Chapter 18
Ren knew they were not strong enough.
That realization settled heavily in his chest as he looked over the temporary shelter they had managed to construct. It was nothing more than a pocket of relative safety carved out of an unforgiving wilderness—a shallow depression reinforced with vines, layered roots, and scattered natural stone. It could stop weak beasts. It could slow careless intruders.
But against anything truly dangerous?
They would die.
"We can't keep fighting everything head-on," Ren said quietly.
Lira paused mid-motion, her hands still wrapped in glowing green mana as she reinforced a vine wall. Kian, standing a short distance away with his sword resting against his shoulder, turned his head toward Ren without speaking.
"If something strong finds us," Ren continued, choosing his words carefully, "we won't win. Not like this."
No one argued.
They had all felt it—the growing exhaustion, the narrow escapes, the way each battle drained more than mana. This trial wasn't testing strength alone. It was grinding them down, slowly and patiently.
"So we don't fight," Lira said after a moment. "We prepare."
Ren nodded. "We make it so that we don't have to be here when the fighting starts."
Lira's brows knit together in confusion. "You mean… traps?"
"Yes," Ren said. "But not hidden ones."
He gestured outward, toward the forest beyond their shelter. "An alarm trap. Something loud. Something that draws attention."
Kian's expression sharpened. "You want intruders to be attacked by other beasts."
"Exactly," Ren replied. "If something comes sniffing around our shelter, it shouldn't find us. It should find chaos."
Lira inhaled slowly, then nodded. "I can do that."
An Alarm for the Forest
Lira changed her approach entirely.
Instead of tight snares or concealed pitfalls, she spread her vines outward in wide arcs, weaving them through tree roots, hollow trunks, and overhanging branches. Every vine was connected, not to a trigger Ren controlled, but to the forest itself.
If disturbed, the reaction would cascade.
Dry branches would snap together. Hollow bark would vibrate like drums. Root clusters would grind against stone, producing deep, unnatural rumbles that carried far through the undergrowth.
It wasn't subtle.
It was an invitation.
"This will attract everything," Lira said, wiping sweat from her brow. "Weak beasts. Strong ones too."
Ren nodded grimly. "Including the guardian."
Kian frowned slightly but didn't object. "Better them than us."
Before they finished, Kian crouched and pressed his palm flat against the soil.
"There's more," he said.
Ren turned to him. "What is it?"
"My Personal Magic," Kian replied calmly. "Tame doesn't only work on beasts with claws and fangs."
The soil stirred.
Thin earthworms surfaced—dozens of them—before slipping back underground, spreading outward in different directions like living threads.
"They feel vibrations," Kian explained. "If a large fight breaks out near the shelter… if beasts start moving violently…"
He tapped the ground lightly with his finger.
"They'll alert me."
Ren released a slow breath. That was perfect.
"So even if the alarm draws monsters," Ren said, thinking it through, "we don't rush back blindly."
Kian nodded. "We watch. Then we reroute."
The plan wasn't elegant. It wasn't heroic.
But it was smart.
Moving On
Once the shelter was fortified, they left it behind.
They moved north, deeper into a region where the sky vanished completely. Thick vines twisted overhead like a living ceiling, swallowing what little sunlight filtered through. Direction became uncertain. The air felt older here—heavier, as if the forest itself were watching.
They walked in silence for nearly an hour.
No monsters appeared. No alarms sounded.
The quiet felt wrong.
Eventually, fatigue forced them to stop.
"There," Lira said, pointing ahead.
A massive tree dominated the area. Its trunk was ancient and wide, its bark ridged and dark, roots spreading outward like frozen waves. It looked… peaceful.
Ren leaned against it without thinking, grateful for the support. The bark was cool. Solid.
For the first time in hours, his guard lowered.
Kian, however, didn't relax.
Something about the air felt wrong.
"Ren—" he started.
The tree moved.
Not slowly. Not with the groan of age.
Violently.
The bark behind Ren split open.
A vine burst outward—not soft, not flexible—but hardened, sharpened into a blade-like point. It cut through the air with terrifying speed, aimed directly at Ren's chest.
The forest seemed to inhale.
Lira's breath caught in her throat.
Kian shouted Ren's name—
And the blade descended.