MURMURS OF THE DEEP FOREST: UMBRAL GUIDE

Murmurs of the Deep Forest is the 8th Umbral Monument series, live since October 22, 2026: four stages built on shield stacks, Imprisonment and a locked SP bar. Its event, Monumental Etching: Forest of Maras, pays 1,200 Oroberyl and ends November 5 at 04:00 server time.

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TL;DR - Key Points

• Four stages, in this order: Critters That Dig, Shadows That Bind, Woodcrafts That Link, Hatred That Sprawls
• Monumental Etching: Forest of Maras closes November 5, 2026 at 04:00 server time. The stages are permanent; only the event pay-out is on a clock
• Shield stacks are the series. Witchcraft creations ignore damage while shielded, and only Final Strikes and skills remove stacks, one per hit. Count hits, not damage
• Stage 1: only one slug at a time is open to damage. Kill it, and the next one opens. Mist damage keeps climbing until you do
• Stage 2: your team starts Imprisoned and feeds the boss. Every YSTF Elite Blightshade you kill frees an operator
• Stage 3: two Wanderers walk toward each other and explode when they meet. Killing one kills both, so focus one and keep them apart
• Stage 4: Max SP is 400 and SP is locked while the boss charges. Break the Wanderers first for 200 SP each, then strip the boss
• Agony raises enemies to Lv 90 and bans Tacticals and consumables. Every stage flattens elemental resistances

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Monumental Etching: Forest of Maras, What the Deadline Gates

The series and its event both opened on October 22, 2026 at 12:00 server time. Monumental Etching: Forest of Maras runs until November 5, 2026 at 04:00 server time, the same two-week window the last few Etching events used.

The event pays 1,200 Oroberyl, 150 per mission across eight missions. The mission list in the game data:

Mission	Reward
Clear Critters That Dig on Normal	150 Oroberyl, 5 Advanced Cognitive Carrier, 10 Arms INSP Set
Clear Shadows That Bind on Normal	150 Oroberyl, 5 Advanced Cognitive Carrier, 10 Arms INSP Set
Clear Woodcrafts That Link on Normal	150 Oroberyl, 5 Advanced Cognitive Carrier, 10 Arms INSP Set
Clear Hatred That Sprawls on Normal	150 Oroberyl, 6 Protoset, 30,000 T-Creds
Challenge any Murmurs of the Deep Forest stage 4 times	150 Oroberyl, 6 Heavy Cast Die, 30,000 T-Creds
Challenge any Murmurs of the Deep Forest stage on Agony once	150 Oroberyl, 8 Protohedron, 30,000 T-Creds
Deal 1M total DMG in Umbral Monument stages	150 Oroberyl, 5 Advanced Progression Selection Crate II, 8 Protohedron
Challenge any Umbral Monument stage 4 times	150 Oroberyl, 5 Advanced Progression Selection Crate II, 8 Protohedron

The practical instruction: bank four Normal clears and one Agony attempt before November 5. The Agony mission asks for an attempt, not a clear, and the attempts and damage missions fill themselves while you do the clears. Take the full Agony set at your own pace afterwards.

One week in, on October 29, a separate Contingency Readiness event starts. It hands out Sanity Usage Permits and Emergency Sanity Boosters through November 5, ahead of the next Contingency Contract.

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When and How to Access

Unlock requirements are the same as for every series:

• Reach Authority Level 30
• Complete the main mission Chapter I Process II: Paving the Way

The mode rules carry over too: four operators, two difficulties per stage, and Agony unlocks only after you clear that stage on Normal. Normal enemies are Lv 60 and Agony enemies Lv 90, and every stage costs 0 Sanity, so retries are free.

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What Changed in Series 8

Series	Name	Stages	Event
1	Those Forsaken by the Land	3	Monumental Etching: Old Wounds
2	Inorganic Construct	3	Monumental Etching: Old Wounds
3	Searing Scars	3	Monumental Etching: Scorch Mark
4	Turbidity Manifest	6	Monumental Etching: Corrupting Surge
5	Contention of Deathly Silences	6	Monumental Etching: Dirge of Grief
6	Howlers of the Crag	4	Monumental Etching: Beastly Howl
7	Marked by Dark Shadows	4	Monumental Etching: Shadow Marked
8	Murmurs of the Deep Forest	4	Monumental Etching: Forest of Maras

It is a Snowy Forest series. Three stages bring the witchcraft creations the Snowpriestess built, the Woodcraft Slug, the Woodcraft Wanderer and Gloomwald’s Rage, the area boss our Snowy Forest prep guide covered before it landed. The fourth, Shadows That Bind, brings back the Blightshades from Marked by Dark Shadows with Blitzcrash Blightshade, the shadow of Li Zhiyan’s old beast from Tanjian Hall.

Shield stacks decide three of the four stages. The game’s own rule text: while witchcraft creations have shield stacks, they are immune to all forms of damage, Arts Inflictions, Arts Reactions and Vulnerability. Hitting them with Final Strikes or skills removes stacks, and each Final Strike or skill removes only 1. A 50,000-damage ultimate and a cheap Combo Skill strip the same single stack. Teams that land many separate hits beat teams that land a few big ones.

Elemental resistance is off the table. Every stage carries the line “Enemies have the same resistance against every element”, on Normal and Agony. Blitzcrash Blightshade’s base 0.65x Electric resistance does not apply here, so build around each stage’s rule instead.

All four Agony stages in 8 minutes with Laevatain, Si, Camille and Arcane (KyoStinV).

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Stage 1: Critters That Dig

Enemies: a field of Woodcraft Slugs, small burrowing witchcraft creations.

Careful. The Mist continuously deals gradually increasing DMG to all operators. The Woodcraft Slug will burrow underground and restore all its shield stacks on a regular basis. Defeating a Woodcraft Slug will temporarily reduce Mist DMG.

The stage is a chain, and the start of it is random. When the battle begins, one random slug loses all its shield stacks for good. That slug is the only one you can hurt. Killing it makes another random slug lose its stacks for good, and so on until the field is clear. The in-game death tip says the same thing in one line: defeat the special enemy with no shield stacks first.

How to run it:

1. Find the slug with no lock icon over it. Shielded slugs show a lock over a segmented bar. The open one doesn’t.
2. Kill it fast. A slug has only 29,700 HP on Normal and 110,060 on Agony, so any built carry can kill one in a short burst. Getting to it quickly is the hard part.
3. Ignore the rest. Burrowing restores every stack, so the hits you spend on a shielded slug come back on it.
4. Use the Mist dip. Every kill briefly lowers the Mist damage, which otherwise keeps climbing. Your kill speed is your healing.

Agony greatly increases the Mist damage on top of the ramp and bans consumables, so bring a real healer (Ardelia, Gilberta, Xaihi or Liino) and a carry that moves well.

Woodcraft Slug	Lv 60 (Normal)	Lv 90 (Agony)
HP	29,700	110,060
ATK	958	1,652
Poise	60, 6s recovery	60, 6s recovery

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Stage 2: Shadows That Bind

Enemies: YSTF Elite Blightshades and the boss, Blitzcrash Blightshade.

After the battle begins, the enemy applies Imprisonment on all operators except for the controlled operator. Operators under Imprisonment will constantly lose HP while giving Blitzcrash Blightshade HP Treatment and ATK boosts. Defeating a YSTF Elite Blightshade frees 1 operator from Imprisonment.

This is a solo opening. Whoever you control at the start fights alone, and the other three are draining HP while they heal and buff the boss. Open on your strongest self-sufficient carry, not a support.

1. Kill the YSTF Elite Blightshades first. Each kill frees one operator. They are fragile (24,750 HP on Normal, 91,716 on Agony, 80 Poise), so this phase should be quick.
2. Beat the wake-up timer. Blitzcrash Blightshade wakes when every Elite is dead or after the battle has gone on for a while. If the timer wins, the boss arrives with more buffs while part of your team is still locked up.
3. Then fight the boss. It activates Blightshade Energy that fires thunderbolts, and the Elites’ blade qi can set that energy off too. Later it summons Tuskbeast Blightshades and strikes them with lightning. Stay away from the summons and dodge the strikes.

The in-game death tip calls them “YSTF Vanguard Blightshades”. The enemy in the stage is the YSTF Elite Blightshade, so read it as “kill the Elites quickly to wake the boss”.

Agony adds one line to the rule: Imprisoned operators also give Blitzcrash Blightshade resistance to their own element. Every second your team stays locked up makes it worse against the boss, so a fast Elite phase matters even more. It is also why the Electric team is a poor fit here: three Imprisoned Electric operators stack Electric resistance on the boss. Bring the Heat team with Si (Laevatain, Si, Camille, Arcane) instead, with Laevatain opening in Team Position 1, and Si’s Artful Intent bursts stored damage as Fixed DMG, which ignores resistance.

Stat	YSTF Elite Blightshade	Blitzcrash Blightshade
Tier	Normal	Mini-boss
HP (Lv 60 / Lv 90)	24,750 / 91,716	272,254 / 1,008,880
ATK (Lv 90)	2,271	4,130
Poise	80, 6s recovery	320, 9s recovery

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Stage 3: Woodcrafts That Link

Enemies: a linked pair of Woodcraft Wanderers.

After the battle begins, the Woodcraft Wanderer will continuously move towards the other Woodcraft Wanderer, creating an energy link that deals DMG over time. While the energy link exists, defeating one Woodcraft Wanderer will also defeat the other. When the Woodcraft Wanderers reach the same position, they will trigger an explosion that deals DMG (based on Max HP) to all operators.

The Wanderers come in waves of two pairs, 4 at a time. Read the rule’s second sentence twice: killing one Wanderer kills its partner. And the two pairs’ paths cross, which is the key to the stage.

The explosion is the threat. It scales with Max HP, so no amount of HP stacking makes it safe, and on Agony the Wanderers move faster and every explosion after the first hits harder. Your job is to kill each pair before it meets:

• Break the shields first, with Final Strikes. This is the priority on every wave. Each Final Strike removes 1 shield stack (skills do too), and a shielded Wanderer ignores your damage, Vulnerability and Physical Statuses, so nothing else counts until its stacks are gone. Finish your basic attack chains rather than cancelling them.
• Fight at the crossing. Learn the route the two pairs walk and wait where their paths cross. AoE there strips shield stacks from several Wanderers at once, and one burst kills both pairs. The pairs start on opposite sides of the map, so bursting one side first also works.
• Mind the knockback. Most hits push a Wanderer back a little. Spread your damage so the targets you want stay close together.
• Clear each wave fast. The next wave arrives soon, and a backlog overwhelms you. You can clear the first two waves a little slower to bank SP and Ultimate Energy for the later ones.
• Interrupt the grab. A Wanderer at zero stacks traps an operator to drain energy and refill its shields. Break it out.
• Hold them in place. Arcane’s WILL state imprisons. Gilberta’s Battle Skill pulls the Wanderers at the crossing together, her Combo Lifts them, and a target Lifted inside her Gravity Field stays Lifted until it ends. Save the Gravity Field for the second wave, where the pairs close the gap fastest. Tangtang’s Ultimate locks down everything in its area, an emergency brake for the final waves.
• Spam skills. Every cast removes a stack and can Stagger or interrupt a Wanderer, so an SP battery (Akekuri, Pogranichnik or Camille) keeps the casts coming.

Si makes this stage much easier. When a Wanderer holding her Inksoul dies, the Inksoul links to another enemy and applies Artful Intent to it, so her damage follows the Wanderers even when they are far apart. If it disappears, walk up to a Wanderer and cast again. Ardelia is a good budget pick: her Combo plus a Final Strike breaks shields quickly, and her heals cover a missed explosion. Be careful with Avywenna on Agony: her burst waits on her Thunderlance cooldown, and the faster walk leaves too little set-up time in the later waves.

Teams that clear it: Laevatain, Si, Camille, Arcane; Typhoeus, Arcane (WILL), Gilberta, Tangtang; and Last Rite, Si, Tangtang, Arcane. A Physical team works too.

This is where Typhoeus shines. Her Battle Skill strips shield stacks as part of her normal aerial loop, and each aerial attack hits up to 2 targets, which suits a grouped pair.

Woodcraft Wanderer	Lv 60 (Normal)	Lv 90 (Agony)
HP	148,502	550,298
ATK	1,796	3,097
Poise	170, 7s recovery	170, 7s recovery

Typhoeus on all four Agony stages (Zn0nym0us). Critters That Dig 0:00, Shadows That Bind 1:02, Woodcrafts That Link 1:58, Hatred That Sprawls 4:01.

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Stage 4: Hatred That Sprawls

Enemies: Gloomwald’s Rage and the Woodcraft Wanderers it summons.

After the battle begins, the operators’ Max SP is increased to 400. Gloomwald’s Rage will enter its charging state on a regular basis and gain a large number of shield stacks. When its charging up is complete, it will cast its ultimate that deals massive DMG to all operators. Break all shield stacks to interrupt the charging state.

The catch is in the fourth rule line: while Gloomwald’s Rage has shield stacks, SP does not regenerate, and Final Strikes and Finishers stop refunding SP. Your SP when the charge starts is your whole budget for breaking it.

The loop that works:

1. Fill SP to 400 before every charge. That is four Battle Skills banked instead of the usual three.
2. Break the Wanderers first. Each charge summons 4 Woodcraft Wanderers. Shatter a Wanderer’s shields and it vanishes and refunds 200 SP, so you don’t need to kill them. The in-game tip says the same: defeat Woodcraft Wanderers while Gloomwald’s Rage is charging up to restore some SP.
3. Strip the boss with free hits. Final Strikes still remove stacks during the lock, Combo Skills cost 0 SP, and Ultimates run on energy. Each of those removes a stack without touching your SP.
4. Stay off the vines. It leaves vines on the ground that deal damage over time and Slow you.

What players found on day one, from the r/Endfield stage threads and the series review thread:

• Only the operator you control strips stacks with Final Strikes. Your AI teammates’ basic attacks do nothing to the shields, so finish full chains yourself and let their skills, combos and Ultimates add the rest.
• The Wanderers trap you in a circle. Shatter one of them to break out, and keep one Battle Skill of SP in reserve for it.
• The root waves cannot be dodged. Dodges and jumps do not avoid them. Run out of range or into the gaps between the roots, and pull your controlled operator well back so the team follows.
• Hold Arcane’s Combo for the charge. In WILL state, keep it ready for the moment the shield phase starts.
• Normal can be blitzed. Players kill the Lv 60 boss before the charges pile up. Agony does not allow that.

One more line worth testing: the rule blocks SP regeneration and the Final Strike and Finisher refunds, but it does not name skills that return SP themselves, such as Camille’s Combo and Ultimate. If those still refund during the lock, an SP battery is worth even more here.

Agony adds that Gloomwald’s Rage gradually gains more and more shield stacks, so every later charge needs more hits than the one before. Teams with lots of separate hits, from frequent Combo Skills or Typhoeus’s loop, handle the late charges far better than one-big-hit carries. Save your Ultimates between charges: they strip stacks without SP, which makes them worth more against a late charge than as damage.

Hatred That Sprawls with the Heat team

Laevatain, Si, Camille and Arcane has cleared every Agony stage of this series. With Laevatain in Team Position 1 and under your control:

1. Between charges: damage the boss, fill SP to 400, and keep Laevatain’s and Si’s Ultimates and Camille’s Sanguine Downpour charged.
2. Charge starts: fire Arcane’s held Combo, then shatter the Wanderers with Laevatain’s full basic chains and Camille’s Blazing Exorcism for 200 SP each.
3. Strip the boss: keep finishing Laevatain’s chains, and spend Camille’s Combo and his free Hunter Pursuit dashes after Sanguine Downpour. On late Agony charges, open with Si’s No One Spoils the Fun, then Laevatain’s Twilight and its enhanced chains.
4. Trapped in the circle: spend the reserved Battle Skill on the nearest Wanderer.

Gloomwald’s Rage	Lv 60 (Normal)	Lv 90 (Agony)
HP	396,006	1,467,462
ATK	2,395	4,130
Poise	400, 8s recovery	400, 8s recovery

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Best Teams for Murmurs of the Deep Forest

How we picked these: the stage rules above (resistances are flattened, so element does not decide the team), the kit notes in our tier list for patch 1.6, and day-one Agony clears. Checked October 22, 2026.

Team	Members	Why it works
Heat burst squad	Laevatain, Si, Camille, Arcane	Laevatain carries, Camille refunds SP for the Hatred That Sprawls lock, and this exact squad has cleared all four Agony stages (video above)
Typhoeus carry	Typhoeus, Arcane, Gilberta, Xaihi	Strips shield stacks without a finisher, and her hover dodges ground attacks.
Electric burst	Zhuang Fangyi, Liino, Arclight, Perlica	Liino heals through the Mist and Arclight feeds SP between charges. Skip it on Shadows That Bind, where its Imprisoned operators stack Electric resistance on the boss

What each stage wants, if you are building from your own box:

• Critters That Dig: a mobile single-target carry and a healer. Typhoeus and Si are the top two on our single-target DPS tier list, and Typhoeus hovers between slugs. Xaihi covers the Agony Mist
• Shadows That Bind: the Heat team with Si, not the Electric team. Open on Laevatain (or Typhoeus) to solo the Elites, and bring Si for the boss: her Artful Intent bursts stored damage as Fixed DMG, which ignores the resistances Agony gives it. Other supports barely matter until they are freed
• Woodcrafts That Link: AoE burst at the crossing of the two pairs’ paths, Si (her Inksoul follows the Wanderers), shield stripping (Typhoeus), grouping and immobilizing (Arcane, Gilberta, Tangtang), and an SP battery to spam skills (Akekuri, Pogranichnik or Camille), since every cast removes a stack
• Hatred That Sprawls: high hit count, frequent Combo Skills, and SP refunds from skills (Pogranichnik, Akekuri, Camille, Liino)

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Rewards

Every first clear, Normal and Agony counted separately, pays the same bundle: 3 Advanced Cognitive Carrier, 5 Arms INSP Set, 8 Protohedron, 24,000 T-Creds and 1 Mark of Perseverance. Eight first clears in total.

Clearing all four stages on Normal earns the “Murmurs of the Deep Forest” medal (“Victorious, you listened to the wrathful murmurs of the deep forest, and once again you etched your name upon the great monument.”), and clearing all four on Agony plates it.

Every stage rule, enemy roster and stat, for this series and every earlier one, sits in our Umbral Monument database.

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Frequently Asked Questions

When does Monumental Etching: Forest of Maras end? November 5, 2026 at 04:00 server time. The four stages are permanent; only the event rewards expire.

What are the four stages? Critters That Dig, Shadows That Bind, Woodcrafts That Link and Hatred That Sprawls, each with Normal (Lv 60) and Agony (Lv 90) modes.

How do shield stacks work? While shielded, witchcraft creations are immune to damage, Arts Inflictions, Arts Reactions and Vulnerability. Only Final Strikes and skills remove stacks, one per hit.

How do I beat Hatred That Sprawls? Bank 400 SP before each charge, break the four Wanderers first for 200 SP each, then strip the boss with Final Strikes, Combo Skills and Ultimates.

Why are my operators stuck in Shadows That Bind? They are Imprisoned. Each YSTF Elite Blightshade you defeat frees one of them, so open on a carry and kill the Elites before the boss wakes.

How do I stop the Woodcrafts That Link explosion? The Wanderers come in waves of two linked pairs, and killing one kills its partner. Break the shields first with Final Strikes, then fight where the two pairs’ paths cross, so AoE strips several shields at once and one burst kills both pairs, and clear each wave before the next arrives.