She sensed something.
Cavalry riding down the road towards the checkpoint from where she came.
It was definitely not friendly.
She had not been informed of any reinforcements coming to aid her against the cultist camp.
She leapt into the air in the direction of the cavalry troop.
The shockwave from her landing sent the horses crashing into the trees.
Three riders were instantly crushed to paste under her boot.
A fan of throwing knives impaled the raiders.
There was one survivor.
An assassin, an elite fighter of the cult.
He activated a strange magical device, phasing out of the material plane, giving him time to get away.
He raised a musket and pointed it up into the air.
The charges bursts in the air in a bright flare that can be seen from miles away.
Noises up ahead.
She had hoped for a more stealthy approach.
She approached in that direction.
The darkness still covered her.
The rustling of leaves in the wind obscured her approach.
A trap.
Vines shot out from the ground all around her.
She released a wave of flame, incinerating the unnatural growth and igniting the whole area.
The sound of cannon fire.
Hikari darted away into the dark forest.
Splinters flew as the cannonballs ripped through the trees.
Lantern light. Stone walls.
The cultist camp.
She was within the range of its cannons.
Another volley of cannons fired blindly into the forest.
Flares were shot into the forest, illuminating the darkness.
The cultists manning the walls aimed their cannons and muskets.
But the flares illuminated nothing but trees.
Confused, they held their fire.
They thought they were being attacked by a whole army.
The growling of their flesh abominations.
Someone's triggering the traps.
From their battlement, they could faintly see trees being cut down.
A flash of purple flame igniting an entire area.
They turned their cannons in that direction and fired.
Silence.
They shot a flare in that direction, but could see no advancing army.
A sudden explosion.
One of their battlements shattered into pieces.
Stone bricks sent flying.
The cannon that was sitting on the battlement flipped through the air.
Stunned, they fired their cannons and flares in random directions.
It must have been an enemy battery.
The foreman gave orders.
The gates to the camp opened.
A troop of cavalry rode out to find the enemy cannons.
Another sudden explosion.
A cannonball pierced right through their wall, collapsing the stone structure.
It flew over the foreman's head before smashing into the wall on the opposite side of the camp.
The whole camp was soon up in arms.
The sleeping cultists armed themselves and manned the walls.
Every cavalry squad rode out into the dark forests.
Burning torches in one hand.
Their pale, glowing lanterns kept their encampment hidden but offered little illumination to find the enemy.
From their battlement, the cultist troops could see trees being felled.
Shouting. The discharge of musket fire.
Flares illuminate the area.
They catch a glimpse of a giant clad in pitch-black armour.
A whole squad of cavalrymen cleaved in one swing of a giant sword.
The giant blends back into the darkness.
"Fire!"
The foreman orders.
The cannons fired another volley into the dark forest.
Flares reveal nothing but tree trunks and the corpses of the cavalrymen they sent out just moments ago.
The cultists rolled out their mortars, loading the rounds through the barrel.
They ignited the gunpowder; shells flew over the walls, creating explosions in the area where their calvary fell.
A sudden explosion in their wall.
Bricks were sent flying, debris hitting the cultists manning the inner compound, knocking them out of the fight.
The cultists manning the wall above were thrown off onto the ground.
The foreman shouted in a cryptic language to the shaman.
They scrambled to take their positions around a golem.
A hulking beast of flesh, massive enough to charge right through their walls.
A siege weapon capable of smashing through fortifications.
Its flesh was impervious to cannon fire.
They channeled mana from their staves into the golem.
The sleeping beast groaned as the cultists began to bring it back to life.
Shouts from above the wall.
Musket fire.
The enemy was making a charge.
A telekinetic blast knocks the defenders off the wall, sending their cannons flying and crushing the defenders unfortunate enough to be in the way.
The defenders below raised their muskets, aiming over the wall.
Thud. Thud. Loud, booming footsteps.
A giant was right up against their walls.
A sword swung over the top of a battlement, dismembering the defenders.
Their body parts fell into the defenders below.
The foreman pushes.
He cracks a whip, pushing his troops to take their place.
But the second wave did no better.
Cut into pieces as soon as they peered over the wall with their muskets.
They could feel the giant skirting the walls.
But the defenders atop the walls could not see the giant.
Section by section, they were cut down.
The foreman ordered more and more troops to replace them.
When his troops started refusing, he drew his musket and fired right into them.
Frustrated, he approached the walls himself.
The men behind suddenly fired a volley over his head.
He looked up.
A brief view of the tracks on the soles of the giantess's boot as it came into the torchlight.
Splat.
The giantess bent her knees as she landed and swept her claymore through the cultist line.
The foreman was ground to paste below her as she anchored her boot for another burst into the camp.
A swing of her massive claymore cleaves down entire squads in a blink, splattering their insides against the wall.
The cultists fired their muskets, but their shots bounced off the giantess's wyvern-skin armour.
Most of them broke and ran, climbing through broken sections of that wall that the giantess had knocked down.
A cultist shaman channels his stave; an eerie flame gathers at its tip.
Before he could release it, a steel dagger flies through him with the force of a cannon and cuts him in two.
The giantess knight rampages through the camp unchecked.
Growl. The ritual circle below the flesh golem lights up.
Thud. It slams its fist on the ground as it pushes itself off the ground.
The shaman standing around it pushes their remaining mana into the golem.
A pair of flying daggers cuts them to pieces before they can finish.
But the golem was awakened.
Vines grew out of its orifices.
Bright pink flowers bloomed.
It faced an opponent who matched its size.
The mindless flesh golem charges.
Hikari takes her stance.
Her claymore flared with RazenHeir flame.
As the golem raised its arms crashing into her.
She gently side-stepped and swung her claymore into the beast's side.
The beast roared in pain as the RazenHeir flames burned its flesh.
Vines shot out from its body towards Hikari.
She kicked a box of bombs into the flood of vines and released a wave of flame.
The vines shrivelled as they were burnt.
The flames lit the fuses.
Hikari backstepped as the box of bombs exploded, ripping through the golem's flesh.
The golem staggered.
In that opening, Hikari thrust her sword into the golem's flesh, igniting its insides with RazenHeir flame.
She pulled back her claymore.
More vines shot out from the flesh golem's body, attempting to constrict her.
Hikari stepped back.
The vines chased her.
She changed course to dodge them.
The golem's body burned with RazenHeir flames.
Vines grew out of its body to cover the patches of flesh alight with flame, smothering the flames below them.
Pink flowers grew out of its body, gathering an eerie flame.
Bolts of aether fire fly towards Hikari.
She side-steps it, gathering the bombs lying around.
She ignites the fuses and telekinetically pushes them to the golem.
Explosions stagger the golem and destroy the flowers.
But the golem kept regenerating.
"Stronger."
Hikari held her claymore upright in front of her.
The runes inscribed on the sword glowed with power.
The steel flared with RazenHeir flame.
She channeled more mana.
The sword flared even brighter.
The golem recovered and charged her.
Hikari stood her ground as the golem closed in.
Vines poured out of its orifices.
The golem swung its arm, slamming into the ground.
Hikari stepped just enough to avoid it.
She counters.
With the strength of both arms, she drags the claymore through the golem's flesh,
releasing her flames and engulfing the golem.
Vines rush out of the golem to cover the flames, but the flames ignite the vines to feed themselves.
Hikari channels more flames into her sword.
Vines rush at her.
Incinerate. A wave of flame from her hand sets the mass of vines alight, driving them back.
The golem slams the ground in agony and lunges towards her.
Hikari knocks the golem's arm with the butt of her claymore, throwing it off balance.
Her sword flares with the brilliant purple flame of the RazenHeir house.
The vines rushed her, but she dived right into the mass, dragging her sword through the golem's flesh.
The golem thrashed around in pain.
The vines kept coming, but the flames kept burning them.
Hikari takes a thrusting stance.
She had seen enough of the growing vines.
She retrieves the residual flames on her sword.
Mana built up in her body.
Strength built up in her legs.
A second row of runes glowed on her sword.
The golem regains its balance, ready to charge her again.
A thrust of her legs.
She drives her claymore right through the golem's chest.
Her elbows crash into the golem.
The force of her thrust pushes the golem back.
She feels the top edge of her sword grind against something hard.
Push.
She pushes her claymore upwards through the golem's flesh.
The feeling of tendrils snapping.
A hard stone flies out of the golem's back as she drags her sword out in an upward swing.
The stone released a wave of mana as it hit the ground.
Her flames consumed the golem's dead flesh.