The fire-blade storm had already begun to drag several Raffblooms into its swirling core. Possessing light frames and devoid of any plate or mail to anchor them, the flora demons were easily claimed by the gale.
In this moment of dire extremity, human intellect prevailed; the warriors crouched low, grounding themselves against the tempest's pull to avoid being swept into the whirlwind.
[Thud-crunch!]
"OORAH!!!"
Consequently, the path before the three hundred lay open. Myre and his shield-bearers slammed their bulwarks forward with violent force, while mageia-tempered spears lanced out to rend any Flora Demon bold enough to obstruct them. Each coordinated strike was punctuated by a guttural war-cry. The vanguard surged ahead, not once daring to glance back at the chaos left in their wake.
[Thud-thud-thud-thud!]
Spearmen, archers, magis, and healers alike surged in the wake of the shield-bearers, clinging to the vanguard like desperate wraiths. No soul held back; they spent their remaining mana and martial prowess with reckless abandon, loosing mageia-fused arrows to pierce the floral demons' maws. It was a final, frantic defiance against the dying of the light.
The company of three hundred bolted through the corridor of fire. Every footfall met earth that was already alight with orange-red embers, hemmed in by towering palisades of flame.
[ROAR!]
Mere heartbeats later, the fiery walls roared behind them, seeking to swallow the stragglers. The conflagration howled with demonic malice, as if the inferno itself refused to grant these humans their reprieve!
Yet, their desperate sprint bore fruit. The hunters breached the threshold, surging clear of the trap before the walls of flame could snap shut.
Along that searing path, not a single Raffbloom possessed the strength to anchor them. Though the creatures threw themselves into the breach to obstruct the flight, they were hewn down by the collective fury of the three hundred.
Myre's contingent continued their flight even as the heat of the firestorm faded behind them. They ran as if intent on leaving the Darkwood entirely, their hearts thundering in their chests with the raw, jolting rhythm of a life reclaimed.
In truth, Myre and Harbert yearned to come face-to-face with the magis, Seraph—yet that desire was eclipsed by a far more visceral loathing for the Raffbloom swarms.
They cast one final glance over their shoulders, offering silent orisons that the magis would eventually find them. If not, they vowed to scour the woods until they located the man who had plucked them from the pyre.
When Seraph witnessed the company breach the walls of flame and emerge from the infernal theatre, a long-suppressed breath escaped his lungs.
As his mageia power had burgeoned, he had begun to discern that the natural particles possessed a will of their own; each elemental essence bore a temperament as distinct as it was volatile.
The ventus particles were inherently mischievous, fickle and ever-shifting. Conversely, the flamus particles were defined by a feral aggression. While the wind was difficult to master due to its caprice, the flame was challenging because it was defiant—a stubborn, belligerent force that bristled against command.
For this reason, Seraph's ventus mageia seldom spiralled beyond his intent. His flamus spells, however, were prone to slip their leashes, ready to devour everything in their wake should his focus falter for even a heartbeat.
Though the young magis's fire-blade storm hungered to consume the entire swarm, the Raffblooms proved no easy quarry.
They lacked a primal understanding of fire, yet they were far from vacuous; they scrambled to distance themselves from the heat with desperate resolve. Where the flames possessed only hunger, the demons possessed a hive-mind intellect.
Those ensnared within the fiery ramparts coalesced into a massive, living tunnel. They sacrificed their own bodies to forge a two-metre passage, allowing those trapped in the heart of the conflagration to slip through the gaps. In doing so, the demons forming the structure essentially offered themselves as martyrs to the pyre.
While two thousand Raffblooms were instantly reduced to ash within the storm, an equal number successfully navigated the fiery gauntlet or burrowed deep into the earth to evade the heat.
The high-pitched shrieks of nearly ten thousand Raffblooms erupted from the forest's heart. They hoisted their thorny vines and blade-leaves toward the heavens, a cacophony of sound that resonated like a cry of defiant derision.
Beyond the flaming ramparts, thousands more Raffblooms converged upon the forest's heart in a relentless tide. Their diminutive feet might have appeared droll, yet there was nothing but malice in their serrated jaws and blade-leaves. The display of human mageia had failed to incite dread; instead, they threw themselves toward the heat like moths drawn to a funeral pyre.
But the conflagration these remaining Raffblooms sought was not the fire-blade storm—it was the man who had dared to butcher their kin. Fortunate it was that they possessed no eyes, for had they the sight, they might have woven a demonic curse to ensure his demise was far more wretched than their own.
Demons were a malevolent lineage, devoid of the fear of death; they feared only the failure to slaughter their quarry before their own life-threads were severed.
The surrounding timber was now choked by a vast surge of flora demons. Seraph had not anticipated such a frantic escalation, watching as tens of thousands began to exert a suffocating pressure from every flank.
Suddenly, a massive silhouette—a Raffbloom of clay-red hue with the stature of a warrior—charged toward him with staggering velocity. It leaped high above the canopy, brandishing twin longswords of hardened leaf-matter, swinging for the human's throat with such force the wind whistled. A stench of rot preceded the strike.
"A new breed!" Seraph exclaimed.
He discerned several Razorleaf entities approaching from the distance; he had no intention of standing idle to await his end.
The young man surged backward with the grace of a gliding avian. As his mageia power continued to evolve, though true flight remained beyond his current rank, brief intervals of aerial gliding had long ceased to be a burden for him.
While gliding in retreat, the young magis leveled his Sceptre forward! Brilliant rays of mageia scintillated from the Rubyflame Sceptre.
"Flamus Nova!" Seraph cast with urgent haste.
In a fraction of a second, a small but violent ring of fire surged outward from his frame. The concussive force struck the five Razorleaf entities, hurling them backward. The meter-long green blades of his five assailants had brushed past the human's eyes, missing by mere motes of dust.
The flare from his Nova mageia afforded him a stark, clear glimpse of the Razorleaf breed.
The Razorleaf was a warrior-variant of the Blood Flora, serving as the formidable vanguard of the demon swarm. It stood nearly twice the height of a human—towering over the standard Raffbloom—possessing a physique that was both brawny and resilient.
Like its kin, the Razorleaf possessed three pairs of insectoid limbs. However, the upper appendages that were once thorny vines had evolved into massive, gore-coloured blades. Its two rear pairs served as legs for a bipedal stance, while its head was slender and ovoid, hued in a clay-red shade. Such an anatomy granted it exceptional celerity in close-quarters combat.