They swiftly climbed the rock wall.

After a few minutes, Ellis reached one conclusion: this natural geographical obstruction was very annoying.

For one, it was very tall and very steep. He did not really have a good point of comparison, but if he were to liken it to something like the Grand Canyon, then it might just be a few points off. This rock wall neither had the grandeur nor the mystique that America’s natural wonder possessed.

Then again, he’s never actually been to the Grand Canyon, so that comparison pretty much falls flat on its face.

Still, the rock wall possessed its own sense of greatness that could instantly demoralize a man’s heart and make them feel lower than even a shriveling ant.

As for those who might wish to climb it… well, you might as well forget about that idea.

The rock wall was almost perfectly vertical and just as flat. It was almost as if someone had taken a butter knife and sliced through the earth. There were very few protruding rocks or breaks in the surface that would normally be used as handholds.

As a result, he was forced to rely on brute strength. Every time he ascended, he would pierce his hand directly into the cliffside. Essentially, Ellis created his own handholds.

After nearly twenty minutes of climbing, they finally reached the top.

Ellis breathed out a sigh of relief. It wasn’t that he was tired, but rather, he felt cold. Throughout those twenty minutes, his naked body was left exposed to the buffeting wind. At one point, he seriously worried whether or not he was going to get sick.

Ena jumped off his shoulder. She breathed out a puff of air and wiped her forehead with the back of her paw. A distant expression colored her face. She looked as if she had just survived a harrowing experience.

“Quit pretending.” Ellis interrupted. “All you did was sit on my shoulder and snack on dragon scales.”

He bitterly stared at the posturing little fox. At the same time, he brushed away all the crumbs that had accumulated on his shoulder.

Ena ignored him and instead, observed the surroundings. Ellis quickly followed suit.

The land above the forest.

It seemed similar, yet at the same time, it was also strangely different. The trees here were about the same, except they were even larger and even taller than before. If he had to guess, they were nearly twice as big as the trees from down below.

He looked up. The canopies that he had looked up to for over a year… he had thought they were distant then, but now, they seemed even more so.

One thing of note was that because of the size difference, there were far fewer trees up here than down there. It made the forest feel less confined. In fact, it might have just been an illusion, but Ellis felt that the surroundings here were a little bit brighter than before.

After a while, he then turned his gaze over to the mouth of the waterfall. The sound of running water drowned out everything else within the forest. Ellis narrowed his eyes. Like he had originally suspected, the waterfall was connected to a much larger river.

Looking at this river, he noted two things: it was slightly narrower than he had expected and it persisted far past his eyes could see.

A silent sigh leaked out from his lips. This looks like another long journey…

Ellis kept his complaints to himself as he turned to his little companion. “Then, let’s go?”

Instead of answering, Ena let out a bark before she ran forward. Ellis chased after her. Like this, with the hopes of finding civilization and escaping the forest, Ellis followed the winding river.

****

An hour passed.

The river felt increasingly more infinite as the minutes ticked by.

Just then, something finally broke the monotony of endless walking. It came in the form of an unexpected guest.

Lurking behind a bush a few meters away from the river, there was a certain feline beast. It resembled a mountain lion, except it had a heavier build, sort of like a tiger. The thing was also roughly the size of a rhinoceros.

After a few minutes of silently stalking from a distance, it finally had enough. Without warning, the lion suddenly sprinted towards them. Its jaws opened wide, revealing a set of jagged teeth that normally wouldn’t belong to any sort of cat.

Ellis prepared for battle, but just as he was about to jump in, Ena suddenly stopped him. She patted his shoulder reassuringly.

“Are you sure?” He asked worriedly. Her intentions were clear. This little fox wanted to fight.

It let out a reassuring bark, almost as if to say, ‘don’t worry, I got this.’

Without waiting for Ellis to respond, she dashed forward. The following fight was… well, it was one-sided. Ena was fast, incredibly so. She quite literally ran circles around the mountain lion.

There were brief bouts of ‘actual combat’ where Ena would bite or scratch at her opponent, but all in all, it really did look as if she was just playing around. After the mountain lion realized that it could not do anything against its enemy, it began to show signs of running away.

Of course, Ena did not let it.

“…” Ellis stared at all this with shock. This brat, she possessed a natural tendency for bullying.

The ‘fight’ continued for the next ten minutes. By this point, Ellis had grown tired of watching. Was Ena seriously just playing around? How long was she going to keep this up?

For the most part, a slightly amused expression colored the little fox’s face. It was definitely not the sort of expression one would wear during a life or death battle.

“Quit playing around already!” He finally couldn’t take it anymore and yelled.

Ena let out a whining bark in protest, but nevertheless, she complied. The little fox suddenly separated from her opponent and jumped back. Without hesitation, the mountain lion immediately turned around and made a desperate attempt for the bushes.

Ena did not look at all worried that her prey might escape. All nine of her tails suddenly straightened before they took on an iridescent glow. It was a light resembling that of the sun.

Ellis widened his eyes in surprise. Since when could she do that?

The mountain lion sensed something wrong. It increased its speed, but by this point, it was already too late.

Wisps of bright orange and scarlet red quickly gathered atop Ena’s head. They coalesced, forming a single fireball. The flame was small and transient, similar to candlelight. It was completely different from the dragon’s column of fire. It lacked the sheer volume, but hidden within the tiny light was an immense heat that only grew hotter by the second.

“Kyu!” Ena shouted and the fireball zoomed through the air.

There was no subsequent bang or boom. The coin-sized flame simply penetrated the lion’s skull. The creature took one last step forward before it collapsed to the floor, lifeless.

The flame did not just stop there, though. Like an infectious virus, the flame that still flickered somewhere inside its head spread. It proliferated, stealing away the lion’s warmth and turning it into its own.

Soon, orange licks of fire consumed the entire thing. The corpse was completely scorched beyond recognition.

After the lion died, Ellis stood there, in shock. If one looked closely, then they’d notice that his shoulders were slightly trembling.

A wide, almost creepy smile stretched his lips.

“Ena… Ena can make fire…she can make fire…”

Ena, the two-week-old little fox, the baby born from a corpse, his one and only saving grace, she could create fire!

“I can finally kiss those days of disgusting raw meat goodbye!”

Unbeknownst to his rising excitement, the fox in question trotted towards him with a satisfied look on her face.

Without hesitation, Ellis suddenly swooped in and grabbed her in his arms. He pressed his face against hers and kissed her right in the cheek. Ena was unsurprisingly caught off guard by this. She struggled to escape, but quickly found that Ellis’s grip was like a metal vice.

She resigned herself to a fate of sloppy kisses. After a while, Ellis released the fox and ran towards the corpse. Ena uselessly pawed at her wet face before she followed after him.

An excited sparkle still glowed within his eyes as he peered down towards the corpse. To his disappointment, the whole thing was completely charred black. Rather than calling it a dead body, the thing in front of him resembled more like a piece of charcoal. It was on the complete opposite spectrum of raw, but regardless, it was still inedible.

He squatted on the ground and sighed in disappointment.

Ena walked up to him and rubbed against his leg in an attempt to cheer him up. After a short pause, he lifted his head and slapped his cheeks. Although his face slightly swelled, a hopeful smile stretched his lips. “You’re right. You’re completely right! This is just the first step! There are thousands more monsters waiting for us out there. No matter what it is, as long as I have fire, as long as I have man’s greatest ally with me, I’ll eat anything and everything in this damn forest!”

With such a determination, the journey of one man and his fox continued.