The forest's glades were eerily still, as if some unseen force stilled its chaotic dance. The roots of the trees were bathed in swirling mist, blurring the sharp branches into twisting tendrils of darkness.

It had been Sindre, the month when the night stretched longer than the fading radiance of day. The moonlight bathed the clouds and the fog into a torment of blue, passing into the dark foliage like slender rods from the sky.

The crickets were shrieking, marring the icy silence of the night. The Hunter walked on the clinging, cold mud, his steps deliberate, nearing the seventy-eighth step. He trailed his left hand along the edges of the underbrush, with his Blade gripped in his right hand. He was clad in a robe darker than the shifting shadows of Blackbane Forest, his eyes glinted with sharp precision as his heartbeats stilled, beating like a soft whisper. A black, furred shawl hung lazily around his shoulders.

Eighty-one. Eighty-two steps. As he bent down his head, he rustled away the leaves that obstructed his path. Whatever lurked behind those impassable shrubs, it was not a kindred spirit. He held his Blade tighter; a shortsword curving along the blackish-garnet edges, inlaid with a rune on the sword's fuller. 

Then the silence broke. A twig snapped, dry and sharp. The Hunter's breath steadied, eyes sharpening, hands drumming lightly against the hilt of the Blade.

He continued lurking in the undergrowth, careful not to disturb the beast. The feral moans from the beast had been sweet, but still, no bush seemed to stir. There were no signs of life; even the earthlings which were supposed to be present in the marshlands weren't here.

Beyond the mists, a cacophony of tearing flesh echoed through the air. The glint of a spindly tooth emerged from the fog. Its sinewy feet, and serrated fur crawled slowly through the ground like a murky mass of writhing vines.

Ninety. Ninety-one. Ninety-two. Closer. 

Then the Hunter lurched in, darting through the shrub like a zipping wind, Blade intact as he pierced the monster's neck with his Blade. The beast howled, shadowy vines coalescing together as if it meshed into a hand, eager to slam the Hunter down. 

The Hunter rolled sloppily as the mud clung to him. He cut off the beast's tail with a dagger, before leaping into his back, then stabbing the beast in the head. 

Then he pulled another dagger as he prised the eyes open. Garnet blood splashed on his black garb; and it had reeked of dung mixed with wine. 

Then another as he pulled a fire cloth, then thrashed it on the creature's serrated fur. The creature stumbled backwards, the flame now crawling on the tendrils as it seared the vines in a serpentine motion. The monster fell into its back, its needle-like teeth now fleshed with embers.

Without a second, the forest was aflame.