Adventures beyond the void

Chapter 27: Finish What We Started

3RD POV

The forest pulsed with tension. Behind Selin, Lyra, Kenju, Hunter, and even the bloodied bandits, huddled close, too drained to run, too weak to fight. Severed was watching from within the bushes. Sirius kept his eyes locked on the monsters as well, flames burning in his hands. Nicholas shakily stood up, being the furthest from the group, on the right. Before them, the tree-troopers, monstrous and many, began to advance again, their towering bodies crawling on gnarled limbs. From their trunks, bloated fruit-cocoons hung heavy, some splitting open with wet squelches as newborn horrors dropped to the ground, screeching and skittering forward. Selin stood alone, facing them.

The wind whispered through the trees, brushing her her aside like a curtain before a performance. Her eyes narrowed in concentration. No words. Just action. The knife of her staff was already extended, the sleek pyramid-shaped blade at its bottom glinted with sap and blood. But she wasn’t finished yet. Selin’s hand slid lower, just beneath the center of her staff. A sharp, mechanical sound sliced through the air as she twisted both ends of the staff in opposite directions. The base unlatched with a snap, and then...

SHHRRK

The blade shot out, dragged by a hidden chain, thin and black like woven shadow. It extended, extending further, coiling in the air like a living serpent. Nicholas's eyes widened. He remembered when he first woke up in the moth estate, how he was so scared after meeting Selin face to face and ran away, which resulted in him crashing through a window and falling from the tower. Selin had used that same chain to save him. The blade spun at the end of the chain, humming through the air with lethal rhythm as Selin twirled her staff in one hand. She gripped the chain with her other hand, snapping it taut like a whip.

      Selin: - Magical dark art: Shadow steps; Dance of the butterfly.

Black and red magic engulfed her weapon. Then she moved, dashing forward, the ground beneath her cracking in the process, her movements deadly and precise. The chain-blade swept beneath a charging Tree-Trooper, slicing through its roots. The creature buckled, and as it dropped. Selin yanked the chain, dragging herself into the air, spinning once, twice. Mid-spin, she coiled the blade around her arm, controlling it like a silk ribbon, then hurled it forward with surgical aim.

The blade didn’t just cut, it burned. Wherever it passed, black scorch marks and sizzling roots were left behind, carved into the earth and bark alike. The dark magic infused into the metal left no room for healing. Selin spun her staff, rotating her wrist just slightly, and with that movement, the chain arced to the right, then snapped sharply left, weaving through the battlefield like a ribbon of death. She tugged once, mid-spin and the blade looped overhead before diving like a predator into another tree-trooper’s side, exploding out the other end with a burst of splinters and sap.

Her eyes never blinked. Her pace never faltered. She anchored her staff behind her, using its weight and flexibility to guide the chain’s momentum. It was a deadly dance, and Selin was its conductor, every twist, every whirl, sent the chain in a new direction. A flick of the staff, the chain spiraled upward, wrapping around a Tree-Trooper’s arm, a jerk of her wrist and the limb was yanked off in a spray of dark ichor. Another one lunged. Selin slid beneath it, low to the ground, dragging the blade behind her in a smooth horizontal arc, each attack coated in red and black colored magic.

The creature was cleaved in two, collapsing behind her just as she rose and spun, hurling the chain skyward. The tip latched onto a thick branch, and in one motion, Selin swung herself upward, flipping over a cluster of creatures. Mid-air, she twisted the chain, and the blade followed her arc, circling, slicing, and raining death down in a spiral. The moment her boots touched the ground. She drove her staff into the soil, using it as an anchor while she whipped the chain around herself, forming a lethal storm radius. Every tree-trooper that stepped within range was cut, shredded or impaled. Everyone was staring at her in pure shock and admiration.