I opened my eyes, and the first thing I felt was the cold.
Not the kind that kills.
But the kind that keeps your mind clear.
I took a sharp breath and sat up.
My head was buzzing.
My memory was coming back in fragments.
The forest.
The girl.
An illusion.
I looked up.
And froze.
Scarlett was standing before me.
But…
Not quite.
She was… taller.
No, not in height.
In presence.
Silver armor covered her body, as if crafted from a piece of the moon. It glowed with a soft, cold light; every line looked graceful and deadly precise.
Her red hair fell over her shoulders like a fiery waterfall, contrasting sharply with the armor.
And her eyes…
White.
Calm.
And incredibly cold.
"Did you dress up?"
She looked at me.
And a familiar smile flashed in her gaze.
"If you're in the mood to joke, then you're in the mood to fight."
I tried to get up.
My legs were shaking.
But I stood up anyway.
And only then did I see where we were.
A forest.
But not just any forest.
It was… a graveyard.
Bodies lay all around us.
Dozens.
No.
Hundreds.
Some were still relatively fresh-people, perhaps our own age.
Others had long since turned to skeletons.
White bones were intertwined with tree roots.
Skulls stared out from the grass with empty eye sockets.
Some had been stripped down to the bone.
A gruesome sight.
Here and there were remnants of armor.
Broken swords.
Rings.
Amulets.
And among them were unknown creatures.
Some had been crushed.
Some had been torn apart.
But by no means all of them.
"Who is that?" I asked Scarlett.
She stared into the void for a second. Most likely checking her Bond.
"A newborn lord. A nymph," Scarlett said, stating the fact.
A sound came from deep within the forest.
A rustle.
The crackling of branches.
I turned my head.
And they began to emerge from the shadows.
Hideous figures.
There were at least twenty of them.
Tall.
Distorted.
Their skin was gray-green, like rotten bark.
Their arms were too long.
Their fingers ended in thin, hooked claws.
And their faces…
Their faces were still trying to look beautiful.
But now the mask had slipped.
Their eyes glowed with a hungry yellow light.
One of them hissed.
"Blood… has awakened…"
Scarlett calmly stepped forward.
Scarlett stepped forward calmly.
I felt the air around me grow heavy.
Gravity began to thicken.
The leaves near the ground pressed against the soil.
And thin lines of ice slowly crept across her armor.
I smiled, feeling the flame stir within me once more.
"Well then…"
I raised my hand, and fire flared above my palm.
"It looks like your dinner is ruined.
And the forest erupted into battle.
The nymphs didn't rush in right away.
They moved slowly, cautiously, surrounding us in a semicircle. Their long limbs bent at strange angles, as if the bones inside were soft. Their bodies almost touched the ground as they moved between the roots.
Yellow eyes glowed in the shadows.
I felt the flame rising inside me again.
But along with it came another sensation.
Weakness.
The world swayed slightly.
I exhaled sharply and leaned against a tree.
Damn.
Scarlett noticed right away.
"We need a plan."
Her voice was calm. Too calm.
She had already taken a step forward.
And the nymphs hissed in unison.
And then they attacked.
Like a pack of predatory shadows.
Three of them lunged straight at Scarlett, leaping over the roots. Five more scattered sharply to the sides, trying to flank us.
The rest stayed behind.
Their eyes flashed brighter.
I knew immediately.
A mental attack.
The world wavered for a second.
The trees around us seemed to sway.
I clenched my teeth.
"Not now…" I rasped.
Scarlett raised her hand.
Gravity crashed down like an invisible hammer.
The three attacking nymphs collapsed to the ground so abruptly it was as if they'd been crushed by a slab. Bones cracked.
But they weren't dead.
Lords.
One of them arched her back sharply and crawled forward, breaking her own joints just to keep moving.
Scarlett had already taken another step.
Her palm touched the air.
And it froze.
The cold didn't come on the wind.
It was born around her.
Ice shot out of the ground like spears. Sharp crystals pierced one of the nymphs right through, pinning her to the tree.
She screamed.
But even pierced through, she kept twitching, trying to reach Scarlett.
"They're resilient…" I exhaled.
"I noticed."
Two more broke through the gravity field.
And then I realized-if they get to me…
I clenched my fingers.
A flame flared up.
But not as powerfully as before.
The fire was unstable.
Damn.
But I had no choice.
A jet of fire struck the nearest nymph. Her skin instantly turned black and began to blister.
She screamed and backed away.
But the other one was already right there.
Too close.
Her hand struck me in the chest.
Her claws raked across my armor, leaving a deep gash.
I flew backward and slammed into a tree.
The air was knocked out of my lungs.
Everything went dark before my eyes for a second.
And the forest shuddered.
I looked up just in time to see Scarlett take a step forward.
And the world around her warped.
Gravity wasn't just pulling down.
It was warping space.
The nymph standing next to me suddenly collapsed to the ground. Her body was pressed into the soil so hard that her spine arched.
Bones cracked.
She still tried to get up.
Scarlett reached out her hand.
And the cold struck.
Ice formed instantly, encasing her body. A second later, the nymph became a motionless ice statue.
Then gravity crushed her.
The statue exploded into shards.
I struggled to my feet.
All around her, all hell had broken loose.
The nymphs were no longer attacking one at a time.
They were moving as a pack.
Seven of them rushed at Scarlett at once.
From all sides.
One leaped down from above, from a tree branch.
Scarlett spun around.
Her armor flashed with a cold light.
The ground around her caved in.
The nymphs lost their footing for a moment.
And at that moment, the ice exploded.
A ring of icy spikes shot outward.
Two were pierced right through.
One lost an arm.
But the rest broke through.
One of them dug her claws into Scarlett's shoulder.
I saw the armor crack.
The second struck her in the back.
The third jumped on top of her.
- SCARLETT!
I lunged forward.
The flames around the sword flared brighter.
I put everything I had left into the strike.
A fiery arc sliced through the air and struck one of the nymphs in the back.
She burst into flames like a torch and split in two.
You have killed the newborn lord, the Forest Nymph.
But I could barely feel my body anymore.
Every breath was heavy.
Every step felt like walking through water.
Scarlett, however… didn't stop.
She grabbed the nymph hanging from her shoulder.
And squeezed the air around her.
Gravity collapsed.
The creature's body snapped in half with a wet crack.
Its blood splattered onto Scarlett's armor.
Red.
Bright.
She didn't even look.
A second nymph tried to bite her neck.
Ice grew right out of her skin.
A thin spike pierced the creature's skull from the inside.
I saw the other nymphs suddenly stop.
They were staring at her.
Their eyes wavered.
Fear.
Real fear.
But there were still too many of them.
I counted… twenty.
And new rustling sounds came from the forest.
More.
Many more.
"Scarlett…" I croaked.
She understood immediately.
We can't withstand another wave.
Not even her.
I was already on the verge of falling.
The nymphs realized this too.
They began to approach slowly again.
But more cautiously this time.
Predator-like.
And then Scarlett raised both her hands.
The forest around us trembled.
Gravity crashed down on the area around us.
Ten meters.
Fifteen.
Twenty.
The ground caved in.
The trees creaked.
The nymphs collapsed to the ground, pinned down by an invisible force.
And then the cold came.
Real cold.
Like the breath of a glacier.
Ice exploded in a wave, sweeping across the ground.
The nymphs screamed.
Some were instantly frozen.
Others broke free, snapping their own limbs.
And for the first time ever, they did something I hadn't expected.
They retreated.
First one.
Then two more.
Then the whole pack began to back away into the forest.
Their yellow eyes were still fixed on us.
But now there was no hunger in them.
Only fear.
One of them hissed one last time.
"You… are doomed…"
And a second later, they vanished among the trees.
The forest fell silent again.
I took a step.
Then a second.
And simply collapsed to the ground.
The last thing I saw before closing my eyes was Scarlett.
She stood in the middle of a field of ice and blood.
Her silver armor glinted in the cold light.
Her red hair fluttered in the wind.
Blue veins bulged on her forehead.
And her white eyes gazed into the depths of the forest.
Toward where the nymphs had vanished.
She could barely stand.
I don't remember the moment when I finally lost consciousness.
I only remember the ground hitting my knees.
Then my shoulder.
Then everything went dark.
But not like back then-in that bottomless void.
This was ordinary darkness.
Heavy.
Warm.
As if my body had finally decided: enough.
When I opened my eyes again, the first thing I heard was the wind.
It rustled quietly in the treetops.
No growling.
No hissing.
The forest seemed… ordinary again.
I was lying on my back.
Branches swayed above me. The pale evening sky shone through them.
Trying to take a deeper breath immediately reminded me that I was still alive.
And that my body wasn't too happy about it.
My chest responded with a dull ache.
My muscles ached as if I'd been pulling a stone cart for a week.
"You finally decided to come back."
I turned my head.
Scarlett was sitting next to me.
But now without her armor. She had withdrawn her Essence.
The silver plates had vanished, as if they had never been there. She was wearing her old military uniform again-torn, stained with blood in places.
But something had changed nonetheless.
Her hair was disheveled, with a few strands clinging to her face.
Her skin was pale.
Too pale.
And even sitting, she swayed slightly, as if holding her balance by sheer willpower.
I tried to sit up.
"Lie down."
She said it calmly, but there was so much weariness in her voice that I obeyed.
"How long have I…?"
"A couple of hours."
I blinked.
"A couple…"
Then I looked around.
And only now did I realize where we were lying.
A battlefield.
The ground was crisscrossed with cracks. In places, it was still covered with a thin crust of ice.
The trees around us looked as if a hurricane had swept through them. Several trunks were bent, one was even snapped in half.
And between them…
Lies lay.
Nymphs.
Some were crushed so badly that it was hard to tell where their bones were.
Others were frozen in strange, icy poses-their bodies remained frozen solid, like statues.
I sat down, slowly this time.
My head was spinning, but not badly.
"What about the others?"
She understood the question.
"They're gone."
"Why?"
She shook her head.
"I have no idea."
I tensed up. But she continued.
"To be honest, I haven't the faintest idea why we're still alive."
She slowly ran her hand across the ground.
"They were lords, but we were lucky that, apparently, they don't specialize in direct combat. Otherwise, they would have destroyed us, and even so, I don't understand why they retreated when my mana ran out and you were nearly unconscious."
The ice on her fingers flared up and vanished immediately.
I noticed it right away.
Mana.
She has almost none left. Even now.
She caught my gaze.
"Empty."
She said it without emotion.
"I used every last drop. And it's not exactly rushing to replenish itself. Ugh, my head is splitting."
I looked around.
"But we're alive."
She smiled quietly.
"That's true."
I looked at her more closely.
She was holding it together.
But more out of a refusal to show weakness.
Her shoulders slumped slightly.
Her fingers trembled at times.
And at one point, she simply closed her eyes and took a deep breath, as if gathering her last reserves of strength.
"Scarlett."
She opened her eyes.
"Hm?"
"You…"
I fell silent.
Because I didn't know how to put it.
She raised an eyebrow.
"What?"
"So you don't need a knight in shining armor anymore?"
She looked at me for a few seconds.
Then she laughed out loud.
"Are you an idiot?"
"Maybe, but I suppose I'll thank the Ice Queen for saving my life."
She shook her head.
But the corner of her mouth twitched anyway.
We just sat in silence for a few seconds.
The forest came back to life.
Somewhere behind the trees, a branch snapped.
A bird flew by.
I felt the mana slowly beginning to return to the core.
Drop by drop.
Scarlett suddenly tensed up.
I noticed it right away.
- What?
She didn't answer.
She just raised her hand.
And put her finger to her lips.
I froze.
The forest fell silent again.
Then…
a sound came from somewhere far away among the trees.
A soft sound.
A rustle.
Then another.
Scarlett slowly turned her head.
I followed her gaze.
Something was moving between the tree trunks.
But not like the nymphs.
"Well, what is it this time…?" Scarlett objected, sounding annoyed.
Scarlett dropped to one knee. The world around her was still trembling slightly from the tension: every movement seemed too slow, too heavy. She clenched her fist, trying to summon even a spark of power… nothing.
"Great…" she muttered quietly. "If anything, else shows up now, I might just have to accept a knight's services." Having said that, she looked at me.
All I could offer her in return was a weary look.
Breathing heavily, I summoned Noctis Terror. My gaze swept across the forest, wary, almost painfully alert. Only a short while ago, Scarlett had pulled us out of a mental trap where even our own memories had turned against us. And after an exhausting battle, in which, to be fair, my usefulness was close to zero. Another unknown awaited us, one that could cost us our lives.
I squinted.
And saw a silhouette.
A human.
He stepped out from behind a tree, holding a spear.
He wore worn leather armor, with a green cloak draped over it.
A bearded face.
Tired eyes.
He stopped when he saw us.
We stared at each other.
Then a second man emerged from the woods.
Then a third.
I counted five of them.
All armed.
All tense.
And all looking at us as if they couldn't believe what they were seeing.
The first man finally spoke.
His voice was hoarse.
"...You."
He looked at the field of dead nymphs.
Then at us.
"Did… you do this?"
I exchanged a glance with Scarlett.
She exhaled quietly.
And replied:
"Do you see anyone else here?"
The man stared at us for a few more seconds.
Then he lowered his spear.
And said slowly:
"Then… it seems you're in luck."
I frowned.
"Can you really call that luck?"
He looked deep into the forest.
To where the nymphs had disappeared.
And replied quietly:
"Because usually, those who end up in the Forest of Virid don't wake up from the hypnosis to kill even one."