None of them waited for an explanation. The tone of his voice was enough to stir the survival instincts in everyone's bodies.
In a single moment, the masked ones raised their hands to their heads, while the others began to retreat, stepping back with tense and rapid steps.
As for the commander, he stood firm like the mountains, then drove his sword into the ground with force, whispering in a low voice that carried an undeniable authority:
"Sharnak's Sacred Barrier."
The sword lit up with a dazzling white light, from which threads of light surged like holy winds, intertwining in the air to form a thick barrier of glowing silver light, rising suddenly like a wall between the squad and the white demonic beasts with weapons.
As soon as the barrier was complete, the horrific soundwaves from the giant beast's roar swept through the area like an invisible hurricane.
The sound crashed into the barrier.
A violent explosion rang out, the ground cracked beneath the commander's feet, and the nearby trees bent as if in submission. The barrier trembled under the force of the attack, rippling like a pond struck by a massive rock, but the white light held firm.
Behind the barrier, some fell to the ground despite the protection, others began to bleed from their noses or mouths.
The commander pressed his lips together, his hand tightly gripping the hilt of the embedded sword, then whispered without turning:
"Retreat quickly. Don't look back."
There was no need for a command to move — their survival instincts were already pushing them. They quickly pulled themselves together, for in the end, they were no ordinary people. They moved like tigers, with the precision of trained soldiers, retreating through the trees as if melting into the forest.
The commander remained standing alone behind the barrier, watching the beasts approach slowly, showing no haste — as if they knew that time was on their side.
The sound of the ground being crushed beneath their feet narrowed the commander's eyes, but he did not move.
The massive white beast suddenly raised its head and let out a low growl not directed at the white-haired commander, but toward something beyond the forest.
The rest of the beasts followed, ceasing their advance and beginning to growl as well… Then, without warning, they turned and slowly withdrew, re-entering the trees, leaving behind a trail of destruction and a suffocating aura of silence.
The commander kept staring into the shadows that swallowed them, until they vanished completely.
Then he pulled the sword from the ground, and the barrier gradually faded until it disappeared, as if it had never existed.
They were all second-rank demonic beasts.
He smiled faintly behind the mask, finding the matter intriguing. Second-rank demonic beasts retreating in such a strange manner…
But the commander's smile did not last. He turned slowly, and with incredible speed, shot off in the direction where his subordinates had disappeared, tearing through the forest like a gray bullet, seen only by the gust of wind he left behind.
---
In the forest, a short distance away, the masked ones were running swiftly, led by the immortal twins, their bodies gliding between the trees with lethal grace. Their steps made no sound, but the air around them trembled from the aura that was still fading behind them.
Behind the masked ones was Alex Loreni, running in silence, his breathing steady despite the fatigue, his eyes fixed on the path ahead. He wasn't afraid he was observing with caution.
The short twin whispered without turning:
"Do you feel it? It's a strong aura."
The tall one responded, his voice low like a whistle through the trees:
"Yes... something's moving behind us, but I don't think it's one of the demonic beasts."
Alex finally spoke, his voice steady despite the sprint:
"It's the commander."
A short silence fell over the group, then the short twin said with a half-mocking smile:
"As expected from a noble of House Loreni."
Suddenly, the air around them stopped, and they all halted at once as if an invisible force had ordered them to stop.
Then, in a gray flash, the commander appeared before them. He made no sound upon arrival his mere presence was enough to make the darkness recede slightly, as if his existence enforced law upon the place.
He looked at them all, then said:
"Change direction. We're not retreating yet."
One twin raised an eyebrow, while a hint of surprise appeared on the other's face.
The commander continued with a decisive tone:
"We're going back to the previous location where we found the hunters. The Rabbit should've caught the runaway huntress."
They moved again, but at a slower pace. Silence reigned for a few minutes at first, before the short twin broke it with a low voice:
"The demonic beasts… why did they suddenly retreat?"
His tall brother replied after a moment of thought:
"Maybe we crossed into their territory unknowingly, and when we pulled back, they returned to their dens. Their behavior isn't entirely unnatural... but it is concerning."
Alex Loreni slightly shook his head:
"Or maybe they were following something else. Something more important than us."
The short twin replied with a faint sigh:
"Hah, just don't overthink. We're in the Forest of the Greats things like this should've been expected."
Alex sighed, then said with a more serious tone:
"I just don't like the silence they left behind. They should've been more violent, more bloodthirsty. That retreat... was too coordinated. Too suspicious."
The commander finally commented, without looking at them:
"Don't think too much. We'll know everything soon enough... if we're not buried first."
---
A few silent minutes of running through the shadows of the trees passed, until a strange scent began to pierce the air… a mixture of ash, blood, and burnt flesh.
The short twin was the first to slow down, followed by the rest, until they all stopped at the edge of a familiar clearing. It was the point where they had found the hunters… but what they saw now was not what they expected.
They froze in place.
Above the trees, at varying heights, dozens of corpses hung some headless, some split down the middle, with intestines dangling like twisted, wet decorations.
The upper branches sagged under the weight of clotted blood, and the leaves were coated in dry red spray, as if the rain had been replaced with blood.
Some of the faces were deformed, mouths open in screams that were never allowed to finish. The eyes, if present, were glassy, staring into nothing.
The corpses were hung in a way that defied description. As if whoever did this wasn't killing to kill... but to show us the full meaning of terror.
And at the heart of this hellish painting… The Rabbit, the commander's second-in-command.
But not anymore.
His body was cut into six pieces. The head… the arms… the legs… the torso.
Each part was suspended by tight black silk threads, fastened to the surrounding branches, forming a circular shape like a holy spider's web born from the womb of hatred.
His head was at the top, tilted slightly, his eyes half-open, staring into the void as if they still didn't understand what had happened at the moment of death.
Despite the blood that drenched the place, the stench that polluted the air, the muffled screams stuck in the masked ones' throats — nothing in this hell was more terrifying than the next moment...
Suddenly…
The light of dawn tore through the gray sky.
It emerged as a single beam… straight… pure… as if the sky itself had sent a witness to the slaughter.
It pierced the heavy clouds and descended gently… then settled above the Rabbit's hanging head.
As if that light wasn't the sun's… but a heavenly spotlight shedding its gaze on the crime.
It lit the tilted head, reflecting in his lifeless eyes, giving them for a moment a false glimmer of life… then the light slowly descended.
It passed to the severed arm… then the detached torso… then the crushed legs… each part of the torn body absorbed the light for a moment, then returned it with a red glow tainted by ash.
The light stretched further… and touched the other corpses.
Above the trees, faceless expressions ignited under the sun, eyes opened wide with fear suddenly glistening… as if the corpses had awoken briefly to witness their fate.
The clotted blood gleamed like glossy paint, the dangling intestines swayed with the wind… and the light… as if part of a terrifying show meant never to be forgotten.
The hellish painting was complete.
Beneath the corpses, a small flame danced alone on the ground, as if it didn't belong to the mortal world, writhing in a color between red and gold, pulsing with an unnatural rhythm.
But what caught everyone's attention more was what was written beneath it in fire words of living flame danced over the earth, swaying to a silent tune, words pulsing with madness and fiery wrath:
"The last spark… of the promised flame."
The words burned slowly, but did not fade.
No one spoke.
Even the masked ones, who were used to horror, felt something crawling beneath their skin as if something in the air was watching them.
Silence filled the space for a moment.
Just one moment… but it felt like eternity.
Then the silence broke.
A woman's scream tore through the stillness, a cry that shook the forest. It was a scream of pain, sorrow, loss… not just weeping, but the complete collapse of a human soul.
The masked woman ran toward one of the severed heads under the right tree.
…it was the head of her husband, severed from his body, leaning against a tilted tree trunk, his eyes still open, staring at the sky as if asking it:
"Why?"
The woman ran on trembling legs, dragging her cloak behind her as if she no longer felt the weight of her body. She slipped to the ground and screamed as she cradled the head in her shaking hands. The scream was a mixture of pain, rage, and helplessness, as if her heart had exploded from within.
"Rex... no... noooooooo!!"
She tore the mask from her face with a trembling hand, her eyes filling with tears as she held the head in both hands, pressing it to her chest as if trying to force life back into it.
The words she uttered were barely understandable, but the grief in them was pure, screaming, piercing even the hardest of hearts. She knelt in the blood, which stained her clothes and face, but she did not stop crying, screaming his name, hugging his skull as though trying to restore life to it.
No one approached her.
Even the immortal twins, always sarcastic and emotionless, their gazes softened, and their feet stepped half a pace back.
With the woman's screams, it seemed the shock that had frozen them began to dissolve. As if the wall of terror that kept them motionless had crumbled, and pain surged to the surface all at once.
One of them ran toward a torn corpse, half of it hanging on a tree and the other half lying on the ground, shouting:
"My brother! Nooooooo! This is impossible!!"
He knelt before the body, embracing a headless torso, his body trembling as if he were the one dying, while the masked ones around him wandered aimlessly, calling out names, running between trees searching for someone they knew, for a piece of hope… and found only the scent of death.
Another shouted as he punched the trunk of a tree until his bones shattered:
"Who did this!! Who did thiiiiiis!!!"
Another woman fell to her knees in front of two dangling feet, recognizing the owner only by the shoes, and struck the ground with her hands, screaming and wailing as if she had lost her mind:
"It was our fault… we were too slow… if we had run faster… if we were… just faster!"
The scene resembled hell.
As for the leader… he remained standing in place.
He did not move.
He did not blink.
His eyes watched the flames that had not died down, and the words that still danced.
"The last spark of the promised flame."
The phrase grew brighter, as if it fed on their tears, on their despair.
At that moment… the white-haired leader whispered, in a voice barely heard, yet it pierced the internal clamor of everyone who heard him:
"Melina Flarin."
The immortal twins froze, and the eyes of some of the masked ones who were still standing flickered.
He did not call her "the girl," nor "the runaway hunter," as members of the Holy Temple usually did. He spoke the name as it was, as if in it… was an acknowledgment…