His weapon came down in a heavy arc, not aiming to kill, but to crush the creature into the ground. It slid aside at the last second, but Aeron adjusted with a twist of his shoulders and slammed the flat of his blade into its ribs.

Bam!

Skrrrreeeeee!

The creature suddenly screeched in pain as it flew sideways, crashing through a cluster of ferns.

"It’s still alive," Aeron said loudly, mostly to remind himself. "See? I can be gentle."

Zenovia appeared beside the fallen creature before it could fully rise, her dagger aimed at the tendons behind its knee. She cut once in a clean and precise slice, and the creature shrieked, but instead of collapsing, it snapped its head toward her and opened its mouth.

A black tongue uncurled from within. The tongue had an eye on it.

For a split second, Zenovia froze in disgust; Her body recoiled as a pulse of dark mana burst outward from the eye.

Zenovia’s body stiffened in place.

"Zenovia!" Aeron shouted.

The creature lunged toward her throat.

Aeron crossed the distance in a burst of speed and kicked the thing in the chest before it reached her. It slammed into a tree hard enough to crack the bark, but the moment it hit, black threads shot from its back and pierced into the trunk. The wood around those threads began to rot instantly.

Darin’s face tightened. "Corruption parasite."

"That sounds bad," Aeron said.

"It is bad."

The creature’s jaw unhinged further as it let out a gurgling laugh. The sound was not human. It was layered, wet, and full of disgusting wet squelches.

One of the human soldiers raised his spear with trembling hands. "What is that thing?"

Zenovia forced her fingers to move, breaking whatever paralysis had briefly seized her. Her expression was all clear.

The creature’s black-veined face twisted into a grin as a voice came from its mouth, "Kill."

A chill rolled through the group. Aeron’s expression hardened completely. "Who are you?"

The thing’s head tilted in a trembling gesture.

"Door."

"What?" Aeron asked.

"Path."

Its fingers clawed into the tree, carving the same mark again, while blood-black sap leaked from beneath its nails.

"Open."

Darin’s eyes widened as he seemed to realise something. "Stop it!"

Zenovia swiftly threw a dagger. It pierced the creature’s wrist and pinned its hand to the tree, but the mark was already complete.

She was too far too late. The air bent, and the trees groaned around them.

The shadows between the trunks stretched unnaturally long, and the ground beneath the marked tree pulsed once, as if something far below had heard a knock.

Aeron looked around. "I hate when forests answer doors."

The creature began laughing again, and its body convulsed violently as black cracks slowly spread across its skin.

Zenovia’s eyes sharpened. "It’s self-destructing."

Aeron moved without hesitation. "Everyone back!"

He grabbed Zenovia by the back of her cloak and yanked her away just as the creature erupted.

into a disgusting rot.

A wave of black corruption burst outward, eating through moss, leaves, bark, and stone alike. The tree behind it withered halfway up its trunk, and the ground where the creature had been standing collapsed inward into a smoking pit.

One of the soldiers stumbled, nearly falling into the edge of the spreading rot before Darin pulled him back. The explosion faded after a few seconds, leaving behind a circle of dead earth.

There was no corpse left in the rot, only a repulsive bubbling rot where the demon had stood and a carved mark burned black into the dying tree.

Aeron released Zenovia’s cloak and stepped back. "You’re welcome."

Zenovia straightened her cloak slowly, then looked at him with a flat expression. "Don’t pull me like an object."

"A simple thank you would have been kind."

She snorted, "There was no need, I was fine."

"You’re welcome," Aeron repeated. " I see Elion is growing on you; you are adopting his attitude."

She didn’t answer that, but she did show him a disapproving scowl at the mention of Elion’s name.

Darin approached the dead patch cautiously, his face grim. "This is beyond a simple guide mark."

Zenovia stepped away from Aeron and crouched near the edge beside Darin, but she did not step into the rot. "A ritual marker."

Aeron frowned. "For what?"

The forest answered before she could form speculations. A distant howl rolled through the trees, quickly accompanied by another, then a third.

The three soldiers stiffened, and Irel looked toward the west, his eyes wide. "Movement."

Darin climbed onto a root, scanning through the trees. "Multiple signatures. And they are moving, fast."

Aeron rested his weapon over his shoulder and sighed. "Of course. Why would we ever assume this would be easy?"

Zenovia drew two daggers. "We need to move. Now."

"Back to camp?"

"No," she said, looking at the corrupted mark. "If we leave without knowing where this route leads, we lose our only chance."

Darin looked at her sharply. "The prince ordered no engagement unless necessary."

Aeron looked toward the approaching darkness between the trees, where shapes were already beginning to move. "I think necessity just arrived."

Aeron groaned, but even as he complained, he was already readying his blade and getting into stance. The first demon burst through the undergrowth as Aeron met it head-on.

His legendary grade blade crashed into its skull with a heavy crack, smashing it into the ground hard enough to shake leaves from the nearby branches. He kicked the corpse aside and smiled lightly despite himself.

"Alright then," he said, rolling his shoulders. "Let’s make this quick."

He didn’t need to say any more than that.

Zenovia vanished into the shadows again, and quickly, from every direction, the forest began to fill with sharp crimson eyes.

Aeron was already moving again.

His blade swept upward in a brutal arc, catching the next creature beneath the jaw and throwing it back into two others behind it. Bone cracked as black blood sprayed violently into the air.

The three bodies tumbled through the ferns in a mess of limbs, but there was no time to enjoy the result, because more shadows were already rushing between the trees.

"Left!" Darin shouted.

Aeron ducked instinctively.

A jagged spear made of blackened bone cut through the space where his head had been a heartbeat earlier, and before the demon wielding it could pull back, Zenovia appeared behind it like a bad thought given flesh.

Her dagger flashed once across its throat, then again behind its knee. The demon collapsed silently, and by the time its body hit the ground, she was already gone.

Aeron was still smiling despite the situation.

"Not bad."

"I’m not doing this for your needless praise," her voice came from somewhere ahead.

"And yet, you are still getting it."

"Then waste less breath and move."

The forest had become a blur of motion around them. Demons were emerging in small clusters now, not enough to overwhelm them instantly, but enough to make stopping impossible.

Aeron, Zenovia, Darin, the two elven scouts, and the three human soldiers broke into a sprint as they pushed deeper through the marked route. It was clear to see that they were no longer treating this as a simple and quiet scouting mission.

If that had been the case, they would have retreated instead of going in deeper while evading their unintelligible chasers.

The undergrowth tore at their legs. Roots rose like crooked fingers beneath their boots. Branches whipped against armour and cloaks.

Somewhere behind them, the corrupted mark still smoked against the dead tree, and from every direction came the low, broken growls of demons drawn toward their presence.

"Why are we going deeper again?" one of the terrified human warriors gasped as he blocked a claw strike with his shield.

Zenovia slid beneath the demon’s arm and cut through the back of its ankle. "Because the answer is ahead."

"The answer might kill us!"

"As most things do, quit whining!"

Aeron laughed before slamming his shoulder into a demon that had tried to leap at Darin from the side. The impact threw it off course, and Darin finished it with a compressed wind blade through the skull.

"I hate that I’m starting to understand how she thinks," Aeron muttered.

Darin’s eyes remained focused ahead. "That is probably not a good sign."

"No, it is not."

They all moved faster as the howls of hungry demons behind them suddenly multiplied.