of a steel bear trap, the sound echoing sharply in the gloom. He stepped carefully over thick, thorny vines that seemed to slowly, almost imperceptibly, slither away from the heat of his boots like lazy, overfed snakes.