While the villagers celebrated a flawless win and rode that rush of victory, Enid’s situation was a whole different story.

  The curse flaring inside her made nature magic feel like forcing a river through stone, and the pain was so sharp it dulled her focus and slowed her reactions.

  Outnumbered, exposed, and fighting enemies she could barely track, she still had to run with Elena in her arms while searching for a spot where she could finally turn and strike back.

  There were too many demons on her heels, and to make it worse, their main force clearly had a warping mage with them.

  That kind of elite unit’s warped magic was crude and outdated, but it was also filthy in the worst way, it trampled on nature itself.

  It disrupted Enid’s sense of elemental flow so badly that her proudest advantage, her wide-area life detection, was basically shut off.

  Even now, Enid had no idea how many demons surrounded her, where they would pop out from, or how they planned to hit her next.

  Elena’s body held an enormous amount of holy power, and that holy presence kept needling the warping curse inside Enid, stirring it up again and again.

  After casting multiple high-tier, large-scale spells, Enid felt like her body was about to tear itself apart from the inside.

  While she fled, demons burst from cover and landed hits on her more than once.

  She destroyed those attackers in seconds, blasting them into pulp with magic, but not before taking several blade wounds.

  And whenever she focused on threats up close, she couldn’t keep her wind ward steady.

  Demon archers seized those gaps and poured arrows into her.

  By now, dozens of shafts were buried in her back.

  Normally she could have avoided them easily, a nature spirit’s agility didn’t even need magic to dodge flying steel.

  But she was carrying Elena, and the curse’s pain dragged down her speed and timing.

  So she did the only thing she could, she protected Elena first, and twisted away just enough to keep the arrows out of her vitals.

  Even so, Enid didn’t collapse.

  She stayed on her feet, kept thinking, and kept hunting for a way out, weaving through tangled routes and using brush and tree trunks as cover while she drove deeper into the forest.

  In her arms, Elena begged again and again to be put down as bait.

  Elena didn’t want Enid to die for her.

  Enid refused every time.

  She told Elena she had promised John she would bring Elena back safely, and she had promised Antonio she would come back alive.

  Even as she said it, she knew she might not be able to keep that second promise.

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  At this point, she wasn’t even sure she could make it back at all.

  The demons gave her no breathing room to prepare a high-tier flight spell, and her body couldn’t sustain that kind of mana drain anymore anyway.

  Truth be told, Enid couldn’t see a clean escape.

  But she wasn’t the type to quit.

  If it came down to it, she would hide Elena somewhere, then take the demons with her.

  Because she had sworn it.

  She would never watch another tragedy unfold right in front of her again.

  “So your teacher, that mage of yours, sent you back to protect us, and went alone to face the entire main force?”

  After the fighting in the village ended, Antonio followed Enid’s instructions and told the mayor the squad they’d just beaten was only a raiding party.

  He warned that a larger force was moving through the forest and the village needed to evacuate immediately.

  “You absolute idiot,” the mayor roared. “You sat on something that important until now, and you left your teacher out there bleeding and buying time alone?”

  “You coward,” he went on, voice like thunder. “I’ve seen this demon tactic before. The main force behind them can match an elite hundred-knight cavalry unit from the Empire’s regular army.”

  Antonio wanted to say Enid was strong enough to handle it.

  Then the truth hit him.

  Enid was suffering under a curse, and she had already thrown out high-tier spells earlier today.

  That sick feeling in Antonio’s chest spread fast, like vines crawling through cracks.

  The mayor saw it on his face and smacked the top of Antonio’s head, hard enough to rattle his thoughts back into place.

  “Snap out of it. Even if your teacher’s a powerhouse, a warping shaman in the demon ranks is not something you shrug off. Those things are a nature mage’s worst nightmare.”

  “I’m putting together a squad of seasoned veterans,” the mayor said. “We’re going into the forest, we’re finding your teacher, and we’re backing her up. You’re leading the way.”

  Antonio hesitated, then asked, “Then who’s going to get everyone else out, the people who can’t fight?”

  “Let me,” a voice said.

  Both the mayor and Antonio turned.

  It was John.

  “John,” Antonio blurted, “did you hear everything just now?”

  John’s face was a mask of grief and despair, every wrinkle trembling with the weight of age and helplessness.

  Antonio had kept Elena’s presence in the forest quiet, he didn’t want the mayor to react badly.

  John understood that too.

  To avoid raising suspicion, he couldn’t let anything slip.

  So he played along, steadying his voice.

  “I’ll organize the evacuation,” John said. “The mayor’s wife already agreed to coordinate.”

  John clenched his hands and tapped his chest, forcing resolve into his tired body.

  “So don’t worry about the rear. Go find Enid. There’s no time to waste, go.”

  The mayor nodded, then ordered Antonio to gather potions and medical supplies immediately and be ready to move.

  Antonio nodded, but before he left, he shot John a look full of guilt.

  John only nodded back, urging him on, telling him with his eyes not to worry about him.

  Before the mayor turned away, he placed a heavy hand on John’s shoulder and spoke low.

  “The evacuation is on you. And about what happened this morning, I’m sorry.”

  John shook his head and patted the mayor’s back.

  “Don’t mind an old man. I’ll see everyone out. You watch yourselves, and don’t forget, there are people waiting for you to come home.”

  “Then let’s hope luck’s on our side,” the mayor said. “It’s in your hands now, John.”

  John raised his hand and traced the blessing sign of the Church of Holy Light.

  “May the Light keep you, brave warriors.”

  Then John knelt toward the forest where Enid and Elena were, pressed his forehead to the ground, and clasped his hands so tightly his whole body shook.

  His voice trembled, but it was pure devotion.

  “Please,” he prayed, “let Your mercy and strength fall upon them. Protect the innocent in body and soul, keep them safe from the warped blasphemy crawling out of the dark.”

  “I beg You,” he whispered, “as a servant who has served for ninety years. God, please, spare a glance of compassion for this suffering land.”

  Maybe Elena had been right, maybe there was no Light at all, since no one could honestly say they’d seen it with their own eyes.

  Or maybe John had been right, maybe the miracles people carried, the miracles he carried, the miracles Elena carried, were proof of a blessing.

  John couldn’t tell anymore.

  He only wanted his prayer to matter, to bring the two in that forest back alive.

  And then John thought he saw it.

  A beam of light rising from deep within the woods, cutting up into the sky like the world itself was crying out, mourning the cruelty of the earth and the grief of everyone living on it.