For three hours, Hera walked across the jungle. She met a few monsters here and there, a group of yellow-ish rabbits with four ears and legs that were strong enough to break wood with a kick. Unlike what was happening with all the items on her, she managed to use her [Observe] on the creatures. They were called Double-Eared Bunnies, but she couldn't see their levels. Not because the notification showed the question marks but because they had no levels. At least Hera was strong enough to fight against them.

A rabbit came out of the jungle and jumped at high speed toward the Empress' chest. This was their attack pattern. Their skull was extremely sturdy, so much so that even the spear wasn't enough to pierce them. After blocking the rabbit with her spear, Hera spun the weapon around, making the monster fall to the ground disoriented. She followed that up by stomping one of its legs and then piercing the rabbit's neck with the spear's tip. When only one of the monsters was attacking, she could easily get rid of them.

On the occasion when a group of the bunnies tried to attack her, Hera first attempted to block them by using a stone wall, but they bulldozed through it without any problems. Unfortunately, her poison needle wasn't as effective as she had hoped, but her other ailments, like the spore field and the slow area, worked wonders. With that, Hera managed to scrape by and kill the group of rabbits. If that happened now, she already had a few plans on how to deal with multiple attackers at once, but since that was the first time she ever fought against any of the Double-Eared Bunnies, things almost took a turn for the worse. Either way, she also confirmed that these creatures were strong and that this wasn't a dream. If it was, the kicks she took to the leg and torso wouldn't have hurt as much as they did.

Once Hera reached the top of the cliff, she noticed a small village built on the edge. It was mostly made of wood, which was surprising, but at the same time, it fit the jungle. The place was abandoned, the houses and walls were broken in certain spots, and it looked like the woods were starting to reclaim the land. She could even see a few nests at the top of the highest buildings, but no birds around them right now.

"This is definitely not a dream," Hera muttered as she passed by a sign that read 'Jungle Heart Village' in the Naga language. As soon as she got closer to the entrance, she realized something was wrong. The walls weren't just broken because of time and lack of maintenance. Several marks of claws and dried-up patches of blood covered the entire village. She also noticed some rudimentary tools and sharp rocks wrapped around sticks that were stuck to some of the houses.

She tried using her skills to learn more about the items, but the windows never popped up, just like it was with her bracelet. While she was distracted, thinking about this place, she heard some noise in the jungle. As if several animals were running away from something and that something was approaching. Not wanting to stay around and find out what kind of being was getting closer, she gave up on the village and moved quickly after the next of the snakes that she could sense. She had already passed a few of them and asked the ones that were behind her to patrol a radius around her for dangers or anything of interest.

After walking for another hour, she finally found an entrance to a cave. It was hidden between two trees and had a wooden door that was almost completely intact. If it wasn't for a small hole in the corner of the door, the snakes would never be able to pass through it. Hera opened the passage and continued walking through this tunnel. A part of her was screaming that this was a bad idea. It was so easy for people to be lost in random cave networks that it just didn't make sense for anyone to consider this a good way to move around. However, she could still sense the snakes through this area, and thanks to the constructs, she could have a map of the cave network quite easily.

The tunnel ended abruptly at a dead end. There were no markings on the rock, but Hera knew that this was where the snakes had entered. To be precise, several snake tunnels branched off, but those led nowhere. She frowned, thinking that maybe the person who actually gave them the command wasn't clear enough, and that made the snakes take the shortest route to their destination, not the path that this Naga could take. However, if they had this bracelet for a decent amount of time, it was hard to think that they would miss something so basic, especially if this was something important. While thinking about that, she heard a noise as the ground started to rumble. Hera jumped back, looking at the tunnel she came from. She was too far away from the entrance, and if this was an earthquake, it would take way too long to reach outside. Instead, she pulled some of the stone from the ground to make supporting pillars for the cave. Trying to make sure that she wouldn't die because of a cave-in. Everything continued shaking for a couple of minutes, but instead of the tunnel collapsing, the wall in front of her shifted and started to lower, revealing a large path ahead. It wasn't just a simple open passage but an actual road that was carved and worked on. And there was sunlight here.

Hera peeked over this new tunnel and looked up. From this cave, she could now see the sky, which probably meant that, If the road shifted again, she wouldn't have to worry about becoming paste on the ceiling. Still, to make sure this was the right move, the Empress shifted her perspective to the next snake over. That construct was still underground, in a cave very similar to the one she was currently at. After returning to her own body, Hera started moving through the road. She wasn't running but also wasn't being overly cautious. As she walked down the path, she saw signs of civilized activity. At first, it was just a few places where the ground was repaired, then parts where the earth was dug out as if they were about to start some sort of construction that was stopped for some reason.

She started to wonder if this entire structure that kept shifting was made by someone instead of it being something created by the MAZE. If that were the case, it would be an incredible achievement of engineering, and she could only imagine what else the people who made this were able to do. After about half an hour, Hera descended some stairs and found the next snake on her path. She quickly noticed why there was a greater number of her constructs in this area. The tunnel network in this place was massive. At any point, she could stop and look around to see at least five different passages.

Thankfully that didn't last long. Only fifteen minutes after she came down the stairs, she saw the exit of this cave. She was now in a new part of the jungle beyond the hill she saw. Here it seemed thicker, and the trees loomed over her, giving the Empress an eerie feeling. Still, this was the way the snakes were heading, and this was the only plan she had so far. Her curiosity was piqued by this whole situation, though. How did this place even exist? Why was there such an elaborate system of caves in the middle of the jungle? Could this be an actual room? What, if any, was the connection of this place to the Abyssal Deep? And what was the place she had just passed by? What kind of people could make something like that?

So many questions were going through Hera's mind that she missed when a golden beetle flew toward her. She yelped out of surprise and tried to swat it away, but the bug was insistent. Oddly enough, it only focused on her shoulders and nothing else. When she finally stopped to see what it was going to do, ready to trigger an elemental armor to burn that creature to a crisp, the beetle simply landed on the feathers of her shoulder plates and stood there, playing with them.

"Is that all you wanted, little guy?" Hera asked but got no response, not that she was expecting any. But she did notice a unique pattern of orange on its back, almost like a pair of hand-drawn antennae. Hera stared at it for a moment and used her [Observe] before turning around and continuing her path.

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Golden Rhinoceros Beetle - Variant (Unknown)

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Hera stared at it for a moment. It was the first time she ever saw something marked as a variant, and to top it all off, it was alsol unknown. Still, she wouldn't be able to get any answers right now. With a sigh, she started walking again, but she didn't completely forget about the insect. Now that it was so close to her, she placed a sensory net in a 1-meter radius around her. This was a considerably expensive spell, and it would keep chipping away at her mana, little by little. However, it would take almost a full day to deplete her entire mana pool like that. The beetle seemed to be enjoying the net and even snuggled more on her shoulder.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she noticed a couple of small chameleons in the trees. That made the Empress remember the time she was back in Brinefront and ended up meeting the purple wendigo. In hindsight, this place was somewhat similar to that forest, but this was much denser and livelier.

Shrugging it off, she continued following her path and started talking with the small bug piggybacking on her as a way to cope. She would tell him her current goal and say her thoughts about this place, complain about how Nimbus was the one who could fly, and how he would help here. At some point, she even started asking questions that were never answered, but it didn't matter. This was just a way for all this walking to be less boring. The sound of her voice attracted a few of the rabbits, who tried to attack her again, but they were quickly taken care of. Even some of the chameleons started joining the fray, but they didn't seem to be after Hera herself. Instead, they went for the beetle on her shoulder. Since they had to get closer to her before attacking, she was able to protect her little friend without any problems.

After killing another of the rabbits, Hera poked it with her spear, "So, Mr. Beetle, do you think those are good to eat? I'm getting kind of hungry."

The beetle turned to the rabbit and started flapping its wings, but Hera had no idea what that meant. Suddenly, she noticed how the bug stopped and turned to the left. It stepped back and then tried to hide within the feathers of her shoulder pads.

"What's wrong?" Hera asked, but she quickly noticed another thing. The entire jungle was silent. Before, she could hear bugs, other animals, and the sounds of nature. But now, the only noise was coming from the wind and from the ruffling of the leaves.

Glancing in the direction where Mr. Beetle, the Empress saw something coming out of the jungle. A large four-legged creature with massive crimson fangs that protruded from its mouth, big black eyes that seemed to peer into her soul, blue skin covered in white spots all over its body, and a tail that was three times longer than its torso moving as if it had a life of its own. Hera quickly deployed a flash bomb while covering Mr Beetle with her hand and bolted while creating a few spore and slow fields behind her and activating her memory elemental armor while also covering her bug friend.

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Blue Spotted Leopard - King of this Jungle

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After being momentarily blinded and observed, the leopard roared in anger and dashed toward Hera, but it met the spells she prepared. The spore field made it sneeze and lose a bit of her scent while the slow field made it sluggish. When it finally was able to see again and walk out of those areas, the new prey was already far away. The Empress wasn't going to stay and fight a monster like that and was already sprinting at full speed. The jungle was too dense here, and she only had a spear. Trying to face that thing would be suicide in the current conditions. What she needed was a better location, maybe a narrow path or a place where she could hold the higher ground, and she knew the direction of the mountain.