Hallard and Lysan weaved between trees at a speed that would kill someone in a head-on collision with a tree. Kline was barely faster, only skating by because of his miraculous ability to teleport sideways.

But that wasn’t enough. Hallard summoned a dozen wind blades at us at various levels, blocking all frontal and horizontal movement. Kline responded by bounding over them like a horse over a fence.

“Got you!” Lysan screamed, throwing wind blades at Kline, expecting he couldn’t dodge in the air. She was wrong. Kline landed on an Ethereal Bridge, then bounded between tree branches to avoid the blades.

“Good job,” I whispered to Kline. “Now keep him occupied. I’ll search for a way out.”

Kline meowed.

I activated Wood Wide Web to find Kal. He was a mile south.

Go after Kal—then bolt, I thought. That’s the play.

The idea was simple: I would chase after Kal. Once I got near, I would split away. Since their job was to protect Kal, at least one of them would have to break off to protect him.

Divide and conquer.

As I was thinking, branches and leaves exploded around me like fireworks, and Kline lost balance. Despite the strain, he acted fast, splitting his body into a dopple and sending it falling out of the tree, making it seem like he was dead.

Lysan immediately saw through it, screaming, “It’s a clone!” but Hallard, who was sneezing and coughing, didn’t hear her. He miraculously blasted the dopple with savage wind, kicking up a dust storm that masked our escape.

We seized on the opportunity, bounding through another shadow to gain a far lead. We would escape. I was certain of it.

2.

Lysan looked at Hallard in horror. He had collapsed, puking and wheezing on the ground, and it made her heart ache as she reflected on how he got sick.

In the moment the ferns exploded, Hallard had created a barrier over Kal—sacrificing himself. Lysan then put up her barrier, but Saska and Rosa didn’t make it. The spores engulfed them, causing… whatever Hallard was going through.

It made Lysan ill. She had a lot of respect for Hallard and now he was dying, all over a petty feud.

It didn’t matter that Mira was in the right. The girl was shockingly powerful, but even with that cat, she couldn’t hold a candle to their group in terms of power. It was suicide to approach them, so even if Mira could hear so far away, she would have had to be a fool to try to negotiate.

Especially with Kal Melhan.

Lysan hated Kal. He made Brexton and Hadrian look like behaved children because, at least with them, one was obsessed with business and the other was obsessed with prestige, both of which kept their actions relatively in check. Kal had no such reservations, as his family ran a monopoly, and he enjoyed killing. He enjoyed bullying people and throwing around his authority, and he always went wild during the harvest, killing dozens of harvesters and leaving their bodies unfettered. It was all for sport.

Kal was the worst of the First Domain’s legacy heirs—a demon cloaked between periodic moments of clarity and rational judgment for the sake of business and avoiding his family’s wrath.

Yes, Lysan hated him and hated that she was forced to protect him.

But.

Hallard was her mentor, and Mira poisoned him in a cowardly trap. That made Lysan hate her more than Kal, and so she looked to her family’s hier as the ultimate source of torture and pain for anyone. She would utilize him for the first time.

Lysan triggered a divination pulse to check the mana signatures in the forest—and froze stiff.

In the five seconds that she had reflected on Hallard’s death, Mira had traversed a quarter mile, moving directly toward Kal.

She’s going to catch him… Lysan thought in horror. She turned to Hallard and said, “I’ll send aid.”

Lysan flew forward not a moment later, chasing Mira. The girl wasn’t as strong as Kal, but that cat was a nightmare creature. Lysan didn’t know what would happen if they collided—but she knew she wasn’t fast enough to stop the confrontation. She could only pray that Mira was just moving toward base camp—or that Kal had the power to defend herself.

3.

Hallard felt relief watching Lysan leave, but he didn’t know why. He was losing control of his thoughts. His mind would attach to things, but then it would go blank.

Kal.

Mira.

Attack.

Ambush.

Spores.

Kal.

Mira.

Attack.

His mind looped because he couldn’t concentrate, so he would think things, only to remember, through a sense of deja vu, that he already had thought of them.

Jas… he thought. Just… tell him. Request: message to Jas.

The guide’s message feature pulled up, connecting to the head guard in the base camp. He needed to call for reinforcements and explain what happened. But as soon as he pulled up the message, he forgot who he was for a moment and what he was doing, and he had to connect the pieces before figuring out what he wanted to say.

But he did it.

It took two more thought loops before he finished the best answer he could muster, but he did it. Then he hit send.

4.

Tyler had successfully convinced Kalas and Hackle to leave, and they ended up running through the forest at dizzying speed. But they hadn’t moved three miles before Kalas suddenly stopped, grabbed Tyler, and pulled him backward like a rag doll. Hackle moved only a second later, catching up as Kalas ran toward camp.

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“Hey, what the hell are you doing?” Tyler cried. He whipped around, looking for signs of danger, but found none. That changed in less than ten seconds when a beast crested a hill.

“Torok!” Hackle screamed. “Stop moving!”

It was a true monster, a guardian from the pits of hell. It was a humanoid with a mask made of bone, taller than most trees, but it was curled over like an ape, running on all fours.

Tyler barely registered it before it closed the distance, getting within striking range in only ten seconds. He thought it would crush them head under foot, but Hackle proved the power of the Dante in two seconds.

It was hard to comprehend.

One moment, the forest was green and brown and gray like any other forest. The next, it was encased in blue, as if they were in a fishbowl. It was a blue barrier, and no sooner had it gone up than the torok attacked, smashing it and leaving shadows of bright blue ripples flowing over the ground.

It attacked twice more, but it held. Then Hackle closed his eyes.

The next moment, Tyler experienced the level of wind magic seen in tornado movies. It didn’t affect the barrier, but grass and rock and trees ripped out of the ground around them, slamming right into the torok, sending it flying and crashing through two trees like a bowling ball.

“Go!” Hackle yelled.

The barrier disappeared, and before Tyler could process what happened, he was in Kalas’s arm like a princess carry, sprinting toward the base camp at the speed of a Porsche on a highway.

They were two miles out.

5.

Things almost worked out for me and Kline. Hallard stopped chasing us after the last attack, and when we got near Kal and split off to the North, Lysan hesitantly chose to link up with Kal. I watched their reunion with tense anticipation, praying they wouldn’t decide to team up and come after me. But to my great relief, they continued straight toward the base camp.

I stopped to get a drink of water and calm my raging hard, thinking about what to do next.

It was a hard question. I doubted that I could make it to the camp without a full frontal assault from the Melhan and perhaps their allies. But at the same time, their strongest fighter was down, Kal was shaken, and two of their team members were gone. If I found Aiden and rallied the lurvine, I could probably plow through the group. After all, I didn’t need to win—I just needed to make it into the mouth.

Then I could show up bloody and declare that I killed half the Melhans after they threatened me. It wouldn’t feel impressive, but everyone would know that Mira Hill, a botanist who was dropped in the forest only four months ago, killed half a legacy troop and survived the ensuing pursuit.

The cat was literally out of the bag; it was best to own the narrative. If I didn’t show, people could think I was dead.

The only real problem was that I had no idea what I was walking into. The Melhans could make deals with the Dante or Claustra or any number of groups to kill me, and no one was obligated to help me—and wouldn't, given the Melhan’s influence.

Gah… this sucks… I thought. Where are you, Sina?

I had left Sina when Kline and I left our plans, and she was still missing. It would be really nice to have her near, but I couldn’t sense her signature anywhere.

Fuck.

This was all my fault. I was kicking myself for taking such a stupid risk. Things might not have even been so bad if I let Kal be. Maybe I could’ve just paid off his family with a diamond request to fuck off and never bother my family again. Perhaps I could give them another platinum to break their son’s legs as punishment, leaving them for two weeks before healing.

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

“Fuck!” I said, releasing one of those screams that were muted to the point of being a whisper.

A piercing scream met my words—and it left my body trembling.

I activated Wood Wide Web and saw a creature to the north moving at me far faster than Kline ever could.

“Move!” I screamed. “Toward Kal!”

Kline didn’t hesitate. He zagged through the forest, moving right toward Kal and Lysan as if they weren’t a threat—and that was a great call.

It wasn’t two minutes later when we saw a terrifying giant flying through the forest like an ape, grabbing trees with both hands and pushing off them, launching forward like a slingshot.

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! I screamed within.

It was a torok—and my core was literally fucking pure now.

“Keep near Kal!” I shouted to Kline. “We’re using those fuckers as bait!”

6.

“Hold still!” Lyscan screamed. Kal’s face was blistered and his eyes and throat had swollen up. In the brief time he left her and Hallard's care, Kal likely fell or simply touched his face—and that’s all it took.

That’s what was so fucked up about this goddamn forest. Even with every counter-poison measure imaginable—impenetrable clothing, gloves, and cleansing products—it only took rubbing one’s face once to kill them.

Lysan rubbed cleansing cream on his face as he wailed. I need to send a message out… she thought.

It would only take a silver request to send a quick message, but she couldn’t even think between running and then treating Kal’s wounds.

“Drink this, I’m going to send a message.” Lysan handed Kal a cleansing elixir. Then she released a quick divination pulse to check her surroundings, and her blood ran cold.

Mira was rushing them at lightning speed, and something massive was chasing her.

“We need to go!” Lysan yelled. She scooped Kal up in a princess carry and rushed through the forest, stepping over everything without distinction, praying her clothing would protect her from the poisonous hellscape she was running through.

They were only four miles from base camp. They could make it.

They had to make it.

For Hallard.

For life itself.

She ran.

7.

I didn’t make it to Lysan before the confrontation. The torok jumped in front of us and slammed the ground with its palm, sending a literal wave of dirt and rock and vegetation flying toward us. Kline jumped through two portals in rapid succession to dodge, one right then left, and I charged up a hurricane arrow under max Moxle Dilation, pushing its limits as we pulled out of the second portal.

The torok’s hand was already falling on us as we exited the portal, but Kline didn’t panic. He jumped forward, turned, and bounded on the creature’s hand as it smacked the ground, running up his arms with full trust as I aimed an arrow at the torok’s eye, yelled, “Now!” and released it.

Kline closed his eyes, and the arrow flew forward in ultra-slow motion. Everything was riding on that one shot, so I didn’t save anything for what came after. I released the arrow with partial blinding power.

The arrow missed its eye—

—but the flash blinded him before it turned its head, and the arrow hit its temple, sending the beast flying.

Kline jumped off before the impact, so we flew off in the opposite direction, escaping at full speed, knowing full damn well that the arrow wouldn’t have killed it.

Maybe Nymbral’s full form would have.

But unlike the former me, I knew better. If I used Nymbral at full blast, all the torok would have stopped what they were doing and swarmed me. That was all but a guarantee. So I just had to make do with a flashy hurricane arrow and pray I could at least get closer before needing to resort to the real deal.

Kline and I charged onward, determined to make it to Kal before the torok caught up—and we did.

Giving the duo a massive berth, I flew around Kal and Lysan, setting up my trajectory so that the torok would directly cross paths with them before me.

It was perfect—

—but Lysan was a professional to the end.

She turned left to avoid the path, and I had to move left to keep pace. Then she moved right, and I moved right. We zagged back and forth as the torok charged at us like a menace, catching up with every second.

There were maybe twenty seconds before torok confronted one of us. The question was: who was it going to be?

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Author's Note: Thanks for the wait! I really needed a day off yesterday, and I realize that I just need some days off lol. I've written almost three and a half books in the last five months between multiple publishing deals, and I literally had three and a half years to fulfill those commitments. XD It's crazy.

Anyway, I need two days off a week to pace myself. Do the poll to let me know which days you prefer. I'll choose two consecutive days that get the most traction. Please note that you get three answers to choose your top options. Love you guys!