After the Bullfango hunt, Alden Valerius did not slow the pace. He pressed his cavalry squadron to train relentlessly against harder prey.
They swept through the low grasslands of the Glades, stalking a herd of Aptonoth—D-ranked mana beasts shaped like prehistoric cattle. Gray, leathery skin striped black along their spines, massive crested skulls, and heavy, spiked tails. In just 15 minutes, 53 had fallen to their tactics—bolts piercing the soft flesh beneath their Hadrosaur-like crests, followed by halberd thrusts and warhammer swings into their skulls and flesh.
In the volcanic ridges, the quarry changed: Apceros, C-ranked reptilian cousins of Aptonoth, with heads like tortoises and bodies capped in iron-hard shells which were thick enough to stop crossbow bolts. Alden instructed the soldiers to aim for their weak spots that not protected by their shell armor: legs, bellies and also coordinated the soldiers into groups to distract them while others struck them in blind spots.
The battle was brutal. Crossbow bolts harried the Apceros, forcing them to turn and reveal weak spots. Cavalry darted in with halberds and warhammers, striking joints and exposed flesh. Conjurers shielded soldiers from the smashing, mace-like spiky tails.
By an hour later, the ground was soaked in blood. 125 of thick-shelled corpses littered the slope.
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During this month of cavalry training in Beast Glades, Alden had seized the respite from financial woes—fees, debts to investors, and weapon production costs now settled—to have more free time to hone his own magic strength. He had successfully unlocked the fourth element: water, becoming the first recorded quad-elemental mage in Dicathen continent.
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After two relentless weeks of hunting and drilling under Alden's command, the Valerius cavalry squadrons returned with staggering profits and a wealth of resources. Mana beast cores, hides, horns, shells, bones—all catalogued and sold or stockpiled. Even the meat was put to use.
Alden had personally overseen countless trials in the manor kitchens, working with the house's cooks to refine preparation methods for the mana beast meat. After rigorous testing—ensuring safety, flavor, and nutritional value—he presented the results to his parents.
His proposal was simple and brilliant: launch a small, fast-turnover food business tailored to adventurers. Specifically, a quick-service restaurant inside the Blackbend Adventurer Guild itself.
The logic was unassailable. Adventurers valued filling, affordable, safe, and energizing meals after exhausting dungeon dives. They had neither time nor inclination for the elaborate, artfully plated courses that nobles prized. Alden didn't even bother to pretend these dishes would impress aristocrats; the food was robust, hearty, and direct—just what mercenaries and explorers craved.
He argued it would deliver immediate profits, help clear the massive stock of harvested beast meat quickly, and bolster House Valerius's financial recovery. The family agreed.
The restaurant was scheduled to open later that week. After today's hunt, Alden decided there would be no mana beast expedition tomorrow. Instead, he would personally oversee the final preparations for the launch, directing staff, approving the layout and menu, and ensuring everything was ready to turn their hard-won spoils into much-needed coin.
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Back to today's hunt, just as Alden's squadron was marching, they met a herd of Deathblade Unicorns on an open field. B-ranked mana beasts with rare Alpha variants rivaling A-ranked might. The Deathblade Unicorn has a body resembling a warped horse, is unnaturally elongated, with legs like twisted bone pillars and long furry tail. The creature's hide is a sickly white gray, marred by patches of matted fur. Rising from its skull is the true terror: a monstrous, giant and long sword-shaped horn, black as obsidian and serrated like a jagged blade forged in nightmare. This Deathblade, easily twice the length of a man's arm, glistens with a sinister sheen. The Deathblade Unicorn was also capable of using wind elemental magic to boost its speed and attacks. Adventurers whispered of their title—"best swordsmen of the Beast Glades"—earned by slaughtering predators twice their size.
There was a story spread like a myth tale amidst the rumors of adventurers about a Deathblade Unicorn so powerful that it managed to cut down a juvenile wyvern(rank S) to protect his herd.
Alden recognized them and raised his hand to signal the whole squadron to stop, his voice was low as well:
"Stop and retreat slowly into the trees. Keep your mana and noises low to not provoke them. We don't have a chance against the entire herd in an open field."
The cavalry obeyed in silence, all mana signatures sinking as they turned their horses back to the forest.
A moment of dead silence as the soldiers, one by one rode their horses very slowly out of the territory of Deathblade Unicorn herd.
Suddenly, The Alpha of the herd, a hulking beast with the longest, sharpest Deathblade horn raised its snout. It was eyeing something towards the direction of Alden's force. The soldiers watched it in terror, gripping their weapons tightly but they dared not leaking their mana cores' fluctuation yet by Alden's order.
It lowered its horn.
With a shriek of unnatural fury, it launched itself like a missile. Wind magic exploded from its legs, propelling it at impossible speed.
But it did not strike them—its horn rammed a massive boulder nearby, punching through solid stone. The unicorn paused to lick the crumbs of mineral-rich rock falling from the destroyed boulder, absorbing the metals to strengthen its horn.
That should have been enough but one of Alden's conjurers panicked.
Out of instinct, muscle memory and fear, he conjured a barrier around himself.
Mana blazed like a beacon.
The Alpha whipped toward him, its eyes glowing with feral rage, let out a shrieking neigh that split the forest.
"LEAVE THE CARRIAGES AND RUN!" Alden roared, his voice cracking the silence and the cavalry squadron rushed in panic.
Twelve unicorns dispatched from the herd, led by the Alpha, gave chase, their neighs a guttural war cry that shook the trees.
Crossbows cracked, bolts streaking at the charging beasts. But the unicorns deflected them with preternatural skill, horns flashing in the gloom.
Earth and wind barriers formed up, deflecting thrusts and slashes. Fire and water projectiles launching back, but only to delay the unicorns of hell.
Alden finished weaving his spell, thrusting his staff forward with precision. The ground beneath the pursuing Deathblade Unicorns churned and liquefied into treacherous, sucking mud, swallowing their hooves and arresting their deadly charge.
But it wasn't perfect. The unicorns had closed too much distance on the squadron's rear for Alden to cleanly exclude his own lines. Horses in the back ranks screamed in panic as their legs sank into the mire.
"Wind and Earth conjurers! Lift our horses out!!" Alden shouted.
Instantly, magic flared across the formation. Gusts of wind and rising stone platforms hauled the trapped mounts free one by one. For a moment it looked as if they might all escape intact.
Then the Alpha broke through.
With a roar like tearing canvas, the monstrous unicorn surged out of the mudtrap in an explosion of wind mana. It lunged, its obsidian blade-horn driving clean through the flank of an augmenter's horse. The beast's muscular neck flexed grotesquely as it lifted horse and rider clean off the ground.
The soldier swung his warhammer in desperation, but the Alpha flicked its head with horrifying power, sending both man and mount hurtling into a tree. Bones snapped on impact. Blood smeared the bark in thick, wet streaks.
Alden's face hardened as he kicked his horse forward.
"Go!" he roared.
The squadron surged ahead. Behind them, the rest of the unicorns broke free of the collapsing mud with wind magic, their furious screeches echoing in the trees as they resumed the relentless pursuit.
Alden barked orders and pointed: "You two, you two and you—on me! The rest follow the captain's commands!!"
He chose two augmenters, two conjurers, and an emitter.
Then Alden gave order to the captain of this squadron:
"Go the north and lured them with you! To the ravine in the mountain, they can't enter it with their oversized bodies!! I will go back to rescue the downed soldier and regroup with you later!!"
"Yes my lord!", The captain nodded. The main squadron wheeled and fled, deliberately flaring mana to draw the pursuit of 12 unicorns.
Alden's eyes fell on the downed soldier. The horse had died, its rider writhing in agony with a shattered leg.
The Alpha was already moving toward him, horn lowered.
Alden's squad surged forward.They unhorsed and charged on foot.
"Emitter, stay hidden. Heal only when safe.", Alden instructed.
The Alpha raised its horn to strike.
Alden conjured a massive stone barrier around the injured man just in time.
The Alpha's horn stabbed through the stone like paper. It roared, wrenching it free, searching for its kill.
Alden's stone whips lashed out, chaining its legs.
Crossbows cracked. Spells lashed.
But the Alpha unicorn wrapped its skin with a wind layer, deflecting bolts. It cut down the incoming spells into bits with its blade horn.
It shredded the chains with a flick of its horn.
Wind mana burst from its body in a raging torrent.
It became a blur of motion, spinning and slashing.
Trees, ground, rocks, splitted into pieces.
The squad fell back under conjured shields.
Alden summoned a pillar of fire beneath its hooves.
The Alpha leapt high up.
"Rescue him!" Alden barked at the augmenters. Augmenters darted to the soldier as Alden fired wind-accelerated fire-stone bullets.
The Alpha Deathblade Unicorn concentrated its wind mana into its horn. To everyone's shock, it swung the horn mid-air and a giant flying arc of wind blade from its horn crashed against Alden's projectiles.
"Is this fucking horse made by the devils themselves??!!", the earth conjurer standing next to Alden cursed in anger. He conjured stone spikes erupting from the ground to stab the Unicorn in its landing, but the beast slowed down its descending using wind magic. The fire conjurer unleashed a torrent of fire and it blocked off with a wind burst from his horn.
Alden ordered the 2 conjurers:"Distract it!!"
They complied, earth layers rising, fire lances flaring, the Alpha's attention fixed.
Alden watched the Alpha Deathblade Unicorn with unblinking intensity. It was almost disgustingly perfect. Strength. Speed. Precision. Defense. Adaptability. Even a glimmer of cold intelligence burned behind those herbivore eyes. Its blade-like horn was devastating in melee and even capable of ranged wind slashes—a true killing machine.
For a normal human swordsman, you'd keep your distance, use spells, projectiles or weapons with superior reach such as polearms, spears, halberds. But those were not working for this thing. Its ideal counter was infact the opposite: get inside its reach, trespass into the space where that monstrous horn couldn't swing effectively.
Yet as a conjurer, Alden knew relying on brute force to augment his body—lacking the raw physical strength,speed and durability of an actual augmenter—would be a death sentence for him in an attempt to close distance with it directly.
However, knowledge of biology offered a solution. Similar to that of a horse, this unicorn's vision bore a blind spot at its rear—a vulnerability Alden could exploit with precision, a safer gambit than a frontal assault. His strategy crystallized.
Alden tunneled underground using earth magic, the damp soil clinging to his boots, sensing the beast's wind mana and his conjurers' pulses.
He emerged behind it, warhammer in hand, and drove the spike into its spine.
The steel spike sank deep, splintering bone, a gush of blood erupting like a fountain, spraying Alden's helm mask.
The Alpha unleashed a guttural shriek, a sound of pure agony that rattled the trees, its body thrashing wildly. In a blind frenzy, its horn plunged into the earth conjurer, the serrated blade tearing through his belly with a wet rip. His abdomen split wide, intestines uncoiling in a slithering mass of glistening, blood-slicked ropes, spilling onto the ground in a steaming heap. His scream choked into a gurgling rasp as blood flooded his throat, his eyes wide with terror before he slumped, lifeless.
"Darry!!!" the fire conjurer cried out loud his comrade's name.
The Alpha roared and unleashed a powerful wind burst from its body, trying to fling Alden away. Alden grunted as the wind blasted over him, he pulled out his sidearm knife and stabbed to the side of the beast, hugging it tightly in savage desperation to not be blown away by the wind.
The wind flung Darry's mangled corpse from the horn, his guts trailing like a macabre banner as he crashed into the ground, a broken puppet of flesh and bone.
"Get him to the emitter—now!" ,Alden roared as he conjured more stone whips to chain down the beast temporarily while channeling an enormous amount of lightning magic from his core.
The fire conjurer, hoisted Darry's limp form, aided by the two augmenters who had just left the emitter tending the earlier soldier's shattered leg.
Lightning erupted from Alden's core, a blinding torrent crackling through the warhammer and the knife into the Alpha's flesh. The beast convulsed, muscles spasming in violent jerks, steam hissing from its cooked innards as blood bubbled from its maw, splattering the ground in crimson pools. Its grey-white fur charred into smoking black, peeling back to reveal blistered, oozing skin. After twenty seconds of unrelenting electrocution, Alden stopped the electricity flow. The Alpha collapsed, a quivering heap of scorched meat, its horn still twitching as life ebbed, a final cough spraying gore onto Alden's boots.
Alden pulled out his warhammer out of its spine then swung relentlessly at its head with his augmented strength.
*WHACK* *WHACK* *WHACK* *WHACK* *CRACK*—the skull fractured, brain pulping into a jelly-like sludge, blood, flesh and bone splattering Alden's body. Its eyeball flung to Alden's shoe, which he didn't care and stomped on it unconsciously while trying to pry out the horn out of the skull.
The Deathblade horn was far too hard for Alden's orange-core–strengthened swings to shatter with a mere warhammer. But he knew well enough: once given to skilled blacksmiths with the right tools, it could be refined into lethal weapon-grade materials.
Alden hacked at the horn's root, his warhammer crashing into the beast's skull—a mangled ruin of gore, where brain matter had liquefied into a sickly, crimson sludge, and shards of bone protruded like broken teeth. The head was a grotesque tapestry of shredded flesh and splintered cartilage, blood pooling in a sticky morass beneath. Using wind magic, he pried the horn free—over 2 meters of serrated, obsidian-colored, brutally sharp blade. He wasn't foolish enough to grab it with bare hands and risk slicing his fingers to the bone.
Turning to the corpse, Alden drew his knife, its edge glinting as he slashed open the Alpha's belly. The incision unleashed a rancid torrent—guts spilling in a nauseating flood, intestines slithering out like glistening eels, their stench a putrid miasma of decay. Organs—liver, spleen, and heart—sloshed onto the blood-soaked earth, a quivering heap of offal, as he reached in to pluck the mana core, its faint glow marred by the surrounding filth.
After storing all of the loots and weapons back to his dimension ring and washing himself with water magic, he returned to his soldiers.
The emitter knelt beside Darry, the earth conjurer's ravaged form a pitiful sight. Alden summoned water magic, rinsing the dangling intestines of clotted blood and grime before the emitter shoved them back into the gaping wound, a wet squish accompanying each thrust. Darry's screams, muffled by a gag biting into his tongue, were a raw, animalistic howl, his body convulsing as healing mana wove the torn flesh together, stitching muscle and skin over the exposed innards.
Fortunately for Darry, the deities smiled on him today. He passed out due to the shock, pain and blood loss, but his wound had been dealt with properly. He retained his life. The fire conjurer, Rick, knelt beside him and looked up.
"I'll carry him on my horse, my lord," he volunteered quickly.
Alden's pale eyes flicked to him, then nodded once.
Alden's squad rode northward.By the time they reached the mountain pass, the main cavalry squadron was there, clustered at the mouth of the narrow ravine. Alden slowed his horse, scanning the slope above for movement or mana signatures. No signs of Deathblade Unicorns.
The captain of the squadron rode up to meet him, removing his helm and wiping sweat from his temple.
"My lord," he greeted wearily. "As you said, the ravine was too narrow for them. They didn't cross that threshold and left."
Alden gave a single nod, his gaze still sweeping for danger.
"Report."
"We managed to kill 2 Deathblade Unicorns," he said. "Cost us some, though. Four injured men, six injured horses. They were all hit hard during the chase—luckily the emitter was with us. He got them back on their feet."
Alden digested the information in silence and nodded.
The captain led them to regroup with the main squadron. Alden jumped down from his horse, removing his bloodied helm and washing it with water magic.
The soldiers bowed down to greet him returning unharmed.
Alden ordered the emitters to watch over for Darry's state.
"What happened to him, my lord?", The captain asked and Alden summarized their earlier situation.
"We killed the big Deathblade Unicorn earlier which I speculated it to be the Alpha of the herd, given its superior size and strength, it could have been classified as A rank. We saved the downed augmenter soldier, couldn't save his horse though, with the cost of almost losing that earth conjurer."
Alden's pale eyes swept over the assembled riders until they fell on the wind conjurer who had panicked before, giving away their position with his accidental barrier.
"You," Alden called and pointed at him, his voice cutting through the murmurs, "step forward."
The wind conjurer shuffled forward. His dark hair clung to a sweat-drenched face, eyes wide with fear as his comrades' judgmental stares bore into him. His hands trembled, clutching his magic staff as if it might shield him from his lord's wrath.
Alden fixed him with that soulless, calculating stare.
"Name?", Alden asked curtly.
"T-Tavian, my lord," he stammered, his voice barely audible over the wind.
"I-I-I'm ready to receive ....any punishments for my grave mistakes, my lord!", Tavian stuttered.
Alden said nothing, held his gaze for a moment, then turned to the captain, dismissing Tavian with a flick of his hand.
"The carriages are still back in the forest, near the unicorns' territory. We need to retake them," Alden said flatly, eyes scanning the battered squadron.
The captain offered carefully, "We can try the same approach earlier, my lord. One team for distraction, another for the objective. The ravine worked on those mad killer-horses."
Alden turned to him, voice cool. "And risk more injuries? More men lost?"
The captain replied: "Then… we could return to the castle for reinforcements.".
Alden's pale gaze flicked back to the terrain. "We ventured too far into the Glades' side this time. A full day to go back—and by tomorrow those supplies will be picked clean or destroyed by mana beasts. We'd lose everything."
The captain let out a resigned sigh. "Then I'm all ears for your new plan, my lord. I'm running out of ideas."
Alden didn't reply immediately. Instead, he unfurled the map of the Beast Glades, eyes narrowing at the inked shapes and notes.
Near the unicorns' range was the Depraved Grotto—a known A-ranked dungeon. Its first floor was home to Black-Fanged Wolves: B-class mana beasts, wolf-like with fire-resistant fur and the unsettling habit of eating rocks. Dangerous, but slower than horses. Unlike the Deathblade Unicorns, his cavalry might outpace them.
He mentally catalogued what he knew of the unicorn herd's behavior.
Female Deathblade Unicorns didn't patrol territory aggressively like males. Their priority was defending their children, only attacking threats that targeted them directly. But if something too strong appeared, they'd raise piercing, urgent calls to summon the males from afar.
Alden's plan began to form in his mind, 3 teams: A, B and C.
Team A would raid the Depraved Grotto entrance, taunting the Black-Fanged Wolves and luring them straight toward the female unicorns and their foals.
But to keep the male unicorns from spotting Team A, Team B would split off and lure them far in the opposite direction.
Once the wolves approached close to the female unicorns, they would switch their targets and team A would, in theory, be ignored by them and run safely away.
The females would do exactly what nature dictated: call the males back. The males hearing the calls would return back to the herd immediately, ignoring team B.
The three teams would regroup while the wolves and unicorns would tear each other apart in a glorious bloodbath. Leaving Alden's cavalry to sweep in and collect the "jackpot."
It was an insane plan. High risk. Potentially catastrophic. But the reward was enormous.
Alden had played things carefully until now. Today had been a failure—not only due to the wind conjurer Tavisn, but also his own fault in choosing this hunting route. They had went into a deeper section of the Glades after 2 weeks of clearing almost all the explored areas. The risk was miscalculated, Alden didn't deny his mistake.
However, he did not accept this loss. He intended to pay it back in blood and gold.
But as he glanced over the squadron, one problem nagged at him.
Team B. They had to keep ten male unicorns occupied. These were monsters that had nearly overrun the enitre squadron even with a ravine choke point and an emitter on hand. A normal diversion force would be torn to shreds.
He tapped the map with one gauntleted finger, lost in thought.
Unicorn. Horse.
"The Trojan Horse." he murmured, realization striking like lightning.
Alden laid out his audacious strategy to the assembled cavalry in crisp, clinical terms: they would divide into three teams. Team A would bait the Black-Fanged Wolves from the Depraved Grotto and herd them toward the female unicorns and their foals.
Alden himself would lead Team B—but instead of fighting or outrunning the male unicorns, he would impersonate and disguise as one of them. By wearing the skinned pelt of a slain Deathblade Unicorn, he would trick the unicorn herd's instincts, luring the aggressive males to follow him away from the others. He would need 4 conjurers accompanied him in case things went wrong but kept a distance from him and their presence low to not provoke the male unicorns.
Team C would use that window to reclaim the lost carriages. And as the females called for the males to return and fight the wolves, the cavalry would wait to clean up the aftermath of the battlefield.
After the briefing the plan to the soldiers, Alden approached one of the two Deathblade Unicorn corpses the squadron had brought down. With swift, deliberate strokes of his knife, he began the grisly task, peeling away wide, leathery sheets of tough gray hide. The skin resisted, tearing in places to reveal glistening fat and muscle beneath, the fur clinging with clumps of crusted filth that stank of rot and death, each strip reeking as if it had been marinating in a cesspit.
Next, he hefted his halberd, lined up the sinewy neck, and with a clean, decisive swing severed the head from the body. a wet crunch echoing as flesh parted, spraying a fountain of dark, viscous blood that spattered his armor. He didn't stop there: carefully, he also flayed the skin along the full length of the unicorn's neck, preserving it as a long, tubular hide. The hide peeling back in a nauseating tube of sinew and hair, oozing with a yellowish pus that seeped from severed veins. The stench intensified, a gag-inducing miasma of putrefaction.
Using conjured stone nails, Alden stitched the neck skin seamlessly to the broader hide of the body cloak, creating a single massive pelt that could drape over both rider and horse in one convincing, continuous shape.
He then conjured a stone spear matched precisely to the length of the unicorn's neck and rammed it into the base of the severed head. He secured the joint with additional stone nails, pinning it solidly to the shaft so it would bob and pivot like a real living neck.
With water and wind magic, he sluiced away the clinging gore and filth from both the hide and the head until they were gruesomely clean but unmistakably real.
He chose a cavalry mount with pale, grayish-white fur from the squadron that most closely matched the Deathblade Unicorn's coloring. Mounting on it, Alden he held the spear with the unicorn's head forward over the horse's neck, the grisly trophy bobbing and swaying like a living creature's head. He draped the bloodied, heavy pelt over himself like a macabre cloak, the added neck skin helping it blend smoothly with the silhouette of him and the horse and still leaving an opening slit in the middle front so both him and the horse could see.
The illusion was a nightmare made flesh: a horrifying simulacrum of a Deathblade Unicorn, stitched from reeking flesh, clotted fur, and splintered bone, mounted on a warhorse whose color completed the monstrous, vomit-inducing deception.
The soldiers watched in grim silence during the whole process.
A seasoned augmenter with a scarred face shook uncontrollably, forcing himself to look away, muttering prayers under his breath. Tavisn, pale as chalk, squeezed his eyes shut and rocked on his heels, trying not to faint.
A few dropped to their knees, vomiting onto the ground, others clamped hands over their mouths, tears of reflexive disgust pricking their eyes when they saw Alden carefully nailed the glistening, blood-soaked neck hide to the larger body pelt with conjured stone nails, the sight pushed others over the edge. A retching chorus erupted.
Even the captain, Torrin, normally unflappable, stood rigid, lips pressed into a thin line, one gloved hand gripping the reins so hard his knuckles whitened.
Alden turned his gaze across the assembled cavalry. His pale eyes were utterly cold, gleaming with the same hard calculation that had guided his butchery.
"None of you," he said in a voice like a drawn blade, sharp and unyielding, "will speak of this matter when we return. Keep this secret to your graves—"
He let the pause stretch, his gaze pinning them one by one.
"—and I will increase your payments. Or else...you wouldn't want to know."
A collective shudder ran through the men. Some wiped the vomit from their chins and nodded shakily. Others managed croaked affirmations. The captain swallowed hard and gave a stiff salute.
"Y-yes....my lord!", captain Torrin blurted out.
No one dared to argue. For the first time in their life, they truly learned why to fear their future duke.
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It was time for the plan's execution after an hour of preparation, Alden rode out at the head of Team B, the hide flapping wetly with each hoofbeat. Their destination was the eastern edge of the Deathblade Unicorn territory.
As Team B advanced, the forest grew eerily silent. Then, from between the twisted trunks, they saw them: 10 male Deathblade Unicorns, stalking in a loose formation, sensing an intruder in their territory that smelled and looked unmistakably like one of their own, froze mid-charge at the sight of Alden under the cover.
Their snorting breath curled in the chilly air as they stared in raw, feral curiosity. Then, just as Alden had gambled, they began to approach him—not at a charge, but in that cautious, testing gait herd animals use to investigate a new rival or stranger. With subtle guiding movements and an unleash of small wind magic burst for extra mimicking, Alden turned his mount slowly, leading them away from the core of their territory step by step, successfully tricked their curious minds.
Back in the north, Team C waited in absolute silence among the trees, crouched low. They watched through gaps in the underbrush as the last of the unicorn males followed Alden's decoy, leaving the corridor clear. Team C surged forward at a controlled gallop, crossbows loaded and eyes sharp for stragglers. They reached the clearing where the abandoned carriages waited, battered but intact. Horses were quickly re-hitched, and with practiced efficiency the soldiers turned the convoy north, slipping away through the newly cleared corridor before the unicorns could realize they'd been fooled.
Meanwhile, Team A, led by captain Torrin, struck the first floor of Depraved Grotto dungeon at the west side, with taunting screams and torchlight, provoking the Black-Fanged Wolves that dwelled within. The wolves howled and snapped, enraged at the intrusion. Torrin's men turned and fled at breakneck speed, leading the snarling pack eastward toward the unicorn herd's heart.
Alden, glancing back, saw the male unicorns beginning to edge closer to him, sniffing, testing, ready to challenge if they realized the ruse. He felt the tension in the air like a live wire. With a nudge of his knees, he spurred his horse faster, luring them further east.
"Run straight at the herd!" Torrin's voice carried on the wind as he roared to his men, executing the next phase of the plan.
Torrin's Team A emerged from the western treeline at full sprint. The female Deathblade Unicorns, startled by the charging humans, screamed in shrill, furious warning calls, their horns lowering to defend their younglings. But Torrin's riders didn't attack—instead they simply passed through the herd and turned back to the north direction.
However, the real chaos struck seconds later.
The Black-fanged Wolves were lured to the territory of the unicorns, and they turned their attention to the female and young unicorns.
All females screamed in union in a deafening call, shaking the trees. The 10 males hearing their cries and rushed back to the herd, abandoning their curiousity towards Alden's "Trojan Horse".
The forest echoed with screams, howls, and the terrible sounds of battle as unicorn and wolf tore into each other.
The male unicorns lunged, their serrated horns slashing through wolf flesh, severing limbs in sprays of arterial blood that painted the ground crimson. A wolf's head was cleaved clean off, its skull cracking like dry wood, brain matter oozing onto the leaves. The females fought with feral desperation, horns goring wolf bellies, entrails spilling in steaming coils, black ichor mixing with unicorn blood in a viscous sludge.
The wolves retaliated with savage ferocity—jaws clamping down on unicorn throats, tearing out chunks of flesh with sickening rips, blood gushing in torrents as windpipes collapsed into pulpy ruin. One wolf latched onto a male's hind leg, its fangs sinking deep, snapping bone with a wet crack before ripping the limb free, leaving a dangling stump spurting gore. Another wolf lunged at a female's flank, its teeth shredding muscle to expose raw, quivering ribs, then burrowed its muzzle into the wound, gnawing through sinew to feast on the still-beating heart, blood spraying its matted fur.
Younglings, too weak to defend, were torn apart—jaws ripping into their throats, flesh shredding to expose raw muscle, their pitiful cries drowned by the wolves' guttural growls before they could flee. One foal's leg was wrenched off, bone splintering with a wet snap, its body dragged through the ground, entrails trailing like a grotesque ribbon.
The males and females fell one by one, their horns impaling wolves only to be overwhelmed—claws raking open chests, ribs cracking, hearts pulped under relentless bites. A male's horn lodged in a wolf's spine, snapping as the beast thrashed, its own guts spilling as it died. The females' hides were flayed by claws, flesh hanging in ragged strips, blood pooling in a rancid lake. They died, unable to save their children from the same brutal fate.
In the end, only one female unicorn stood, her grey hide slashed to ribbons, one eye gouged out, blood streaming from her maw. Three wolves circled, their fur matted with gore, one limping with a shattered jaw, another missing an ear, its flank a mass of torn muscle. The battleground was a charnel house—severed limbs, shattered bones, and a slurry of blood and offal underfoot.
Alden, having regrouped with all of his squadron, watching in silence from a safe distance. Seeing the result of battle, he ordered the squadron to attack the 3 wolves. Bolts to their bodies, the predator beasts collapsed and the soldiers finished them off with warhammers into their skulls.
Alden observed the last standing female Deathblade Unicorn of the herd. He noticed: its belly was noticeably bigger than other females. It was pregnant.
"Subdue this unicorn.", Alden ordered and his soldiers complied.
An earth conjurer covered off its blade horn with soft earth clay. Augmenters held it down and tied it up with ropes. It was injured badly so there was barely any resistance left.
"Emitters, heal it. I have a plan for this singlemother.", Alden said.