They passed through layer upon layer of dense woodland.
Cui Ciyou's party and the Beastfolk soon reached the Beastfolk's sacred land-the Great Forest.
It was a fantastical, magnificent city. (Well! A forest, really!)
The Beastfolk village unfolded before Cui Ciyou's party:
Unlike any "human" town or "Demonfolk" settlement they had seen before, the houses here were built around towering trees.
They soared into the clouds, as though they were one with the forest itself.
Every building was made of wood, stacked in tiers with intricate structures full of a primitive, rugged beauty. (A natural timber style, without any paint or the like.)
Even the lowest houses stood nearly ten meters above the ground.
As for the highest watchtowers and the chieftains' dwellings built atop the giant trees, they rivaled some of the skyscrapers Cui Ciyou remembered from his previous life.
Countless sturdy vines and wooden suspension bridges crisscrossed between these "treehouses," forming a three-dimensional transport network.
The Beastfolk darted and leaped nimbly along the walkways.
Cui Ciyou looked up at the breathtaking sight and could not help asking:
"Chieftain Gustav, why build the houses so high? Is it some sort of Beastfolk habit?"
Yet inwardly, he grumbled:
The Dedoldia are cats, so I can understand why they like high places. That's feline nature, after all.
But the Adoldia are dogs... canines shouldn't have this fondness for climbing high and gazing into the distance, should they?
The elderly, cat-eared chieftain of the Dedoldia Tribe-Gustav Dedoldia-
stroked his short, graying whiskers at the question and explained, his gaze somewhat grave:
"Ciyou, there is something you do not know."
"We do not build our villages this way solely because of our racial habits."
"It is more to cope with the heavy rainy season that comes to this Great Forest every year."
He paused