"There it is, the... dark forest" After a few hours of flying away, the dark forest appeared in their eyes. Gaya stuttered in fear and Michael didn't blame her because the sight freaked him out too.
He halted flying and floated there without moving any further. When Gaya said Dark forest he didn't expect the forest to be literally dark. Back on earth, the tallest tree was 115meters tall and in the dark forest, each tree seemed 100-150 meters tall. Each tree looked gigantic and the mist around the dark forest gave out a dreary atmosphere.
Above the dark forest, the stormy clouds and cracks of lightning added another layer of terror to the forest. There was nothing beautiful about this forest but terror.
"Human, do we really have to enter that evil place? Can't we just go back and call it a day?" He had never seen her terrified like this before as she was shivering, stuttering, and sweating continuously. He was familiar with Gaya's symptoms.
"If you are so afraid, hold me tight," He said and slowly flew forward as clasps of thunder reverberated the area.
[Warning! The firewall is failing!]
"Ah!"
"What?" suddenly he heard Gaya scream and the warning sound from the system in his mind and quickly stopped moving forward. He then turned back and saw her mouth stuttering like she was in an extremely cold place.
"I saw...i...saw...something"
"Saw what? What the?!" he too saw something flash across him and disappear.
[Warning! The firewall is failing!]
[Recommend the host to leave the area as soon as possible!]
[The System found high traces of Fear toxin in the air!]
"Shit!" the moment he heard the word fear toxin, he turned back and bolted out of the white mist.
"Hu..man"
"You're just seeing things, stay calm" In front of him, he saw witches and old women on brooms flying around him. This was one of his fears buried deep in his mind. When he was six years old, he broke into the orphanage library and read Hansel and Gretel at midnight. Ever since then, he was afraid of witches and freaky old women. His mentor locked him with twenty freakishly dressed-up old women in a room for weeks to get him out of his fear.
However now, the fear toxin brought one of his deepest fears and made him see old witches on brooms everywhere.
"Hey, Mickey!"
"You want some candy! Hehehehe"
"Come to grandma!"
He then soon began to hear screeching voices, "I'm hallucinating!"
"Ah! Go away!" from behind him, Gaya started to scream and fired arrows into the air.
"System!"
[want some candy….] even after he opened the system, he still continued to hear the voices and saw the wrinkly old faces in front of him.
"Where is it?! Got..it" he was glad to see the failed fear toxin antidote and immediately grabbed it to add the one last ingredient to finish the antidote.
"Hey"
"Go away!"
Plop!
"Ah!" he slapped Gaya on the back of her head to momentarily get her attention towards him.
"Give me your poison!" her eyes were opened wide. He could tell that she's hallucinating and probably seeing something else instead of his real face.
"NOW!" Because of the firewall, he was able to remain mostly sane. Fortunately, his shout snapped out of her hallucination for a second and it was enough for her to retrieve and give him a tiny vial that contains her poison.
Shhhhhhhhhh!!
He didn't waste any time as he immediately poured the dark green poison into the antidote vial. The poison reacted with the rest of the antidote and let out a boiling sound. Just as she was about to completely lose her mind and aim her arrow at him, he poured the antidote into her mouth and forced her to swallow.
Only then did he drink the antidote because he didn't want Gaya, a Core Formation level warrior to go berserk on him in mid-air.
Following the intake of the antidote, the old witches on brooms started to disappear from his sight one by one.
"Come out you ugly fucking lizards!" she screamed and continued to fire arrows at nothing but air.
"Stop, it's alright" Both of them stood on the flying swords for a couple of minutes before the effects of the fear toxin completely disappeared. Gaya slowly lowered her bow and started to see things clearly.
"What the fuck just happened?! I told you bastard not to come here, let's get the fuck out of here before it's too late" she urged him and grabbed his hand to fly away but instead of flying away from the dark forest, he flew straight towards it.
"Hey! Stop!"
"Just shut up and come with me" despite her strong protest, he didn't back off because after being affected by the fear toxin, his curiosity reached the next level. He didn't activate the lightning dash but flew slowly and cautiously expecting more traps.
"We were poisoned and hallucinated, didn't we?" Gaya asked and tightly grasped her bow.
"Yes and we won't be poisoned again"
"I know all the poisons there is to know but I have never seen such a dangerous poison. Good thing you had an antidote in hand and speaking of which, did you ask for my poison?" Her memories when she was affected by the fear toxin were still blurry but she could vaguely remember him asking her poison.
"Your poison is the last ingredient I needed to finish the antidote"
"That means you were trying to create an antidote way before today and you must have known about this poison right? No one can create an antidote without having the full knowledge about the poison. How the hell did you know?"
"Because I created it, the fear toxin" His grave voice stunned her for a moment.
"You created it? Are you from the freakin dark forest? Is that why you have no knowledge about the outside world? Are you really a human or a fucking spirit? holy shit, that's why you call yourself Ghost!" She fired questions like arrows while Michael slowly passed through the outskirts and entered the dark forest.
She became silent when they entered the dark forest. There was no sunlight or any light passing through the monstrous blackish trees and the thick canopy. The day became night, a misty bluish night as they slowly flew towards the L that was on the map.
"I can't believe I'm in the dark forest" she vigilantly looked around and whispered.
CawCah!
The sudden sound of a crow halted their flying and when they looked up in the direction of the sound, they vaguely saw a gigantic crow with blood-red eyes through the mist.
"Shit" just a second after, there were hundreds of blood-red eyes staring at them through the mist and sending a chill through their spines. What shocked them most was all these gigantic crows were at the Body Refining stage and Michael could even see a Body Refining stage level 9 crow among them.
"Even the crows are at the Body Refining stage and this is just the border of the forest " She whispered and didn't make any sudden movements to startle the crows. The crows slowly turned their heads and watched them while they were flying forward like sentries.
The more they fly into the forest, the more dark and gloomy it got. The bone-chilling breeze, an ominous smell, gigantic webs of spiders, and occasional rattling sounds accompanied them through the forest.
"Hey look down, bones" through the darkness, Michael looked down to see bones lying around the ground.
"How far do we have to fly?" she questioned.
"Not far, we are near" In the Environmental map, he could see he's getting closer to the mark but in front of him, there was nothing but giant trees.
"We are at the mark" he didn't land as the ground was filled with thick interwoven roots and which seemed like a net of thorns.
"But there's nothing here" She was having mixed emotions. On the one hand, she was glad that there's nothing here as she could get off this evil place, and on the other hand, she was disappointed as she expected something more dramatic to happen.
"The key" Michael remembered the key and retrieved it back from his system storage.
Zzz Hhhhhhhhhhhhh
A few moments after he took out the key, the key vibrated and let out a humming sound but soon, the key stopped vibrating and remained still in his hand.
"That was weird, human, take out that book" it was also Michael's thought as he took out the book.
Boom!
The moment the book came out of his storage, a loud booming sound echoed through the forest and made all the crows in the distance fly away.
Soon, they noticed the roots above the ground and the mesh of thorns slowly moved away to reveal a black metal door with the mark L on it.
"I think that's the place" Gaya pointed out the door as the door let out a creaking sound and slowly opened.
Both Michael and Gaya didn't utter a word but they descended and flew down through the door. After flying down for a couple of minutes, they finally saw the ground and landed on the cold floor.