The forest trail narrowed—roots curling like warning fingers, branches filtering sunlight into mottled gold. It should've felt peaceful.
But there was nothing peaceful about the way they ran.
Blanche led the charge, her boots hitting the moss-covered ground with cold rhythm, one hand on the hilt of her summoning glyph. Her white uniform was stained, her expression harder than stone.
Behind her, Ruka was pushing her legs to keep up, breathing hard, still recovering from earlier chaos but unwilling to slow down now.
At the back, Vila carried the half-limp body of Yuxin, whose arms were slack around the elf's neck. Her breath was shallow, but steady—barely.
"We're close," Blanche muttered. "Four kilometers. Don't lose momentum."
"My lungs already surrendered three kilometers ago," Ruka wheezed.
"Then tell your legs not to notice."
The tension in the air was palpable. Urgent. Like something unseen was watching. Following.
And then—it came.
A sharp whistle—high-pitched, fast, slicing air like silk.
"MOVE—!"
Blanche shouted a half-second before the dagger landed.
It embedded into the ground right where Ruka's heel had been milliseconds ago—quivering upright.
They all skidded to a stop.
Blanche's eyes shot back.
Ruka turned slowly.
Vila shifted Yuxin behind her with one arm and narrowed her eyes toward the treeline.
From between the shadows emerged a figure.
Then another.
Then three.
A voice floated through the forest, polished and charming.
"Oh my, look at you all. Dirty, breathless, barely clinging to cohesion. Should I be impressed... or concerned?"
Mika Aurenwave.
Flanked by her ever-composed support: Naoi Rei, stepping forward with grace, her fingers already shimmering with faint cyan thread; and William Haldecrest, calm as ever, hand casually drifting toward the sigil on his palm.
Blanche tensed.
"Mika Aurenwave."
Mika smiled. Not mockingly. Just... radiantly. Her hands clasped behind her back as if she were greeting guests at a garden party.
"Blanche Van Equinox," she replied sweetly. "Still alive. Unfortunate—for us, I mean."
"What do you want?" Vila asked bluntly, adjusting her stance.
"Simple," Mika said, with a soft chuckle. "There are sixteen bracket slots. One's gone. And teams like yours?"
She made a graceful gesture.
"Too dangerous to leave unchallenged."
Rei, ever quiet, stepped beside her—eyes focused on the group, analyzing, calculating. One hand already holding her dual-dagger thread anchor.
William didn't say anything.
He didn't need to.
His presence, steady and relaxed, said it all: He would act the moment she nodded.
"You attacked us from behind," Blanche said coldly. "You threw a dagger."
"Correction," Mika said, voice pleasant, "Rei did."
Rei gave a polite nod. As if apologizing for accidentally stepping on their shadow.
"Next time," Mika continued with a smile, "we won't miss."
They stood facing each other under the dense shade of the Sylvan canopies, sunlight laced through the leaves in broken streaks, but none of it touched the tension swirling in the air.
Blanche's hand raised halfway, her voice calm—noble, even.
"We don't need to fight. There's still time to reach the bracket. Let's not waste our strength on each other."
Her tone held poise, a diplomat's voice sharpened by countless formal events and dinner parties with people she wished she could've thrown out the window.
But Mika Aurenwave?
She wasn't having it.
"Oh, sweet darling Blanche," Mika said, her voice as smooth as honeyed tea—right before it turned to poisoned wine. "You talk too much."
She raised one hand slowly, like it was some kind of fashion gesture at first. Fingers extended upward—elegant, performative.
Then—
"Auren Arbalists."
A burst of silver light cracked open beside her, arcs of glyphs flaring along the ground. Three arcane circles shimmered as towering, spectral longbow soldiers emerged from thin air. They each wore stylized Aurenwave armor—sleek, curved, ceremonial—yet their faces were hollow, obscured under glass-like masks that reflected nothing but light and cold calculation.
In the same breath, they nocked their arrows.
Three glowing bolts, splitting mid-air.
"Take cover—!!" Blanche snapped.
The moment turned into chaos.
Blanche dove to the left, the ground exploding as one arrow split into five shimmering projectiles mid-flight. Ruka screamed, flailing into the bushes behind a rock formation, just barely dodging a burst of energy that whistled past her shoulder and disintegrated a tree trunk.
Vila, already one step ahead, slid into a crouch behind an overturned root cluster, gently laying Yuxin down at the base of a wide old tree.
The three Auren Arbalists reloaded with terrifying synchronization—pull, aim, fire—each shot accompanied by a high-pitched vzzzt as if the arrows themselves screamed their own kill intent.
Blanche barely deflected one with a summoned crystalline shield before it shattered.
"Negotiation is off the table, apparently," she said through gritted teeth.
"What gave it away?" Ruka cried. "The part where she launched a death-squad, or the part where she smiled while doing it?!"
A shout rang from the other side—Mika, still standing tall between her allies, looking like she was giving a stage performance.
"Come now! I thought you three were something special. Don't disappoint me~"
The second barrage hadn't even cleared the air when another threat slipped in—silent, precise, and completely unseen until it was too late.
A glint.
A shift in wind.
A faint whistle that wasn't from an arrow.
A thread.
It slithered from the treeline like a living thing, winding down from one of the higher branches—curved, calculated, and impossibly fast. It twisted with purpose, arching around debris, skipping over roots, and lashing straight toward the exposed trio regrouping after evasion.
"Tether—!" Blanche hissed, eyes flaring. "Above!"
She dove to the left, her body rolling into a crouch behind a moss-covered stump.
Vila, already sensing the faint magical pulse, dropped into a low vault, dodging the snaking line by mere inches. She landed without sound, eyes tracking the thread's direction.
But—
"W-Wait—?!" Ruka barely got the word out.
The thread wrapped around her waist and yanked.
"EEP—!!"
It dragged her into the air like a caught fish, suspending her halfway between two trees, tangled but unharmed—legs flailing, hands gripping the thread uselessly.
"…Not again…" she whimpered, defeated.
From the opposing side, stepping calmly from behind the cover of a tall birch tree, Naoi Rei emerged with one hand gently lifted—her fingers glowing faintly, controlling the thread with disciplined, fluid movements.
Her expression?
Almost apologetic.
Even as Ruka spun awkwardly mid-air, Rei maintained just enough tension to keep her locked, but not strangled.
"I... I won't make it too tight," Rei said softly, mostly to herself.
From the side, Mika folded her arms and clicked her tongue.
"Rei. Do not pity your enemy on the battlefield."
"She's not a fighter," Rei said without looking back. "There's no reason to injure her."
"And there's no reason to tuck her in like a baby bird either," Mika snapped, irritation evident. "We're in a trial, not a picnic."
"I know."
Rei's grip didn't change.
Ruka, still dangling like the world's most panicked ornament, muttered:
"I want to go home…"
Back on the ground, Blanche bit down a curse.
Losing Ruka meant losing flexibility—her support spells, her barrier sync, even her bluffing potential. And with Yuxin still down and Rei's tethers zoning them from flanking, that left only her... and Vila.
Not ideal.
"I need time to draft something," Blanche whispered, crouched low behind a rock. "I need… possibilities. Options. Angles. Anything."
"Then buy it," came Vila's quiet voice beside her.
Blanche blinked.
The elf was already rising.
"What?"
"I'll distract. Break their shape. Mess their field."
"Are you sure?"
Vila turned to her, calm, composed. A quiet gleam in her gold eyes.
"It's what I do."
Then, without another word, she faded.
Literally.
Her figure blurred—shoulders vanishing first, then her outline dissolved like mist into shadow, absorbed by the wild underbrush.
"…She's gone," Blanche murmured, breath catching. "Damn it, she's good."
"I'm not gone," came Vila's voice from nowhere in particular. "You just can't see me."
Then silence.
And the hunt began.
The forest was still for only a second.
Then Mika raised her hand—calmly, but with precision.
"Don't get sloppy. She's gone doesn't mean she's far. Eyes sharp. Arbalists, rotate sightlines. Rei—watch the roots."
William didn't say anything, but his left hand shifted slightly toward his gauntlet's latch, preparing a defensive cast.
Rei's eyes darted over every patch of grass and trunk shadow with subtle movements—her threads tightening by millimeters in anticipation, her stance centered.
"No wind. No sound," Rei murmured.
"Exactly," Mika replied, smile still in place. "And when things are too quiet—"
Snap.
A pulse of motion.
Like the air cracked inward.
Vila appeared—right in front of Mika.
One blink, and she was there. No flash, no build-up. Just a silent materialization, one palm curled, angled to strike for the chin—an attempt not to kill, but to knock out.
Mika's eyes widened.
No time to summon.
No time to counter.
Too late—
"Mika—!"
A blur moved.
William, sharp and fast, grabbed Mika by the shoulder and jerked her backward. Vila's palm missed by inches, slicing through the space Mika had just been in.
"Tch—" Vila's tone barely registered.
Rei reacted instantly—threads flew forward like glass snakes, spinning, snapping, forming a web in mid-air.
"Engaging."
The cords arched toward Vila's side—ready to bind, lock, and hold—
But the elf didn't stay grounded.
She jumped, light-footed, spinning upward in a sweeping crescent. Her coat flared with the motion as her body turned mid-air like water slipping off polished steel.
"Dancing Swan."
Her voice was a whisper of wind.
Then, while suspended—her right hand opened, fingers forming a crescent arc.
Air twisted.
A concentrated burst surged forward like a lance of compressed silk-threaded wind—
"Silk's Touch."
The projectile shrieked forward, whirling in soft spirals of pressure—fast and clean.
Rei's threads snapped back, forced to retract defensively.
"Incoming!" Rei called.
Mika's eyes sharpened as her fingers snapped.
"Auren Shieldbearer. Front!"
Another glyph ignited mid-air—this one wider, heavier.
A hulking Auren Shieldbearer emerged in a kneeling stance, arm raised, tower-shield blooming like a flower of reinforced steel and arcane weave. It caught the wind projectile just as it cracked through the barrier zone—
BOOM—!
The force rocked the shield unit slightly backward, dust kicking into the air, but the line held.
Mika steadied herself, exhaled once, lips curling slightly.
"I have to admit—she's very annoying."
William, still beside her, spoke for the first time.
"Efficient."
Rei, hands still raised, added without looking away:
"She's aiming to dismantle our cohesion."
"Mm. Too bad we already expected that," Mika said sweetly. Then louder:
"Fall into spread formation. Rei—pressure her. William, cover."
"Acknowledged," Rei replied.
"On it," William said simply.
From behind the crumbling edge of a mossy boulder, Blanche Van Equinox crouched low, eyes narrowed like a hawk watching a storm about to eat its own wings.
She could see Vila—flickering in and out of view—clashing with Team Mika. Threads whipped. Wind cracked. Arrows split into dancing, multi-shot spirals. It was a chaos ballet, and Vila was dancing at the center of it, calm and precise as a scalpel.
But Blanche?
She was stuck.
Not physically. Strategically.
And she hated it.
Her fingers clenched on her summoner sigil, but she hadn't activated it. Not yet. Not without a plan.
"Damn it," she hissed under her breath. "Nothing's lining up."
She glanced back toward the tree where Yuxin lay slumped against the roots—still out cold. Her bangs clung to her forehead from sweat, mouth slightly open, breathing shallow. Still alive. Still drained.
Blanche's brow furrowed.
"Can't wait for her to wake up. That's a gamble, not a play."
Her mind scanned options like knives laid out on a table. She had defensive summons, she had positioning—but no opening. Rei's threads controlled the battlefield, Mika was holding the center, and William was shadow-cover for them both.
"Vila's disrupting, but not breaking them…"
A gust of wind blew leaves into her face.
She didn't even blink.
Her lips moved in a soft, rushed whisper. Not casting. Just thinking aloud.
"We can't retreat… not with Yuxin down. I can't leave her, and we're not outrunning those Arbalists."
Her voice dropped into a low, frustrated growl.
"It's like trying to out-swim a shark with weights on."
She sat back slightly on her heels, arms folded, tapping one finger on her chin. Her breathing slowed. Calculating.
Her gaze shifted up—toward the branches, the canopy gaps, the terrain. Her mind turned. Harder. Faster.
There had to be something.
A moment passed.
Then her eyes lit.
Only a flicker.
A small shift in her posture. Chin raised. Shoulders leveled. Her mouth curled into the faintest hint of a smile—not the elegant, noble one people expected from her. But the kind she wore when things were finally clicking.
"…Wait…"
And just like that, Blanche moved.
Silently.
Deliberately.
Into position.
Because she had a plan now.
And chaos was about to meet coordination.
The forest stilled again.
Not from peace—but anticipation.