Jason sat up with a start and then remained motionless for about a minute before he raised a hand to wipe cold sweat from the fringes of his dampened hairline. Another one of those dreams? The scenes he had experienced from a first-person perspective were but a few of the countless memories that he had gained from the Neomen when the chained woman had subjected him to a Hexa-grade Soul Melding Arrayment while he had been trapped in that terrifying independent space. This time around he had seen portions of Actius’s past, specifically a conversation that had taken place with his master when he was twelve-years-old and another between him and a fellow disciple when he was fifteen.

Had their world met its end at the hands of the unknown threat that the astute young pupil had spoken of in both of those memories? He eventually shrugged off his nighttime experiences and catalogued them in his mind for later deliberations. Evidently they were instances of paramount importance in regards to the history of this world, but as things were he hardly saw any sense in them.

I’ll have to ask Actius about it when he wakes up, which better be soon.

Tall trees stood silently all around him, the forest floor almost completely covered by quite possibly the densest undergrowth he had encountered in any woodland. He had scaled the towering mountain where the entire nightmare within that independent space had all begun, making his descent in good time as he undertook a dangerous series of very carefully plotted jumps. Upon reaching the slanted forests at the base of the mountain he had followed a straight trajectory that he vaguely remembered his deceased captors directing their winged mount across back when he and Amy had first been kidnapped.

I hope that bitch died.

He shook his head and resumed his journey through one of the countless valleys that filled the gigantic mountain range. Back on Earth he had been to the western provinces of Canada and seen the Canadian Rockies firsthand, visited famous national parks like Kootenay and Banff. Giant behemoths of ice-capped sedimentary rock, bare bodied in equal measure to the pale cloaks of evergreen forestry that frequented the baselines and sloping midriffs, at least in the areas that he’d seen. He knew that other regions were completely barren and desolate, while many thrived with spruces and firs and other such trees, with alpine valleys that housed lakes renowned across the world for their crystal clarity and stirring beauty.

The mountains of this world were on an entirely different level, though the ones before him had retained the same snowy tips and sharp rocky shades that he remembered from all those years ago. The region was crowded with sprawling shrubs, the ground almost entirely covered in spongy moss. He was surrounded by overgrown conifers that were significantly taller than any of the trees that had been in the giant forest near Redfox Village, with a sprawling river system and many aquamarine lakes that put the ones in his memory to shame.

One particular lake that he passed by was so clear that he could see directly to the bottom, which measured in at a hundred and forty-three metres at the deepest point within the bounds of his spiritual sense. He could see every creature that inhabited it as well, from the school of sturgeon-sized fish to the huge lurking shadow that he belatedly recognized as the black shell of a ridiculously large snapping turtle.

He eventually ascended the tallest tree in the area and began jumping from one towering branch to another, his movements swift and well executed as he navigated the treetops with grace. He travelled until nightfall, at which point he finally stopped to rest atop the final branch that he’d leapt onto. He only required a few hours of sleep now that his body had been tempered to such a degree, so he had been travelling for about ten hours each day while spending the rest of his time cultivating the Ancestral Body Technique. Without ready access to Andrus’s blood as well as the dense concentration of Origin Energy that had filled the independent space, it would take him at least a year to break through to the fourth level of Profound Entry.

If he relied on the Blood Burning Heart Technique then he could probably achieve his breakthrough within a month or so, though he was reluctant to make use of such a sickening method.

Five days of travel had told him that he had surely gone the wrong way, for he had covered several thousands of kilometres and yet there was virtually no end in sight to the gigantic mountain range, while his environment had remained consistent all throughout.

“What’s up with this place?” he muttered as he stooped over a fire and cooked a metre-long rabbit leg that he’d torn from a proportionately sized rabbit and then run through with a large sharpened stick. “I’ve come this far but everything’s still the same…”

At his speed he should have reached the lowlands long ago, so he could only continue on in the same direction in the hopes of finding his way free of the gargantuan labyrinth of sky-grazing peaks.

He finally discovered signs of civilization on his eighth day of travel, a small fortified town at the centre of an obscure valley that was almost entirely filled with orange wildflowers in full bloom. Based on the calculated perimeter of forestry, huge swathes of conifers had been cleared away countless years in the past to open up room for a small amount of farmland and a massive meadow of horizon-shaded pedals.

The metallic gates to the town were wide open, a handful of sentries dispersed in a thin ring along the walls, which were twenty metres in height. Dozens of hardy-looking people were visible beyond the gates, most walking the dusty streets in rough sets of leather armour.

Soldiers?

He approached the gates but was warned to leave by a sentry atop the wall, so he reluctantly continued on to the next valley, and then on to the one after that. He discovered several other towns and villages over the following week, all of them surrounded by fields of the same orange flowers that had ringed in the first one, always in valleys of piney woodland where large chunks of forestry had been cleared away to make room for the discreet settlements.

He was turned away at every gate that he decided to approach, but was eventually pitied with a series of answers from the patrol atop the battlements of the most recent town that he had discovered. Apparently the orange flowers that he kept seeing around gave off an extremely unpleasant smell to demonic beasts, and were a very good method of keeping them away from the settlements that permeated the region.

“The Dragon’s Tail?” he muttered as he pulled his right arm free of the giant moose carcass before him. He had been told that he was within the eastern section of a large mountain range, though the guards that had answered his questions had responded with confused stares when asked where the kingdom of Verdure was.

Moose were already huge to begin with, but this one was on an entirely different scale. At least ten times the bulk of a traditional breed, the rabid animal had attempted to ambush him while he was cooking dinner over an open fire. Disturbingly enough, the Integration-staged beast had sensed him from over a kilometre away and immediately stampeded toward him at a pace that didn’t match the bulk of its size. In the same way that it had noticed him, he’d been aware of it the entire time. He had stared calmly into its orange eyes as it swung its head down to crush him with its massive red antlers, which had smashed straight through the sides of many tree trunks as it made its way toward him, clouds of splintered wood and crushed bark settling in its wake.

He had avoided the spindly-legged charge with a swift jump and then activated his offensive martial skill to its greatest extent. Heart pounding, he’d hurled an eight-metre spear of devious red energy straight through the head of the moose in passing, it’s body going rigid long enough for him to descend upon its elongated and scraggly-muzzled face with the cold metal of his azure weapon. As the chained woman had said, his martial skill caused the target's bloodstream to stagnate for several seconds upon contact, ultimately bringing about a debilitating paralysis. He’d killed it in a terribly savage manner, his body covered by the blood that had spurted out while he was busy mincing the thrashing beast’s face.

After taking care of the unwanted intrusion, he had searched the animal's body with his spiritual sense and then plunged his arm deep into the carcass in order to retrieve its demonic core, the head-sized gem a vibrant violet as he held its sparkling mass in the light of a dying sun.

That sword is really something else, he marvelled as he finished packing away the last of the materials that he had harvested from the moose. It had cut through the beast’s bones as if he were hacking away at a brittle and decomposing log, an incredible feat considering that the giant skeleton was a bit harder and a tad more durable than traditional steel.

Way back during the days that he had spent in Redfox Village, Nyla had told him and Nolan about demonic beasts and the value of their bodies. Luckily she had taught him how to skin an animal during the period of time that Nolan was missing from the village, so he was able to hoard quite the haul from this unexpected bounty. He had just killed a creature at the second level of Integration and helped himself to over two tonnes of meat, several large rolls of its tough hide, and a large supply of organs and intestines.

Having exhausted most of his inner essence with his initial attack, he proceeded onward at a walking pace with a fistful of orange flower petals in either hand, a fresh set of clothes atop his bloodstained skin. Although the petals didn’t seem to work on particularly powerful beasts, they were still useful in warding off the majority of those at the Profound Entry stage.

Jason couldn’t believe how many savage animals permeated the wilderness, for he encountered at least twenty per day, all of them as sinister in appearance as that terrifying fox that had almost eaten Nolan back when they had first been separated all that time ago.

He stopped again before long, as his current pace was a pointless endeavour considering his previous speed. He quickly ascended a nearby tree and spied another cluster of worn wooden buildings within a distant field of tangerine flowers. He decided to take a short nap before venturing forward to try his luck at entering the settlement, but was disturbed about twenty minutes in when he sensed a malicious aura closing in on the area where he currently slept.