Yuriko and Orrin followed the trail of broken trees. The blue bloodstains on the fallen trunks were the only evidence of dead swarmlings but the broken lumber extended out for a few dozen paces beyond the crater.

The acrid stench of fresh blood was more prominent the further beyond they went and about a hundred paces into the undergrowth, Yuriko found the bodies.

Orrin clapped a hand over his mouth and his face turned green while Yuriko was just barely able to keep her composure. Flies, beetles, and assorted maggots and worms crawled over half a body. Only the fact that it had blue blood made it somewhat bearable to observe.

Orrin ran to a bush and promptly threw up. “Bleargh!”

Yuriko felt bile rise up her throat once she came close enough to inspect the carcass. The scavengers were thick enough that the body underneath was unrecognisable, though it appeared to be smaller than a swarmling. She threw a pebble at it to shoo the flies away. The iridescent scales gave her a good idea of what it was and a few minutes of studying confirmed it: it was the Hunter they’d encountered a few days ago. It had been torn in half from the waist and the only limb still attached to the torso ended in a smooth stump.

‘Well, that answers why we weren’t pursued,’ Yuriko thought. ‘The question now is what did this?’

Finding no answers, she approached Orrin and awkwardly patted his back as he continued to throw up.

“Urk. I’m…I’m feeling better, but…urk!” He threw up one last time before he staggered away. Orrin waved Yuriko off. “I’ll just go back a bit farther. Urk. Le-leave me alone please.”

Yuriko nodded. “Stay near the crater.”

“Sure.”

She skirted around the body and looked for more clues. Smaller trees around the clearing had been snapped near the base while the bigger ones had part of their bark scraped off. The peeled off bark reached higher than Yuriko’s eyes and above them. Other tree trunks had deep gouges in them. She reached into one and found that the sap had already dried and hardened.

There were more bodies scattered around and, from the size of the torsos, the remnants were mostly of Wanderers. The chest cavities had been torn open, which meant that the Chaos shards were already gone. That said, Yuriko didn’t want to stay here any longer.

When she returned to the crater, she found Orrin sitting with his arms resting on his knees.

“How are you feeling?”

He shook his head. “Are we done here?”

“I suppose. But…did you realise that there was another tremor last night?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The night before, I woke up to an earthquake and when Krys and I went foraging we found this. Last night it happened again, so I wonder if something similar happened.”

“You want to look for it?”

Yuriko nodded.

“I’ll back you up,” he said resolutely.

Yuriko couldn’t help but smile. In all honesty, she had expected him to baulk at the thought. “I appreciate it.”

“Any idea where?”

“Uhm, not really.”

Yuriko closed her eyes in an effort to recall the scene last night. She had been in the tree and got jostled out of it. She landed on the walls and jumped down from there winding in on the northern part of the building.

“South, I think. Of the village.”

“So we backtrack to the ruins and head out from there?”

“Or we could follow the tracks of this one.” Yuriko pointed beyond the clearing where there was a clearly-marked trampled path through the woods.

“Right.”

Unfortunately for the two of them, the trampled path disappeared after another hundred paces.

“Krys would have been incredibly useful right now,” Yuriko sighed.

“I guess we head back? No sense in getting lost and walking in circles.”

They followed the trench back, though Yuriko insisted on continuing until they reached the other end of it. There was no crater there either but they found deep depressions in the dirt.

“Hoofprints?” Orrin asked.

“Maybe. They’re a bit too big to be stags or horses,” Yuriko muttered.

After satisfying her curiosity, the two of them returned to camp mainly by backtracking. Half an hour later, they realised they’d gotten themselves lost.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Ehehehe.” Yuriko scratched her head. “I was sure this was the correct path.”

Orrin rolled his eyes. “The correct one was at the left fork, I think, not the right.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Erm, you looked so sure of the path…” Orrin replied weakly.

“Hmmph, next time tell me!”

Backtracking took a few more minutes and, when they switched over the correct path, the forest turned completely silent.

Yuriko drew her side-blades without a second thought while Orrin fumbled for his pistol. Yuriko focused on her second sword dance, relying on the minute nudges it offered when she was in danger. Her Animus circulated smoothly which she hoped meant that they weren’t in any immediate danger.

Keeping their weapons ready, she and Orrin followed the trail, jumping at every out of place sound from the sudden rustling of the leaves to the twigs snapping when either of them stepped on one. It didn’t take long before they started hearing snarls and squeals, presumably from the clearing they were about to arrive at.

Yuriko hurried ahead, her heart pumping madly in her chest. She burst through the intervening leaves and branches and dug in her heels at what she saw.

Swarmlings surrounded a group of wild pigs in the clearing. About three boars were gutting the swarmlings while the other scratched and punctured the boars’ hides. Behind the boars was a litter of piglets trembling beneath a sow.

Without hesitation, Yuriko pounced. Golden Animus flared on her blades as she leapt over the boars, her body twisting upside down in midair while her swords beheaded two swarmlings that were attacking. She landed easily on her feet, her body moving with the third sword dance, slicing off heads and limbs.

The swarmlings froze at her vicious attack, but it only took a moment for them to retaliate, forcing her to revert to the second sword dance. At that point, none of their sickle-like forelegs managed to come near her clothes. She deflected and dodged a storm of blows, all while moving around her assailants.

Bzzt!

Orrin’s Plasma Lancet spat out a bolt that took a swarmling in the face.

Shnick!

Yuriko beheaded another. But there were more of the swarmlings around them than she expected. They came out of the undergrowth, from bushes, and the trails. She kept her dance up and she saw that Orrin had managed to climb a tree to its lowest branch and was peppering the swarmlings around her with potshots.

The boars, sows, and piglets retreated from the clearing. Yuriko saw the biggest boar look at her with seeming gratitude in its eyes.

‘They’re safe,’ was her only thought, but it was quickly replaced with ‘Are you crazy? Why put yourself at risk for meat on the hoof?’

But she was in the thick of things now. The swarmlings focused their assault on her and she found fewer chances to counterattack. Her defences were also gradually being overwhelmed, with a slash here and there cutting through her forceweave clothing. One claw dug painfully into her thigh, coming out with a tinge of red. She staggered but turned the movement into a pirouette that threw them back.

An invisible wave of force pushed the nearby swarmlings away and Orrin grunted in pain as his body was flattened against the tree trunk. Still, that little distraction proved enough for Yuriko to escape. She leapt up the trunk, kicking against it to bring herself higher then she stabbed a side-blade into the wood for leverage. A couple more jumps and she was on the branch where Orrin was.

The boy’s face was pale as he struggled to recover his breath. Of course, she didn’t expect the swarmlings to let them go that easily. From their vantage point, Yuriko could see the clearing was now full of the critters and those who were nearest to their tree started scaling the trunk. A number of them were swinging at the base sending wood chips flying.

They were at the edge of the clearing and the nearest tree was about five paces away. The branches that were interconnected were higher on the tree and, from how fast the critters were climbing, Orrin would get torn to shreds before they could reach it.

“Can you repel yourself from the tree?” Yuriko asked.

“Huh, uh, what do you mean?”

“Push against the tree and propel yourself towards that one!”

“Uh, I’ll try!”

“Do it!” Yuriko yelled as the swarmling climbed over the branch. She cut it to pieces but another one arrived at her back, managing to cut a few strands of her hair as she ducked out of the way. “Ack! Da will kill me!” she groaned.

Swish! Thud!

A moment later, Orrin looked like someone had kicked his guts and sent him flying. He slammed his back on the trunk and started sliding down, managing only to hang on a branch with his flailing limbs just before he fell completely.

Yuriko leapt off a swarmling’s head onto a higher branch, just barely keeping out of reach. Bolts of red plasma splattered against the climbing swarmlings as Orrin took more potshots. The critters on the ground were starting to surround the boy’s tree.

“Ancestors!” Yuriko cursed in frustration. If she kept her course the other boy would be overwhelmed sooner or later. She gritted her teeth and jumped down from her branch, kicking off the trunk once she was nearer the ground, spinning in mid-air and slashing as many of the creatures as she could. She landed on top of one, nearly breaking her ankle, but she forced Animus into the Golden Silhouette’s version of Boost and powered through her pain.

Her acrobatics drew the swarmlings to her like flies to honey and she cut them down as they closed in on her. She kicked off the ground as they lunged at her, abandoning the idea of cutting her down and wanting to pile on her instead.

“Graaaah!” she screamed as one landed over her, driving her to the ground.

“Yuri!” Orrin yelled, his voice sounded like it was longstrides away.

She could feel sharp claws poking into her clothes, scratching at her skin. She felt a trail of blood running down from her scalp and on her cheek. The weight of dozens of the creatures pressed on her back, their mad scrambling hurting them more than it did her but she was slowly suffocating.

“AHHH!” A primal scream of fury wrested from her throat. Her Animus cycled completely into Boost, focusing its might on her legs and back. She got her feet under her and pushed, her boots digging into the loam and sinking a couple of inches.

With a grunt, she rocketed out of the pile-up, slipping out from under the swarmlings. She slashed the ones in front of her in half, pirouetting with both blades extended. Her muscles screamed as they tore from the pressure she forced them under but she was free. She ran a couple of steps before leaping over the massed bodies, using their carapace as stepping stones while they flailed about in confusion.

She managed to scale a tree before they found her again, her body glowing with a golden aura. Her eyes found Orrin who had stupidly frozen in place. Thankfully, the swarmlings were focused on her and completely ignored the boy.

“Run!” she screamed at him, while she caught her breath. Orrin’s terrified eyes sought hers and she could see despair. Gritting her teeth she prepared herself to dive into the melee.

Orrin didn’t listen to her. He held out his Plasma Lancet, charging it with his Animus. From the number of shots he’d taken it wouldn’t be long before he ran out. Her hands were slick with blood dripping down her arm. Her Animus kept her weapon secured and the pattern for the second sword dance roared in her Anima. Still, she knew it wouldn’t be enough. She could defend as much as she wanted to, but in the end, she would be overwhelmed.

In these quiet moments, a timeless instant before she danced with death, she wondered if she had made the wrong choice. Should she have reigned in her curiosity? Should they have left the wild hogs to die? Why did she risk her life for them anyway? She barely had time to think before her body moved, her instincts screaming at her. Her Facet was glowing in her mind, she realized.

Green motes of light rose from the dead and drifted towards her, appearing at the edges of her Anima and drawn to the centre of the stylized sun.

She leapt down the branch, a golden nimbus surrounding her. She fell on them like a bolt of lightning, scattering the mob with an explosive exhalation of Animus. Her reserves were about half, she noted absently. Her sword dances were efficient but lacked the power to punch through so many swarmlings.

“Run!” she screamed at Orrin again, willing him to obey her. Only if he left could she even attempt to escape. Otherwise, he would be the one torn to shreds.

RAAAAAHHH!

The ground trembled while a roar reverberated through the clearing, loud enough to rattle Yuriko’s bones. The swarmlings screeched and writhed, blue blood streaming out of their ear holes.

The next moment, something trampled down the trees and swarmlings alike, missing Orrin’s tree by only a couple of inches. The wind of its passage nearly shook the boy off his branch.

Dark brown tendrils stabbed into the swarmlings around Yuriko, curving around her body and stabbing into the critters behind her. In the blink of an eye, all of the Wyldlings were dead or dying and the thing that did it dug a furrow into the ground, stopping less than a pace in front of her.

She stared at black eyes bigger than her head, stained yellow tusks longer than her forearm, and dark green and brown bristles that danced in the wind on the creature’s back. No, it was no mere creature. What could she call a being that was larger than the troop transport, but looked much like a giant version of the boars she just saved?

Its breath misted in front of her face as it snorted. It opened its mouth, giving her a close-up view of age-stained teeth.

“Hoomaan,” it spoke, and Yuriko nearly soiled herself in shock.