As they advanced, the forests grew denser… and far more dangerous.
The creatures did not attack them directly.They stalked them.
Shadows shifting between the trunks.Howls that did not belong to any natural beast.Glowing eyes watching from the treetops.
The civilians pressed close together in fear.Children cried quietly.Priests raised flickering barriers of light.
Leonardo spoke aloud, his voice edged with concern.
"At this pace… it'll take us weeks to reach the capital."
Kara, carrying a massive boulder she had used minutes earlier to crush a mutated goblinoid creature, replied:
"And every day we lose… someone else dies."
Emily added, glancing toward Lusian and Elizabeth at the front of the column:
"We can't lose sight of the objective. The capital needs us."
But Alejandro, his eyes fixed on Lusian's back, muttered darkly:
"Someone here has other objectives."
The camp that night was quiet.
Too quiet.
Lusian sensed it before anyone else. The darkness moved around him—warm, familiar… and disturbed.
Something is agitating it, he thought.
Thunder dozed standing upright, but the lightning along his mane crackled with unease. Umber, meanwhile, stared into the forest, motionless like a statue of shadow and muscle.
Lusian stepped out of his tent with calm deliberation. As he did, the darkness folded around his body, wrapping him in an almost invisible mantle. His Epsilon affinity turned the night into his absolute domain.
The soldiers held disciplined watch.The civilians tried to sleep.
The heroes… behaved as though nothing in the world could touch them.
Until the darkness broke.
A growl tore through the night.
Three red eyes appeared in the forest.Then six.Then dozens.
Deformed creatures—part wolf, part insect, part human… corrupted beasts.
They were Mana Trackers: scavengers that smelled despair and fed on it.
The heroes leapt into battle without any plan.
Alejandro hurled fire in every direction, ignoring allies and civilians alike.
Leonardo unleashed bolts of lightning that blinded half a line of soldiers and scattered nearby civilians.
Kara charged forward screaming without waiting for orders.
Emily raised a barrier of light so intense that even the soldiers' shields seemed useless against its blinding radiance.
Absolute chaos.
Civilians ran in panic.Soldiers struggled to restore order.Priests shouted disjointed prayers, as if fear alone might summon miracles.
And Lusian…
…disappeared.
The air grew colder.Even the moon seemed to dim.
Lusian dissolved into the shadows using Shadow Specter, his signature spell—a veil of darkness that erased sound and rendered his movements imperceptible.
The creatures never saw him coming.
He appeared behind the first one, driving a blade of shadow through its skull.
Then he vanished into smoke.
He reappeared on the far side of the camp, cutting three throats in a single motion.
To everyone else…
there were only flashes of violet lightand bodies falling.
The soldiers, confused, struggled to reorganize while Umber and Thunder guarded Elizabeth with supernatural ferocity.
Elizabeth watched everything.
She knew when a warrior lied with their strength.
Lusian did not.
Lusian was real.
And that made her feel proud.
When the first wave collapsed, Lusian emerged from the shadows behind the soldiers.
"Compact formation!" he ordered. "Two lines. Shields up. Civilians behind. Move!"
The soldiers obeyed without hesitation.The civilians followed his voice like a refuge.
From a distance, Emily watched him, jaw tightening.
"He thinks he can command here," she whispered.
Alejandro snarled.
"He's a miserable bastard. Pretending to be a hero."
But Leonardo, for the first time, hesitated.
"That… doesn't look like tricks," he said, swallowing hard. "Or mid-tier magic."
The Mana Trackers reorganized.
Their leader—an alpha covered in black bone plates—emerged from the forest, roaring with a sound that did not belong to any living creature.
The beasts charged again.
"Hold the line!" Lusian shouted.
Darkness flowed from his hands into the ground, forming circles of shadow that trapped legs and reduced mobility, disorienting the Trackers without touching a single civilian.
It was surgical magic.
Precise.Relentless.
Unlike fire, light, or lightning, it did not endanger the innocent.
The soldiers counterattacked.Priests reinforced their barriers.Civilians retreated under clear orders.
And the alpha…
charged straight toward Elizabeth.
Umber intercepted it.
Thunder struck with a lightning blast that forced it back.
But it wasn't enough.
Until Lusian appeared before the princess, emerging like a specter from the very air.
The alpha leapt.
And Lusian murmured:
"Absolute Darkness."
A violet flash.
A perfect cut.
The creature fell in two.
The camp breathed exhaustion.
Corpses were piled together.Children cried.Soldiers trembled.
Elizabeth sat beside a brazier.
Emily approached her, the light within her still flickering.
"Well, dear princess," Emily said with a cold smile. "I think we need to talk."
Elizabeth didn't look at her.
"No. There's nothing to talk about."
Emily leaned slightly closer.
"Tell me, Princess… how much of him is actually yours?"
Elizabeth's eyes narrowed.
Without turning, she answered with unsettling calm.
"All of him belongs to me. Even if fate denies it. Even if he can no longer see it."
Then she finally looked at her.
"And you… have become very brave."
Emily's jaw tightened.
"He's my fiancé. We swore an oath."
Elizabeth smiled.
But it was a sad smile.
"So you believe. I've heard oaths can be broken these days… several people have already done it, haven't they?"
Emily stepped back, anger flaring.
"I will not break my oath."
Elizabeth rose slowly.
Each word was a sharpened whisper.
"He is mine. I will be his wife. No matter what you keep doing…"
She lifted her chin, like someone affirming destiny.
Then, without taking her eyes off Emily, she dropped the final words like a dagger.
"Tell me… why were you screaming so loudly last night?
Was it to provoke me…
or to convince yourself?"
Emily recoiled as if struck.
The conversation ended there.
There was no victor.
Only two women bound by one man…and divided by a destiny neither of them yet understands.