The forest had grown dark around her.
Elysia proceeded through the trees with the stealth of a shadow, her footsteps inaudible on the soft terrain. The mission had been accomplished. The facility was reduced to ashes and corpses behind her. Ahead lay the road to civilization, the academy, and the ongoing gas of influence and politics.
She did not perceive their presence until it was nearly too late.
They were highly skilled. Extrely skilled. Their presence was so deeply embedded within the ambient energy of the forest that her instincts only issued a warning re heartbeat before the initial assault occurred.
A blade erged from the darkness, directed at her throat.
Elysia’s body responded instinctively before her mind fully apprehended the danger. She pivoted, the knife passing re milliters from her skin. Her hand imdiately shot out, crackling with lightning, but her assailant had already vanished, dissolving back into the shadows like smoke.
She did not cease movent. She did not pause to evaluate. She transitioned seamlessly into a combat stance, her sword manifesting in her hand, her golden eyes surveying the darkness.
The forest had beco a hunting ground.
And she was the prey.
They ca from everywhere.
Four of them. No—six. More. They erged from the shadows like nightmares given form, their movents silent, coordinated, deadly. Black clothing swallowed the faint starlight. Weapons glead with dark enchantnts designed to counter lightning, to absorb electricity, to neutralize her greatest strength.
Elysia’s smile returned.
So. Soone had sent assassins after all, well she didn’t hide her trace just in case.
She would make them regret it.
The first assassin reached her. A tall figure with twin blades, their edges coated in sothing that absorbed light. He moved fast—faster than a normal human, faster than most knights. His blades wove a web of death aid at her vital points.
Elysia t him head-on.
Her sword clashed against his blades, lightning flaring. The dark coating on his weapons sizzled, smoked, but held. He was prepared. He had co ready for her.
But he hadn’t co ready for her speed.
Lightning carried her past his guard, inside his reach. Her free hand, crackling with golden energy, slamd into his chest. Not a killing blow—a mark. A tracer of electricity that would let her track him anywhere.
He staggered back, and she was already moving to the next threat.
Two assassins attacked from opposite sides, their movents perfectly synchronized. One high, one low. One with a sword, one with curved daggers ant for disemboweling.
Elysia dropped.
Her body went low, lower than they expected, her hand touching the ground. Lightning erupted from her palm in a circle, a radial blast that caught both assassins in the legs. They stumbled, their perfect coordination broken.
She was on her feet again in an instant. Her sword took the first through the throat. Her lightning took the second through the heart.
Two down.
The forest had beco a warzone.
Trees shattered from errant lightning strikes. Shadows danced wildly as golden light flared and faded. The sounds of battle—steel on steel, the crackle of electricity, the grunt of effort, the wet gasp of death—echoed through the darkness.
Elysia was a blur of motion, a storm of gold and silver. Her sword was everywhere at once, eting every attack, countering every strike. Lightning leaped from her body, from her blade, from her very eyes, seeking flesh, seeking life.
But the assassins were good. They were very good.
They had studied her. They knew her patterns, her preferred strikes, her tells. They moved in ways designed to counter her, to force her into positions where her lightning was less effective, where her speed was neutralized.
One of them—a woman with cold eyes and a blade that humd with silencing magic—pressed her hard. Her strikes were precise, relentless, each one aid at a spot that would cripple, not kill. She wanted Elysia alive. Wanted her captured.
Elysia’s smile widened.
Fools.
She stopped holding back.
Her domain erupted.
It wasn’t the full domain she had used against the Wyvern—that would have destroyed the forest and left nothing alive. But it was enough. A partial release, a bubble of absolute control that extended perhaps twenty feet in every direction.
Within that bubble, the rules changed.
The silencing magic on the woman’s blade flickered, died. The darkness-enchanted coatings on the other weapons smoked and failed. The assassins, trained to fight in shadows, suddenly found themselves in a world of golden light and crushing pressure.
The woman with the cold eyes had just enough ti to register surprise before Elysia’s sword took her head.
The remaining assassins—three of them now—tried to regroup. Tried to fall back, to find new positions, to adapt.
Elysia didn’t give them ti.
She beca lightning itself.
She was everywhere at once—behind one, before another, above the third. Her sword never stopped moving. Her lightning never stopped flowing. The assassins died one by one, their bodies falling to the forest floor, their blood soaking into the dark earth.
The last of them, a man with haunted eyes and a blade already broken, looked at her as she approached. He didn’t beg. Didn’t plead. Just watched her with sothing like acceptance.
Elysia stopped before him. Her sword hung at her side. Lightning still danced around her, but softer now, waiting.
"Who sent you?" she asked. The first words she had spoken since the attack began.
The assassin’s lips curved into a small, sad smile. He said nothing.
Elysia’s eyes narrowed. She reached out, her hand crackling with electricity, and touched his forehead. A deep probe—invasive, painful, often fatal. It would rip the information from his mind whether he wanted to give it or not.
His body convulsed. His eyes rolled back. Images flashed through the connection—a dark room, a shadowed figure, a bag of gold, a whispered na—
—and then nothing.
His mind was protected. Warded. The mont the probe touched the deepest mories, a failsafe activated. His brain... stopped. He collapsed, dead before he hit the ground.
Elysia stared at the body for a long mont. Then she looked around at the carnage—seven bodies, maybe more, scattered through the shattered forest. Powerful assassins, well-trained, well-equipped, sent by soone with resources and knowledge.
And she had nothing. No na. No face. No trail to follow.
Her golden eyes were cold as she sheathed her sword. The lightning around her faded. The forest returned to darkness.
Soone had tried to kill her. Soone had failed.
She would find them. It might take ti. It might take patience. But she would find them, and when she did, they would learn what it ant to make an enemy of Elysia Raizen.
For now, she walked. Away from the bodies, away from the shattered trees, away from the night of violence.
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