The air in the Blightwood seemed even more viscous.
Each breath carried the metallic tang of earth and an indescribable, rotting sweetness. Silence pressed down on the twisted woods, and only the three of them stepping on the thick moss sounded jarringly loud. Raine was still weak, bearing most of his weight on Karrion's solid arm; the aftershocks of starlight backlash felt like cold needles, stabbing at his nerves.
Karrion Anvil's heavy breathing halted abruptly.
His keen eyes, set deep beneath his thick beard, swept the surroundings. The dwarf suddenly stopped, tightened his arm to signal Raine and Thalia to halt as well.
"What is it?" Raine panted, heart pounding.
Karrion did not answer at once. He knelt, rough fingers brushing aside a subtle trace on the ground. It was a broken fern stem, freshly snapped, yet its edge had been carefully smoothed—as if to hide it.
"We're being watched," Karrion said in a low voice, tinged with the alertness of an old hunter.
Thalia Nightsong's hood creaked slightly.
Silently, she raised her head, her gaze piercing the shadows of the wood as though listening to a soundless melody. "There's a magical aura," her voice was colder than usual. "Hostile. It's lingering nearby."
Karrion rose and brushed mud from his hand. "Footprints—very deliberate, well concealed." He pointed ahead. "I saw a shadow flicker over there."
The air snapped taut.
Fatigue and despair were driven away by an adrenaline‑charged sting. They had just escaped those tragic wraiths, and now new trouble surfaced.
"Get out of here." Karrion made the call at once, abandoning the clearer path and plunging into denser underbrush.
The Blightwood's interior was a vast, malicious labyrinth. Twisted branches interwove like ghostly claws grasping the sky. The ground lay slick with black moss and coiling, pulsating vines.
Karrion displayed the dwarven gift for tracking—and counter‑tracking.
He chose routes that avoided open areas, using slopes and streams to mask their trail. Periodically, he paused to set simple trip‑wires or warning markers of broken branches and leaves. His movements were swift and precise.
Thalia, by contrast, seemed one with the shadows.
She covered the rear flank, pale fingers tracing unseen runes in the air. Veils of deep shadow energy flowed around her like spilled ink, blurring their forms and muffling their sound and scent. Occasionally, she conjured subtle illusions—a trembling movement in distant grass, the cry of a woodland creature—to mislead any trackers.
"What could it be?" Raine asked in a hushed tone during a brief halt, face still pale, each word sending a spike of pain through him.
"Hard to say," Karrion wiped sweat from his brow, eyes alert. "This cursed place holds every manner of beast. Maybe some cunning corrupted creature, drawn by our earlier skirmish."
"The magical signature was subtle but unrelenting," Thalia added. "Not a mere beast—more like… a spellcaster with ill intent."
Raine's heart sank.
A spellcaster? Could it be… someone from the Church? Had they pursued so swiftly? Or agents of Malcos? The Void Prophet might well have planted spies to monitor their every move.
Signs of pursuit flickered on and off.
Sometimes they felt that icy gaze, even glimpsing a blurred silhouette in the distance—then it would vanish, as if concealed or simply a trick of the mind.
That uncertainty was torture.
They ran weary, minds taut, bodies drained. Raine's weakness deepened—he felt consciousness slipping more than once.
On one stretch of thinner woods, Karrion suddenly raised his hand.
"There!" he growled, pointing to a dark thicket some thirty paces ahead. A hunched shape crouched in the shadow.
Instantly, the three sprang into action.
Karrion roared and swung his axe in a frontal feint. Thalia wove her fingers, and dozens of shadow‑tendrils shot up to cordon off the area's flanks. Raine steadied himself, sword in hand, ready to assist.
The hidden figure in the shadows was startled!
It gave a sharp, hissing cry and lunged into view!
It was a… strange creature. Wolf‑sized, yet its fur had fallen away to reveal pus‑blistered, ghostly white flesh. One front limb had warped into a sickle‑shaped bone blade, and its eyes burned with a frenzy of green fire.
Clearly, it had succumbed to corruption and was incredibly cunning.
But… it was not the tracker they'd feared.
With a single, rune‑charged stroke, Karrion's axe cleaved the beast in two. Black ichor and foul entrails splattered the ground.
The fight ended almost as quickly as it had begun.
Karrion panted, kicking the corpse with his boot. "Damn beast," he muttered.
Thalia dispelled her shadow binds and examined the corpse. "Its magic signature is pure corruption—nothing like what we sensed earlier."
A false alarm?
Raine leaned against a twisted trunk, breathing heavily, filled with disappointment and unease. They'd revealed their position, wasted strength—and only fought a random monster.
The true hunter remained hidden in the gloom.
Or perhaps the real tracker, unsettled by their ambush, had withdrawn—waiting, watching?
They dared not relax.
Night fell once more.
Blightwood nights were darker and more horrifying than its days. All color vanished into black silhouette and malevolence. They found a recess in a rock face to light a small fire. Its flickering glow was their sole warmth, yet cast their shadows into nightmarish shapes.
Karrion took the first watch. He leaned against the stone wall, axe at the ready, eyes scanning the forest's black depths.
Thalia curled up in a corner, hood drawn low, alternating between meditation and bracing against some inner torment. Her breaths were quieter than usual, nearly imperceptible.
Raine lay close to the fire, wrapped in a cloak yet feeling no warmth at all.
That sense of being watched—like bone‑deep worms—did not wane. It lurked in the darkness, in the silence, mocking their exhaustion and fear.
Suddenly, a fierce premonition seized Raine's heart—no vision, no voice—just a bone‑chilling certainty.
A vast, unfathomable danger, beyond their current understanding, was creeping ever closer. Not a mere creature, but… a will, pure malice—like the abyss itself studying them.
This dread surpassed even facing the Starborn wraiths, eclipsed any mark Malcos had left in the ruins.
Raine bolted upright, cold sweat soaking his back. He looked toward Thalia across the fire.
In the flicker of flames, Thalia opened her eyes.
Under her hood, her expression was grim, even touched by… fear? In her deep eyes shone an unprecedented gravity.
She felt it too.
That unseen threat, a sword hanging over their heads, ready to fall at any moment.
They were still prey.
And the hunter in the shadows was far more terrifying than they had ever imagined.