The Skiing Elf

Black blood soaked the snow.

The corpses of Exo Beetles lay strewn in chaotic heaps. Their black, glossy exoskeletons shimmered with frost and blood, many of their heads split clean or pierced by frozen arrows. Some had been cleaved apart by vines turned into blades. Others had their mandibles shattered, their sensory nodes scorched by green-tinged bursts of pure elemental wrath.

And in the middle of it all, Elyonari Mintheris stood.

Or rather, leaned.

She was panting, hunched against the gnarled trunk of a now-lifeless pine tree, her breath fogging in the air in thick huffs. Her robe was torn at the shoulders and waist, burned in places. Her hand trembled, fingers slick with blood, some hers, most not.

A long gash ran diagonally across her forehead, threading through her brow and down the side of her face. Blood trailed from it sluggishly, having frozen in streaks against her skin. Her palms were sliced, raw from conjuring one too many arrows too quickly without recovery.

She blinked once.

A dull ding echoed in her mind.

[System Notification:]

[You have killed 112 Exo Beetles.]

[Your physical body and soul have gotten stronger!]

[Third Phase Ascender: 2,646/100,000]

Elyonari didn't smile. There was no thrill in it or pride. Only relief.

She lifted her gaze weakly to the forest around her. It had once been a pocket of beauty amidst the cursed terrain of the Mountain of Illusions. The trees had been thick with crystalline leaves, trunks heavy with hibernating life and dormant essence.

Now?

Now they were dead.

"...Sorry," she whispered, voice barely above a breath.

She turned slowly and placed her wounded hand flat against the tree behind her, the one she leaned against. Her fingers trembled with guilt, but she did it anyway.

She drew its Nature Energy.

A soft green glow flared beneath her hand, rippling through the bark. The tree shuddered once then began to collapse, crumbling to rot and ash. Its bark blackened. Its leaves curled. Its very soul seemed to sigh before it crumbled into brittle ruin.

She didn't flinch. That was the last one.

She stepped away from the skeletal remains, boots crunching over dead roots and withered twigs. All around her, the forest was nothing more than a graveyard of trees, all of them sacrificed for her survival. She hadn't meant to kill them all. She hadn't even realized it was happening at first.

But in that desperate moment, when hundreds of Exo Beetles had charged her in the middle of the frozen glade, she had pulled too hard.

Nature answered when she called. And this time, it had done so with vengeance.

She checked her wounds. The deep gash on her forehead was closed now, though blood still crusted the skin. Her palms were whole again, though painfully sore. The small slice across her side was gone.

She was healed but… she wasn't okay. She clenched her fists, looked around again and sighed.

"...Where are you, Veneri? Please don't be stupid and try to fight them..."

It wasn't a panicked statement. Elyonari was calm, even now. But the worry was real because she knew and understood the Exo Beetles in a way most didn't. The fact that she'd survived was only due to a single advantage.

Elemental infusion.

Their exoskeletons were so dense, so intricately layered in natural alloy and divine-imbued carapace that physical attacks bounced off them. Only with elemental tethering could one hope to fracture or penetrate those heads, and that too, only if the blow was precise.

And Elyonari?

She was an archer. A Third Phase Ascender, almost a Divine. She could summon arrows from Nature Energy, infuse them with the raw energies of fire, ice, or stone. And more importantly?

She never missed. Even still, she had barely survived.

The beetles were faster than they looked. Their heads constantly twitched. Their movements weren't predictable. Getting a clean shot at their mandibles or their nerve points was like threading a needle in a hurricane.

Vastarael…

He was strong, far stronger than her in many ways. His Aeterium blood, his Calimostria glaive, his reconstruction, they all made him a monster on the battlefield. A legend.

But even he couldn't kill what he couldn't pierce.

And while she could infuse elemental power into every arrow she formed, Vastarael's glaive required motion.

That wasn't going to help when he was being chased by dozens of Exo Beetles, all faster than sound, all impervious to direct physical damage.

And that… that is why she worried.

She wasn't scared for herself. Elyonari never had been. But Vastarael was brash. And more dangerously… he was clever.

Too clever, the kind of clever that led him to think he could outsmart his way through a situation where the only solution was overwhelming force or impossibly lucky escapes.

He was probably running, setting traps, thinking five steps ahead and bleeding out, smiling through it, telling himself it would be fine and that he'd just figure it out as he went.

Her lips tightened.

"Idiot," she murmured softly. "You better not be in one of your heroic moods…"

She summoned a crafted arrow, an emerald-tipped bolt of Nature and Earth, designed to shatter through rock and bone alike.

She stared at it.

"I'll find you," she whispered, pulling her hood back over her frost-tangled silver hair. "You stubborn fool."

The earth trembled beneath her feet.

Elyonari's elf ears twitched, her eyes flicking back even before the subtle crunch behind her became the violent, echoing thunder of a horde on the move.

Their black, armor-coated bodies gleamed with winter frost, their limbs twisted and hunched, mandibles twitching in primal rage. Their necks jerked with every step, like puppets gone rogue, and their legs slammed against the snowy earth with a speed that defied their hulking frames.

Elyonari didn't think. There was no time to. Her instincts fired like lightning in her blood.

She turned and ran.

Her feet were a blur, carving deep imprints through the snow as she dashed across the frozen ridge. Trees blurred past her peripheral vision. Wind tore against her face, her silver braid whipped behind her like a comet's tail.

The screech of one Exo Beetle slammed into her hearing. She twisted around sharply and threw her palm toward the ground behind her.

The earth shook.

Explosive flames burst from the ground in wide vertical jets, fusing with the rocky crust below to form a rising wall of flaming molten stone. The sudden heatwave melted the snow instantly into steam, sending shockwaves through the icy air. The first beetles hit the wall at full sprint and were crushed against the barrier in brutal collision.

But it wasn't enough.

They came around it. Over it. Some even crawled through it, smoldering and screaming in a high-pitched frequency that dug into Elyonari's skull like shards.

Her heart was pounding in her chest but her face was calm. She narrowed her eyes, then looked ahead.

The cliff ended.

Or rather, it began to descend sharply into a ravine slope of pure white stretching for hundreds of meters into a deep, obscured valley below. The incline was steep enough to be lethal.

Elyonari didn't hesitate.

She bent her knees, spread her arms and focused.

Her boots clicked together and roots sprouted from her boots, curling around the soles into sleek, smooth extensions. With her Nature Energy spiraling into the ice beneath her, the snow morphed, hardening into a solid channel like a naturally formed slide.

She began to ski.

She launched forward, exploding down the slope like a shooting star.

The wind roared in her ears. Trees and frozen rocks flashed past in blur-lines of blue and grey. Her silver braid snapped like a flag behind her, and frost collected in her lashes. Her form leaned low, almost crouched, arms spread for balance, her boots gliding across snow made slick by her will.

The Exo Beetles poured over the ridge after her. Their feet pounded the edge and then they followed. In a massive swarm, they began tumbling, skidding, even galloping down the slope. Some collided with each other and rolled. Others used their claws to dig into the sides of the terrain for control, making horrible grinding noises.

Elyonari threw a glance over her shoulder. Dozens were catching up too fast.

Her eyes sharpened and she slammed her hands into the snow mid-ski.

Instantly, snow exploded behind her, shaped into needle-sharp shards of crystallized green Nature Energy. Dozens of spikes shot upward in a fan pattern. Beetles caught in the blast screeched, their heads pierced, their mandibles shattered as they tripped and fell, sending those behind them tumbling like a horrific avalanche of limbs and shells.

Still, more kept coming.

The chase wasn't over. If anything, it was escalating.

The terrain became wild and treacherous with rocks, buried roots and sudden drops but Elyonari flowed through it all. Her feet never stopped. She twisted, leaned, spun and bent like a wind dancer. At one point, she jumped a five-meter drop and she landed without pause, her boots sliding into another channel she sculpted from the frozen earth as she landed.

The wind picked up hard. The descent curved suddenly and she bent low, accelerating with the twist. Her cloak streamed out behind her like wings.

Every so often, she would raise a hand, and fire arcs would blast behind her that exploded into fiery bursts, forcing the beetles to swerve or crash mid-pursuit.

One beetle leapt from behind her and over the heads of its kin. Its claws aimed to grab her mid-air but she didn't even flinch.

She raised a hand without looking back.

A whip of green-flame with Nature Energy lashed behind her, coiling around the beetle's neck mid-flight. She yanked it sharply forward and the creature's momentum slammed it face-first into a frozen boulder at the side of the slope, its skull imploding with a wet crunch.

Elyonari's face remained serene.

"Not today."

The slope was ending now, fading into a wide, sunken basin layered in deep snow and frost. And through the mist, she saw something.

A blizzard.

She bent lower, leaning forward, letting gravity do the rest.

As she tore down the last stretch, snow flying in all directions, a final squad of Exo Beetles lunged behind her, screeching and clawing, but Elyonari moved through the very heart of the storm with a glide and grace that defied death itself.

And she did not stop.