The first half of the pack came running straight forward. It was obvious they hadn’t encountered a hunter before. There was no sign of fear in their actions. Three of them leapt straight at Dallion as if he were a blade of grass. That proved to be a mistake. One swift spark attack later and all three of them fell to the ground, turning into ash. Unused to such a result, the rest of the dozen paused. Dallion could almost hear the confusion coming within them. The wild nature of the cutlings drove them to keep on mercilessly fighting. The sight they had witnessed attempted to instill caution.

Line attack, Dallion thought.

A glowing thread flew towards the horizon, poofing half of the pack out of existence. It was only upon reaching the second half that it was partially avoided. Four cutlings were caught nonetheless. The remaining eight quickly scattered, charging at Dallion from a different direction.

Too easy, he thought.

Splitting into instances, he dashed towards the nearest cutling, slicing it in two as he flew past. The corpse had barely turned to dust when Dallion charged on to the next. Like a thread weaving through cloth, Dallion made his way through the surrounding space, clashing against the monsters one by one. There wasn’t a single unnecessary action, no opening for them to take advantage of.

In less than a minute, the last of the pack had gone, killed like all the rest. Yet, that didn’t make Dallion feel fully at ease.

“Lux, scout a bit,” he said to the bladebow. “Keep your distance. There might be other things out there.”

Yes, boss! The firebird replied, darting its item through the air.

“Is that normal?” Now that the danger was over, the fury descended from the sky. “I’ve never seen a single person fight off that many.”

“They were inexperienced,” Dallion replied, putting his harpsisword away.

“That’s good for us. Time for some rest, then.”

Dallion nodded, even if he couldn’t agree less. The only reason for so many cutlings to pack together was because something stronger was out there—something that had leaked into the world along with them. It was obvious that it had to do with Palag’s expedition, whatever that was. The bigger question was why the apprentice mage remained so vague about it.

“Shield, keep an eye open,” he whispered as he lay on the ground.

Same as always, I guess, the dryad guardian replied. I can’t guarantee I’ll be as efficient as before. I’m not magic.

“Just do your best.”

Sleep was brief and uncomfortable, full of nightmares. Magic tended to add a new wrinkle to the mix of usual weirdness. The number of dreams about Earth had decreased, replaced by upper chaos. The difference was that now the chaos somehow made sense, not in a way Dallion could explain, but in a way that felt normal; like watching origami from the point of view of the piece of paper.

This time, the dream involved magic threads. Dallion found himself in a world of marionettes. He was walking along the streets of Nerosal—as he had many times in the past. Glowing threads fell from the sky, connecting everyone to the Purple Moon. While everything seemed normal, Dallion was never sure whether it was the people who controlled the threads, or the threads were controlling the people. The moment he had tried to break one of the threads, though, the dream had ended and Dallion was back on the field moments after sunrise. The fury was still asleep, floating ten feet from the ground, surrounded by three protective spheres of magic.

It’s all fine, the armadil shield said. Nothing approached, and he spent all the time sleeping.

“That’s not exactly fine.” Dallion stood up, stretched, then looked around.

The terrain looked very different in the morning. Traces of the cutling fight were everywhere, like tire tracks through a rocky field. As far as Dallion could tell the creatures had come from the northeast, and they lacked sophistication to leave fake trails. If it were up to him, he’d immediately follow the trail. However, part of being a hunter was following the exact instructions of people with a far lesser understanding.

“Palag,” Dallion shouted.

The sounds bounced off the external magic sphere, pausing it to change color. The fury’s eyes opened. Moving into a standing position mid-air, he slowly descended to the ground, spheres dissolving as he did so.

“It’s morning,” Dallion stated. “Time to continue.”

Dallion was expecting a series of complaints, or at the very least, a request for food. Instead, the fury nodded, lifting both in the air.

“That was some fight last night,” he said as the two flew over the cracklings’ trail. “Looks like someone dragged a dozen swords through the ground.”

“Something like that.” Dallion could tell the apprentice was nervous. Based on past experience, he also knew that he’d likely never get a better opportunity to press with information. “So, about that creature?” He subtly added a bit of calm and self-confidence in his words. “Did it enter this world with the cutlings?”

“No. They came as a result. My mage wanted to get as much from the vortex as possible. Some of the other apprentices were too eager.” There was a momentary pause. “Myself included. Things were done faster than they should have been. As a result, something broke out.”

Dallion knew next to nothing about mages in the grand scheme of things, but this sounded something they would typically do: make a mess and leave it for someone else to fix.

“And you don’t know what it looks like?”

“No.”

“And your mage is not interested in finding it?”

“Things are a bit complicated. You’ll learn soon enough. It’s not that he doesn’t want to, but doing so would put him in a bad position. If I were to capture the creature, it would be to everyone’s benefit.”

That sounded unlikely.

“And you’re sure no hunter has captured it so far?”

“No requests have been made and with the war raging in the area, the imperial legions aren’t focused on creatures as much as before. It’s out there, I can feel it.”

Hopefully, that feeling is more than intuition. “So, how do we proceed?”

“We’ll go to the point of the expedition and track it from there.”

Although the fury made it seem that they were close, the trip lasted over three more hours. Dallion’s suspicions turned out to be right—the cutlings had emerged from the spot in question. Their disorganized trails almost made a perfect circle on the rocky terrain. In the middle of it, though, lay nothing. Well, almost nothing. While there was nothing physical, even now Dallion could see the faint magic remnants, like torn up blueprints of a building.

“Don’t touch the magic,” Palag said the moment they landed on the spot.

“Sure.” Dallion never had any intention of doing so. “This was the entrance?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I don’t see any tracks.” Dallion walked about, carefully examining the outside of the circle. “Only cutlings.”

“It wouldn’t have left any physical trail.”

Less than a few moments later, Dallion found proof that the fury was wrong. Among the lines left by the cutling’s paws, there were a series of dots. A few of them in isolation one would think nothing of it, but looking at more a pattern began to emerge, a pattern that didn’t look like anything else Dallion had seen so far. If anything, it almost seemed as if made by something mechanical… like chains.

Palag’s hands moved about, drawing symbols in the air. Several circles formed, then merged together, creating an intricate shape that collapsed on itself within moments. Hopefully, that was an expected result.

“This way,” the fury said, continuing on foot.

“Is it a good idea for you to be in front?” Dallion arched a brow. “There’s no telling what it’s capable of.”

The question made Palag stop mid step, then gesture for Dallion to move ahead of him.

“You’ll need to stay close. It’s a jumper.”

Several minutes later, Dallion got to learn exactly what that meant. As they were walking through the rocky terrain, following the invisible trail that only the fury could see, suddenly everything shifted. It was similar to entering a realm, but different. The closest Dallion could associate it with was the method of travel the cultists had used. It was different, of course. While the “void travel” felt like floating through a sea of reality, this felt like suddenly being pulled to an entirely new location.

Like unfolding paper, Dallion thought, pausing.

“You didn’t throw up,” the fury said, impressed. “It usually takes a few times for people to get used to the shock. You must have gone through something similar before?”

Not helping. “Yeah. Something similar.” He nodded, finding it a blessing he hadn’t eaten on the last day.

“Don’t worry. It gets easier further on.”

Following the creature turned into a series of walks and jumps. Thanks to Lux, who remained in the sky, Dallion was able to get a general idea of where he was going. After a while, it became clear that the creature they were hunting had no sense of physical direction. From its point of view, it was traveling along a straight line, following a very specific goal. However, in terms of the physical world, it squiggled about the area, like a spitting top at half momentum. The only constant was that it kept moving away from its “entry point” in this world.

“It would help if we knew where it’s going,” Dallion said. “No matter how fast we are, catching up doesn’t always work.”

“It’ll work. The creature’s slow.”

“Does it drain magic?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe.”

So far, they hadn’t come across animal remains, which was a positive sign. At least it wasn’t a predator. The terrain also seemed largely undisturbed, suggesting it didn’t have chainling-like powers. Maybe it was nothing but a harmless creature that the fury wanted in order to score a few points in front of his mage?

“Stop!” Dallion suddenly said, bursting into instances. Several of them grabbed hold of Palag’s shoulder, forcing him to stop. Thankfully, the warning was understood without Dallion having to choose them to become reality.

“Why?” the fury whispered. “What happened?”

“It changed its pattern.” Dallion bent down, looking at the trail of dots on the ground. “So far, it always moved in a straight line. This time it turned.”

“You’re wrong. I clearly see—”

“It’s been leaving a physical trail,” Dallion interrupted. “That means it has a physical body.”

“Where?”

The bigger question remained what had caused the change. Dallion reached out to the new plants of the area, asking for information. While quite chatty, they proved to be useless. As far as they were concerned, the last creatures to pass by were a group of soldiers months ago. Since then, not even an insect had gone by. The moment he heard that, Dallion already knew that he was close to talking into a trap.

Ruby, are there any illusions? He drew his harpsisword. With one swift continuous action, he dashed to the fury, grabbing hold of him with his left hand, then swung his weapon, doing a three-sixty line attack.

A series of cracking sounds filled the air, as half of the attack slammed into an invisible barrier. Finding the distance to it closer than he’d like, Dallion quickly pulled back, just in time for a series of magic symbols to form in the air.

No, the shardfly replied. I can’t sense any illusions.

That idiot! Nil shouted within Dallion’s realm. That bloody idiot!

What did he do? Dallion pulled back more, doing a point attack straight forward. The attack slammed into the air, causing a faint crack to appear in the sky.

He let a reality chameleon loose and didn’t even bother to try and catch it! There are mages that have spent decades of their lives in an attempt to capture such a creature, and the idiot that is the fury’s mage had it drop in his lap, just to let it go.

“What the heck is a reality chameleon?” Dallion shouted. The moment he did, the ground beneath him shot up, changing into a cliffy mountain.