A Sinner’s Chance

With my right hand gripping a naginata tightly while my left rested on Neyla's shoulder to stabilize myself, we rushed through the forest. Well it was more accurate to say that Neyla was rushing, as I was simply standing on her back, supplying her stamina like a battery with Essence Sharing.

While her expenditure was pretty significant, it was incomparable to Steria's when she was going at top speed, of course the speeds were completely different as well. However, what Neyla lacked in speed, she made up for in combat strength. Clearly accustomed to fighting with her glaive against the monsters of the Forest of Darkness, she was capable of charging through smaller enemies, and even larger enemies usually got impaled by her. Her sense and understanding of the monsters was also great, as she avoided combat wherever it would be faster to do so.

Apparently the forest was divided into four rings, the Outer, Lesser, Inner, and Central. Each ring was only a general feeling for where one could encounter what monsters, as there were plenty of places that didn't follow the rings. It wasn't like there was a hard edge to them either, they just sort of blended together, which meant it was possible to encounter stronger monsters in further out rings.

The Outer ring was closest to the wall that the Races had erected to cut off the forest, it was also the largest and was populated by the weakest monsters. The Lesser ring was where most the Lesser monsters resided, not strong enough to make it into the deeper rings, but much stronger than anything in the Outer ring. The Inner ring consisted of monsters that would be considered A-Rank and above threats by the Adventurer's Guild, each one could easily level the city of Phoenicia if it wanted. The Central ring was home to monsters that had gained sentience, demons, and a handful of S-Rank monsters.

Neyla's lair was somewhere between the Lesser and Inner rings, while Steria and the others were about centered in the Lesser ring. According to Neyla, they were likely in a Lesser Alraune, a plant monster that poisoned and weakened its prey before devouring them. Unlike many sources may claim, they were not actually that susceptible to fire. While it could deal them significant harm, actually managing to burn them was difficult, as anyone whose attempted to burn freshly fallen wood from a still living tree could attest to. The best way to deal with one was to simply chop them up, however doing so without getting poisoned was extremely difficult. 

I couldn't stop my beating heart as we finally made it to the edge of the lair. Arya hadn't contacted me for awhile and I was getting worried, especially since she hadn't responded to any of my attempts to reach her. I could only think that they had run into more trouble and that something had happened to her. I could still sense a vague location from her, but I didn't know if that would persist if she was dead and I was hoping that I didn't need to find out.

While at first Neyla had been making slow progress through the dense lair filled with greenery, chopping away at the obstacles that faced us, I eventually dismounted and used my Desiccating Yin to burn the lifeforce of our path, leaving withered plant life in our wake as we pushed forward.

There were several times where twisting vines, or the branches of trees would suddenly spring to life and assault us, usually stopped by Neyla's Glaive or my Yinfire. It was as if they were trying to prevent us from advancing towards Arya and the others, as the attacks became fiercer as we got closer. When we finally made it to the edge of a clearing and I could see Steria and Arya unconscious next to each other, Renae was being restrained by several vines preventing her from helping. I had only taken a single step as I prepared to rush towards them only for Neyla to grab my shoulder and shake her head. "This is the center of the Alraune's lair, this is where it digests what it catches, it's filled with a powerful gas that sends one into a state of euphoric slumber. You need to be very careful with retrieving them."

Neyla's words caused me to hesitate as I stood on the threshold of safety. The three were fine currently but I didn't know how long that would last so I had to quickly figure out how to deal with the predicament in front of me. If they hadn't been right in the center I probably could have used webs and Thread Manipulation to drag them to safety, but they were too far out of my Domain for that.

While I wanted to just rush in, I was worried the gas would knock me out, only giving the Alraune's more victims. Were the gas visible I would just use Air Magic to keep it away from me, but I wasn't skilled enough to discern between different types of gases, let alone move them to my will.

In my state of high tension I could only think of a single way to rescue the girls, I simply wouldn't breathe. I was strong enough to carry all three of them, and if I hurried I could probably do it in a single trip. I also had Neyla hook some webbing through one of the many attach points on my harness so that in a worst case scenario where the gas would work on skin alone, she could pull me back. With the rest of the preparations done, I took a section of webbing and slowly tightened it around my neck. If I felt that I was going to be forced to take a breath before rescuing even a single one, I would tighten it via Threat Manipulation so that I couldn't breath no matter what.

I took a deep breath before sprinting forward. I hadn't even made it halfway when I could feel by body protesting the lack of oxygen, but I ignored it as I made it to Arya, the closest to me and picked her up carefully cradling her as I rushed back, my vision starting to darken as the web around my neck tightened and prevented me from taking a gulp of the poisoned air. I didn't know how much time I could hold my breath for, but I was almost certain that I was on the verge of passing out, despite it only being around a minute to get her out.

Steria was a bit further away, but I should be able to manage her. The biggest problem was Renae, as while she was still conscious, she was restrained by a multitude of vines, something that would take time to remove, even if I cut or burnt them. I needed a way to move incredibly quickly in a short amount of time, so that I needn't worry about how much time I had, or if I had any method of filtering the air. I wracked my brain as my body recovered from the bout of extended lack of oxygen, when it suddenly came to me. A foolish and probably extremely dangerous method of transportation, something that would likely only work for someone like me who could sustain plenty of wounds without issue.