The air hung heavy with the smell of fear and iron. Lara's face twisted in agony; she gasped, clutching the poisoned dart in her arm. Her eyes, usually mischievous or resolute, blurred with pain.
A few steps ahead, Raikha stood guarded, his stance low—ready, his breath shallow. The sound of boots crunching on dead leaves became more audible.
The Kalderan warriors appeared from the misty treeline twenty paces away, their movement precise, their formation tight. The crossbows leveled. The blades are out. They moved forward as one cohesive organism, encircling without speed—without compassion.
Meanwhile, Lara assessed the situation; her mind raced despite her ragged breaths, calculating odds, angles, and distances. They were outgunned, outnumbered, and surrounded; poison already circulated, and crossbows were lethal at this range. "But not outsmarted," she thought, a glimmer of defiance igniting in her eyes; not yet.
"Lara!" Raikha shouted from a distance; his heart hammered like a trapped bird against his ribs. His instincts urging him to protect her, to rip the dart free, to do anything; he needed to keep her safe; he would keep her safe.
A primal rage flared inside Raikha as he saw the glint of crossbows and the icy, metallic intent in the Kalderan eyes. "First, crossbows; the ranged threats are always present," he thought, focusing on a soldier perfectly targeted, standing just left of a clump of dense, twisted vines.
In a burst of motion, Raikha blasted forward, a living tornado. His steps seemed to glide over the damp ground as he executed a perfect langkah, a fundamental silat footwork technique. He moved from being next to Lara to getting closer to his target while the sound of rustling leaves and a whisper of wind accompanied him.
His movements were deadly—a shadow dance.
The three armored Kalderan soldiers on the front line, in their scarlet trim and dark steel, barely had time to react. They were disciplined, relentless, and well-trained, and they tightened their formation. But Raikha tore through them like a lightning strike across a still sky.
He closed in on the first with a sepak, a spinning kick aimed at the man's weapon instead of him. The force of his leg sliced the air with a sharp whizz, and the crossbow flew, ripped from the soldier's grasp and spinning into a tree trunk with a metallic clang.
Focus. Breathe. Move.
With devastating speed, a flurry of shadow punches landed, knuckles cracking bone, elbow to jaw, and fist to chest. Teeth rattling loose, blood sprayed from the Kalderan's split lip.
Then the kick—knee to groin, heel to temple, shin to ribs with a sickening crunch. Raikha danced like a phantom between the wild, panicked swings of the soldier.
With a vicious heel kick, Raikha's leg lashed out one last time, breaking the man's cheekbone. The soldier collapsed backward into the underbrush, helmet twisted halfway off, limbs jerking in spasms, blood frothing at his lips.
Raikha turned on the second body even before the first hit the floor.
This one lunged with a short, sharp, and swift saber. Cartilage crunched as Raikha ducked under the arc of the blade, twisted inside the guard, and drove a vicious elbow into the man's throat.
The soldier staggered and gagged, and Raikha caught the falling saber from his waning grasp. With a quick reverse grip, Raikha immediately drove the weapon upward, cutting through the soldier's soft palate and then his skull. Blood trickled from the Kalderan's nostrils and gathered in the mud as he fell like a stringed puppet, gurgling and choking.
The third soldier, older, wider, his face smeared with anger and war paint, roared and charged, broadsword held high. Raikha confronted him. A vicious beset deflected the blade, locking the deadly arc of the blow and twisting it away. He rushed inside the man's guard and drove both palms into the chest with a tampar that made ribs crack.
Raikha flipped the broadsword in his hands, yanked it out of the man's loose grasp, and slashed deep across the Kalderan's throat as he staggered. Raikha's face and arms were doused with blood as it erupted in a thick arc.
Air whistled through the ripped flesh as the soldier fell to his knees, gripping the open wound. Raikha didn't hold back. Grabbing the man by the back of the helmet, he thrust the sword into his left eye, pushing until the blade brushed the back of the skull.
Then there was silence, broken only by the thud of collapsing armor and the sound of gurgling.
We're down three.
For a single breath, Raikha remained motionless, his silat stance blood-slick and sharp, his chest heaving. Around him, the forest floor was a canvas of shattered weapons, broken limbs, and dark, steaming blood.
He stood up straight, eyes as hard as iron, sword in hand. His face was unreadable. Not anger. No mercy.
Just resolve.
The remaining Kalderan soldiers—at least nine of them, still forming a second line—halted. Their precision fractured. What had been cold confidence just moments ago was now a shared silence laced with disbelief.
One of the soldiers muttered, "He took down Harun... in seconds."
Another said nothing, but the tightening grip on his spear betrayed the tremble in his wrist.
This wasn't the ambush they expected. They were trained to fight warriors, not ghosts. And Raikha—he didn't fight like a boy, or even a soldier. He fought like something older, something wild and ancient. Like the forest itself had lent him its spirit.
Still, they began to move forward—slow, cautious steps.
Then—
BRUGHHHH.
A massive tree thundered to the earth ahead of them, crashing through brush and bramble, halting their advance. Leaves and splinters exploded in every direction.