Any doubts I had that the Reavers possessed the same ability as Aerion evaporated about a second later when half a dozen Reaving elves swarmed me, attacking with a level of speed and power that I had genuinely not been expecting.

  This wasn’t Aerion under the effects of [Reave]. It was a whole helluva lot more.

  So much so that I barely even had the chance to bring Light of the Fearless up before the first blow struck, sending vibrations up my hands and arms. I didn’t need to check my sword’s Condition to know that the impact had significantly reduced its integrity.

  By a whole hundred points, as it turned out. Considering Light of the Fearless had 1000, I couldn’t take many more of these before I’d be forced to stow it.

  And then what?

  Light of the Fearless was the only weapon in my arsenal capable of withstanding blows like this.

  Worse—there were six of these elves. While not all could attack at once, they seemed to work almost like a hive mind, piling on assault after relentless assault without leaving even a single opening.

  They attacked, and I evaded. Barely. When I dodged a sword, a spear was waiting. When I ducked that, another tried to sweep my legs.

  I couldn’t even rely on my speed to keep me safe—the Reavers were so fast that my 123 points of Grace were thoroughly outmatched. It was only thanks to tactical deployments of my Basecrest Suit’s [Snap] ability that I managed to keep up.

  Good thing I had an ace up my sleeve.

  A few aces, actually, but the darts relied on me being able to hit my targets—not a likely scenario when they moved this fast—and the [Aural Siege Bolts] were out unless I had a suicide wish.

  Detonating them at this range would kill not only me, it would annihilate Aerion and Galia as well. That was the problem with explosives: they could only really be used at range or set in advance as traps, and neither was an option here.

  Thanks to my Order undersuit, I had something better.

  I blasted out a soul attack, and as expected, the elf had absolutely no defense.

  His eyes rolled back and he slumped to the ground, unconscious. It’d be very temporary—my soul attacks weren’t strong enough to kill yet, and likely wouldn't be for a while.

  I’d bought myself some time. I’d also reduced the enemy’s capacity by a sixth.

  The only issue? Creating even one of those attacks took every ounce of my concentration, leaving me open to counters in the meantime.

  Thankfully, I wasn’t alone. Galia reached me first, leaping onto the nearest Reaver, setting her ablaze.

  Unlike the monster we’d come here to hunt, the elf didn’t immediately disintegrate into charred ash. In fact, the phoenix’s flames did little more than distract.

  A distraction was enough, though. Thanking Galia for her bravery, I activated Light of the Fearless’s twin abilities, going on the offensive for the first time in this fight.

  Using every ounce of strength I had, I smashed down on the Reaver. Like Aerion, they wore no armor, so my blade cut right through their cloth garments—only for the strike to stop cold, like I’d hit steel rather than flesh.

  “Fuck.”

  I abandoned the attack to fire off another blast of soul energy, rendering the Reaver unconscious only to be met by a spear to the face. An elven woman had filled the gap almost before her friend had finished falling.

  I just barely managed to twist away, narrowly avoiding a spear through my brain.

  This pressure was relentless, and I wondered why Aerion hadn’t come charging in to help yet.

  The answer was because not a single Reaver had attacked her. Even stranger—every attempt she made to strike at them was met not with blocks or counters, but dodges. Like they refused to touch her at any cost. This, despite her not being in her Reave State.

  And if that were the case, then maybe we could abuse that to—

  “Reaving!” Aerion shouted.

  “No, wait!”

  I was too late. Besides, I was in no position to worry about anyone else right now as not one but two swords slashed at me.

  Dodging one, I was forced to block the other.

  My arms trembled, and Light of the Fearless’s condition dropped by another hundred points. Only a couple more and I’d have to stow the sword or risk losing it.

  “The hell is up with these guys?”

  The elves were seriously overpowered, in no small part because they seemed to use group tactics in a way that was impossible for Aerion, even in her Reave state.

  Case in point—she began hacking at the nearest elf when she’d have been far better served by joining up with me instead.

  I cringed every time she struck. Aurora had half the durability of Light of the Fearless, and once the elves decided they’d had enough of running away, it wasn’t going to last long.

  She didn’t even try to dodge, instead wielding her sword more like a cudgel than the elegant blade it was, energizing each strike with [Shock], which had recently leveled to E-MAX.

  Aerion lunged relentlessly, swiping at them left and right. Though they had definitely lost their edge in speed and power, it seemed their Grace and skill alone were enough to avoid the Reaver’s blows. Though I noted that not everyone managed to get away completely. Some were forced to block, and a few even took hits from her, getting a dose of [Shock] that left them vulnerable to her follow-up strikes.

  And while I worried about the state of Aerion’s weapon, it was hard to deny just how effective she’d become.

  Her technique was almost nonexistent, but every strike carried more force than the one before it, thanks to [Fading Fury] and [Sylvan Current]—both abilities working together to make her more and more devastating as time passed.

  Both of which also burned through her Essence at an alarming rate.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  With each attack, her strength increased, and with each minute that passed, she got visibly stronger.

  Her speed grew and grew until even I struggled to follow her movements.

  The elves I was fighting definitely noticed, because their attention shifted from me to her, giving me the chance to land a few clean shots, dropping one with a blast of Soul magic.

  Aerion tore through the enemy with the sort of relentless ferocity one can only get with a machine.

  One elf was sent tumbling, while another staggered back under her assault.

  Most normal people would have fled by now, realizing the battle was lost. But these were Reavers. Retreat wasn’t in their vocabulary.

  I refused to relax, though. For all her newfound power, Aerion’s surge was unsustainable. She wasn’t just on a timer, she was on a timer that reduced more and more every second, thanks to [Fading Fury]. Yes, the lower her Essence fell, the stronger she became, but the higher the burn.

  Still, her transformation was nothing short of astounding. In a matter of minutes, she’d gone from nearly an ineffective distraction to a juggernaut that demanded all of the elves’ attention.

  There were only two now, and for the first time, I thought I saw something like fear in their normally blank expressions.

  Her strike never landed.

  Thankfully, I’d anticipated this.

  Aerion faltered, her eyes rolling up, and crumpled into my arms.

  Darting in front of her, I launched one of the large rocks I’d dumped into my inventory, each sailing into the chest of their respective elf. Not lethal by any means—not against these juggernauts—but the shots were more than enough to stagger them, buying me the time I needed.

  Slinging Aerion over my shoulder, I bolted off into the trees.

  Both elves pursued.

  For an instant, I considered turning to fight, but with Aerion unconscious and Galia at my side, the risk was just too great.

  I pushed on, legs burning, mind oblivious to everything except running as fast as I possibly could.

  Which was pretty damn fast between my Vigor and Grace stats.

  I wasn’t even sure if I was heading deeper into the forest or toward the entrance. It didn’t matter. Survival was all that mattered.

  The Reavers matched my pace, which would have been terrifying. If their Reave state resembled anything like Aerion’s, though, it was burning through their Essence. They wouldn’t be able to sustain that burn forever.

  At least, that was my hope.

  Luckily, my gamble paid off. One of the elves faltered and dropped to their knees, gasping for air, and the second one stopped chasing me to hang back with his friend.

  Interesting… he didn’t black out?

  Not one to waste a golden ticket, I kept running.

  Ten minutes of weaving and zigzagging through the brush later, I figured I’d lost anyone trying to find me, and set Aerion down against a trunk.

  Galia stayed firmly attached to my shoulder, her talons gripping onto my metal pauldrons as she stared into the forest, wide-eyed and trembling. I stroked her fluffed-out feathers, which seemed to allay her fear a bit. I felt terrible for the little thing.

  “Quite the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into, eh, Galia?”

  She cooed softly as I rubbed her head. “Just wish we weren’t lost, too.”

  My gentle tone seemed to pacify her. Good thing she had no idea what I was saying.

  She pressed her neck against my palm—something she was especially fond of doing .

  As much as I wanted to hang out until Aerion woke up, though, we couldn’t stay here.

  Then again, accidentally going deeper into Reaver territory was suicide.

  “Might as well pick a direction and keep moving, eh girl?” I muttered.

  I picked up Sleeping Beauty, threw her over my shoulder, and began hiking, shifting her weight from time to time.

  It was a few minutes later that Galia’s head snapped to something in the distance and she let out a sharp coo.

  I froze, trying to see what she’d seen, but came up empty.

  “There’s nothing out there, girl. Don’t scare me like that.”

  I stroked her head, which was normally enough to calm her down. This time, though, she nipped my fingers and returned to cooing at the same spot.

  She even pecked lightly at my neck when I ignored her.

  “Alright, fine,” I said at last. “I guess that direction’s as good as any. Just hope it doesn’t end up being Reavers you’re smelling.”

  Her cries didn’t strike me as panicked, like her earlier calls had. Instead, they seemed… insistent?

  The moment I changed course, Galia’s cries softened considerably, telling me I was on the right track. She hopped excitedly on my shoulder, wings fluttering.

  “Just don’t fall off,” I said with a laugh.

  I had to keep reminding myself that she wasn’t just some old bird. She was a phoenix, and she’d been getting smarter by the day.

  None of us truly knew how intelligent she might become, but if my hunch was right, it was wrong to treat her like a simple animal.

  Half an hour passed as we trudged deeper into the forest, and all my optimism about losing our pursuers vaporized.

  “Shit.”

  We were being followed.

  The Reavers were more than skilled enough to stalk prey through a forest in silence.

  I’d been moving slowly, hoping to spot them before they spotted me, but I should’ve known better. Not even Galia had smelled them.

  Now that I knew they were there, I could count at least a half dozen, and I was sure there were plenty more I’d missed.

  I broke into a sprint, forcing them to match my pace. As the minutes passed, though, I realized their numbers were only increasing.

  Given that I now knew the elves couldn’t stay in their Reave state forever, that could only mean one thing.

  We weren’t escaping. We were walking deeper into their territory.

  “Great call, Galia,” I muttered under my breath. “Should’ve known better than to trust a bird.”

  She fluttered her wings and cawed at me indignantly before turning to glare at our pursuers, as though that would somehow terrify them.

  It wasn’t like I could slow down, but the deeper we went, the more of them showed up. I had a whole entourage at this point.

  When I’d just about reached my wit’s end, Galia cooed again, twisting her neck to the right and urging me onward.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” I said, veering in that direction despite seeing nothing there.

  She cooed again, guiding me slightly to the left.

  I changed course… and then I saw it.

  A massive something loomed through the trees. A megastructure of some kind.

  It was only when I entered a clearing devoid of trees or shrubs that I noticed that this wasn’t a single building at all, but a gigantic elevated complex with several ziggurat-style buildings, like an Inca temple city. An enormous stone foundation elevated the whole complex a solid twenty feet, with a grand staircase running up to the raised city.

  Vines had covered over nearly everything, making the place look downright ancient.

  “You brought us here to hide?” I muttered, somehow doubting Galia had anything so grand in mind. “Not sure it’ll work, but it’s better than trying to run forever.”

  I could run far longer than an average human, but even I would tire out eventually.

  A single glance behind had me sprinting up the stairs.

  The forest seemed to spawn elves by the dozens, all expressionless, all hellbent on killing me.

  “Well, fuck,” I breathed. “Galia, I hope you know what—”

  I cut myself off. The Reavers stopped. They rushed to the base of the staircase… and just halted.

  Not a single one climbed even one step. They just stared with ice-cold expressions.

  “What the hell?” I whispered. “Did you know about this?”

  Galia tilted her head, cooing in confusion.

  “Well,” I said, stroking her back, “I don’t know if this is some kind of phoenix sixth sense or divine intervention, but I’ll take it.”

  They were almost like zombies, staring up at me, perfectly still.

  It freaked me the fuck out. Worse—this did nothing to solve my problem.

  We still had to escape somehow, and with more of them pouring out of the forest by the second, the chances of that were looking incredibly slim.

  At least I’d bought us some time. Time enough for Aerion to wake up, and hopefully come up with a plan.

  I tore my eyes from the zombie elves to take a good look at the ancient temple complex.

  There was something dark and sinister about this place, and I didn’t like it one bit.

  I liked an army of Reavers even less.

  “Time to move.”