Armion Baren — or Marquess Baren, as the Dark Elf race addressed him.
He was a commissioned officer of the knightly order of the Kingdom of Shimmerleaf, a realm concealed deep within the uncharted territories of Shadowfen Forest. A kingdom unseen by human eyes, veiled by ancient enchantments and the will of the forest itself.
Recently, Armion had received a report that unsettled even someone of his rank.
The eastern edge of Shadowfen had burned. Not a small fire. Not a passing blaze caused by lightning or seasonal drought.
It was a devastating inferno — wide, deliberate, and violent.
From the very moment he heard the report, Armion knew. This was no accident of nature.
Shadowfen was a forest that resisted fire. Its soil was damp with poison and magic, its air thick with toxic spores. Flames did not spread easily here. For such a fire to rage unchecked — it had to be human-made.
That certainty gnawed at him as he rode out under direct orders from the Dark Elf King himself. This was not a task to be delegated. The matter was too grave, too close to the fragile balance between races.
And Armion did not disappoint.
At the site of the devastation, among the blackened roots and ash-choked ground, he found traces that did not belong to Shadowfen. Fragments of metal. The acrid stench of gunpowder.
Bomb residue. Grenades. Weapons foreign to the forest.
No creature native to Shadowfen relied on gunpowder. They wielded magic. Aura. Instinct. There was no need for crude explosives here.
Only humans used such things.
Garanmount… or the Stelark Dynasty, Armion thought then. Only those two border Shadowfen.
Because of the fire, Armion spent days assisting displaced creatures — guiding beasts deeper into safer regions of the forest, calming spirits maddened by loss. It was during this time that he felt it.
A disturbance.
No — an abomination.
Dead Aura.
The moment it brushed against his senses, Armion froze. Dead Aura always came from corpses. From death.
Yet this aura… it was moving. Alive.
When he traced its source, what he found shattered expectation. A human woman. Alive. Breathing. Carrying Dead Aura within her body.
At first, Armion intended to kill her. That was the law. That was instinct.
A living vessel of Dead Aura was a threat to the world itself. And yet—
When his eyes met the blonde-haired woman's for the first time, something strange stopped him. A feeling he could not name. A sense of recognition that had no reason to exist.
Familiar. Uncomfortably so. Instead of striking her down, Armion watched. And learned her name.
Lea.
Fate, it seemed, had no intention of letting him turn away.
By chance — or perhaps by the forest's design — Armion encountered a peculiar owl. Clever. Sharp-eyed. Far too intelligent to be ordinary.
He named it Huohu.
From that day on, Huohu became his partner, his unseen eyes. For weeks, the owl reported every movement Lea made — her routines, her care for the old woman she lived with, her experiments with medicine.
And today, as Armion was reviewing new reports regarding the increasingly violent behavior of Thorn Dryads, Huohu arrived in a state of sheer panic.
The owl, usually calm and sly, came hurtling through the air without grace.
"Hooo-houuu!"
Armion raised an eyebrow as he noticed the frantic flight. From that distance, the meaning of Huohu's cries was still unclear.
"Huohu? You came to deliver a re—"
Thud!
The owl slammed directly into Armion's face, talons and all. Had Huohu been any less intelligent, Armion would have roasted it long ago.
"Hey—! What are you doing?!" Armion snapped, struggling to free himself from the flailing bird.
"Hooou! Hoooo!" Huohu screeched, tugging violently at the edge of Armion's cloak.
Even through the panic, Armion caught fragments of meaning. "…You're saying Lea was attacked by a Fog Ent?"
"And she's unconscious—somewhere in the forest?!"
His eyes widened. "Why didn't you say that first?!"
Annoyed, Armion took off at once. "HOUUU!" Huohu protested indignantly, offended by the accusation.
"Tch. Fine. You're not wrong," Armion muttered. "Now show me the way."
Huohu shot forward, wings cutting through the air at full speed. Armion followed, leaping from branch to branch, the forest blurring beneath him.
When they arrived, the sight made his breath hitch. Lea lay broken against the earth, her body twisted unnaturally, blood staining her hair and skin.
"What happened?" Armion asked grimly as he knelt beside her.
"Hooo-hooo-hooou!" Huohu explained in frantic detail.
"A Fog Ent destroyed her garden…?"
"She fought it alone…?"
"Crushed… and thrown here…?"
Armion's eyes widened in shock. "She should be dead."
Yet when Armion checked Lea's heartbeat and breathing, the woman was still alive. She was truly alive, even though her pulse was faint and fragile.
"This lady is astonishing, for a human," Armion murmured.
"Hooo-hooo…"
Armion nodded in agreement with Huohu. "Indeed. She is no ordinary human. There is no such thing as an ordinary human who carries Dead Aura within their body."
Hm… Armion's eyes narrowed sharply as he examined Lea more closely, while his hands worked to stop the blood flowing from her wounds using his aura. When he saw the dark blood trickling down from Lea's forehead, an uncontrollable urge surged through him.
As a Dark Elf, it was only natural for him to thirst for Dead Aura.bBefore he could restrain himself, Armion leaned closer—
Slurp.
Flap! Flap! Flap!
Huohu struck Armion's face repeatedly with its wings. Armion had only licked a small trace of Lea's blood, yet Huohu reacted with overwhelming fury.
"Hooo! Hooou!"
"Alright, alright! I'm wrong! I'm wrong!" Armion surrendered at once. Huohu, when enraged, was terrifying indeed.
But… as Armion smacked his lips, tasting the lingering blood on his tongue, he sensed something strange mixed within it. It was not merely Dead Aura, but something else—
"Is she poisoned?" Armion demanded, turning a sharp gaze on Huohu. "You said she was attacked by a Fog Ent, didn't you?"
"Hooo…"
"You said she was already resistant to Fog Ent poison! Then why is she showing symptoms of poisoning as well?!"
"HOUUU! HOUUU!"
This time, Armion turned back to Lea in alarm.
That was right. Just because Lea was no ordinary human did not mean she was completely immune to Fog Ent's toxic fumes. If the concentration exceeded what a human body could endure, there was no way she could withstand it.
Armion himself had received reports of Dark Elf citizens being poisoned by Fog Ent fumes while venturing outside the forest. If even beings with innate magical power could be affected, then Lea's condition could not be ignored.
"You said she managed to create an antidote, didn't you?" Armion ordered sharply. "Bring it to me. Now."
Huohu panicked, but still obeyed. The owl flew as fast as it could toward Lea's home to retrieve the antidote.
Whether the medicine Huohu brought back was truly effective or not, Armion had no choice but to trust it.
After administering the antidote to Lea, Armion attempted to heal the fractures along her spine caused by the violent impact. Unfortunately, controlling aura alone was not enough to mend such damage.
In the end, Armion tore his own cloak into strips and bound Lea tightly, securing her body to reduce the friction between broken bones.
"Hooo-hooou…"
Huohu watched with a suspicious gaze as Armion treated Lea in such a rough manner.
"You're asking whether she'll die?" Armion replied with a threatening grin. "Yes. Of course she will—if you brought the wrong antidote."
Huohu swallowed hard and said nothing more, overwhelmed by conflicted emotions. Seeing that, Armion almost laughed to himself. So the arrogant owl finally shows weakness, he thought.
"How strange," Armion muttered after finishing his crude treatment. "Fog Ents never cause havoc outside Shadowfen. As far as I know, they've never wandered that far."
At that moment, Armion intended to take Lea to the Kingdom of Shimmerleaf, where she could receive proper treatment.
"What do you think drove the Fog Ents out there, Huohu?" Armion asked, watching the brown-feathered owl that had grown uncharacteristically subdued.
"Hooo-huooo…" Huohu replied weakly.
Armion nodded in understanding. He had suspected as much. "Right. It must be because this woman took the rare plant guarded by the Fog Ents."
Just then, Armion sensed multiple presences approaching from all directions.
Without hesitation, he fastened the Katar blades onto both of his hands. "Go, Huohu," Armion said calmly. "Save yourself."
"This is going to be a massacre."