The Martial Unity

Days passed as the two of them traveled through the region, heading towards the Forest of Fear.

The deeper they got into the Beast Domain, the harder it became to travel through.

The air grew denser.

The gravity grew higher.

Their speed reduced as each step grew just a little more difficult than before.

Rui hadn't noticed this before because they circled around the edges of the Beast Domain when traveling to the Valley of Prisms. In other words, he never traveled deeper into the Beast Domain during that time.

However, now that they were actively heading into the Beast Domain, both Rui and Kane could feel that the average harshness of the environment was rising, slowing them down.

Rui couldn't imagine how difficult it must be to travel in the inner half of the Beast Domain if they were already experiencing such a significant difference shortly after traveling deeper into the region.

He knew that, at some point, only Martial Seniors would be qualified to travel further, while Martial Squires would be unable to or have to persevere beyond a manageable degree.

Naturally, there probably was a point where not even the power of the Martial Heart would be able to protect them, leaving it such that only the Martial Masters would be able to traverse through the Beast Domain.

There probably was a boundary beyond which only Martial Sages would be able to travel.

He wondered if there was a region that only Martial Transcendents could enter.

If there was, it was probably such an unfathomably destructive region that being anywhere near it would erase Rui in the briefest of moments.

"Whatever, we don't have to deal with it, even if it exists."

Another thing he noticed was not just the Beast Domain's resistance to being traveled through, but also its resistance to the senses.

The deeper they traveled, the more their senses were hampered. The range of their sensory techniques was reduced bit by bit. The precision and detail of their sensory input were also reduced gradually as they went deeper into the Beast Domain.

Just a day of travel had reduced them by thirty percent.

It was no wonder that despite spending a thousand years in known human history, the depths of the Beast Domain were largely unknown. Considering the startling rate at which Rui and Kane found it harder to move and sense, how could one possibly map the entire area of the Beast Domain?

The total area of the Beast Domain greatly exceeded that of the total surface area of Earth.

Just how many Martial Masters and Martial Sages would be needed to map such an enormous area with such significant sensory resistance? How many of them would perish in the most dangerous parts of the Beast Domain?

Even if they could eventually map it by going at it continuously and relentlessly, was such a thing even practically feasible?

It wasn't.

That was why the Beast Domain remained largely a black box. If the price to map it was bleeding one's self, then it was a price that humanity was extremely unwilling to pay.

While Rui understood this, he was deeply displeased that it led to adventurers suffering greater danger and harm during their ventures in the Beast Domain. It wasn't fun when he was the one that needed to experience greater risk.

It also made the Divine Doctor's escapades into the Beast Domain that much more incomprehensible. Even if the man was confident in his resourcefulness, intelligence, and preparations, and even if he was unconcerned about death, this was truly an irrational decision.

Unfortunately, Rui needed to follow suit.

The closer they got to the Forest of Fear, the more their nerves tingled. Rui felt a strange sense of anxiety building up, drop by drop. Even though his sense of danger hadn't changed all too much, the fear he experienced grew disproportionately higher.

Ordinarily, that would be a cause for concern, but Rui had understood that it was a sign that they were reaching the Forest of Fear.

He also noticed that life began dimming the closer they got to the Forest of Fear. While the creatures that were native to the Forest of Fear had evolved with almost no sense of fear to live normally in the Forest of Fear, the same could not be said for creatures outside of the Beast Domain.

Thus, the presence of fauna plummeted in the vicinity of the Forest of Fear.

And Rui had experienced first-hand just why.

"Damn," Kane murmured nervously. "This is really freaky."

"Yeah…" Rui sharpened his gaze.

STEP

They arrived at a cliff that oversaw an enormous forest extending beyond the what the eye could see.

It was pitch black.

The vegetation, the soil, the bedrock.

All of it was pitch black.

It was as though they were beholding a deep abyss that swallowed all light.

"What the hell?" Kane frowned anxiously.

Rui heaved a sigh. "In we go."

"Seriously?"

Rui turned to him with a raised eyebrow. "Did you think we came here for sightseeing?"

"I mean, no, but look at that," Kane gestured to the forest. "That's a nightmare. If we go in, we're straight-up going to die."

"It's a Squire-level danger zone," Rui stared at him.

"It doesn't feel that way," Kane shrugged.

"That's because we are already under the influence of the fear-inducing vegetation," Rui replied. "It's not dangerous as long as we don't do something stupid. Let's go."

The two of them slowly declined from the cliff down to the forest. Yet the closer they got, the more their senses of fear were pricked at.

Rui had to admit that maybe Kane did have a point regarding this place.

"Alright, there are Senior-level creatures in this place," Rui told Kane in a soft whisper. "We can't be as relaxed as we were in the Valley of Prisms."

Not like they could relax even if they wanted to. The fear-

inducing airborne substances in the air refused to let them!

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