The descent from the plateau into the deeper Gloomwilds was a journey from twilight into near-night. The trees grew denser, their trunks thicker and weeping a slow, viscous sap that smelled of fermented pine and copper. The luminescent fungi changed from soft blues to eerie purples and sickly yellows, casting long, dancing shadows that seemed to move independently. The air grew colder, and a faint, electric tang prickled the skin the aftermath of the Violent Purple Quartz detonation, or something else.
"Mana density is increasing," Lisa observed, her breath forming faint plumes. She held her palm out, and a complex, rotating diagram of frost crystals formed above it, measuring ambient energy. "We're approaching a ley line convergence or a powerful natural locus. It explains the concentration of rare flora and aggressive fauna."
"It also means bigger predators," Dominic said, his hand resting on the compact war hammer at his belt. His eyes constantly scanned the ground, reading the soil and stone like a map. "High energy attracts hunters. We should avoid open ground."
They moved in near silence, their earlier banter extinguished by the forest's deepening menace. Daniel flowed ahead like a liquid shadow. Sora walked close to Kael, her amber eyes alert, the faint, shimmering heat of her draconic heritage a comforting presence in the damp cold. Her hands were loose at her sides, ready to weave flame or space at a moment's notice.
After another hour of tense progress, Daniel signaled a hard stop.
Not with a hand, but by freezing utterly, one finger raised.
A new sound filtered through the forest's breath. Not the grunt of a boar or the skittering of insects. It was a low, rhythmic… chanting. A deep, guttural murmur of voices, punctuated by the sharp clack of stone on stone.
Daniel melted back to them. "A clearing ahead. Not natural. Stone structures. People."
Kael gestured for the group to fan out and approach with caution. They crept forward, using the massive, rib like roots of ancient trees for cover.
The clearing was a shock of brutal geometry in the organic chaos. Someone had cleared a circle of trees, not by cutting, but by some force that had petrified them mid-growth, turning them to silent, grey statues. In the center stood three crude standing stones of Iron Chalybite, their metallic surfaces scarred with runes that pulsed a dull, ominous red. Around them knelt a dozen figures in rough-spun, hooded robes of forest green and mud-brown.
Cultists. Or poachers. Or something worse.
They were performing a ritual. In the center of the stones, a young Silver Lightning Wolf, its fur matted with dirt and a nasty burn along its flank, struggled against bonds of twisted, living thorn. A crude iron collar sat around its neck. The wolf's eyes, usually crackling with contained lightning, were dim with pain and fury. Before it, a leader figure held a jagged dagger of what looked like Black Night Stone, raised above a stone bowl.
"They're trying to drain its innate lightning affinity," Camila whispered, horrified. "They'll kill it. Or worse, break its spirit and bind it."
"Poachers," Sophia spat, her grip tightening on Storm's Verdict. "Scum who traffic in bound elemental beasts. They'll sell its pelt, its core, and its bound spirit to the highest bidder in Brightgold's black market."
Justin's face was stone. "We have to stop this."
Kael's mind raced. A direct assault was risky. The cultists had numbers, and the standing stones radiated a protective, warding energy. But the wolf… its pain echoed in the air, a silent scream of wrongness that resonated with the part of him that had known chains.
Before he could form a plan, a twig snapped loudly behind them.
Ellora gasped, stumbling back a step. One of the cultist sentries, hidden in the petrified branches, had circled around. He was a hulking man with a face scarred by acid burns, his eyes wide with alarm.
"Intruders!" he bellowed, his voice rough as gravel.
The ritual halted. A dozen hooded faces turned toward their hiding place. The leader lowered his dagger, his eyes narrowing to venomous slits.
"Academy brats," he sneered. "Think this is a training exercise? Kill them. Their cores will make fine offerings."
The cultists moved with unsettling coordination, flowing from their kneeling positions into a battle line. They drew weapons not swords, but cruel, hooked blades and weighted nets. Their mana felt greasy and corrupt, a mix of earth and something parasitic.
"Defensive formation!" Kael barked, his own hands coming up, black-gold energy flickering around his fingertips.
"Defensive formation!" Kael barked, his own hands coming up, black-gold energy flickering around his fingertips.
The fight was chaotic and brutal. These weren't clumsy students; they were grown men and women who fought to kill. Sora fought beside Kael, a study in controlled fury. She didn't throw wild fireballs. She used precise, white-hot jets of flame that severed weapon hafts and forced attackers to duck, creating openings for Justin's sweeping strikes or Dominic's crushing blows. When a cultist tried to flank Sophia, Sora clenched her fist, and the space around the man's feet rippled. He stumbled as if the ground had lurched, buying Sophia the second she needed to knock him out with a crackling spear-punch.
Sophia was a storm of motion. She didn't duel; she unleashed. Storm's Verdict became a blur of blue-white lightning, each strike precise and devastating, overloading nervous systems and leaving convulsing bodies in her wake. Daniel was a terror in the periphery, his shadows not just hiding him, but attacking tendrils of darkness snatching ankles, pulling hoods over faces, disarming hands with sharp, precise tugs.
But there were too many. The leader, seeing his followers falter, raised a hand toward the standing stones. The Iron Chalybite runes flared brighter. A wave of crushing gravity pulsed outward, slamming Kael and his team to the forest floor. Sora gasped as the air was crushed from her lungs, her spatial distortion snapping shut.
"Pathetic children," the leader chuckled, walking toward them, his Black Night Stone dagger gleaming. "Your mana will feed the stones. Your deaths will—"
A sound cut him off.
It was not a howl. It was a peal of thunder given voice.
From the darkened woods beyond the clearing, eyes ignited. Not pairs. Dozens. They shone with captured lightning, blue white and furious. The air crackled with the scent of a coming storm washed away the greasy corruption.
Into the clearing they paced. Silver Lightning Wolves. Six adults, their pelts the color of moonlit storm clouds, each strand of fur vibrating with barely contained energy. Static made their massive forms shimmer. At their head was an alpha, larger than the rest, with a mane of crackling white fur and intelligent, wrathful eyes that fixed on the trapped young wolf and the cult leader.
The alpha's gaze swept over the petrified trees, the profane stones, the prone students. It seemed to… assess.
The gravity wave from the stones faltered, the runes flickering under the sheer pressure of the wolves' collective electrical field. Kael gasped, pushing himself up.
The cult leader's confidence shattered. "No! The pack! Defend the offering!"
He lunged for the trapped juvenile wolf, his dagger aimed to kill it before it could be freed.
"NO!" Ellora screamed. Without thinking, fueled by a protector's fury and the sight of the suffering creature, she threw out both hands. Not at the leader, but at the earth around the trapped wolf. Her spirit magic surged, not for summoning, but for communion.
Her fox and turtle spirits blazed into being. The fox shot forward, a streak of soft flame that didn't burn, but seared the binding thorns with purifying heat. The turtle spirit landed on the ground before the wolf, and a dome of shimmering, crystalline moss erupted, intercepting the leader's descending dagger. The Black Night Stone met the living barrier with a shower of sparks and a sound like a gong.
The dagger stopped, lodged halfway through the moss dome.
For a single, frozen second, the cult leader stared in disbelief.
It was all the opening the alpha needed.
It moved. There was no blur, no preamble. One moment it was at the clearing's edge; the next, a bolt of living lightning stood between the leader and the juvenile wolf. A paw, crackling with power, swatted the leader. There was no blood, no visible wound. The man simply convulsed violently, every muscle locking, his dagger falling from nerveless fingers, and collapsed, smoke rising from his robes.
The alpha then turned its formidable attention to Kael's team. They stood frozen, weapons half-lowered, breath held.
The great wolf's intelligent eyes scrutinized each of them: Kael's flickering unmaking energy, Justin's honorable stance protecting Ellora, Dominic's grounded solidity, Sophia's crackling spear held respectfully low, Daniel's respectful retreat into shadow, Sora's poised readiness, the faint scent of sun-warmed scales about her, Camila's curious, non-threatening scanners, Lisa's analytical calm.
Then the pack attacked.
It was not a brawl. It was a culling. The wolves fought with terrifying, synchronized efficiency. Lightning arced between them, creating a dancing net of energy that stunned and corralled the cultists. Jaws snapped not to tear flesh, but to disarm and disable. It was swift, merciless, and strangely… judicial.
In less than a minute, it was over. The cultists were either unconscious, paralyzed, or fleeing in terror into the woods. The standing stones, their ritual broken, darkened and cracked with a sound of dying echoes.
The alpha padded over to the juvenile wolf. With a gentle touch of its nose and a soft discharge of energy, the iron collar shattered. The thorn bonds fell away. The young wolf stumbled to its feet, nuzzling the alpha, a weak spark jumping between them.
The alpha then turned its formidable attention to Kael's team. They stood frozen, weapons half-lowered, breath held.
The great wolf's intelligent eyes scrutinized each of them: Kael's flickering unmaking energy, Justin's honorable stance protecting Ellora, Dominic's grounded solidity, Sophia's crackling spear held respectfully low, Daniel's respectful retreat into shadow, Camila's curious, non-threatening scanners, Lisa's analytical calm.
Finally, its gaze returned to Ellora, who stood with her spirits hovering protectively. The alpha took one step forward, then another, until it stood before her. It was close enough that Kael could feel the static lifting the hair on his arms.
Slowly, the alpha lowered its head. It nudged something on the ground with its nose the fallen Black Night Stone dagger sliding it toward Ellora with a soft scrape. Then it looked at the juvenile wolf, then back at her.
The message was unmistakable. A gift. And a charge.
One of the other adult wolves trotted forward, carrying something in its mouth. It dropped it at Kael's feet. A single, massive fang, as long as a hand, naturally shed. It was cool to the touch, smooth as polished marble, but when Kael picked it up, a faint, resonant hum of lightning mana vibrated through his palm. A trophy. A token.
The alpha gave one last, sweeping look around the clearing. Its eyes met Kael's, and for a moment, Kael felt a connection not like the deep, soul binding link with Vaelthryx, but an understanding between two creatures who recognized power and responsibility. The wolf's gaze held a warning, too: This is our domain. Remember.
Then, with a chorus of soft chuffs and crackling energy, the pack turned. They melted into the forest shadows, taking the recovering juvenile with them. In seconds, only the scent of ozone, the cracked stones, and the moaning cultists remained.
Silence reclaimed the clearing.
"Well," Camila breathed, her voice trembling with adrenaline and awe. "That happened."
Justin helped Ellora to her feet. She was shaking, staring at the Black Night Stone dagger at her feet. "It… it thanked me?"
"It recognized a protector," Lisa said, her voice holding a rare note of wonder. "Your magic is of spirit and preservation. Theirs is of storm and territory. But the core principle… is the same."
Kael looked down at the fang in his hand, then at the clearing. He felt Sora's shoulder press briefly against his, a silent check-in. He gave her a slight, reassuring nod. They had stopped a vile ritual, earned the respect or at least, the non-hostility of the forest's apex predators, and gained a powerful token.
He looked up through the canopy, to where he knew a certain observer would be.
High in her hidden perch, Princess Elara Everglade lowered her observation crystal. Her hand, usually so steady, trembled slightly as she wrote.
*Team 7-B encountered and engaged a cult of beast poachers (affiliation unknown) conducting a sacrilegious binding ritual on a juvenile Silver Lightning Wolf. Engagement was defensive but effective. Critical turning point: Subject Campbell (Ellora) utilized spirit magic in a protective, non violent manner that was recognized and acknowledged by the wolf pack alpha. The pack subsequently intervened, neutralizing the threat.*
Observation: The Osborn-led group does not seek conflict but does not shirk from necessary defense. Their actions align with preservation of natural order, a quality the indigenous apex predators recognized. They have gained a significant token (Alpha Fang) and what may be a fragile, non-verbal alliance with the wolf pack. This is unprecedented in Academy field test records.
Note: The cult's presence this deep, with ritual stones, suggests pre-meditation and external support. This is no mere poaching ring. Deeper forces may be at play in the Gloomwilds. The test parameters may be compromised.
She closed her logbook, her mind racing. The field test was revealing far more than student capabilities. It was uncovering a rot in the kingdom's wilderness. And Kael Osborn's team was at the center of it.
In the clearing below, Kael stowed the lightning fang and looked at his team battered, wide-eyed, but unbroken. They had passed a deadly test, not set by the Academy, but by the world itself.
"We bury the stones," Kael said, his voice firm. "Dominic, can you shatter them and sink them?"
Dominic nodded, hefting his hammer. "Gladly."
"Then we move. We've made enough noise for one day. We find a secure place to camp. And we decide what to do about that," he said, pointing at the unconscious cult leader.
The Gloomwilds had offered its first true lesson: in a world with no rules, you measured your worth not by what you took, but by what you chose to protect. And tonight, they had passed.