Chapter 56: The Cult Seals the Forest

Standing on the charred branch of an aged pine fifteen feet above the scorched ravine, Evelyn Vance let her blade fall effortlessly.

Not a single particle of dust, blood, or dirt stained her dark blue combat uniform.

The thin-bladed rapier of high-grade celestial steel still retained wisps of pale blue lightning which danced briefly up the length of the weapon before fading out as she returned the weapon to its sheath with a soft metallic click.

The silvery ribbon which kept her hair in place fluttered lazily in the rising hot wind at the bottom of the ravine.

Her slate-grey wrist unit beeped.

[ Target Cleared: First-Order Stage 4 Beast - Iron-Claw Bear ]

[ Verification Token Received ]

The digital interface promptly updated her score on the live trial network.

Miles above the basecamp on the floating military skiffs, the latest leaderboards for the aerial combat sports were projected onto massive digital screens.

At the very top of the list was a single name.

[ RANK #1: Evelyn Sterling ]

The bright golden letters floated above the other names in golden lettering.

Evelyn stood alone in the middle of the scorched ravine.

The massive Iron-Claw Bear which she just felled twitched several meters away.

Its iron-plated hide still retaining the residual heat from the combat.

She did not draw her rapier.

She did not need to.

A single strike had cleaved right through the creature’s defenses.

Evelyn took a closer look at the remains and her ice-blue eyes swept over the details with analytical precision.

It was a First-Order Stage 4 beast.

A notoriously resilient specimen.

Its hide was tougher than cold-rolled steel plates.

Yet she had managed to bypass its defenses with surprising ease.

The fight had not been worth the effort, in her opinion.

She swept her gaze over the scorched earth.

The residual traces of beast-core energy.

The patterns of disturbed vegetation.

The depth of the claw marks.

All these details came together in under a second.

"Stage 4 beasts in Zone 3 are very predictable,"

She muttered to herself.

"They have an over-reliance on bulk and localized hide-density."

She kicked a patch of scorched earth aside.

"Their reaction-time is about two seconds slower than a trained Martial Adept."

Her fingers hovered briefly over the pommel of her rapier.

"If you waste time examining their defenses, they will surround you."

Evelyn turned her back to the fallen beast.

There was no squad waiting in the distance.

No team, no rescue, no formation, no backup whatsoever.

She liked to fight this way.

Evelyn moved to the deeper parts of Zone 3 and her boots barely displaced the layer of ash which covered the ground.

After a few steps, she halted.

Her gaze unfocused as she stared towards the southwest.

Past the dense sea of timber trees and the roiling clouds of vapor which hid the lower ridged of Zone 1.

The lower zones should have been empty.

Her eyebrow twitched slightly.

The military drone formations are thick in the shallow ridges,

she mused.

So why does the western ravine feel so tense?

A vague sense of foreboding prickled at the edge of her senses.

A feeling one could only describe as unease.

Evelyn had learned long ago to pay attention to these feelings where logic and instinct did not match.

She paused for a few long seconds before relaxing ever so slightly.

Focus, Evelyn.

He isn’t a child.

He chose to go alone.

Her eyes remained fixed towards the southwest.

If something happens, he has his emergency watch.

Evelyn finally turned away from the viewing direction.

There was no one standing by, ready to take her orders.

Just the dense forest which stretched before her.

The young hunter adjusted her grip on her rapier before disappearing deeper into Zone 3.

Four miles away, along the fractured border-seam between a shallow incline of Zone 2 and a steep ravine of Zone 3, five figures stood beneath the dripping branches of a dead pine.

Their uniforms would have passed as ordinary student wear from Silverwood’s Third Academy, but the overall atmosphere of the group was wrong in a deeply unsettling manner.

They stood perfectly still, each of the five maintaining their own stance, not a single muscle tensing.

They stood seven paces apart from one another, not one of them showing any hint of a nervous reaction.

Not one of them flinched, not one of them looked around, and not one of their pitch-black eyes showed the slightest degree of unsteadiness which one might expect from eighteen-year-old students being hunted by monsters.

They looked more like assassins waiting for a signal.

Completely dead forest around them.

Not a single bird called from the treetops.

No insects scuttled past the rotting leaf litter on the forest floor.

Even the air itself felt sluggish as it snaked past the five figures in tight spirals.

At the center of the group stood ’Roy,’ the leader of the Pig-Mask Cult infiltration squad.

He raised a hand to his neck and beneath the false mask of a student, dark vein-like tendrils pulsed against his collar-bone.

They twisted and reformed, subtly adjusting the facial prosthetics to account for the increased humidity in the air.

"Area scan clean?"

Roy asked in a voice devoid of all emotion.

"Clean,"

’Mia’ replied as she dropped from a low-hanging limb and landed silently on the mossy ground beside him.

"The nearest military drone is three kilometers east. It’s monitoring a First Academy squad dealing with a Stage 2 serpent."

She turned her gaze to the ridgelines surrounding the area.

"The radio waves in this sector are unusually weak. The high-iron content in the mountain rock is canceling out their scanning radius."

"Good,"

Roy was still staring at the distant ridges.

"It is time to seal the field,"

From within his leather travel satchel, Roy withdrew a small bundle of black, oil-slick silk.

He unwrapped the bundle slowly, revealing the jagged tip of a needle nearly sixteen-inches long.

The weapon itself was carved from the blackened thigh-bone of some high-tier Unholy Creature.

Tiny blood-red runes crawled up and down the shaft of the weapon, writhing and twisting every time the needle was exposed to the outside air.

A Bone Array Needle, a forbidden spell tool created by the senior preachers of the Pig-Mask Cult.

Roy knelt to the forest floor and held the needle vertically above a shallow fissure in the bedrock.

Without hesitation, the other four cultists moved into formation.

Each of them bit down on their thumb and let a single drop of their corrupted blood splash onto the ground surrounding Roy.

The forest fell silent.

Not even the wind dared to cross the invisible boundary.