The forest floor blurred into streaks of black, green, and silver as the battle spilled downslope. Every step was a race — not to victory, but to stay ahead of the horns and boots closing in from behind.
Gideon and the Dark Elf commander were still locked in a duel that tore the ground apart in their wake. The commander's armor was cracked and smoking, but his strikes had lost none of their precision. Gideon's Whirlwind Splitter flared again, sparks and frost hissing into the night as Kaelvryn's mismatched eyes glowed hotter.
Behind them, the rest of the squad was running for their lives.
Ezra's hands flashed with unstable light. He flung a chain lightning into the treeline — it leapt from one elf to another, frying their lines… but the final arc snapped toward Caleb's bowstring, almost cooking it. Caleb cursed, ducking just in time."Ezra, for the love of— pick your targets!"
"I am picking!" Ezra yelled, already weaving a second spell. "They're just… everywhere!"
A fireburst roared to life in his palms, then shot past Eliakim's shoulder. It hit its mark — an advancing spear unit — but the explosion also shredded a section of cover they'd been counting on.
In the chaos, Caleb crouched low, his breath steady, hands moving with surgical precision. Every arrow he loosed found its mark — an archer's throat, a swordsman's knee, the gap in a cuirass where shadow met skin. His control was the exact opposite of Ezra's — no waste, no ricochet, no collateral.
"Darkmoor!" Caleb barked between shots. "If you don't rein her in, we'll burn this whole slope!"
"I am reining her in," Eliakim muttered, chain wrapping a tree trunk to swing them out of another incoming volley. "Just not the way you think."
High above, Skyling cut a path through the night air, her chain feathers catching moonlight. The world rolled and shifted in her sharp eyes — enemy positions, movement patterns, flashes of steel in the undergrowth. A piercing cry ripped from her beak, echoing directly into Eliakim's mind.
—Three more patrols ahead. Fork in the slope, left path is faster but exposed.
Eliakim's right hand sparked faintly, the Codex of Imreth igniting in his mind like ink spilling across parchment. Within seconds, a three-dimensional map bloomed in his vision — every tree, every enemy marker, every possible path.
"Got it," he breathed, shifting course instantly. "Ezra! Hit the left ridge in three… two…"
Ezra's magic flared on cue — a blast of raw force that wasn't even a spell so much as an eruption. Trees bent under the shockwave, clearing their line — but Caleb's arrow immediately followed, pinning a survivor before he could signal.
Gideon's duel crashed through the slope just ahead, the commander trying to pull him toward open ground. Kaelvryn's molten armor gleamed like a stormfront, and every strike between them shook the hillside.
"Skyling says they've boxed us in," Eliakim called over the noise. "We have one hole to punch through, and it's closing fast."
Ezra grinned like a man about to gamble her life. "Then let's make it loud."
Eliakim's chain whirled, Caleb nocked three arrows in one draw, and Gideon's blades flared frost and flame in unison.
The forest was about to learn what happens when precision and chaos fight on the same side.