Chapter 47: Blood On The Eastern Trails

The first monster died before its body finished crashing through the brush.

Jet stepped inside the sweep of a hooked forelimb, drove the Vorpal Blade upward beneath the creature’s jaw, and ripped it free as black-red blood sprayed across his sleeve.

They were Ash-Mane Ravagers, Lesser Monsters built like oversized hyenas crossed with boars: thick shoulders nearly level with Jet’s chest, coarse charcoal fur running along their spines, blunt skulls protected by ridged bone plates, and two forward-curving tusks framing jaws crowded with short crushing teeth.

Their forelegs were longer than their hind legs, giving them a sloping gait that became terrifyingly fast once they charged.

The clearing was already wrecked. Split trees, severed branches, and shallow craters surrounded them while blood soaked the grass.

A disemboweled Ravager lay across an exposed root with its entrails spilling beneath it, while another had been crushed so thoroughly through the ribs that its torso had folded inward.

Jet moved through the wreckage with his blade low, boots sliding through mud and blood as four monsters broke from the horde and rushed him from different angles. He didn’t retreat. The first came straight at his chest; he shifted left, let one tusk scrape across his forearm guard, and opened the beast from shoulder to belly with a rising slash.

The second Ravager was already airborne. Jet twisted beneath it and struck with the pommel of the Vorpal Blade, smashing its jaw sideways before bringing the edge across its exposed throat. Its momentum carried the corpse past him, but the third monster arrived before it landed.

A plated forehead filled his vision.

Jet planted one boot, caught the side of its skull with his free hand, and redirected the charge just enough for the Ravager to miss his torso.

Its shoulder clipped him hard and drove him back two steps. He recovered immediately, brought the blade down behind the creature’s bone plate, and severed the spine. The fourth hesitated at the sudden deaths of the others. That hesitation lasted less than a second, but Jet crossed the distance before it recovered and buried the Vorpal Blade through its eye.

Several meters away, Frey was surrounded. Five spectral serpent coils floated around him, each formed from dense dark Mana that curved through the air like sections of enormous translucent snakes.

They didn’t remain wrapped around him defensively. Frey’s left hand flicked toward an approaching Ravager and one coil shot forward, circling the beast’s front legs.

The ring contracted. Bone cracked, both limbs buckled, and the monster crashed muzzle-first into the ground. Frey was already moving past it.

His right curved blade punched through another Ravager’s mouth while his left opened the crippled beast’s neck. He tore both weapons free, turned with the motion, and sent a second coil around the torso of a monster trying to attack from behind.

The coil tightened only enough to stop its charge. Frey stepped into range and drove both blades beneath its ribs.

The remaining Ravagers changed their approach. Instead of charging individually, eight spread through the damaged trees and came at Frey in a loose crescent, forcing him to give ground.

One sprang from his right while another rushed low from the front.

"Jet, keep the ones on your side busy; I’ve got too many trying to circle behind me," Frey called, ducking beneath a tusk before slicing across the attacking monster’s foreleg.

A spectral coil snapped around the second Ravager’s neck and jerked it sideways into a tree with enough force to crack the trunk. Frey didn’t waste Mana crushing it.

He used the momentary restraint to pivot away from two more attackers, then released the coil and sent it sweeping low across their legs. Both stumbled, and his twin blades flashed through the first one’s throat before the second could regain its footing.

Jet had problems of his own. Five Ravagers pushed toward him through the ruined clearing, one noticeably larger than the rest. Its bone plating extended from forehead to shoulders, scarred from previous fights, and dried blood stained the tusk on its right side.

Jet recognized the pattern immediately: the smaller animals were following its movement. When the leader accelerated, the others did the same, creating a wall of muscle and bone rather than five separate targets.

Jet ran toward them. At the final moment he planted a foot on a fallen trunk and vaulted sideways. The leader tried to turn, struck the trunk, and shattered it. Jet landed beside the second monster, slashed through its hind leg, then continued moving as the formation collapsed around the wounded animal.

A Ravager snapped at his back. Jet ducked, felt hot breath pass over his cap, and drove an elbow into the underside of its jaw before cutting across its face.

Another slammed into him from the side. His protective vest absorbed some of the impact, but pain spread across his ribs as he hit the ground and rolled. The leader charged before he could fully rise. Jet saw the tusks coming and threw himself toward a shallow crater left by one of Frey’s earlier attacks. The Ravager thundered over him. Jet came up behind it, caught the Vorpal Blade with both hands, and hacked into the back of its left knee. The leg collapsed. Its roar shook the clearing as Jet climbed onto its flank and plunged the blade between the armored plates at the base of its skull.

The leader convulsed violently enough to throw him off. Jet landed on one knee and ripped his blade free during the fall.

The other Ravagers faltered when the largest beast crashed onto its side. He gave them no chance to reorganize. One died to a thrust beneath the chin. He kicked another in the wounded foreleg, drove it down, and cut through the softer side of its neck.

The last tried to flee toward the trees, only for a spectral coil to streak across the clearing and close around its waist. Frey pulled one hand backward. The Ravager was yanked off its feet and dragged several meters through the bloody grass toward Jet, who stepped aside from its flailing claws and drove the Vorpal Blade through its skull.

"Three coming through the left, and the middle one has heavier plating, so don’t waste a coil trying to crush its torso!" Jet shouted as he freed his weapon, spotting movement behind Frey.

Frey glanced over his shoulder, understood immediately, and sent two of the five coils outward. One wrapped around the left Ravager’s hindquarters and slammed it into its companion.

The heavier monster continued through the collision. Frey crossed his blades and caught its tusks between them, boots carving twin grooves through the soil as the impact pushed him backward.

Before the creature could wrench free, a third coil closed around one foreleg and twisted. Its balance broke. Frey released the tusks, stepped around the falling head, and drove one curved blade through the unprotected gap behind its ear.

The final cluster of Ravagers had lost whatever instinct had kept the pack coordinated. Some continued attacking while two tried to escape.

Jet chased neither. Frey’s remaining coils swept outward, blocking one route and forcing the fleeing monsters back toward the clearing. Jet met the first with a horizontal cut that opened its throat.

Frey crushed another against the ground, the spectral ring tightening around its chest until ribs punched inward.

The last two attacked together. Jet caught one across the muzzle with his blade and turned its head aside while Frey slipped past the other, buried one sword in its flank, and used the second to cut through the rear tendon.

It collapsed. Jet finished his opponent, then crossed the few meters between them and drove his blade down through the crippled monster’s neck.

Silence returned unevenly. First came the absence of snarling, then the smaller sounds emerged: leaves settling, blood dripping from torn fur, Frey’s breathing, and the faint creak of a damaged tree leaning somewhere behind them.

The five Vritra Coils hovered for another moment before dissolving into dark particles around Frey’s shoulders. He lowered his swords and surveyed the clearing.

More than twenty Ash-Mane Ravagers lay scattered across it. Several trees were broken, patches of earth had sunk beneath repeated impacts, and the grass was almost invisible beneath churned mud, gore, severed limbs, and dark pools spreading around the corpses.

Jet wiped the Vorpal Blade on a strip of intact fur and slid it into the sheath across his lower back.

His ribs hurt where he’d been hit, but nothing felt broken.

Frey checked a shallow cut along his forearm, cleaned it quickly, then sheathed his curved blades. Neither celebrated. They had been outside Zenith for hours, and the fight had taken enough time and Mana already. More importantly, the corpses surrounding them represented resources they couldn’t afford to abandon.

One after another, dull lights appeared above the dead Ravagers as their Monster Cores materialized.

Jet counted them, then looked at the ruined clearing. "We’ll take every Core, but only harvest the parts listed as worthwhile on the route package. Carrying useless weight for three days would be stupid."

Frey was already pulling the harvesting knife from his belt. "Agreed. I’ll start with the plated skulls and tusks. You check the glands and anything we can pack without filling the containers immediately."

Jet retrieved his own knife and crouched beside the nearest corpse.

Then the harvesting began