Li walked with Tia perched atop his shoulder out the Chattering Forest, though, as he made his way through it, each one of his steps infusing the grass below with pulses of green life, he realized that it was no longer apt to call this place that ominous name.

"Listen, papa," said Tia as she cocked her head, and Li followed her.

It was the chirping of crickets. It was faint at first, nervous to spread its song, but soon enough, all the crickets that had been buried decades under the earth when this forest first was flooded by dark beast essence began to unburrow from their long slumber.

Their song filled the air, reverberating around the woods. No more was there the chattering of bloated, mutated insects. Instead, the original namesake of this forest, the Chirpwoods, finally came to be once more. Soon enough, when day broke, birds would sense that life had returned to these woods and fly back, nesting in the tall treetops and contributing their song too to the symphony.

"Life has returned oncemore to the Chirpwoods," said Li.

"The Chirpwoods?" asked Tia.

"Yes, that is what these forests are called. So named for the song of crickets and birds that ever resounds through its bounds."

Li did not yet know why he knew these woods were originally called the Chirpwoods.

It must have been a name from long ago, during the age of demons when this forest was first corrupted. There was still a void in his memory from after he was engulfed in darkness, but it was like a faded dream, a foggy recollection that, given time, would piece itself back together.

"Pretty sound, but nothing to hunt," said Tia with a slight frown. Her stomach growled, and she put a little hand to her belly. "Shadow monsters here have no taste. Only cold. Like hard water."

"Like ice," corrected Li. He sighed. "I should have been there to tell you not to eat them. To protect you and stop you from endangering yourself. For that, I must thank you, Zagan."

The demonic hound paced briskly behind Li and shook his head, his black fur swaying with the motion. "This personage did not do much. He offered to annihilate the enemies standing before the girl, but she wished to fight with strength of her own.

Knowing your protectiveness over her, my personage could not let her fight alone, and so, a compromise was reached. I empowered her, and she fought, and I will say, her might is of no little consequence."

"That's right," said Tia slowly as she furrowed her brows, trying to work out Zagan's complicated wording. "I can fight alone. I'm strong."

"I'm sure you are, but remember what father told you. Being strong means strong things will be attracted to you, and they might want to hurt you. Always try and fight when I am there with you."

Tia crossed her arms, nodding. "Then I get to fight all the time!"

"Hm?"

She looked to Li a disapproving glance. "Papa broke his promise, so I will always follow now. No putting me at home. Even if big work, I go. Even if boring work, I go. Never away from papa now."

"But Tia, sometimes, I can get into dangerous situations, like just now," countered Li.

"No worry. Tia will protect papa!" She flashed her blade-like teeth, the beginnings of fire breath trickling between their sharp edges.

"That's not what I mean-," began Li, but Tia started to look at him with crestfallen eyes, her hands tightening around his shoulder in concern. "Alright, you can follow me. But I'll warn you now, a lot of what I do is very, very boring. Paperwork. Talking to people. You'll get so bored you'll be falling asleep all the time."

"Then I get to fall asleep next to papa," said Tia with a smile, not seeing any downside to spending more time with Li, no matter whether that time was boring, exciting, dangerous, or safe.

Tia's stomach growled again, and she looked around, her eyes narrowing as her predatory instincts engaged. Her long, pointed ears twitched, their sensitive hearing tracking any living thing to attack and devour.

"It will take a little while for regular creatures of the wild to settle their way back here, near the heart of the forest, as it has been so long since it has been pure," said Li. "But back home, if you aren't sleepy, we can go to the Winterwoods and hunt there. It's already very late, but father will make an exception for tonight because he made mistakes."

"Winterwoods a little boring," said Tia. "Hunt too easy. But hunt with papa always fun." She nodded, agreeing to Li's proposal.

He had to admit that she was right. Her strength was growing at an alarming rate, and the relatively peaceful Winterwoods were no match for her. She was nearing level fifty in power, Li estimated, with a few abilities that were far stronger than what her level indicated by virtue of being linked to him.

Maybe in the far western edges of the Winterwoods, there would be more dangerous monsters for her to hunt, but that was a little too far for Li's liking, especially in light of the increasing threat of demons coming from the west.

"For now, the Winterwoods will have to do. That is our home, after all," said Li.

Outside the depths of the forests, they encountered familiar faces.

==================

In a clearing, sitting around a wide stream flowing through it was Launcelot and his party. The shielder was a little worse for wear, his curly blonde hair frazzled and his complexion pale, deprived of energy. Next to him, his party members tended to him, putting a bandage around a cut to his arm and gathering water.

When Launcelot saw Li, his eyes brightened up and he immediately stood up, though a little shaky.

"Gods, you have returned to us!" said Launcelot. He smiled and waved to Tia, and Tia waved back energetically.

"Rock man!" she said, pointing to Launcelot's bronze shield.

Launcelot laughed as he realized Tia recognized him as the human that always carried what appeared to her as a bronze rock.

"Indeed I have," said Li. "I must apologize for my long absence. Purifying the heart took far longer than I had originally envisioned."

"Certainly, we had thought something tremendously wrong had occurred," said Launcelot. "When I was shaken awake by Faye, there were hordes of dark beasts sprawling out from the lake, once more darkened, and we fought long and hard to try and force our way to the lake and retrieve you, but alas, our strength was not enough."

"Faye," said Li. The fire-haired hero nodded to Li, her arms crossed. She looked even more tired than Launcelot, her posture a little slouched and a distinct lack of energy in her sluggish movements. When she breathed, steam emerged from her mouth, and Li could sense that her bodily temperatures were far higher than normal. Probably a side effect of utilizing her powers extensively.

"You and the others were there the whole time. Would you mind telling me what you saw? As soon as I entered the lake?"

"After retrieving Launcelot, we tried to near the lake to see what had become of you. The titan had been defeated, much to our grateful relief, but there were yet more enemies. Darkness had welled up from within the lake.

Not the type of darkness that created the dark beasts. No, that darkness, I was familiar with. When heroes stand near each other, we have an idea, some instinctive feeling, that there is another of our kin among us. We feel that same instinct with the dark beasts.

But we felt no such thing with this darkness, and yet from it, dark beasts emerged all the same."

Ava shuddered. "You know, it was a little odd, how they emerged. It was not like before, where the mud built them up piece by piece like dolls. It was like they were already fully formed and merely emerging from the dark, running in full motion."

Celeste shifted uncomfortably and said, "I felt comfort in the dark." She looked around bashfully before looking down. "Do not mind me. I have said something strange. Oh, I am too oftentimes strange."

"No, Celeste, I felt the same," said Faye, and Ava nodded in agreement. "That darkness, we knew it from somewhere, but where exactly, we could not know, no matter how much we searched our memories."

"The gate," said Li, his memory stirred.

"Now that you mention it," said Faye, her head tilting. "The dark felt like that. When I beheld the red gate that bestowed upon me my fire."

"That is all I need to hear," said Li with a slight nod. Like an amnesiac finding long buried memories, he was beginning to find answers to the many questions he had, but he knew to truly find what he needed, he had to do something more than just try to remember.

"Once again, I apologize for the inconvenience in keeping you all here far longer than I should have, but for now, let us return to Riviera. There are a few things there I must sort out."