Chapter 38: Silence and Delusion

"Ursok Windstride!"

"You and your warriors, follow my flight!"

High in the sky, Mirela kept shouting in the tongue of nature.

’The encirclement looks effective, but he isn’t as strong as I thought,’ she thought.

Riding her sparrow, Mirela went over everything she was seeing.

’Take this encirclement. Sure, Dorian used some indescribable tactic to lure centaurs, who are built for fast, open fighting, into a swamp where they can’t run. But his plan still has a flaw.’

’The soldiers he’s using to surround them are terrible.’

’Two half-circles closing in from every side, no blind spots. It looks like a perfect plan, but it isn’t.’

’Because all the effort he put into those two rings spreads his already thin forces even thinner.’

’So all I have to do is lead the centaurs straight at the outer edge of one of those circles, and they’ll break free.’

’Dorian, it looks like you’re not as strong as the legend says!’

At the thought, a trace of smugness crept into her eyes.

In her mind, as long as the centaurs below got their hooves out of that sucking swamp, everything would be fine.

And the centaurs, who had already been fooled once, would show him exactly what happened to those who looked down on their enemies!

"Yes, Spirit of Nature."

Ursok didn’t waste a second after hearing her.

After all, whatever came later, right now he needed this "Spirit of Nature" in the sky to be his eyes and get his warriors out.

"Oh-hooo-hooo-hooo~"

Ursok howled, slapping a hand against his mouth.

"Warriors, follow me!"

With that, he charged out in front.

"Twin Arrows!"

He let out a fierce roar.

Two crude arrows flew one after the other and struck two Imps nearby that were trying to block the centaurs’ way, sending their wretched souls back into the deep’s embrace.

Precise, and deadly.

Watching that, Mirela couldn’t help but look at Ursok in a new light.

As far as she could see, with a little training and a little more growth, he was only one step away from becoming a champion of his race, even if the weakest kind.

But less than a second after she took her eyes off him, she suddenly screamed.

"No!"

"Change direction, now!"

Ursok and the others had no idea what was going on, and didn’t understand why she was so tense, but they obeyed anyway and turned as one, following the Spirit of Nature.

But as soon as they had finished turning, Mirela cried out anxiously again.

"No good! We can’t break out here either. Change direction!"

The centaurs obeyed in silence.

What they didn’t expect was that this wasn’t the end. It was only the beginning!

"Stop, go right!"

"No, no, left!"

"No, wait, it’s..."

The sparrow in the sky kept chirping orders, and the centaurs, completely baffled, slowly realized that they seemed to be...

Back where they started?

From beginning to end, they had never left the swamp.

Instead, the countless demons that had been some distance away were now right on top of them.

Many of the centaurs could already smell the rank, fishy stench coming off them.

"Spirit of Nature, why?"

"Have you betrayed Mother Nature? Why would you do this!"

Ursok felt that he and the warriors of the Windstride Clan had been tricked by this outsider Spirit of Nature, and he roared at Mirela in grief and fury.

"..."

But on her branch, Mirela only stayed silent.

She was silent because she had discovered something terrifying.

The man behind this was ten times, no, a hundred times more terrifying than the legend from the academy!

Only when she thought she had spotted his weakness did she finally understand.

The weakness she had seen was one he had shown her on purpose.

He had let her see it so she would blindly drive the centaurs...

Drive them straight into another trap, one he had set up who knew when!

The centaurs had been moving around the center of those two circles the entire time.

Because the instant they started moving, every demon outside the crossing point had formed into a dozen or so small blocks.

Those blocks crossed and overlapped with no pattern at all.

But every single one of them could stop the centaurs from breaking out, and hold them long enough for other demons to arrive.

That was the real reason Mirela had kept making the centaurs change direction.

Every time she tried to find a weak point in his formation, he saw it the instant she moved, and blocked it right on time, forcing her toward another spot of his choosing!

Every single time!

In the end, the space Mirela and the centaurs had left to move in had been squeezed down, step by step, to what it was now.

In her imagination, that utterly chaotic formation twisted into a giant serpent flicking its tongue.

It didn’t kill its prey right away. Instead, it wrapped its body tightly around it and watched it slowly suffocate, watched it slowly die in its coils, watched the light slowly fade from its eyes.

It was enjoying itself.

Every moment of it!

"What a terrifying man..."

Coming back to herself, Mirela couldn’t stop a shiver.

"How on earth is he doing all this?"

But she quickly pushed it all aside.

"I’m very sorry... Ursok."

Her eyes were full of apology.

"The master of these monsters is far stronger than I thought. I’m no match for him at all."

"My misjudgment trapped you in this."

But then, her voice turned cold.

"I don’t want to lie to you. Your chances of escaping now are far too slim."

"So rather than dying for nothing, please fight to the death for our shared Mother Nature."

"Farewell!"

The next second, she flew away, leaving the centaurs in the swamp alone with their despair.

"No, no, no!"

Ursok shouted as he watched the Spirit of Nature fly off, but it changed nothing.

Death was coming!

---

"What a waste!"

Listening to the screams behind her, Mirela felt a jumble of emotions.

But before she could sigh over it any longer, she suddenly noticed something far off at the edge of the forest. Several shadows had just flickered through the gate of death and ruin.

"That’s...!"