The victory against the Void Walkers felt less like a triumph and more like a warning.
They marched through the scorched trench Volkan had carved, but the relief was short lived. As they crossed into Sector 8, the environment shifted again. The petrified trees vanished, replaced by vegetation that defied logic.
Massive ferns made of blue crystal hummed with lethal energy. Vines pulsed like veins, pumping a dark, viscous fluid through the undergrowth. And the gravity... it was now crushed down with the weight of a collapsing star.
"Movement speed reduced to 40%," Kaelith reported, her breath visible in the freezing air. Her suit's runes were whining. "My armor's internal structure is groaning. Gorn?"
"I'm redlining," the Dwarf grunted. He had engaged his emergency hydraulics. "My boiler is literally screaming. If this pressure increases by another ten percent, my suit crumples like a tin can, and I turn into dwarf jelly."
Volkan walked at the front, but his swagger was gone. He was still in human form, but he was limping slightly. The regeneration of a Dragon was legendary, yet the scratches on his back from the Void Walkers were healing at a snail's pace.
"The ambient mana here prevents healing," Volkan spat, clutching his shoulder. "It is a cursed domain. Everything here is designed to kill."
"Wait," Elara stopped. She fell to her knees, clutching her head. Her long ears twitched violently.
"What is it, elf?" Volkan demanded. "More smoke wolves?"
"No," Elara whispered, her eyes wide with a terror that transcended physical fear. "Something... colossal."
THOOM.
The ground didn't just shake, it jumped.
Kaelith lost her balance. Gorn fell onto his back, his heavy pack clanging against the ground.
THOOM.
"It's a heartbeat," Kaelith realized, her face draining of blood. "That sound... it's the footsteps of something so heavy it's warping the tectonic plates."
"North!" one of the Royal Guards screamed, pointing a trembling finger.
From the deep darkness of the forest, the trees were parting. They weren't being pushed aside, they were snapping like dry twigs.
A pressure wave hit them.
It wasn't wind. It was Killing Intent. Pure, distilled predatory dominance.
The ten Royal Guards didn't even have time to scream. Their eyes rolled back, and they collapsed in unison, foam frothing at their mouths. They had fainted from the sheer biological horror of being near the creature.
"Gorn!" Kaelith shrieked. "The God Killer! Unlock it!"
"Way ahead of you, Princess!" The dwarf was already scrambling to his feet, his hands shaking so hard he could barely turn the keys. He unlocked the coffin sized box on his back. "Safety off! Priming the Aether Core!"
A violet light began to hum from the cannon barrel on his shoulder.
"Volkan, buy us time!" Kaelith ordered, drawing her rapier, though her hand felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.
"I..." Volkan hesitated.
The Dragon King, who had boasted of burning gods, stared into the darkness. His instincts, the ancient reptilian brain that had kept his species alive for eons, were screaming one word, RUN.
But he was a King.
"I will not yield!" Volkan roared, though his voice cracked. He flared his aura, forcing his Internal Furnace to go critical. "COME OUT AND FACE ME, BEAST!"
The beast obliged.
It burst through the canopy.
It was a Dire Boar. But to call it that was an insult to nature. It was the size of a siege tower. Its fur was not hair, it was bristles of black metallic wire that sparked with void electricity. Its tusks were curved scythes of ivory, dripping with a terrifying, corrupt energy that dissolved the ground where it dripped.
Its eyes were glowing red searchlights.
[The Guardian of the Snacks: Evolved Dire Boar (Bacon)]
"By the Ancestors..." Gorn whispered. "It's a Calamity Class. That thing could eat a mountain."
The Boar saw them.
It snorted.
WHOOSH.
The air pressure from the snort hit Volkan like a physical hammer.
"Gah!" Volkan was lifted off his feet and thrown backward twenty meters, crashing into a crystal fern. The Dragon King, the strongest physical being on the continent, was ragdolled by a sneeze.
"Fire!" Kaelith screamed.
Gorn's finger tightened on the trigger. The railgun whined, ready to unleash a beam that would vaporize a city block.
The Boar charged.
It was a blur of black steel. The momentum was unstoppable. Kaelith closed her eyes. Elara shielded her face. Thorgar squeezed his eyes shut and pulled the trigger.
Click.
The gun jammed.
"Misfire!" Gorn screamed in horror. "We're dead!"
The thunder of hooves filled their ears. The smell of musk and ozone overwhelmed them. The shadow of death passed over them.
And then... nothing.
The ground shook as the massive bulk thundered... past them.
Kaelith opened one eye.
The Boar hadn't attacked. It had ignored them completely. It had run right through their formation, stepping over the fainting guards with surprising delicacy for a creature of its size.
It skidded to a halt fifty meters away, near a glowing blue bush.
"What?" Volkan groaned, pulling himself out of the dirt.
The team watched in stunned silence as the terrifying Calamity Beast used its world ending tusks to gently nudge the leaves aside. It found a cluster of Moon Berries.
SQUEEE!
The Boar let out a high-pitched sound of pure joy that vibrated in their teeth. It began munching on the berries, its tail wagging so hard it was creating a localized hurricane.
"It..." Elara whispered, unable to comprehend what she was seeing. "It just wanted fruit?"
"It ignored us," Volkan said, his ego shattering into a million pieces. He stared at the beast that had swatted him aside with air pressure. "We were not even worth killing. We are less than ants to it."
Gorn was frantically hitting his cannon with a wrench. "The safety rune melted! That thing's aura is so dense it jammed my firing mechanism! If it turns around, we can't stop it!"
"Look," Kaelith pointed. Her voice was shaky, but her tactical mind was rebooting.
The path the Boar had come from.
Because the Boar possessed such a terrifying, apex predator aura, the monsters of the deep forest, the Void Walkers, the creeping vines, the shadow horrors, had all fled.
The path leading directly to the deep inside of the Forbidden Zone was wide open. It was a highway of silence.
"The path is clear," Kaelith realized. "Its presence scared away everything else."
"We have a window," Elara said, looking at the Boar, which was now digging for truffles, seemingly happy. "While it is eating... the path to the Source is unguarded."
"We go to the Source?" Gorn hissed. "You want to go to where that thing came from? If the thing guarding the source is this strong, what in the hell is the source like?"
"We have no choice," Kaelith said, sheathing her sword. Her hands were still trembling. "We can't go back through the Void Walkers without ammo. The only way out is through. We take the chance."
Volkan stood up. He brushed the dirt off his armor. He looked at the happy pig one last time with a mixture of hatred and fear.
"I will burn this forest to the ground one day," Volkan muttered. "But for now... we march."
Taking advantage of the Boar's snack break, the Suicide Squad crept past the beast, moving deeper into the heart of the forest. They marched with the grim resolve of soldiers walking to their own execution.
They marched toward the clearing. Toward the Mansion.