SPIRIT SOUL

The forbidden forest didn't look all that bad if one ignored all the corpses that created a clear border to the Nasga race's tribal territory.

No one sane dared to pass the borderline, with the sole exception of Kyle and his people. Though, it was questionable if one could consider them to be sane after ignoring the borderline of corpses that were a clear sign of a warning.

"How long do we have to travel through the forbidden forest until we reach the marked section?" Beatrice asked not withdrawing her attention from the corpses.

There were corpses of various monsters and humanoid beings. Some bones were ginormous while others were tiny. But in the end, all of them had one thing in common; they isolated the forbidden forest from the outside world by preventing the cultivation energies from within to escape to the outside world.

This was also why the cultivation energy inside the forbidden forest was several times denser than the energy outside the forbidden forest. If Kyle and the others were to focus on cultivating, all of them would reach the Acerta stage within a year, even Jaden, whose cultivation vein had been developed to a high degree by now.

He was still the slowest to improve but at least there were some improvements.

Kyle was at the same cultivation base as Jaden right now, yet, his combat prowess was several times higher than the combat prowess the Lohar was able to exhibit. 𝒃𝙚𝒅𝒏𝙤𝙫𝒆𝒍．𝙘𝒐𝙢

If not for Kyle's high combat prowess and the existence of both Aurora and Arashi, they wouldn't have dared to enter the forbidden forest. Every beast Kyle sighted was at the Acerta stage. This was quite frightening and it was certainly not something they looked forward to.

One Mid ranked Acerta stage beast and death may be their eternal companion.

"If we walk straight ahead, it should only take a few weeks," Kyle said with a wry smile on his lips, which caused Selene to sigh deeply.

"So you mean it will take a few more months? Because we will have to evade many beasts and hide away from others?" She asked looking straight in his emerald eyes.

"Looks like someone knows me quite well," Kyle nonchalantly answered, not hiding the truth. It was only obvious that they couldn't go straight through the forbidden forest.

Flying was also no option because he detected too many powerful aerial beasts. Thus, the only thing they could do was to kill a few low-ranked Acerta stage beasts, use their soul's energy to activate the Nurture ability and improve Arashi's strength even further.

As long as the Spirit Soul was there with them, it shouldn't be too problematic to survive fighting a bunch of Acerta stage beasts. The three-tailed wind fox was simply too powerful, which was even more apparent the moment Aurora's Sprite armor showed its true potential.

Aurora's cultivation increased only slowly. Despite being a Sprite, an existence that was said to cultivate extremely fast, she was not exactly a quick cultivator. Rather, she seemed to be refining her Sprite armor to unleash its full potential.

Through this, it would be the easiest for both Arashi and Kyle to fight opponents that were of a higher cultivation base than theirs. Aurora was more of a supporting character than a fighter herself. Thus, her cultivation base didn't matter. Just the effectiveness of her Sprite Armor and her knowledge was of utmost importance.

Kyle felt that Aurora was a bit too obsessed with her role as a supporter but it was not as if this was actually bad. Her obsessiveness was something Kyle could make use of and he didn't shy away from actually doing so.

"Does anyone else think that we will encounter Undeads here, or is it just me?" Yasmine asked all of a sudden. Right now, her special eyes trait didn't feel that useful. It could hardly be used in the forbidden forest because there were always huge plants in her way. The density of the trees in her surrounding was not high. This allowed them to walk through the surrounding area with ease.

However, Yasmine didn't like the feeling she received from her surrounding. There were too few beasts around them and everything felt rather cold. Her entire body was covered in goosebumps and she could swear that Undeads would ambush them at any moment.

"There are no Undeads, otherwise, the skeletons that created the border of the forbidden forest wouldn't have been there. The bones there were ancient and they're of exceptional use for Undeads. They would have long since absorbed the bones," Beatrice's voice was calm but the content of her words caused everyone to look at her a bit doubtful.

"Ah…I forgot that you lived with Undeads…sorry for that," Yasmine said all of a sudden and she felt a tinge of guilt. But Beatrice just waved off her hand as she acted as if there was nothing to be sorry about.

Yet, upon looking into Beatrice's crimson eyes she seemed sad and like she was missing someone.

'Well, it's only obvious for her to miss them. After living with them for tens of thousands of years of living together, you are bound to miss someone if you don't see them for quite a while!' Kyle thought as he was reprimanded about his family.

It had been quite a while since he thought about his parents of the past when the old Universe still existed. Thinking about them, Kyle was actually not sure how to feel. He missed his mother but his memories of his father were not exactly something worth being remembered.

Sometimes, it was better not to remember someone as to have no memories than bad ones. Not all of his memories of his father were bad but the memories that belonged to the time after his mother died were certainly bad, all of them.

Kyle sighed deeply and somehow, everyone felt just like him. They were reminded about their family or other bad memories of figures that were like parents.

Selene had been abandoned because of her fur color, she was 'raised' by slave merchants and she had never received fair treatment until she met Kyle.

Yasmine had almost only good memories of her family but the life of the Phoenix Princess was not always easy. She had to face many prejudices, numerous Cultivators, who approached her for her title and her bloodline, not for the person she actually was. They were fake and Yasmine didn't even dare to think about approaching someone for fear that they would be fake just like everyone else.

Beatrice was imprisoned for 50000 years by her father figure, the person, who raised her. Her life had been boring and only the existence of Undead existences allowed her to feel that life was worth living…to a certain extent, at the very least.

Jaden was intelligent but that was exactly what made him the target of most noble Lohars from the first day their inferiority complex surfaced at the sight of someone truly intelligent. It was not easy for someone like Jaden to survive in the Lahin kingdom and to get accepted into the best of the kingdom's academies. Jaden's life had been hard and he had overcome all problems.

Nonetheless, all the bad memories flashed through his mind all of a sudden.

"Something influences our mind…" Kyle suddenly mumbled, his emerald eyes gleaming brightly as he had used the Nurture ability on himself.

"It's just unfortunate for you to encounter someone, who can dispel this influence!"