The forest beneath Nico kept stretching on while he sat on that branch with eyes fixed on X-97's marker on his map.
And far away from that, X-97 hovered high above a clearing.
Her wings of fire were spread wide, but dimmed low to a controlled glow that was just enough to keep her aloft without announcing herself to the world below.
From this height, she was nothing more than a small shimmer in the sky as she watched the battle below
Four humans stood in a broken ring around a three-headed black serpent.
Its body, thick as a siege tower, coiled and re-coiled across the clearing like a living calamity. Three heads rose from its necks, each one breathing a different kind of death.
The middle maw spat a viscous green venom that ate into the earth where it landed.
The left head exhaled gouts of fire that stuck to things like oil.
The right breathed a creeping frost that crystallized all it touched.
And the humans facing it were dressed strangely, a mismatched piece of different armor that didn't quite belong together.
One wore layered armor of lamellar plates with a naginata clenched in his hands with runes etched along its shaft.
Another bore a spear and a shield tall enough to hide behind completely.
The third was an archer in light leather armor, which was already singed at the edges.
The fourth… well, the fourth was no more.
The serpent's venomous head struck without ceremony as green fluid splashed across the man's torso.
X-97 watched from above with unfeeling eyes as his dying shrieks through melted flesh rang in her ear.
She watched as his body collapsed inward on itself, dissolving into a green sludge alongside his armor.
"KAI!" The name tore out of the archer's throat as he loosed arrow after arrow, hands shaking but relentless.
"AAAH!" the shield-bearer roared hoarsely.
While X-97 simply watched as the fight grew desperate below.
The red-armoured man slammed the butt of his naginata on the ground as he shouted the end of his chant through clenched teeth.
"By flame given form-
By oath and blood-
Burn!"
Fire crawled along the blade, coating it in a roaring heat as he lunged forward, carving a burning arc across the serpent's scaled hide.
The monster shrieked as it swiped its tail in fury.
But the shield-bearer stepped in front of him, bracing as the serpent's tail came down like a battering ram, flinging him across the clearing.
The man died through sheer impact.
Blood ran from his eyes and nose. His mouth opened to shout something, anything, but only a wet gurgle came out as life faded from his eyes.
"No!" the archer shouted, letting loose another volley of arrows.
The fire-breathing head turned toward him, and the next second, sticky flames washed over him in a single breath.
-AAAAH! - Guk-!
The wail he let out ruptured his own windpipe as he dropped onto the ground while the flames consumed him.
And yet, X-97 didn't move.
Her unfeeling gaze watched as the man in red armor stood alone, the naginata still burning in his grip as he stared up at the serpent towering over him.
"…Knew I'd end like this... It always ends like this."
He adjusted his stance anyway, raised his weapon, and prepared to die standing.
And just as he moved –
-Boom! - Crash – Shriek!
A massive spear of stone descended from above, spearing and pinning the serpent's middle head to the ground.
The serpent's other heads let out a blood-curdling shriek as its body withered in agony, curling around the speared head.
And before the man could even process what had happened, two more sharpened pillars of stones crashed down onto the remaining heads of the serpent, pinning them to the ground.
The thing withered and curled, kicking up a storm of dirt before going silent at last as life finally left its eyes that were still flashing in maddened brutality.
The man watched the thing breathe its last in a panting stupor before –
-Woosh
The sound of something descending behind him resounded in his ears.
He turned around with a snap and watched as a beautiful woman dressed in white descended from the sky as though sent straight from the heavens above, and everything made sense in his head.
Still panting, he let out a weak yet sad smile at the loss of his brothers in arms.
The woman walked towards him with her violet eyes staring into his while the man spoke, "Thank you, miss-"
-Ukhph!
But before he could finish, the woman shot a hand drenched in black miasma towards his mouth before clutching it in a death grip.
The man looked up only to find that her beautiful violet eyes were now black as an abyss, staring straight into his soul.
He tried to resist, but his body didn't move as the black miasma from her death grip shot inside his mouth.
And he instantly felt his brain expanding against his skull, yet draining at the same time as he felt memories slip past.
X-97 stared right into the eyes of the man as the spell she conjured through her Darkness Affinity seeped into the man's head, before pulling with force his every memory.
She saw his face rending and expanding, his eyes bulging and bleeding, his nose running red snot, yet all she said was, "He'll die before complete extraction. Need to do this selectively."
And so she began selectively combing through the man's entire life from birth to this very day, ripping the memories she deemed useful from his very existence and taking them for herself.
The man tried to scream through the agony rending his mind apart, but her grip on his mouth didn't let even a single whisper out.
And then came a point when the man's head bulged beyond the shape of a human, and in place of his eyes were just two blood-red and bleeding orbs.
"Just a bit more…" X-97 said, as her pitch-black gaze held into the man's.
And the next second –
-Boom.
The man's head exploded into a shower of blood, brains, and bones, drenching X-97's face in red and goo while his body fell limply onto the ground.
Despite the small shards of his skull piercing a sliver of her skin, X-97 let out a frustrated sigh as she wiped the blood and small shards of his skull from her face with her hand.
"I needed just a bit more…" She muttered as her pitch-black eyes returned to their violet luster.
"I almost don't believe it… His plan will actually work." X-97 said as that same small and unfeeling smile came across her blood-stained lips before she turned towards the man's dead comrades and walked towards them.