## CHAPTER 37: Crimson Effect
The crimson ball of energy didn't just travel; it erased the space between Kelvin and the monster. It shrieked through the air, a miniature sun of malevolent red fire that cast long, distorted shadows against the ironwood trees. The recoil was devastating. The force of the launch sent Kelvin spiraling backward. He slammed into a thick branch mid-air, the impact knocking the wind from his lungs with a sickening *thud* before he tumbled limply to the forest floor. He lay there among the roots, motionless, his mana exhausted.
But the strike found its mark.
The **Crimson Strike** bypassed the heavy, petal-shielded crown of the beast, slamming directly into the thick, fibrous stem just beneath the "neck" of the monster.
*GGGGGRRRRAAAAAAHHHH!*
A deafening shriek of woody agony ripped through the clearing. The beam punched a jagged, cauterized hole straight through the stem. A fountain of thick, neon-green liquid—the creature's pressurized lifeblood—squirted from the wound, coating the nearby ferns in a steaming, acidic sludge.
Kerra, pinned against the rock, saw the monster stagger. The pressure of the tentacles surrounding her suddenly slackened as the beast recoiled from the hole in its chest. Sensing a fleeting window of opportunity, she scrambled to her feet, her white hair matted with sweat and dirt. She notched an arrow, her eyes burning with a desperate need to finish this.
She drew the string back, aiming for the lidless red eye. But the Monster was as cunning as it was cruel.
Sensing the impending shot, the monster jerked the captured black-haired girl upward. With a wet, muscular crunch of its vines, it swung her limp body directly in front of its eye, using her as a human shield.
"AAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"
The girl's scream was shrill and terrified. She stared down the tip of Kerra's arrow, her face pale with the realization that her own teammate might be the one to end her.
"Don't shoot! Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" she shrieked, her voice breaking with every repetition.
Kerra's fingers trembled on the string. She let out a vitriolic curse under her breath, the tip of her arrow wavering. She couldn't take the shot—not with a teammate's life on the line. The hesitation was all the monster needed. A secondary tentacle whipped out from the shadows, striking the ground where Kerra stood.
She rolled forward, the vine missing her by inches, and came up on one knee to fire a blind, suppressive shot. But the monster swatted her arrow away with contemptuous ease, its vines rising for a final, crushing blow.
---
Louisa's world returned in fragments: the smell of scorched earth, the sound of rhythmic screaming, and the taste of copper in her mouth. She slowly blinked her eyes open, looking up at the high canopy. Pale yellow leaves drifted down from above, dancing in the morning light before settling on her face.
*COUGH! COUGH!*
A fit of coughing racked her small frame. She forced herself into a sitting position, leaning her back against the rough bark of the tree that had broken her fall. Her ribs burned with every breath, a reminder of the sacrifice she had made for Kerra.
"Ugghhh..."
She groaned, forcing her neck to turn. The scene before her was pure chaos. She saw Kerra darting back and forth in a frantic dance of survival, tentacles erupting from the earth like jagged spears to catch her ankles. Further up, the black-haired girl was being shaken violently in the air, the beast seemingly taking a sick pleasure in her terror, spinning her around until she was a blur of dark fabric and screams.
Louisa's elven instincts flared. Her party was dying.
*Ugh.* She reached to her right, her fingers brushing against the dirt until they touched the familiar, polished wood of her bow. It was just out of reach. Gritting her teeth against the pain in her side, she leaned further, stretching until her fingertips hooked around the riser. She pulled it to her chest like a lifeline.
She watched Kerra's movements. The noble girl was fast, but she was firing in a panic. Every arrow Kerra loosed struck the monster's armored vines with a metallic *ping* before falling harmlessly to the ground.
"Kerra is at the point of collision," Louisa whispered to herself, her voice a ghost of a sound. "Her movements are too unpredictable... I can't pinpoint the right moment."
The ground rumbled. A massive cluster of vines slammed into the earth near Kerra, obliterating the terrain and sending a cloud of dust into the air. Kerra emerged from the haze, gasping for air, her bow lowered in defeat.
"It's no use," Kerra whispered, her spirit finally breaking. "I can't do this myself. If I'm going to win this... I'll need help."
She looked toward the captured girl, then toward the fallen Kelvin, but she didn't look back at Louisa. She didn't think the "Ordinary" was even alive.
Louisa, however, was already moving. She drew a long, slender arrow from her quiver, the movement fluid despite her injuries. She notched it, her eyes narrowing as she entered a state of deep, elven focus.
"Hope this works," she murmured. "No time to rethink. It's all up to Kerra now."
---
Kerra stood trembling, her energy spent. Her legs felt like lead, and her vision was beginning to blur. In a final act of desperation, she raised her bow one last time. She dragged the arrow back, her heart hammering against her ribs.
"Laws of the land, defy the laws of nature and make my arrows faster than the eye can see!" she whispered the incantation. "**Air Bolt**"
She released the string.
At that exact microsecond, Louisa released her own shot from the shadows behind her.
Louisa's arrow didn't just travel; it vanished. It moved at ten times the speed of a bullet, a streak of silver light that surpassed the speed of Kerra's magically enhanced shot. Kerra didn't even see it pass her head.
In a display of impossible precision, Louisa's arrow struck the back of Kerra's arrow mid-flight. The impact shattered Kerra's wooden shaft into a thousand splinters, but the momentum was transferred. Louisa's arrow, now carrying the combined force of two shots and the "Air bolt" enchantment, became a literal railgun shot.
It whistled through the air, piercing clean through the monster's "armored" tentacle before the beast could even register the threat. The vine holding the girl was severed instantly, sending her falling toward the soft ferns below, free from the monster's grip.
Louisa sighs relief, it worked.