HBWnovel Chapter 234: Hunter
Chapter 234: Hunter
Thank you to my beta reader and editor, GlassThreads!
Toren Daen
I knelt down around a mound of ash, dipping my hand into the remnants of a campfire. I raised the dark substance to my eyes, inspecting it as I rubbed it between my fingers.
Still warm. Barely warm. But this fire had been extinguished barely an hour ago.
The Unseen World blanketed my vision as Aurora’s shade scanned the earth, her eyes burning with sheer focus. Eddies of mist swirled around me as I projected my senses outward, pulling and twisting at the ambient mana to give me a sign.
I’d spent the past week and a half or so stalking through the Beast Glades, following specks of familiar mana, the most minute traces of human interaction in the environment, and more. Like a bird of prey, I gradually honed in on the objects of my ire.
It would have been difficult for anyone else to track the Bastards Victorious. They clearly knew the risks themselves, and so went to great pains to cover up their trail wherever they went, even laying many false paths along the way.
But with Aurora’s millennia of experience hunting the most dangerous prey in Epheotus and a pinpoint eye on the sky, hints that most would have missed became glaring footprints that led directly to my foe. It was an irritating process considering my own inexperience, but I was learning fast.
And even if the Bastards Victorious were expert survivalists, they weren’t practiced in covering their traces. Their methods were brutal and designed to instill terror and fear in their enemies, and that showed even in how they fled. A brutal murder of a mana beast left traces in the ambient mana in a way a simple execution would not. Jagged swipes of weapons across branches and leaves to clear a pathway created easy-to-follow trails if one
“Be careful, Toren,” she said, no small amount of worry in her tone. “I hope you know what you are doing.”
Aurora’s massive bronze form flew over to where Wolfrum was on the banks, before covering him in a sheltering cocoon of bronze. Her eyes dared any intruder to try.
I could understand why I’d missed this before. I subconsciously filtered out the innumerable lifeforces of the worms beneath my feet; of the tiny creatures and flitting insects and all that would overwhelm my senses if I were not careful. But unlike what I would have expected, the heartfire of my quarry was just like that.
I turned in a slow circle in the air, the corpses of the rhinoran and water hydra suddenly seeming like poisoned daggers–but even so, they were not the greatest threat.
My Acquire Phase burned hot in my veins as I tried to catch another wisp of that elusive darkness, but it was too subtle. Too faint and distant, like a winter breeze that sends chills down your spine.
“Scythe Viessa Vritra,” I finally said, enhancing the volume with a bare application of sound magic, “I demand to know why you’ve assaulted me. Why you have interrupted me and tried to have me killed.”
That familiar sense of intent made the back of my throat feel like it was prickled with rot–but that was a sensation I’d experienced before. Way back in the Undead Zone, where cords of intent and grave-still heartfires created an undead legion that sought my soul. And added in the fact that I’d been assaulted by corrupted mana beasts, it wasn’t hard to figure out what exactly had happened.
I received no response. The air was deathly silent, but not in a tense way. No, the tension itself was dead. Like an abandoned graveyard that had been left to decay without attention or care.
I pressed outward with my aura, flexing my intent and flaring my power. The red chain along my arm brightened in tune with my agitation. “Can this be considered an act of treason?” I snapped, the water around me churning as droplets raised into the air on eddies of power. “To attack one of Scythe Seris’ retinue–”
My words cut off in a stutter as warmth radiated wrongly through my body, and I lurched in the air. I stared in disbelief at my chest, fear and horror cutting through my anger as a blade of dark wind thrust through me. Blood streamed down my clothes in horrible waves, sparkling with scarlet mockery.
I coughed, droplets of blood streaming from my mouth. I tried to call on my heartfire to heal the wound, but it didn’t work. It didn’t respond. I blinked hazily as I listed to the side, part fearful and part in disbelief. The wound was fatal, and my lifeforce wouldn’t respond! Panic began to surge through me as I stared brokenly at where my lungs used to be.
How had…. When had she…
“You know, Toren Daen,” an even voice behind me said, “I’ve always wanted to tear out your heart. It seems I finally have the justification I need.”