Shelika tensed first, a chill rippling in her chest, then she moved to watch the flow of battle like reading wind through pines.

Not far off, Rex suddenly shouted toward her, his voice cutting like a thrown stone across water. “Shelika, look out!”

Her heart kicked, then her head snapped up; her gaze slid from the two packs of phantasmal beasts below to the source of the cry, like a hawk tracking a flare.

She saw the human knight locked with Rex raise his hammer, a swelling sphere of Battle Aura condensing at its tip, bright as a miniature sun.

She couldn’t tell if he aimed for her; dread pooled cold as rain in her gut, and she veered away like a swallow leaving a branch.

She spread her wings to leap from one giant tree to another, shadow skimming bark like night over a river.

The aura sphere hardened; the knight swung his great hammer like a baseball batter under storm lights and sent the shot screaming at Shelika.

Boom—like thunder under leaves—the glowing bolt smashed into the giant trunk and burst into a savage flower of flame.

On Rex’s warning, Shelika slipped clear, breath sharp as frost; she kept far from the blast center, raised a shield against the physical shock, and alit on another massive tree.

Perched steady, unease pricked first, then the thought came: Was he targeting me?

No—she cooled her pulse, then rechecked the field, eyes moving like lanterns in fog.

The two Sky Rank Knights clashed and clinched, then broke apart to trade aura shots across shredded air, like duelists flicking sparks in a gale.

That last shot wasn’t for Shelika; it was a stray, a wild current in a storm, and she’d stood unlucky at its fall.

Their Sky Rank fight was feral and lawless, a tempest without a map.

Raging torrents of Battle Aura tore the scene again and again, widening a once basketball-court clearing into a whole soccer field, the ground pocked with craters like meteor strikes.

“So this is a battle between Sky Rank Knights…” Shelika drew a cold breath, awe and fear braiding like mist and steel.

Even as she sighed, another aura sphere arced in from their direction, a comet trailing heat.

No warning came from Rex this time; Shelika felt the aura ripple like a pressure wave and jolted to react.

“Tch!” She flung herself aside, but awkwardly; the blast-wind from the orb slamming a giant trunk caught her and slapped her from midair.

Her shield flashed up just in time, a shell of force like glass over water; she took no wound, only the bite of the shock.

Her wings hummed with numbness, a sleep-tingle like frostbite; short-term, the feathers wouldn’t beat.

She steadied her posture in the air like a falling leaf finding a path, then made an emergency landing.

Luck soured; she dropped right between the lionwolf pack and the Malison Serpents, surrounded, enemies front and back like jaws closing.

A fresh, living prey had stepped in; numbers gave the lionwolves boldness, and their side moved first, eyes gleaming like coals.

Lionwolf hunting had clean divisions: females hunted; males, including the alpha, commanded and met stronger foes like shields of flesh.

Her arrival snapped their standoff stupor like ice under a boot; clarity flashed, and the pack knew the shape of this fight.

Six males, alpha among them, lunged at the two Malison Serpents, tangling the giants to draw their gaze; ten females flowed to encircle Shelika like a noose of fur.

They prowled a full minute, hungry eyes tight as bowstrings, then two lionwolf females sprang at Shelika, fangs bared like knives.

Shelika didn’t rattle; confidence rose first, then action followed. She’d done her homework and knew they’d target her.

Those two charged straight into her mouth of the trap; her plan opened like a snare under leaves.

As they were about to slam her, the prepared spell fired—quiet groundwork sprouting into violent life.

On landing, she’d set a Tier-4 Earthwood Art: Frenzy Vines. Now, the spell took root and roared.

Vines with aberrant vitality burst from the soil like green serpents, wild and fast.

They wrapped the two lionwolves tight, binding muscle and limb, and hoisted them to a low hang like game snared on hooks.

“Awooo—!” They struggled and failed, their howls sharp as horns, a plea cast to the pack.

Eight remaining lionwolves closed in, paws thudding like drums, trying to pry and bite them free.

Shelika wouldn’t allow it; resolve tightened first, then her body moved like a drawn arrow.

Less than two seconds after the bind, she flew in close, a red streak over churned dirt.

She gripped True Crimson Whirl, then drove the blade into a lionwolf’s belly, clean and cruel as a winter strike.

True Crimson Whirl held a spell core—Dragon Heart—that turned mana into muscle when ignited, fire into force.

While it burned, more mana meant more power, like a river fed by storms.

Shelika bore Spell Level Lv.13, the deep reservoir of a high-tier mage, vast as an old forest’s roots.

In that instant, she wielded strength no less than an Earth Rank Knight; her thrust came razor-fierce, a spear of dawn.

Steel went in silver, came out crimson; blood fountained like a spring in thaw, and the lionwolf died on the spot.

Start to finish took under twenty seconds; she cut one down clean, like slicing through silk.

She turned to finish the second bound lionwolf the same way, but caution pricked too late—she’d underestimated them.

Lionwolves were phantasmal beasts; phantasmal beasts bent malison, that wild natural mana, like wind herding smoke.

So every phantasmal beast could cast a Confounding Veil, a haze that meddled with the air’s mana rather than blocking spells.

It warped ranged trajectories or dulled ongoing effects, making enemy magic miss or sputter out like wet sparks.

It didn’t just shave spells; it seeped into foes and scrambled senses, a vertigo fog especially cruel to mages.

That’s why phantasmal beasts were mage-killers, thorns in their craft.

Shelika lifted her blade to cut, but the lionwolf flared its veil; thick malison surged from its body like black steam.

Under that influence, her vines shriveled fast, green turning to husk like leaves in drought; Shelika herself staggered under the wave.

Her senses spun wrong; the world tilted like a boat in squall, and she toppled to the ground, dizzy and skewed.

Seeing their prey lose motion, several lionwolves lunged, bodies low like arrows, jaws ready to close.

Death loomed cold as ice—and then the unexpected struck like lightning on a clear day.

One Malison Serpent, tangled with the lionwolf males, suddenly switched targets, purpose snapping like a whip.

The great python coiled and slid, dragging its mass with impossible speed, sweeping in behind the lionwolf females like a storm current.

It closed, then lashed a titanic tail, an arc wide as a scythe under moonlight.

Phantasmal reflexes were quick, nerves wired like taut strings, but the serpent’s reach was vast; one unlucky lionwolf failed to slip the line and got smashed down.

Before it could rise, the serpent’s blood-red maw yawned and swallowed it whole, a brutal gulp like night closing.

Shelika stood within arm’s reach of that swallow, heat and stench whipping past; the Malison Serpent didn’t even glance at her, eyes cold as stone.

It was plain—a monster of that size disdained humanoid prey, like a tiger ignoring sparrows.

Realization flashed bright; fear faded, then a bold idea took root in her mind like a spark on tinder.

If she couldn’t beat lionwolves head-on, she’d gamble—bet big on storm and fang.

Just then, the veil’s fog peeled off her senses, and after a few minutes her wings tingled back to life like thawing hands.

Shelika sprang and alit on the Malison Serpent’s head, a red figure perched like a blossom on a moving boulder.

She laughed lightly, voice drifting down like a bell in mist. “Come catch me, boys~~”