Infinite Realm

Two creatures, a young man and a little feline, were cautiously moving through the dry terrains of depths of Maldora Canyon. At times they would move slowly or come to a halt. Other times, the duo would dash forward at high speed, with no intentions of slowing down even with the violent roars of wild beasts aimed at them.

Sato had been following Milo's direction for over an hour and had yet to spot anything out of the ordinary. During this period, he had suffered attacks from various kinds of monsters most of which were stronger than the [Lorlian Sea-Blue Crocodile]. It was for reasons like this that they had spent more than an hour going only so far, otherwise with no dangers, the duo would have made it this far in just 15-20 minutes. 

One of the reasons for the increased presence of monsters as well as the strength they possessed was that Sato and Milo had already left the vicinity of the river. On the contrary, they had approached the edge of the canyon, coming close to the 'walls' of the canyon. The terrain here was the same as the other places in the canyon; sandy and dusty, so the monsters that lived here were those that acted on the laws of the jungle. There wasn't enough prey for the monsters here and only the strong could survive. Hence, it was reasonable for every one of them to be stronger than the [Lorlian Sea-Blue Crocodile] or even the [Blue Reed Water Snake]. Luckily, Sato wasn't the same and had gotten stronger than before so while the monsters were strong, they were nothing more than a pain in the that required more effort to beat.

There were very few trees but more boulders lodged on the side of the walls of the canyon. The ground was hard and with very few obstructions. Because of this, Sato had to proceed with caution lest he attracts the attention of a terrifying monster. In this area, there were monsters that even level 20 players would fear, and no player was even at that level yet.

*Sniffs*

Suddenly, Sato paused. It wasn't that he had noticed anything off but that Milo had abruptly stopped walking and began to sniff the air.

"What's wrong?" Sato asked.

While it was true that Milo was incapable of speaking human language, it could still understand him.

*Meow~* 

Milo released a long meow.

Sato frowned as he heard it.

Similar to before, Milo's 'words' had been translated in Sato's head and he finally understood while the little fellow had stopped walking. Apparently, it had caught a whiff of blood in the air. Normally, this wouldn't be much of an issue as during their journey, Milo had sniffed out a bunch of other bloody sites. They were all monsters that had been hunted by predators or maybe injured from a feud with another monster. The difference this time around, was that the blood was that of humans; humans, not human. In other words, up ahead, there was more than one individual who was either injured or dead.

At this point in time, Sato was stuck in quagmire. He could either go forward and risk getting attacked by a powerful creature, or retreat and resume his previous goal of heading towards the lake.

'Is there even a reason to hesitate?'

"Lead the way." Sato told Milo.

The little feline didn't bother with any unnecessary actions and immediately dashed towards the site.

This time around, the duo actually spent 12 minutes to reach there despite the fact that it was just a distance of mere 700 metres or so. To understand better, an average athlete could do a 1km run in 5 minutes or less, much less a 700 metres distance.

"Hmm?" 

When Sato approached reached the area with his partner, he noticed tyre marks on the floor, but that wasn't the only thing that made him raise an eyebrow.

There were large footprints on the ground and it wouldn't take a genius to realise that those 4-fingered footprints were made by some ferocious monster.

"Tyre marks mean someone was traveling with a carriage. But why the heck would someone run rampant with a carriage in Maldora Canyon?" Sato let out his thoughts.

It was indeed a strange occurrence for a carriage to be wandering within Maldora Canyon. One should know that the area, even amongst NPCs, was a dreaded place. No carriage company would dare offer their services within or through the area even though their carriages are usually guarded by private guards. Even when Sato wanted to get to Maldora Canyon the very first time, the carriage he took only stopped him at the closest stop to the canyon and not at the entrance of the canyon. From this, one could see how much the NPCs dreaded the place. 

What should further be noted was that this wasn't the mere outskirts of Maldora Canyon, but quite close to the depths of the place. Unless one was a great personage or at least, at the level of Sato, no player or NPC would want to wander in here. Even if they did, they wouldn't carry a carriage with them as protecting it would be quite taxing and such a big object would be an easy target for monsters. 

"So strange." Sato walked up and bent down to study the two marks.

With the appearance of the new tyre tracks as well as the beast marks, it would be easy for one to presume that the monster was chasing after the carriage but there was also the chance that both parties had crossed through this place without knowledge of the other. 

'Looking at the marks, the monster probably came here after, otherwise its footprints won't overlap that of the tyre tracks. They both seem to be heading in the same direction too. This means that the carriage was possibly running away from the monster. There's also the chance that the carriage was moving to its destination and the monster had spotted its tracks later on. This would mean that the riders weren't aware of the monster trailing them. In that case, it would be easy for them to suffer a loss to it if it catches up to them.'

Just from the two trails, Sato made two inferences which he felt were very close to the truth.

"Let's go." Sato stood up and departed in the direction of the tyre tracks. He didn't need Milo to lead him to the site again as he felt that he would probably reach it by following those two trails.

After running for 3 minutes, the duo had finally reached a small stone forest. Jagged brown rocks protruded from the ground creating a complex terrain that seemed to hide a lot of secrets. Nonetheless, the marks were still present so Sato wasn't lost.

Following the two trails, Sato eventually came to an open spot in the middle of stone forest. He was forced to come to a stop because the sight in front of him was horrifying.

A luxurious looking carriage was in wreck with it tyres tossed far and apart. The carriage was without doors and was pretty much a mix of splinters and piles of wood. Corpses were strewn across the ground as blood flowed like a little stream, staining the brown floor with a savage hint of red. At a closer inspection, the corpses all wore armour and looked like guards subject to a noble household or such. But while all of this was a sight to behold, it wasn't what made Sato stumped.

A huge corpse laid on the ground and was the major culprit for the stream of blood flowing on the floor. If the blood from the dead guards had formed miniature streams, the blood flowing from the huge monster corpse had formed a miniature river. Even Sato couldn't help but wrinkle his nose at the damning smell.

Just as Sato was moving forward to get a close look at the creature, he seemed to hear a low but weak voice, almost like a whisper.

"Help, me."