Lincoln shook his head and pointed. "Not really, though I found some blood leading off that way."

Hector turned and noted the blood clinging to some crushed brown leaves.

Moving over to the spot, he dropped to a knee and once again lamented how hastily he'd abandoned the [Tracker's Charm]; that Talent would have shone in a situation like this.

Even in the new batch of Talents he'd gotten yesterday, there hadn't been another one, though many of his current Talents just needed another to become uncommon. A full harvest was due tomorrow.

Hector got back on his feet and dusted off his hands. "I'm not sure exactly, but I think we should head this way." He pointed towards what had to be the northeast if the shadows were anything to go off of.

Jodie nodded, and the three of them then climbed out of the small depression and moved in the direction he had pointed. Eventually, they stumbled upon a creature fitting the description, though it was much smaller. It seemed much like the shadow worm. This Indigo, as it was called, had smaller variants.

"Should we, you know, attack it?" Lincoln asked, his eyes shifting around, nervous. He'd probably be thinking of falling back again. Maybe Hector should have had that talk before they went off chasing this thing.

"I'll go out and test it," Hector said. "You two just stay here and watch my back."

He then pushed from the tree and crept over to the thing as its weird flesh-like legs cleaned its head, small globules of saliva splashing down onto the leaves at its feet.

Hector didn't summon his blades this time, as that would be far too loud for someone trying to sneak up on a creature. Instead, he slowly slid the daggers dangling from his hip free from their scabbards, raised the blade above his head.

Then he lunged.

The beast had twitched, having heard the leaves crunch as he leapt, but before it could move, metal met flesh, and the blade sank through with a crunch. Hector frowned but continued, sliding his blade through it with cracks and tears of flesh before ripping it free in a spray of green blood.

The creature let out a wail of pain and hissed, scrambling to the side but limping as it did.

Hector struck forward again, hacking off one of its legs and then rearing a sword up. Before it could let out a last wail, he sliced clean through its small head with a pop-like crunch, leaving the creature to slump to the grass, green blood oozing out and puddling beneath it.

Before he could catch a breath, several screeches came from the surrounding trees, and more of the smaller Indigos crawled out from the treetops, their tiny wings beating as some of them took to the air.

"Well, this isn't good," Hector muttered as he took in their numbers.

As one launched towards Hector, a mud wall erupted in front of him, and a crunch came from the other side, the creature having smacked clean into it. Hector turned towards the bush where he'd left earlier to find Jodie stepping out, her sword drawn. Lincoln was nowhere to be seen, but that wall was definitely his.

And it was moments like this that Hector found frustrating.

Lincoln clearly had the ability to intervene and would when he felt he could. But lately he'd become more fearful—not of people, though, just beasts—and that made no sense to Hector. Surely, people with their scheming and plotting were a lot more dangerous than a beast.

Ducking to the side, sparks of purple crackled along his wrist, forming a dagger. He then lashed forward.

The blade bit through the creature's front limbs before slicing off its wings. Hector then stepped back, pressing himself against the wall as more of the smaller creatures leapt towards him.

A few paces away, Jodie danced around the small Indigos, ducking their attacks and piercing them with her sword, her eyes taking on that shimmering quality.

While they hadn't spoken about it, she was obviously using her battle intent. And was getting to a certain level of proficiency with it, being able to call on it almost willingly, no longer needing to be hit and suffer immense pain to activate it.

He wanted to know how she was doing it, but that could wait.

Stepping to the side as another Indigo smacked into the earth wall, he swung his dagger up, stabbing it into its back and then ripped it free in a spray of blood.

Hector then rushed forward, cutting down several that lanced towards him, beating them back as if they were flying bags of meat. And in a way, they were.

After a few bloody minutes and near misses, flesh-like appendages littered the ground, bodies twitching on top of bodies. They'd killed all of them, at least the ones that tried to attack them.

Lincoln stepped out of the bush, a smile hanging on his lips. He'd used his talent precisely during the fight, saving them many a time.

"Everything alright?" he asked Hector, and Hector nodded.

"Thank you for that. Listen, Lincoln—"

Before he could continue, Lincoln was already rushing past him and thrusting his spear forward. When Hector turned, he found an Indigo pinned to the tip of the spear to the falling mud wall as Lincoln let out a steady breath. He swivelled to Hector.

"What?"

And Hector shook his head. "Nothing. Thanks for that."

Hector and the other two then gathered themselves and moved away from the area. They had found the creature in this direction, following the path Hector had suggested, so it stood to reason that continuing in that direction could lead them to a larger cluster of them, and perhaps even the creature they were hunting.

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As they walked, several minutes passed filled with light chatter. They mostly focused on searching out clues, though, not wanting to get caught up in any conversation that could be too distracting before they actually found what they were looking for.

All the while, the temperature lowered. It wasn't too noticeable at first. A simple shiver on his arm, then goosebumps. But before Hector knew it, he found that his breath let out mist, and Jodie was shaking a little, though the girl said it was nothing.

"Alright, guys," Hector said, stopping and resting his hands on a tree. It was getting late now, the sun having almost completely set. "We should find somewhere to hunker down."

His warm breath passed in front of him in a light mist, and he turned to Jodie, who shifted from foot to foot, blowing into her hands.

"Yeah, let's get a fire going first. That's a good idea."

As he reached down to grab a stick, a piercing screech sounded through the forest. Hector's head snapped towards the sound, and above them, a large Indigo perched on some branches. It was at least two of him wide, and roughly his height in size. How was the thing floating on such thin wings? They barely looked big enough to hold it.

The creature flapped, and with a heavy thud, it landed on the ground, crushing twigs and leaves beneath it. Its beady black eyes seemed to watch Hector and the others as they shifted, taking a step back.

"I didn't expect it to be that big," Lincoln murmured, already moving back. A stiff wind whipped through the air, tousling his hair.

Hector's hands began crackling with static as the swords condensed from energy, sparks jumping from the blades.

Behind the creature, several smaller Indigos moved out from within the bushes. Their mandibles clacked as their wings beat on their backs. It was an ambush. Though Hector doubted that, like the Shadow Wyrm, these things were intelligent enough to plan something like this.

But that meant an opening existed. Could they exploit it?

Hector levelled both newly formed blades forward, the metal humming with contained energy. He grumbled the order. "Lincoln, I'll need you to cover me. Jodie, try to keep the little ones off me."

They didn't even get the chance to reply.

Hector exploded forward, his static field blooming outward in a sphere of crackling force that pushed against the air itself, and then he yanked on [Volt Runner], feeling static electricity cascade down his legs in serpentine patterns that leapt and snapped at nothing.

He rushed the larger creature, dragging both swords through a wide, brutal arc, but the indigo raised one front limb—casual, almost lazy—and blocked the strike with a sound like meat hitting stone.

The blades didn't penetrate. Not even slightly. The thing flicked its limb, and suddenly Hector was airborne, hurtling backwards until he crashed into a tree trunk hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs.

He dropped. Then he was moving again before his brain caught up with his body.

His blades carved through a smaller indigo that lunged past, its body splitting with surprising ease compared to its larger cousin. Fire erupted somewhere to his left—had to be Jodie—and the fireball slammed into the big indigo, which shrieked and beat its wings.

The resulting gust staggered Hector sideways, but he cut down a few more of the smaller ones before they swarmed him completely. With a flick of his wrist, a dagger shot through one. The second slash, severing legs from another body.

Where the hell was Lincoln's wall?

Hector glanced back, and his chest tightened. Lincoln stood frozen, completely motionless despite the tide of tiny Indigos surging toward him, his spear gripped tight but unused. What was his friend playing at?

This wasn't the time for hesitation or whatever frozen place Lincoln's mind had crawled into. Cutting down several more attackers, Hector raced toward him while Jodie—Great Lake keep her—used vicious claws to slice through Indigos with her bare hands. She grabbed one mid-flight and weaponised it against another, then punted a third into a tree trunk with enough force to leave a dent.

The large indigo still in the air hovered. Watching.

Then it locked onto something, and Hector's guts twisted. The creature pumped its wings and shot straight at Lincoln like a missile.

Time crawled.

Hector pulled on [Quickenning Brace], and the world slowed to syrup-thick seconds as he willed [Blazing Arsenal] into existence—magma ballooned from the ground a few feet behind Lincoln's unmoving form, a fireball coalescing above the molten pool, and thank the Great Lake the two Talents meshed perfectly.

The projectile formed near instantaneously before rocketing forward as time snapped back into its normal, terrifying speed. It soared over Lincoln's head, slammed into the diving indigo, but barely slowed the thing down.

Barely. But enough.

Hector tackled Lincoln sideways, and they both hit dirt, smaller Indigos screeching around them in a chittering chorus that set Hector's teeth on edge. He rolled to a stop, clutching Lincoln, leapt to his feet—sword manifesting again in an arc of purple light—and cut clean through a smaller indigo that had seized the opportunity to attack.

This was going poorly. Catastrophically, even.

Lincoln remained frozen beside him, eyes wide but unseeing. Hector shook his shoulder, the wind from beating wings growing louder, more insistent. "Wake up, Lincoln, get yourself together," he demanded, trying to keep the edge from his voice and failing.

The larger Indigo eyed him again as another of Jodie's fireballs slammed into its side, flames washing over its flesh but causing minimal damage before it beat those absurdly small wings and blew the fire away like soot off a countertop, then took to the sky. The smaller ones kept coming. Always coming.

"Jodie!" Hector called over the chittering. "We have to get out of here."

He didn't wait for the ginger—she'd follow, she always did—just grabbed Lincoln's collar and hauled him away, rushing toward the direction that had the fewest Indigos blocking their path.

Pumping his legs, Hector tried processing how everything had spiralled so badly, so quickly.

Lincoln ran now, having regained some control of his limbs, though the horror in his eyes persisted like a stain that wouldn't wash out.

What was wrong with him? Why this reaction? Sure, the Indigo were unsettling and fit every horrible description they'd heard, but to freeze up like that?

Jodie landed beside them with a thud, having jumped from a tree branch.

"What happened?" she asked.

Hector shook his head. "We were going to be overwhelmed." He shot a meaningful glance at Lincoln.

Jodie nodded. She understood.

They ran through the forest, wind whipping past Hector's ears while chicken-like screeches erupted from rustling bushes behind them, the sounds speaking of a swarm giving chase.

He couldn't spot the larger indigo, though, so he checked the sky. The canopy wasn't nearly as dense as the shade forest—nowhere close—which gave him a clear view of open, almost nighttime air where the larger Indigo flapped those ridiculously small wings, somehow maintaining altitude despite his basic understanding of gravity suggesting otherwise.

Frustration burst through his chest, and Hector grit his teeth as he kept running.

"This is getting us nowhere," he said, settling into a rhythm.

They continued for several more minutes, diving over bushes and dodging low branches until the sight of a cave entrance caught Hector's attention. It didn't look too wide. Which meant the larger indigo definitely wouldn't fit inside. Not without some serious contortion, anyway.

"Jodie over there," Hector said, raising an arm and pointing.

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