The deeper the strike team pushed into Gaiya, the less the forest felt like a place that belonged to the living.
Branches of trees tangled overhead in dense, interlocking knots that blocked most of what remained of the daylight. What little light still filtered through came in thin, broken shafts that barely reached the ground. The air had grown thick and damp. The more they advanced forward, the more it smelled like a sour-sweet stink of rotting vegetation mixed with something sharper: ozone and old blood. Every step sank into soft, loamy earth that clung to their boots and slowed them down.
Roots hidden under the leaf litter tried to catch their ankles multiple times, but the strike team moved in a tight formation now, weapons ready, eyes constantly scanning the shadows between the trunks.
They had been fighting almost without pause since midday.
The first groups of monsters they had encountered after letting Kaela's group go had been manageable. Scattered hobgoblins, alongside some handful of lesser undead that fell to coordinated strikes and Rhuvia's carefully measured wind blades. Though they were supposed to be weak monsters, they still managed to kill most of the horses the strike team was riding on.
Now they were walking by themselves, slowly, but at least advancing forward. The deeper they went, the more the forest seemed to spit out stronger things. It was as if the place itself resented their presence and was determined to grind them down before they could reach whatever waited at its heart.
Rhuvia walked near the front. Her usual casual posture was gone. Her shoulders stayed tighter, and her steps more controlled. The small wooden carving she had been idly shaping earlier, staying on top of her horse as a hobby in the day, was long gone, dropped somewhere during one of the earlier fights, where she had to use her mana once more.
Her hands stayed free now. Fingers occasionally flexed as if testing how much mana still remained in her core. She could feel the slow drain from the repeated small casts she had been forced to make. The final sealing of a dungeon gate, if they ever found the thing, would take a serious portion of what she had left. So, she knew that she could not afford to empty herself too early.
Vessa moved a half-step behind her right side, short blade already drawn. Her expression stayed as flat as ever, but her eyes never stopped moving. Maya of the Fiora tribe kept to the left flank with two of her remaining hunters.
Drosha, quiet, carrying a heavy spear, was in charge of watching the rear with the other guild adventurers. Everyone was breathing harder than they had been an hour ago. Armor was scuffed. A few light wounds had already been bandaged on the move.
And just now, they had just finished cutting down a cluster of spiked, dog-sized reptiles when the next group appeared right after they finished killing them.
And to make matters worse than it already was, these ones were larger.
They looked like small, bipedal dinosaurs, thick hind legs built for sudden bursts of speed, short grasping forelimbs, rows of serrated teeth set in elongated snouts. Their scales were a mottled green-brown that blended too well with the undergrowth.
Six of them crashed through a wall of ferns twenty paces ahead. They were already hissing. Already charging, as if their intentions were to not let the strike team rest even a little.
Someone in the back cursed under their breath.
"Fuck.. At this rate, how the hell are we supposed to find the gate? Every time we try to push forward, we have to fight. If we try to circle around, we just end up walking in loops and coming back to the same damn clearing. It's like the forest itself is a puzzle designed to keep us running in circles. Finding the gate before nightfall is starting to feel impossible," one of the guild adventurers muttered, voice tight with exhaustion.
Vessa did not look away from the approaching creatures. "Rhuvia. What do we do?"
Rhuvia's eyes narrowed. She watched the lead dinosaur-thing accelerate, claws tearing shallow furrows in the dirt. For a moment her jaw worked as if she were weighing options that no longer existed. Circling was no longer reliable. Resting was impossible. And turning back was not an option, either. They've come too far for that.
She exhaled through her nose.
"What else can we do?" she said. "Let's kill these bastards and keep moving."
The team tightened ranks without needing further orders.
Before long, the first dinosaur lunged at Maya. She sidestepped with a fluid movement. Her spear thrust upward into the soft underside of its jaw. The point punched through and out the top of its skull with a wet crack. The creature's momentum carried it past her. She twisted the shaft free and let the body crash into the undergrowth without sparing it a second glance.
Two more came at Drosha together. The large woman met them with the heavy spear that was on her hand now. The first thrust slammed into a chest plate of thick scale and failed to fully penetrate. Before she could do anything about it, the second creature slammed into her side before she could recover. Claws raked across her leather armor, scoring deep grooves and drawing blood.
She grunted, planted her feet, and drove the butt of the spear into the second creature's eye socket with a wet crunch. The first one was already recovering. So, Drosha had to spin and slam the point into its throat before it could bite down on her arm.
On the other side, Vessa moved like water between the trees. Her short blade flashed once, twice, three times, and precise cuts opened arteries along the neck and inner thighs of a fourth dinosaur, which she cut down in mere seconds. It staggered, blood spraying in dark arcs across the ferns, then collapsed with a final hiss.
One of the guild fighters took a glancing bite to the forearm and went down with a sharp cry. The fifth creature was already turning toward the gap in the line when Rhuvia finally moved.
She had been holding back. Everyone knew it. The final sealing of a dungeon gate would require a significant portion of her mana. Using it now meant risking the entire purpose of the mission.
Yet the line was buckling, and knowing another fighter on the ground would slow them even more, Rhuvia's hand snapped forward.
A thin, razor-edged blade of condensed air formed in front of her palm and shot outward with a sharp whistle. It caught the fifth dinosaur mid-leap, slicing cleanly through its neck. The head tumbled one way. The body continued forward another two steps before collapsing in a twitching heap.
The sixth and final creature tried to circle wide around the right flank. Drosha, still recovering from the earlier impact, was slow to turn. The dinosaur's jaws opened wide, aiming for the exposed side of her neck.
Rhuvia's eyes flashed.
She did not have time for a precise cut this time. Mana flared around her free hand in a visible, crackling corona of pale light. She thrust her palm forward and released a short, focused burst of force. The invisible impact slammed into the creature's side with the weight of a charging bull, hurling it sideways into a thick tree trunk.
Bone cracked loudly. The dinosaur slid down the bark and did not get up.
Silence returned for a few ragged breaths.
Drosha pressed a hand to her side where the earlier claws had bitten through leather. Blood welled between her fingers, but she stayed on her feet. "Thanks," she muttered toward Rhuvia.
She only nodded once, already scanning the trees for the next threat. The brief expenditure of mana left a faint tightness behind her eyes and a dull ache in her core. She pushed both sensations down. After all, there was no time for it.
Around them, the forest remained unnaturally quiet, as if it were waiting to see whether they would keep advancing or finally break.
Vessa wiped her blade clean on a fallen frond. "We have to keep moving. Let's form the same formation. I think we have to watch the undergrowth from now on; those things like to come low, it seems."
Maya pulled her spear free from the first carcass and glanced at the darkening canopy above. "Light's dropping faster, too. I don't think we will be able to find the dungeon's gate before dark at this rate."
One of the guild adventurers helped the bitten fighter, the only male in this group, back to his feet and quickly wrapped the forearm. The man was pale but still able to hold his weapon. No one suggested stopping for a longer rest. They all knew what the fading light meant.
They formed up again and pushed deeper into the trees, leaving the cooling bodies of the monsters they killed behind. Every few dozen paces another sound reached them, distant hisses, the snap of branches, the wet thud of something heavy moving through the brush.
It was clear that the forest was not finished with them.
Rhuvia walked in silence. One hand occasionally brushed the hilt of the staff at her hip. The other remained loose at her side.
The mission had always been tight on time. Now it felt like the forest itself was actively trying to make sure they failed. Every fight cost them minutes. Every wound slowed the formation. Every use of mana brought her closer to the point where thoughts like sealing the gate might no longer be possible were coming back to her.
Maya moved up slightly on the left. Her voice was low enough that only those nearest could hear.
"If this pattern holds, the next group that we might face will be stronger again. Or more of them."
Rhuvia gave a short nod. "Then we kill them too."
Vessa glanced at her from the side. "What happened to reserving Mana?"
"I have enough in me," Rhuvia answered. It was not a full lie. It was also not the full truth, either. She still had enough for smaller cuts and bursts. The large-scale work needed for a proper gate seal was another matter. She would cross that problem when they finally found the damn thing.
The canopy overhead grew even thicker. The last thin shafts of daylight narrowed further. Shadows stretched longer between the trunks. Somewhere ahead, past the next wall of green and the next pack of waiting claws, the dungeon gate still waited.
If it waited at all.
The strike team adjusted their grip on their weapons and kept walking without a word after that.