The forest roared like a hurricane trapped between trunks.There was no wind, yet the leaves trembled.There was no fire, yet the sap bubbled as if it burned.
Grisela ran through twisted roots, loosing arrows that gleamed with the green light of mana.
"Don't stop!" she shouted, dodging the bite of a crystal wolf that bled purple light. "Hold the formation!"
But they weren't holding it.They couldn't.
Twelve elves had set out that morning.Only eight were still standing.
The attack was no accident.The horde felt something… something that did not belong to the forest.
"For the Mother! They're coming from everywhere!" Lioras shouted as a stag with black antlers charged him.
Grisela spun, fired, and dropped the creature—but another leapt over the corpse.
They were being surrounded.
And the forest was not helping.
That was the true terror.
Many of the ancient trees did not move to shield them as they once had.
Some even seemed to lean against them.
High on a twisted branch, far beyond their sight, Lusian watched.
Arms crossed.
Thunder stood beside him like a living statue of lightning, restless.
"They could hold a little longer," Lusian murmured, without apparent emotion.
Dayana licked her fang, tasting the corruption in the air.
"They will… but not all of them will make it out." She smiled with the indifference of a predator. "Are we going to intervene?"
Emily stared at him in horror.
"Lusian! They're people! They're desperate!"
"They're not people, Emily," he corrected without looking away. "They're elves.And they hate humans almost as much as they hate demons. If we intervene now, they'll turn on us later."
Emily stepped forward, trembling.
"I don't care what they do later! They're dying now! Lusian, please!"
The dark mage did not answer.
Thunder snorted uneasily.
Elizabeth looked toward the elves, the demonic magic within her resonating like a heart pounding against a cage.
"Something… is coming," she warned.
And then they heard it.
A step—slow and heavy—that shook the earth.Another.Another.
The elves froze as the creature emerged between the towering trees.
A titanic stag, six meters tall, its branching antlers like bones scorched by purple lightning.Its skin was made of living bark and shadow.Its eyes… were bottomless pits.
But the worst part was not its form.
It was that it spoke.
"Broken children of the old forest," it thundered, its voice making the sap vibrate within the trees. "Leave… or I will crush you where you stand."
The elves stood paralyzed.
"This is no longer your home," the beast continued, stepping forward as the ground cracked beneath its weight."The Mother Tree has accepted me.You… she cast out."
The words cut into Grisela's skin like blades.
"Lies!" she shouted, drawing her bow. "The forest would never allow a monster like you to claim its heart!"
The stag laughed.
A rotten laugh that turned the light around it into shadow.
"It was not the forest that chose me.
It was him."
Bragoz.
The name, though never spoken outright, echoed like a distant thunderclap.
The creature lowered its head, antlers ready to gore the elves.
"Now… die."
The elves stepped back.
They knew they could not win.
Their eyes trembled.Their legs faltered.
And the entire forest seemed to long to see them fall.