By the following morning, Greyfen no longer looked like a forest suffering an unusual migration.
The deeper they travelled, the worse the damage became. Ancient trees thick enough that three men couldn't have joined hands around their trunks had been uprooted.
Great furrows split the earth where enormous bodies had passed, while shattered boulders and craters marked places where displaced Magic Beasts had fought before continuing south.
Everything they had encountered this deep was a 4th Order Elite Beast, creatures capable of destroying ordinary hunting parties and transforming entire stretches of woodland during a serious battle.
Rowan moved ahead with greater caution than before, until he suddenly stopped beneath a leaning cedar and raised two fingers. Everyone froze.
He crouched beside a gouge Sage had mistaken for another battle scar and brushed loose soil from its edge.
