As Gin was sniffing around, he finally picked up her scent and used his ultrasonic sound.

Gin let out his ultrasonic sound, and whenever the waves hit something, they bounced back to him. By hearing them again, he judged the object’s size and what it’s made of.

Gin used the ultrasonic sound in a circular area around him, but no response was coming.

He couldn’t find Ven.

“Can he find her? Should we go in different ways to find her? Yes, we should go in different ways to find her, and we can-”

“Shhh… Calm down, Luv. She couldn’t have gone far. I guarantee you I will find her,” Anon said as he held Fen by her shoulders.

‘I can’t guarantee alive or dead, though. But what the heck happened to her? What was that? I didn’t even realize what took her. Did she get away on her own? Does this forest have something that I am still unaware of?’ Anon thought as a complex look appeared on his face.

“P-Please… Sob-Sob find her, Jule. She is Sob-Sob the only family I have now,” Fen started crying loudly as she hugged Anon tightly.

‘Link, did you see something?’ Anon asked Link.

No, master. My eyes are your eyes when I am in this form. I can tell you one thing, though: I didn’t sense any different aura around your body for the past 3 hours. Link replied.

Anon was surprised and confused at the same time. What was it that took Ven? How can it be so silent, and how did it manage to escape without entering Anon’s aura range?

Questions were arising inside Anon’s brain as he continued to look around, but all he saw were trees and small animals crawling among them.

Grrrrhhhh

Suddenly, Gin picked up something.

“You found something, boy?” Anon asked as he looked at Gin.

Gin nodded at Anon and started running towards the direction the smell was coming from.

“Just keep your confidence, Luv. I gave you my word. I will find her.”

‘Everything was going according to the plan. Where the heck did it go off the trail? If I get my hands on the bastard who did this… he will be dead,’ Anon thought as anger started building up in his heart.

Suddenly, Anon noticed that the space between the trees was starting to get thinner and thinner.

‘What is happening? Why are there so many trees here?’ Anon wondered as he observed the trees carefully and found out that some of the trees looked like human faces.

‘Nah, that’s just my mind playing games with me,’ Anon thought as he continued running.

Gin was crossing the trees without any problem, but for Anon and Fen, it was getting harder and harder to get through the trees.

Back in the city…

On the screens, another group of youngsters was getting massacred by a pack of hell hounds.

“This event has consumed too many souls and claimed too many children. If this goes on for another day, no one will come out of that damn forest,” Ian spoke up.

“But we can’t do anything, father… They took part in this event even after knowing that they are putting their lives at stake. It was a fair chance given to everyone. The parents who allowed their children to go in are either in a very good relationship with their child because he convinced them to go in, like Jule, or they just need money,” Moon answered.

“Well, the selfishness of one person can take away everything from him before he even knows it. If they sent their children into that forest just for money, then they don’t love them,” Hillary added.

The parents were crying as they saw their children die on the screens, their bodies getting torn apart in front of them.

Some went unconscious, and some went into shock, while others tried to commit suicide after losing their only children.

Village Chief’s room…

“This event has taken a very ugly turn, Jacky. If we don’t cancel it now and call our children back, they will never come back,” a parent spoke as they banged their hands on the table.

“I-I can understand your concern, but please try to understand my concern as well. I can’t cancel the event once it has started… There are children inside that forest trying to keep up with the forest and win a prize by putting their lives at stake. If I called off the event, this would not be fair to them,” Jacky replied.

“I don’t give a darn about those students… I need my son, right now,” a mother spoke up as she looked at Jacky in anger.

“I-I can understand your feelings, but your son is Ryan, right?” He asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Here, look, he just killed a hell hound, and if I called him back, this would mean nothing to him. He just risked his life to kill that thing, and you want it to mean nothing to him?” The chief spoke as he tried to manipulate the parents by showing clips of their children to them.

“Well, he is right… If we look at it that way,” the mother who was just arguing with him now started to speak in his favor.

“What a jerk you are! Your son killed a hell hound, and mine died by one. Don’t you have any sympathy?” Another female spoke.

“Well, your son wasn’t strong enough, I guess,” she replied.

“You darn whore,” the female yelled as she tried to fight her, but the others stopped her.

“Wait, wait… Don’t do this. I can do this for you… You can go into the forest and search for your child. After that, you can bring him back if you want, okay?” The chief spoke up.

“Yes, thank you.”

Everyone thanked the chief and exited the tent.

The chief sat down in his chair and grabbed his head in tension as he started murmuring something in a very slow tone.

“What the heck is wrong with me? I just sent them to die there… Darn, what should I do? Is my family safe? Did the assassin leave?”