Chapter 349: A Scammer Master

It only took Ray a short time to catch sight of his Vanguard's broad back.

As Ray slowed his pace to run alongside Svane, a small, dark shape dropped from the canopy of a nearby tree, landing nimbly on Ray's shoulder.

It was Nox. The void-malkin’s stomach still had a huge bulge.

Nox dug his tiny claws into Ray's tunic to steady himself, looking back at the roaring, exploding Aetheric jungle behind them, and then at the massive Vanguard carrying the terrifying dark entity.

Master?I thought you told me everything was under control? Why are we running?

Nox projected, his mental voice laced with confusion and a hint of annoyance.

Well, it's no longer under control.

Ray replied completely deadpan, not breaking his stride.

I left a perfectly nice, quiet place full of snacks for this!

Nox responded as it let out a frustrated groan that echoed in Ray's mind.

Realizing that riding on a human's shoulder during a full-blown retreat from a terrible situation, the void-malkin prepared to dive into the safety of his master's moving shadow.

My Master is an absolute scammer! Master sucks!

Nox grumbled through the tether as his physical form dissolved into Ray’s shadow.

Ignoring his familiar's parting retort, Ray focused entirely on the mist ahead. The Aetheric Null-Veil was waiting.

Running with the heavy rhythm of a veteran soldier, Svane allowed himself a brief glance over his shoulder. The Vanguard’s eyes widened in shock. The place they had just come from has completely changed. It now looks like an apocalyptic jungle of writhing, many of the massive greywood timber fell down as many indestructible ancient roots were violently tearing the landscape apart.

Svane forcibly swallowed his awe, suppressed his shock, and locked his eyes forward again, redoubling his sprinting pace.

Running silently alongside him, Ray kept his senses sharply tuned. He leaned on the Grizzled Commander’s passive Predator’s Intuition. The hyper-sensory ping in his mind confirmed that the massive, chaotic signature of the beast pack was still bottlenecked at the writhing root-wall miles behind them.

Ray let out a small breath, his tensed muscles relaxing slightly. They had secured a much-needed headstart.

It was a nearly fatal lapse in judgment.

There was no sound. There was no displacement of mist. Without warning, a cluster of heavy shadows blurred into existence directly beside Svane.

Neither Ray nor the Vanguard had a fraction of a second to react. The Abyssal Camouflage had rendered the beasts completely invisible to both standard sight and the ambient aether flow.

The ambushers focused entirely on the heavily armored target. Jaws reinforced with dense corrupted energy clamped down violently on Svane’s armored shoulder and thigh. The sheer kinetic transfer of the Crushing Maw takedown was staggering.

Svane’s plate armor sparked and shrieked, successfully negating the piercing damage, but the force of the massive bodies hitting him launched him through the air.

Svane fell hard. He hit the dirt and rolled, his veteran instincts instantly prioritizing the high-value target. He ended up facedown on the ground, his massive, armored bulk completely shielding the bound dark figure trapped beneath him. He refused to let the entity go.

The shadows immediately circled, preparing to swarm the prone Vanguard.

This time, Ray reacted.

System, initiate Tri-Concurrent Partial Immersion and layer in: The Serene Cultivator and Crimson Weaver.

Ray commanded while still using Stoic Assassin’s ‘Flowing Shadow Technique.’

Ray blurred across the ground to slide onto his knees directly beside Svane. He activated the Serene Cultivator’s ‘Aether Weaving’ and the Crimson Weaver’s ‘Mana Weaving’ skills.

He slammed his palm flat against the massive tower shield strapped to his Vanguard's back.

"Lux absoluta!"

Ray roared.

He cast an aether-infused Cantrip spell: Light.

For the second time, he reached outward into the environment. Ray grabbed the terrifyingly dense, ambient Aether of the Whispering Hills. Ray was working with a cantrip. As a master of foundational magic, the rigid geometric structure of the spell was absolute muscle memory. He effortlessly folded and compressed the heavy environmental pressure into the simple matrix without a shred of difficulty.

Golden light erupted from the shield with literal mass and pressure. It wasn't just illumination; it was like a physical shockwave of burning, radiant needles.

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A chorus of agonizing, high-pitched whimpers shattered the silence. The blinding intensity of the aether-infused Light cantrip spell instantly stripped the surrounding beasts of their Abyssal Camouflage. The heavy, black tar coating their bodies began to violently hiss and smoke under the holy light.

Ray finally saw their attackers. They were massive, corrupted Forest Hounds. Their fur was matted with coagulated shadow, and jagged shards of petrified wood protruded from their spines. They were the vanguard of the dark figure's pack, so fast they had bypassed the root trap entirely.

With their camouflage burned away, the Grizzled Commander's Predator’s Intuition finally locked onto them. Ray felt two distinct pings in his mind: the massive horde stalled far behind them, and this elite scout pack surrounding them now.

The dozen hounds growled, their jaws dripping with acidic black tar, but they violently backed away, unable to step within thirty feet of the blazing tower shield without their flesh smoking.

"Are you okay, Svane?"

Ray asked, his eyes locked on the pacing wolves.

"The armor held."

Svane grunted, pushing himself up from the ground.

As Svane stood up, still tightly clutching the bound dark figure against his chest, the angle of the shield on his back shifted. The blinding light was blocked by his massive body, casting a deep, half-circle shadow in front of him.

Instantly, six corrupted hounds on the dark side of the radius lunged, utilizing the shadow to mask their approach.

But Svane was a Gold Aegis. His reaction speed was fast. Without missing a beat, he ripped the tower shield from his back with his free hand and hoisted it directly over his head like he was holding the sun itself.

The blinding light washed over the dark zone. The charging hounds skidded into the dirt, whimpering as the light burned their skin, and frantically scrambled backward.

"This is the vanguard pack, they probably outran the jungle trap and evaded my detection. If we run now, they will track us straight to the Veil. We have to wipe them out here."

Ray said, his voice dropping into the icy, calculating tone.

"I can’t cast any spells yet, but I do not need magic to put down these rabid mongrels."

Svane said, cracking his armored neck.

Svane unceremoniously dropped the tied-up dark figure into the dirt and planted the glowing tower shield upright beside it, bathing the immediate area in radiant light. While the pure Aetheric light physically burned the hounds, it seemed to have only a minuscule, irritating effect on the hyper-dense, corrupted stone-form of the dark figure itself.

"I will get us a guard."

Ray said. He looked down at his own shadow.

Nox, come out.

He called mentally as a puddle of darkness bubbled on the dirt, and the void-malkin materialized. Nox arched his back, all of his shadow fur standing on end.

What now, scammer master?!My digestion sleep has only just started!

Nox hissed, showing his fangs.

Then Nox looked around, seeing the smoking, snarling pack of Corrupted Forest Hounds. The malkin let out a very un-feline shriek of disgust. Vague, horrible memories of being forced to eat corrupted flesh in the Sunken Vaults flashed through his mind.

I am not fighting those! They are gross! They taste like rotting metal and bad decisions!

Nox projected his thoughts to Ray as he showed its tongue in disgust.

What? Taste? No! And you don't have to fight, you just need to guard that.

Ray responded in frustration as he pointed at the dark figure.

Nox’s golden eyes widened with absolute delight.

Guard duty? Oh, I excel at standing still. Consider it done! Where is the…

Nox turned around. He saw the terrifying, featureless face of the dark figure staring blankly up at him from the dirt.

Nox froze. His tail puffed up to twice its normal size.

Wait. Master. No.

But Ray and Svane were already gone, blurring past the thirty-foot perimeter of the light to engage the hounds in the dim mist.

I got scammed by master again.

Nox thought as it let out a miserable whine, realizing he was entirely trapped between a pack of corrupted hounds and the most terrifying entity in the Whispering Hills. He slinked as far away from the bound figure as the shield's light would allow.

From his reluctant guard post, Nox watched the two humans fight the predators.

It was a masterclass in contrasting violence.

Svane was a sheer, unstoppable force of nature. He didn't draw his broadsword, likely knowing the acidic tar-blood would ruin the blade. Instead, he relied on the signature Aegis Hand-to-Hand combat doctrine. It wasn't the fluid, deeply philosophical martial arts taught by the minor college of Empty Hand in Solhaven Academy, it was brutal, hyper-efficient trench warfare.

When a massive hound lunged, Svane simply stepped inside the guard, parried the crushing jaw with his armored forearm, and delivered a devastating right hook. His mastery was at its peak when his basic punch hits, it hits with the force of a siege weapon. The hound crumpled instantly, its ribs completely caved in, whining in a broken heap on the forest floor.

On the other side of the clearing, Ray was a phantom.

Where Svane broke them, Ray tricked them. Six hounds swarmed the young noble, but Ray used the environment flawlessly, stepping through the mist to cause two hounds to violently crash into each other.

A third hound lunged at his back. Ray spun, delivering a seemingly light, glancing punch to the creature's flank.

Nox frowned.

That didn't do anything...

Ray immediately blurred backward, putting ten feet between him and the beast. Furious, the hound snapped its jaws and took a single step toward Ray.

BOOM.

A thunderous, deafening shockwave detonated directly from the point of Ray's impact. The kinetic energy Ray had secretly woven into the beast’s corruption instantly triggered upon movement, violently blowing the massive wolf ten feet through the air, its body shredded by the sonic force.

Another hound charged. Ray didn't evade. He stepped into the beast's guard and drove his palm directly into its chest. Another concussive blast force launched the wolf backward, but this time, the moment the creature hit the ground, thick, jagged layers of magical frost violently crystallized over its tar-matted fur, freezing its joints solid and dropping its body temperature to lethal levels.

As Nox watched the seamless slaughter, a strange movement caught his golden eyes.

He looked down at the dark figure.

Every single time Svane crushed a skull, or Ray detonated a hound with thunder, the bound entity twitched. The creature was physically trembling. As the final two hounds were put down in the mist, the dark figure's featureless face rippled violently.

The eerie, featureless face has now shown an expression of pure, unadulterated anguish, twisted with a seething, hateful fury. The psychic tether went both ways; as its pack was slaughtered, the entity was feeling the horrific loss as the connection was severed.

Silence descended on the misty clearing, broken only by the heavy breathing of the Vanguard.

The skirmish lasted a couple of minutes.

Ray and Svane walked back into the radius of the glowing shield. Neither man spoke. Svane simply reached down, grabbed the furiously trembling dark figure, threw it over his shoulder, and retrieved his tower shield.

Ray reached out, tapped the tower metal, and instantly deactivated aether-infused Light cantrip spell.

The blinding light vanished, plunging them back into the standard gloom of the Whispering Hills.

Nox didn't even wait for a command. Deciding that returning to the shadow was only going to result in him being rudely awakened again, the void-malkin scrambled up Ray’s tunic and perched himself firmly on his master’s shoulder.

With the vanguard scouts dead and the main horde temporarily trapped behind a magical jungle, Ray locked his eyes on the path ahead.

They resumed the sprint.