The elf remained seated at the crown of the steep hill with her legs folded beneath her.
Morning hadn't fully arrived yet. The sky was still stuck in that irritating in-between state where night refused to leave and dawn hadn't earned its place. Every breath she exhaled left her lips as a pale mist before dissolving.
"Tch…"
She glanced down at the valley she just erased. Her white bow rested lightly in her hand. All she did was release a lightning arrow that crossed the distance three times the speed of sound, shattering the air itself as it went. A vertical bolt of lightning slammed into the forest floor, vaporizing everything unfortunate enough to exist within the strike radius.
A red holographic pane shimmered into existence above her vision.
[ELIMINATION CONFIRMED Scavenger Rank Krepsunas: 2,736]
"There it is again."
She exhaled sharply and looked away as if ignoring the notification might make it disappear faster. It didn't.
"I know, so go away."
The hologram flickered once more before vanishing, leaving the hillside quiet again. The elf reached up and brushed a strand of silver hair away from her face. She didn't like the numbers. She didn't like that this time, there were no rewards attached.
She finally moved, uncrossing her legs and pulling a small, worn book from her satchel. The cover was simple. She flipped it open to the last marked page and drew a single, precise line beside the others.
Eighty-seven.
"Eighty-seven hordes."
Her name was Elyonari Mintheris. She hated that she was starting to lose count without the book.
She closed it and rested it against her thigh. Her gaze went back toward the forest stretching endlessly below. It was a forest of Ledatic Siliportem and it was dense enough that even sunlight struggled to reach the ground properly. It was a good place to disappear.
"They really picked the wrong forest."
Someone was hunting her Dynasty. That much had become painfully obvious after the third horde appeared near the outer tree lines. Krepsunas didn't migrate like that unless they were driven or directed. Fortunately for her, the ones released here were sloppy.
Landing Scavenger Rank Krepsunas in a forest this massive was almost generous. Below Scavenger, they were easy to avoid. Above it, they were noisy, arrogant and left traces everywhere. Elyonari tilted her head slightly as she extended her senses outward through the roots, through the leaves and the subtle disturbances in Nature Energy flow. There was nothing immediate that would attack them.
It has been one month and two days since the first horde appeared and eighty-seven since then.
Scavenger Rank Krepsunas were irritating creatures. They were intelligent enough to wield elemental abilities and resilient enough to ignore conventional weapons entirely. Physical damage passed through them like a suggestion. Swords, arrows, decapitation, none of it mattered. Their regeneration scaled with rank and for Scavengers, it was absurd. Tear them apart and they reformed. Burn them and they reconstituted from their miasma. Leave even fragments behind and they crawled back together eventually.
Divinities were the answer. It always had been. Lightning, in particular, was overwhelming enough to erase their structure completely, leaving nothing behind to regenerate from.
Elyonari looked down at her bow again. Her fingers tightened briefly around the grip.
"I'm not doing this because I want to so don't get any ideas."
The forest, as expected, did not respond, even though it was speaking to her.
She stood up and scanned the horizon one more time. If someone thought sending hordes like this would flush her out, they were welcome to keep trying. She had already proven she could do this all day—
The hilltop vanished beneath Elyonari's feet.
She appeared in the forest. Leaves around her hissed softly as they wilted. Elyonari didn't raise her bow yet.
There was only one presence capable of doing this without announcing itself violently. That one presence kept circling the forest's perimeter for weeks now.
"Come out. I can already sense you. Hiding is pointless."
From between two half-melted trees stepped a figure that looked wrong in a way that made the skin crawl rather than the eyes recoil. She appeared human at first glance—she was female, tall and slender—but her skin was a smooth, unnatural green. It was not sickly or vibrant, but corrosive. Her dark greenish hair flowed down her back in liquid strands, dripping faint vapors that sizzled where they touched the ground. Her eyes were luminous pools of acid-yellow.
She smiled. Her voice was a series of faint echoes as if something far larger was speaking through a narrow mouth.
"Still so polite, even after everything."
Elyonari's grip tightened on her bow.
"Acidia."
The Forgotten Rank Krepsuna tilted her head.
"It has been a while since someone said it without screaming."
"You shouldn't be here. You crossed into this forest knowing what would happen."
Acidia's smile widened just enough to show teeth that looked human until one noticed how they shimmered.
"I didn't cross. I was invited."
Elyonari's eyes narrowed. "By who?"
Acidia shrugged slightly with her hands clasped behind her back like a visitor on a morning walk.
"Oh, you know how my superiors are. They love setting the stage and pretending they aren't watching."
That answer confirmed everything Elyonari feared. She raised her bow.
Vines erupted from the ground at her feet, coiling around her boots and legs, stabilizing her stance as Nature Energy surged through her arms. She drew the bowstring back, forming a lightning arrow.
"Leave. This forest isn't your playground."
"You elves are always so territorial. I've already lost eighty-seven hordes here. Don't you think I deserve to see what's been killing them?"
The arrow flew.
It crossed the distance in a fraction of a second, tearing through the air hard enough to shatter sound itself. It was aimed directly at Acidia's chest but the lightning didn't discharge. It simply ceased mid-flight by an invisible wave of corrosion that rippled outward from Acidia's body like a breath.
Elyonari's eyes widened—only slightly—but Acidia noticed.
"Oh. You expected that to work?"
Elyonari didn't answer. She had already released the second arrow, then the third, then ten more. Explosions tore through the canopy. Any lesser being would have been erased from existence ten times over.
When the chaos cleared, Acidia still stood there. Her human-shaped body steamed faintly. Patches of her green skin kept bubbling and reforming with acid dripping lazily from her fingertips. She looked impressed. She even clapped once.
"That archery. Grandmaster doesn't even begin to cover it. No wonder my Scavengers never stood a chance."
"You're immune to most elements."
"Resistant, not immune. I'm sure you already noticed."
The ground beneath Elyonari suddenly collapsed. Acid surged upward with tendrils snapping for her legs, throat and the bow itself. She vanished in a blur, reappearing atop a tree trunk already dissolving beneath her weight, firing another arrow without even looking.
It grazed Acidia's shoulder. That time, Acidia hissed.
"Oh. So you can hurt me."
Elyonari didn't smile. She was already moving again. She knew she was outmatched in recovery. She also knew something Acidia had forgotten. However...
"Let's see how long your patience lasts."