As Arad and Zephyr watched from afar, Agnar and his party walked deeper into the dark forest. With each step, the shadows grew deeper, the moon became brighter, and all of Therisa's senses were telling her that this place was deadly.

And then, Ignis stopped walking as her eyes shifted from those of humans to those of dragons. The veins on her face and neck bulged, and her nails turned into long, sharp claws. As her mouth slowly opened up, revealing her sharp, shark-like teeth, sparks crackled from deep inside her throat.

Everyone stopped walking and looked back at her, feeling the searing heat coming out of her body. It was like standing beside a burning forge, or a massive pyre. Agnar slowly pulled his sword, and kept his eyes glued to the darkness.

"Ignis, no fire."

Therisa pulled a long sword and stood beside Agnar, and kept looking where he was looking. Even though she was a vampire that could see in the darkness, she still didn't spot whatever Ignis sensed.

"Oh, my. Oh, my!" Yuwaku walked in front of Agnar and Therisa, looked into the darkness, and then back at Ignis. "We should still be inside father's domain, but…"

Ignis finished up. "Something is trying to claim the land with their magic. Probably our target."

Ignis didn't sense a specific monster or presence. She just noticed that the land wasn't drenched in Arad's magic as much as it should be. It was like being told you're trespassing inside your own home.

The act itself wasn't the problem. Many monsters and humans claim land in Arad's domain; there are even dragons that set their lairs and claim land inside Arad's domain. It was the same when a king granted land to his nobles.

But this one was strange; it didn't feel like someone trying to claim land while remaining under Arad's rule.

"Are you saying it's trampling on the lord's land?!" Therisa growled as her eyes flashed red, her skin turned slightly red, and her nails turned into long pale claws. Her eyes darted across the darkness, and in a flash, her nose twitched, having caught the smell of something strange.

Her body turned into a cloud of red mist and bats, and that entire thing flew through the trees like a miniature storm. "Where are you going?!" Agnar shouted, but it was already too late by then. Therisa's claws were already deep into the chest of a large hobgoblin that was hiding in the shadows.

The hobgoblin was almost two meters tall, muscular, and looked more like an ape than anything else, but it was now terrified, looking at the little girl who had her claws deep into its chest. "If you believe in any god, start praying now."

With a single pull, she ripped the monster's heart out and then cut its head off. As everyone caught up with her, Therisa lifted her foot and crushed the hobgoblin's skull with ease. "Look…" She pointed at the mess of blood, brain, and bones.

Any human who saw that would've been disgusted, but when the other three looked, they all noticed the same thing. A tiny spider desperately trying to hide in the gore. As they walked across the forest earlier, Therisa could notice many things, but she ignored most of them.

It wasn't strange for monsters to hide when they approached, and it was quite natural for a hobgoblin like this to cower in fear and sit still in the shadows, waiting for them to pass by. So, when she sensed him first, she wasn't alarmed.

But now that she knows someone is trying to undermine her lord, she has to prove something. Monsters only understand the language of fear and violence. If the monsters here think that the spider is scarier than Arad and his vampire, then Therisa would show them how wrong they were.

Her plan was to start killing every monster here until they stopped letting the intruder spider live among them, but what she found was even better. That tiny spider that was inside the hobgoblin's skull was the key to understanding everything.

The monsters around here still understand that the land belongs to Arad, and him alone. They know of his power, they fear him, and their loyalty is only to him. But, this spider monster can control monsters with those tiny spiders, probably something similar to how Poppy herself was able to control people, but through a different mechanism.

"I was about to start killing every monster around until that bastard showed up, but it seems he can control monsters with this spider." She pointed at the blood with her long, bloodied claws, and Agnar growled.

"Yeah, I can tell. We're surrounded." His eyes flashed with dark magic as he pointed his blade forward and suddenly slashed down, slicing a large, festering bird.

A large deer with three horns rushed through the trees, and it aimed at the smallest member of the party, Ignis. She looked just like any other little girl in the city, frail, childish, but the poor monster failed to notice the draconic eyes and claws.

The deer hit Ignis square in the chest, trying to stab her heart with its horn. But at that moment, his horn shattered. Due to her high draconic strength, Ignis wore a thick plate of steel under her clothes, under armor, as Alcott called it. It was a type of armor mainly used by the nobility to give them some protection while still maintaining an elegant look.

Sadly, for the three-horned deer, Ignis was anything but elegant. She was the same kind of creature as the rabid Arad, Gojo, Gamond, and the others; she was a true dragon. Her claws sank deep into the deer's chest, and her mouth opened wide enough to fit a large apple inside, and she bit the deer's face off, charring the wound. Before letting go, she breathed flames directly into the deer's snout, burning and exploding its lungs inside its body.

"Are you okay?" Ignis turned toward Yuwaku, who was facing a large horde of goblins and hobgoblins. "Of course." Yuwaku replied as she slowly walked among the monsters, punching and kicking them around with a smile on her face.

Agnar, on the other hand, had just finished slaying a large Crimson-cobra and even took down a deformed bull, two monsters that B-rankers would struggle with. He looked worried, but it wasn't because of the monsters, but because the deformed spider monster that Poppy unleashed wasn't showing itself, just sending its minions out. He feared it might escape, so he was already thinking of a way to track it down quickly.

"New girl! Can you track that monster?!" He shouted, and Therisa replied with a growl as she tore her way through several rampaging apes and bloodied boars.

"First, I got a name, and it's Therisa! Second, I can track humans, not monsters." She stopped moving, "But, I'll try, as long as you get me enough of those tiny spiders so I can recognize the smell of the monster's blood."

The group immediately moved to kill more monsters and extract the small spiders from their heads, but it was then that the real problems started. The dead monsters started coming back to life as zombies, and Agnar growled.

"Damn it, necromancy as well?" Agnar growled as he jumped back. "Did we bring holy water with us?"

"No, we didn't! We'll have to destroy the old way." Yuwaku replied, but the moment they were about to start, a blinding flash of golden light burned among them.

"By Eris's name, get murdered and torn apart, you damn bastards!" Therisa swung her fist at one of the zombified monsters and shattered its body into ash with a powerful divine smite. Then, reaching into her own blood, she pulled two blunderbusses.