Chapter 53: A Trap in the Mist

Two family retainers stood at his side, broad shouldered youths from the families’ branch who had enrolled in the academy as his personal bodyguards.

One of the youths, a broad shouldered young man named Marko, walked up and pulled a small, flat brass tin from his belt wrapped in dark clothing.

"Young master," the youth whispered, making sure there were no military surveillance drones in the air circling overhead. "It’s ready."

Eric grabbed the small brass tin from his hand.

Opening the brass clasp with a flick of his thumb, Eric peered into the tin.

Inside the small container a fine crimson powder glowed faintly in the filtered sunlight. A pungent metallic scent filled his nose, a scent of copper rot and iron root.

Crimson Beast-attracting powder.

A distilled and highly illicit chemical compound derived from the scent glands of enraged Stage 3 Iron-maned boars.

While to humans the scent was nothing more than a faint trace of metal that quickly dissipated in the open air, to the predators of the Thousand Mountain Forest it was the most powerful beacon they could imagine.

Any beast within a radius of two miles that caught even a trace of it would have their primal senses overwhelmed, completely enthralled by the scent and driven into a berserker rage.

"Is the scent concentrated?" Eric asked as he closed the brass tin with a soft click.

"Extremely."

A dark smile played on Marko’s lips.

"We had it smuggled in with the supply crates this morning. If a trace of it gets on his robe or his boots, every First-order beast in Zone 1 will be able to follow his scent trail."

Marko leaned in closer, lowering his voice.

"They’ll ignore any other prey and hunt him down to the very last shred of bone."

Eric let out a cruelly twisted smile.

"Good. Very good," he whispered, his eyes gleaming with malicious delight. "I won’t have to waste my strength on the boy after all. No need to risk getting a penalty from the instructors."

Eric tucked the brass tin into his inner pocket before gesturing to Marko.

"When we get to the Zone 1 staging corridor, create a bit of a fuss. Get close enough to sprinkle some of the powder on the hem of his combat jacket."

"Understood, young master."

Marko nodded, a dark smile playing on his lips.

"By noon today, the beasts will have him nothing more than a pile of bones. When the search parties find his watch, they’ll conclude some arrogant fool wandered off into the woods alone and managed to be gobbled up by a hunting pack."

"Let’s go."

Eric stepped into line, his sneer twisting into a particularly cruel expression.

"Let’s give our genius commoner his send off."

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

The great bronze bell set up on the military control tower rang three great rings.

The sound echoed across the staging grounds, stilling the murmuring of the student body for a few brief seconds.

Then the loudspeakers on either end of the tower crackled to life.

"All gates are unlocked! Please report to your designated zones immediately!"

A pause.

"The Seventy-two hour Thousand Mountain Forest trial..."

The announcement roared out across the expanse of the staging grounds.

"...has begun!"

With a great grinding of metal, the great steel gates groaned open on either end simultaneously.

For a brief second, the student body stood in stunned silence.

Then the murmuring of the students swelled into a great cacophony as hundreds of students surged forward in great waves, weapons already drawn, battle squads forming and bickering with one another as they rushed towards their designated entrance corridors.

Past the great steel gates the black forest stretched out before them.

One by one the students vanished beyond the line of steel gates, swallowed up by the great emerald sea of the Thousand Mountain Forest.

Lucian was swept along with the great tide of Zone 1 students as they all marched through the reinforced archway, past the great boulders that marked the Zone 1 boundary, and onto the thick moss covered forest floor.

Already the great thick fog was rolling in, muffling the sounds of the great student body.

Within minutes the mass of students had broken up into smaller groups, the great forest swallowing up the hushed murmuring of the young men and women.

Around him students drew their weapons, barking orders to one another, double checking their map coordinates, rushing to establish their battle positions.

Lucian did none of these things.

His movements slowed as he neared an ancient pine tree, a massive trunk thick with moss.

He paused, tilting his head downwards.

The great forest was misty and cold, the scent of pine needles thick in the air. Somewhere off in the distance leaves rustled and birds scattered from the tops of ancient trees.

Ordinary forest sounds.

Save for the faint prickling at the back of his neck.

It was never the mountain winds that gave him this sensation.

Lucian narrowed his eyes.

Threads of invisible pressure brushed against his skin, slipping past his limbs in three directions at the edge of his vision.

Not beasts.

Lucian’s irises gleamed with an almost imperceptible silver hue.

Beasts moved on instinct, heavy breathing and unbridled aggression. This was different.

Suppressed Energy, a carefully restrained aura of shadowing.

He did not turn around.

Lucian simply flexed his fingers once.

Refined spatial energy rippled from his meridians, flowing effortlessly with his will.

A faint smile curled on his lips.

"So much for the academy’s peaceful little forest trial."

Lucian exhaled, his words no more than a whisper.

The young man took another step forward, vanishing into the great emerald fog.

Somewhere behind him, shapes shifted between the trees.

Lucian did not look back. The great trial had officially begun.

---

The deployment of the young warriors across Zone 1 was executed with military precision.

Every three-hundred yards an armored transport skiff came sailing through the great fog bank, hovering over a designated landing zone just long enough to deposit any solo hunters and small squads before vanishing back into the fog.

Lucian stood in the very heart of Sector 1-C.

The young man stood in the center of a great basin of damp forest surrounded by great stone monoliths that were draped in thick moss.

Above the treetops the distant hum of three military surveillance drones could be heard, the great mechanical insects circling slowly above the forest canopy.

Their red sensor lenses swept back and forth, sending out a steady stream of reinforced tactical imagery to the command skiff hovering above the base camp.

The great forest around Lucian was anything but silent.

Far in the distance the young man could hear the sounds of great battles being waged.

The clang of steel on bone, bursts of elemental Energy streaking through the trees, and the occasional terrified shout of students facing their first First-order beasts.

Lucian did not draw his weapon, instead loosening the buckles on his leather arm guards and taking a deep breath.

The air was damp, the scent of blood thick in the air.

Lucian’s refined spiritual senses spread outwards in a great fan-like shape.

Three-hundred meters...

Every tree, every rock, every movement in the underbrush formed a single, cohesive image in his mind.

He could feel the sluggish pulses of beast cores embedded deep in the roots of the underbrush.

Sloppy, erratic... the work of low class beasts with no more discipline than instinct.

Nothing unusual.

Rustle.

Something shifted in the underbrush behind him.

Lucian kept his gaze forward.

Two figures emerged from the great fog bank, their blue and grey combat uniforms marking them as students of Silverwood’s Second Academy.

Marko.

And another broad shouldered youth who stood at his side.

Eric’s retainers.

The two young men moved with labored steps, their breaths coming in great huffs as they emerged from the fog bank. Already their swords were drawn, the steel blades slick with the green blood of slain beasts.

Marko spotted Lucian and let out a great smile, though his eyes betrayed the jovial expression.

"Lucian!"

He called out, raising a hand in greeting.

"Man, it’s thick out here. We found your drop point and thought we’d say hello."

His gaze swept over Lucian’s empty hands before settling on the young man’s face.

"You planning on running this entire sector solo?"