Chapter 62: Undercurrents / The Great Escape
The air was tight with tension. Aeloria stood at the point of her formation, a wedge of battle-hardened warriors, allied clans, and sworn defenders fanned out behind her. Across the scarred field, a tangle of enemies blocked the way—demon legions, Shackled criminals, and rival factions hungry to derail her advance.
One figure drew every glance: Golden Lord Norg. His gentle smile never touched his eyes. Behind him, his forces waited in perfect stillness, coiled to strike at a word.
High on a ridge, Golden Lord Rudecka watched without committing, posture lazy, mind razor-sharp. She played her games in currents unseen.
And then the sky dimmed.
Dredger stepped onto the field—draconic beast in humanoid guise, envoy of the Whispering Expanse True World. Gold Tier 5 at the peak, one step from Mortal Shedding, ancient and patient. Several Gold-tier experts took an involuntary step back.
Norg cleared his throat, all polite civility. "Lord Dredger… forgive my boldness, but what brings you to this battleground?"
Dredger didn't answer him. His slitted gaze swept the field, paused on Aeloria, drifted across every Gold Tier 3 and above, and returned to her. When he finally spoke, his voice pinned the moment in place.
"I came to confirm something."
Power crashed between them. The earth shivered. The sky rumbled. Warriors across the no-man's-land dropped to a knee, gasping. Even elite Gold Tier 1s felt their joints buckle.
Aeloria held. Teeth gritted, she pushed back with a blade-keen aura, refined and unyielding. Dredger pressed like a mountain. She stood like a rooted sword.
Behind her, Seraphiel's hands clenched until the knuckles blanched—fear braided with fury at the insult, the threat, the strain on Aeloria's frame.
Far above, Rudecka narrowed her eyes. Not fear—envy. Years ago, she had stood higher. When they first met, Rudecka was a surging Gold Tier 3; Aeloria had barely stepped into Gold Tier 2. Time flipped that order. Both reached Gold Tier 5; then, somewhere, Aeloria began to edge ahead. Rudecka noticed. She always noticed.
She studied Aeloria closer than anyone as her self-declared rival. Her four eyes weren't for display; two, veiled beneath layered perception, traced faint temporal seams. A week ago, in council, when Aeloria drifted for a heartbeat, Rudecka had seen it: a ripple in spacetime that Mortal Shedding experts might miss. Jealousy turned to suspicion.
Aeloria's gift wasn't mere foresight. It was deeper.
The clash ended like a cut string. Dredger's mouth folded into a grin.
"You may leave," he said, almost bored. "Carry a message to your Fanged Elf Tribe: stay out of our way—no matter what we do. Do that, and we won't touch you."
Aeloria laughed, dry and sharp. "How funny. Carry mine back—stay out of our way as well."
She flared her aura, turned to her army. "Move."
Norg shifted as if to interject, but Dredger stepped past him with naked disdain, then lifted his chin toward Rudecka. Interest flickered between them, a silent exchange neither admitted to.
With a casual wave of a clawed hand, Dredger departed. Shadows and scaled warriors melted into the horizon after him.
Norg's polite mask cracked. Rage trembled in his fingers—not fear, but the fury of a man locked from his prey. "Follow Aeloria," he said coldly. His coalition surged to motion.
From her distant perch, Rudecka's voice drifted to her captains. "Trail them. I want eyes everywhere."
Like wolves into the wood, the hunt began.
The allied spearhead—Brymia City and the Longbi Clan at its core—hammered Shirleaf's reforming Nature Barrier. Every strike shook the forest. Leaves ripped into spirals; the living wall flickered, draining faster than it could heal.
Inside the bulwark, Zoro, Ramiro, Joe-Pine, and Luno-Oak braced the inner lattice with their bodies and aura. Bruised, bloodied, short of breath. Time was running thin.
A pulse lit the rear.
"Guys!" Elton's voice cut like a command. "Grab onto me! Inner barrier—now!"
No hesitation. They closed ranks, palms set, aura linked. Dino-Oak burned what little he had left to throw a temporary shell over the ring.
Elton's ki and magic surged together. Blue radiance erupted, coalescing into a vast, sword-shaped vortex. The Blue Heavenly Star Destroyer Sword manifested with a hungry hum, lengthening and widening, its base flattening into a platform under Elton's feet.
A Brymia officer shouted, panic cracking his voice. "Stop them! Stop them now!"
The outside world howled. Lightning spears. Flaming boulders. Enchanted steel. The Nature Barrier finally shattered with a thunderclap, shockwaves turning leaves and splinters into shrapnel.
A beam screamed from the smoke.
BOOM—!
A blue streak ripped a corridor through men and metal alike, sheared a magical vehicle in half, and vanished over the horizon at supersonic speed.
Silence swallowed the clearing. Then the Longbi captain found his voice, veins standing up in his neck. "After them!"
Minutes later, a star fell. Light smashed into the plain, carving a fresh trench through stone and scrub. Beasts scattered. Stragglers dove for cover.
Eight figures climbed from the crater—cloaked, bleeding, breathing hard.
"Keep moving," Zoro said, wiping sweat and blood from his brow.
"They're still on us," Joe-Pine spat, eyes on the rear. "We're almost there. The grand tunnel to the Fae Region is ahead."
"You said that a while ago," Ramiro groaned, legs wobbling.
"And now we're closer," Joe-Pine shot back, a bitter grin ghosting his mouth.
The ground trembled. Far off, the three-group army rolled closer like thunder.
Despair edged their faces—then a clean, sharp aura swept the opposite ridge. The Fanged Elves lifted their heads in sudden hope.
Light burst through the trees.
Aeloria's vanguard arrived. Three Gold-Tier 2s from her alliance flashed in, grabbed the wounded, and hauled them into a conjured vehicle pulled from spatial storage.
Joe-Pine slumped into a seat. "Praise the heavens."
"Thank me later," one rescuer said, already bracing the door. "Go."
Aeloria hovered above the canopy, eyes narrowed at the oncoming wave. "Seventy percent of our forces fall back to the Fae Region," she ordered. Units peeled away at once.
The Longbi captain cupped his hands, voice pitched to false friendliness and actual ire. "We don't want trouble. Hand over the criminals."
Aeloria's stare iced over. "You dared strike at the Fanged Elf clan like prey. You pay for that."
Her aura detonated. Peak Gold-Tier 5 authority rolled over the basin. Air crackled. Sprouts pushed through soil to drink her nature energy; towering trunks leaned under pressure with a shiver like awe.
Her voice took on an archaic undertone as she spoke the words.
"I call upon the world's vitality. Let plants be my shield, trees my sword. Feast upon the blood of my enemies…"
—Fanged Elven Magic: Tree Parasitic Plague—
The ground ruptured. Hundreds of parasitic wooden leeches erupted from the earth, writhing like vipers. They launched as one, drilling into armor seams, crushing with limb-thick coils, latching to veins and drinking vitality.
Panic ignited. Screams. Counter-spells. Retreat orders barked too late.
Within minutes, the line was chaos. Only when the slaughter tilted toward extermination did the allied army finally pull back in earnest.
From afar, Norg arrived to the sight of ruin and withdrew without a word, shifting his course to shadow the seventy percent retreating with Aeloria's column. Seeing that, Aeloria snarled, rallied the remainder, and wheeled to rejoin her main body. As she left, the parasitic plague dissolved into mulch and silence.
Rudecka came on the scene moments later, halting her troops to harvest intel. A captain returned at a run, face set.
"Reports say a cloaked group of eight punched through repeated encirclements from that direction. Rumor claims three were the human children. One confirmed among them is the Fanged Elf Joe-Pine—Peak Silver Tier 5 with force enough to fight a Gold Tier 1. A Gold Tier 1 died in the chase. Injuries and deaths exceed two hundred."
He hesitated, then added, "Two notable details. First, we can almost confirm one human was Silver Tier 4… yet unleashed a strike whose splash damage swept scores, while a peak Gold Tier 1 took the main force—lost half a forearm and bears a deep scar lined with corrosive dark ki."
Rudecka's brows lifted. Startling—but not impossible.
"The other detail: their escape. A massive surge of sword aura wrapped all eight, and they blasted straight through an army formation. The Gold-Tier experts on site couldn't stop them head-on."
Not being able to stop them was one thing. Failing to stop them head-on was another. Rudecka's lips parted, then curved.
"Interesting," she murmured, eyes gleaming. "Very interesting."
She wet her lips, a smile curling, hungry and amused.