<~> Chapter 312Torien sniffled into my neck a few times before reluctantly pulling away. Once she let go of me, she pulled Mimi into a hug next, which the mimic gdly reciprocated.

  "Have you seen Raya?" Sibyl asked Kal'daeryn worriedly.

  "We got separated the moment we nded, but I believe she's okay," Kal'daeryn answered.

  Some of the tension in Sibyl's shoulders eased, but I could tell she was still anxious. I was a little worried too, but I suspected I was a bit more confident in everyone's survival than Sibyl was.

  Torien sniffled one st time before wiping the rest of the tears from her eyes. "While harried by the banshees and cut off from your magic, we had a rough nding on the isnd. Our groups quickly got separated by the horde of monsters waiting at the pilr's edge. The st time I saw my sister, she was with Silva, so I think she's safe, but I didn't see what happened to any of the others."

  "What happened to the horde?" I asked.

  "Nelly and I found a defensible position, and Kal'daeryn teleported to her side shortly after that. We whittled down the group of monsters that kept coming after us, but it kept pushing us farther and farther away from everyone else. Just as we finished them off, that thing showed up," Torien said while gesturing toward the spot the chimera had been.

  "That means the others might still need help," Sibyl said.

  Torien nodded. "I have no doubt that Morrigan and Silva won't have any trouble with rge groups, but the others might still need help."

  "Can you give us a direction?" I asked.

  "I can point you in the direction we came from, but I have no idea where to look from there," Torien replied. "Once we get closer, we might be able to find signs of where the others went. Should I lead the way?"

  I nodded. "Please."

  "Alright, let's go. Stay close." Torien led us out of the clearing and back into the forest. Her moment of weakness passed, and she had quickly gone back to her usual determined self.

  "Do you think there are more of those chimera monsters around?" Sibyl asked.

  Torien sighed. "I don't know, but it was a bad matchup for us. I basically couldn't hurt it until Lilith showed up and empowered my arrows. There's probably more of the little ones running loose, but I doubt there are many more of the things we fought. The others likely would have an easier time with one of those than we did anyway."

  "Assuming they're together," Sibyl said grimly.

  "We had better hurry then," Kal'daeryn rumbled.

  I gnced back at Nelly, who looked a bit tired, but was still keeping up with us. Out of everyone, she had the least physical stats despite how rge she was. She could use a bit of strength and endurance the next time she had some free points.

  Torien suddenly held up a hand and shushed us. She tilted her head and closed her eyes as her ears swiveled and twitched. "I think Lori might be that way," she said, pointing away from the direction we had been headed. We hurried after her as Torien began to change direction.

  "What makes you think it's her?" I asked.

  Torien chuckled. "I can hear monsters dying, but I can't hear who's doing it."

  Sure enough, we came across her. Lori was sitting high in a tree surrounded by shadow demons. Every now and then, she would teleport to the ground and take a few out before teleporting back to her spot. The moment we got close, the horde turned its attention to us and quickly decided we were the more appealing target than the cat who wouldn't come down from her tree.

  Once they turned on us, I quickly threw up [Light Domain], and our group sughtered the remaining demons in less than a minute. The spell was especially effective against shadow monsters. It slowed them down so much, they looked like they could barely move. Since my domain spell also improved shadow magic, Lori was able to chain her shadowleaps and multiply her effectiveness as well. The demons didn't stand a chance.

  Lori slid her daggers back into her sheathes and leaned heavily against a nearby tree. "I'm gd all of you guys are alright. Thanks for the help, I was going to be stuck there for hours at that rate."

  "Let me help," Nelly said as she cast some rejuvenating magic on her. Lori had been littered with tiny scratches and scrapes, but they were quickly fading with the healing magic. She wasn't a fighter well suited to fighting rge groups, so the best she had been able to do was run and pick off the ones she could.

  "Have you seen any of the others?" Torien asked.

  "I was with Bel and Raya earlier, but we were forced to split up. I drew off as many as I could, but they hadn't found a defensible position the st time I saw them," Lori replied.

  "Can you lead us to where you st saw them?" Sibyl asked.

  Lori nodded. "Yes, this way."

  We continued through the forest for more than a bell. The woods on this isnd were huge and denser than the previous forest had been. Unlike before, we had to be more careful with our steps as the canopy and roots on the ground grew thicker.

  After a while, Lori paused and stopped to look around. "We split up near here, but I don't see any of their tracks."

  Torien's brow furrowed as she helped Lori look around for any signs of their direction.

  After a tense few minutes, Kal'daeryn broke the silence, "I smell burning. That way." She pointed deeper into the trees.

  Lori shook her head. "We can't find any tracks here. Kal'daeryn, will you lead us toward the smell?"

  Kal'daeryn nodded. "Of course. This way."

  Deeper into the forest, we began to spot signs of Raya. Small bonfires of blue fire were burning without spreading to the forest, and inside each one were the corpses of shadow demons. Some had died halfway into the fire pits as if they had crawled into them, rather than being the aftermath of fighting.

  "This has to be Raya, I've never seen anyone else use blue fire like this," Sibyl said.

  "It looks like they lead this way," Torien said, pointing. We followed Torien cautiously for a while until Raya's voice suddenly cut through the silent woods.

  "Stop! Don't move!" Raya yelled the moment our bond reconnected.

  All of us froze in pce, unsure of what was happening, but we trusted the mixture of relief and panicked horror that had rushed into us through the bond.

  Suddenly, a rge portion of the forest we were in disappeared. In front of Torien, who had been leading, was the edge of a rocky chasm with spikes made from huge bramble thorns at the bottom. Torien stumbled backward away from the drop. Just before, there had been the illusion of further blue bonfires that would have led us right into the pit. Raya's illusions were becoming more powerful. Scary.

  From the other side of the chasm, Bel flew over carrying Raya. Once she got to the other side, she dropped Raya off before running over and pulling me into a hug. "I'm so gd you're safe." Despite the confidence Bel had when she was in her true form, the relief coming off of her was palpable. She sagged slightly as her matching body leaned against mine.

  Once Bel pulled back, I could see that Raya and Sibyl were in even worse shape. Both of them were crying now while holding each other tightly. They hadn't said a word to each other yet, just immediately started hugging and crying. This continued for a while until Raya finally pulled away.

  "I thought you might have died! I saw the explosion go off in your face and you fell..." Raya said between sniffles.

  I felt Lori's bond subtly cmp down, and I gnced over in time to see her turn away from the scene, guilt in her eyes. None of the others had noticed her reaction, but I had an idea of what happened.

  I pulled away from Bel before slipping over to Lori and pulling her into a hug too. She stiffened in my arms. I leaned forward and whispered in her ear. "It's not your fault, do not bme yourself."

  "...but," Lori started.

  "No," I said, cutting her off. "We can talk about this ter, but this wasn't your fault." I quickly let her go. Only Bel had caught what happened since the others were still distracted by Raya and Sibyl's reunion.

  Torien cleared her throat. "While all of this is touching, I want to make sure my sister and Silva are safe. They're the only ones we haven't found yet."

  Lori subtly wiped away the tears that had begun to form in her eyes before stepping forward. "I think I saw the direction they went, but we'll have to retrace our steps back to the pce we nded. They were forced in a completely different direction than the rest of us."

  Everyone quickly pulled themselves together, and we were on the move again. Unfortunately, Raya and Bel had pulled us quite a distance from the path we had been on, so it took a while to find our way back. Even once we were back on track, it still took another bell to find the pce where everyone had nded.

  The area was scorched. There were deep gashes in the ground and marks all over from all the magic that was cast here. While Lori looked around for tracks, Torien took a moment to collect as many of the intact arrows as she could find from the destroyed battleground. The only reason things didn't look even worse was because the dungeon monsters rapidly disappeared when killed, and the shadow demons didn't have blood of their own. Otherwise, this pce would look a lot more gruesome from the number of monsters that had to have been killed here.

  "I found a trail and some signs of magic on the nearby trees," Lori called out.

  I gnced up for a moment, worried about the possibility of banshees finding us, but quickly realized that none of them were anywhere near us anymore. The group that had initially attacked us had either all gotten killed, or left once everyone else had entered the forest. I didn't see what happened to them since I was forced to circle around the isnd to stay clear of them after our fall.

  As we went through the forest, we found more and more signs of our two remaining party members, especially Morrigan. Burn marks and deep gashes in the nearby trees made for a pretty easy trail to follow, even to those of us who weren't experienced trackers. We followed the trail for longer than I expected we would, when we finally heard sounds of battle.

  "Distant explosions, that way!" Torien said, pointing.

  We picked up our pace after that and rushed into a clearing where we found Morrigan and Silva fighting another of the shadow chimera monsters we had fought earlier. Just like the st one, it had a goo-covered skeleton with four arms connected to the rotting body of some kind of lizard. This one looked like it was faring much worse than the st one we fought. It was already missing two of its arms and half of its torso. Bck blood was dripping from the numerous deep gashes in the lizard's legs, but it was still standing and trying to get through a barrier of ice.

  "Bel! Nelly! Help!" Morrigan called out.

  We had only taken a moment to take in the scene before we all rushed in. Like before, I quickly threw up [Light Domain] to slow its movements and dashed in to distract it. I channeled [Arms of Light] into my mithril sword and let it grow out to a much longer bde made from pure light magic. Now, my once thin rapier-like weapon grew and appeared more simir to the cursed greatsword I occasionally used. I sshed deep into the lizard's leg and marveled at how cleanly my light magic imbued mithril sword sliced through the monster's leg. The monster reeled back and stumbled after it lost one of its limbs, and that was more than enough time for Torien to collect enough power to wipe this monster out with her charged arrow again.

  The monster squalled as it fell over, broken where the spine had connected the two parts of its body together.

  [Your party has defeated a Shadow Chimera Malcontent][Apprentice Magic Swordsman has increased from level 5 to level 6][Swordsmanship has increased from level 41 to 42][Learned Magic Swordsman Skill Magic Edge]

  [Magic Edge - Rare Magic Swordsman Ability]*Magic is your weapon as much as your sword. This ability grants you the skill to use both at once. Magic Edge allows you to store mana in your bde to speed up casting times when using your sword as a focus, and does extra magic damage when melee attacking with this weapon.

  As nice as this new ability seemed, I dismissed it immediately so I could check on my friends. Morrigan has gotten rid of the ice wall she was using to protect herself, but Silva hadn't gotten up. She was lying in the grass with Bel and Nelly leaning over her.

  "What's wrong?" I asked.

  Nelly frowned and turned to me. "Silva needed emergency healing. She's lost a lot of blood and passed out."

  Bel shook her head. "I think she'll be okay, but she'll need time to rest." She pulled away from Silva's side to show off a huge gaping hole in her light armor that went from her hip all the way up to just below her left breast.

  "If we had been any slower, Silva would have died," Nelly said with a tinge of worry in her voice.

  Saine

  Hello! I'm really sick right now! I was still able to edit this one, but all of my creative energy is completely dead, so next week is going to be lighter on chapters. I'll still post the next Lilith on Wednesday, and the next Umbral Feast on Monday, but that'll probably be it for next week. I feel like crap and forcing myself to bang out a chapter right now seems like a bad idea. Sorry about that!

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