Vayne was like a lamb that had wandered into a wolf pack. Even now, her expression didn't change—cool, steady eyes sweeping over her surroundings.
They poured in from every direction. The valley rang with ghostlike howls, and the stench of darkness saturated every corner.
In the next moment, the dark creatures encircled Vayne, eyes gleaming with vicious intent, bodies tensed like predators sizing up prey.
Then they lunged—attacking the human who had dared trespass into their territory.
The fight erupted instantly.
Vayne didn't give an inch. She struck back without hesitation, sending every creature that tried to take her life to its grave.
Under the night sky, she felt herself growing stronger. Right now, she was like a hunter moving through the dark—swift, merciless, built for the night.
Her figure wove through the valley with eerie agility. Every blessed silver bolt she fired claimed another life.
She couldn't even be sure whether the mutant demon she'd originally chased was already dead.
But it didn't matter.
Heat rose through her body, pleasure blooming into something almost ecstatic. She felt grateful to it—for leading her here.
Tonight, only one side would survive: these dark creatures, or her.
A bolt punched through the skull of a ranged demon twenty meters away. Vayne's left hand tightened around a dagger infused with blessed silver power, and she spun without hesitation.
The dagger drove straight into the head of a bloodthirst demon that had pounced from behind.
Demonic blood sprayed all over her.
And with that brutal, wet heat splattering across her skin, Vayne felt… satisfied.
In the darkness, her black eyes glinted with an eerie, cold light.
More and more creatures pressed in around her, tightening the ring.
Vayne didn't fear them.
Instead, the corner of her mouth lifted into a frosty smile.
Her cells felt like they were cheering.
She understood it clearly now—she was enjoying this hunt.
Her movements grew smoother. Her killing grew more decisive.
As time passed, the valley became a carpet of corpses.
Dark bodies sprawled everywhere.
Vayne stood over them with her wrist crossbow in hand, looking down with indifferent eyes at the few that still remained.
Then she charged forward on her own, face cold, intent absolute.
She would hunt every last dark creature in this world to extinction.
Yes.
Even if she fought alone, it didn't matter.
Even if… that person was gone, it didn't matter.
Vayne sank her heart into slaughter and refused to think about anything else.
She could feel her stamina draining, but the enemy's losses were just as severe.
That number that had made her scalp prickle at the start—now it had dwindled to only this much.
Then—
Bzzz—!
A dark energy sphere shot in from the distance and slammed into Vayne's back without warning. The darkness detonated instantly.
It felt like a raging beast had smashed into her. Her body flew backward and crashed into a tree.
She spat blood with a violent cough.
She hit the ground hard. When she looked at the blood on the dirt, her vision swam. After forcing herself to focus, she lifted her head toward where the attack had come from.
A figure stepped out slowly.
A mage, around fifty, wrapped in a coarse cloak, holding a staff. Gray-black hair. Pallid face. Darkened eyes.
On the fingers gripping the staff was a ring that looked like it had been carved from bone. The mage was tall, with thick, powerful limbs.
And the demonic aura coiling around her made it obvious.
Vayne knew exactly what she was.
One of the demon's recruits.
A demon priestess.
In an instant, vengeance and fury flooded Vayne's eyes.
She wanted to rush forward right now and force the demon's location out of this priestess's mouth.
Hatred lit a fuse inside her.
Power surged again.
"You reckless intruder," the demon priestess hissed, staring at Vayne with icy contempt. "You will pay a terrible price for trespassing on that great one's domain."
She raised her staff again. Darkness gathered along its length.
Vayne bared her teeth and fired a blessed silver bolt.
The shot interrupted the priestess's casting.
Vayne forced herself upright through the agony ripping through her body.
Compared to the hatred drilling into her bones, this pain meant nothing.
This time, she forgot Frey's warning.
Revenge could make her stronger—but in battle, she could never let revenge take control of her emotions.
Her eyes burned like wildfire.
She wasn't calm anymore.
This was the closest she'd been in two years—closest she'd ever been—to that demon.
Closest she'd ever been to the monster that had murdered her family.
With that thought, Vayne stopped caring about anything else.
Blessed silver bolts poured out of her crossbow in a frenzy, each shot packed with the hate and rage in her heart.
Arrows shrieked through the valley, one after another, carving the night.
The demon priestess chanted continuously. Dark enchantments wrapped around her body, granting her speed and strength beyond any normal human.
She danced around Vayne through the valley, commanding her minions to swarm the intruder at the same time.
Vayne was attacked from multiple sides.
She clenched her jaw, twisted her aim, and fired again and again.
In only a few seconds, the dark creatures collapsed under her bolts.
One by one, the minions died.
The demon priestess didn't react at all.
Instead, she stared at Vayne—at this human who was far stronger than expected—and hunger gleamed in her eyes.
"You'd make a fine sacrifice."
She licked her blackened lips, gaze greedy.
This intruder had quality. If she could capture her, she could offer her to that great one.
Surely the great one would be pleased.
With that thought, she lifted her staff again, beginning another chant.
Powerful dark spells burst out in streaks, surging toward Vayne in a relentless wave.
Vayne answered by firing and firing, weaving through the valley, dodging spell impacts by inches.
But under her near-constant barrage, her bolts ran out fast.
At the same time, the surrounding dark creatures had all been slaughtered. Corpses littered the valley floor, blessed silver bolts jutting from their bodies.
Only the demon priestess remained.
Vayne shifted her grip, dagger in her right hand now, staring at the priestess with cold eyes.
Then she charged.
The demon priestess's mouth curved into a sneer. She didn't dodge—she swung her staff, the air howling under the strike.
In close combat, after only a few exchanges, Vayne was smashed away.
She flew ten meters and hit the ground, rolling several times—messy, brutal.
The earlier dark spell ambush had left her fighting while injured, and she'd already burned through a long, exhausting battle before this.
Now she was nowhere near peak condition.
And she was no match for a demon priestess at full strength.
Pain pinned her to the ground. Her vision blurred. Blood filled her mouth with a metallic stench.
"You killed so many of my minions," the priestess said calmly, strolling toward her. "Trading your life for theirs isn't unfair, is it?"
Vayne lifted her head. Hatred still burned, but now it was laced with unwillingness.
She only blamed herself for being too weak.
If she hadn't been careless at the start, the ambush wouldn't have succeeded.
If she'd conserved her bolts afterward, she wouldn't be lying here now, watching her enemy approach with nothing she could do.
In the face of hatred, she had thrown her teacher's warning out of her mind.
Would she die?
Strangely, Vayne wasn't afraid of death anymore.
The night her parents died two years ago, her heart had died with them.
These two years, she'd felt like a walking corpse powered only by revenge.
And now she'd become a joke.
A pathetic, self-important fool—unable to even take revenge.
Hatred flooded her chest and spread through her limbs, but she didn't even have the strength left to clench a fist.
She didn't understand.
Why had her life become this?
She hadn't done anything wrong—so why was the world so determined to destroy her?
She was so tired.
These two years… she was so tired.
The demon priestess was close now. Watching Vayne's hand fall limp, she smiled in pleasure.
"Giving up? Don't worry. I won't kill you so easily."
A corpse was worthless to that great one.
A sacrifice of this quality had to be preserved—kept intact until the great one came to taste it.
"Stay away from her!"
A voice cut through the night.
An arrow streaked in at the same time.
The demon priestess sensed danger the instant the shot was loosed. Without hesitation, she darted backward.
Her eyes snapped toward the source.
An accomplice?
Frey stepped out of the shadows, wrist crossbow leveled at the demon priestess.
"Interesting…" The priestess's expression turned curious, almost delighted. "I smell a similar kind on you."
Two bolts answered her.
The demon priestess swung her staff and knocked them aside.
In that instant, Frey reached Vayne. Seeing her battered and bleeding, tenderness and pain flickered in Frey's eyes.
Vayne, hearing that familiar voice, forced her head up. Through her blurred sight, she saw a face.
Her lips moved.
No sound came out.
"So you came to save her." The demon priestess sized Frey up and fired a dark energy sphere.
Frey scooped Vayne up and dodged, then carried her to a spot farther away and set her down.
When Frey turned back, her expression and eyes had gone ice-cold. Fury poured off her like flame, making her mood unmistakable.
Then she reached behind her and drew the Icebone Blade.
Without a single extra word, she charged.
The demon priestess chanted steadily, and waves of dark spells fired from her staff, swallowing Frey's approach.
In the next moment, the Icebone Blade cleaved down through the darkness.
The demon priestess raised her staff to block. Both arms trembled—proof their strength was locked in a dead-even contest.
Frey forced power through her whole body, pressed forward, then lifted the Icebone Blade and hacked down again.
The priestess slipped aside. Her staff moved like a melee weapon, whipping toward Frey.
Her body had been strengthened by dark magic. In raw physicality, she matched Frey the demon hunter—and even edged her out.
Dozens of exchanges later, Frey took heavy hits. The staff's impacts drove her back again and again, and she was clearly being suppressed.
The demon priestess's eyes grew arrogant.
"What? Still not going to use your real power?"
Frey kept her face cold and said nothing. Even while being crushed back, she still refused to draw on dark energy.
She didn't want to use that power in front of Vayne.
She didn't want to show the child her true, ugly self.
"Following darkness is our nature," the priestess sneered, seeing through it. She swung hard, knocking the Icebone Blade aside while continuing to mock her. "How can someone like you exist—some idiot who abandons darkness?"
Then she lifted her staff, preparing the killing blow.
"You can't change her fate. She'll still become a sacrifice. Too bad, though—our great one isn't interested in a soul polluted like yours."
The staff came down—
And in that instant, she saw something in Frey's eyes.
Fury, hotter than ever.
Then a violent power erupted from Frey's body.
"I won't let anyone control her fate ever again!"
Frey roared.
Her body surged larger in an instant. Her face reshaped at a visible speed into something else entirely—
A savage, brutal beast with murderous eyes and a mouth full of fangs.
A rare giant wolf of Freljord, its coat a striking blue—beautiful, and yet unable to hide the feral violence rolling off it.
The moment the transformation completed, the giant wolf snapped its jaws shut.
The demon priestess's left arm was bitten clean off.
The priestess's eyes went wide in horror, pain exploding through her. She screamed,
"You're a shapesh—"
She didn't finish.
The next second, Frey slammed her to the ground, and under that berserk strength, tore her in half.
The blood stench turned the giant wolf's eyes a frightening crimson.
Vayne had recovered enough to see clearly now.
When she saw Frey in that wolf form, her face went blank.
The savage aura radiating from Frey felt unbearably unfamiliar.
The giant wolf turned its head, blood dripping from its jaws, and looked at her with that red stare.
Under that gaze, an icy chill rose from Vayne's spine.
Then, within the wolf's eyes, there appeared apology—guilt.
Her form began to shrink, pulling back into a human shape.
The emotion in her eyes now was nothing like the beast's murderous frenzy from moments before.
"This is my real form," Frey said softly. She hesitated, then continued, "I know you can't accept me like this…"
Vayne's expression stalled.
"So I came to say goodbye one last time," Frey said, voice steady but fragile. "After sunrise, I'll return to Freljord."
As she spoke, hope rose in her eyes.
She was waiting for Vayne to speak.
To ask her to stay—even once.
But Vayne didn't.
Silence stretched.
Vayne's mind replayed the image of that giant wolf again and again, emotions tangled until she couldn't separate them.
Her thoughts were a mess.
She didn't know what she was supposed to say.
Seeing Vayne remain silent, Frey seemed to understand her choice. A bitter smile appeared—and then faded into acceptance.
Maybe in the days ahead, it would be better if she never appeared again.
"I'll treat your wounds, then I'll go," Frey said, walking toward Vayne and reaching for medicine and bandages.
Just before she reached her—
Boom!
A spike of earth erupted from the ground.
It punched straight through Frey's body.
Blood sprayed—some of it splattering across Vayne's face.
Frey's eyes went wide in shock.
Vayne froze.
Her expression emptied out completely.
In that moment, it felt like her heart cracked open.
All sound in her world vanished.
She watched Frey's body pinned on the earth spike. Blood poured from the wound in her abdomen, flowing without end.
Life drained from Frey's eyes at a terrifying speed.
And yet her gaze stayed on Vayne—head lowered, eyes full of guilt.
It hurt.
It hurt so much.
Vayne felt as if that same spike had pierced her own heart.
The pain was so intense she couldn't breathe.
Her world collapsed.
And then, from the deepest part of her chest, something strange surged up—like invisible hands tugging on her nerves, pressing down on her emotions, forcing them flat.
Voices seemed to rise in her ears, over and over, telling her there was no need to feel sad.
Loud.
So loud.
Vayne felt like her head was going to explode.
She squeezed her eyes shut, clamped her hands over her ears—
But the voices didn't stop.
They only grew louder.
So loud she didn't even notice the figure approaching in the distance.
From the shadows, another demon priestess stepped out.
Her staff glimmered with an eerie black sheen, and a cruel smile hung on her lips.
Looking at the corpse of the priestess who'd been torn in half, she sneered openly.
"What trash. Someone as weak as you, alive or dead, would only disappoint our great one."
Then she turned her smile toward the others.
Good thing she'd stayed hidden from the beginning.
That shapeshifter's transformed strength…
Even she might not have been able to win against it.
But now?
Now it was different.
Impaled like that, even if Frey wanted to transform, she couldn't.
"Now, all the credit is mine."
Her eyes filled with triumph. Excitement surged through her as she imagined offering this sacrifice to that great one—and what kind of reward she would receive in return.
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