The fire-storm ground boughs and trunks into timber-dust in a heartbeat. A cataclysmic gale swept through the groves, dragging hundreds of subterranean Raffblooms from their lightless sanctuaries with an immense, gravitational pull. The frenzied mageia shredded the carpet of withered leaves, scattering them like dark confetti as high-pitched shrieks of primal terror resonated through the timber.
The instant the Raffblooms were sucked into the heart of the flaming maelstrom, their forms were rent into minuscule fragments with a velocity that defied the eye. The howling whirlwind shrieked like a chorus of vengeful wraiths returning for retribution. The remains of the monstrosities were dispersed into the inferno until not a solitary trace of a corpse could be unearthed.
[Roar-creak-snap!]
Seraph's pyre-blade storm on this occasion manifested a potence far surpassing his previous feat at the Vespass tower. Yet, in a mere few breaths, the mageia subsided; the duration of the incantation was too fleeting to utterly invert the tide of the catastrophe.
It was a bitter contrast to the devastating fire-mageia he had employed to subjugate the goblin hoards; on that field, the grasslands and black-ink oil had served as volatile fuel, amplifying the destructive force into pillars of flame that raged throughout the night. However, amidst this damp, sylvan atmosphere, Seraph's mageia could not stay the hand of the encroaching ruin.
Though several aspirants caught sight of the incandescent glare and felt the pulse of his formidable mageia, the vast majority were locked in a desperate struggle for survival, clashing with Raffblooms in every far-flung corner of the Darkwood. Not a single cabal could muster the strength to unify against the onslaught. Every life was scattered in disarray, as fragile as sandcastles before a rising tide.
At this hour, the Raffbloom host had initiated a comprehensive slaughter. They unveiled their true, malefic visages from the lightless sanctuaries beneath the strata. Though a fraction of the hunters found the grit to draw steel in counter-assault, such resolve was absent in the majority. In a mere few heartbeats following the onset of this butchery, scores of mortals were dragged screaming into the lightless maws beneath the earth.
This night was predestined to be a harvest of gore, the stench of copper and rot clinging to every league of the Darkwood. Even as the first embers of dawn touched the horizon, the cacophony of relentless predation showed no sign of subsidence.
✧ . ✶ . ❂ . ✶ . ✧
✧ . ✶ . ❂ . ✶ . ✧
The Eighth Morning of the Bloody Hunting.
Gilded shafts of dawn began to pierce the canopy, touching the floor of the Darkwood once more. Yet, the light offered no reprieve to the savage conflict between the two species; torrents of warm gore continued to saturate the soil without cessation.
Seraph surged across the high boughs with predatory haste, yet his intent in this moment was not the pursuit of the Raffbloom...
On the contrary, it was the Raffbloom host that pursued the race of man with a berserker's zeal. They advanced without fatigue, refusing to yield even a single inch of ground!
From the instant the Raffbloom commenced their massacre, these floral horrors had not stayed their hand for a solitary second. With every ten minutes that bled away, at least two aspirants were sacrificed to the soil. In the scant nine hours since the veil of this theatre of war was officially rent asunder, the count of the fallen had already exceeded a hundred souls.
Though in isolation they lacked a formidable rank, their staggering numbers expanded like a sea of blossoms as scarlet as fresh blood. Yet, this was no garden of aesthetic wonder; it was a field of demonic miasma—a meadow of demonic blooms that thirsted for nothing but slaughter.
"Flamus Linkblasz!"
"Flamus Barrix!"
[Swoosh!—roar!]
Seraph snapped his Sceptre, unleashing a violent counter-offensive to his rear. A vast plume of pyre-light erupted, mimicking a dragon's breath as it incinerated both the Raffblooms and the surrounding forest, fusing them into a scorched barrier of mageia fire.
The young magis had turned to his black-ink arcana once more. He surged forward, weaving in tight, frantic circles to lure hundreds of Raffblooms into his wake, drawing them into a relentless pursuit.
Though the Raffblooms could move, they were sluggish—their intellects utterly void. Like newborns opening their eyes to a world they did not understand, they were ignorant of the lethal nature of fire. Encountering the conflagration for the first time, the demons cast themselves mindlessly into the heat.
Now, hundreds of them were caged within the sweltering walls of the fire-barrier. They could do nothing but lash their petals in a grotesque dance amidst the pyre, shrieking like arboreal phantoms. Powerless, they could only await their end in that makeshift hell. Thick, murky fumes and the nauseating stench of charred rot drifted incessantly from the flames.
"BURN!" Seraph roared.
[Voom!]
His mageia surged, forcing the flames to billow higher, casting a searing heat across the clearing. Yet there was no time to admire the carnage; deeper within the Darkwood, hundreds of thousands of Raffblooms lay in wait. Their hunt had only just begun.
[Creeeeak—crash!]
Above the barrier, more than a hundred Raffblooms unleashed their thorny tendrils, lashing at him from every flank. Trees were hewn down like dry straw, collapsing under thorns as sharp as tempered steel. The very earth groaned, sending ripples of dust shivering into the air.
The thorns of the demonic tendrils struck from the rear with blinding velocity. Seraph executed a mid-air somersault to evade the lethal barbs, simultaneously coalescing his mageia power to prepare a full-strength counter-offensive.
Suddenly, a small, toxic fungal demon darted forward, obstructing the enemy of a different race with speed so great it blurred the vision. The Acidspora inhaled sharply until its cap swelled to a bulbous, bloated mass. A murky green luminescence flickered amidst the gloom, a sight to wither the nerves. Toxic spores were spat toward the young magis's face, billowing into a surrounding shroud of mist; a stream of green demonic fel erupted like the breath of a venomous dragon. A human suspended helplessly in the air could never hope to evade such a death!
Seraph's eyes widened in alarm. In that fraction of a second between life and passing, he had no time even for a snarl of fury!
"Ventus Aethus!"
"Flamus Shellux!"
He urgently unleashed his defensive mageia. The two spells acted with loyalty, shielding the young magis and weaving a pocket of pure air around him, while simultaneously reflecting the concussive force and toxic vapours back upon the foe.
[Boom!]
The thunderous detonation hurled the Acidspora's frame away, slamming it into a Greatwood tree deep within the forest. It shrieked in harrowing agony. Yet, despite the reflected poison and the violent impact, the diminutive demon remained devoid of a single scratch.
Seraph had previously employed mageia to examine their carcasses; thus, he knew well that within the forms of the Raffbloom and Acidspora, there was a total absence of bone. Their supple tissue ensured they would never suffer from blunt trauma or fractured limbs. The solitary path to slaying them was to incinerate their vital organs until nothing remained but ash!