Sophie silently channeled mana into the ground, streams of green light flowing into the broken earth.
Crack! Crack!
The soil split apart beneath the beasts, and thick vines burst upward, coiling around their legs and snouts before they could even react. The creatures squealed and thrashed, but the more they struggled, the tighter the vines constricted. Sophie lifted her hand slightly, and a dozen sharpened roots erupted from the soil like spears, piercing the monsters clean through.
The forest fell silent. Only the rustling of leaves remained.
"Too easy," she muttered under her breath. The glow faded from her eyes, and the vines retracted, dragging the corpses aside to clear the path. With a graceful flick of her fingers, she gathered the monster cores rolling from the bodies and stored them neatly in a pouch at her hip.
Not far away, faint footsteps and whispers revealed a few curious refugees hiding nearby.
"Shii! She's coming this way!"
"Keep your mouth shut, would you?"
