The cats we had appropriated from the elves were quite impressive sprinters. Sadly, their ability to cross long distances at that pace was less sufficient, after only ten minutes of dashing at their fastest pace, their speed started to flag rapidly and no matter what Sigmir and Ria did, they just couldn’t pick back up. But their somewhat unwilling efforts had bought us just that little bit of extra time.

“Dismount,” I called out to the others, gesturing for Rai to close the distance. Just because the felines couldn’t run any further didn’t mean they had lost all their use, if nothing else, they were two currently living creatures with a decent level.

We dismounted and I quickly stabbed both felines with my dagger, drawing a bit of blood before bringing my Blood Magic to bear, not caring about the Misama I was created by ripping the life and magic out of the cats, no, I was welcoming it. All to create a bigger mess the elves had to deal with before they could focus on hunting us down.

The magic I drained didn’t go into any great working, only into more mist to further conceal our tracks before I started to run after the others again.

All around us, I could smell the elvish magic, the stench thick enough to be annoying and far too dense to even try parsing what was going on. I was pretty sure some of it was communication magic, some divination trying to pin us down and probably all sorts of spells they were using against us. So far, the cloak of twilight I had spun around us was holding, preventing them from simply killing us at range but how long that’d last I wasn’t sure. It was the problem when dealing with ancient civilisations who should have seen most things already and probably have a plan to deal with them in some cabinet, it took a bit of time to pull that file from the archives and dust it off.

With the mist spreading out all around us, and the disgusting feeling of wrongness that came with the unrestrained use of Blood Magic lingering in the air, we kept moving, leaving yet another mess for the elves to clear up.

It didn’t take long for us to run into more elves, the magic they used to coordinate giving them away. Just because I was completely unable to understand their communication didn’t mean I was unable to notice the magic they used for it. From what I could perceive around us, they were trying hard to create a net around us, making sure that we couldn’t escape and such nets needed coordination. If we managed to rip through enough of the strands in the net they spun, we’d be able to escape.

The first strand we encountered was just a single elf, lightly armed and armoured like they all were. We came dashing out of the mist and again, before the elf even had time to react, Rai and I stepped through the shadow, Rai coming in low and stabbing upwards, an attack the elf managed to avoid, only for me to come in from behind, using gravity to punch my blades through the armour covering his shoulders and into his torso. He went down, with me landing on top of him and instantly putting my hand on the wounds, ripping what magic I could grasp from his body. More power for me to throw at the elves, a bigger mess for them to clean up.

With my hand on the bloody wound, I heard a cracking sound and my head snapped up, focusing on a nearby shrub and the movement therein. Without thinking, I used the freshly acquired power and launched a few small icicles into the shrub, uncaring for what I was aiming at. There was a noise of pain, could have been an elf, but we didn’t have the time to care about it, I merely caused the Icicles I had launched to shatter, ripping whatever I had hit apart and kept running. The further we could go without getting caught, the better.

As we ran, I frantically tried to come up with ways to escape. Escaping alone would be relatively simple, the combination of stepping through the Shadows and hiding in my Hallow while Lenore took to the skies made it incredibly difficult to pin me down, but if I escaped, what about Sigmir? I had little hope that the elves wouldn’t take their anger out on her, so she had to come with me. Would Lenore and I be able to carry her, if we switched to our Avatar form? That form greatly boosted our strength, but would it be enough to carry her and escape the elves mounted on those giant birds?

I just didn’t know.

We continued onwards, running into more elves, their screams and shouts guiding the rest of them to us. Where at first, we only had to kill one elve every few minutes, the number of elves that managed to catch up and throw themselves at us in an attempt to slow us down quickly increased and our progress slowed down. Individually, none of the elves was a threat, their levels only between forty and sixty, but sometimes quantity was a quality of its own.

Sigmir stuck close to me, making sure that none of the elves could pin me down while allowing me to wield my Blood Magic to its fullest extent. Not only did it allow me to throw spells at other elves without depleting my Astral Power too much, it also allowed me to cause more chaos, as not only elves showed up to the party but a few Nethersprites were attracted by the miasma I was spilling into the land. They were no allies of ours but they most certainly were enemies of the elves, who could only see them as abominations that defiled their sacred forest.

The fighting turned more and more chaotic, to the point that I lost track of Adra and Rai. Only the connection between Sigmir, Ylva and myself allowed us to act as a unit, verbal communication was completely impossible due to the shouts, screams and screeches that filled the forest.

In my mind, Lenore started to push concepts at me, things I could barely grasp myself but I was able to simply follow her mental process. It was Death Magic, twisting it into a direction I had never truly managed to grasp and the next elf that got stabbed with my blade wasn’t just killed. No, instead I used my Blood Magic in synergy with that Death Magic Lenore had shared and my own Mind Magic, burning out most of its brain and turning it into a mindless shambler. Once I was done, the elf still dropped while Sigmir and I kept moving but this elf didn’t stay down, a few seconds after we had moved on, it got back up and attacked the nearest target with mindless hunger.

Not a zombie but I doubted the elf who got suddenly gnawed at appreciated the difference and the combination of mindless savagery on one side and surprise on the other was enough to drag that elf down, too. Not that my shambler managed to live much longer, other elves plunged a spear into it, but not before it managed to tear out its prey’s throat.

And by that time, I had already moved on to the next elf, turning it, too, into a mindless shambler that started to sow chaos, even as a Nethersprite popped into existence and joined the fun, hungering for the sweet vitality of the living.

As we fought, things started to become blurry. More and more elves were engaging, trying to work together to tie us down and stronger elves started to come in, taking over from their weaker companions. Wounds started to accumulate on Sigmir, Ylva and myself and our flight crawled to a halt, as the chaos around us intensified.

The scent of Blood, Miasma and Death was thick in the air, to the point that the magic of nature, wielded by the elves, started to get pushed back but there was no joy within the shared minds of us, only urgency. We needed to get out of the elven encirclement, or this forest would certainly be our death.

“Let’s push our limits,” I felt Sigmir’s thoughts across our connection and saw Ylva lead towards her, vanishing into her Hallow. Moments later, she let out a loud, piercing howl, thin silver fur growing all over her body and the elves around us were briefly pushed back as a golden glow started to shine from her eyes, joining together with her crimson aura.

With her going into her Avatar-state, I had to follow suit, if this was our bid to break through the elven encirclement, I had to give it my all.

After ripping the magic out of yet another elf and turning her into a mindless monster, Lenore and I started to think in sync, feathers and wings sprouting, as the Raven’s Shadow took the field, joining together with the Protector of the Pack.