For the next three hours, they trekked through the forest. Every so often, Li would sense a creature, usually some dangerous insect of some kind, and bid it to retreat. They did not encounter Darkbeasts, but at a certain point, the terrain of the forest shifted quite drastically.

"The forest floor is wet," observed Li as he took a step forward, boots squelching as he stepped into grimy, muddy dirt. "And yet, there hasn't been rain."

The mud was no ordinary mud either. It rang with the same static interference that Darkbeasts emitted, meaning that they were most definitely in Darkbeast territory.

"A sign that we are in the depths of the forest," said Launcelot. "None ever travel here for the threat of the Darkbeasts is far higher here."

Li looked around him. The forest itself was the same. Pitch black, the only light coming from the bright fire that Faye generated from her hands. The chattering still echoed, but this time, there were some echoes that Li could not accurately discern.

"Then we're almost there. Let's keep moving," said Li.

As they waded through the muddy depths of the Chattering Forest, Li asked Launcelot, "What compelled you to travel this forest? It must have been unimaginably dangerous for you. The outer layers of this forest are already a challenge, but if Darkbeasts spawn here, then I would put my bets on you not surviving most of the time."

"For me, most certainly," nodded Launcelot. "My magic has precious little effect upon Darkbeasts, but the heroic might of my friends works wonders. When they are not pretending to be lower leveled mages and rangers, they are fiercesome forces indeed."

At the mention of the word 'friends', Faye frowned a little and said, "That's right. Were it not for my flames, you'd have been wrapped up in some silken cocoon somewhere, left to rot."

"And for that, I am eternally grateful," said Launcelot. He thought about Li's question for a second and answered. "I came here when I was yet investigating the nature of heroes, for then, I would understand better the duchess's goals for them.

Celeste, I had saved from the clutches of an Arcana mage obsessed with heroes who had chained her, using her gift to generate explosions to fuel some strange mechanical contraption – no doubt sourced by elves who likely were funding the unhinged man."

Li heard Celeste, a small, slight girl wrapped up in a sturdy green robe, shiver, recalling painful memories.

"When I slew the mage," continued Launcelot. "I went through every floor of his tower and pored through all his notes. It was there that I came to understand that heroes do not derive their power from the blessings of the gods, but from something living within them.

A mutation in their bodies, as it were. Leading to the questions: how did this mutation come to be? Certainly, the blood moon originated it, but how? If the heroic mutation is that which is within the body, then may it be changed? Mutated? If so, then how?"

"And you connected those questions to this forest?"

Launcelot nodded as he carefully made his way between two trees, his shield at face level so he could immediately raise it overhead if needs be.

"There is a tale that has become legend, but it is said that before the last demon war, there was a hero that took up residence here. The Chattering Forests then were more vibrant, more welcoming of man. That hero, or, well, he would not have been considered a hero in that age. Merely a monster, but I shall call him hero regardless.

That hero took residence here when he was driven from his village, and here, he awakened his power. A power to create all manner of monstrosities from his flesh, monsters that no adventurers had ever seen before. With these beasts, he lived in isolation and safety.

Then, the demons attacked. The hero fought to keep the monsters whom he considered family safe, but alas, he, though mighty, was no match for the might of demons.

In his dying breath, he became a monstrosity himself, merging with the forest as it rotted under demonic influence, and since then, this forest has always been plagued with Darkbeasts."

Li paused. It made sense why the mud gave off Darkbeast interference. "We're stepping on that hero's corpse, or whatever thing he became when he merged with this place."

"A morbid thought," said Launcelot. "But indeed, yes. Where I will lead you to is a small swamp at this forest's center where I believe, according to aged records, at the least, his body rotted."

Li thought of the implications of this. At the very least, it meant that upon reaching the heart of the forest, there would be some fight in order if the hero was still alive in some capacity and spawning Darkbeasts. He could theorize a little as to what he thought was happening.

The heart of the forest was where all paths of life intersected within a forest, and where, if a deity had a shrine, it could direct the flow of life, creating and destroying as needed. Likely, this hero had somehow merged with the heart and was spawning Darkbeasts with his power.

Meaning Li had to uproot the hero from the heart before he himself could link with it.

"Still," said Li. "How would this hero's death clue you into the questions you want answers to about the origins of heroes?"

"At first, I thought perhaps to capture a Darkbeast and bring him before a friend of mine who is excommuned from the Arcana and yet proficient in their research. That way, I could understand how it is the heroic mutation can alter life."

Launcelot paused. "But I found something of more significance. A small village near these woods has folk tales regarding the hero, and they recorded his last words, words that echoed through the entirety of the forests, as he expelled his power to his body's limit as 'The gate. I will reach the gate.'".

"The ravings of a man on his deathbed weakened with delirium," suggested Li.

"Or a strange folk tale," said Launcelot. "But I have come to realize from aiding heroes that there is one thing in common between all of them: when they manifested their power, even if they were born with it, they have a distinct memory of seeing a passageway of some sort manifesting before them."

"I was a street rat in Trieste. Considered myself lucky, but when my luck spilled and they were to cut my hands for thievery, I gained my powers," said Faye with a reflective nod. "I saw darkness at first, and then a red door flash in front of me. When I came out that vision, I'd burned everything to cinders."

"I saw an orb of iridescent green," muttered Celeste quietly.

"As was the same with me," said Ava. "Though I awakened two years after sister Faye did, and in my sleep, when all was peaceful."

Launcelot spoke, his voice grave. "With these common threads in mind, I have come to the belief that it is not a matter of how these powers are created, but who or what is granting them.

I had thought to affirm my belief by reaching the center of the forest and retrieving the hero's corpse, but alas, it is far too fiercely guarded to even think of breaching."

"I see," said Li. He too had been slightly curious of heroes, though he had mostly hand waived their irregularities as simply beings summoned from another world.

"Well, today is the day all these mysteries will be unraveled, for with me at your side, there is no barrier we cannot cross."

================

It did not take long before the first Darkbeast attack.

Li did not feel it coming with his life sense, but he could hear it with his superior physical senses.

"Darkbeast incoming," said Li. "Four legged, judging from the cadence of its footsteps, and heavy. Impact comparable to, hm, a [Brutal Charge] from a warrior. Brace yourself, Launcelot."

Launcelot took a wide stance, his shield poised in front of him. He cast [Indestructible] upon himself, a metallic sheen covering his body as he solidified his resistances.

Faye began floating in the air, flames wreathing her entire body, her hair becoming one flowing blaze as rings of heat welled up in her palms. Ava followed her sister's cue, but instead of fire being her element, it was green-tinted wind.

Celeste stayed on the ground, but her hands began to glow with a blinding white light as her large blue eyes darted from side to side nervously.

The Darkbeast tore through the forest thicket, crashing through trees as it unleashed a rattling roar. It looked like a patchwork of several different creatures all mashed together.

It had the body of a lion, the tail of a dolphin, insectoid wings ending in claws, long, protruding slug-like eyes, and an elongated, razor-bladed mouth that looked like it would have belonged to a leech.

Launcelot slammed his shield into the beast and with a grunt, powered it up overhead, making it fly a meter in the air.

Li cast [Root of the Devouring One], his left hand turning into a gray, bark-coated tendril, and he jumped in the air, piercing the creature with it.

The creature first broke apart every which way, its bones splintering and twisting in unnatural angles, jutting out from its skin as black blood spurted from every broken part of it before Li's tendril absorbed it, sucking it into its gravitational singularity.

The process occurred so quickly that before Li had even landed on his feet again, the creature had been disassembled and absorbed.

The heroes looked at him in shock. Li simply said, "You've seen this spell before, haven't you? Any threat that comes near us, I can deal with, so don't worry about me. Cover your own backs."

Li stepped in front of Launcelot, hearing now several creatures moving in his direction. A large, skittering one, one that leaped from treetop to treetop, and another that burrowed underground.

"Annoyances," muttered Li as he walked forwards with his hands behind his back, his eyes flashing intensely green. He cast [Blood Root].

From his chest, two crimson spiked roots burst forth like targeted missiles extending in the dark of the forest with bullet-like speed.

One of them went upwards, into a treetop where it skewered a large ape with a writhing mass of tentacles for a face.

The other sailed into the forest and crashed into the carapace of a horse-sized scorpion with two canine heads and tendril infested pincers.

Finally, Li stomped his foot, a blood root emerging from his foot and sinking into the ground, piercing right through an overgrown worm with the faces of many different mammalian creatures riddled around its writhing body, all of their mouths open and ready to feast.

The blood roots drained the beasts entirely of their life essence, leaving them useless and dead husks of shriveled, cracking flesh. Unlike the eldritch creatures the demons became, these Darkbeasts had far less eldritch power latent within them, and so Li could easily dispatch them with regular druidry.

It felt more like fighting heroes with how Li could not sense their levels and know their abilities but still had a general sense of their power. As far as he could tell, his prior assessment of about level fifty for these Darkbeasts was accurate.

The three blood roots withdrew into Li's body, and he continued walking forwards.

It was then that something long and unpleasantly slimy wrapped around his arm.

Li focused his physical senses even more, and he could garner from the quietest of vibrations and the slightest of light refractions that this was an oversized, tendril like tongue coming from another Darkbeast that could camouflage and lower its metabolic functions such that it was effectively silent and also odorless.

The tongue pulled Li with considerable force that would have not only crushed the average's man's bones, but also have sent them hurtling into the darkness of the forest as if dragged by invisible power.

But Li's form was like a mighty oak, rooted and immovable.

Instead, Li pulled the tongue, sending the Darkbeast flying towards him. He opened his palm and caught the creature by its lower jaw.

The Darkbeast unstealthed, revealing itself to be a massive centipede as wide as a fully grown man. Its head was that of a chameleon's, its teeth a mass of spiny curves that looked at home in the mouth of a shark.

The Darkbeast bit down hard on the hand that grabbed it by its mouth, and it sounded like it had bit into solid steel, its teeth shattering on contact with Li's skin.

"My daughter can do better than this," said Li as he gripped the mouth much harder, his fingers breaking the teeth apart and digging them painfully into the flesh of the gums. His thumb cracked the creature's jaw, and the grip of its tongue began to loosen.

The Darkbeast writhed grotesquely, its black and red carapaced body lashing out and coiling around Li's torso, the many bladed legs aiming to claw into him.

Li heard the heroes shuffling behind him, Ava readying a billowing orb of wind ready to blow the Darkbeast away from Li.

"Hm." Li used his other free hand to firmly grasp the middle of the centipede Darkbeast's body.

Like tearing apart tissue paper, Li ripped the Dark beast into two still writhing, still struggling parts. Black blood poured from its torn halves like water flowing from broken faucets.

"Unpleasant," commented Li, not because the sight of a giant centipede spurting blood was revolting, but because this creature had a higher concentration of unnatural energy swirling in its distorted veins.

Li cracked his neck and threw the Darkbeast halves into the distance. They sailed forwards, the wind whistling around them as they rapidly picked up velocity, before they slammed into another Darkbeast, turning them both into an explosion of black blood and raining miscellaneous body parts.

"I'm sorry to be stealing the show here," said Li to the heroes behind him as he shook his hands, flicking black blood off of them. "But I made a promise to be back home by the end of the day, and I fully intend to keep it."