Vessa's fingers tightened around the hilt of her enchanted sword until the leather creaked.
She took one measured step backward, boots sinking slightly into the disturbed leaf litter. The wall of soldiers in front of her did not flinch or rush ahead. Roughly a hundred of them stood in disciplined ranks, night-work armor dull under the thin moonlight, weapons already drawn and resting at ready angles. None of them moved. That stillness was somehow worse than a charge. A charge at least told you where the violence would begin. This silence only waited, making everyone anxious.
Behind the strike team, the forest offered no real retreat. The monsters had already torn their path through those trees, and the same darkness that hid the wave now hid whatever else might still be moving. The only road that mattered, the one the creatures had taken toward Buena, lay on the far side of Ines's living barrier.
Vessa's mind ran the numbers without emotion.
There were a hundred-plus rested knights in full armor. Her own side: fewer than ten present, maybe fifteen if the other adventurers searching for the primary gate somehow arrived in the next minute.
But even if they came, most of them would've already bled, mana reserves scraped thin, exhausted from the day's non-stop fight with monsters. Forcing a path straight through this living barrage would cost half the team before they even cleared twenty meters. Not to mention, every second spent trading blows here was another second the wave closed on the village wall that needed their aid.
She kept her voice flat.
"So? What's it going to be, Viscountess Ines? You planning on wiping us out with these knights, then securing the dungeon and taking the village? Abducting whatever men are left once the dust settles? Is that the shape of your plan?"
Ines's smile did not widen, but something satisfied moved behind her eyes.
"Hmm. You're sharper than I thought. I thought you were just a muscle-brained girl. Guess being a Vice master of a guild wasn't a fluke. There was more than just muscle in you. And yes! That is the plan, well, more or less the same as you just said."
The confirmation coming straight out of her mouth landed harder than any threat. Doubt had still lingered among the strike team until that moment. Now it was gone. Ines really intended to kill them here. The plan was no longer just a theory.
Ines took another step forward.
Behind her, the entire line of soldiers moved with her, one synchronized pace. The sound of a hundred boots striking the earth at the same instant rolled across the clearing like a low drum. No one shouted. No one raised a weapon higher yet.
Every knight and soldier simply closed the distance by that one measured step, alongside Ines, and the space between the two groups felt suddenly way smaller than it really was.
Vessa's weight shifted, ready to meet whatever came next.
But surprisingly, she never got the chance to form the next thought of engaging.
A hand closed hard on the back of her top and yanked her backward. Vessa got dragged backward, surprising her. It was Rhuvia who dragged her backward. Her grip was stronger than it looked. The guild master dragged her two full steps into the relative cover of the remaining strike team, head already leaning close.
In a fraction of a second, barely a breath of distance away against Vessa's ear, Rhuvia whispered something in her ear. Whatever the words were, they did not carry. Vessa's eyes narrowed once, then she gave just the smallest nod.
Ines watched the exchange with open amusement. To her, nothing could save the strike team from her grasp now. After all, she had pinned them to a stop. Their goal was moving forward, and forward is where she and her soldier were, blocking their way.
"No use whispering behind your people like that, Guild master," she called.
"No planning or clever little tricks will save any of you tonight. It is a shame, truly. But you all will have to die here for the rest of my arrangement to take place. It truly is a pity, but I can't let you live."
She was still speaking when Rhuvia's voice cut across the clearing, louder than anyone expected.
"Everyone, close your eyes."
The order was sharp enough that the strike team obeyed on instinct. Heads turned, eyelids dropped.
Though Ines also heard it, her gaze sharpened, but she did not close her eyes. Neither did the soldiers behind her. Suspicions of a bluff, or of some visual feint, everyone from her side kept every pair of eyes open and fixed on the woman who still stood near the dead magic circle.
Ines started to speak again.
"No use trying anyth..."
Before she finished speaking, the forest exploded with light.
Rhuvia's staff came up in a single fluid motion. Mana poured upward in a concentrated, vertical burst that punched through the canopy like a second sun being born. On top of it, the darkness of the deep night made the effect catastrophic. White-blue radiance flooded every gap between the trees, bounced off armor, and seared into open eyes that had no time to adjust. The brightness was absolute, painful, the kind that left afterimages burned across vision even after the source began to fade.
"What the fuck…?" "What is this trick?"
Shouts rose from Ines's ranks, short, involuntary sounds of people who had just lost the ability to see. Several soldiers staggered. A few dropped to one knee, gauntleted hands pressed to their faces. Ines herself reeled half a step, one arm coming up too late to shield her eyes.
Before anyone from her side could figure out what just happened, the strike team was already moving.
Boots pounded leaf litter in the opposite direction from the soldiers. Bodies that had been exhausted moments earlier found a last reserve of speed.
They ran not toward the blocked path but back into the trees, where the dungeon's gate was first sighted, angling hard to the flanks, using the temporary blindness as the only window they would get.
Branches snapped. Someone cursed under their breath as a root caught a boot. But none of them slowed down.
By the time the worst of the glare began to fade and watering eyes started to open again, the clearing in front of Ines was empty of everyone except one figure.
Rhuvia still stood where she had been, staff planted lightly against the ground, the last threads of the blinding burst dissipating around her like smoke. Her expression was calm. Almost relaxed.
Ines blinked hard, vision swimming with violet spots. When it cleared enough to focus, the absence of the rest of the strike team registered in her eyes at once. She turned her head left, then right, scanning the tree line.
There was nothing. Only the fading echoes of running feet already too far and too scattered to track cleanly in the dark forest.
She looked back at the woman who had stayed behind.
"Well," Ines said, voice thinner than before. "That was a foolish thing to do. Sacrificing yourself for those dimwits? No problem for me. I have predicted such moves beforehand. They will not get far circling through the forest in this darkness, with my people already spread through these trees."
Rhuvia's mouth curved into a small, genuine smile.
"Who knows whether it was a foolish thing to do or not," she answered in a calm voice. "Guess we will see, after I have fully unleashed myself, won't we?"
Ines stared at her in confusion.
The words did not immediately make sense to her. The guild master was strong, strong enough to intercept an arrow mid-flight and strong enough to throw that much raw light into the night; she knew that. Though she couldn't get much info about her in this short amount of time before planning this attack, still, by her calculation, Rhuvia shouldn't be stronger than a tier 3 or tier 4 mage.
But now, seeing her calm state and the way she was speaking, it carried a different weight. Something closer to confidence in oneself than desperation.
Rhuvia rolled one shoulder, as if working out a stiffness that had been held in check for too long. The residual mana around her staff thickened, no longer the careful, contained flow of someone fighting beside allies. It began to gather with the quiet confidence of a mage who no longer needed to worry about collateral damage to her own side.
Ines's earlier certainty wavered for the first time upon seeing Rhuvia's facial expression.
She still did not understand exactly what stood in front of her.
She only knew the rest of the strike team was gone, the path to the village was still hers to control, and the woman who had chosen to remain did not look like someone preparing to die.