Chapter 179: First Defeat

Chapter 179: 179: First Defeat

After some time, Elowen whispered, "I cannot hear him."

Lucard stopped.

That was the problem.

Alan should have made some sound. There should have been stone movement, earth pressure, broken branches, or even the distant anger of a wounded beast.

There was nothing.

Cedric slowly turned in place. "He hid his trail."

Lucard’s eyes became colder. "No. He is ahead."

A soft clap came from the mist before them.

Once.

Twice.

Alan Gravenhart stepped out from between two trees. His robe was torn in several places now, but his body still stood straight. A thin scratch marked his cheek. There were no new wounds. His eyes were calm again.

"Very good," Alan said. "You bought almost thirty minutes in total since entering the forest. You managed to escape from me twice... Against me, that is worth praise."

Cedric’s hand tightened around his wand.

Elowen could barely stand.

Lucard looked at the old man and understood.

The trap had worked.

The bait had worked.

The beast had worked.

And Alan had still caught up.

Cedric raised his wand first. "Then let us buy one more minute."

Crystal light burst around him. This time, he did not form a wall. He formed six thin crystal blades and sent them cutting toward Alan from different angles. Lucard moved at the same time. Bloodfire wrapped around his fingers, and three blood threads entered the mist near Alan’s feet.

Alan watched both attacks arrive.

Then he sighed.

"It is a pity."

The ground beneath Lucard and Cedric became heavy.

Not slow.

Heavy.

Their feet sank only half an inch, but that was enough. Cedric’s crystal blades lost their perfect angle. Lucard’s blood threads pulled against earth mana so dense it felt like iron. Alan lifted one finger, and the entire forest floor answered him.

A stone spike rose from below Lucard.

Lucard twisted at the last moment, but he was too slow.

The spike pierced through his stomach.

Blood burst from his mouth.

Elowen’s eyes widened in horror. "Lucard!"

Cedric turned for one breath.

That one breath cost him.

Alan’s second stone spear shot through Cedric’s crystal guard and pierced his chest. The crystal shield cracked like thin glass. Cedric stared down at the hole in his chest as if he could not understand how it had happened.

Puff fell from his coat and rolled across the roots with a frightened squeak.

Cedric dropped to one knee.

Lucard gripped the stone spike in his stomach. Bloodfire burned across it, breaking the tip enough for him to pull himself free. He landed on the ground, but his legs failed almost at once. Blood poured through his fingers. His body tried to close the wound, but Alan’s earth mana remained inside it like grinding sand, stopping the flesh from healing properly.

Cedric tried to stand too.

He failed.

Blood ran down his coat. His breathing became wet and broken. He raised his wand with shaking fingers, but the wand slipped from his hand and fell into the black fern.

Alan walked toward them.

"You are both rare talents," he said. "But rare talent is not the same as strength."

Lucard tried to move his blood.

The blood answered weakly.

Too much damage.

Too much foreign mana inside the wound.

His vision darkened at the edges.

Cedric gave a broken laugh and coughed blood. "Old monster."

Alan looked at him. "Young fool."

Elowen stood frozen.

For a moment, she could not move. Her mind refused to accept what her eyes were seeing. Lucard, who always looked as if the world was only a board under his hand, was on the ground with a hole through his stomach. Cedric, who had laughed even while fighting Alan, was bleeding from the chest and losing strength with every breath.

Both of them were dying.

Alan turned his eyes toward Elowen.

"Girl, give me the water."

Elowen’s fingers shook.

Then the forest behind Alan went silent in a different way.

It was not quiet. It became empty.

Even Alan stopped walking.

A shadow moved between the trees.

It was huge.

The mist pulled away from it as if afraid to touch its body. Two pale eyes opened above the roots, higher than a carriage. Then another pair opened lower. Then another. The beast had six eyes, a long body hidden between the trees, and bone-like antlers growing from its head like dead branches.

Puff made one tiny sound and fainted.

Alan slowly turned.

The beast struck.

A black claw came out of the mist and smashed into the ground where Alan had stood. Alan moved aside, but the force still threw stone and roots into the air. For the first time, his calm face changed fully.

"A Maw Sovereign Beast," he said.

The beast roared.

The sound made Elowen fall to her knees.

Alan raised both hands.

Earth walls rose around him, thicker than before. The beast broke the first one with its shoulder. Alan’s mana surged, and the ground under the beast turned into stone chains. The beast tore against them, and the whole forest shook.

Elowen’s mind finally returned.

Run.

She crawled toward Lucard first. His eyes were half-open, but they did not focus on her. Blood still moved around his wound, trying to seal it. She grabbed his arm with both hands and pulled.

He was too heavy.

She gritted her teeth and pulled again.

Cedric groaned nearby.

Elowen looked at him, then at Alan fighting the beast.

There was no time.

She found Cedric’s fallen wand and shoved it into his hand. His fingers closed around it by instinct. A weak blue glow appeared under both unconscious men. Elowen did not understand the spell, but Cedric’s own mana seemed to answer his body’s need to survive.

The glow made them lighter.

Elowen grabbed Lucard’s cloak with one hand and Cedric’s coat with the other.

Pain tore through her injured shoulder.

She almost screamed, but bit it back.

Then she pulled both of them into the mist.

Behind her, Alan and the Maw Sovereign Beast crashed through trees and stone. The battle shook the deep forest like a storm.

Elowen did not look back.

Lucard was unconscious.

Cedric was unconscious.

Puff hung from Cedric’s coat like a dead white ball, though it was still breathing.

Elowen dragged them through roots, mud, and black fern with tears in her eyes and blood on her hands.

For the first time since entering the Maw Range, there was no Lucard giving orders.

There was no plan.

There was only a girl who was supposed to be useless, pulling two dying monsters away from an older one.

And the deep forest swallowed them whole.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Elowen did not know how long she ran.

It was not truly running anymore. It became stumbling, dragging, falling, standing, and dragging again. The deep forest did not give her a clean road. Roots rose from the ground like old hands trying to trip her. Black fern cut at her ankles. Small stones hid under wet moss and struck the bottom of her feet again and again until she could no longer tell where one pain ended and the next began.

Lucard was heavy.

Cedric was heavy too.

Even with the weak blue glow from Cedric’s wand making their bodies a little lighter, they were still too much for her. She had one injured shoulder, one good arm that was no longer good, and feet that felt as if they had been beaten with stones. Every step pulled at her shoulder. Every breath burned her throat. Blood from Lucard and Cedric marked her clothes, her hands, and the ground behind her.

She knew that was dangerous.

Blood could guide beasts.

Blood could guide Alan.

But she could not stop it.

She had wrapped Lucard’s cloak around his stomach as tightly as she could. She had pressed Cedric’s torn coat against the hole in his chest. None of it was enough. Blood still came out. Lucard’s blood moved strangely around his wound as if it were trying to obey him even while he was unconscious, but the wound was too large. Cedric’s breathing was wet and weak, and sometimes it stopped for a terrifying breath before starting again.

Puff hung against Cedric’s coat, fainted or half-fainted, with its ears drooping.

Elowen dragged them until her fingers became numb.

Then she saw the cave.

It was not large. It opened under a broken stone slope, half-hidden by hanging roots and black fern. The entrance was low, but the inside looked dry. More importantly, the air coming from it smelled of stone and old leaves, not beast breath.

Elowen almost cried from relief before she even reached it.

She pulled Lucard first. His body struck the stone near the entrance, and she whispered an apology even though he could not hear her. Then she dragged Cedric after him. Her shoulder screamed with pain, and her knees struck the ground. She crawled the last few steps, pulling both coats with fingers that felt like they belonged to someone else.

Inside the cave, the light was dim and gray.