The first wave of Bhutava to rush her fell like wheat to a harvester. Fire scythed through them, turning stone-flesh to clouds of ash that drifted on the breeze. Some fell to the plants growing in Ryelle's wake, succumbing to vines and thorns that tore through stony hides with ease. Others simply vanished, erased from the field by the dragonfire pouring from Ryelle like a solar flare.

The Shadaksha above her wheeled and dove, their claws flicking like knives as they darted in to strike. Their eldritch blasts spat purple in the forest gloom, but Ryelle's flames consumed those with ease. Wherever shadows dared to approach, silver embers scorched them from the sky.

She stalked through the center of the clearing, radiating heat and light as she reached for her inner flame. It came easier now, faster, as if she were finally in sync with some fundamental truth of her design. Everything about the sensation felt right, from the flames that wove through her presence to the essence that she burned to fuel it all.

A wounded Shadaksha limped into her path. Without breaking stride, she seized the demon by one leathery wing, swung it around her body, and used its thrashing form as a battering ram to clear Bhutava from her path.

The Shadaksha screamed as she bludgeoned its kin with its body, but those shrieks paled beside the sounds rising from the forest's edge. The thorny briar-patch Ryelle's fire had ignited seemed alive with hunger, its tendrils lashing out to snare Asura who approached her.

With each demon it devoured, more vines and thorns filled the gaps, turning the clearing into a pit of fanged roses and shredding nettles. Bhutava crushed vines only to find themselves swarmed by their offspring, dragged into the thicket and dissolved.

The remaining Shadaksha pulled back to a safer altitude. Liselotte's harpies pursued them, talon strikes and precise swooping attacks sending more demons tumbling into the grasping thorns.

"Ryelle!" Liselotte's voice cut through the din of battle, distant but fierce.

Ryelle looked up, her silver eyes still glowing with inner fire. "What?"

Liselotte grinned, bloody teeth gleaming in the light of Ryelle's inferno. "If I'd known you had this in you, I'd have gotten you worked up a long time ago."

Ryelle grinned back. "What can I say? I guess I just needed the right motivation."

She paused as Bhutava made a cautious approach from the forest edge. Her fire lashed out, pouring over them as she flexed her fingers. When the flames receded, nothing remained but patches of mossy growth to fill the gaps in the undergrowth.

The remaining demons began to pull back, uncertainty gnawing at whatever drove them in this world. Ryelle counted maybe fifty demons left from the three-score who had poured out of those tunnels.

The silver fire devoured everything it touched. Ryelle's footsteps left smoldering trails. The plants growing in her wake pulsed with bright vigor, their veins and stems alight with emerald flames that didn't damage them. Power poured from her skin in waves that sent even the bravest Bhutava scrambling backward, away from the killing aura.

But the burning hollowed her out from within.

Each heartbeat cost her something essential, divine energy hemorrhaging through channels never meant to carry this much force. Her vision flickered—silver overlaying the world's natural colors, then fading to reveal how much darker everything looked without that radiance.

The forest held its breath. Shadaksha wheeled overhead but didn't dive. Bhutava crouched at tunnel mouths but didn't charge. Even Liselotte's warriors kept their distance, though their eyes shone with something between awe and terror.

Into this unnatural silence came a sound like grinding millstones.

The earth buckled at the clearing's eastern edge, soil heaving upward in ridges that split and cracked. Something massive pushed through from below, too large for the tunnels that had disgorged mere foot soldiers. Stone exploded outward as clawed hands, each twice the size of Ryelle's head, gripped the surface world and hauled their owner into daylight.

The Bovikara that emerged stood head and shoulders above its lesser cousins. Four arms moved with ponderous weight as it freed itself from subterranean shackles. Its serpentine body coiled and flexed, scales catching the light of Ryelle's flames and throwing it back in fractal patterns. The bull-skull that crowned its shoulders bore horns twice as long as its claws, each a wicked blade in its own right.

But it was the creature's eyes that made Ryelle's burning falter. Not the mindless red glow of common Bhutava, but something that weighed and measured, taking stock of the battlefield, her fire, and her.

A second eruption tore open the clearing's western flank. Another Bovikara, this one bearing scars across its scaled hide, climbed out of darkness and shook itself with the languid ease of a predator on the hunt. Its four arms held weapons—a massive axe in one pair, a morning star and shield in the other.

Ryelle's flame guttered as power drained from maintaining the enhanced state. The silver fire that had wreathed her entire form condensed, pulling inward until only her hands blazed with that otherworldly light.

"Tired already?" The scarred Bovikara hefted its morning star, iron spikes dripping with something that steamed when it hit the ground. "We haven't even begun."

They moved in sync, their hulking forms weaving through the thorny obstacle course Ryelle had crafted. The first Bovikara gestured, and stone spikes erupted in a precise grid around Ryelle's position—not trying to impale her, but herding her movement. The second charged from her blind side, four arms working in sequence to deliver strikes that came faster than something its size should have been able to manage.

Ryelle twisted away from the morning star's spike-crowned head, felt wind from the axe's passage part her hair. The demon's lower arms swept toward her legs while its upper pair prepared follow-up strikes. She leaped, using the last dregs of her fire-burst ability to clear the creature's reach.

But the first Bovikara waited at her landing point. Stone flowed like water beneath its touch, forming restraints that closed around her ankles the instant she touched ground. She stumbled, divine strength the only thing keeping her from falling completely, and that hesitation cost her dearly.

The scarred Bovikara's axe caught her across the ribs, parting cloth and scoring divine flesh. Pain flared white-hot, clearing her head of the power-drunk haze that had carried her this far. Blood welled from the wound, and her vision wavered.

Around the clearing, the watching demons sensed the shift. Shadaksha began their descent from the canopy. Bhutava crept closer to the thorn-patch that still blocked tunnel mouths.

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Above, Liselotte's war cry split the air. The Harpy Queen dove toward the scarred commander, talons extended and crimson eyes blazing with fury that matched Ryelle's own.

But the intelligent Bovikara was ready for her. Its gesture sent a pillar of stone shooting skyward, forcing Liselotte to bank sharply or be crushed.

Other harpies launched attacks from above, but the demons had recovered from their fear of fire.

Shadaksha hurled blasts of eldritch energy at any winged enemies who came too close, while Bhutava channeled earth-shaping to knock them from the air. All around the clearing, renewed violence exploded.

Ryelle rolled sideways as the axe descended, stone shackles chipping the entire way. One foot popped free just as the massive blade embedded itself in loam where she'd fallen. She kicked with the remaining encumbered foot, shattering the brittle stone with divine strength and scrambling upright just before the morning star came crashing down.

Wood splintered, and roots tore apart. Her breath came harder with each movement, strength seeping through the wound that parted her side.

"Little godling burns bright." The Bovikara's voice scraped like iron on stone. "Wonder how long before flame dies."

Its companion laughed, a sound like boulders tumbling down mountainsides. "Xellos spoke true. Divine essence makes sweetest fuel."

They knew about Xellos.

That confirmed what she'd suspected since finding the tunnels—this wasn't random predation, but coordinated assault with specific goals. But hearing the name spoken aloud sent cold fingers dancing along her spine despite the heat that still wreathed her form.

"Tell me," she said, circling to keep both demons in sight. "Is he the one who sent you, or is someone else pulling your strings?" She shifted her feet, finding solid ground with one foot and roots to brace on with the other.

"Words from a doomed quarry hold no interest."

Its four arms spread wide, each hand shaping different gestures. The ground around Ryelle began to flow like honey, stone and soil liquefying under demonic will. But instead of forming spikes or shackles, it pulled, funneling her toward waiting claws.

She leaped clear as the earth beneath her feet turned treacherous, fire-bursts from her palms carrying her toward the treeline. Behind her, the second Bovikara struck the ground with all four fists, sending shockwaves that toppled weaker trees and set leaves raining down like autumn snow.

The demons moved to flank her, their serpentine forms flowing across terrain that should have slowed anything without legs.

Ryelle landed hard against a birch trunk, bark scraping her shoulders as she rolled to absorb impact. The silver fire sputtered, dimming to orange flickers that barely warmed the air around her fingers. She was burning through power faster than prudent, but alternative options looked increasingly grim.

Shadows flickered at the edge of vision—not Shadaksha, but something that moved with purpose rather than mindless hatred.

The first crossbow bolt came from nowhere, a streak of metal and fletching that took Mesyori in the wing, spinning her sideways as she tried to maintain altitude. The impact sent her tumbling toward the canopy, spiraling down in an uncontrolled plummet.

A second bolt found Korvain's shoulder, and she cried out in pain that spoke of more than simple injury. Where the bolt had struck, her feathers began to smoke and wither, blackening as flesh melted around whatever alchemical secrets those tips had carried into her flesh.

Ryelle's attention snapped toward the source of the attacks, scanning the canopy for archers. There—a figure crouched on a branch that should have been too thin to support human weight. Cloaked in mottled fabric that blended with bark and shadow, face hidden behind a mask that only exposed dark eyes.

Another figure materialized on a different branch, crossbow already trained on Gwynelle. Then another, and another, until the canopy crawled with hidden killers whose presence Ryelle's fire had somehow failed to reveal.

But these weren't demons. Their proportions were human, their movements carried the trained efficiency of professionals rather than bestial cunning.

And something about their gear—the specialized crossbows, the particular style of their masks, the way they moved like ghosts through foliage that should have given them away—tugged at memory.

A crossbow bolt hissed past Liselotte's head, close enough that its wake singed her feathers. She wheeled to face this new threat, but the branch that should have held an archer was now empty save for swaying moss.

A second bolt found its mark in the Harpy Queen's thigh. Smoke trailed from the wound, and Liselotte let out a shriek of rage and pain that split the sky like thunder. Another bolt grazed her shoulder, parting white plumage and drawing blood that sparkled in the afternoon light.

One of the masked figures called out something in a language Ryelle didn't recognize—harsh consonants and guttural stops that sounded vaguely familiar. The accent...

Another bolt caught Gwynelle in the leg, and the young harpy's battle-song became a scream of anguish as whatever poison the projectile carried began eating at her flesh. Purple stains spread outward from the wound, and she folded her wings, falling toward the canopy even though Ryelle could see her strain to fly.

Around the clearing, the harpies' formation fragmented. Ryelle could almost picture what those hidden archers saw—their attacks had forced Liselotte's flock into exactly the chaotic state most vulnerable to mass eldritch blasts from above.

She pushed off from the birch, ignoring the Bovikara's charge, sprinting in a ragged loop that kept her clear of axe and morning star.

A quick pulse of flame killed two of the crossbow bolts streaking toward Gwynelle. Then a dive to the right, under a stone pillar raised by the Bovikara, rolled her to her feet in time to fire another gout of flame into the undergrowth where one archer had disappeared.

Their presence... she had sensed them before. On her journey here.

But who were they? Xellos's followers? Some other mortal lackeys swayed to demonic will?

Their garb didn't show any uniformity—no guild, faction, or family affiliation was evident in their clothing. The masks were the only commonality, those and the crossbows with their alchemical munitions.

All of this flashed through Ryelle's mind as she dodged incoming attacks from human assassins and demonic pursuers. She leaped over another sweeping axe-blow and ducked under its follow-up strike, putting an intervening Bhutava between herself and its commander. The foot soldiers were a nuisance, but it was the big demons she had to focus on.

A sudden realization hit her as she sprinted through the thorny maze she'd created, fragments clicking together like pieces of a puzzle she'd forgotten she was solving.

Kaela's voice, years ago during one of her intelligence briefings with Ebonheim.

"The Morr clan operates differently than other mercenary groups. They specialize in assassination contracts, particularly political targets. Distinctive gear—they love their gadgets. Alchemical munitions and concealment Magitech, all of which they manufacture through a shadow network so complex even I haven't found all their secret locations yet."

The memory sharpened, bringing with it context that explained the similarity in accent Ryelle could hear now that she paid attention.

"They've been traced to several high-profile killings across the eastern region. Always working in cells, always with backup plans. And here's the concerning part. Recent intelligence suggests they're not just taking contracts anymore. Someone's hired them for long-term operations."

That had been during the investigation of regional instabilities, back when strange reports first started filtering in about settlements changing their trade patterns, leadership structures shifting without obvious cause. Kaela had been tracking connections, following threads that seemed to lead nowhere until patterns emerged.

"The Morr clan doesn't work cheap, and they don't work without very specific guarantees. Whoever's employing them has resources and reach that goes beyond simple criminal enterprise. This feels like the opening moves of something much larger."

Morrian assassins. Here, now, working alongside demons in a coordinated assault on harpy territory.

The situation had just grown more complicated—and Ryelle wasn't in a position to explain any of it. She rolled under a stone spike that erupted where she'd been a second before, but came up to find an axe descending in an arc that left little room for escape.

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