The forest roared like a hurricane trapped among the trunks.
There was no wind, yet the leaves trembled.
There was no fire, yet the sap seemed to boil within the bark.
Grisela ran between twisted roots, firing arrows of green mana light.
"Don't stop! Maintain formation!"
But the formation was already broken.
They couldn't hold it.
Twelve elves had set out that morning.
Only eight remained.
And this was no random attack.
The horde was hunting them.
Something in the air seemed to be guiding it directly toward them.
"By the Mother! They're coming from everywhere!" Lioras shouted as a black-antlered deer charged into him.
Grisela spun around and fired.
The arrow pierced the creature's neck.
The animal fell.
But another beast leaped over its body without slowing down.
They were being surrounded.
And the worst part was the forest.
The giant trees that had protected the elves for centuries no longer seemed to recognize them.
Some even leaned slightly toward the horde.
As if they were listening to another command.
High above, perched on a twisted branch, Lusian watched the scene in absolute silence.
Thunder remained at his side, tense, tiny blue lightning bolts running through his mane.
"They could hold out a little longer," Lusian murmured, assessing the deterioration of the elven squad.
Beside him, Dayana ran her tongue over one of her fangs. The stench of corrupted mana permeating the horde was unpleasantly familiar to her.
"They could... but not all of them will make it out alive," the vampire said, turning her gaze toward him. "Do we intervene?"
Emily watched him in horror from the shadows of the trunks.
"Lusian! They're people! They're desperate!"
Lusian didn't even bother taking his eyes off the clash below.
"They're not 'people,' Emily," he replied with an almost glacial calm. "They're elves. And they hate humans almost as much as they hate demonic abominations."
A deformed beast rushed past the base of the tree. Lusian followed its trajectory with a calculating gaze.
"If we intervene now to save their lives, there's no guarantee they won't turn against us the moment the danger has passed."
Emily stepped forward, her voice trembling with indignation.
"I don't care what they do afterward! They're dying now!" She clenched her fists, pleading. "Lusian, please!"
Lusian remained silent for a couple of seconds as the elves' screams echoed below.
Finally, he raised his hand. It wasn't an impulsive movement; it was a deliberate, firm gesture, as though he were cutting through the wind with his palm.
"Stop."
His voice did not echo like a shout, but it carried such density of mana that it pierced the roar of battle like an absolute command.
Below, the elves heard the order. They did not lower their guard or trust the unfamiliar voice, but the sheer pressure of the mana forced them to freeze for a fraction of a second.
Something far denser and more colossal burst into the clearing, snapping trunks in its path.
The titanic deer turned its head toward the treetops. Its eyes, pits of abyssal gloom, locked onto Lusian's silhouette.
"Another intruder..." The voice did not emerge as an animalistic bellow; it came from its throat with a guttural, unnatural echo. "This forest is becoming infested with trash."
Thunder let out a low whinny from above, bolts of electricity illuminating his silver coat.
Elizabeth clenched her jaw, feeling a suffocating pressure in her chest.
"Lusian... that thing isn't an ordinary monster."
"I know."
Beside him, Dayana narrowed her eyes. Her vampiric senses reacted instantly to the vibration in the surroundings.
"It's not merely a corrupted beast," she said, observing the network of roots twisting beneath the animal. "It has authority over this stretch of forest. It's directly connected to the territory's mana; something is feeding it from the depths."
The deer took a heavy step. The ground gave way beneath its bulk, and a shockwave tore through the earth, making the elven squad stagger.
Grisela gripped her bow with white knuckles. The region's ancestral deer had never reached such enormous proportions or displayed such hostility. The creatures that had guarded the sacred groves for centuries were now devouring them.
The monster lowered its antlers. The mana around it became viscous, saturated with dark power accumulated over decades. Yet its gaze revealed a deeper disturbance: it did not seem to be in control of its own actions.
"We can't run," Grisela warned. "It'll catch us within ten steps."
The beast tilted its head, as if listening to a voice inaudible to everyone else, and fixed its attention on Lusian, ready to charge.
In that millisecond, Lusian disappeared.
He reappeared in the monster's shadow. Dainslein was already out of its sheath, descending in a vertical slash meant to sever the creature's spine. But the deer turned with an agility impossible for something of its size.
CLANG!
A barrier of condensed mana emerged from its back, deflecting Lusian's black blade.
Lusian leaped backward, adjusting his center of gravity as his eyes narrowed.
"Interesting."
The creature did not rely on sight; it sensed disturbances in the fabric of mana.
"Fall back," Lusian ordered the elves without taking his eyes off the enemy.
"That human is insane!" one of the survivors shouted.
Grisela kept her eyes on the battle.
"If he's going to act as a decoy..." She tightened the string of her bow. "We'll use the opportunity to regroup."
A cavernous sound emerged from the deer's chest, resembling an attempt by a possessed body to form words.
"A human... serving as a shield for elves?" Its fixed pupils reflected a malicious glint. "How pathetic."
Lusian raised his sword.
"So you can articulate words."
"Ignorant human," the beast spat.
Elizabeth felt a violent pull in her gut. The dormant seed of demonic mana within her pulsed in response to the monster's energy.
"Lusian..." she murmured, barely more than a whisper. "That energy... it doesn't belong to this world."
Dayana leaped from the branches and landed lightly beside them. The usual curiosity on her face had transformed into razor-sharp caution.
"There's nothing left of the forest guardian," the vampire declared. "Something is using it from within."
Emily looked at her, pale.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean its mind was destroyed." Dayana pointed toward the animal's massive body as the ground cracked again beneath its hooves. "It's saturated with demonic mana. It's nothing more than a puppet."
The deer faced Lusian, casting the shadow of its immense antlers over the young man.
"Little human." The muscles in its legs contracted like springs. "I'll give you one last option. Leave."
Lusian did not take a single step backward. He turned his face barely a millimeter toward Emily.
"I can't."
The deer tilted its head.
"You can't?"
Lusian weighed the heft of Dainslein.
"It's not my decision."
He did not look directly at Emily, but she immediately understood the weight of his statement.
Silence once again claimed the clearing. Lusian exhaled slowly, feeling the exhaustion of a battle he had never sought. He had accepted the confrontation because of her, and he was already beginning to question the absurdity of the sacrifice.
An unnecessary battle, motivated solely by Emily's inability to witness the death of strangers.
"I'll have to talk to her afterward," Erwin thought coldly. "I have to teach her that she can't let her feelings dictate strategy every time someone cries for help."
But before the lessons came survival.
The deer charged.
The ground didn't merely give way; it exploded. Earth flew beneath its hooves as though the forest floor were made of glass. The shockwave expanded violently in every direction, tearing up ancient roots and raising a thick curtain of dust.
The elves were thrown backward. Several lost their balance before they could even touch the ground.
Their muffled cries came immediately after the impact. Emily's eyes widened as a searing pang of guilt contorted her face.
"Lusian!"
Elizabeth instinctively stepped forward to intervene, but Dayana stopped her by extending a rigid arm.
"Don't interfere," the vampire warned, glancing sideways at her with a sharp smile. "Or what exactly do you think you're going to do, demon?"
The abomination continued its advance. Every step sank into the ground as its gigantic antlers leveled themselves to impale anything in their path. The saturated mana hardened its anatomy like living armor.
Lusian inhaled slowly, searching for his center. Then he advanced.
He did not retreat a single millimeter; he marched straight toward the charging beast.
The first antler passed within millimeters of his chest, barely missing the steel. Lusian pivoted on his axis as Thunder descended from above. A silent bolt of lightning struck the deer directly in the face, illuminating the clearing with a flash of electric blue. The beast staggered; the discharge raced through its body. The deer's muscles contracted simultaneously, unable to respond for an instant.
That opening was all Lusian needed. He slid beneath its neck and raised Dainslein in an upward thrust.
CLANG!
The mineralized hide blocked the black blade, sending out a burst of green and dark sparks. The impact made the bones in Lusian's arm vibrate. The creature roared and violently shook its head, forcing him to take a step backward.
This was no ordinary hunt: his opponent was a saturated organism whose entire body had been shaped into a defensive bastion.
Lusian pivoted on his back foot and unleashed a second slash. Shorter. More ruthless. The blade found a gap where the mana condensation was subtly weaker; the steel tore through flesh, and a spray of dark blood splashed across the roots.
The deer staggered backward several meters. For an instant, it seemed as though it might flee, but it stopped abruptly. Its entire body convulsed, as though an invisible command were pulling at its internal chains. It raised its head with renewed fury and charged again.
Lusian coldly read its patterns: the density of mana surrounding it thickened with every charge, and the forest itself seemed to respond to its commands.
"So you can't stop..."
Thunder began circling the area again. Staying outside the reach of the antlers, he released a secondary discharge that traveled across the creature's spine. The monster tensed for a fraction of a second, and Lusian detected the opening instantly.
He burst in from the flank, searching for the core where the energy converged. But the beast turned with superhuman speed.
BOOM!
One of the colossal antlers slammed into Lusian. He managed to cross Dainslein to absorb some of the impact, but the sheer force lifted him off the ground and hurled him several meters across the clearing. The blow knocked all the air from his lungs.
For a second, the scene hung in suspension. Elizabeth and Emily tried to run toward him, but the beast was already advancing to finish him off on the ground.
Thunder intercepted its path. The steed's coat bristled completely, and all the electricity accumulated within its body detonated in a blinding flash. The clearing was bathed in white. The discharge did not destroy the deer, but it completely disrupted the synchronization of its mana channels.
The beast's muscles locked.
An instant.
Just an instant.
Lusian forced himself upright. Pain coursed through his torso, but his legs responded without hesitation.
He vanished from sight and reappeared behind the monster with Dainslein raised. This time, he did not aim for the skin or muscles: he targeted the exact point where the arcane energy converged. The black sword pierced the armor and struck the core.
For a second, all was calm.
Then a dark fissure spread through the internal mana structure. Then another. And another. The core collapsed from within, and the energy accumulated over decades erupted, dispersing the demonic corruption into the air.
The beast's legs gave out. The enormous deer first fell to its knees, then collapsed onto its side with a heavy sigh.
Lusian slowly withdrew his sword. Silence returned to the forest.
For the first time since the massacre began, the creature did not roar or attempt to rise. Its eyes remained open, but the nightmare veil covering them had vanished, restoring their natural glow. There was no longer rage or hunger; only immense weariness and lucidity.
The guardian looked at the elves, then at Lusian. Finally, its gaze settled on Grisela.
The creature exhaled weakly. When it spoke again, its voice no longer belonged to the monster, but to an ancient entity that had spent far too long imprisoned within its own flesh:
"Run..."