Nyx dropped to the forest floor. The ground was wet. Her boots sank an inch into the soft black mud. The air down here was heavy and stagnant. It smelled like decaying leaves and damp earth.
She moved through the thick ferns. She did not make a single sound. Her black suit blended perfectly with the deep shadows of the underbrush. The jungle was loud, but she was entirely silent. Her training was absolute.
She needed protein for the prince. His body was trying to heal crushed muscle tissue. That biological process required heavy calories. The grey nutrient paste from the palace was gone. He needed real meat.
She opened her Aether-sense just a fraction. It was a small drain on her recovering core, but she needed to hunt quickly. The dark jungle shifted around her. Thermal signatures bloomed in her vision. She ignored the small, fast heat signatures hiding in the trees. She looked for something large and slow on the ground.
She found a target three hundred yards away.
It was a small group of ground-dwelling beasts. They looked like massive, heavily armored rodents. They had thick bone plating over their skulls and along their spines. They were low-level Aether beasts. They posed absolutely no threat to a Divinity Realm cultivator. They were just meat.
Nyx closed the distance rapidly. She walked right up behind the largest beast in the group. It was rooting in the wet dirt for glowing fungus. It did not hear her approach.
Nyx reached down. She grabbed the beast by its thick snout and the back of its armored neck. She twisted her hands sharply in opposite directions.
The bone snapped with a loud, wet crack. The beast dropped dead instantly. It did not even have time to squeal. The rest of the pack scattered in sudden panic, crashing blindly through the dark underbrush.
Nyx did not chase them. One was enough. She pulled the small, wire-edged blade from her belt. She knelt in the mud next to the carcass. She worked quickly and efficiently. She stripped the tough hide away from the hindquarters. She cut out the thickest, most nutrient-dense sections of red muscle.
She wrapped the raw meat in several broad, waxy leaves. She tied the heavy bundle tight with a piece of tough vine. The hunt was successful. It took less than ten minutes.
She stood up to leave. Then, she stopped. She tilted her head slightly.
She caught a scent on the humid breeze. It was very faint, but it cut clearly through the smell of mud and raw blood. It was a sharp, astringent smell. It smelled like cold iron and crushed mint leaves.
Nyx recognized the chemical signature immediately. It was a medical compound.
She changed her direction. She walked deeper into the thick brush, tracking the scent. The terrain grew uneven. She climbed over slick, moss-covered rocks. The air grew cooler. She heard the sound of dripping water echoing in the dark.
She found the source at the base of a small rocky overhang.
A single plant grew out of a narrow crack in the wet stone. It had dark, jagged purple leaves. The main stem pulsed with a very faint, dull red light. It looked like a tiny, glowing vein protruding from the rock.
Nyx knelt beside it. She recognized the species. It was an Iron-Blood Root.
She pressed her gloved finger against the glowing stem. She pushed a microscopic amount of her black Aether into the plant. The red light flared slightly, confirming her chemical analysis.
It was a low-tier healing herb. Elite cultivators in the capital would ignore it completely. It was useless for repairing a shattered Chimera Core or a damaged Nascent Soul. But for a mortal body suffering from severe blunt force trauma, it was absolutely perfect.
The root contained raw, organic compounds that aggressively stimulated cellular regeneration. It forced the body to flush out pooled blood and rapidly knit torn muscle fibers back together.
Nyx ran the medical logic in her head. Without treatment, the prince's deep tissue injury would take three weeks to heal naturally. He would be immobile for a month. With this root, the timeline changed drastically. If he ingested the raw sap, the crushed tissue would repair itself in one or two days.
It was a massive tactical advantage.
She used her blade to carefully dig the wet dirt out of the crack. She did not pull the stem. If the main root broke, the healing properties would degrade rapidly. She dug until the entire root system was exposed. She lifted the plant free. She gently brushed the wet dirt off the glowing red tubers.
She placed the rare herb safely into a hard-shell compartment on her utility belt. She picked up the heavy bundle of wrapped meat.
She turned around and headed back toward the colossal tree. She moved much faster now. She had the supplies. She needed to get back to her asset.
High above the jungle floor, Jin was exactly where Nyx left him.
He lay flat on his stomach on the massive wooden branch. He had not moved a single inch. His chin rested heavily on his crossed arms. The rough moss scratched his cheek.
The Aether-seal Nyx placed on him was still active. It felt like a thin, cold film clinging to his skin. It completely masked his biological scent. He did not smell like human sweat or bruised blood. He just smelled like the tree bark.
The pain in his lower back was a steady, dull burn. As long as he remained perfectly still, he could tolerate it. The moment he twitched a leg muscle, the fire flared up. So, he stayed still. He acted like a corpse.
The giant branch was wide enough to be a small road. It stretched out into the dark canopy. The bioluminescent leaves provided a faint, eerie green glow.
Jin listened to the jungle. He hated the sounds. He hated not knowing what was making them. He heard distant screams. He heard the heavy thud of massive footsteps far below. He felt incredibly small. He was a corporate manager stripped of his desk, his spreadsheets, and his authority. He was just a fragile organism trapped in an alien ecosystem.
Then, the ambient noise changed.
A new sound emerged. It was very close. It was a slow, heavy, continuous scrape. It sounded like thick, dry leather dragging across sandpaper.
The sound came from the main trunk of the tree, directly behind his feet.
Jin felt his heart rate spike instantly. A cold knot formed in his stomach. The corporate logic in his brain assessed the threat. Something was climbing the tree. It was large. It was heavy. And it was right behind him.
His first instinct was to sit up and look. His second instinct was to crawl away as fast as possible. But his broken body anchored him in place. If he tried to drag himself away, the pain in his spine would paralyze him. He would just be a thrashing, noisy target.
He had to remain perfectly still. He had to rely on the Aether-seal to hide him.
He slowly, agonizingly turned his head. He moved his neck a fraction of an inch at a time. The muscles in his neck screamed from the awkward angle, but he ignored them. He needed to see the threat.
He looked back over his right shoulder.
A massive shadow poured over the edge of the branch where it met the main trunk. It did not have legs. It moved like a thick, heavy river of black liquid.
It was a snake.
Jin stopped breathing. The air trapped in his lungs burned, but he refused to exhale.
It was an absolutely massive black python. It was easily ten feet long. Its body was thicker than a metal oil barrel. Its scales were pitch black, smooth, and glossy. They seemed to swallow the dim green light of the leaves.
It was not a magical beast. It did not glow with Aether. It did not have bone armor or insect splices. It was just a pure, apex predator. It was a low-level threat to a cultivator, but it was a god of death to a crippled mortal.
It was powerful enough to crush Jin's ribs into powder in five seconds. It could stretch its massive jaws and swallow him entirely whole. It would not even let out a burp afterward.
The python slid its heavy body fully onto the horizontal branch. The scraping sound grew louder as its scales dragged against the rough moss.
Jin stared at it. His eyes were wide with pure, primal terror.
The snake stopped moving. It raised its massive, triangular head high into the air. It was only five feet away from Jin's boots.
The python opened its mouth slightly. A long, black, forked tongue flicked out. It tasted the humid night air. It flicked left, then right. It was searching for a heat signature. It was searching for a scent.
Jin's Aether-seal held. The snake did not smell the human sweat. It did not register the scent of his injured tissue. To the python's chemical receptors, the branch was completely empty.
But the seal did not make Jin invisible. He was still a physical obstacle lying directly in the middle of the branch.
If the snake decided to crawl straight forward, it would slither right over his legs. Its cold scales would drag across his injured back. It would feel his body heat through physical contact. Once it touched him, the scent seal would not matter. It would know he was meat.
Jin stared into the unblinking, cold yellow eyes of the beast. He felt entirely helpless. He was a passenger in a crashing car. There were no brakes to pull. There was no steering wheel. He just had to wait for the impact.
The python slowly lowered its heavy head. It flicked its tongue against the rough moss just inches from Jin's right foot.
It started to slither forward again.
It moved slowly. Inch by agonizing inch. Its heavy, muscular black body dragged directly toward Jin's completely defenseless, broken back.
Jin pressed his face flat against the bark. He closed his eyes. He braced for the crushing weight of the snake. He waited for the thick coils to wrap around his waist. He could do absolutely nothing else. He just had to sit perfectly still and wait for the monster to make its move.