Entering the forest wasn’t as dramatic a feeling as it was for the first time, allowing Siu to make a decent headway, especially now, having a bit more experience in traversing the immediate area of the sect. The main difference was that the air had become colder and sharper by now, heading into autumn. Nevertheless, it wasn't as cold to see one's breath in the morning, but the dew sparkling on the undergrowth made things a bit... slippery.

  Of course, something simple like that was not really an issue, as by now Siu's body had begun utilizing the way of the Wild Cat by reflex, always helping him balance it out the moment he felt his thin shoes slip, even if just a little. From how his body moved, he felt that if he managed to reach the Blood Resonance realm, he could not only utilize his movements even more effectively; with the world's essence circulating in him, he might even be able to walk on water.

  It wasn't just an idea, as he had actually seen it happen. However, it was only now that he also understood why and how it was achieved. Back then, he was simply watching as his Old Master walked over him, flailing in the river, pulling him out when he finally lost against the currents in his training.

  "Master, this way!" Arya suddenly shouted in his mind, bringing him out of his memories as she rushed ahead of him, happily jumping from stone to stone, acting like an excited dog, finally off her leash and running freely.

  “Got a scent?” he asked, looking around, trying to breathe and catch it, but he could smell nothing.

  "Yes! Fresh eggs!" she answered, standing on her hind legs, ears twitching, tail flicking for balance, sniffing the air, "Yum!"

  “You already ate...” he commented with a flat tone, arriving next to her and looking up at the tree, noticing a bird nest hidden inside the trunk of it. “Leave it be, we will eat when we rest,” he added, fixing the bag on his back, as he knew that this hunt might take more than just a day.

  “But...” she tried, looking at him with teary eyes. "Hauh... ooookay..." She pouted when it had no effect as they continued their trek, heading deeper into the forest.

  Thankfully, after being reminded of why they were here, Arya kept her nose ready, no longer reminding him where she smelled something tasty, only about possible beasts traveling the same trail they were on. It was best to avoid confrontations as long as possible, because Siu couldn't let himself get exhausted before finding their actual prey.

  However, it was not only Arya who helped him scout their surroundings; by now, his eyes and senses had also picked up the clues, and his previous experiences had continually sharpened his ability to notice details left behind by others, be it human or beast. As they jumped over a puddle that was slowly growing into a flowing creek, heading into a crevice in the ground, he also noticed that the leaves littering the ground around it were disturbed in a long, shallow drag in the mud. Whatever had left it behind had to be something heavy, moving low to the floor of the forest... Or it was enjoying a mud bath. Maybe both.

  "Do you smell anything?" He asked out loud, stopping, making Arya come to a halt, too, sniffing the air.

  "No... Nothing."

  "Still, we should adjust our path a bit," He muttered, turning towards the left slightly, not to avoid it entirely, but enough to skirt the outer edge of its territory, whatever it was. Just by the estimate of its weight, he didn't want to get chased by it.

  It was how their trek went for most of the time, and the deeper they got, the less familiar the forest became. Of course, Siu wasn't just heading in without a plan, as he spent a few days reading up on their targeted beast, noting their supposed territories, which were all over the forest. Comparing a dozen or so such places, he came to the decision that their best bet was where the trees became the densest. If the books were right, their autumn frenzy was forcing them to start collecting everything, which would make the species appear at places where there were ample resources to gobble up.

  By early afternoon, after a lunchtime pause, they finally reached the chosen spot, where the trees grew closer together, their trunks much thicker and their bark a much darker brown. Yet, at the same time, around them, the underbrush was thinned in dozens of places, forming visible pathways for the animals to get around the forest. Following those, Siu quickly noted scratch marks high on a cedar. Just by comparing it to his own height, they were too high for anything he wanted to meet alone, making him remember the bear-like creature he saw when he first came into the forest.

  “Detour,” he decided at once, "We are going around, again. I am not intruding on THAT creature's nest."

  Arya didn’t argue at all, because she smelled it, its scent stuck to the tree, making her jump up onto Siu's shoulder, no longer in the mood to just run around... That smell was... dangerous. With their increased cautiousness, their pace also slowed a little as they moved eastward along a shallow incline, following a line where stone markings repeatedly broke through the soil. Was there something built in here sometime in the past? It seemed like it; some of the stones sticking out from the ground were way too smooth and uniform. They looked like posts... but to hold up what? He was trying to figure it out, seeing them on both sides of the route they were taking, when Arya stiffened on his shoulders.

  “Stop!”

  "...!" Siu froze instantly, holding his breath, his head slowly monitoring their surroundings, no longer interested in the possible ruins, but listening to the rustle of leaves, the wind blowing above them, a distant bird's cry, and its beak knocking on a treetrunk. “What?” he asked mentally, sensing nothing.

  "Something..." She leaned forward, her nose twitching while her mismatched eyes were narrowed so much, Siu knew this was not about eggs this time around, “Something big... Its... Sleeping… or pretending to, because the snoring is... weird.”

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  "Can you tell from which direction?" He asked as he scanned the forest slowly, his eyes moving without turning his head.

  "There..." She pointed with her tail to the left, just ahead of them, making Siu finally notice the disturbed bushes and the tracks leading off the trail. They weren't pawprints; instead, they were like tiny holes, poked into the ground, left behind by sharp... things. That was not... normal, because beasts, as far as Siu knew, weren't wearing heels; it had to be something insect-like.

  Just from that thought alone, he already wasn't in the mood to see the thing that walked across this route because, going by the clues, it had to have hundreds of tiny legs. Without hesitation, he backed away one careful step at a time, making Arya constantly report if she sensed any changes... and when she did, he stopped to wait, becoming motionless, just standing there for minutes on end.

  In the end, it took him more than half an hour to leave and slowly go around it... Using the trees to jump from branch to branch. It was then he saw the owner of those prints, a massive centipede, coiled up in the shade, apparently sleeping... or waiting. He couldn't see its head or its tail as it was huddled up in a bundle, like a ball of yarn, but the size of a boulder. Ugh... that creature alone was enough to make him shiver.

  “Good catch.” He muttered as they hurriedly left, not wanting to stay near that thing.

  "Uhum!" Arya puffed her chest out, feeling proud about it, “I’m excellent.”

  “Yes, you are,” he chuckled, rubbing her head, “And don't start slacking, Miss Excellency!”

  "I would never!"

  As the day headed deeper into the afternoon, Siu began to see the signs he had been looking for. They hadn't found their prey yet, but finally, there were some hints. He noticed a bunch of gnawed bark and even came across old nutshell fragments crushed and sunk into the mud as animals trampled over them. But he hadn't noticed a hiding place yet.

  As per the bestiaries he read in the sect, this creature was making its home underground, as its size made it hard to live in the trees like its smaller brethren. Still, when awake, it would spend most of its time roaming the forest and preparing for the winter, collecting food and stashing it, just like any other squirrel, with the one difference that the things it would stash away also included other beasts and their meat.

  But so far, he couldn't smell any rotting carcass.

  “Master,” Arya said quietly, her tone hiding a yawn. “How can a big thing like that hide so well?”

  “The forest is bigger, so it isn't a surprise. Still, it is getting dark quick, with how thick the canopies are in here. We should look for a camp, I don't want to wander around in the dark, not when we already found some clues.”

  Red-Eyed Squirrels were dangerous precisely because they were underestimated, which was all the warning, plastered everywhere he looked in the bestiary. Their movements were fast and erratic, especially aggressive when feeling cornered, and, worst of all, they were clever enough to prepare or strategise. It was why coming at this time of the year was the better option, as their intelligence was often overridden by their instinct to hoard.

  "Where will we sleep, Master?" Arya asked, looking around, "Should we find a good bush? A hole!"

  "No," he muttered as his gaze moved upward. "I am not trusting the ground for the night... I don't want to wake up to the fact that a centipede comes and swallows us whole. We are going up!"

  The tree that he chose in the end was looking old and tall, almost six or seven stories high. First, he circled it once, checking for nests, for claw marks, holes around its roots, or any signs of something living inside of it, claiming ownership of the place. Luckily, there were none, not bears or big cats, nothing. Climbing it was not easy, with most of its branches way up in the sky, forcing him to try and stick to the trunk and pull himself up, like some kind of weird ornament. Luckily, with the strength of the Ox Form, his fingers held out, but by the time he reached a thick, stable branch well above the forest floor to get proper leverage, his arms burned a lot, forcing him to shake them a few times.

  "This will do," he muttered, looking around and securing their post with rope, creating a hammock-like resting place between two of the tree's branches.

  By the time he was done, the forest darkened considerably, night arriving quicker than one would expect, the sun blocked not only by the canopy above him, but also by the surrounding mountains. Somehow, losing the light, it amplified every sound, every rustle... Was it from something prowling below? Or just a wind? Both? The thoughts kept coming, but Siu took a deep breath, pushing them down, focusing on what mattered.

  "I already forgot..." Arya curled up against his neck, becoming his warm scarf, staying alert. "I hate sleeping outside..."

  “This isn't your first night out,” he said softly, not wanting to tease her, “Yet you are scared?”

  “I am,” She answered honestly. “It was always scary... There are many things in the darkness that would eat me. I am not against being eaten out, but leaving nothing of me behind for others? That's a no-no!”

  "Glad to hear you aren't scared enough to stop speaking nonsense."

  "It isn't nonsense!" She complained, but just then they heard a noise that wasn't the wind for sure.

  Looking down from their hammock, even in the darkness, they saw the same, nasty-looking centipede crawling on the ground, almost fifty meters in length, searching for something... Only for that 'something' to find it instead. From a different tree, a beast had suddenly swooped down, without any of them ever noticing its presence before it made its move. What Siu could catch was a pair of sharp talons, slashing, cutting the centipede in half, scooping up one part of it, disappearing back into the canopy the next moment, gone from sight, not even making any more noise than necessary.

  "Seesh..." he groaned in his mind, holding back the impulse to whistle, watching the dissected creature below. "What was that? An owl?"

  "I don't know..." Arya whispered even in his mind, hiding inside his clothes now, only her head sticking out from his collar, looking down, "I never even sensed it..."

  Yet, that was not the craziest part... That came when the centipede, after a few minutes, suddenly twitched again, and even as it missed half of its body now... began moving, disappearing in the bushes.

  "Well..." Siu muttered, feeling goosebumps all over his body, "We should try to sleep... somehow..."