Chapter 51: The Darkness of the Northern Forest

Chapter 51: Chapter 51: The Darkness of the Northern Forest

The journey to the northern forest started shortly after noon.

The lizardman king had kept his word, his son came along personally, plus the kingdom’s army chief and ten of their strongest B-rank soldiers.

The prince walked near the front of the group while the chief hung a few meters behind him, eyes never still.

Aria glanced at the extra warriors. "You’re sure they can keep up?"

"Among the strongest our kingdom has," the prince said, smiling.

"We’re not afraid of a few monsters," the chief added, arms crossed.

Kael smirked. "Good, because there’s usually a few." His grin widened. "Sometimes thousands."

The chief stared at him. "...You could’ve mentioned that earlier."

Mira laughed. Felix walked beside Seraphina, who’d been unusually quiet, her eyes constantly sweeping the treeline.

"Something bothering you?" he asked.

"No." She glanced at him. "I’m just watching."

The trees grew larger as they went deeper. The light thinned, the temperature dropped.

ROOOAAARRR!

Everyone stopped.

Aria raised a hand. "Formation."

SHING-CLANG.

The lizardman soldiers drew their curved polearms just as branches exploded apart and a massive beast tore through the trees.

A colossal wolf, nearly four meters at the withers, fur matted with dried gore, eyes completely submerged in milky, blood-veined madness ripped through the canopy. Thick, viscous black foam dripped from its exposed fangs.

It exhibited zero pack coordination, zero predatory stalking, and zero defensive posture. It was pure, unadulterated slaughter given flesh.

​"Engage!" the general barked.

​Two lizardman vanguards stepped into the breach, locking their tower shields.

​BOOM!

​The impact rang like an iron bell. The wolf didn’t recoil; it drove its claws forward, snapping the heavy bronze bracing and sinking its teeth directly into the alloy rim.

The metal groaned and buckled like foil beneath the sheer kinetic crushing force.

"What’s *wrong* with this thing?!"

"Move," Darius’s deep voice cut through the clash.

​WHAM.

​Darius drove his bare fist into the moss. "Earth Hammer!"

​KRA-KOOM!

​A spire of solid granite erupted from the ground, catching the beast’s neck and launching its four-ton bulk twenty meters skyward.

Kael was already tracking the arc. "Burn!"

​FWSSSHHH-CRACKLE!

​A searing cyclone of white flame engulfed the beast mid-air. The charred carcass hit the brush with a dull, smoking thud.

​Sizzle.

​The squad braced, expecting the forest to settle.

​It didn’t.

​SNAP. CRACK. CRUNCH.

​

Three more monsters broke from the trees. Then eight. Then twenty.

Aria’s expression hardened. "Everyone, engage!"

---

The first wave was mostly C-rank beasts. The second brought B-ranks. Then the A-ranks started arriving, and that was when things got strange.

BOOM!

​A massive, obsidian-plated cave bear slammed into Ryan’s tower shield. The shockwave gouged two smoking trenches thirty meters long through the ground.

​"Confirmed A-rank!" Ryan bellowed through gritted teeth, his Titan reinforcement glowing dull gold as the beast struck the metal face again.

​CLANG! CLANG!

It came again. And again, no hesitation in it at all, no instinct to preserve itself, no attempt to retreat. Even as bones snapped under the team’s counterattacks, it kept coming.

​No self-preservation.

Even when Darius shattered the beast’s left hind leg with an earthen vise, it continued dragging its ruined body forward, chewing through its own broken bone to snap at Ryan’s throat.

Seraphina watched another beast keep attacking after Kael’s flames had already torn it half apart, and her expression darkened. "They’re not normal."

"I noticed," Felix said.

ZIP.

​An A-rank razor-boar flanked from the blind brush, charging straight for his ribs. Felix leaned back, letting the tusks whistle harmlessly past his vest, and drove a bare, mana-dense fist straight into its temple.

​CRACK!

​The blow sent the beast spinning through three ironwood trunks, snapping them like dry kindling.

It hit the ground, spat a torrent of black blood, and immediately scrambled back onto broken hooves, charging again with a shattered skull.

"You’re seriously still coming?" Felix’s eyebrows ticked up.

THUD-CRUNCH.

​He closed the distance, his second punch caving the creature’s skull. The body finally convulsed and went limp.

He stared at the body. "They’re fighting to the death."

"Everyone stay alert," Aria said through the comms. "Something is influencing these creatures."

The deeper they went, the worse it got.

---

Nearly three hours later, nobody could say how many they’d killed. The whole group was breathing hard, the lizardman warriors leaning heavily on their halberds, panting through blood-spattered teeth, and the forest floor was littered with broken branches and enormous craters.

"This is getting ridiculous," Felix said.

"Agreed," Darius said, wiping blood from his forehead.

Kael looked toward the deeper woods. "We’re close."

"How do you know?" Aria asked.

​"The noise stopped."

Everyone went quiet, because that was exactly the problem. After hours of nonstop attacks, the forest had gone completely still.

Aria raised her hand slowly, and the group advanced carefully until the trees opened into a massive clearing.

There, at the center, stood roughly fifty monsters: B-ranks, A-ranks, just standing guard around something.

Seated cross-legged in the center of the ring was a solitary figure.

​Tall, lean, with ash-gray skin that absorbed the dim light. Long hair, black as pitch with streaks of dead silver, fell loosely over broad, narrow shoulders. Elongated, pointed ears pierced through the dark locks.

​A dark elf.

His eyes opened slowly, revealing irises of pure, burning crimson. He showed zero surprise, his gaze sweeping over the strike team as though reviewing guests who had arrived precisely on schedule.

"That’s the boss," Felix said, and Aria nodded.

Aria nodded once, frost creeping down her fingers.

The dark elf spoke something in an ancient dialect.

Seraphina’s translator flashed an error prompt: [Language Unregistered].

The elf offered a slow, mocking smile. He uttered a single, sharp command.

​ROOOAAARRR!

The monsters around him roared and charged.

"Here they come!" Darius shouted.

"Everyone engage!" Aria called, and the clearing turned to chaos.

FWSSSHHH!

​Kael carpeted the eastern flank in a wall of blinding white fire.

​SHRRRK!

​Seraphina’s hands blurred, dozens of electrified hydro-blades whistling through the front line, bisecting two charging A-ranks at the shoulder.

Mira flickered through localized spatial pockets, her daggers severing tendons from impossible angles, while Lena’s wind lances pinned the flyers to the trees.

Ryan locked shields with the largest behemoth, the lizardman squad swarming the flanks.