Lilia took the vine arrow Lucian offered, then shifted her attention to the fog-drenched forest surrounding them.
With a swift motion, she released waves of icy mist into the air, which froze the moisture in the dense fog, turning it into tiny hailstones that dropped to the ground. This cleared a small "safe zone" with thinner mist around them. But soon, the fog began to roll back in from all sides.
"Too much fog," Lilia muttered, frustrated. After a few attempts, she decided to conserve her energy.
Suddenly, more arrows flew from the mist. However, the group was now on alert, and the apprentices quickly cast protective spells to intercept the incoming projectiles.
Lilia retaliated without hesitation. With a flick of her wrist, thin ice needles shot toward the source of the arrows, piercing through the mist with remarkable speed.
Meanwhile, Lucian closed his eyes, and under the influence of sorcery, his perception intensified as his connection to the insects he'd deployed sharpened. However, his enhanced vision showed little but an endless field of white.
"Hmm?" Lucian suddenly noticed a figure in one insect's view. He immediately directed it toward the anomaly, pushing it forward at top speed. The insect's behaviour and faint magical aura quickly gave it away, and Lucian lost sight of the target as the connection broke.
"They're to the southwest," he informed Lilia. "There are only three of them, and their power level seems limited to second-tier apprentice. Your ice needles injured one."
Lilia relaxed slightly upon hearing this. Facing opponents of the same tier in such an environment would be a nightmare, but if they were just second-tier apprentices, they were more of a nuisance than a threat.
"Can you pinpoint them?" she asked.
Lucian shook his head. While he'd glimpsed their location, the dryad hybrids were too agile in the forest. He could pursue them with stealth sorcery, but that could easily get him lost in the mist, which was far too risky.
"Are these fey out of their minds?" Lilia muttered under her breath, perplexed by the dryads' reckless assault. This didn't feel like a raid for treasure or resources—it was more like a desperate, last-ditch stand.
"Let's keep moving," Lucian said, leading the group toward the spot he'd identified through the insect's perspective.
When they arrived, Lilia examined the surrounding area, noting the ice needles lodged in nearby trees and other subtle marks of the encounter.
Lucian knelt and carefully dug out a piece of blood-stained soil. Holding it up for Lilia's inspection, he gave her a meaningful look.
Lilia's eyes lit up. "Leave it to me," she said, pulling a small, crude cloth doll from her belt.
The doll looked hastily made: one eye was a button, the other a pebble, and its mouth was crudely sketched with charcoal, resembling a child's scribble. Lilia extracted the blood from the soil using a spell, then smeared it over the doll's mouth.
"Edlyn… take care of my friend," she murmured as the doll's mouth slowly moved, the button and pebble eyes glowing with a sinister red light.
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Meanwhile, two figures were racing through the forested terrain.
Though they looked human, both had animal-like features, with furry ears and legs resembling elongated deer legs. These hybrid limbs allowed them to move effortlessly through the rugged terrain, with natural magic subtly enhancing their speed.
"Amu, put me down…" said one of the dryads, a young woman named Tao, pale-faced and visibly injured, clutching a wound on her abdomen.
"Don't say such nonsense, Tao! I'm not leaving you behind!" Amu's eyes glistened with tears as he ran. Tao wasn't only his childhood friend, but the woman he dreamed of marrying—the one he cherished most in this world.
"Amu…" Tao tried to say something more, but suddenly her entire body seized up as if something had wrapped around her throat. Her breathing became laboured, and she was unable to make a sound.
"Tao? Tao!" Amu stopped, panicked as he saw Tao's face flush purple from lack of air. He tried to dispel the sudden curse, but it was beyond his ability to break.
"…Run… run…" Tao mouthed the words, her lips moving silently as the light in her eyes dimmed and finally faded.
"No!" Amu clutched Tao's lifeless body, his gaze filled with an overwhelming sadness.
"Amu, we have to go!" urged another dryad nearby, fighting back his grief as he pulled Amu to his feet.
"Tao's gone! She's gone, Uncle!" Amu's voice cracked as he looked desperately at the other dryad.
"If we fail, neither you, me, nor Xiaoqian will make it out alive. Tao won't be the first or last. Move!"
The dryad elder cast a glance back into the mist, his jade-green eyes piercing through the fog, catching sight of Lucian's group closing in on their location.