The blackened ashes of the forest sat all around Sayrin as he inspected the area.
This was unquestionably the site of a- well, used to be the site of a necro-spider nest. The webs were almost entirely gone, burned away in the fire. Small pits of soaked charcoal remained, weakly puffing smoke into the air.
That being the case, who the hell started a fire in the middle of a rainstorm? There weren't any residual traces of fire mana being used in the area. However, a weak ability used a single time to spark the webs likely wouldn't show up to their ritualist, being so muddled by the horde of spiders.
Sayrin was convinced, at this point, that it had been a who and not a what that had started the blaze. For one, there wasn't any lightning or manifestations in the area they could detect to explain some natural cause.
More importantly though, and more interesting to the entire company, was the distinct lack of bodies.
True, they could have been cremated in the inferno. Necro-spider webs were notorious for burning easily and intensely when wet, after all. But where were the bones? What about the fangs and legs? These were things that could usually have survived a fire, even if the flesh did not.
No, someone had done this, then looted the entire nest of them.
It hadn't been the guild either, as the Guild Master hadn't known about this. A town like this, it wasn't difficult to keep track of the people in power. Of the several hundred current members in the guild, a good portion were retired or inactive. If some pyro had snuck away in the night and the rain to have a hunt, they would have noticed.
His thoughts were interrupted by Aldrin coming up and clasping his hands behind his back.
"What can you tell me, Aldrin? Because I'm feeling somewhat at a loss here." Sighed Sayrin.
"Well sir" he replied "there seems to be something odd happening."
Turning and giving his lieutenant a flat look, Sayrin waited with a well-practiced look of 'please tell me you have more than that.'
"By which I mean the monsters in the area are acting strange. Obviously, this mess here requires an explanation as well, but any monsters we've noticed in the periphery aren't coming to attack us. They aren't even running from us. They're all skirting this area, before continuing on north, northwest of here. All of them." He paused with obvious implication.
"You think they're going to the crater?" Sayrin asked skeptically.
"Yes sir, I do."
"Why?"
"I've no idea but solving that mystery might put us one step closer to figuring out what happened here."
Sayrin took a long moment before responding. The crater was something that every officer, 2-Star and above, learned about. It was one of the final battlegrounds in the last great war. Loterre had lost several thousand soldiers in a moment when a terrible spell from the enemy wiped all life clean from the area in a single cruel moment.
They had specifically avoided going back there for decades due to powerful residual effects. It was assumed the area was safe now, and had been for some time, but soldiers had their superstitions. Even on their way here from the city, the company had stayed to the east by about a mile, knowing its location, and knowing to stay away from it.
So it was with reluctance that Sayrin gave the order.
"Alright. Tell the others, we march for the crater. It isn't more than five or six kilometers, so if we move quickly, we can make it there in the next twenty minutes. I want those guild scouts ahead and reporting back every five hundred meters. Let's not get careless out here."
~ ~ ~
Kya felt alive.
If not for the steady stream of health potion the moment they became available again, she'd be long dead. But in this, in that knowledge, she felt truly and unquestionably alive.
Oh, the tiger had come immediately. The moment she challenged it, it had come bounding over the stones like she'd opened a can of Friskies. It had tried to paralyze her again. She felt its gaze wash over her, and for a moment she felt like she moved through syrup, slow and heavy.
But only for a moment.
After breaking from the tiger's paralysis once before, and especially after breaking from the significantly more powerful mushroom shadow illusion, this was nothing. Letting the tiger get close, not moving a muscle, Kya waited until the moment it was about to bite with its massive jaws, before stabbing up at it with her poisoned dagger, and then immediately repelling it with her staff.
Both had... less than ideal effects.
The dagger had made hardly more than a scratch on the chin of the beast, enough to at least start the poison a little, but truthfully not a remotely ideal outcome. The repulsion was even less so.
It felt like back on that first day, when she'd tried to move a massive stone chunk and been confident it was possible, just not quite yet at her level.
The tiger was repelled, but it drained her to the point of exhaustion just to send it back a dozen feet at the most. She would not be able to move him again, at least not all of him. She still felt she ought to be able to repel an incoming bite or a swipe of the claws perhaps, but she couldn't use her staff much more anyway. It would kill her or knock her unconscious, which was all but the same thing.
The tiger, for its part, stood stunned for a blessed three full seconds, before raising its head to the sky and roaring in utter outrage. "Roar" doesn't quite do justice to the sheer scale of the noise created by this monstrosity of a beast Kya called her foe.
It sent a small visible shockwave into the air, like a sonic boom, and blew away the dust and whipped up wind that snapped at Kya as it passed. It wasn't truly a concussive force, it wasn't explosive at least, just astonishing in its sheer amplitude.
A sharp ringing sound filled the world for Kya, as she pulled her hands from her ears to find a small dappling of blood. But this wasn't worth a health potion. Not yet. She'd wait until it was truly needed, necessary to live. She didn't need sound regardless.
Now with nearly muted and muffled thumps, the lustrous white tiger ran at her once more.
Moving fast, she stowed her dagger, pulled out a temple stone, and shot it into the now far too close jaws of death. It had closed the gap of a dozen feet in two strides, showing off the raw power in its muscles, and nearly bitten her head clean off.
However, having a sudden dense stone shot into your mouth will turn anyone off from a meal, she supposed.
Its eyes were burning with hatred as it thrashed its head about, but its massive saber teeth to either side were acting like a cage, inadvertently keeping the stone lodged in.
Kya wasn't wasting this opportunity either. scrambling up a nearby rise of tan, red earth; she looked down on the tiger jumping about wildly. Though it strained her, she got out several more temple stones and launched one nearly straight up into the air as high as it would go before releasing it.
The pure, dense stone fragment came speeding down more quickly than Kya could have possibly repelled it in her current state and landed on the left side of the tiger.
With grim delight, Kya laughed. A far off, distant sound like it was coming from another room with her damaged ears, but one that she heard, nonetheless. The tiger was bleeding. Not much, but there was a definite wound now marking its back leg where the stone had marked its course downward.
This more than anything, pushed the tiger over the edge. As Kya was about to launch another, feeling safe with the stone still lodged in th-
It bit down through the stone, crumbling it to dust in its mouth, before launching up at her.
Cursing and stumbling back, she held out her staff for defense, only for the tiger to bite down, snapping it in two.
~ ~ ~
"This feels like a wave!" shouted Wade over the screams of rats and rabbits "What the hell is going on?!?"
"I've no idea, this shouldn't be happening" called back Aldrin.
They had made their way to the crater and were almost upon it. But as they went, the number of monsters they encountered grew and grew. They still weren't attacking, at least not outright. If the soldiers got too close, they would naturally lash out. But a combination of their numbers and combined auras, or perhaps just the sheer focus they had on the object of their attention, kept them restrained for the most part.
Finally breaking through the tree line, the entire group of twenty-two craned their necks to look at what was happening.
Not sure what they'd been expecting for such an infamous place, it was... almost mundane in appearance. It looked like a plate someone had dropped to the floor, shattering it, but on a grand scale. It was almost perfectly circular, with ridges and cracks of stone dropping down into shallow crevasses. There were variations, almost corridors of stone and sand, hills and valleys, but overall, it looked like a broken landscape. A scar in the otherwise lush forest.
"Not quite what you expected, eh?" Asked Sayrin, walking up to stand beside his junior officer.
Turning, Aldrin replied "No sir, it's not. To be honest, I didn't quite know what I expected, but it wasn't this."
Nodding in agreement, Sayrin stared out at the shattered expanse of earth. "We should erect a monument here. Something to commemorate and destigmatize this place. It hasn't been dangerous to people for a century or more, but still we stay away. "
Before Aldrin could respond, another group of monsters, nine or ten common rats, stormed out of the woods and headed for the center of the crater.
"Where are they all going?" He wondered out loud, not particularly expecting a response.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"That's why we're here, to find ou-"
In that moment, they all collectively took in a sharp breath. A woman, yelling and cursing, was sprinting over top the stone platforms of the crater some half a mile away. That wasn't what made them all gasp, though. At this distance, even their powerfully enhanced senses had trouble picking out exact details about the person, with captain Sayrin being the only one able to pick out exact details about her.
No, it was what followed the woman that made the whole group stare in confusion.
"She's dead." Muttered Mouley
"She's insane, but not dead yet." Retorted Wade with a look of pride and excitement.
Following the woman was a swarm of isela, screeches echoing off the stones, and stalking behind was a gods damned reaping tiger. keeping pace, but letting the birds torment the woman.
~ ~ ~
"Fuck this place. Seriously, fuck this place. One of the strongest beasts in the whole goddamned forest, and it calls for help??? This was absolute bullshit." Thought Kya, as she desperately ran from the swarm of monsters.
Below her, in between the cracks she jumped over while sprinting, she saw the rats, rabbits, weasels, and more chasing after. Above and around her were five different isela birds, thankfully not using their feathers, but still dive bombing her with their claws. She was able to more or less take the hits with her cloth armor, but she was still taking hits to the exposed flesh around her body.
And of course, behind was the tiger itself.
After it had bit her staff in two, a magical backlash had sent it tumbling away in a burst of fire. Luckily, it seemed to be directionally focused. For Kya, she'd suffered what amounted to first degree burns on her face and hands, with a light singe to her hair. For the tiger, it had suffered severe burns to its face, part of its upper lip being blackened and burned off entirely. One of its massive saber teeth now had a large crack running down its length and would probably fall off if it didn't have some self-repair ability.
It probably did. It was probably healing right now, as it watched her suffer at the hands of the birds. Damn Tiger.
Which had appeared moments after the tiger had been sent flying. Kya, mourning the loss of her first and only source of magic, hadn't noticed them approach. She was sitting, stunned, with the fragments of wood in her hands and thinking this must be what it's like to lose a limb. She'd only had it for a handful of days, but it had been something on which she relied totally and completely throughout these trials. She wouldn't have been able to do half of what she'd done or survive past even the first step outside the temple without this staff.
Now it was shattered like a toothpick.
But she'd needed to get up. To move. To run. The tiger alone was enough of a threat, but with the several reinforcements it had called in, she'd die in seconds. suppressing any sense of loss from her staff's destruction, she stowed the two halves away, before running.
Why was she always running? These damn birds, it had started with them. Before that first isela, she'd not had to run nearly as much. Nor was she sure she could keep going. The suns were still oppressively hot in this part of the forest, and her extended dash was taking its toll. Not to mention the repeated slashes from talons above.
She didn't know what to do. She couldn't do much more of this. One isela had been a lot, five? There was no way she cou-
All five isela dropped dead in puffs of feathers, each with a small spire of stone shot through its heart.
Whipping her head around, she saw a large group of people in radiant armor, almost blending in the stones around them, looking to be made of the shifting sands themselves. At their head, a tall man with streaks of gold throughout his sandy armor, reflecting the light of the sun to seem like molten lines of magma. He had an outlandish two-handed sword bigger than Kya held point buried in the stones, while around him soldiers had similar weapons at the ready. From spears to axes and hammers, they were fully equipped for war. What confused her, however, was not one of them had a bow.
"They're magic, you idiot." she realized with a jolt.
~ ~ ~
Aldrin wanted to do more. He yearned to do more. It was clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that this woman was at her limit. He couldn't even sense an aura from her, making her either an exceptionally talented actress with a stealth specialization, or she was genuinely a zero. That alone was almost inconceivable. How in the hell had a zero made it out here, let alone survived against so many uncommon and rare monsters, even if they were just 1-star.
She was either lucky, or had a fabulous magical item at her disposal.
"To hell with this" He said, locking eyes with the reaping tiger as they assessed one another. It knew a superior predator when it saw one. However, it seemed more confused than intimidated. "I'm taking that tiger, the rest of you g-"
"No, you're bloody well not" growled Trell, stomping up to him
The shorter man looked up defiantly at Aldrin, before Wade put her hand on his shoulder to calm him down.
"What he means, sir, is that can't happen." Said Wade, more calmly but no less insistently.
"Why not? I know you can see her condition as well as I, she'll die if we let her fight that thing." Barked Aldrin.
"Because it's her fight. She can ask for help, or she can be unable to continue. But until then, the tiger is hers to fight."
"Why didn't you stop me from killing the isela then?" Sayrin demanded.
"Those were intruders, as surely as you would be," said Trell simply.
"And if I decide that she needs help, regardless of what you say?"
Dark looks came over both of their faces.
In as quiet a voice as could be heard, Wade simply said "That would be heretical... sir."
Looking back out, the woman was frantically gesturing below, through the cracks in the ground. Understanding crossed his face, as he turned to say "Fine," he said through clenched teeth "but I'll be damned if we just sit around doing nothing."
Looking back, he saw Sayrin had been silently watching the exchange, and nodded his approval at what Aldrin was about to do.
"We might not be able to handle the tiger, but we can keep the rest of them busy.
~ ~ ~
Kya had genuinely no idea what was happening anymore.
A platoon of what were clearly literal knights in shining armor had gone down underneath the cracks and were now violently and efficiently tearing apart the horde of monsters.
The man at the head of the group, as well as a towering woman in black plate armor with large maroon slashes all across the breastplate, had stayed above, and now stood a hundred meters away, watching.
She didn't know how or why, but she got the feeling the woman was just as, if not more powerful than the tiger releasing a low growl in front of her, but the man? He was something else altogether. He radiated power, not just from the armor, but his mere presence. Though the woman next to him was larger, and the tiger dwarfed everything around it in sheer size, the man nevertheless loomed over them all with his presence.
Taking out a health potion, Kya quickly downed its contents.
The tiger had been pacing back and forth restlessly ever since the arrival of the soldiers but seemed to recognize the man and the woman intended to stay out of their fight.
Kya armed herself with the rat tooth dagger in her left hand, and her snake fang dagger in her right. She wasn't accustomed to dual wielding, but a creature that could bite through stones wasn't exactly one she could take a defensive approach towards.
As if a signal had been given, they both leapt into action.
The tiger, literally, pounced forward. Covering the distance between them in a single magnificent bound, claws outstretched.
Ducking and jumping forwards, Kya turned in midair as the monster flew over her. As if in slow motion, she slashed at its belly with both daggers as it passed.
She landed in a tumble, quickly springing to her feet and turning to face the beast.
The tiger let out a vicious snarl, and its eyes contained pure, unadulterated malevolence. The scratch on its belly had been laughingly shallow. Barely more than a flesh wound.
But it had been enough for the venom. A gash that long, however shallow, must have delivered a fair dosage of the toxin. The only problem was that the tiger was the size of an elephant and wasn't likely to succumb without overwhelming it.
Hoping for a repeat, when the beast leapt again, Kya tried her duck and jump technique. But it wasn't stupid enough for that to work twice. Whipping its paw through the air, the tiger batted her away with a horrifying ripping sound. Its claws had pierced through the cloth on her torso, managing to shallowly dig into flesh. What was worse, though, was the raw power in the swing.
Kya knew instantly upon landing and skidding on the stones that several ribs were broken. Blood soaked through what remained of her cloth wrappings, the top layer of which had been torn away by the tiger's claws.
Groaning, she tried to sit up, but was pinned down by the massive paw of the tiger pressing down on her chest.
Kya screamed in pain, as her ribs flared on her side, and slashed wildly at the paw with both daggers.
Having none of it, the monster leaned down to try and bite her arm, so she stabbed up through the roof of its mouth instead with her snake fang dagger.
It had worked well before... but this wasn't the same as before.
Recoiling and blessedly lifting the weight from her ribs, the monster shook its head in simple annoyance at being stung by her blade. In so doing, it took her blade with it, flinging it across the rocks and well out of reach.
She saw, in a haze and almost uncomprehendingly, that the two people from before had moved in close. Though they looked ready to jump in at a moment's notice, they remained apart from the fight. That was fine. She was fine. She was fine. She was fine.
She still had her trusty rat fang dagger after all, the same one she'd used to kill every other powerful foe so far. This would be enough. She'd just need to plan its use well!
Struggling to an upright position, she saw the tiger already looming over her, and with a deep guttural snarl, opened its jaws wide once more.
Seeing the puncture wound from the venom dagger, Kya knew there was a shot here, a chance. Stabbing upward with all the strength she could muster, she drove the blade... about a quarter of an inch deep, before the jaws snapped closed, taking her left arm up to the elbow with it.
Oddly, there was a moment of numbness. Not just in what was left of her arm, but in everything. The sun no longer felt hot, the ground no longer felt firm. There was no pain, no sound, no smell. Just stillness.
She saw in the eyes of the tiger, massive topaz jewels barely a few inches from her own, a hazy cloud. She thought in a detached, strange part of her mind that the poison was finally kicking in. She doubted it had even felt the stab of her second dagger. She wondered if it knew it had her arm in its mouth.
Then, all at once like a bomb going off, the world restarted. Her ribs shouted their defiance at the mere thought of movement. Her head pounded with the banging of drums. Her arm... oh her arm... it was a volcano erupting, set on destroying the planet that had angered it so.
In blind fury, in raw hatred, in pure disgust, in divine wrath, Kya could not concede.
Tearing at the fang of the tiger with her right hand, she broke it off like snapping a twig. Then gazing once more into those terrible eyes, she yelled in defiance of death itself as she pierced straight through the dilated pupil. Not merely content with blinding it, she quickly took out a temple stone and, like a hammer to a nail, bashed the rest of the fang deep into the tiger's skull.
The whole time, the tiger remained rigid, not even blinking at the stabbing of its own eye. For nearly thirty painful heartbeats, it stayed there, standing over her like it was made of stone.
Before collapsing down with a soft puff of dust.
From pain. From exhaustion. From joy. From despair.
Kya followed suit.
~ ~ ~
Wade and Sayrin ran over, Sayrin as a 3-Star, almost seemed to teleport as he appeared at her side.
"She just took a potion not five minutes ago," he said solemnly "otherwise I'd give her one of mine."
Looking up at Wade as she skidded to a halt, kneeling next to the unknown and unconscious woman.
"Can you do anything? If not, you stay with her and I'll grab Lieutenant Hanrin."
The commander wasn't pleading but was asking. He was empathetic, but also pragmatic. Combat did that to a person. If something could be done, he'd do it in a heartbeat. If not, he'd watch over her as she died, ensure the family was notified, and the church of death called to oversee the proper rites.
"Hanrin will need to reattach the limb, but I can keep her alive at least. My primary class might be from war, but my secondary is from life" replied Wade, removing her gauntlet and placing a hand to the woman's forehead. She was about to start chanting when she recoiled slightly.
"Sir, this woman is a human."
"What!?" Sayrin spun, pure surprise showing on his face. He was about to start rooting around in the tiger's mouth for the missing limb, when something else happened, cutting them both short.
Shadows appeared to claim the beast, and in their wake, a tiny ethereal flame was left behind. For a couple of seconds it danced in the air, shining with white and yellow lights before disappearing entirely.
As the shadows and flame disappeared, the arm and dagger it had been holding, fell to the stones below.
Neither Wade nor Sayrin moved for several seconds.
"Sir."
"Yes Wade."
"What's going on?"
"Honestly Wade... I have no idea." Turning and looking at the mysterious figure that lay on the ground, bloody and beaten, but not broken, he said "But I think we need to keep her alive. She'll have several answers to the questions we've been asking, I'm sure."
"I'd sacrifice a great deal to keep her alive sir. Even if it wasn't in the job description" Wade chuckled putting her hand back to the woman's forehead "I respect what she did here far too much to do anything else."