Selenia stood in a high branch looking down on the third floor, her sight shifted through several spectrums, first the normal visible spectrum where she could see only the thick jungle, even with her sharp elven eyesight, second she looked around with thermal vision gifted to her by the hood she wore, with this she could see people and animal shaped glows moving about, lastly she changed her vision to see mana in its true form.
She studied several targets she had found earlier with her heat vision and gauged their strength, Selenia found worthy enemies so she jumped down from the branch, hoping off smaller branches on her decent before nimbly landing on the ground without a sound thanks to her boots.
After taking a glance at her surroundings out of habit she mounted an Onix colored Panther, the Panther then ran towards the direction Selenia indicated with practiced ease while it traversed the dense jungle.
They soon reached their destination a short distance away from a group of soldiers, the panther released a soft breath from its exertion then crouched low and moved with its belly almost touching the ground.
chopping brushes and anything that got in their way the soldiers moved unawares of the dangers stalking them. These 4 men formed a group immediately when they learned of their mission because they were elite warriors forged in 100 battles together and have saved each other's lives on no less than a dozen times, hence their bond was stronger than blood siblings and each would die for the others.
Red shirt 1 led the other 3 towards their objective slowly with caution in every step, all the battles they survived have since weeded out anyone without a cultivated paranoia. He stepped over a felled tree when he heard the rustle of leaves behind the party, he called out a warning as yellow eyes flashed in the darkness followed by several hundred pounds of muscle covered in black sleek fur.
The group had already reacted the moment a sound was made, facing the pouncing predator with raised spears they channeled their mana into the muscles holding their weapons and dug their boots into the ground ready to impale the beast, but several meters before it reached them it strangely twisted in the air, changing its direction in mid air.
The Panthers paws touched the ground and with their large surface area its large weight didn't let it sink down into the mud, then it growled at the group.
They stood their ground and waited for the inevitable attack, when suddenly 1st red shirt heard the whistle of a blade cutting through the air behind him, he turned around only to have his head leave his body before he could even see his attacker.
Salenia performed an almost perfect ambush if the man hadn't heard her sword, the sound of leather being cleanly cut through drew the attention of another redshirt, Salenia noticed him turning his head so she didn't give him the chance to retaliate.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
She stepped in deeply with a diagonal slash, the blade cut the man from the collar bone down to his opposite hip, now she had the attention of the last 2 men remaining, however, 1 was forced to keep his attention on the Panther only meters from him.
Redshirt 3 coldly said "I don't remember having any grudges without my lord why have you attacked us?", Selenia chuckled when she perceived him adjusting his position to run, Selenia returned "Thank you, this is nice armor isn't it" in a light tone, as she pumped mana into her muscles in preparation for a burst of speed, then gave an almost imperceptible nod.
Redshirt 3 fainted a charge then turned around to flee, the moment his weight shifted away Selenia released the pressurized mana in her body, producing a burst of speed as she lunged forward dozens of meters in a single step.
When Selenia charged the Panther used the moment of distraction its prey presented to lunge itself, it swiped the spear to the right causing it to only graze its shoulder, then landed on the man with several hundred pounds of now angry cat, for a moment screams were heard before the Panther managed to disable his arms with its claws and latch onto his throat.
The Panther looked up to see Selenia wave her sword around her head to a sudden stop, driving blood off the blade into a morbid spiral on the ground and trees. Redshirt 3 only had time to regret his assumption that Selenias armor was too heavy to move fast in, instead it allowed her to move even faster than normal so he only made it 2 steps before he heard the sound of the blade that killed him.
Lucifer watched as Selenia whistled happily with a newfound appreciation for her armor as she looked for a suitable tree for scouting her next prey, he found it amusing that she did not even change expressions when she was killing those men and seemed to be in a better mood than when she started.
He concluded that Selenia would be fine on her own and flew around to observe the other groups, there was significantly less fighting now, Lucifer found animals feasting on the remains of adventurers, upon closer investigation he found that most of them died of bolt and blade wounds, after scouting around he found that the groups were starting to regroup into a larger force, Lucifer thought that this was probably because they had compleated clearing any witnesses.
He watched a group make their way towards the main crowd and paid particularly close attention to one man who had claw marks all over his left arm, it was bandaged tightly but was still bleeding as evidenced by the blood soaked bandages. The man complained "it's still bloody bleeding the potion did nothing give me yours", the person he was talking to replied "You know that's a bad idea you'll get the rot of you drink too much of that stuff, just wait until we get back to the group, the healers will take care of ya".
They continued moving when suddenly the man collapsed, the others checked on him and found him pale as a ghost, the bandages were completely soaked through, along with his shirt and pants, one of the men asked "maybe we should give him our potions? he'll die without it", another answered "he'll die with it, do you think we get the good stuff? if it doesn't heal you with the first bottle you get rot on the second" the group frowned at the nearly unconscious man, then suddenly the leader thrust his spear through the dying mans throat and said "take his stuff, he wouldn't have made it anyway, we don't have time for burdens, he was dead the moment he let his guard down and that cat got him" sending chills down the others spines. After taking the mans belongings they moved on.
Lucifer smiled menacingly with a hint of pride mixed in while he chuckled.