Chapter 41: Vi’s Secret
The Devil Forest or in more precise terms, the Devil Wilderness was the largest red zone on the continent, feared not just for its size, but for the nature of its inhabitants.
Even after decades of study, not a single Acranist could explain why life within its borders defied the natural order. Why did the trees grow to impossible heights, their trunks wide enough to house families, their roots twisting deep into the earth like ancient serpents? Why did the beasts here swell to monstrous proportions, far surpassing the strength and size of their kin found beyond the forest’s edge?
Countless expedition forces had entered with confidence and numbers, only to be swallowed whole, erased without even the courtesy of wreckage.
Eventually, the lords ceased sending men into its depths. Maps were redrawn, not with ambition, but with caution, and the wilderness was left to itself.
Some whispered that this was the birthplace of the barbarians, a land where the fallen Primarch’s blood had spilled during the old wars, soaking into the ground and changing everything it touched.
Whether through ancient magic or something fouler, the forest had become a haven for wild things, a paradise for the savage and a cursed realm for all who bore banners and laws. Whether such legends were myth or memory, Kaelor didn’t waste thought on it.
He had work to do.
Nearly seven hundred men now moved through the clearing, hacking at thick, knotted trunks with disciplined swings. Their voices were few, their labor heavy, and the sound of axes striking timber echoed through the unnatural silence of the forest.
Kaelor stood among them, his own axe in hand, the same weapon he’d taken from the bandits.