"J-JIN!"
Tristessa managed to scream, by some miracle, since her mouth and vocal cords were refusing to function properly in the face of so much fear.
"Back off, Tessa." The hunter was quick, stopping in the blink of an eye and coming to her side to cover her with his own body. His gaze was cold and calculating, his years in the job justifying the value of an iron heart. "A Varg so close to the edge of the forest… This is unheard of."
Indeed, the creature that emerged from the mist was one of those four-legged, large beasts with dark fur and crimson red eyes. Thirsty for blood, the Varg growled, showing its sharp teeth and dripping hot saliva; its claws tore at the ground beneath the layer of leaves, which cracked with each step it took toward its prey. The monster faced the hunter, who unholstered his one-shot pistol and aimed it at the beast with firm stability in his grip.
"When I tell you, go get my rifle," he ordered her, who nodded desperately and could not take her gaze off those teeth that caused her so much suffering in her first life. "NOW!"
Jin fired the instant the Varg let out a war roar and pounced on him, violently breaking the threshold of the forest's silence. Tristessa didn't even notice if he had hit the target or not; she ran towards the rifle leaning against the tree and, shouting the hunter's name, threw it at him with all her might. He caught it in mid-flight and used it as a melee weapon, hitting the fallen Varg's head with the hard wood butt. A howl of pain. Again and again, blow after blow, until the giant wolf's skull split open and spread blood and brains around the hunter's feet.
"Hah...hah... Phew, that was close." She heard Jin comment, who, in the relief of his victory and the exceptional circumstance, was making a terrible mistake: in hostile territory, not losing sight of the surroundings for a second. "What in the Abyss was such a Varg doing...?"
Dozens of simultaneous growls alerted the hunter, and both he and Tristessa found themselves back to back facing the most hopeless of situations: they had been surrounded by seven Vargs, just as vile and hungry as the deceased at Jin's feet.
The emptiness in Tristessa's stomach was endless. Stress that ate away at her mental and physical health second by second, weakened her legs and threw her soul into the darkest pit full of despair. The wolves corrupted by the malice of the mysterious Shadow Queen had returned to make her experience again what it was like to be devoured alive.
"I don't want to die. I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to..." the girl cried, finding no comfort, not even in contact with Jin's back.
"Calm down, Tessa... They sense your fear, don't give them a reason to let their guard down and attack us." She heard him say to her, calmly despite everything and aiming his loaded-and-powder burning rifle at the nearby Varg.
Tristessa didn't have to be an expert to understand that they were outnumbered, armed with an antiquated rifle and an old shovel. Even if by some miracle they could take down two of those beasts that were twice their weight and size, they had to deal with the remaining five. It was practically impossible.
"We are going to die." That was the only fate she saw, unable to hold back the tears. Death was near, she felt it and knew it. Her insides burned and her muscles and bones ached in response, knowing full well what was about to happen. "WE ARE GOING TO DIE!"
Tristessa's desperation was the go-ahead for the vile creatures to attack, starting with the Varg facing her. Fallen leaves flew through the air as the giant wolf lunged at her, opening its mouth wide to sink its fangs into the first limb it found.
Tristessa screamed and raised both arms in a reflex born of fear and survival instinct. She was going to lose an arm again, and then the rest of her body was going to be torn apart mercilessly. She could already smell blood, her insides exploding, and the indescribable pain of her muscles tearing and bones breaking into hundreds of pieces at the evil mercy of those sharp, blood-stained fangs…
"Maerwel Voltis"
An ethereal but strong male voice, charged with power, resonated above the growls and barks of the creatures and Tristessa's scream. The atmosphere around them filled with energy, as if the very air itself had just been given an extra element in its composition that changed the way it felt against their skin. Out of nowhere, phosphorescent blue glyphs appeared and sparkled around the giant wolf, and instantly transmuted into electric arcs that pierced the dark creature in many directions, making it shriek in agony.
Any omen of Death that dominated the stunned Tristessa was replaced by the smell of burnt flesh and hair that quickly spread everywhere, while the Varg burned from within, paralyzed and convulsing nonstop. Its relatives stopped their attack, taking intelligent precautions against that sudden intervention.
"My, so many Vargs, so far from their nest?" someone asked in a voice filled with seductive intent and, strangely, over the heads of the girl and the hunter. "Certainly interesting behavior coming from such lazy creatures."
"What?!" Tristessa managed to exclaim before quickly raising her head as did Jin.
The first thing they both saw was a red cloak caught in the wind currents, flying along with the fallen leaves of almost the same color. It was tied to the neck of a man, who was floating in the air and slowly descending upon the two of them. In his right hand he held a beautifully carved cane with circular patterns and a glintstone inserted at the end.
"Let me take care of these puppies," the newcomer requested, and the stone on his staff emitted a violet glow. "Ein Attractor Irit."
The moment those powerful words left his mouth, circles with glyphs the same color as the supernatural glow of the glintstone appeared on the ground, breaking through the layer of leaves and under the paws of each Varg present, with lines that respected a certain geometric logic.
And before Tristessa's eyes, eyes that had never seen real magic in action before not counting Divinities, the Vargs were crushed by a powerful gravitational force. They barely had time to howl in everlasting pain before the massive pressure turned them into little bombs of flesh and blood that exploded with ferocity, scattering gore to the point that it reached the very trees in the distance. Inevitably, Tristessa and Jin were covered in a rain of blood and guts, hot to the point that it burned against the skin.
"How disgusting…" the hunter muttered, wiping his eyes and spitting out the blood that had splashed on his face.
"Ah? How?" The girl couldn't quite process what had just happened, opening her mouth without being able to utter a coherent thought as Vargs' blood dripped down her dirty face non-stop. She and Jin were forced to separate to make room for the descending man. Their savior. "W-who…?"
It was the first time Tristessa had seen a humanoid like him. Long, silky hair tied like a ponytail, crimson and so beautiful that she was instantly enchanted. It contrasted perfectly with his sapphire-colored eyes and his round face with delicate features and pointed ears, as if he had been sculpted by the Gods themselves. He was so beautiful that the charm of his hair wasn't enough; Tristessa even forgot to breathe for a moment.
Looking him up and down, she admired his beautiful black shirt with gold details around the buttons, loose pants, and a long red scarf that he used as a belt and whose end that went down to the height of his knees had dozens of black glyphs engraved on it.
"Oh, my bad! Because of my spell you are as dirty and repulsive as a berserker after ten jugs of cheap root beer," the man lamented, although he seemed more amused than sorry. Instantly, he raised his left hand in a position as if he were going to receive something. "Excuse me… Plasmos."
Once again, the environment was filled with magical power and every drop of spilled blood separated from the surfaces it stained. Jin and Tristessa were left immaculate, and all that blood converged in the palm of the newcomer's hand, forming a dark red sphere.
"My dear friend, can you tell me what did you do to attract the fury of a pack of Vargs?" the man asked Jin, not referring to the corpses of the beasts, but to the dozens that had approached the place. "Alright, no time to talk, I guess. This will cost you a lot, Mercer… You two, get down! Fahreus Plasmos!"
The sphere of blood split into five smaller ones and flew like bullets in different directions, intercepting several of the beasts when they began the attack in search of avenging their relatives.
"Snap out of it, fool!" Tristessa heard Jin's scream but her legs did not respond.
She could do absolutely nothing, she was a useless burden that dedicated herself to watching as her fragile existence swung between Life and Death. That was why the hunter tackled her to the ground and protected her with a hug, while the bloody bullets wreaked havoc on the Vargs: piercing them, growing in size, piercing them again; again and again, and each bullet more deadly than the last, with greater capacity to break, tear and kill.
"Voltis!"
A Varg that almost reached where Jin and Tristessa were was hit by an electric shock when it suddenly found itself face to face with a blue glyph, and then a bullet of blood ripped its head off.
"Let's end this… Maerwel Voltis Irit."
In the skies, subjected to a great amount of magical energy that made Tristessa's skin crawl dozens of meters below, a supernatural, ethereal halo appeared, composed of blue glyphs and mathematical logic. The clouds darkened and dozens of lightning bolts broke the silence of the heights. With a gesture of his fingers, the crimson-haired man caused the halo of glyphs to begin to adopt a dynamic state, rotating at high speed and increasing the fury of the storm. And at the moment of its culmination, the halo disintegrated to allow the passage of hundreds of thunderbolts that fell upon the Sea of Trees.
"SHIT!" Tristessa shrieked, hugging Jin tightly and receiving the deafening sound of the lightning strikes with pain in her ears, to the point that she had to close her eyes to resist both the violent sound and the blinding lights that did not stop exploding around her.
For this reason, she could not see how the remaining Vargs were torn apart by the shock waves and extreme heat, the product of the millions of volts they received from different bolts in fractions of a second.
It seemed like the end of the world, between the bursts of pure electricity and the howls of the beasts, until suddenly, silence reigned.
Fearfully, the girl opened her eyes and saw the dismembered corpses of the Vargs, expelling smoke and hundreds of webs of blood that stained the floor of leaves or were, abnormally, floating in the air.
But what was most breathtaking was the man receiving all the torrents of blood in the palm of his hand; the skies were returning to normal and the sunlight fell only on him.
He looked like a saint, a divine angel with fire-red hair…
But Tristessa also saw a feature worthy of a demon: in his eyes full of grace, a flash of ire and ancestral sadism shone in its dark depths, as he looked at all that blood accumulated and floating in the palm of his hand. The ferrous smell was penetrating, it suffocated the girl from where she was, without the will to stop staring at him while she and Jin recomposed themselves.
The man slightly opened his mouth and all that blood flew inside in a continuous thread, until there was nothing left.
"Ah… Nothing spicier than wild blood," he sighed. An unearthly glow ran through his long red hair, spreading from the roots to the ends like luminous waves.
There was no doubt that the man was what was called a Blood Elf.
"Why are you staring at me so much, girl? Did you fall in love with me or what? Or is this your first time witnessing the wonders of Thaumaturgy?" he asked her from where he stood, grinning from ear to ear. Tristessa felt her ears burning, and with several strands of Jin's hair still stuck in her mouth, she wanted to answer him but the elf beat her to it, with sudden urgency. "Speaking of thaumaturgy, I think I went a little overboard… Oh… Oh! Damn myself… Yes, I'm going to faint. Excuse me."
The black-haired girl's eyes widened when she heard that, and even more so when she saw the blood elf fall backwards and over the carpet of fallen leaves. Mouth agape and with his eyes rolled back, he was completely unconscious.
"Whaaat?!"