The horde of wendigos stood frozen in place—dozens of pale shapes crouched among the twisted roots and snow-matted undergrowth. Their bodies were angled forward, but their eyes were not on Rin, Lira, or Taro. They stared past them… as though something far greater and far hungrier had stepped into the woods.
Taro felt the hair on his arms rise. Even the wounded girl strapped to his back stirred weakly, shivering in fear.
Rin's grip tightened on his sword. "Why the hell are they looking past us?"
Lira's breath clouded the air as she slowly lowered her stance. "Because something else is coming."
A faint sound broke through the silence—a soft slicing of wind, growing louder and sharper with every passing heartbeat. It wasn't footsteps. It wasn't a roar.
It was speed.
Cutting through the forest like a blade.
The wendigos suddenly tensed, their attention snapping toward the noise. Several crouched low, others snarled, some jittered nervously like cornered animals. Rin nudged Taro subtly. "Whatever that is… we're not stopping it."
Taro gulped and tried not to tremble.
Then a voice ripped through the distance—cold, commanding, steady.
"Duck."
The three immediately dropped, instincts overriding confusion.
The wendigos reacted a second too late.
A streak of amber light—thin, sharp, and impossibly fast—slashed through the clearing. It wasn't a person at first glance, just a ripple in the cold air, a shockwave of energy and motion. And then, within that light, a figure materialized—a woman moving with the fluidity of falling snow and the force of a hurricane.
Her blade traced a crescent arc.
Amber Style — Third Form: Ripple Blizzard.
A violent wave of cutting wind exploded outward, every ripple layered with jagged amber-tinted energy. The blast tore through the horde like they were made of paper. Heads parted from bodies in clean, impossible lines. Blue and red blood sprayed in a mist that froze mid-air.
The hunters had to keep their heads down as the attack roared past them—shredding bark, uprooting snow, slicing deep scars through the ground.
The light faded.
Silence returned.
Bodies hit the ground one by one, thudding softly in the snow. Decapitated. Dead. Every last one of them.
Only then did Rin dare lift his head. Taro stared with his mouth half open, eyes trembling. Lira was the first to rise, but even she took an involuntary step back as she saw the figure standing at the center of the carnage.
A woman—young, but older than them—stood calmly amid the massacre, sheathing her curved blade with effortless grace. She had a black hunter's coat marked with the insignia only the elite were allowed to wear.
Aegis.
Lirael Myrin.
Her amber eyes scanned the three junior hunters… and she looked unimpressed.
"…Brats."
Her voice carried the tired annoyance of someone who'd expected a disaster and found exactly that. She planted a hand on her hip, sighing as she looked at Rin sitting on the ground, Lira steadying her glasses, Taro shaking like he'd seen a demon (which he had), and the blood-soaked, half-dead girl tied to his back.
"…You had one job. Recon. And somehow you're all in worse shape than the corpses."
Rin scowled. "We were outnumbered—"
"Outnumbered?" Lirael raised a brow. "By these?" She flicked her boot against one of the decapitated wendigo bodies. "If these gave you trouble, you shouldn't be out of the academy yet."
Taro could only stare, hypnotized. "S-She… she moved faster than sound…"
"I can still hear you, brat," Lirael said without turning.
Taro clamped his mouth shut.
Lira took a breath, stepped forward, and delivered the situation report as best she could, voice steady.
"We split up after observing the town. Wendigo activity was far higher than reported. Cult involvement suspected. Rin engaged several hostiles, Taro found a survivor from Alpha Squad. We believe Kael—our leader—is still fighting somewhere deeper. And…" she gestured to the unconscious girl on Taro's back, "she's the only survivor we've recovered so far."
Lirael exhaled slowly, her gaze drifting toward the distant treeline.
"Deeper, huh!" she murmured. "So that's where they were heading."
Taro perked up, terrified. "You… you don't think Kael—is—"
"He's alive," Lirael said instantly, not out of comfort, but certainty. "If he wasn't, the wendigos wouldn't be running toward him. High-value prey draws lower ranks like moths."
Rin clenched his fist. "Then we move. Now."
She nodded once. "Another Aegis is already handling the source of the horde. That's why these ones sprinted past you."
Taro blinked. "…Another Aegis? You mean—"
"You'll meet him soon enough," she cut in. "But first—"
She knelt, pulling a compact device from her coat—small, metallic, with a soft blue core. She pressed it against the base of a tree, clicking a sequence of buttons as faint runes lit up.
Rin frowned. "What is that?"
"A wake-up call," she said simply. "This whole area will be swarming again in minutes. We need distance."
She rose, dusted snow from her coat, and started walking.
"We don't have long," she said without looking back. "Get up, brats. We're going to find your leader before something else does."