10:13 PM GST
Third Day of the Wister War
Island of the Bleeding Forest
Night did not fall on Wister.
It bled.
The canopy of the Bleeding Forest wept slow crimson sap that glowed faintly beneath twin moons. The trees were colossal—older than kingdoms, thicker than castles, their bark veined with faint ether pulses like slumbering arteries.
And high among those arteries, sprawled lazily across a titanic branch, lay Abbie Kadra.
Her boots dangled over the abyss below. One leg swayed idly as if she were lounging on a balcony rather than in the heart of a war zone.
She devoured ethrin fruit by the handful.
The berries were massive, almost the size of fists, dark cerulean with skin that shimmered faintly under moonlight. Their juice ran thick down her chin and across her fingers, staining her lips blue.
She grinned with a mouth full of sugar and divinity.
Between two fingers she twirled a mana drive—sleek, metallic, crescent-shaped. A trophy.
Below her, hanging grotesquely from a gutted tree, burned the corpse of a game guardian. Its own entrails had been strung through its ribcage and looped over a branch like festive streamers. The flames were not for warmth.
They were for celebration.
Abbie didn't look exhausted.
She looked alive.
Across Wister, mages struggled. The environment devoured them—sentient vines, parasitic fog, carnivorous pollen, screaming bark that cracked skulls when listened to too long.
But Abbie?
Abbie did what she loved most.
She attacked.
Senselessly. Relentlessly. Joyfully.
When the flora moved, she blasted it. When it whispered, she burned it. When it didn't move, she assumed it was planning to.
Her kill ratio: 2100.
Most were not mages.
They were trees.
But numbers were numbers.
She had acquired a mana drive.
No mana disks yet.
But survival odds? Delicious.
She bit into another ethrin fruit.
The sugar hit her bloodstream like a holy sin.
Nirvra—raw, intoxicating energy embedded in the fruit—flooded her system. Ether pathways widened violently. Her pulse quickened. The world sharpened.
She laughed softly, cheeks bulging.
She was close to overdose.
Close to madness.
And that was exactly how she liked it.
Above her—
Stillness.
Foliage shifted, just slightly.
Something watched.
Its presence was disciplined. Suppressed.
But suppression leaves pressure.
And Abbie Kadra loved pressure.
High above, embedded within layers of canopy and shadow, stood a figure.
A face sculpted like a man's.
Hair the color of rusted copper.
Eyes cold and analytical.
And beneath the skin—metal.
Synthetic muscle. Alloy spine. Mechanical lungs.
A Droidman.
Designation: R9.
Alias: Arnein.
He observed the red-haired girl below him with quiet calculation.
Her ether fluctuations were erratic. Wasteful. Explosive.
But her combat output?
Statistically dangerous.
He had chosen her because she was distracted.
Overindulging.
Careless.
He would eliminate her swiftly.
Acquire her mana drive.
Increase survivability by 12.7%.
Efficiency was survival.
Below, Abbie licked juice off her wrist.
"Fucking clanker," she muttered.
She didn't look up.
But her eyes shifted.
She felt it.
Suppressed ether vibrates differently. Like a machine trying to imitate breath.
She casually raised one hand.
A beam detonated upward.
No warning.
No chant.
Just annihilation.
A massive column of ether tore through branch, leaf, bark, sky. The ancient tree that had stood for centuries vaporized in a roar of incandescent fury.
The canopy screamed.
Charred splinters rained down like black snow.
Abbie stood balanced atop the ashen remains of what had once been living architecture.
"I knew you were there the whole time," she called lazily. "No matter how much you suppress it, I can smell your power."
Across from her—untouched.
R9 stood on a neighboring branch, perfectly intact.
He tilted his head slightly.
"How wasteful."
Abbie blinked.
"What?"
"The way you misuse ether," he replied calmly. "You should conserve. Not squander. Destroying natural life without necessity lowers long-term viability."
She stared at him.
Then laughed.
"Who are you anyway, metal head?"
"The designation is R9. My associates call me Arnein. Which will you use?"
She wiped berry juice from her chin with the back of her hand.
"R9 it is."
And she vanished.
In less than a heartbeat she was above him, red hair whipping through the night like a comet tail.
Another beam formed instantly—denser than before, humming with Nirvra-fueled instability.
She fired point blank.
R9 moved before the light reached him.
He did not dodge wildly.
He adjusted.
His body angled precisely 14 degrees. The beam grazed past, carving a molten canyon through distant forest.
He caught a hanging vine mid-fall.
Flicked it.
The vine snapped toward Abbie like a living serpent.
Midair, it thickened. Split. Coiled around her waist and arms with sudden sentience.
The forest obeyed him.
Abbie blinked once.
Then the vine slammed her into a trunk.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Each impact exploded bark and sap. The final throw hurled her through three massive trees in succession, splintering them like brittle bones.
She skidded across the forest floor, carving a trench before stopping.
Silence.
R9 descended gracefully.
In his hand—a flower.
White petals. Soft. Fragile.
He observed it briefly.
Then let it wilt.
The petals blackened instantly as he released a thin beam of concentrated ether from his fingertip.
It cut through the air.
Through Abbie's left shoulder.
Clean.
Precise.
Her flesh parted like butter beneath a hot blade. Blood sprayed dark against bark.
She did not scream.
Her body trembled once.
Then—
She smiled.
Wide.
Unhinged.
"Finally," she whispered. "Someone who can push me."
Her eyes glowed faintly.
R9 recalculated.
Threat level rising.
"Let's get things started," Abbie said softly.
Her breathing shifted.
Slower.
Deeper.
The sugar in her bloodstream ignited like oil thrown into flame.
Mana Madness.
Most mages feared it.
Losing yourself to power.
Ether destabilizes. Reserves combust. Control evaporates.
But Abbie?
She didn't fall into madness.
She rode it.
Overcharge.
An ability that squared a mage's power against itself.
Their ether turned deep, violent blue.
Eyes crimson.
Lightning coiled around skin like hungry serpents.
It required Nirvra.
Concentrated.
Excessive.
Exactly what she had consumed.
Her body convulsed once.
Ether exploded outward in a shockwave that flattened trees in a perfect circle around her.
Blue lightning cracked across her skin.
Her red hair lifted, floating as if underwater.
Her pupils dissolved into glowing crimson.
R9 stepped back for the first time.
Warning indicators flared across his internal interface.
Output spike: catastrophic.
Abbie lifted her head slowly.
Her smile stretched wider.
The air screamed.
She disappeared.
Not fast.
Gone.
R9's sensors failed to track.
Impact.
His body smashed through four trees before embedding halfway into a trunk. Alloy ribs dented inward.
He tore himself free instantly, scanning.
Too slow.
She reappeared above him.
Fist cocked.
Blue lightning condensed around her knuckles.
She punched.
The ground cratered.
The shockwave split the forest canopy open like a wound.
R9's left arm tore off at the shoulder joint, spiraling into darkness.
He landed upright regardless.
Damage acceptable.
Adaptation required.
Vines erupted from the earth, thicker than towers. They converged on Abbie from all directions, pulsing with metallic sheen—reinforced by R9's ether.
They crushed inward.
Abbie laughed.
She grabbed one vine mid-swing and yanked.
The entire network snapped like thread.
She spun, releasing a radial burst of overcharged ether.
Everything within fifty meters ceased to exist.
Trees atomized.
Ground liquefied.
Air distorted.
R9 engaged countermeasures.
His chest cavity opened.
A core ignited.
He fired a concentrated beam, narrower than before but infinitely denser.
It struck Abbie directly.
For a moment—
Silence.
Smoke cleared.
She stood there.
Skin charred.
Bones visible beneath torn flesh.
Still smiling.
Her wounds began knitting instantly—not gently like Lilan's shard, but violently. Tissue forced itself together under raw ether pressure.
"You're fun," she breathed.
Then she moved again.
This time R9 tracked the motion.
He pivoted, launching micro-filaments from his back—razor-thin wires designed to sever limbs.
They sliced through her torso.
Through her thigh.
Through her neck.
Her body separated—
And exploded.
Not flesh.
Afterimage.
The real Abbie crashed down behind him, hands gripping his skull.
She slammed his face into the ground repeatedly, each impact cracking alloy plating.
"Wasteful?" she snarled between laughs. "Conserve? Survive?"
She lifted him by the throat.
Red lightning wrapped around both of them.
"I'm not here to survive."
She hurled him skyward.
She followed.
Midair collision.
Her knee shattered his spine.
They plummeted together like a falling star.
The impact formed a crater wide enough to swallow a cathedral.
Silence hung for one fragile second.
Then—
R9's core began overloading.
He understood.
Defeat probability: 93%.
He looked up at her through fractured optics.
"Your consumption of Nirvra will destroy you."
Abbie tilted her head.
"Maybe."
She grabbed his core.
Crushed it.
The explosion that followed lit the Bleeding Forest brighter than day.
When the smoke cleared—
A figure stood at the center.
Blue ether still crackling.
Crimson eyes still glowing.
Red hair dancing in residual static.
The forest around her was no longer ancient.
It was almost gone.
She exhaled slowly.
Her overcharge state began receding.
Her breathing steadied.
Her eyes dimmed from crimson back to a familiar green.
She rolled her shoulder experimentally.
It functioned.
She glanced down at the shattered remains of R9.
"Arnein," she muttered mockingly. "Friends call you that, huh?"
She kicked a fragment of metal into the crater wall.
Above, the moons returned to dominance over the sky.
Abbie retrieved her mana drive.
Still intact.
She wiped cerulean juice from her cheek with a bloodied hand.
"Two thousand one hundred and ten," she whispered with satisfaction.
Far away, across Wister, storms gathered.
Fractures awakened.
Blood spilled.
And in the Bleeding Forest—
They would begin to whisper a name.
Not mage.
Not warrior.
Not survivor.
But that of a Red Haired Demon.