"This is difficult…"
Haruka barely had time to form the thought before the pressure increased even further.
The battle had clearly turned unfavorable. With each exchange, the balance tipped a little more toward the anomalies. They were not only taking advantage of the terrain and the storm; they were moving with an unsettling coordination, cutting off her escape routes and forcing her to react instead of attack.
She had made a mistake by underestimating them.
They were not clumsy beasts. They thought. They observed. They learned.
Every attack Haruka launched was met with a more effective response than the last, as if the anomalies were deciphering her fighting style with each movement.
Haruka created a barrier of sharp icicles in front of her, an aggressive defense meant to buy her a few seconds. She needed that time to prepare something more elaborate—something that could change the flow of the fight.
But they would not allow it.
The club-wielding ape struck precisely at the base of the icicles. The ice shattered and collapsed, opening a gap just as the axe-wielding ape lunged forward, charging without hesitation through the sharp debris.
The distance was too short.
Haruka reacted instantly, unleashing a rain of ice crystals to halt its advance. The attack would have been enough against any other anomaly, but the ape made a powerful leap, soaring above the ice. It grabbed onto the thick branch of a tree and, with a fluid and surprisingly precise motion, hurled its axe straight at her.
"Damn it…!"
With no time to raise a proper defense, Haruka created a small ice shield in front of her body. The impact was devastating. The shield shattered instantly; it failed to stop the axe, only barely deflecting its trajectory.
The blade grazed past her, slicing into her arm.
The pain came late.
Haruka clenched her teeth and grabbed her wounded arm, but she did not have even a second to recover.
The club-wielding ape appeared at her side and unleashed a brutal blow against her flank.
The sound was unmistakable.
A crystal breaking.
Particles of light scattered from Haruka's body as the impact sent her flying. Her body slammed against the trunk of a tree, the air violently forced from her lungs.
She collapsed to the ground, unable to breathe.
For an instant, the world shrank to pain.
Her protective spell… had taken critical damage.
And the anomalies were advancing once more.
Haruka was surprised.
She could not remember the last time anyone had cornered her like this.
She lowered her gaze to her arm and watched the blood slowly sliding down her skin. It had been so long since she had felt the pain of being wounded that, for a moment, it felt almost… unfamiliar. A brief laugh escaped her lips.
She thought she would look truly pathetic if Mochi saw her like this.
She lifted her gaze.
The two anomalies remained in front of her, motionless, watching her. They did not advance. They did not attack. It was obvious: they already considered her defeated.
Haruka pushed herself up with effort, bracing one hand against the tree trunk behind her. Aside from the cut on her arm, she had no other injuries. All thanks to the protective spell she had cast on herself.
An absolute spell… but a fragile one.
It protected her from any attack that could deal fatal damage, no matter how powerful. But only once. And now it had fulfilled its purpose.
Casting it again would take her an hour.
An hour she did not have.
If she took another blow like that, it would be the end.
Haruka closed her eyes for a second and accepted it.
Continuing to fight as she always had was no longer an option.
Her usual style—precise and almost surgical—was designed to wear down the enemy while consuming as little energy as possible. She could maintain it for hours… but that approach no longer worked here. Not against two anomalies that adapted quickly and had managed to corner her.
She took a deep breath.
The freezing air filled her lungs.
She had already made her decision.
Haruka stopped holding back.
She released all her power at once, flooding every corner of her body with as much ether as possible. She did not care about being left exhausted. She did not care about what came after.
She gripped her fan tightly.
A dense aura, a deep, intense blue, enveloped her body. Ether saturated her skin, her muscles, her breathing. It was an overwhelming presence.
Haruka began to laugh.
It had been a long time since she had felt that sensation: her body overflowing with energy, her mind perfectly clear. It was an internal explosion, like electricity running through her from head to toe—pure adrenaline.
The anomalies stopped dead.
Their bodies tensed, entering a state of total alert. They understood it instantly. The figure before them was no longer prey they could toy with.
Their instincts screamed a single word:
DANGER.
"What's wrong?" Haruka said with a smile. "Where did that confidence from before go? I see…"
She spread her fan.
"Then I'll take the liberty of making the first move."
She swung it with force.
"Pierce!"
The ground exploded.
A wave of enormous, dense ice spikes erupted in every direction, far larger and thicker than any she had created before. There was no safe space on the ground. The anomalies were forced to leap into the trees to avoid being impaled.
The terrain was completely transformed.
Sharp icicles covered the entire area, turning the forest into a frozen field of death.
From the top of a tree, the club-wielding simian launched itself with all its strength, leaping straight toward Haruka in a desperate attack.
It did not even come close.
Haruka flicked her fan just once.
A devastating blast of wind shot forward and struck the treetop head-on. The force was so great that the trunk exploded into fragments, snow was flung in every direction, and the simian was struck without any chance to defend itself.
It let out a howl of pain as its body was violently dragged away, crashing into several trees before falling heavily to the ground.
The club shattered into pieces on impact.
Its body was in no better condition. Broken bones, clumsy movements—the mere attempt to stand drew muffled groans of pain from it.
It was no longer a threat.
Haruka barely spared it a glance before fixing her attention on the other anomaly.
The axe-wielding simian moved swiftly through the branches, its objective obvious: to retrieve its weapon, which remained embedded in the snow in the distance.
"I won't allow it."
With a single motion, Haruka raised her fan.
From the ground rose a colossal wall of ice, so tall it surpassed the forest's pines. The wall completely blocked the anomaly's path.
The simian roared and charged at the barrier.
It struck.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Nothing.
The ice did not show a single crack. Instead, its knuckles began to bleed from the repeated impacts. Even so, it kept striking, driven by desperation.
It was useless.
Haruka slowly raised her fan and pointed it toward the sky.
The air grew heavy.
Above them, gigantic icicles began to form, each one the size of a person. Dozens of them. Suspended in midair.
The simian looked up.
For the first time, its face reflected something clear and human:
Terror.
It understood instantly. There was no escape. No trick. No brute strength that could save it.
"Disappear."
The fan came down.
The icicles fell like a rain of spears. The explosion of ice, snow, and earth shook the area.
When the cloud dissipated, the landscape had changed.
The ground was covered in craters, nearby trees were shattered, and at the center of the impact there were barely any recognizable remains of the anomaly, already beginning to fade into particles of ether.
Only one remained.
Haruka slowly turned, searching for the wounded anomaly.
Nothing.
It was nowhere in sight.
Most likely, it was hiding, waiting for the perfect moment to launch a surprise attack.
But that would no longer work.
Haruka smiled.
"I've been wanting to try this for a while."
She let her ether flow into the fan.
It began to shine with an intense silvery light. Around it, the wind started to spin—first gently, then violently—until it formed a powerful tornado… but it did not descend from the sky.
It rose from the ground.
The storm enveloped the entire area. The winds were brutal, but what was truly lethal was what they carried: an innumerable amount of ice crystals, thin and sharp as blades, created by Haruka and hurled uncontrollably within the gale.
Inside that storm, nothing could survive.
After a minute, Haruka closed the fan.
The storm dissipated as easily as it had been born.
The forest fell silent.
Only the remains of shattered trees lingered… and among them, the unrecognizable fragments of the last anomaly, fading away just like its companion.
The battle was over.
Haruka let out a long sigh.
Fatigue weighed on her entire body. It was the first time she had summoned a storm of such magnitude, and the cost had been enormous. Although she still had energy left, it was the first time in a long while that she had spent so much all at once.
With no more anomalies in sight, she began her return to the inn.
As she moved through the snow-covered trees, one thought kept circling in her mind.
Cooperation among wild anomalies was extremely rare.
Regardless of their rank or power, anomalies could be divided into two major groups: peaceful and wild. The difference did not lie in their strength, but in their behavior toward humans.
Peaceful anomalies could coexist with one another, cooperate, and even form bonds—just as Kero and Kumo did, the anomalies that Mochi had accepted as family.
Wild ones, on the other hand, were selfish, territorial, and envious by nature. They not only attacked humans, but also attacked each other without hesitation.
That was why what she had witnessed was not normal.
There was only one reason why wild anomalies would cooperate in that way.
The presence of a more powerful anomaly.
At times, a strong and intelligent anomaly would form a kind of pack. Within it, it acted as the absolute leader, dominating the others either through force, intimidation, or by allowing them to follow of their own free will.
Following a leader had its advantages.
Protection.
Access to food.
And the possibility of feeding on the remains of the prey their leader hunted.
The two simians she had faced had very similar levels, far too similar for one to be able to subdue the other. That could only mean one thing.
There was something else out there.
Something stronger than both of them.
Normally, Haruka would have gone out to look for it without hesitation. But this time, she could not afford to. What worried her most was not what was hiding in the forest…
But what might be happening at the inn.
The storm was still interfering with her perception, preventing her from knowing what was happening at that moment. The mere thought of an anomaly attacking while she was not there tightened her chest.
She thought of Mochi.
And quickened her pace.
She had to return as soon as possible.