They reached the local Association branch. It was a modest, two-story wooden building.
Kaelen, Thorne, and a few other senior veterans stepped into the back office. Lumina and Celia stayed out in the main hall with the rest of the team.
The branch manager gestured to a large wooden table. Resting in the center was a huge, incredibly dusty book bound in cracked leather.
"This is the Voragale Archive," the branch manager said, his voice dropping to a grim whisper. He carefully flipped the heavy, yellowed pages.
He stopped near the middle of the book and pointed a shaking finger at a faded, terrifying illustration.
"The Calamity-Class Miasma-Titan," Kaelen read the header, his thick eyebrows knitting together.
"The border scouts found it three months ago," the branch manager explained as he leaned against the table. "Deep in the center of the Murkwater Swamp, about a day's ride from the eastern gate."
Thorne leaned over the book. He frowned. "Three months? A Calamity class? If a Miasma-Titan has been sitting in your swamp for ninety days, why does this city still exist? It should have marched out and melted this entire Principality into a toxic puddle by week two."
"It is the gestation cycle," the local knight commander spoke up from the corner of the room. He stepped forward, his face deeply lined with stress. "The Archive documents a case from two thousand years ago. The Titan doesn't attack immediately. It roots itself deep into the earth, directly over a subterranean Mana vein. It acts as a big, biological sponge."
The commander pointed at the drawing. It showed a towering, grotesque monster composed of rotting wood, hardened sludge, and toxic vines.
"For about three months, it sleeps," the commander continued. "It filters the highly acidic, poisonous sludge of the swamp directly into its own body. It uses the poison to calcify its outer skin, building an impenetrable shell of hardened, toxic armor. It is basically a giant, pulsing cocoon."
Kaelen crossed his arms. The math clicked in his head.
"And the three months are almost up," Kaelen realized, his blood running cold.
"It is only a matter of time," the branch manager whispered as he closed his eyes in despair. "Maybe two days. Maybe four. But when that cocoon breaks, the Titan will wake up fully armored. It will march. Our local knight order and the Adventurers here cannot fight it. I sent a party of our best Level 3s to the edge of the swamp just to scout it last week. The passive toxic fog hanging in the air rusted their iron armor to dust in just hours. They barely made it back alive."
Thorne let out a slow, steady breath and looked at Kaelen.
This was not a standard hunt. This was a brutal, grueling war of attrition. They had to march into a highly toxic environment, break through an impenetrable shell of calcified poison, and survive long enough to shatter the core before their own lungs melted from the inside out.
"We need a strict rotation," Kaelen said as he slipped instantly into tactical mode. "Two teams will cycle their Auras every six hours. We can't afford to burn our Mana out on day one. Thorne, ration the potions. We have enough supplies for fifteen days. If we don't crack the shell by day fifteen, we die."
"Understood," Thorne nodded.
"We will give you exactly three days to rest," the branch manager offered pleadingly. "Please. Eat our food. Sleep in the soft beds. Let your bodies recover from the travel. You will need every ounce of strength for the swamp."
Kaelen nodded. "Three days. Then we march."
The next morning, the sun rose over the quiet city of Voragale.
But outside The Golden Boar inn, it wasn't quiet at all.
Hundreds of local Adventurers were gathered on the street. They were not making a riot. They were just standing there and shifting nervously on their feet while staring at the heavy wooden doors of the inn.
Most of them were young teenagers wearing cheap leather vests and carrying rusted iron swords. They were Level 1 rookies who spent their entire short careers hunting wild dogs and picking medicinal herbs in the safe woods.
They came because they wanted to see the heroes.
The wooden doors of the inn finally opened.
Kaelen stepped out while holding a cup of hot coffee. He was not wearing his heavy armor. He wore a simple linen shirt and loose trousers.
The crowd of rookies collectively gasped. They stared at the big scars running up Kaelen's thick forearms. They whispered to each other in furious, excited tones.
"Look at the size of his arms!" a young boy with a wooden shield whispered loudly. "I heard he strangled a minotaur with his bare hands!"
Kaelen chuckled into his cup of coffee and leaned against the wooden railing of the inn's porch, completely relaxed.
Thorne walked out a moment later, carrying a fresh apple. He bit into it, looking at the massive crowd. "We really are celebrities here, Kaelen."
"Let them stare," Kaelen smiled. "It gives them hope."
The heavy doors opened again.
Celia Oakheart stepped out into the morning sun. Her blonde hair caught the light perfectly. She wore her pristine white healer robes.
The crowd of rookies instantly quieted down.
An elf.
They had never seen an elf before. She looked incredibly fragile, beautiful, and completely out of place in a brutal Adventurer's profession.
A little girl, maybe seven years old, was running down the street chasing a stray dog. She was not paying attention to the crowd. Her foot caught on a protruding cobblestone.
She tripped and slammed hard onto the ground.
"Ow!" the little girl cried as she clutched her scraped knee. Blood welled up on the skin.
Without hesitation, Celia smiled gently and stepped off the wooden porch. The crowd of rookies instinctively parted for her, giving her a wide, respectful berth.
Celia knelt in the dirt next to the crying girl. She placed her slender hand gently over the scraped knee.
A soft, warm green light pulsed from her palm.
The little girl sniffled and looked down. The blood was completely gone, and the skin was flawless.
"Be careful when you run," Celia said softly as she patted the girl on the head.
The little girl's eyes went wide. "Thank you, pretty lady!"
She scrambled up and ran back to her mother in the crowd.
The local rookies stared in absolute awe. Silent casting. Perfect tissue regeneration in less than a second.
Up on the porch, Kaelen took a sip of his coffee. He watched the blonde elf walk back up the steps, but her gentle smile stayed fixed on her face.
"She is polite," Kaelen noted as he leaned toward Thorne. "A standard backline Healer. Good control over her output. She will be useful for patching the minor burns."
Thorne nodded while chewing his apple. "Yeah. It's hard to believe she is an elf. She seems incredibly kind. We will have to keep her in the center of the formation. If a swamp monster gets past the shields, she won't survive a single hit with that fragile frame."
The inn door creaked open one more time.
Lumina Frost walked out. She wore her dark traveling cloak.
She completely ignored the massive crowd of staring rookies. She did not wave or smile. She walked straight down the wooden steps and headed directly toward a nearby food stall grilling spiced meat skewers.
She slapped copper coins onto the wooden counter. The vendor, sweating nervously, quickly handed her three large skewers.
Lumina took them and stood near the edge of the street, taking a big bite of the meat.
She chewed slowly. Her face was completely blank. It was entirely emotionless. She stared straight ahead at a blank stone wall while she ate. She did not look at the meat or the crowd while she chewed.
Kaelen crossed his big arms. He watched the black-haired Mage effortlessly demolish the three skewers without a single change in her facial expression.
"Look at her," Kaelen said, slightly amused. "She's just a quiet brat enjoying the local snacks. She doesn't even care that hundreds of people are staring at her."
Thorne chuckled as he tossed his apple core into a nearby barrel. "The Capital rumors always exaggerate. They call her the Calamity Child. They say she drops nukes. But look at her. She is just a hungry kid. Feeble Soul is a famous party, sure, but they probably just rely on Thousand Strings to do all the actual heavy lifting."
"Exactly," Kaelen agreed, rolling his broad shoulders. "They are prodigies, maybe. But they lack the grit. When the swamp gas hits on day five, and the exhaustion sets in, they will panic. We will have to protect them."
For the next three days, Voragale treated the raid team like royalty.
The local taverns refused to accept their coins. The blacksmiths sharpened their heavy broadswords for free. The citizens offered them fresh fruit and warm bread whenever they walked down the street.
It was a slow life in Voragale. The Adventurers slept in the soft feather beds. They drank clean water. They let the deep, aching exhaustion of the carriage ride slowly wash out of their bones.
Celia spent her time sitting in the inn's courtyard, quietly reading a book and occasionally healing the minor scrapes of the local children who sneaked in to see her.
Lumina spent her entire three days doing exactly one thing: visiting every single food stall in the city. She ate roasted boar, sweet pastries, and spicy noodles. And every time she ate, she maintained that same terrifyingly blank stare.
The veterans relaxed. The tension in their shoulders faded. They completely bought into the illusion that this was just a normal team of humans preparing for a hard fight.
Then, the three days ended.
The morning of the battle arrived.
The sun had barely crested the eastern mountains. The air was crisp and painfully cold.
Inside The Golden Boar, twenty-five adventurers packed their gear. There was no laughing. There was no casual banter.
The relaxed atmosphere of the last three days entirely vanished, replaced by the heavy, suffocating weight of impending war.
Kaelen strapped the big iron shield to his back. He tightened the leather braces on his forearms and checked the edge of his broadsword.
Thorne secured the heavy pouches of the potions. He ran a polishing cloth over the crystal embedded in his wooden staff.
They walked out of the inn.
The entire city of Voragale was waiting for them.
Thousands of citizens lined the streets. They were completely silent.
As Kaelen stepped down from the wooden porch, the knight commander drew his iron sword.
The sound of steel ringing in the cold air echoed down the street.
Every single knight in the city drew their blade. In perfect, flawless unison, they flipped the swords downward, planting the tips into the dirt, and bowed their heads deeply.
The rookie Adventurers standing behind the knights raised their cheap wooden shields and rusted swords high into the air.
"Bring us victory!" a young rookie screamed at the top of his lungs, his voice cracking with heavy emotion.
The silence shattered. The entire city erupted into deafening cheers. Children threw handfuls of crushed flower petals into the air. Women wept, clutching their hands to their chests. Men shouted praises, their voices echoing off the stone walls.
It was a true hero's welcome. It was the desperate, burning hope of a Principality facing complete annihilation.
Without smiling, Kaelen nodded slowly to the knight commander.
He looked back at his team.
Thorne gripped his staff tight. The other twenty-three Adventurers from the Capital secured their weapons and staves.
Celia Oakheart stood near the middle of the pack. She offered a gentle, polite wave to a crying woman in the crowd.
Lumina Frost stood beside her. She pulled the dark hood of her traveling cloak up over her black hair. She stared blankly down the street, completely ignoring the falling flower petals and the screaming crowd.
"Form up!" Kaelen roared, his voice cutting through the cheers. "We march!"
The twenty-five Adventurers turned entirely away from the safety of the city. Their heavy boots struck the paved stones in a rhythmic, terrifying march.
They walked directly toward the massive eastern gates. They walked out into the morning mist, leaving the cheers behind, heading straight into the suffocating, toxic depths of the Murkwater Swamp.