Chapter 351: The Blazing Vanguard

Ray’s eyes snapped open, a deep frown creasing his forehead. He didn't understand. The Veil was active. There was absolutely no magic leaking from their position.

He looked down at the dark entity lying bound in the dirt.

The creature was staring right back at him. And the featureless, matte-black face was warped into that exact same, chilling, knowing smile he had seen before.

Impossible.

Ray thought as a sharp cold feeling travelled down his spine.

System,run a full diagnostic on the Aetheric Null-Veil. Is there a breach? Is there anything leaking?

Ray demanded mentally, a rare edge of panic in his voice.

[RUNNING DIAGNOSTICS ON AETHER NULL VEIL ARRAY…]

[DIAGNOSTIC COMPLETE.]

[AETHERIC NULL-VEIL IS 100% OPERATIONAL. ZERO MAGICAL EMISSIONS DETECTED OUTSIDE THE RUNIC BOUNDARY.]

Ray stared at the smiling creature, his mind racing desperately to find the flaw. If their magic was hidden, how could the beasts possibly know exactly where they were?

Then like a nightmare, Nox’s earlier words slammed into the forefront of Ray's mind.

Every time a dog died, it looked like it was screaming. It wasn't just mad. It was pure anguish.

Ray's breath hitched. He had been completely blind. He had assumed the entity commanded the beasts with a magical frequency, a spell that the Null-Veil could easily block. But the entity hadn't just known its hounds had died; it had felt them die.

The connection wasn't a spell. It was a psychic tether. It was a soul-link, identical to the one Ray shared with Nox.

The Aetheric Null-Veil was an absolute masterpiece of physical and magical stealth. It perfectly hid them, their mana, even their sound. But it was not built to hide a soul connection.

The smile on the dark figure's face grew a little wider.

Ray felt a sickening wave of horror wash over him. The entity had never been their prisoner. The moment Svane picked it up, it had become a Trojan Horse. It was a living, breathing homing beacon, and they had carried it directly into the center of their own sanctuary.

"Svane! Prepare for combat!"

Ray roared, vaulting to his feet and shattering his meditative calm.

Svane woke up from his meditative state, startled by the uncharacteristic panic in his Lord’s voice. He reached for his broadsword, but before he could even ask a question, the Vanguard’s own veteran senses caught up.

The loose pebbles on the ridge began to vibrate. A low, thunderous rumble echoed through the dense fog.

The beast pack wasn't just searching anymore. They are coming for them fast.

Ray and Svane snapped into combat stances, standing within the center of the Aetheric Null-Veil. Svane drew his massive broadsword, his tower shield raised and locked. Ray’s hands glowed with gathering Aether, his eyes narrowed as he monitored the incoming threat.

The sensory pings in his mind were closing in from three different directions. But as the horde neared the perimeter of the ridge, their frenzied, thunderous pace began to slow.

Ray tracked their movements. Through the oppressive, damp mist of the Whispering Hills, the deep shadows between the ancient trees began to shift. Pairs of glowing, blood-red eyes pierced the fog. The corrupted beast pack slowly descended into the clearing surrounding the ridge.

It was a terrifying menagerie of nightmares. Giant dire wolves with jagged, petrified wood protruding from their spines prowled alongside corrupted forest hounds, their bodies dripping with sluggish black tar. Massive razorback boars with tusks like rusted scythes snorted in the mist, flanked by gargantuan cave bears that were heavily plated with corrupted stone armor. Towering over them all were twisted creatures that looked like giant silverback gorillas, their oversized knuckles dragging heavily against the earth.

As the monstrous beast pack fully emerged, a palpable sense of confusion rippled through their ranks. The mutated predators sniffed the air and looked around the seemingly empty, rocky clearing. To their physical eyes and magical senses, there was absolutely nothing here. But the psychic beacon of their master, the dark figure lying bound in the dirt between Ray and Svane, was screaming that this was the exact location.

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Inside the Aetheric Null Veil, Svane analyzed the overwhelming tactical disadvantage. They were massively outnumbered by apex predators, and he was far from his peak condition. His internal meridians were somewhat stabilized, but the magical backlash still affects his condition, especially that part that he is not able to cast spells at the moment.

"My Lord, if they pinpoint our exact location within this array, they will swarm. I will step outside the boundary and hold the line. You must escape and make your way back to Greywood Keep."

Svane whispered, his voice steady despite the impossible odds.

"I don’t want to hear it, Svane! It is not over yet. They haven't located the breach, and I am not abandoning anyone. We will break through this."

Ray replied instantly, his tone leaving no room for argument.

Ray rapidly analyzed the variables. The beasts were operating on a psychic tether, driven by a connection to the entity at their feet. If the pack felt their master's location, they would also feel its physical state.

Ray drew his hunting dagger from his belt. Without a word of warning, he dropped to one knee and pressed the wickedly sharp edge of the cold steel directly against the dark figure's throat.

The reaction outside the Aetheric Null Veil was instantaneous.

The entire horde violently flinched. The low, guttural growls of the giant Silverbacks choked off into startled grunts. The Corrupted Forest Hounds flattened their ears and whined, physically stepping back from the empty space of the ridge. Through the psychic tether, Ray had just injected a massive, piercing spike of raw mortal terror directly into the psychic connection.

The beasts now knew exactly why they couldn't see their master. It was being held hostage.

The horde parted, and one of the alphas stepped forward. It was a Corrupted Giant Dire Wolf, standing as tall as a warhorse, its spine lined with jagged, petrified wood. It slowly approached the invisible boundary of the Aetheric Null-Veil, its movements incredibly cautious, clearly warring between its predatory aggression and the terror radiating from its master.

"Here they come."

Svane grunted, stepping slightly in front of Ray, his broadsword raised.

"Hold your ground, I am going to make you untouchable."

Ray ordered, standing back up.

Ray reached out to the dense, ambient Aether of the Whispering Hills. Instead of draining his own core, he actively siphoned the heavy environmental energy into two separate spell matrices, forcing the ambient energy to fuel his Aether-infusion. He slapped his hands against Svane’s shield.

"Lux absoluta!"

Ray cast the aether-infused cantrips spell: Light (Primordial Sunburst).

His other hand then touched Svane’s back.

“Scutum inviolabile!”

Ray then cast the aether-infused 1st-Circle spell: Shield (Retaliation Shield).

A massive, highly elastic kinetic barrier of golden force wrapped tightly around Svane’s entire body, thrumming with stored potential energy. Simultaneously, the Vanguard's tower shield ignited like a miniature sun, bathing the interior of the Aetheric Null-Veil in blinding light. The glow on Svane's body quickly faded into invisibility, but his shield remained a blazing beacon of physical, radiant pressure.

The giant Dire Wolf paused just a few feet from the invisible boundary. It could sense a faint, anomalous displacement of ambient Aether right in front of it, but the illusion of the empty ridge remained.

Svane held his breath, watching the massive predator sniff the boundary.

Without warning, the giant Dire Wolf lashed out, violently swiping its massive, tar-coated paw directly into the ‘empty’ space.

The moment the beast's arm crossed the boundary of the Aetheric Null-Veil, two things happened simultaneously. The paw vanished into thin air to those outside, but inside, it slammed directly into Svane’s radiating tower shield.

The aether-infused 1st-Circle: Shield triggered instantly. It absorbed the entire kinetic force of the giant wolf's swipe, compounded the energy, and violently rebounded. At the same exact microsecond, the intense, burning radiation of the aether-infused cantrip spell: Light seared the corrupted flesh of the intruding limb.

The Dire Wolf let out a startled, agonizing growl as its arm was physically damaged and burned violently. The kinetic bounce launched the massive alpha backward, sending it skidding across the rocky dirt.

Svane seized the initiative. With a thunderous roar, the Vanguard charged directly out of the Aetheric Null-Veil, abandoning the safety of the stealth boundary to press the attack straight toward the repelled Dire Wolf.

As Svane and his blazing tower shield suddenly materialized out of thin air, the entire beast pack erupted into a frenzy of deafening roars and swarmed toward him.

Hold them!

Ray internally screamed as he adjusted his stance inside the array as he got ready to support his Vanguard.

A troop of corrupted giant Silverbacks intercepted Svane's path, their aggression overriding the psychic terror of their master. They ignored the burning, blinding pain of the aether-infused Light spell radiating from Svane's shield and threw their massive, gorilla-like bodies directly at the Vanguard to protect their alpha.

The first Silverback slammed into Svane’s raised shield.

BOOM.

The Retaliation Shield detonated. The violent, elastic kinetic bounce triggered flawlessly, reflecting the Silverback’s immense charging momentum right back at it. The massive creature was launched directly up into the air, flipping backward and crashing heavily into the hounds behind it.

Back inside the Veil, Ray didn't remain idle. He drew heavily on the ambient Aether of the environment to fuel his next assault, preparing to fire multiple volleys.

"Tela inevitabilis!"

He cast the Aether-Infused 1st-Circle spell: Magic Missile (Aetheric Hunter-Killers).

Ray pointed his fingers toward the charging horde. Four glowing darts of pure, condensed magical force ripped through the air. But these were not standard kinetic bolts; they were physical, golden needles of pure Aether.

The darts curved through the mist, actively seeking out the targets with the highest corrupted density, and slammed directly into the chests of four charging beasts. The golden needles embedded themselves deep into the creatures' meridians. The moment the mutated monsters tried to channel their internal black tar to physically overpower Svane, the parasitic needles triggered an agonizing feedback loop of Aetheric shock, dropping the beasts to the dirt in seizing, twitching heaps.

Ray seamlessly channeled more ambient Aether, firing another volley of four darts. Then another. Then a fourth.

Sixteen corrupted beasts fell, their internal pathways violently disrupted by the golden needles.

But there were simply too many of them.