From Deadbeat noble to Top Rank Swordsman-Chapter 104: The Breathing Forest

The old forest greeted them like a closed mouth—wide, silent, dark. No birds. No animals. Just roots and stillness. The trail disappeared less than an hour in. Trees leaned inward, their trunks swollen with age and something else. Something recent. Like they’d been fed.

Leon moved without hesitation. His blade was sheathed now, but his eyes were sharper than ever. Mira muttered softly behind him, her fingers grazing runes etched into tree bark. Old wards. Broken.

"Something passed through here," she said. "Something that fed."

Tomas kept pace beside her, scanning the canopy. "Do you hear that?"

They stopped.

Leon frowned. "What?"

"Nothing. No wind. No movement. It’s like the whole forest is holding its breath."

He was right.

Leon gestured forward. They moved again. The deeper they went, the more unnatural the silence became. There were no insects, no fallen leaves underfoot. Just packed dirt and the faint scent of copper.

They reached a clearing just past midday. It was circular, too perfect to be natural. In the centre stood a stone monolith covered in moss and veins of dried blood. Around it—bones. Arranged deliberately. Human. Animal. Something else.

Mira drew her dagger, its edge faintly glowing. "This wasn’t a killing ground. It was an offering."

Leon stepped closer, studying the monolith. Symbols had been carved into its face. Not runes. Not language. Claw marks.

He touched the stone.

It was warm.

Tomas raised his bow. "We’re being watched."

Leon didn’t look away. "From where?"

"Everywhere."

The trees around the clearing shifted. Just slightly. As if something had passed between them but left no shape behind. Mira spun, eyes narrowed.

"We need to break whatever this is," she said. "Quickly. Before it wakes up."

Leon pulled a second detonation rune from his pouch. He slammed it against the stone.

It sparked.

Then went out.

"It’s protected," he muttered.

Mira didn’t wait. She stabbed her dagger into the monolith’s base and traced a circle around it in ash. "Tomas, salt the perimeter. Leon, brace me."

She began chanting. The air thickened. The shadows leaned in.

Then came the scream.

High-pitched. Guttural. Not near. Not far. Just there.

The bones around the monolith shifted.

And from the forest came the first shape.

It walked upright.

But it was no man.

It was tall—taller than any man Leon had fought. Eight feet, maybe more. Its limbs were long, too long, ending in hands with five curved claws that twitched in rhythm with Mira’s chant. Its skin—or what was left of it—hung in dry strips from a blackened frame, stretched tight over bone and something pulsing beneath. No eyes. Just pits. And rows of teeth where a mouth shouldn’t be.

It stepped into the clearing without sound.

Tomas backed toward the edge, arrow drawn and shaking slightly. "Tell me we’re ready."

"Not yet," Mira breathed, voice low. "Almost there. Just a few more lines."

Leon stood in front of her, blade drawn now, held low and steady. His eyes locked on the creature.

It didn’t charge.

It watched.

It tilted its head.

Then it opened its mouth—and spoke without sound.

No breath. No language. Just a pressure in the skull, like someone whispering behind your eyes.

Leon grit his teeth. "Don’t listen."

Mira flinched but didn’t stop. Her dagger traced faster, carving deeper into the earth. The ashes hissed where they fell.

The creature stepped forward again.

And another answered.

From the far side of the clearing, a second shape emerged. Smaller. Loping on all fours. This one did have eyes—milky white things that bulged, blinking independently. Its back was hunched, covered in bone-like protrusions. It sniffed the air.

Then screamed.

Tomas fired. The arrow struck true, embedding in its neck.

It didn’t slow down.

Leon moved.

He met the first creature head-on, blade flashing. Steel met claw. Sparks danced. The creature moved like smoke—liquid, fast, but not weightless. It had strength behind its limbs.

Leon spun, cut low, slashed the back of its knee. No blood. Just more of that hissing mist.

It stumbled.

The second one lunged at Mira.

Tomas dropped his bow and charged, tackling it mid-leap. The two rolled through the bones, scattering the arrangement. The creature shrieked and bit down on Tomas’s shoulder. He screamed, punched it twice in the head, and kicked it off.

Mira finished the last sigil.

"Leon—now!"

He didn’t hesitate.

He reached into his pouch and pulled the backup seal—unstable, but strong. He slammed it down on the circle Mira had carved and triggered it.

The entire clearing lit up.

Not with fire. Not with light.

With silence.

A crushing, absolute stillness that bent the trees and stopped the creatures mid-motion. Even the air froze. Mira’s eyes glowed briefly. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. She finished the ward.

The monolith cracked.

A jagged split down the centre.

The bones turned to ash. The creatures shrieked and stumbled, clawing at nothing, their forms unraveling like threads pulled from old cloth.

Leon rushed Tomas, pulling him back from the writhing smaller one. Mira raised her dagger high, then plunged it into the monolith’s heart.

It shattered.

The clearing broke.

Wind returned—sharp and cold.

The creatures were gone.

Only dust remained.

Tomas clutched his shoulder, blood seeping between his fingers. "That thing bit deep."

Leon tore open a cloth, wrapped it tight. "You’ll live. But we’re done here."

Mira exhaled, her shoulders sagging. "That was a shrine. A conduit."

"To what?" Tomas muttered.

Leon looked to the cracked stone.

"It doesn’t matter," he said.

But his eyes told a different story.

It mattered.

It was only the first.

And the forest was still breathing.

The ash had barely settled when the ground rumbled beneath their feet—faint, but unmistakable. Not the tremble of something collapsing, but the pulse of something living, deep beneath the roots. Leon’s gaze swept the treeline again. Stillness had returned, but it was thinner now. Like a veil stretched too tight. freewebnøvel.coɱ

Mira knelt beside one of the piles of ash where the second creature had fallen. She scooped a handful and let it trickle through her fingers. It didn’t drift like dust. It sank—straight down into the soil, like water down a drain.

"This isn’t natural," she muttered.

Tomas grimaced as he sat on a mossy stone. "You think?"

"No." Mira stood slowly. "I mean the ash. It’s not... dead. It’s returning."

Leon turned. "To what?"

She didn’t answer. Instead, she walked toward the monolith’s broken base. What remained of it still pulsed faintly—like a dying heart. She placed her palm against it.

Her eyes widened.

"It’s still connected."

Leon was beside her in an instant. "To where?"

Mira’s voice dropped to a whisper. "It’s not a place. It’s a network. Every shrine like this... they’re linked. Not like roads. Like nerves."

Leon looked at the ash around his boots.

"And we just severed one."

Tomas shifted. "Then something felt it."

Mira nodded. "Everything did."

Leon looked back toward the forest. The trees had stopped creaking. Even the wind held still again. But his gut twisted tighter.

"We move," he said. "Now."

They didn’t argue.

Tomas retrieved his bow. Mira packed what she could salvage. They followed Leon out of the clearing, back into the thick of trees, tracing no path—just instinct.

But they weren’t alone.

A branch cracked to their left. Then another. Quiet. Deliberate. Not the blind shuffle of beasts.

Leon raised a fist.

They froze.

He turned toward the sound—but saw nothing.

Then, from the corner of his eye, he caught movement.

Not a shape.

A shimmer.

Like heat rising from stone, warping air.

It vanished before his blade could lift.

"Scouts," Mira said under her breath. "Whatever called them... it’s still watching."

Tomas backed closer. "What do we do?"

Leon didn’t hesitate. "We draw them out."

He dropped a flare shard onto the ground—a dull stone etched with runes. When it hit the dirt, it erupted in red light, burning bright enough to scatter shadows.

Figures flinched at the edge of vision.

Two. Three. Maybe more.

Mira whispered another ward—this one held.

The figures didn’t retreat.

They circled.

"They’re not attacking," Tomas said.

Leon narrowed his eyes. "Because they’re learning."

The light began to dim.

He didn’t wait.

He charged the nearest shimmer.

His blade struck something solid—brief resistance, then a ripple through the air. A shriek followed, more animal than human, and the shimmer bled into black mist before vanishing.

The others scattered—but only a few steps.

They didn’t flee.

They adjusted.

"They’re testing our reach," Mira said. "They’ll probe again. And harder."

Leon turned, face grim. "Then we don’t give them the chance."

He drew out a second flare shard—this one unstable. It wasn’t just light.

It was noise.

He slammed it to the earth.

The explosion shook the clearing—pure sound, raw and violent. The forest buckled. Trees groaned. Whatever was stalking them fled, screeching in pain.

But the cost was clear.

More movement.

Far more.

From deep in the forest, something massive stirred.

The air grew heavy. Oppressive.

A long, drawn-out sound rolled across the woods—not a roar. A breath.

The forest exhaled.

Leon’s face turned pale.

"That wasn’t just a creature."

Mira answered without looking at him.

"It was the forest itself."

They ran.

And the ground began to move.

Roots split underfoot as they sprinted, the earth cracking with groans that didn’t belong to rock. Leon led, ducking low branches, weaving between trunks as wide as carts. Behind him, Mira chanted under her breath, drawing sigils into the air with her fingertips. Tomas limped after them, one arm pressed to his bandaged shoulder.

The forest wasn’t just watching anymore.

It was reacting.

Trees twisted as they passed, limbs reshaping mid-motion, reaching inward to block paths that had been clear seconds ago. The terrain shifted, too. What should have sloped downward suddenly rose, and what looked like solid ground turned soft, sucking at their boots.

Leon grabbed Tomas as the hunter nearly stumbled into a sinkhole masked by dead leaves. "Stay upright. Move faster."

"I’m trying," Tomas hissed.

The trees ahead parted without warning. Not gently. Like something had forced them aside. The air beyond shimmered.

Leon didn’t slow. They burst through—

And found themselves back in the same clearing.

The shattered monolith.

The circle of ash.

The bones.

Mira stopped dead, her eyes wide. "No. That’s not possible."

"We ran in a straight line," Tomas growled. "We left this place."

"No," Mira whispered. "It brought us back."

Leon scanned the treetops, jaw tight. "It’s anchoring us. The shrine’s remains... they’re still linked to the rest."

"Then we break the link."

"How?" Tomas barked. "We shattered it."

Mira turned toward the fractured base, her dagger glowing faintly again. "We didn’t shatter the source. Only the surface."

Leon stepped beside her. "You’re saying the real core is still underground."

Mira nodded slowly. "This was just the altar."

Leon unslung his blade and stabbed it into the soil where the monolith had stood. The steel hit something hard—not stone. Not wood.

It rang.

Like metal. Or bone.

He looked up at Mira.

"Dig."

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