It was beginning to get dark as she left the clearing behind her. She was not quite tired yet, but she did not like her chances of stumbling around this maze in the dark. Looking at her mental map, she located a dead-end section not too far off her path and decided to rest there for the night.

To prepare for the night, she had picked up several dried branches and leaves along the way. She placed those down at the section’s entrance she would be staying in and then backtracked two more times to gather foliage that would make noise when something moved it. Once she prepared her early alarm system as well as she could, she made her way to the back of the section to get settled for the night.

She used Disguise Self to blend into the background so she would be challenging to see. One of the things that Avery had hammered into her head was her need to mask her scent while using this aspect. It had taken her several weeks to add scent masking that would stay on even after she had fallen asleep. She was grateful to have that ability now. Even with the countermeasures she had taken, she would be sleeping very little this night.

The noise trap she created had woken her several times throughout the night. Whatever was making the noise never came far enough into her offshoot path to look for her. She was able to use the sound of its breathing to judge where it was. It was impossible to tell how large the animal was based on breathing alone, but she knew it had to be at least medium-sized to make that much noise.

When the sun had come up enough for her to see by, she sent her Decoy out in bird form to scout her path. She estimated that it would take her until around noon to complete this challenge and leave the maze. The main problem she had standing in her way was another clearing. She was worried about the clearing because it was home to several pig-like creatures.

Wild boars were deadly creatures, and she needed to navigate through their den to reach the other side. The only other option she had was to take a much longer detour that would lead her to a cave filled with dog-like creatures. She had ultimately chosen the pigs because there were fewer animals in this clearing.

There were twelve adults and six juvenile pigs. The adults ranged between two to three feet tall at their shoulders, while the juveniles were all around a foot tall. It looked like they had all come from the same litter. Her biggest threat was a gigantic male that was three and a half feet tall. The adults were around six to seven feet in length with large bellies that made them wider than they were tall.

Going up against eighteen animals would be suicidal. Violet planned to try and separate them and pick them off individually. To do this, she flew her Decoy around the edge of the boar clearing to see if any would follow. This method worked a little too well because half of the animals in the clearing had charged to follow after the poor illusionary bird.

The majority of the animals stopped running after her Decoy a few hundred feet from their clearing. When all but two animals had turned back, she slowed the illusion down to keep their interest. Her physical body was not far from them at this point, and she was ready to attack as soon as they came in range.

She quickly cast Hypnotize on the first boar to make it around the corner with directions to lay down. Thankfully her command was successful, and she was able to attack the second pig with an Ice Shard as soon as she saw it. Her hit was successful, but it was not enough to kill the animal. It took three more hits for it to stop running at her. The boar had collapsed to the ground, but it was not dead yet. The pig she had hypnotized then shook itself out of its daze and charged her.

Reacting quickly, she shot five shards at the charging animal’s face before it fell to the ground. Both animals were down but not dead. Playing it safe, she got a little bit closer and continued to shoot Ice Shards at them until they ceased moving. When she thought they were both dead, she summoned her Shadow Blade and beheaded both boars to be safe. ‘Two down, sixteen to go.’

She used this method to lure out seven more boars. Violet had killed a total of seven adults and two juveniles by using a lure before they stopped following after her Decoy. There were nine animals left in the clearing, and unfortunately, the massive male was included in that number. Four of the remaining pigs were juveniles which were relatively easy for her to kill.

To kill the remaining boars, she used guerrilla tactics to hit them and then run away. She summoned her Decoy and had it get their attention in the center of the clearing. Once every animal was looking at her illusionary bird, she cast Dazzle followed by Fear making them blindly flee, causing damage to others in the process. As soon as the chaos started, she started picking off the juveniles. She was able to kill two of them and wound two more before she noticed the effects of Fear wearing off of the adults, and she was forced to flee.

Two adult pigs chased after her when she ran from the area, forcing her to turn and face them before they caught up to her. She was able to ground one, but the other, she was forced into evasive maneuvers for once it came too close. Her Shadow Blade carved a deep line into the flank of the animal as it charged by her. The boar kicked out and lightly nicked her leg, causing her to fall to the ground in pain. From a sitting position, she cast three more Ice Shards to bring the animal down.

Both of the downed boars were screaming quite loudly, which caused a third animal to investigate the scene. All of her previous kills were far enough away from the clearing not to attract much attention. She also had not let them scream for very long before now.

Violet was in pain. She was pretty sure her leg was not broken, but her leg muscles were cramping up, and she would have a nasty bruise. Pulling on the fumes of her mana pool, she cast several Ice Shards, first attacking the new boar and then silencing the other two.

She had noticed that her Ice Shards were doing more damage. It had taken her six hits to kill the first boar, but she could kill the last boar in four hits. Using live targets had significantly increased how quickly she gained synchronization. She had started this challenge with 39% synchronization in Ice Shards. Looking at her sheet now showed she was currently at 61% synchronization.

Once she was sure no more boars were coming, she limped back to an alcove a little further back from where she was to regain her mana. That pig had barely touched her, and she was in a boatload of pain. She needed to make sure the remaining boars did not get close to her. With her injury, it would be difficult to dodge.

When she made it to the alcove, Rasmus landed on the hedge above her. “Do you need me to take you out of here, little one?”

“No, I am too close to stop now. Just give me a few hours to rest, and I can make it through the remaining animals. The juveniles are both injured, and only two adults are remaining.”

“Very well, I will be close at hand if you need me.”

Her stomach was rumbling from lack of food while she waited for her mana to regenerate. She used Water Manipulation to condense water out of the air to stay hydrated. The knowledge that this was her last hurdle kept her motivated to keep going. All she needed to do was get past the last four animals, and the remainder of the maze was a simple walk. Well, she would be able to hobble out without any more distractions anyway.

While she rested, she thought of ways to eliminate the remaining animals in the clearing. Getting near them was ill-advised, so she needed to develop a way to control the crowd from a distance. There were several contingency plans she came up with while she waited for every scenario she could think of. Her main concern was the big guy, but it could also spell her doom if she let a juvenile near her.

Using Ice Shards did not cost very much mana while she held it in her hand, so she practiced manipulating different shapes for the spell. She was able to split the shards into two projectiles, and she was also able to double the size of the shard if she focused on adding more mana. Two missiles would be good if she had grouped up targets and did not mind where they hit. She hoped that the larger shard would cause more damage.

It was a little past noon when she had recovered her mana and was ready to attack once more. Her health also regenerated enough that the bruise she had still hurt quite a bit, but she could gingerly put weight on her leg. She would not be winning any dodgeball games, but she could run if she had to for a short distance.

She cloaked herself at the mouth of the clearing to line up her shots. The big guy was her priority. She knew it would take quite a bit to kill him, so she decided to shoot off two large shards at his front legs to disable his movement.

As soon as the gigantic boar was in position, she shot her first shot off at his front left leg and quickly followed it up with a shot to his front right leg. Her first shard hit perfectly, but he had jerked, and the second shot missed him completely. The other three boars in the clearing began to charge at her location. She had hoped that staying invisible would buy her some time, but that did not seem to be the case.

She shot one shard each into the heads of the juvenile pigs and was able to shoot another projectile at the remaining adult’s front leg before it was too close. If not completely dead, the juveniles were down for the count, so she needed to kite the remaining adult boars. Shooting them in the leg slowed them down slightly, so she aimed for the opposite leg before she turned to run.

Her leg was killing her. She had misjudged how healed her leg was, and now it was agony to put too much weight on. Thankfully, she partially managed to disable the more petite adult, so she was able to turn around again to shoot more shards off. The large male was only eight feet from her when she managed to disable his other front leg. Even with their legs injured, the pigs were not down for the count. She continued to shoot at their legs to buy herself more breathing room.

Once she could disable three of their legs, they stopped moving closer to her, and she could whittle their health down. The big guy had gotten three feet from her before she could scramble away from him.

After ensuring there were no remaining threats, she sank to the ground and began to cry. Her leg hurt, she was hungry, and she just had several large animals trying to kill her. She knew she was mentally an adult, but she was still in the body of a child, and hormones must have been messing with her mind. Killing others was not and probably never would be something she enjoyed doing. It was something she would only do to protect herself if the person was sapient. Going forward, she made a promise to herself not to kill animals unless she planned on eating them or they were trying to kill her.

She hobbled out of the labyrinth around four in the afternoon. As she was waiting for Rasmus to collect her, she heard the same loud breathing that she had heard last night on the other side of the hedge. To feed her curiosity, she summoned her illusionary bird to peek over the wall. Oddly, there was nothing on the other side of the barrier from her, even though breathing could still be heard. She flew lower to the ground and realized what she had assumed was a large extension of the hedge was a giant bear. It blended perfectly into its surroundings from above. If she had been any slower leaving the maze, it would have caught up to her. It was four times the size of the enormous boar she had fought. She was very thankful to have unknowingly slipped past it.