Dawn bled into the world like a wound. The mist clung low over the forest's edge. Thick, silver, and cold mist was swallowing the trunks of ancient trees in ghostly veils. The forest smelled of wet ash, ozone, and something sharper like metallic sap weeping from the trees like blood. The air crackled not with magic but with fear or anticipation of the upcoming hunt.
Dozens of elite hunter squads gathered on the forest's perimeter. Their polished armor was glinting under the pale sun. Banners of the legacy families were flying high in the breeze. Their elites standing neatly into different formation.
Among them, three figures moved like shadows stitched into the fabric of the crowd.
Natasha adjusted the strap of her crossbow, her eyes scanning the data pads. Her red hair was glued tight against her skull, practical and unadorned.
Jax stomped through the mud in heavy boots, his greatsword slung across his back like a promise of violence.
William walked between them, calm, his bow unstrung but ready, his gaze already mapping escape routes, choke points, blind spots.
They were independents . The affiliated and unwelcomed among the legacies. Their gear was patched and cloaks were frayed. Yet they moved with the quiet confidence of those who'd survived not by privilege, but by cunning.
"Sector assignments!" shouted a Guild officer, his voice amplified .
"Glyphs I to XII. Report to your designated assignment tent. Independents also go to the assignment tent ,to get your outer perimeter duty. Hold the line until relieved."
A murmur rippled through the ragged independent ranks.
"Outer perimeter. Are we here for being bait? "
"They are going to use us for testing the water".
"They want us to die quietly so the legacies don't get their boots dirty."
William didn't flinch. He'd knew long before this is going to happen.
######
The assignment tent was a canvas cube reeking of ink and stale coffee. A clerk with sause stained fingers and half-lidded eyes barely glanced up as they approached.
"Names?" he asked.
"William. Jax. Natasha ."William said.
The clerk tapped a data pad. Its screen flickered, glyphs scrolling too fast to read—then froze on 'SECTOR IX'.
"Sector Nine," the clerk said, stamping a wax seal onto a parchment. "Low threat. Far east quadrant. Report at first as possible."
Natasha's eyes narrowed. "Low threat? That sector borders the Hollow."
"Not my problem," the clerk muttered, already turning to the next group.
As they stepped away, Jax spat into the ground. "Low threat means no witnesses."
William unrolled the map. Sector Nine was a thin crescent of forest hugging the eastern ridge—remote, poorly surveyed, and conspicuously absent from recent Guild reports.
He glanced at Natasha. She tapped her scanner; its screen showed heavy redaction bars over topographical data.
"Something's scrubbed," she whispered.
William exhaled slowly. "Then we go in sharp.
Jax—point.
Natasha—flank and overwatch.
I'll anchor mid.
We move in staggered triangle, ten-meter spacing. If it's quiet, it's a trap. If it's loud, it's a trap. Assume both."
Jax grinned, cracking his knuckles. "Finally. A plan that makes sense."
Natasha adjusted her goggles. "Just don't fight like last time in the slum. I am not going mix those smelly herbs for oilment again."
"Thanks, Nat," Jax shot back.
William smiled faintly. This was their rhythm—grit, gallows humor, and trust forged in blood and near-death.
###########
The forest swallowed them whole.
Mist curled around gnarled roots. The ground was soft with decay, muffling their steps.
William moved like water—silent, fluid—his bow now strung, an arrow nocked but not drawn.
Jax led with his sword half-drawn, eyes scanning the canopy.
Natasha perched on a mossy boulder, crossbow trained on the trail behind.
Then—movement.
Seven wolves like shapes emerged from the undergrowth. Their bodies were elongated, ribs protruding like armor plates, fur patchy and slick with black ichor. Their mouth were wide, too wide, teeth serrated like glass shards. Their eyes were glowing amber ,pulsed in unison.
*Thrum. Thrum. Thrum.*
"Mutant wolf," Natasha hissed. "Common near the hollow "
Jax didn't wait. He roared and charged.
The lead beast lunged.
Jax met it head-on. Steel flashed.
The wolf hit the ground in two halves twitching.
Two more flanked him. William loosed an arrow—it struck the left beast in the eye, but the right leapt. Natasha's bolt took it mid-air, pinning it to a tree.
The remaining four circled, coordinated, intelligent.
" It felt these beast are not feral, but trained." Jax muttered.
William nocked another arrow. As he drew, faint blue tracers undetectable to naked eyes coiled around the shaft: the first whisper of Dragon's Lash.He didn't unleash it. He was waiting for the perfect opportunity. The air around him hummed.
The pack attacked as one.
Jax intercepted the largest wolf. His sword was like a blur of steel. He took a small gash across his forearm but held the line.
Natasha dropped from her perch, laying down caltrops laced with paralytic resin. One beast stumbled, shrieking as its legs locked.
William exhaled.
'Now.'
He released the arrow. It didn't fly—it unspooled, fracturing into three spectral strands that wrapped around the throats of the remaining beasts. They choked, clawing at nothing, before collapsing.
Silence.
Only the drip of ichor and Jax's ragged breaths.
Natasha knelt by the dead pack leader, open its hide with a hunter knife to collect some meat for dinner.
Soon William joined her.
Then he saw it—their eyes, even in death, still pulsed faintly. Synchronized. Like a heartbeat from something deeper in the woods.
Suddenly a thunderous roar split the sky.
The roar was not from a beast nor from a human but something between.
The trio froze. From Sector Seven, less than a kilometer west ,a pillar of black smoke spiraled upward. Then came the screams. The screams wasn't of fear but awe.
They ran.
By the time the trio reached the ridge overlooking Sector Seven, the battle was over.
Kiara Christie stood alone in a clearing littered with corpses. Not just any corpses Tier-2 beasts .All dead. All felled with single, precise strikes.
She wore no armor. Only a sleeveless tunic of white silk, stained now with ichor. Her sword was a slender, unadorned blade hung loosely at her hand, dripping black.
Around her, a Tier-0 squad of the Solis Family was kneeling down. Not in mourning but in worship.
Kiara turned slowly, her eyes were pale gold, almost luminous . She was scanning the treeline. For a heartbeat, William felt seen. Not as a threat. Not as a rival. But as… data.
Then she sheathed her sword.
The crowd erupted.
"Kiara the Unbroken!" someone shouted.
"She cleaved the Obsidian Maw in half!"
"Did you see it? The air folded!"
William didn't join the chorus. He watched her walk away, her steps silent on blood-soaked earth. No triumph in her posture. Only exhaustion—and something deeper. Calculation.
Jax whistled low. "One strike. Three beasts. That's not skill. That's prophecy."
Natasha frowned. "Or augury. She knew where they'd move before they moved."
William's mind raced. He'd studied the great hunters. Read their treatises. But Kiara… she didn't fight like them. She fought like she was reading a script only she could see.
"What is she seeing that I can't?"
The question coiled in his gut like a serpent.
###############
Night fell like a shroud.
Back in Sector Nine, they made camp in a small cave with minimal fire, no light, just thermal blankets and watch rotations. They ate the previously cut out meat for dinner.
Jax took first watch, sharpening his blade with methodical strokes.
"Tracks," he said suddenly, not looking up. "Something or someone circling us. Not random but deliberate."
Natasha crawled to the edge, scanner in hand. The device emitted a low, rhythmic ping. "Tremors. Subsonic. Coming from the Hollow. And they're-" she paused for a second and continued "patterned,like drumbeats."
William stood, scanning the tree line. The mist had thickened. Shapes moved within it maybe not beasts. The shapes were too tall and too still for a beast
"Predators that move like soldiers," he murmured.
Natasha joined him. "You think the legecies know?"
"They assigned us here for a reason," William said. "Either they're testing something… or they're sacrificing us to buy time."
Jax sheathed his whetstone. "So what do we do?"
"We survive," William said. "And we watch."
He looked west, toward where Kiara had vanished. If anyone knew what was coming, it was her. But she wouldn't warn them. Independents didn't matter in the grand design.
Unless they made themselves matter.
Above, the sky was black without the trace of the moon.From the depths of the forest, a chorus of roars echoed, not chaotic, but harmonized. A hunting song.
Natasha powered down her scanner. "They're not just hunting beasts out here."
Jax tightened his grip on his sword. "No. They're hunting us."
William nocked an arrow, the Dragon's Lash coiling faintly around his fingers. "Tomorrow, the hunt begins," he said softly. "But tonight… we're the ones being hunted."
And in the silence that followed, the forest held its breath.
William took first watch.
The others slept with vigilance. He sat with his back to the cave mouth , bow across his lap, eyes tracing the mist's slow dance. Every rustle, every snapped twig, sent his pulse racing but nothing emerged.
Then, just before the midnight, he saw it.
A single figure, silhouetted against the black sky among the tress. She stood tall ,still and watching .
Kiara.
She didn't approached. Didn't moved. Just stood there, for three breaths, then turned and vanished into the trees.
William's hand tightened on his bow. He didn't know whose silhouetted that was.
Then he realised the real hunt hadn't even begun.
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