Chapter 89: The Hunt's Response
POV: Adam
The temperature dropped without warning.
One moment, the forest road wound through summer greenery—leaves rustling, birds singing, sunlight filtering through the canopy in golden shafts. The next, frost crept across bark and stone, each breath becoming visible mist, the world transforming from warmth to winter in heartbeats.
"Down!" Geralt's shout came simultaneously with the first portal opening.
Ice crystallized in mid-air, forming a vertical tear in reality through which cold fire burned. A rider emerged—skeletal horse whose hooves struck frozen ground without sound, armored figure in ancient elven plate covered in centuries of frost, face hidden behind a helm that radiated wrongness my human mind couldn't process.
Then two more portals opened.
Three Wild Hunt riders, manifested fully in the physical realm, surrounding us on a road that had seemed safe minutes before.
[ THREAT DETECTED: Wild Hunt Manifestation ]
[ Enemy Level: 45+ (each) ]
[ Recommendation: FLEE ]
Earth Armor activated before conscious thought could interfere. Stone scales flowed up my body, coating me in protection that had stopped Nilfgaardian steel and witcher silver.
Against spectral ice, it felt like paper.
"The false death deceives mortals, not us." The voice scraped across my mind in a language I shouldn't understand but somehow did. Old Speech—ancient elven tongue translated through mechanisms I couldn't explain. "We feel her blood singing across dimensions. Surrender the Child of Elder Blood, or become frozen monuments to futility."
"Adam." Ciri's voice came tight with terror. "They're really here. They're really here."
"Stay behind me." I raised earth walls between us and the nearest rider. "Geralt, Lambert—"
"Already moving." The witchers flanked, silver swords drawn, signs crackling at their fingertips.
The Hunt attacked.
—Scene Break—
POV: Lambert
The first rider came for him like a nightmare given form.
Lambert had fought monsters his entire adult life. Drowners and ghouls, vampires and werewolves, creatures that would make normal men soil themselves and run screaming. He'd killed them all with steel and silver and the cold efficiency of a witcher's trade.
This was different.
The spectral blade passed through his Quen shield like it wasn't there, cutting into his shoulder with cold that burned worse than fire. His sword struck the rider's armor and rebounded, barely leaving a scratch on frost-covered plate.
"Fuck!" He rolled away from the follow-up strike, felt ice crackle across his wounded arm. "Silver's not working!"
"Try oils!" Geralt's shout came from somewhere to his left, where the older witcher engaged his own rider with marginally more success. "Specter oil, anything with—"
The rider closed again. Lambert parried desperately, each contact sending frost spreading up his blade, numbing his hands through leather grips. The creature fought without emotion, without hesitation, with the patient inevitability of winter itself.
"Witcher." The voice echoed inside his skull. "Your mutations grant resistance but not immunity. Freeze slowly or freeze quickly—the choice is yours."
"How about option three?" Lambert triggered Igni, fire sign blazing from his palm.
The flames washed over the rider and accomplished nothing. Ice absorbed heat without melting, spectral armor designed to counter exactly this kind of attack.
"Shit."
—Scene Break—
POV: Adam
My earth walls meant nothing.
The Hunt riders phased through solid stone like ghosts through mist, only becoming fully corporeal when they chose to strike. Every projectile I launched either missed or bounced off armor that laughed at physical force.
Water fared worse. I pulled moisture from the air, shaped it into cutting jets aimed at joints and gaps—the riders froze it mid-flight, converted my attack into ice spears they hurled back with contemptuous precision.
Air barely affected them. Gusts strong enough to knock grown men off their feet made the spectral horses stumble but didn't stop their advance.
[ MP: 820/820 → 650/820 ]
[ Earth Armor: Degrading ]
[ Warning: Conventional elements ineffective against spectral entities ]
"Your power is impressive for a mortal." The lead rider circled me, toying with prey that couldn't escape. "Three elements mastered, and you're still learning. Under different circumstances, we might have recruited you. But you stand between us and what we need."
"She's not a thing to be used!"
"All beings are things to be used. The only question is by whom, and for what purpose." The rider's blade descended.
I blocked with an earth pillar that shattered on impact. The follow-through caught my armor, splitting stone scales and drawing a line of freezing pain across my chest.
[ HP: 530/530 → 480/530 ]
[ Status Effect: Frost Damage (Ongoing) ]
Geralt went down. Lambert was already on his knees, frozen wounds spreading across his body. I stood between Ciri and three entities that outclassed everything I'd faced combined.
And I was losing.
—Scene Break—
POV: Ciri
The Elder Blood responded to terror.
She'd felt it before—in Cintra when the walls fell, in the cave when assassins attacked, in a dozen desperate moments when survival demanded more than her conscious mind could provide. Power that lived in her cells, inherited through generations of selective breeding and cosmic accident.
Now it surged without permission.
Reality bent around her. The dimensional barriers she'd sensed in meditation—thin membranes separating worlds—became visible, tangible, malleable. She could see the Hunt riders more clearly than before: not just physical manifestations but anchors extending back through the portal into their frozen dimension, tethers that held them in this reality.
Tethers she could touch.
"CIRI, NO!" Adam's shout came distorted, stretched across suddenly fluid space.
She didn't listen. Her hand reached out, found the lead rider's tether, and pulled.
The rider screamed.
Not a sound—a sensation. Agony transmitted through dimensional frequency as Elder Blood burned against spectral essence. The creature recoiled, form flickering between solid and transparent, its connection to this reality suddenly threatened.
"What—" The rider's composure shattered. "What are you doing?"
"Leaving." Ciri grabbed Adam with her free hand, felt Geralt and Lambert through the connection they'd built over months of shared survival. "And you're not following."
The portal opened.
Not a Hunt portal—hers. Ripped from the fabric of reality through sheer desperate will, leading somewhere that wasn't here. She pushed Adam through, pulled the witchers after, dove through herself as the Hunt riders recovered and lunged for the closing tear.
Reality snapped shut behind her.
—Scene Break—
POV: Adam
The world reformed around us in fragments.
Sky. Trees. Grass. A stream burbling nearby, water that smelled different from the forest we'd fled. Birds singing songs I didn't recognize, their calls echoing across landscape that shouldn't exist anywhere near our previous location.
"Where—" I tried to stand, found my legs wouldn't cooperate. Earth Armor had dissolved during the transit, leaving me exposed and exhausted. "Where are we?"
"Miles away." Ciri lay beside me, pale as death, breathing in shallow gasps. "Didn't have time to aim. Just... jumped."
[ MP: 650/820 → 380/820 ]
[ Status: Exhausted ]
[ Location: Unknown (approximately 40 miles from previous position) ]
Lambert groaned somewhere to my left. Frost covered half his body, wounds that would need immediate attention before the cold spread further. Geralt pushed himself upright with the slow deliberation of someone cataloging injuries.
"Hunt didn't follow."
"Couldn't." Ciri's voice came thread-thin. "Portal was mine, not theirs. Different frequency. They'd have to manifest fresh, and that takes time."
"How much time?"
"Hours. Maybe a day." She turned her head, found my eyes. "I'm sorry. I couldn't let them—"
"You saved us." I crawled to her, pulled her against my chest, felt her trembling through our bond. "You saved all of us."
"They'll come back. They'll always come back." The tears came without warning, months of fear and pressure finally breaking through. "My existence brings death to everyone near me. Everyone I love ends up—"
"Stop." The word came harder than intended. "Stop that. You're not a curse. You're not a burden. You're a person with power that terrible beings want, and that's not your fault."
"But if I wasn't—"
"Then I'd have died in Cintra. Geralt would have died in a dozen fights. Lambert would have died five minutes ago." I lifted her chin, made her meet my eyes. "Your existence keeps us alive, Ciri. Whatever price comes with that, we pay it together."
Through our bond, I pushed everything I felt—love, determination, absolute refusal to let her carry this guilt alone. She collapsed against me, crying harder, but something in her posture changed. Acceptance, maybe. Or just relief at being held.
Geralt approached, wounds already closing through witcher regeneration. "We need to move. Hunt will manifest again eventually, and we need to be gone before they do."
"Lambert needs healing first."
"Then heal him. We have maybe six hours."
I looked at the frozen witcher, at the woman in my arms, at the landscape that meant nothing because we'd been running so long that everywhere looked the same.
"Not enough. Current power isn't enough. Need to get stronger. Need to reach Skellige. Need to survive long enough to matter."
"I'll handle Lambert." My voice came steadier than I felt. "Can you determine our location?"
"Roughly. We're still on the continent, probably thirty miles from the coast." Geralt pointed toward distant mountains. "That direction. If we push hard, we can reach Oxenfurt by tomorrow night."
"Then we push hard."
[ Quest Updated: Reach Skellige ]
[ Urgency: CRITICAL ]
[ XP Gained: 400 (Surviving Wild Hunt Encounter) ]
[ Level 38: 45% toward Level 39 ]
MORE POWER STONES == MORE CHAPTERS
To supporting Me in Pateron .
The Mentalist: New Detective /Suits: The Win Rate System / The Walking Dead: Shelter Sys
Love [ In The Witcher With Avatar Powers ]? Unlock More Chapters and Support the Story!
Dive deeper into the world of [ In The Witcher With Avatar Powers ] with exclusive access to 70+ min chapters ( 5 chapters every week ) on my Patreon, plus new fanfic every week! Your support starting at just $5/month helps me keep crafting the stories you love across epic universes
By joining, you're not just getting more chapters—you're helping me bring new worlds, twists, and adventures to life. Every pledge makes a huge difference!
👉 Join now at patreon.com/TheFinex5 and start reading today!