Chapter 1: Silya Forest

The Silya Forest is a towering woodland resembling a fortress, separating the desolate, icebound Ice Continent from the vibrant, four-seasons Gaobo Continent.

The forest stretches endlessly, starting from the Arcs Mountain Range in the west and reaching the Bonnie Coast in the east. It divides the continent into two, acting as a barrier for Gaobo, blocking the cold winds and miasma from the evil undead of the Ice Continent. This has allowed Gaobo to thrive for thousands of years, creating conditions for the civilizations of various races like the Common People Tribe, Beastman Tribe, Dwarf Tribe, and Elf Tribe.

But where there is light, there is shadow—nothing is an exception.

According to the ancient histories of Gaobo’s historic nations, the Silya Forest was constructed by the Great Demon Tribe and the once-flourishing Fairy Tribe after the decline of the undead civilization in the Ice Realm. They built this defensive forest to repel the endless invasions of evil undead.

However, after centuries of harassment, their achievements have long been stolen by other races. The Great Demon Tribe, once revered as mountain gods by the ancestors of the Common People Tribe, has descended to become mere mercenaries and hunters at the borders of Silya Forest. The once-mighty Capital of the Fairies, now reduced to ruins, stands as a testament to their lost civilization—fairies becoming wanderers bereft of their homeland.

The guardians of the Silya Forest, the border warriors of fairies and Great Demons, over countless years became infected by the miasma from the north. A small number interbred with the undead, forming a new race known as the Demon Race, while most, due to prolonged exposure to the miasma, mutated into ghastly ghouls—powerful yet insane creatures. Their descendants have lost their last shards of reason, devolving into beast-like ghouls—the very creatures that now roam the entirety of Silya Forest.

As the days and nights passed, the undead from the Ice Continent faded from memory, and the ghouls of Silya Forest emerged as the new threat.

In the cold-stricken Silya Forest dwell low-intelligent yet frost-resistant monstrosities known as ghouls. People know very little about their ecology, only that every few years, a unique individual called the Ghoul Matron is born among the tall and heavy carrion-eaters. The Ghoul Matron is much larger than regular ghouls and continually births ghouls as long as it lives, resulting in a massive surge in their numbers that invades human habitats to hunt.

Fortunately, while ghouls possess immense strength, they are quite clumsy, making them easy targets for specialized military forces. Thus, military fortresses have been established at the borders between the forest and Gaobo Continent, housing numerous soldiers to guard the forest’s entrances and routinely hunt the ghoulish hordes venturing southward. Over time, towns even sprang up around these fortresses, thriving on the trade of ghoul bodies.

Then, in the year 672 of the common era, a transformation occurred: the Vampire-Ghoul Hybrid appeared for the first time. This hybrid immediately devoured its entire ghoul tribe and then descended southward, embarking on a frenzied massacre that completely destroyed the largest border fortress of the time, becoming almost a natural disaster. This prompted the military to take proactive measures, entering the Silya Forest to hunt down the Ghoul Matron, aiming to nip the calamity in the bud.