[SHOO-WREEE!]
The armaments, ignited by the brilliance of their own spirits, tore through the firmament and shattered the atmospheric pressure. Slender, crimson-red streaks of mageia lanced through every obstruction with an absolute, unrestrained force, resembling a rain of arrows weaving through the timber. Every enchanted blade could now pierce through the densest of Greatwoods and monolithic boulders alike; though the demonic trees thrashed and lashed their boughs to halt the steel, they found themselves only detonated into jagged, gaping ruins.
Neither the Jackblooms nor the Nightshades could slip the noose. Each fire-edged knife surged through the timber to skewer the pumpkin-heads, reducing them to violent bursts of rind and pulp.
Even the Nightshades, with their ape-like celerity, were unable to flee; for no matter how they leaped, those diminutive blades were the swifter, haunting their heels like vengeful wraiths. The exploded husks of the flora demons and the toxic sloughs choked with viscera served as grim testaments to the demise. The collective howling of the Blood Floras across the forest could not stem the aggressive onslaught of the airborne armada.
The hour of annihilation persisted for many grueling turns before the world finally succumbed to a heavy silence...
Seraph hovered above the toxic slough, his gaze scouring the murky depths for any Raffblooms that might still be lurking beneath the filth. Yet, even as his mageia sight pierced the shroud of demonic miasma, no further traces of the enemy remained in the vicinity.
This was due, in part, to the fact that once the demon hunters had reclaimed their consciousness, they had added their own strength to the magis's cull, pursuing the stragglers with a newfound zeal. Though their intervention was hardly necessary, a thousand pairs of eyes were undoubtedly more effective than one at rooting out the hidden monsters.
In the final tally, they had eradicated approximately a hundred and twenty demons in this skirmish. Within the vast, suffocating expanse of the Darkwood, only some five hundred of the Raffblooms remained.
Seraph had no absolute tally of the Raffbloom race, yet this figure was the most plausible estimate derived from Ranger intelligence and his own grim calculations—unless, of course, they had retreated across the border into the Demon Legion's sovereign territory.
Had they done so, not even a Grandmaster could have altered the outcome further than he already had.
The rhythmic thud of footfalls resonated nearby. A hunter surged through the canopy with staggering celerity, coming to a halt upon the same massive Greatwood bough in the blink of an eye.
"Lord Seraph... my deepest gratitude for intervening once more," Morn uttered, his voice thick with a profound, heavy appreciation.
Yet, Morn's face was a tapestry of conflicting emotions. He bore the stinging shame of having been ensnared by the Jackblooms, requiring the magis to salvage his life for a second time. Furthermore, this recent catastrophe had cost his company more than half of its remaining souls.
Having endured nearly a month of this mission, those who still drew breath were the undisputed elite of the original ten thousand. Many had forged bonds so iron-clad they would have readily traded their lives for one another; to be coerced by an illusory demon into butchering their closest comrades or lovers was a psychic trauma few could bear to witness, let alone survive.
Morn's contingent had withered to a mere eight hundred members; this latest massacre had left them so broken they could scarcely mount a defence. Though the Raffbloom numbers had similarly dwindled, it offered little comfort in the face of such ruin.
"What became of your vigilance?" Seraph inquired, his tone devoid of emotion. "You understood the lethality of the Jackblooms and their illusory fel, did you not? How could you allow such a lapse?"
It was not only the young magis who had encountered the Jackblooms; Morn's group had faced them countless times. They had remained on high alert for such threats throughout the month, making this failure a calamitous error that, by all rights, should never have occurred.
"They have adapted," Morn replied, his voice thick with festering bitterness. "The curs began to mimic the pleas of the wounded—human voices, crying for succour. As we surged through the drifts of desiccated foliage, we were doused in a psychoactive dust. It did not induce slumber, yet it severed our connection to the mageia; our mental wards collapsed in an instant. In that state, we were utterly defenceless against their hypnotic demon."
His baritone shuddered with an unbridled thirst for vengeance. His eyes were bloodshot, and his knuckles whitened as his hands trembled with a violent, repressed energy. Every sinew in the elite hunter's frame betrayed the depth of his loathing for the Jackblooms' depraved stratagem.
Morn was a man of exceptional affinity, a high-ranking member of a prominent Mercenary Association. He had ventured into this hell alongside his brother and his betrothed, yet now, those he held dear had been butchered by the floral host. The solitary tether keeping him anchored to this life was an obsession with seeing the Raffbloom lineage purged from the face of Laurasia—absolute, scorched-earth retribution.
Seraph caught the jagged edge of Morn's fury and understood the commander's internal ruin. He remained silent for a heartbeat before speaking with clinical finality.
"Do not lose sight of the fact that this is merely the opening rank of the mission. We have no inkling of how many subsequent links in this chain remain. From this hour, you are to cease these headlong, reckless assaults. Your remit is strictly reconnaissance—locate their positions and nothing more. Should you stumble upon a hive or a nest, you are to loose a flare to signal my position. I will be the one to execute the cull. I alone."
Seraph's mandate was absolute, leaving no room for dissent.
Though they remained challengers within the Bloody Hunting—rivals by decree—every soul present understood the sheer magnitude of the slaughter Seraph had enacted upon the Raffbloom host. At this late hour, even were they to cull every remaining demon in the Darkwood, the premier rank of the mission had long since drifted beyond their reach.
Throughout this month of hell, the young magis had preserved their lives and stood beside them in the fray countless times; to heed his mandate had become as natural as breathing, woven into their very instinct for survival.
Below the canopy, some four hundred survivors surged through the timber, though nearly all possessed the martial celerity to leap across the Greatwood boughs with practiced ease.
While the Raffbloom swarms had laboured to transmute the Darkwood into a toxic slough of demonic miasma, sufficient tracts of solid earth remained to permit passage. Yet, every footfall required absolute vigilance to avoid a lethal plunge into the venomous mires flanking the path or a sudden ambush from the gloom.
As the two leaders spoke, the remnants of Morn's company continued to scour the field, harvesting the remains of the two demon breeds and hounding the stragglers. They converged upon the pair—
"Morn! Lord Seraph! We've sighted a solitary Nightshade that slipped the noose. Should we pursue? A lone assassin would be simple enough to run down!" a Ranger bellowed as he sprinted toward them.