Chapter 234: Hunter

Thank you to my beta reader and editor, GlassThreads!

Toren Daen

I knelt down around a mound of ash, dipping my hand into the remnants of a campfire. I raised the dark substance to my eyes, inspecting it as I rubbed it between my fingers.

Still warm. Barely warm. But this fire had been extinguished barely an hour ago.

The Unseen World blanketed my vision as Aurora's shade scanned the earth, her eyes burning with sheer focus. Eddies of mist swirled around me as I projected my senses outward, pulling and twisting at the ambient mana to give me a sign.

I'd spent the past week and a half or so stalking through the Beast Glades, following specks of familiar mana, the most minute traces of human interaction in the environment, and more. Like a bird of prey, I gradually honed in on the objects of my ire.

It would have been difficult for anyone else to track the Bastards Victorious. They clearly knew the risks themselves, and so went to great pains to cover up their trail wherever they went, even laying many false paths along the way.

But with Aurora's millennia of experience hunting the most dangerous prey in Epheotus and a pinpoint eye on the sky, hints that most would have missed became glaring footprints that led directly to my foe. It was an irritating process considering my own inexperience, but I was learning fast.

And even if the Bastards Victorious were expert survivalists, they weren't practiced in covering their traces. Their methods were brutal and designed to instill terror and fear in their enemies, and that showed even in how they fled. A brutal murder of a mana beast left traces in the ambient mana in a way a simple execution would not. Jagged swipes of weapons across branches and leaves to clear a pathway created easy-to-follow trails if one searched for them. And the signs of half a dozen men moving together–most of them trained to be loud and obnoxious–made it a simpler task than I anticipated.

The Bastards were trying to tone down their vicious natures, but they slipped. I'd slain their leader, and now they struggled to find cohesion and to keep cool heads.

"You are closing in on your prey, Toren," Aurora said sharply as she inspected the pitch in my hands, "but this time, it is different."

The songbird puppet chittered on my shoulder as I looked past the wraith-like form of my bond. Indeed, this time it was different.

Before, the traces I'd needed to follow were often indistinct and hard to spot. Things like the cuts from an axe felling a tree for firewood, bootprints in the mud, signs of brief scuffles with mana beasts, and even the scent of sweat, blood, and piss were distinguishing factors that helped me hone in on my targets. The Bastards seemed to sense that I was getting closer, too. Their efforts at hiding their paths became more and more haphazard. Less carefully planned and more panicked.

The prey had caught the scent of their predator. They knew they were being hunted.

I frowned at the obvious paths in front of me. Seven paths stretched forward, each carved into the dense jungle-like foliage of the deeper recesses of the Beast Glades. It appeared my prey had split up.

Aurora strode over to me as I stared contemplatively at the branching pathways, each beckoning with darkness beyond. There wasn't much light this far below the canopy, and each trail loomed like the opening to a crypt.

Not a crypt for me, though. Only a crypt for those who dared to cross me. Who dared to cross Seris.

"This is their final gambit," the phoenix said knowingly as her glowing eyes scanned the pathways, her pupils banishing the darkness. "They can no longer run from you as a group, so they have decided to separate. To brave the jungle alone."

I flexed my core, and the ash around my fingers burned away to nothing.

I need to choose the correct path, I thought to Aurora, or else I might actually lose them here.

My bond nodded sharply. "It has been relatively simple to trail your quarry so far because they have been working together. Seven fools leave far more traces and mistakes than one, because idiocy compounds. But they also needed the power of their group to effectively brave the dangers of this deep jungle."

Aurora was right about that. This deep into the Beast Glades, it wasn't uncommon to chance across S-class mana beasts. The Bastards–plus Wolfrum–were essentially gambling their lives against the chance of getting ambushed by a natural predator.

Or getting ambushed by me.

But I couldn't let Wolfrum kill himself in these forests. Seris wanted him alive, and an example needed to be set for traitors like his wretched ilk.

"You must think, my son," Aurora said seriously. "Which path has your target taken? Outwardly, the signs are minimal. But think of what you know. Prey have patterns. It is our prerogative to exploit those patterns as hunters."

I felt a bit of repressed anger bubble to the surface of my thoughts as I thought of Wolfrum. The traitor to Seris and threat to all she hoped to accomplish. My fists clenched as my jaw locked, my eyes panning over the paths available.

Wolfrum wanted to live. He wanted to make it back to Alacrya so that he could take all the glory for unseating Seris for himself. But most of all, the traitor wanted recognition. He wanted to be somebody central. Important.

"A pattern to exploit," I sneered, my focus settling on the middle path.

I reined in my mana signature even further as I allowed the ambient mana to carry me aloft. I edged near the canopy as I followed the path, faster and faster now that I'd grown accustomed to it.

And as I did so, I noticed clear differences. My mind was working overtime to pick up patterns, and so even simple things became more obvious.

My eyes trained on a few stalks of decapitated plants as I hovered above them, a rictus grin stretching across my face. The cuts were sloppy and uneven, as if someone struggled to even align their blade properly.

Almost as if they were trying to use their non-dominant hand.

It took less than an hour for me to find my target. A river of running water cut through the forest like the seam of a dress, separating two sides of nature. The water itself was interspersed by jutting boulders and strange plants that looked like massive venus fly traps dripping venom from their spines. Whenever the caustic liquid hit the water, it sizzled with a pop before it was pulled away by the gentle current.

Outwardly, the atmosphere was calm and pleasant. I could almost imagine myself lounging on the banks and watching the sun set, or fishing for an afternoon.

But my heartfire sense told me otherwise. Not far beneath the surface of the otherwise tranquil waters, the heartbeats of predators waited to strip any foolish prey of their flesh.

I could hear all those individual heartbeats, parse and peel them apart. If I let my senses unfocus and expand, I could even feel the lifeforces of the innumerable birds and bees and insects that populated the earth beneath my boots.

But I didn't do that. I didn't need to sense the terrified thumping of my quarry.

I stared across the water, my eyes honing in on a specific boulder a ways out. In the shadows, I could see the entrance to a cave on the side. Aurora's puppet sat on my shoulder, the burning orange eyes focused on the exact same point.

I stepped out onto the water, a single ripple radiating out as my body floated unnaturally over the moving river.

"Wolfrum Redwater," I said as I walked forward at a loping pace, my intent radiating out like a pulsing star, "you've run long enough."

The traitor's intent dripped with terror as the heartfires beneath the water retreated in fear, my effect on the ambient mana clawing at their bones. I weaved around a massive venus flytrap, the stalk shifting as the plant itself tried to inch away.

I finally reached the jutting boulder. I reached an arm outward, calling on my mana. "We have a lot of catching up to do, Wolfrum," I said, savoring the wretch's fear.

Then I called on my telekinetic powers. The boulder–easily many times my size–lifted into the air with casual ease. Water streamed off of it in waves, creating a cascading waterfall for the barest moment. Then the boulder crashed into the river not far away in a spray of white.

Wolfrum Redwater cowered below. He was small and thin from weeks without proper sustenance, and his heartfire reflected his ailments. His mismatched eyes flashed with rabid light as he threw himself at me, his sole hand flailing with a knife.

I allowed the knife to rebound off my telekinetic shroud harmlessly, before I reached out with my regalia once more. Wolfrum's body locked up as the crushing weight of my psychic force consumed him from all sides, an outline of white flaring around him.

It wasn't easy to control people with my telekinetic powers–at least not without their inherent mana trying to fight back. But I was a white core mage, and Wolfrum had been starving in the jungle for weeks.

The traitor's eyes darted around like a rodent's as he clenched his teeth in fear, unable to even shift his jaw or adjust his arms from how my mana held him tight.

His life was in my hands.

I allowed Wolfrum to hover closer to me, unwilling to let him speak. I scrutinized the mangy traitor from head to toe, noting the many cuts and scrapes along his unwashed clothes. There were more than a few deeply infected. Foreign mana–likely from some sort of venomous mana beast–wormed its way through his flesh in small splotches.

It sobered my bloodlust instantly. Wolfrum might have been a traitor, but it wasn't my place to punish him or draw out his suffering.

I sighed slightly, reaching a finger out and engaging my lifeforce. Wolfrum wanted to tremble in fear, but my cold telekinetic grip didn't let him. Only his mismatched eyes traced the pad of my index. Reluctantly, I banished the worst of the mana rot that had infected his legs and arms–something he'd probably been suffering from for a week at least–and stared into his eyes with a grave expression.

"You're going to answer for your crimes, Wolfrum," I said simply. "I won't let you die before that."

I turned, already mentally planning my route back to Burim, when something changed.

I'd been standing on the water for the past minute or so, and the river itself meandered at a cool pace. Not too fast, not too slow.

Except now, it appeared that the water was beginning to speed up. Slowly at first, but then faster. The lifeforces and mana signatures of the mana beasts all around me fled downstream at a breakneck pace, and even the massive Venus flytraps shuddered.

I shifted in my stance as I quested out with my senses, my eyes sharpening. The air felt unnaturally still and silent, the only thing I could hear was Wolfrum's panicked breathing. I slowly rose into the air, knowing I was being watched.

Aurora, I thought, the clockwork bird on my shoulder tense as well, what do you–

And then the river seemed to come alive. Water exploded around me as a cascading lifeforce became suddenly audible, raw and primal intent surging for me. On instinct, I threw Wolfrum's body to the side, aiming for the far bank.

Just in time. Something covered in rocklike carapace and churning with power snapped around me, trying to crush me with the force of an ocean. My vision went dark as massive jaws blocked out the sky, a row of razor-sharp teeth all I could see.

I threw my hands out on instinct, engaging my telekinesis as I fought against the crushing pressure. Water surged in from all sides, the pressure absurd as it tried to crush my protective bubble of mana. I was sending out a constant stream of pushing force that barely rebuffed the wave.

A bead of sweat traced down my jaw as my protections were forced inward, whatever beast this was trying with all its might to make me crumple like an aluminum can at the bottom of the sea.

Foolish monster, I thought with a smirk as my telekinetic sphere slowly collapsed inward, you've bit off far, far more than you can chew.

Already in tune with my thoughts, Aurora prepared herself. Her relic's puppeteered wings scythed with power, and her thoughts were those of disdain. Disdain against whatever mana beast dared to interrupt our hunt.

I pulled the heartfire tether from Aurora's shade, allowing it to latch onto my core. And in an instant, things changed.

My bond's relic glowed like red-hot metal as the shift began, light finally piercing the encompassing darkness of the absurdly compressed water. And then she expanded.

The monster's head exploded in a shower of water and shattered carapace as Aurora's Vessel Form emerged like a butterfly tearing its way from a macabre cocoon. She screeched in triumph, her bronzed wings tearing through what was left of the mana beast's skull.

I flew backward as Aurora surged into the sky, observing the creature that had just tried to swallow me whole in ambush. Its bulky body was partially sticking out of the river–or was the river its body? It was hard to tell, because the entire thing seemed to be made of flowing water.

Intermittent plates of dark, beetle-black carapace as large as I was tall were held in place by joints of solid water, creating a vaguely reptilian appearance as it towered above the river. Several necks of murky water–each thicker than tree trunks and longer than telephone poles–ended in heads of dark-plated armor. Eyes the color of blood stared at me from three twisting necks, the intent of the beast radiating hatred for what I'd done to one of its skulls.

All three heads of the water hydra roared in anger as the neck I'd escaped from gradually dissolved, frills of dark chitin flaring in challenge as it glared at me. I could sense both its intent and heartfire now that it had left the water, but what I heard and felt gave me pause even as I squared off with the S-class mana beast.

"It is a corrupted mana beast," Aurora said grimly as she wheeled back down, her massive body easily as large as the water hydra's, "but why is–"

Aurora's thoughts cut off sharply as something blitzed toward her in a flash of dark electric light, a thunderbolt splitting the cloudless sky as something slammed into her. I felt a surge of adrenaline as I watched a massive avian mana beast tackle the bronze phoenix, sending them both tumbling through the air. I could only make out a crackle of black lightning and dark feathers as they interlaced with Aurora's bronze exterior. Twin cries of furious intensity echoed out in reverberating waves, the scent of a ripping thunderstorm washing over the river.

I didn't even have a second to take this all in, because the earth itself was shaking along the riverbank. It sounded like the stampede of a hundred hooves. A trumpeting roar like a war drum made the earth tremble and shudder, and my attention snapped to where Wolfrum was trying to piteously drag himself away. Several of his bones had been broken from my rough treatment, but it seemed his survival instinct was still intact.

The water hydra must have thought my lapse of attention a weakness, because it was suddenly lunging toward me. The river itself came alive with dark power as it tried to snap me out of the air, but I couldn't afford to give it any attention.

I dipped and weaved around the crushing jaws of the hydra like a dancer, each large enough to swallow me whole. I pirouetted in the sky as the air was displaced by the snapping of angry jaws, rabid red eyes tracing me with fury.

I couldn't afford to give this creature my full attention, because the forest itself was surging toward my prey. Trying to steal my catch.

My boots settled gracefully on the side of one of the dark chitinous heads–which looked like a strange amalgamation of a serpent's jaw and the face of a crab–and then a mindfire stamp erupted from the soles of my boots.

The corrupted water hydra roared in pain as its head whipped to the side, the skull cratering inward in a shower of fire, force, and splintering carapace. I blurred through the air in a streak, aiming for the riverbank.

I appeared beside Wolfrum in a flash, my boots impacting the mud in a squelch. Time seemed to slow as Wolfrum locked terrified eyes with me. I growled, cocking back my leg. A helpful dose of heartfire thrummed along my thighs and calves, before I kicked the traitor hard in the stomach.

I felt his insides crack beneath my assault, but it healed over instantly as my lifeforce washed through his body. He coughed up blood as he tumbled away, splashing through the water as he flew a dozen yards.

Just in time for another corrupted S-class mana beast to emerge from the trees, charging with the force of a runaway train.

I only had a split second to take in its appearance as its thunderous heartfire–thumping in tune with its stampede of legs–thrummed through my ears.

It looked vaguely like a rhinoceros, except it had six stocky legs and was twice the size of a bus. Dark plates of steel covered its entire body as its single horn–larger than any spear–gleamed menacingly, lowered with the intent of goring me through.

Inversion was already in my hand, a shrouded warhammer appearing as I planted my feet. I was supernaturally calm and focused as I funneled mana through my limbs in cascading waves, strengthening them to the point that my muscles began to ache.

I reached an arm out as the living freight train of a mana beast finally reached me, the monster bellowing in fury. As if in slow motion, the back of my palm pressed against the massive spear of a horn, the metallic weapon cutting through my telekinetic shroud even as I pushed it to the side.

In the same movement, I twisted in my stance, shoving the dozen-ton charging beast to the side by its horn. With the aid of my telekinetic regalia and a whirlwind of power, I brought my weapon upward like a spike of rock, sound mana rippling along the head of the crystalline warhammer.

Several things happened at once. Off balance from my subtle and expert redirection of its charge, the charging rhinoceros-like mana beast was unprepared for the strike of my hammer. It crashed against the underside of its massive jaw, sound mana surging through its unbelievably tough skull as a wave of force radiated outward.

Every tree in a dozen-foot radius was flattened from the rippling shockwave as my hammer rang on the beast's absurdly dense head, a sound like a hammer striking a gong reverberating painfully in my ears. The beast's charge was turned into a horrendous crash, its body tumbling and lurching from the catastrophic hammer-blow. I could distantly feel as the sound mana I'd imbued rebounded over and over inside the creature's plated skull, pulping its brain.

It tumbled into the water with a piteous croon, interrupting the water hydra as it was about to snap at my exposed back.

Aurora! I thought sharply, sensing her battle with another corrupted S-class beast in the skies, How are you faring? What is happening on your end?!

I didn't understand how there were corrupted mana beasts this far into the Beast Glades, but I could sense that easily enough from their black-stained heartfire and rictus intent. There was something else wrong with the air, though–something I couldn't quite put my finger on.

"I am well, my son!" Aurora thought back, her words punctuated by a cry and a crash of thunder. "This twinforce thunderbird is no match for me. Be wary of your own battles!"

Why I'd been suddenly ambushed by three corrupted S-class mana beasts–each on the higher end of the power scale–just as I'd been about to catch my prey, I'd have to question later. The cut on my hand healed over as my lifeforce washed away the damage I'd taken from pressing against the rhinoceros' horn.

Now that I gave myself a chance to look at the mana beast–which was kicking its legs in futile death throes, the brain damage I'd given it overcoming its tough hide–I recognized it from some of the manuals I'd read.

A steelhorn rhinoran–one of the very few mana beasts that could even contend with an iron hyrax's defenses. And just from the single exchange, I knew that to be true. I doubted there were many things that could even pierce a hide so tough.

Unfortunately for the beast, I had spells designed explicitly to counter such heavy armor. My hammer hadn't even dented that steel, but that didn't matter when my sound spell turned its brain into mush.

I felt its heartfire go still as it died.

My eyes flicked back to where Wolfrum was lying in the mud, weeping pitifully and clutching at his stomach. The charge of the rhinoran would have flattened the fool, and I had to wonder if that had been intentional.

I blurred to the side with a mindfire stamp as a razor-jet of dark water tried to cut me in two, instead scything through a swath of jungle trees behind me. The water hydra expelled water like the world's deadliest pressure washer as it tried to tear me apart. I snarled as the hydra's beady red eyes tracked me, feeling annoyed by the constant interruptions.

I zipped forward, shrouded wings growing from my back. I barrel-rolled out of the way of another cut of water as the hydra's heads reared up, frills of carapace shivering in challenge.

I blurred past, my wings flaring outward with vibrating energy as they bisected one of the thick necks. Except the moment I passed, the wound–if it could even be counted as one–sealed back over.

It's like trying to cut through water as it flows from a spigot, I thought with annoyance as I punched one of the skulls in the head again, splintering carapace as my knuckles bled. The fourth neck hadn't returned, but I saw a churning of water like a geyser at the base of its water-bound body that made me uncertain.

I needed to end this–and the only way seemed to be to completely destroy each skull. But the monster was annoyingly smart–every time I tried to attack one of its skulls, it jerked out of the way or stalled me with some other tactic.

New tactic, then, I thought with a sneer, reaching out with my telekinetic regalia. All around me, the obliterated remnants of jungle trees raised into the air, spinning and churning. The hydra lunged at me, but I was faster.

A dozen tons of wood smashed into the creature from all sides, toppling it over with a cacophonous crash. Its heads were all forced into place as I thrust out my hands, the claws of my fingers straining as I grit my teeth. The waterlogged wood compressed further against the struggling S-class beast, and any moment I knew it would escape.

I exhaled, then held out a shrouded saber. For a moment, I dipped into my Acquire Phase, the familiar rush of energy and insight bolstering my magic. Suddenly, it wasn't so difficult pinning the massive hydra's heads in place by force of will.

Three feathers shot from my wings, guided by intent and purpose. They buzzed with compressed power of fire and sound as they whizzed through the air like cutting knives, before each sank into the writhing skulls.

And when they exploded, there was nothing left of the carapace skulls. My shoulders slumped slightly as I released my hold, the strange solid-water corpse of the hydra refusing to just return to normal liquid. I wiped a bead of sweat from my brow as I did so, about to let my Beast Will return to the insides of my core.

But then my eyes caught on something. Something dark and shifting that seemed to pervade the entire atmosphere like a fell wind. With my sense for heartfire heightened by this form, I could almost feel the decaying touch of the wind itself in my ears in a way I hadn't before.

Even as the defeated body of the twinforce thunderbird crashed into the jungle and Aurora returned to my side, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

When I'd faced off against these S-class beasts, I hadn't felt fear. S-class mana beasts were something I could handle with relative ease, even if they were boosted by corruption. But the familiar intent in the air—the way it pervaded everything like rancid smoke—brought old memories to the fore.

Memories of looming skyscrapers and fell leviathans. Of walking dead and gray heartfire.

Aurora, I thought seriously, I need you to protect Wolfrum. Now. Watch over him and make sure nothing gets to him.

My bond read my thoughts easily enough. The massive construct of bronze bristled slightly, her burning eyes tracing the air around me. But she knew why I asked her such. Knew the need.

"Be careful, Toren," she said, no small amount of worry in her tone. "I hope you know what you are doing."

Aurora's massive bronze form flew over to where Wolfrum was on the banks, before covering him in a sheltering cocoon of bronze. Her eyes dared any intruder to try.

I could understand why I'd missed this before. I subconsciously filtered out the innumerable lifeforces of the worms beneath my feet; of the tiny creatures and flitting insects and all that would overwhelm my senses if I were not careful. But unlike what I would have expected, the heartfire of my quarry was just like that.

I turned in a slow circle in the air, the corpses of the rhinoran and water hydra suddenly seeming like poisoned daggers–but even so, they were not the greatest threat.

My Acquire Phase burned hot in my veins as I tried to catch another wisp of that elusive darkness, but it was too subtle. Too faint and distant, like a winter breeze that sends chills down your spine.

"Scythe Viessa Vritra," I finally said, enhancing the volume with a bare application of sound magic, "I demand to know why you've assaulted me. Why you have interrupted me and tried to have me killed."

That familiar sense of intent made the back of my throat feel like it was prickled with rot–but that was a sensation I'd experienced before. Way back in the Undead Zone, where cords of intent and grave-still heartfires created an undead legion that sought my soul. And added in the fact that I'd been assaulted by corrupted mana beasts, it wasn't hard to figure out what exactly had happened.

I received no response. The air was deathly silent, but not in a tense way. No, the tension itself was dead. Like an abandoned graveyard that had been left to decay without attention or care.

I pressed outward with my aura, flexing my intent and flaring my power. The red chain along my arm brightened in tune with my agitation. "Can this be considered an act of treason?" I snapped, the water around me churning as droplets raised into the air on eddies of power. "To attack one of Scythe Seris' retinue–"

My words cut off in a stutter as warmth radiated wrongly through my body, and I lurched in the air. I stared in disbelief at my chest, fear and horror cutting through my anger as a blade of dark wind thrust through me. Blood streamed down my clothes in horrible waves, sparkling with scarlet mockery.

I coughed, droplets of blood streaming from my mouth. I tried to call on my heartfire to heal the wound, but it didn't work. It didn't respond. I blinked hazily as I listed to the side, part fearful and part in disbelief. The wound was fatal, and my lifeforce wouldn't respond! Panic began to surge through me as I stared brokenly at where my lungs used to be.

How had…. When had she…

"You know, Toren Daen," an even voice behind me said, "I've always wanted to tear out your heart. It seems I finally have the justification I need."