“To keep the beasts out, per the lord’s order, we’ve cast a net of sentries up ahead!” The Daemon Knight spoke and pointed, his arm cutting the air like a spear.

Shelika followed his gesture, her gaze sliding like a hawk’s over treetops.

Sure enough, not far ahead, soldiers were pitching tents that sprouted like mushrooms after rain.

Beast corpses and broken remains lay around like toppled logs, while resting soldiers burnished blades by campfires that winked like scattered stars.

The patrolmen moved tight‑strung, swords in hand and bows drawn, eyes flitting like sparrows in a storm.

As the knight warned, if she walked in as she was, the night forest would paint her as a shadow‑beast, and arrows would fall like cold rain.

“Understood? Then turn around!” the Daemon Knight snapped, his voice cracking like a whip.

Shelika had nothing to say, the reply dying like sparks smothered by ash.

So as not to hinder their work, she turned away, drew a map from her pack like unfolding a wing, and searched for another nearby harvest site.

“Kakalit Village Ruins.” She found it quickly, a place other hunters had mentioned at noon, a new tainted zone like a fresh bruise on the land.

“Let’s go.” With the target fixed, she steadied herself like a reed in wind, turned, and set off.

After half an hour of walking and short flights, Shelika reached the Kakalit ruins, her shadow skimming the ground like a passing cloud.

Half a year ago it was a living village, and now it lay a beast‑choked ruin, like a hive left to wasps.

“So this is it.” She stared at buildings still intact yet wholly occupied, a strange enclave like a shell filled with ants.

A quick check against the map and the soil told her she was right, like tracks matching a hunter’s sketch, so she stepped in.

The moment her foot touched the lane, a “grand” welcome rolled out like drums, loud and sudden.

Howls, roars, and low growls swelled like thunder stacking in a black sky.

A mass of C‑class beasts closed in, eyes gleaming like knives in torchlight.

Slaver pooled at their jaws like spilled wax; they ached to swallow the delivered prey in the very next heartbeat.

“Heh.” Shelika tossed a mocking smile at the ones rushing in, crouched, and snapped her wings wide like a crimson fan.

The gust shoved the pack back like reeds in a gale, and she rode the air up in one smooth surge like a kite finding wind.

Seeing prey slip free, the pack yapped helplessly below, voices banging at the earth like chained dogs.

Hanging above them, Shelika summoned dozens of Vanguard drones, a flock of steel swallows uncoiling from the night.

“Vanguard, tear them apart for me.” Her order fell like frost across the field.

On command, the swarm swept in like a rush of bats, split mid‑air, locked targets, and opened fire like sudden hail.

A sharp keening stitched the air, and beast screams burst one after another like glass cracking under heat.

Streets and walls took the brunt, faces of stone scoured by a rain of fire like a downpour carving clay.

In less than three minutes, the pack lay mostly dead, lives snuffed like candles in a draft.

“Pathetic.” Compared to the beast tides she’d met when she first entered the Dark Spirit Empire—C‑class swarms meshing with hulking A‑class—these wolfish packs fell like straw.

After savoring the win like a sip of hot tea, she reminded herself, “All right, time to find Evil Barrier Crystals.”

“Archers, use your eyes.” She dropped to earth, left the remaining Vanguards on watch like hawks on thermals, then summoned two Archers and set them to seek the crystals.

The two iron spiders scuttled off with alarming vigor, slipping into buildings and combing rooms like a rolling carpet.

They spooked other beasts, which bolted like startled deer, only to be spotted by the watch above and cut down like weeds.

Soon the ruin, about the size of a soccer field, fell quiet, with only drone hum lingering like gnats over water.

“Is this all…” Shelika eyed the Evil Barrier Crystals laid out at her feet, their dull glow like river pebbles, and felt unsatisfied.

They were many, but smaller and dimmer than the cave haul, like stars paling before dawn.

If the cave crystals were A‑grade, these from Kakalit were only B‑grade, maybe even C‑grade, like second‑cut ore.

“Fine. Better than nothing.” She soothed herself, the words soft as a hand over rough bark.

She dismissed the extra drones like smoke thinning and packed the crystals away like seeds in a pouch.

Finding nothing else worth coin, she turned to leave, her steps falling like prints beside her own.

She walked out of the ruins and retraced her path like following a thread through a maze.

“This run’s maybe worth four hundred rupees…” she muttered, price tags ticking in her head like cold rain.

A cry for help ripped from the trees, a ripped banner flapping in the dark.

“Help, help!” a panicked male voice rang, with a weak fireglow flickering like a firefly to mark the spot, so she went.

Sure enough, two Earthborn youths were hemmed in by several beasts, a ring of fangs like a thorn crown.

Honestly, these were far too weak for her; no need for Vanguards when iron would do, and she flared Blood Armament, birthing several long spears like thorns.

Catching them off‑guard, she nailed the beasts to trunks, wood shaking like drums, and the forest fell still.

Even so, C‑class beasts threaten common folk like floodwater cresting a low bank.

Fresh from death’s jaw, the two young men bowed and babbled thanks, “Thank you, thank you, honored mage of the Blood Clan!”

“It was nothing,” she said, her voice cool as moonlight, then asked, “What are you doing out here?”

“We’re from Kakalit,” one blurted, words tumbling like loose stones. “We fled too fast and left valuables. We came back to fetch them, and ran into beasts…”

“If not for you, we’d be dead!” the other added, gratitude spilling like a brimming cup.

“Back for belongings in the middle of the night?” Shelika’s brows drew like two strokes of ink.

“Yeah. By day the beasts go berserk, so we travel at night,” they said, as if it were rain being wet.

“Right.” She remembered how, in the Dark Spirit Empire under the Earth Mother’s sway, many beasts grow mild by night and manic by day, the mirror of Nordland Continent.

After a moment, seeing one of them injured, she asked, “Can you make it back on your own?” Her concern moved like a hand steadying a lantern.

“N‑no problem!” he puffed, bravado thin as paper in wind.

“If it’s not far, I’ll see you home,” she said, the offer simple as a straight path.

“Much obliged!” One bowed low, and the other thanked her again, their relief blooming like dawn.

They took a roundabout way, and she escorted them to their new village, lights freckling the dark like embers.

Around Oriel City, many such settlements dotted the land like islands in a black sea.

To ward off beasts, torches burned at the gate and beast‑repelling things were set out like thorn hedges.

Many waited inside; a venerable elder came forth and scolded the pair, his words pecking like crows. “I told you not to risk it, yet you did!”

He was the village chief, and he soon noticed Shelika, his gaze settling like a stone in a pond.

“And this lady is?” he asked, voice careful as he weighed a blade.

“Our savior,” one said. “A powerful mage,” the other added, their voices bright as bells.

Respect filled the villagers’ eyes like sunrise washing a ridge.

The chief stepped before Shelika and bowed low, his spine bending like a willow.

“Thank you, honored mage. Otherwise, we’d have lost two more strong men,” he said, words heavy as wet earth.

When he straightened, Shelika tasted the air of the place, glanced around like a watchful crane, and asked, “From what you say, many have died to beasts?”

“As you say,” the chief answered, lids lowering like shutters. “Just two days ago, Roget was bitten to death by a beast that barged in while he worked by day.”

He shut his eyes in grief, and heads dipped around him like grain in wind; a woman’s soft sobbing pattered like rain behind leaves.

“Is this common?” Shelika asked, her voice low as a stream under ice.

“Once, by the Earth Mother’s grace, beasts seldom struck first,” the chief lamented, words dragging like a plow. “Since the ‘divine favor’ fell, they’ve turned unruly—mad by day, crazed by night—attacking everywhere. Folks fear to work, but without work, there’s no rice in the pot.”

“These two risked it with their backs to the wall,” he added. “Please forgive them,” his plea spreading like open hands.

Shelika listened and thought a beat, the pause calm as a held breath. “I won’t blame them,” she said, the answer simple as a nod.

Knowing she couldn’t do much more and disliking empty fuss, she offered a parting like a leaf on the stream. “Take care, all of you.”

“Wait,” the chief called, stopping her like a hand on a sleeve, and he held something out.

“What’s this?” Shelika took it—a finely styled longsword—then noticed the blade was segmented, piece linked to piece like vertebrae.

She whipped it through the air; with the swing, the blade snapped long like a steel whip, then recoiled and nested like a snake.

No doubt, it was a soft sword, a chain‑sword, pretty as fireworks and about as practical in a brawl.

As she weighed simply selling it like a trinket, she spotted sockets in the hilt for spell cores—one on each face—two empty wells like eyes without gems.

“So, an arcane implement?” Shelika asked, her thumb brushing the socket like dusting a relic.

“Yes,” the chief said, nodding and pointing at the bare slots. “It had spell cores once. Times were hard, so we sold them for coin,” his voice rough as old rope.

“I see…” Shelika understood their hardship, sympathy folding over her like a cloak.

“Does it have a name?” she asked. “Named artifacts should have names,” the words ringing like a bell.

With two cores, it must have been a proper named piece, like the Sirius Sword shimmering in memory like a fallen star.

“It does,” the aged chief said, steadying himself, then, with sudden vigor like a gust through reeds, declared, “Explosive True Crimson Whirl.”

It was a gloriously over‑the‑top name, tossed out as straight as an arrow.