Hikari clears the sandstorm.
The ravine's entrance came into view.
Armored slayers roam around aimlessly.
Hikari stops and watches from a safe distance.
The forward camp around the mouth of the wyvern pass was smashed.
Blood on the ground. Body parts everywhere.
Hikari draws her sword.
She catches the attention of one of the slayers.
The giant staggered towards her like a zombie.
It grunted through its skull mask and dragged its battleaxe on the ground.
Hikari drew her sword and assumed her stance.
There was clearly no saving anyone.
The slayer stopped.
It lifted its head.
Roar! It picked up its battleaxe and swung.
Hikari thrust her sword into its chest plate.
The blunt end of her heavy sword punched a dent into its plating.
She feels the giant's ribcage crack as her thrust throws it back.
Roar! The other slayers respond.
Hikari backs off into the desert behind her.
Thud. She wobbles as her boots sink into the sand.
Her mana pulses through the sand, stabilizing her stance.
The slayer mindlessly charged her, but she ended up falling face-first into the slippery sand, which struggled to hold their weight.
Hikari isolates each slayer struggling in the sand where she had spent days training.
Overhead swings maximize her sword's mass, smashing the slayers' skulls.
Their steel masks cave in on their faces.
Ten. Twenty. Thirty.
The last few slayers tried to crawl over their dead comrades' bodies.
Hikari raises her boot and stomps their head into the ground.
Even with its head gone, the slayer was still twitching.
Hikari felt something strange.
A strange mana at the back of its neck.
Vines sprouted from its neck, feeding on its blood.
The pile of dead slayers all began doing the same.
Something within them awakened, trying to consume their dead hosts.
Her RazenHeir flames flared.
Incinerate. Incinerate.
She incinerated the whole pile of dead slayers.
The eerie purple RazenHeir flames flared amid the sandstorm.
"Rey."
She leaped back to the mouth of the Ravine.
Steam tanks overturned.
Tents smashed—the smell of gunpowder.
No signs of the general's armored suit.
There was no time to ponder.
Three slayers emerged from beyond the path.
They were drawn by the commotion she had caused.
They advanced towards Hikari in a line.
A shield bearer at the front. A spearer with a billhook in the middle, supported by the cannoner at the back.
Boom! The slayer raised its cannon and fired a bomb in a high arc towards Hikari.
Using her telekinesis, she grabbed the bomb midair and tossed it back to the charging slayers.
A blast of greenish cloud was released as the bomb exploded, stunning the slayers.
Dong! A deafening sound rang out as Hikari kicked the shield, knocking the slayer back.
Before he could recover, Hikari stepped onto its shield, pinning the smaller giant to the ground.
The tip of her sword smashes through its mask.
The second slayer charges her with its billhook.
She swings her sword and knocks it aside.
Her kneecap smashes into the slayer's face, knocking it to the ground.
Her boot finishes the job.
Boom! A cannonball bounces off her chest.
Hikari charges the last slayer.
She hears the loading mechanism push another cannonball into the chamber.
A flick of her telekinesis knocks the barrel aside.
The slayer fires into the cliffside.
The recoil at an odd angle knocks him off balance.
Hikari's sword smashes its head.
"Rey…"
Hikari continued down the path.
Continued skirmishes with the slayers.
The narrow ravine let her fight the physically weaker slayers one by one, where they couldn't bring their numbers to bear.
Bodies littered the path.
Bits and pieces of wizard and common infantry uniforms.
Steam tanks with the hull ripped open.
The smell of blood and burnt gunpowder.
No signs of the general.
She fought her way through to the mine entrance.
A strange structure stood in the middle of the clearing.
Its eerie presence mirrored the titan she slayed in the port city of Carla.
Body parts, covered in the black robes of the slayer's attendants, lay strewn across the ground around it.
Slayers stood silently around it.
Tentacles appeared from the strange structure, dragging the body parts into it piece by piece.
Its mass grew as it absorbed more slayers.
Vines started growing out of its flesh.
Pink flowers bloomed.
The abdomen took the shape of a giant several times her size.
Hikari drew a dagger.
It flared brilliantly with RazenHeir flame.
She watched for a weak point.
There, the point where the vines sprouted.
The twirling hulk of flesh screeched as her flaming dagger pierced its stem, setting some ablaze.
The vines sprouting from that point shriveled as Razenheir's flame engulfed them, a fire their mass could not smother.
Crack! The creature tossed a cannon at Hikari.
Clank! Parry.
Hikari drew another dagger.
The giant's flesh swirled; cannons emerged from its shoulders and stomach.
Hikari hastily tossed her dagger and dodged as the giant fired a volley.
The vines on its arm swirled, weapons protruding from its skin.
The slayer's arsenal of steel weapons.
It smashed against the cliffside as the giant thrashed around.
Hikari dashed back into the narrow ravine to avoid its attacks.
The giant couldn't fit into the narrow ravine.
It glared at Hikari and screeched.
The barrels emerged from its body.
Hikari drew her sword in a blocking stance.
She raised her telekinetic barrier as the cannons converged on her.
Boom! As the cannons flew, she jumped up, kicking off the cliff walls to propel herself higher.
A cannonball hit her leg and arm but didn't punch through her wyvern skin.
She stood on the ledge, looking down at the giant now stuck in the narrow ravine as it tried to squeeze after her.
The RazenHeir flame flared as she channeled a dagger in her hand.
Toss.
The flaming dagger stabs deep into the giant's flesh, setting it ablaze.
Boom! The cannons fire into the cliff face, unable to hit Hikari, who stands safely above the ridge.
Stab. Stab.
She takes her time, making sure to get the maximum flames from each dagger.
The RazenHeir flames build and build.
The giant that had just formed could not withstand the flames.
A core dropped on the ground as it burned out.
It was a fraction of the size of the titan's heart.
She keeps it up and keeps it in her harvest sack.
"Rey…"
She dashes into the tunnel.
More slayers blocked her way.
They were as blind as they were out in the light.
Hikari's heavy sword smashed through their bones and armor.
The first half of the mine tunnel sloped downward.
She reached a cavern illuminated by the bright blue light of mana crystals.
A hail of crystals pelted her, some sticking to her wyvern skin.
Two dead slayers lay in the middle of the cavern.
Their bodies were studded with crystals like a porcupine.
The stalagmite beast unburrowed itself as Hikari walked along the opposite side.
"You."
The beast was none too happy to see her after she and Rey stole its trove.
It seemed even less happy that the berserk slayers had intruded on its lair.
Hikari stuck to the opposite wall as the stalagmite beast glared at her.
She did not want to fight it right now.
The beast growled at her but didn't attack.
As she neared the entrance on the other end, she suddenly dashed for it.
The lumbering stalagmite beast did not pursue.
She reached the mine shaft.
The remaining light crystals shone over the corpses strewn across the ground.
It was a complete mess.
Steel barricades torn apart.
Dead slayers with ballista bolts sticking out of their backs.
The thick smell of gunpowder, acid, and blood hung in the air.
"Rey..."
She looked around for the general.
The dismembered bodies were impossible to
Something caught her eye.
Rey's armored suit lay against the wall on the mine's second story.
He must have used the elevated level as a firing position.
Dead slayers to either side.
Their armor was damaged from triggering the booby traps the general had set.
The arms had been smashed. The cockpit had been pierced.
No signs of the general.
"Rey..."
Her voice softly echoed through the mine shaft.
Hikari hopped to the second floor where the remains of Rey's armored suit lay.
She pried open the cockpit by hand.
Empty. No traces of blood.
Hikari expanded her mana sense.
A faint heartbeat under a pile of rubble.
She broke up the big pieces of rubble.
A steel pod of sorts revealed itself as she swept away the pile of small stones.
The hearthstone rune on the lid glowed at her presence.
A pop followed, then a flash of light.
"Freeze!"
Hikari looked down and saw Rey pointing at her, holding a musket in each hand.
"You're alive."
"Boy, am I glad to see you, Hikari."
Rey lowered his muskets.
Hikari knelt to take a closer look.
His uniform was soaked after surviving what was possibly the most nerve-wracking battle of his life.
"Did you bring what I asked for?"
Hikari fished the strange-looking barrel out of her harvest sack.
The general's eyes lit up.
He raised his short arms excitedly.
Hikari dropped it into the pod.
"Nice, I could survive here for more than a week. Long enough for everything to blow over and my sister to get me. Meanwhile, you should get the wyvern queen loot while you can. Now could you close the lid and-"
Hikari paused and thought for a bit.
The silence made him uncomfortable.
"What are you-"
"Nope."
The next thing he knew, Hikari lifted him out of his pod by pinching the back of his uniform.
The wyvern skin on Hikari's chest slit open.
"Wait! Hold up! I-"
She placed the sock with Rey inside between her blossoms and closed up the wyvern skin.
With the general secured inside her wyvern skin, Hikari hopped upwards out of the mine shaft.