Almost an hour had passed since the strike team scattered into the black heart of Gaiya forest.
The mana bulbs clipped to belts and the soft floating orbs of light created only fragile islands of visibility. Beyond those pale circles, the forest pressed in like a living thing. Trunks rose taller and more twisted than they had under daylight. Branches locked together overhead until the sky itself disappeared.
Every distant crack of wood or rustle of leaves set the teeth of everyone on edge. The earlier hope of quickly finding a second entrance had already begun to fade under the weight of exhaustion and the night's creepy silence.
Then suddenly, shocking everything, a scream tore through the dark.
"AHHHhhhhh...."
It was high, raw, and cut off with brutal suddenness, as if a hand, or something worse, had clamped over the mouth mid-cry. For one long heartbeat the entire forest seemed to freeze. Even the night insects went quiet.
Maya stopped walking and stood silent. Her fingers locked around the shaft of her spear hard enough that the wood creaked. The wound in her leg still burned with every step, but the bleeding had stopped, and the limb held her weight. But now, after hearing his heart-stopping scream, the puny pain of hers was secondary now.
"That was one of ours," she said, voice low and tight. "Moyna."
Drosha's head snapped toward the direction of the cry. The big woman did not bother asking for confirmation. "It is close to us. Let's move."
They started running with every strength they could gather in their body.
Branches whipped across faces and arms. Roots tried to snare their boots. Soft earth sucked at every stride. Maya's shorter, careful steps could not match Drosha's longer reach, yet she refused to fall behind. The fading echo of the scream pulled them forward. Their lights bobbed wildly, throwing frantic shadows across the undergrowth as they forced a path through the densest growth they had faced all night.
They broke into the clearing at a near sprint.
And when they reached the supposed source of the sound they'd heard, the scene that met them was already half-written in blood.
A Fiora hunter lay crumpled near the edge of the open space. Her face was the color of ash. One leg ended in a clean, brutal stump just below the knee. Dark blood had already spread in a wide, shining pool beneath her.
And a few paces away crouched a creature that looked as if the forest itself had decided to craft something deliberately wrong in its creation.
Thick, knotted muscle shifted under a hide the color of old bruises. Too many joints bent in its limbs. Its low-slung body seemed built for dragging prey into places light never reached. Flat, hungry eyes reflected the glow of Rhuvia's remaining mana as the monster's jaws worked with wet, deliberate sounds over the severed limb.
And there was Rhuvia, who stood between the creature and the rest of the clearing.
Her one hand was extended, as short, sharp bursts of compressed force slammed into the monster's side and shoulder in rapid succession. Each impact rocked the heavy body a fraction, knocking loose small chips of scale and flesh, but the creature barely seemed to register the attacks. It continued feeding with the casual indifference of something that knew nothing in this clearing could truly hurt it.
And behind its bulk, violet light pulsed steadily against the ground.
Maya's gaze locked first on the downed hunter, then on the monster, then on Rhuvia's strained face, who was barely holding the creature at its place.
"What are you doing?!" The words tore out of her, sharp with horror and frustration. "Use your stronger wind magic! Cut that thing apart before she bleeds out completely!"
Even though she heard someone from behind, Rhuvia did not turn. Another force blast left her palm and struck the creature's shoulder with a dull, ineffective Thud.
"I can't," she snarled through gritted teeth. "Look behind it."
Maya's eyes snapped past the monster's bulk.
A wide circle of glowing runes occupied the far side of the clearing, roughly three meters across. The lines were thick, complex, and alive with a sickly violet light that pulsed in a slow, steady rhythm. From the center of that circle, small shapes continuously formed, first as vague outlines of light and shadow, then solidifying into the same dog-sized dinosaur-creatures they had been killing all day. One after another, they dropped fully into existence and immediately scurried away into the trees, ignoring the battle as if the large creature or Rhuvia did not exist in front of it.
Maya's stomach clenched. "Huh? I don't understand. What does that circle have to do with using stronger magic?"
Vessa arrived a heartbeat later, emerging from the darkness on Maya's left with two adventurers close behind. She took in the entire scene in a single, cold sweep: the bleeding hunter, the feeding monster, the active circle. She answered before Rhuvia could speak again, having heard the end of Maya's question.
"Don't you see? Because if she puts real power into a blast this close to an active circle of that size," Vessa said, voice flat and precise, "one or two things will happen for sure. Either the circle detonates. Given that it is clearly linked to a great dungeon and already stable enough to push out continuous spawns, that detonation would not be small. Or…"
"Or it absorbs my mana," Rhuvia finished, anger and exhaustion sharpening every syllable. She fired another small blast that barely rocked the creature. "It will drink whatever I throw at it and grow. Possibly link itself with deeper floors, too. It might even open access to floors we are not ready for at this moment. Do you want to risk either of those right now?"
Maya had no answer. The truth of it sat bitter on her tongue.
Drosha's voice came from behind them, rough with urgency. "Then what? If we can't hit it hard with magic and we can't get close, too, while it's still chewing on her leg, what the hell do we do? Don't you see she's going to die if this keeps up?!"
Vessa's eyes never left the monster. "And who said we can't engage it?"
Drosha stared. "Look at the size of that thing. You planning to tickle it to death with that little knife of yours?"
Even though Drosha was mid-talking, Vessa did not waste breath on a reply.
Her hand dropped to the unremarkable short blade at her waist. The moment her fingers closed around the hilt, soft blue runes flared along the spine. The metal shimmered, lengthened, and widened in a single fluid motion until she held a full longsword of gleaming steel.
The balance of the longsword looked perfect. And the edge of it already looked hungry to eat the flesh of this large creature.
She moved like a blur.
The first step carried her in a low, accelerating arc around the creature's right flank. Her long legs covered the ground with deceptive grace. Boots barely seemed to disturb the leaf litter under her. The monster's head snapped up from its meal, jaws still wet and dark, and swung toward her with shocking speed.
But Vessa was already gone. She slid past the sweeping bite so closely that the tip of a fang scraped the edge of her cloak and left a thin tear in the fabric.
Her sword flashed once.
The cut landed high on the creature's shoulder, deep enough to part scale and thick muscle. Dark blood welled and ran.
"CREAekkkkkkk...Gruoaahhhhh….."
The monster roared, a wet, grinding sound that vibrated in the chest, and lunged. Vessa pivoted on the ball of one foot, body leaning almost horizontal as the jaws snapped shut on empty air. The return slash opened a long, clean line across its ribs.
While Vessa was slashing away, Rhuvia kept the pressure from the front without pause. Small force blasts slammed into the creature's face and chest whenever it tried to fully commit to Vessa. The impacts were not strong enough to cripple, but they disrupted balance and timing, forcing the monster to divide its attention between the dancing bladeswoman and the mage who refused to let it focus.
Vessa used every opening as if she had been born for this exact fight.
She circled without ever stopping, always just outside the reach of those heavy claws and teeth. When the monster lunged, she flowed aside and answered with a precise cut to a joint or tendon. When it tried to turn and charge her directly, she met the rush with a sliding sidestep and a rising slash that opened the softer flesh under its jaw just enough to make it hesitate.
All while running and fighting, her breathing stayed controlled. Her face remained calm. The longsword moved as an extension of her own body, the enchanted edge drinking blood without resistance.
On its last stage, the creature grew angrier, more reckless. Its attacks became wider and heavier. Each miss left it a fraction slower, a fraction clumsier.
All while Vessa's cuts accumulated with merciless patience: shoulder, ribs, the thick muscle of a hind leg, the hinge of a jaw. With each cut she made, the blood coming out of it painted the ground in dark, spreading arcs. Losing most of its blood, the monster's movements turned labored.
Rhuvia's small blasts never ceased. Every time the creature tried to lock its full attention on Vessa, another sharp impact rocked its head or shoulder, buying the swordsman another half-second of opening, another clean angle of attack.
Maya and Drosha could only watch, weapons ready, unable to safely enter the spinning lethal dance without fouling Vessa's path or drawing a retaliatory strike that might cost the wounded hunter her last remaining chance.
And after keeping this pace for about a minute or two, at last the monster's front legs buckled.
It dropped to its knees with a heavy, wet thud, head hanging low, breath coming in ragged, bloody pulls that sprayed dark droplets across the leaves.
Seeing her chance, Vessa did not hesitate. She stepped in, longsword rising in a clean, two-handed arc aimed directly at the thick neck.
The blade began its final, shining descent.