Above the heart of Thalanor Frostwood, the sky was a dark canvas, not from clouds or night.
The air had been rent in two, and there was nothing but the center of the forest. There hung a violent tear in space—its rift here could even be regarded as a long, dark scratch across time and space. Ominous cracks of violet and black now streaked and pulsed, sending energy rippling outward. The trail widened more and more with every heartbeat.
The trees were feeling it. The earth was feeling it. The mana of the forest was feeling it. A wild energy was fluently leaking, spilling outward from the rift.
A bestial roar screamed the first wave of raw, unstable mana erupting and released from the rift—a veritable thunderclap of energy so thick, dense sheets of mana coursed through the trees like the heat of a desert, dancing energy in strange forms.
From the opening rift ... They came.
Bestial shapes. Twisted forms. Creatures that were not born of this world. Mana beasts entwined with raw energy, mutant flesh glowing as their eyes revealed unbridled hunger. Some were wolf like. Some were monstrous spiders. Some were covered in jagged bone armor fused through their flesh.
The first wave had begun.
Underneath the quaking earth, Thalanar stood fully armored at the edge of the glowing void, with his elite warband at his side. Dressed in bone wrought armor, with weapons enchanted by the tribes oldest rites - they were a stony silent wall of defiance against the tide.
Kirellion moved up from the rear, his staff glowing softly. He stepped beside Thalanar, speaking in a deliberate tone, but low voice. "You will not stop it."
Thalanar did not blink. "I can slow it."
He raised his glaive high.
"Valen'Dar, with me!"
Thalanar and his warriors began charging toward the wave with a battle cry ringing through the woods.
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Somewhere else in the forest, the true apex predators of Thalanor began to shift from their sleep. Enormous bears, serpent-dragons with fangs, fanged wolves - things that have ruled these woods for longer than you would imagine.
The mana surge hit them like a bolt of lightning.
Some fled, knowing they had been beaten.
But the others, the dominant ones, stayed. They roared. They bit their lesser mana beasts. They defended their territory.
And among them...
A white shadow drifted like a whisper.
Valdrak, the Frost Warden, pounced on the newly arriving invaders with an abominably serene grace, its fur intensified in scintillation with the faintest hints of mana evolution. Its claws plowed through beast after beast, ripping out their mana cores with a savage motion, feeding on their raw energy.
Its form continued to pulse as it fed, straining the boundaries of its power, inching closer to a six-star form.
The Frostwood was fully engaged with war.
Luenor, Hera, and Arwin continued running with Faren and the rest of the villagers away from the heart of the rift through the secret tunnel passage that had been carved out long ago beneath the fortress.
The elves moved quickly, but silently, their faces pale but intent on escape.
Faren kept glancing back over his shoulder, toward the shaking walls, his hand never releasing his bow.
"Faster," he urged. "The breach is coming."
No sooner did the words leave his mouth than a roar, deep and primal, echoed from the stone behind them. Dust drifted down from the ceiling. Cracks managed to splinter across the roots and stone walls.
The beast wave had arrived at the fort.
A moment later, a shockwave rippled through the tunnel as the outer walls of Fort Gelran crumbled behind them.
Luenor turned, heart racing, and saw the dim light of the collapsing fort fade to black.
The woods were no longer safe.
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The Frostwood trembled with the howls of beasts, the sound of ancient trees vibrated along with the atmospheric magic of unstable mana. The Valen'Dar Warband, led into battle by Thalanar, stood resolutely. Tall and proud like ancient oaks, every elf carried the Mark of the Forest—living beings woven into the fabric of natural magic—moving like perpetual streams flowing rapturously to strike as they were trained to do.
The warriors filled the canopy with arrows laced with thorns of unstable mana. The arrows would pierce deep into the flesh of the lesser beasts. The warriors themselves were one with the trees, blending with the forest itself. They shot, melded, held their ground, called on Calls of the Wild.
The Calls were old magic from their very own ancestors, bending branches and vines that enhanced their fighting. The poisonous roots of the forest would create pit traps ahead of charging beasts, snapping jaws shut before scuttling limbs could reach to safety of their villagers outer perimeter.
But the wave was endless.
Thalanar's glaive cracked down upon another beast—a hound-shaped black creature, issuing mana from stingers; a low hiss cry erupted around him. So while his strike was successful, it was short-measured.
A serpent-dragon roared with scales severed by the swirling twisting mana storm, battered through the gulley of the trees with a puddling of a hiss. The beast coiled with the speed of a whip, its mouth opening to unleashing billowing flame that consumed half the clearing.
"Elven Gods…" one warrior whispered.
"Hold the line!" Thalanar roared.
The serpent's four-star mana signature flared like a beacon. Its scales shimmered between black and deep crimson, its body unnaturally thick with corrupted mana. Its maw snapped shut on a pair of warriors, crushing them like dry twigs.
Thalanar leapt forward, barking orders as he slashed through another advancing beast. All the while, his sharp eyes tracked the serpent-dragon, studying its movements.
"Keep the village moving!" he shouted. "Use the trees—pull them into the roots!"
His warriors obeyed, drawing the lesser beasts toward narrow passes lined with trap vines and collapsing branches. One by one, the smaller invaders were choked, stabbed, or buried beneath shifting earth.
But the serpent-dragon would not be tricked.
It turned toward Thalanar, its maw glowing red.