Wraithwood Botanist

Grask Rykan was a mercenary—a hired killer. And after a lifetime of warfare, he had seen his fair share of fucked up shit.

He had watched close friends walk around with their intestines spewin' out in their hands like bloody pasta fallin' out of a bowl. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. He saw things so bad he didn't even compare them to other terrible things.

Grask Rykan had seen the lot, and he was reminded every few nights with a vivid night terror that woke him up screamin', scarin' the shit out of whatever whore he was payin' that night.

But had never seen anything as fucked up as what Mira Hill pulled out of nothin'.

Her clones were pure terror. Distilled terror. Raw, unfiltered swill that hit the gut and didn't let up.

They didn't die.

There was no slash and poof like poppin' balloons. Nah, none of that shit. Someone would bisect the vestige of this sneaky whore at the waist, and the whole damn corpse would fly off, spewin' blood everywhere.

Yeah, the soldier knew it wasn't blood. It just made 'em tingle—but their comrades didn't know it wasn't real. So there was this gruesome slugfest as established mercs blasted through four of them a second, sending so much blood flying everywhere that you could barely see. And that blood… it looked damn real that blood. It stuck to the clothes and dripped, and when a merc wiped their hands on their chest, it got on their hands…

No, it smeared on their hands.

Blood doesn't wipe on your hands. It doesn't collect on your hands. It doesn't pool on your hands. No, it smears on your hands, and when you touch your face with your hands, it smears on there, too. And there was a damn lot of people smearin', and no one knew what was what at some point, 'cause the damn clones kept multiplyin' like rabbits, and they just didn't disappear.

But that wasn't the worst part.

It was just the prerequisite—setting the stage for the true horror. And the true horror was when the mercenaries started goin' invisible.

Grask saw Mira. She ran through the crowd, not even killin' people. She was a blur he could barely even follow, but she touched people, and then they went invisible.

And no one noticed they or anyone else was goin' invisible, 'cause Mira—or Brex, or another fuckin' Claustra—was creating carbon fuckin' clones of these assholes, mana signatures, blood smears, and all. And once enough of 'em went invisible—their clones finally started movin' on their own. That's when the gruesome shit started happenin'.

'Cause everyone was convinced these clones they were killin' were illusions 'till a bisected Mira clone chopped off one of these fake mercenary's feet. It wasn't real, but it was so damn shocking, seein' this Mira clone crawlin' on the ground with her guts smearing out, swinging her machete, and cutting through what they thought was a real mercenary.

Shit, even the invisible mercenaries were watching themselves scream without their feet, confused as fuck, and when they tried to speak, no sound was comin' out.

So naturally, people started thinkin' these clones were actually real, and the panic set in.

There was so much screamin' and yellin' that no one could think, and everyone was buildin' up like a boilin' can—preparing to explode and start spewin' fucking spells all over the place.

But all this happened in like thirty, forty seconds, a minute at most. And there was so much blood and screamin' and yellin' that no one could think or get a fix on their mana sight, which wasn't fuckin' workin' well for the rooks for some reason. So they made it another full minute before the spells started shakin', and during that period, things just kept getting worse.

You wouldn't think that was possible—but oh, yes, it was.

Mira started syncing her clones over the invisible mercs, and soon, the mercenaries were killin' each other while trying to kill her clones. It was a fucking nightmare, and people were just too confused and overwhelmed to do anything about it.

But Grask? He knew what was goin' on. He blew through the Mira clones, kicking invisible people out of the way before their fellow mercenaries could kill them. And in this mess, he actually found Mira.

Her clones had mana signatures, but it wasn't the real thing, and he knew it. He was starin' at the bonafide Mira Hill. She was movin' so fast he could barely keep up with her—but he could. And he had the experience. So he followed her, watchin' her sync with clones and chopping up mercenaries, and prepared to strike.

But he couldn't.

'Cause here was the thing.

The funny thing.

The hilarious fuckin' thing.

The cat stopped him.

The cat. Even half an annual after the harvest, everyone was talkin' about that crazy fuckin' cat. Who was gonna kill that cat? How would they kill that cat? Will you kill that cat? People were offerin' him crazy sums to kill the damn thing, and Grask collected a few hundred thousand, charging ten people for the same service.

And now dozens of those cats were in front of him, running around with Mira clones, creating sick confusion everywhere.

But they were illusions. They were all illusions—

—until they weren't.

Grask shot out at Mira, cutting through two Mira clones and one of his mercenaries to slash this bitch to ribbons. But before he got there, that cat came out of nowhere to block the path. That was okay—'cause he was gonna slash that fucker to ribbons, too.

But it wasn't a clone. The cat caught his sword in his teeth.

It was strong—but tough tits. It was way less experienced than him.

"Got you!" Grask yelled.

His sword burst into flames, and the cat yowled as it tried to escape, but Grask didn't let it. He flew forward with an acceleration spell and bisected the thing's skull.

Clean cut—lots of fuckin' blood.

Then the cat hit the ground—cool. One of them was finally down.

But when he turned around, what did he see?

Another cat, and this one was far fuckin' stronger—and faster. It grabbed Grask's throat in his jaws and could've ripped it out right then and there—but thought better of it for some reason, throwin' him to the ground instead.

Why'd it fuckin' hesitate? Grask thought.

And then he got this funny feelin'.

A messed up feelin'.

And he knew it was a ridiculous feelin', but he still couldn't help but feel it, and it was this:

The Claustra weren't involved, and Mira and her cat didn't even consider him a threat, and they were gonna rip off his limbs and smash his core and do all sorts of things, but they weren't gonna touch his voice box—'cause they needed him to disclose his partner.

Now, wasn't that a funny feelin'?

"Retreat!" Grask yelled for the first time in his life. "The Claustra are in on it!"

No one needed to tell his men twice. They turned and fled, but a dozen of them suddenly erupted into blue flames.

Grask laughed.

He actually laughed.

'Cause between Mira's fucked up illusions and this cat that could apparently fuckin' duplicate itself, everyone forgot that there were seven third evolution lurvines and a fuckin' Dante.

Grask turned and saw Molo the Wallow standin' next to a barrier with seven Helara family members—not even doin' a damn thing other than watchin'.

Were the Cackling Kings so arrogant that they really thought they could take that many legacies?

No.

It was two minutes into the fight when a wave of explosions rocked the earth. His mercenaries didn't give a fuck anymore. They were blasting the area with wind and fire and trees got blown to splinters. It was like a goddamn shredder, and dust and smoke was goin' everywhere.

Each attack killed a whole lot of everything. There were these huge ass craters from these attacks, and trees were fallin' everywhere.

You either had a barrier or died; even the lurvines were runnin' and dodgin' and breathin' fire to stop attacks. The pace was devastating. Normal people couldn't cope.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

But despite the rockin' earthquakes and devastation, mercs rarely ever released two spells.

Grask recovered just in time to see Mira decapitate one of the better mercs, and three of the "illusion cats" weren't illusions. They both wrestled down mercs.

Robina put her hand on one of the cats, and it bubbled and exploded into meat chunks and blood mist, but Mira flew forward and stabbed her in the head.

Grask followed Mira around the battlefield and decided that if precision didn't work, he would blow 'er to bits. So he got up and lifted his hands, and about five hundred large rocks levitated. He was gonna launch them out, blowin' away any merc who was dyin' or didn't have sense, but before he could, the real cat flew out from behind him.

No, there was two. He kicked one, and the other bit his standin' leg, and the whole damn thing just disappeared—bone and tendons and all. He hit the ground, and when he looked down, he saw that there was a huge fuckin' hole in his leg, and when he looked to the side, he saw the Rawkan eatin' it right on the battlefield.

"You son of a bitch!" Grask screamed. "I'll kill you! I'll—"

"That'll be enough of that." Mira put her machete against his neck, and when he glanced around, he saw that all of his men were dead, or dyin', with half of 'em wrapped up in a heat blast of blue flames.

"Heh…" Grask laughed slightly. "Now ain't that somethin'."

"Who hired you," Mira asked.

"Listen girly," he said, speakin' with this bittersweet voice he didn't know he had in 'em. "I've been doin' this a long fuckin' time. Probably ten times longer than your scrawny ass has been alive. And in all that time, I've gotten tortured and twisted somethin' savage. One man took my balls off, and I needed to unload my entire cache to get a healer that could backtrack the entire goddamn record." He laughed. "Never worked the same."

Mira's muscles tensed, and he could feel it—genuine disappointment. He knew that feelin' well because he was feelin' it too. Two centuries of buildin', and this is what he gets? Done in by some little girl who got dropped in Areswood for a year.

Ah… why's life so unfair? He didn't know, but he had his code—and it was the only positive virtue he had left.

"And in all that time," Grask said. "I've never once outed an employer."

"Guess you've never met a Claustra," Molo said. "I don't care who you are. They will crack you like an eggshell."

"Good thing the Claustra betrayed ya," Grask said. "And that Claustra kid has a soul pact not to get involved… not that he needed to."

Molo frowned.

That gave Grask a last victory before Kline the Kitty Cat, the "Rawkan" as the posers called him, though I guessed he was one of those posers now, too…

Whatever it was—it walked up, multiplyin' into five real ass bodies with the center bein' the real deal.

"Guess I really didn't get my ass kicked by some petty illusions. That's a relief."

A blade suddenly severed his throat, and he couldn't breathe. Blood spurted out in large gushes, and he hit the ground, gurglin' up a storm as the cats jumped him.

Didn't think you had it in ya… Grask thought of Mira Hill. His mind then fell blank when he was hit with about eight waves of pain—and then darkness clouded his eyes.

2.

I closed my eyes as Kline finished Grask off. I didn't feel so bad about killing the mercenaries up to that point. These people weren't civilized—they were animals—beasts trying to kill me despite never having a conversation. It was really easy to discount those people, but…

Why'd he have to be decent at the end… I thought. That sucked.

"Hey," I said to the lurvine, "Do me a favor and burn the bodies. I can hang with the killing, but not the eating."

Sina and Kael and the rest nodded and then stalked through the battlefield, burning the corpses to ash simply by walking over them with their blue-flamed bodies. I could feel the heat on my skin. It was so hot that sweat dripped on me and instantly turned to steam. Without my tempering, it would've likely cooked me alive.

That's why the lurvine rarely fought.

But now that I could withstand it—they could go all out.

And now that they could, the devastation was incalculable.

Not five minutes later, the battlefield was black with six inches of gray ash.

Pervasive Breeze.

I flicked my hand, and a blast of wind sent the ashes into the forest, leaving only glimmering cores on the ground, all sparkling like Arabian jewels. Each was on the waning cycle of green when dark emerald green lightens again in preparation to be teal. And something about these was far more refined. I think it would be a different experience than most beasts.

I've gotten stronger… I thought, clenching my fist. And colder… but stronger. And stronger's what I need.

My new life was special.

It was hard to put into words, but I felt like I had a purpose. Between a life of studying plants and learning alchemy in the forest—the place I loved most—being a guardian started to appeal to me. I wanted to protect this forest and its secrets. I wanted to protect Yakana and spread Esclara's seed in the Fifth Ring. I wanted to explore further and find new lands, and between tactics, natural poisons and bioweapons, alchemy, illusions, and Moxle Dilation—I wanted to conquer the whole damn thing.

For the first time, I felt truly empowered—and I looked forward to the future.

But that was for tomorrow. For now, I needed to deal with the rat watching us in the forest.