Red continued his trip with no interruptions over the next few days. Soon enough, the youth was approaching the border between Great Serpent Canyon and the forest, and he was forced to slow down his pace in caution.

‘There are almost no animals around.’

Red frowned. This was his first time this close to the canyon, so the youth didn’t know what to expect. Still, this absence of animal noises or fluctuations was eerie to him, and it took him some time to get used to.

It was said that monsters had an instinctual sense to stay away from dangerous places. The truth, of course, was that they had better senses than humans, and thus could smell the odor of stronger monsters and even feel strong gatherings of Spiritual Energy. As such, they chose to avoid such areas out of a sense of survival.

The fact Red did not see any monsters around here, told him that he was already in a danger zone.

‘I wonder if I can see the canyon from here.’

Despite the danger, Red was still curious. The Great Serpent Canyon was considered to be one of the forbidden lands of the continent, alongside the Skycrown Mountain and a handful of other dangerous places.

These were areas where humans didn’t have a strong foothold either due to monsters or extreme natural conditions, sometimes even both of them. In places like these, Lesser Ring Realm monsters were commonplace, and some of the strongest beasts known to man made their lair there.

Red was reminded of the antlion and the snake he met in the trial back then.

Of course, despite the danger, cultivators still were interested in those places. They held some of the rarest cultivation materials in the world, and sects often made forays deep into those territories in search of natural treasures.

Red hoped to visit these places one day. As such, he wanted to have a glimpse of what might be waiting for him.

‘There are no beasts around.’

Although this didn’t mean he was safe, Red was willing to take the risk.

He carefully sneaked through the trees, making his way west. A few minutes later, he saw it.

There was no thinning of the vegetation to show the imminent arrival of the canyon land. Instead, the foliage was dense right up to the cliff edge that dropped straight down.

Red couldn’t help but stare in wonder. This was a long, sheer drop, and hundreds of meters down stood an uneven, semi-arid land that stretched as far as the eye could see. It was such a sudden change in environment that it left Red baffled.

‘How can this be natural?’

It was as if a god flattened this land down below and dictated it was to be its own world. The height of the cliff surrounding this land seemed to be the same, no matter in which direction the youth looked, and at its lowest points the canyon might have been more than kilometer below him. Even the vegetation didn’t seem to be similar to that of the forest, from what Red could see, and nothing could explain this sudden change from a temperate climate to this semi-arid terrain in front of him.

Nothing he read informed him about this.

‘I wonder if I could climb down there.’

Red squashed this sudden impulse. Although he couldn’t see any monsters or animals on this place, he knew better. This canyon basin had too many caves and crevices where monsters could hide, and Red read that a lot of them even made their home on the holes of the canyon walls. If the youth tried to climb down, he would probably be snatched by something before his feet even touched the ground.

Still, Red couldn’t help but be surprised at the peaceful image in front of him. No gigantic monster, no nightmarish phenomena. It made the youth question is this was really supposed to be a forbidden land for a second.

This feeling only lasted for a second.

Red forced himself to look a way before making his way back between the trees. Who knew when a giant bird could fly by and snatch the youth from the ground in an instant?

As soon as Red thought that, he felt the earth trembled beneath his feet. His whole body tensed and he stopped moving for a second. He considered running, but his crimson sense detected nothing, so he decided against it.

A few seconds later, the rumbling ceased like it had never been there in the first place. Red sighed in relief.

‘It’s better I don’t make any other stops.’

…

The spot Rog indicated to him wasn’t that easy to find. The hunter told him that he had last visited the place over ten years ago, and its exact location wasn’t fresh in his mind. This was not to mention that if this valley was as well hidden by hills as he said, then it wouldn’t be easy to find.

Indeed, over the course of the entire day and night, Red wandered the area in search of said valley. Over the course of this journey, he also found quite a few traces of monsters in the area, such as tracks, broken trees, and bones.

Thankfully, though, he avoided these areas and managed to go by in his search without issue. It was only early the next day that Red finally spotted something of note.

‘Is this it?’

The youth was examining a handful of contiguous hills that seemed to stretch for a large part of this area. They were completely covered by the thick vegetation, and as such, it was hard to see if there was a gap in the middle of them where a small valley might be. Still, they fit Rog’s description very well, so Red decided to examine it.

He approached the hill, and sure enough, he saw it. A gap between the tree line that seemed to indicate an empty space at the center of these hills. Red approached the place with some caution until he could fully see the area in front of him.

‘This is it.’

A small valley revealed itself to the youth. It was barely a hundred meters across, and most of this area was still covered by thick vegetation, but sure enough, the place was completely obscured by the elevated hill terrain around it, such that if Red didn’t know what he was looking for he could have easily missed it.

It was an ideal hideout.

It was, of course, also made slightly irrelevant by the fact people could directly track his location, but the imperials weren’t the only people Red was trying to hide from. As such, he still needed a good hiding place to put his plan in action.

‘I need to scout the area first.’

Red was about to go through a dangerous cultivation session. He needed to assess if any monsters were living in the area, even if his crimson sense couldn’t pick anything up right now.

The valley wasn’t too big, though, so it wouldn’t take long. Red moved through the trees, searching for any traces of monsters. When he arrived at the other side of the valley, though, he froze.

‘Is this…’

A large cavern mouth revealed itself before him. It was at first hidden by the vegetation, but once Red got close enough, he couldn’t miss it. It was a circular opening almost a dozen meters wide, dug right into the ground by the side of the hill, leading to a tunnel that bent out of the youth’s view.

Rog mentioned nothing of the sort to him, and Red doubted this was a detail the hunter would have forgotten. In which case, the only explanation possible was that this was dug after the hunter passed through the area.

‘A monster lair…’

Red had spent enough time in the forest to recognize what a monster hole looked like, and a hole of this size could only be made by a very large monster. Still, the youth had his doubts.

‘There are no other signs of monsters in this area.’

A creature of this size, leaving no other traces of its presence behind? It seemed unlikely. Even if this happened over ten years ago, there would be plenty of signs of its passage, whether it be displaced soil or destroyed trees. Yet there was no such thing here. Unless this monster could fly, of course, but Red never heard of a flying monster that burrowed into the earth.

‘Well, I can’t discount the possibility.’

Still, Red started to consider this might have been manmade, even if the cave formation seemed to point otherwise. The whole situation was strange to the youth, and it immediately put him on high alert.

‘I can’t detect any life forms with my crimson sense.’

Perhaps the cave was safe, but Red knew he couldn’t take the chance. He was reluctant to leave this place, but he also couldn’t be at peace right next to a potential lair of a monster.

He needed to scout it.

‘If I never see a cave again in my life, it will be too soon.’

With such reservations, Red wandered into the cave with his sword in hand.

The youth had his dark vision, and as such he didn’t need torches to see in this pitch black darkness. He advanced with some caution, inspecting the ground around him for animal traces or human footprints. He found no such thing, no paw prints, no footprints, no bones, no slithering marks, nothing at all.

The only thing he could confirm by how smooth the cave walls were, though, was that this definitely wasn’t a natural formation. The tunnel seemed to lead down at a rather sharp angle, too.

‘Is this another one of the trial’s tunnels?’

It was quite possible. The network of tunnels extended throughout the whole region, was hidden by magical means back then, and it had been barely explored. Not that anyone was willing to, considering that the first few months of exploration yielded hopeful adventurers nothing of value at all.

Yet, Red was soon proven wrong.

The path straightened out, revealing to the youth a large cavernous chamber ahead of him. There was nothing of interest in the place other than an object placed in the center of the chamber.

Red froze.

‘Is that… an egg?’