Hera ripped through the plant life, once her claws entered the thicket they weren’t coming out without a few fibers in between them. Her injuries only made her more dangerous. She wasn’t like Rinae, Hera couldn’t subside the pain. Just because everything was fixed didn’t mean the nerves would stop firing off pain signals, that was the one thing that time could fix and magic couldn’t.

Once she made a hole large enough to climb through she looked immediately for the hellhound. Her body language and mission were clear, that dog was going to be consumed by her, and she didn’t care how it was done, she was just going to rend that thing until nothing was left but the pulp soup that she could drink from.

She dropped down on all fours and extended her back spikes into the air. They twitched sporadically, they had no conceivable pattern, but they moved in a way that they covered a full three-hundred sixty-degree direction. The first fireball that was launched she was able to jump out of the splash zone. She landed upside down on a tree branch, continuing the same kind of movements that she was doing before.

Another fireball was launched splattering against the branch, catching the branch on fire. Luckily the fire did not spread much further as the forest was moistened from the morning dew making a deadly fire almost impossible.

She landed once more on the ground, but this time all her spikes stood erect, she turned around once and looked into a patch of tall grass. She gave a wicked smile, bearing every single one of her predatory fangs. The beast wasn’t an idiot, but its wit wasn’t as fast as its instinct to attack, for it did not realize that she was blind, whether she saw it or not didn’t matter because she wasn’t a hunter that used her eyes. Hera’s feet dug into the ground as she launched herself, The dirt left indentations of where she once was. The hellhound shot more fireballs into the flying target but it was no use, once she was directly in front of the caster seeing it was no longer an issue, she could twist her body to weave within safe zones. The hellhound had no more tricks up its sleeves. A predator will always know the moment it loses its advantage and becomes the prey, this was that moment, She was mere seconds away from gorging herself on a nice hot dog, but she was interrupted as another feral slammed into her mid-air, changing the course of her trajectory. The hit didn’t really do any kind damage her, but it did land her on her back, which was more than enough time for the rest of the pack to reveal themselves and hold the insectoid down once more.

She screamed in anger as they tried to rip open her reformed chitin. But to her, the pain of chewing was less than the anger she felt by the offensive nature of how useless they creatures were as food. The hellhound stepped on her stomach, then her chest branding her with permanent claw marks. The hellhound wound of one more fire ball, it was going to be a point black shot to the head. After all the head wasn’t exactly a necessary part of their diet, however, her body would do fine.

...But that was mistake number one. Hera was bred and evolved to deal with situations that were close combat. Her legs had remained unrestrained. By bending her core, she was able to force the hellhound closer to her, using her legs that were now suspended she bent them inward pushing them into the fire canine, at this range she was able to reach one of its jugulars with her teeth. Biting down she thrashed back its neck and forth until she felt the blood spraying. Even then she wasn’t done, she continued to battle the hide’s resistance more and more when she felt the spray turn into a stream then did she stop. The beast tried to remain upright to continue its fireball attack, but it found that losing too much blood effects one’s focus. She felt the pack slowly begin to release her. Until they were ultimately just gone for when she stood, nothing was around her except for the twitching pooch. She smiled while hungrily licking her claws.

…

The elf came out staggering, the magic that was forcibly taken from her left her in a state similar to being drunk but more exhausted. She looked around the camp. All she had seen was devastation. Blood, craters and lots of signs of struggling.

“Hey!” She called out.

There was no answer to that, even if the hounds were still alive. If they so wanted to all they had to do was just knock her over, and she’d be done for, not yelling wouldn’t change her fate.

“Hey! Are you still ali-!” She stopped when she saw the bloodied Hera. Her heart rate jumped in a matter of seconds.”y-You are alive. And I see you killed the hellhound.”

Hera reacted spitting out a mouthful of blood, not like the blood was useful to be consumed. However, she did just finish up with her meal.

“A-alright, Let’s go. I can’t deal with this anymore.” She said The amount of tiredness in her voice was very very apparent.

She tried to step forward but stumbled down to her knees. Hera picked extended an arm allowing the elf to be picked up.

“Heh. I might need a little of your help.” She leaned on Hera the entirety of the journey home.

…

They passed through some brushes, entirely open space was there, easily hundreds of houses were being rebuilt. Seems the elves were still recovering from the orc raid. In between all the houses, there had been a tree shrine, flowers of varying hues and genus decorated the bark.

Two blonde haired elven females seemed to be crying in front of the tree. Both looked around the same age except one had white streaks going through her hair as opposed to the typical blonde only status.

~^~

“I...I still can’t see anything.” The Village elder said, her face had been sunken, they’ve been searching for hours naturally she would have been tired.

“Milady. This is getting us nowhere.” The squire leaned onto a rock. “Her eyes must be getting blocked by this fog!”

Amalia grunted, pushing her hair that came down in front of her face due to the humidity and sweat. Her anger was contained but was definitely at the brimming point.

Mateo kicked a rock. “There is definitely a better way than relying on some magical eyes.”

The elder also had decided to take a break from all the aimless walking and occasional fighting. The rock that Mateo kicked skittered against the wooden docks until it fell plunging into the abyss like water. Mateo looked over at the water surface he had moved up from his spot in disbelief, he also looked up. To the sky, there had been some kind of revelation between these two planes. The moonlight’s reflection did not match with the one on the surface of the water, in fact, there should not have been a reflection, to begin with, the fog had taken over much of the sky’s light. He leaned back over to immediately grab her attention.

“Milady! I think I found the source!” He yelled.

She walked over, taking her time. Each step she took clanged her metallic armor. She peered over the edge, there most certainly was a bright object hanging underneath but, they had absolutely no idea how to reach it. They could try to figure out how deep it was, but that’d mean figuring out what also lived in that body of water, disease or monster both were equally horrifying to find.

The elder was the last to approach the duo, her eyes lit up with a spark she felt both stupid and relieved the objective was right underneath them the whole time, her eyes was not seeing it because she was paying attention to everything above ground. Now the final quest remained, how they were getting to it.

“Elder,” Amalia said plainly. “Ward us.”

“I don’t think I ca-”

Amalia interrupted her before she could finish. “Don’t act simple, you can. You have more of their powers then you’re leading on.”

The elder shut up after that. “I’ll...try.” She attempted to ward the area surrounding the group, but what happened was the complete opposite, the fog began to swirl around her before seemingly becoming absorbed by her, leaving a pocket where magic could be cast. Amalia nodded, unsheathed her blade and pointed towards the light source. Arcing bolts of electricity enveloped her blade. Then she let go of bolt sending it deep into the water. The conductivity only helped with the strike amplifying the damage. For a second nothing seemed to happen, but after the lag, all hell began to let loose. The fog started to recede into the lake, so much condensed together a person could easily say the sky had fallen and it'd serve as firm proof. The true sky began to peak through the break in the sky; it was black indicating either late night or early morning. That only mattered for a second as the sky turned pure red and the moon, black.

The fog moved faster and faster as it sunk into the lake, unseen shades could be seen howling trying to cling to the docks as they were getting sucked in. The trio was at a loss, nothing could even describe the events that were unfurling in front of them.

Fifteen minutes and everything was over, no shades and no fog. It was perfectly quiet. The three stood in silence. They were stunned.Then the lake happened, It began to drain starting at the focal point. It drained even quicker than the fog did.

~^~

Rinae’s head snapped to the direction that the village was in. She left the cave, any drone that had flight capabilities took off, regardless of her will. Even against her own she too took flight towards the source.