Slowly, the incandescent red glow around Mestin began to recede. He wiped the blood from his cheek with the back of his hand, wincing slightly as he touched a deep, purpling bruise on his forearm where the beast had initially gripped him. Aside from the shallow cut on his face, the bruised ribs, and a few minor scratches from the briars, he had emerged from the clash victorious and mostly unscathed.

He rested his massive hand on the pommel of his hammer, looking down at the fallen ape-like primal. "A fierce heart," Mestin muttered under his breath, his deep voice settling back into a calm rumble. "But incredibly foolish."

No sooner had his words died down than he heard a scream from the back.

Mestin had barely lowered his hammer over the dead ape when the sounds of the surrounding forest hit him. He spun around, the battlefield unfolding before him. To his left, Resven and Telarin were swallowed by a blinding, overlapping storm of clashes, fighting for their lives against two dread apes each. The sheer volume of raw energy and vitre crashing through the trees was deafening.

Mestin swung his massive warhammer back onto his shoulder, his amber eyes locking onto the nearest pair of monsters to support his comrades. But before his boots could chew into the dirt, the upper canopy grooved and snapped.

Two more massive, silver-furred weights cleaved through the pine branches, dropping like dead-weight boulders directly into his path. They landed with a concussive shockwave, baring their chisel-shaped teeth, their dark-red tattoos flaring instantly as their fractured phantoms rose behind them.

"More of you bastards?!" Mestin roared. He summoned all of his strength, igniting his vitre once more as he tore headfirst into the new pair.

But then, the real nightmare began.

A sudden, terrifying rustle tore through the high branches on the opposite side of the trail. An eighth dread ape—smaller, leaner, and horrifyingly fast—had slipped past the frontline completely undetected. It didn’t care about the warriors. Its ice-blue eyes were locked onto the caravan wagons parked at the edge of the clearing, where the camp builders, craftsmen, and the defenseless were huddled together.

The beast dropped from the trees, landing right in front of the lead wagon. It let out a piercing, triumphant shriek, its unhinged jaw opening wide as it reached a massive, leathery pad toward the nearest wooden barrier, ready to smash through and paint the timber red.

The builders screamed, falling back in a panic. Mestin was pinned down by two monsters; Resven and Telarin were completely choked by their own pairs. There was no one left to cross the distance.

Just as the beast’s blunt claws were about to crush the wagon, a sudden, unnatural stillness cut through the humid air of the Black-Spine.

From the shadow of the wagon, a figure stepped forward.

The protector of Elspeth moved with a terrifying, fluid grace that contrasted sharply with Mestin’s mountain-like brutality. He did not speak as he silently stepped towards the beast. His hands settled onto the pommels of his twin viper swords, and he unleashed his internal Vitre.

The air didn’t just ripple—it practically froze. An oppressive, suffocating pressure rolled off his frame, so dense and refined that it felt like a physical weight dropping onto the clearing. The lower-tier dread ape instantly froze mid-strike, its primitive instincts screaming at it that an apex predator had just entered its territory. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Schwing.

The sound of Torin drawing his twin slender blades was a single, crisp note. The steel caught the sunny highland light, reflecting a cold, merciless sheen.

The dread ape roared in a panic, abandoning the wagon and swinging its massive forearm horizontally to crush the new threat. Torin didn’t even shift his stance. He simply stepped forward, his body blurring as his Vitre-enhanced reflexes pushed his speed past what the human eye could track.

To the terrified builders watching from the wagons, it looked like a flash of orange light.

Torin danced right through the beast’s sweeping guard, his twin viper swords humming in perfect, cross-cutting arcs. The blades cut through the beast’s dense, coarse fur, its tough hide, and its thick bones as if they were nothing more than wet parchment.

Torin landed cleanly on the other side of the monster, smoothly sheathing his twin swords back into their scabbards with a soft, final click.

For a fraction of a second, the dread ape stood completely rigid. Then, two clean, deep crimson lines opened across its chest and throat. The glowing war paint on its shoulders instantly flickered out, and the beast collapsed hard into the dirt, dead before it even realized it had been cut.

Torin didn’t look back at the corpse. He calmly adjusted his cuffs, his sharp eyes scanning the rest of the forest pass, the oppressive Orange-tier pressure still radiating from him like a shield.

The six beasts froze in place, feeling the pressure radiating from the man. As the pressure came to overwhelm them, one began to flee, then another. Until all of them rushed towards the trees and the high canopy, disappearing from sight.

The heavy iron head of Mestin’s hammer hit the mossy earth with a dull thud. He leaned heavily against the haft, his broad chest rising and falling in deep, gravelly gasps as the incandescent red glow disappeared.

Around the clearing, the last echoes of violence had died away, leaving only the smell of turned earth, crushed pine needles, and the steady hum of a summer breeze.

Torin Haldane stood casually by the lead wagon, flicking a stray speck of dust off his dark leather cuff. His twin viper swords were already cleanly put away, his posture as calm as if he had just taken a stroll through a manicured garden rather than bisecting a nine-foot mountain predator.

From a short distance, Resven and Telarin approached, both wiping sweat and grime from their faces. Resven was rolling his right shoulder with a grimace, his armor bearing a wide, jagged scrape where a massive claw had tried to turn him inside out.