## CHAPTER 40: A Boost of Victory
"Heeeeelllllllllppppp!"
"Someone... please!"
The screams echoed through the humid morning air, stripped of all noble pretense and replaced by raw, jagged terror. The black-haired attacker and Kerra hung suspended like morbid ornaments from the Monster's vines. Kerra's face, usually a mask of frigid superiority, had crumbled. Her gaze was fixed on Kelvin, whose head hung at an unnatural angle, his white hair stained a sickening crimson from the impact with the earth.
He hadn't moved. He hadn't breathed.
The weight of the silence from her twin brother was more agonizing than the thorns digging into her waist. Kerra's acted toughness finally dissolved, and she burst into a fit of violent, shoulder-shaking sobs.
"Kelvin..." she choked out, the name a broken whisper. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
Tears carved tracks through the grime on her cheeks as she stared at his motionless body. "If only I had listened to you, we wouldn't be in this mess. I allowed my pride to get in the way... I didn't think it would hurt you. I didn't think it would be you."
The confession was a hollow sound in the clearing, the words of a girl who had finally realized that her family name was no shield against the brutal reality of the Forbidden Sector.
---
From her position by the tree, Louisa's elven ears caught every word, every hitch in Kerra's breath. She remained still, but her heart ached.
"It's funny," Louisa thought, a bitter edge to her usual gentleness. *"In despair, humans tend to be much more truthful. But it's depressing how they fail to accept the truth about life—or themselves—until someone they love is broken."
She let out a soft, internal sigh. "I'm starting to think and talk like Zerav," she realized, a small, sad smile touching her lips. "But yet... I still feel responsible. If I had taken the shot and killed it earlier, Kelvin wouldn't be bleeding. He was kind enough to heal me when I was 'unconscious', even though I didn't need it. I guess I owe him a lot."
"HEEEELLLLPPPPPP!"
The attacker's scream reached a fever pitch as the monster began to constrict its grip. Louisa knew the charade had to end. She yawned—a deliberate, theatrical sound—and pushed herself off the ground, reaching for her bow with a grace that looked like accidental luck.
The black-haired girl saw Louisa standing up. Her eyes lit up with a desperate, frantic hope. It was a bitter pill to swallow—begging a "Commoner" for her life—but the crushing weight of the vines had long since killed her ego.
"Please help us!" she shrieked.
Louisa didn't answer. Her expression shifted, her eyes losing their soft elven light and turning into the sharp, focused apertures of a master hunter. She reached back, drew an arrow, and notched it in one fluid motion.
Kerra looked over, wiping her eyes with her shoulder. Her brother was dying, and here was the girl she had treated like a mule, aiming a simple wooden bow at a monster that had shrugged off Level 6 magic.
"Hey! Don't just stand there, shoot!" Kerra yelled, the order coming out of habit, though her voice lacked its usual bite.
Kerra's shouting was a dinner bell for the Monster. The massive red eye swiveled toward Louisa, and the ground began to pulse with a low-frequency hum.
"They're coming," Louisa whispered, her boots shifting in the silt. She didn't break her gaze.
*"But Kerra and the rest are in the way. I can't fight all-out without hitting them."*
"Level 2 Sorcery Spell."
The ground beneath Louisa exploded. A cluster of tentacles shot upward to impale her, but she was already gone. She launched into a high, soaring backflip, her movements a blur of superhuman speed and elven flexibility. While upside down in mid-air, she drew the string to her ear.
"Streaming Light!"
She released. The arrow left the bow with a hum that vibrated the air.
As she landed, a stray tentacle struck her from the side, sending her tumbling into the thick brush at the edge of the path. But the arrow didn't stop. As it flew, it began to glow with an incandescent white brilliance, transforming from wood into a bolt of pure, solidified light.
The arrow didn't head straight for the eye. It dove toward the ground, struck a flat stone at the base of the plant, and *reflected* upward at a sharp angle. It hissed through the air, slicing through the tentacles holding Kerra and the others as if they were wet paper. It continued its trajectory, cleaving off one of the massive purple petals of the bloom before whistling into the canopy.
*GRRRROOWWWWLLLLL!*
the roar was seismic, a wave of sonic pressure that flattened the nearby ferns. Kerra tumbled to the ground along with the severed pieces of the vines. For a second, she lay in the muck, stunned. Then, the instinct for survival kicked in. She scrambled toward her bow.
She was seconds away from aiming when another vine snared her, hoisting her back into the air. This time, the monster was done playing. It pinned her hands to her sides and squeezed her waist with a force that made her vision go black.
---
Kerra stopped struggling. Her lungs were burning, her mana was gone, and the monster's grip felt like an iron maiden. She closed her eyes, ready to let go.
*COUGH! COUGH!*
The sound was wet and weak, but it hit Kerra like a lightning strike. She forced her eyes open, turning her head toward the vine beside her. Kelvin's hands were shaking. The blood was still dripping from his chin, but his light blue eyes were open.
"Kelvin..." she wheezed.
"The look on your face," he said, his voice a raspy shadow of itself. He coughed again, a dark spray of crimson hitting the moss. He looked at her and, inexplicably, he chuckled. It was a cold, dry sound—not the chuckle of her sweet brother, but something older, something harder.
"You're about to give up," he said, staring at her with a strange, piercing intensity. "That's not the sister I know."
Kerra stared back, her heart pounding. The way he spoke, the way his eyes seemed to glow despite his injuries—it was as if a different soul was peering through the mask of her brother's broken body. And in that moment, Kerra felt a surge of energy she couldn't explain—a boost of victory that hadn't come from her own magic, but from the mysterious strength of the twin she thought she had lost.