The forest lay silent, its cold firs standing like pillars.
Even at noon, sunlight struggled to penetrate the branches and leaves and reach this lifeless stretch of dense woodland.
The knights who entered felt as though they had stepped into an ancient, slumbering tomb.
They had been searching this forest for nearly half a month.
Yet they had found nothing.
But no one complained, much less questioned their leader. They trusted him completely.
For the man at their head was the Northern Frontier Swiftblade-Vick Glanser.
His dark silver armor gleamed coldly as twenty Veteran Knights of the Northern Frontier followed silently behind him through the deathly still forest.
Vic had personally selected, trained, and led the knights in this squad.
They never relied on their eyes to find enemies. Instead, they navigated battlefields through Vic's perception, and had already earned several major distinctions.
But only Vic knew that the string stretched taut in his heart for so long had begun to tremble.
The clues had been cleaned away too thoroughly-unnaturally so.
It was as though something had "scrubbed" the forest clean, erasing every perceptible anomaly and leaving only emptiness.
Even he, without expending battle aura, could only rely on scant clues, following the faintest scents and traces to scout the way ahead.
He was not without anxiety, either.
The longer this took, the harder the search would become.
Vic understood that, but all he could do was suppress his unease and keep moving, keep gambling on the accuracy of that vague intuition.
Today, however, was finally different.
In a crack in a tree trunk, he found a small, dark brown stain.
Vic raised a fingertip and lightly touched the sticky residue, then sniffed it. His expression abruptly changed.
"Stay close. Don't fall behind."
"Yes, my lord," a young knight answered,