Gilded Ashes-Chapter 275: Single Mistake

The Ukaians went silent. Even their beasts hesitated for a few minutes. Nothing about this was normal. Ukai summoners altered beasts, guided them, nurtured them. Their craft was intimate, careful. Almost like a partnership.

But this was different. This was nature turned into pure horror. Nyxes died way faster than before. Faster than when dozens of beasts and tamers fought. The clearing filled with drifting ash that glowed softly against rain. Some fog kept trying to creep back in, but Enya’s movement kept carving it away. It was almost as if she created her own weather.

Enya quickly vaulted off a vine and landed between a bear and a cluster of Nyxes, like she couldn’t get tired. The bear was huge, scales cracked with old scars, breathing heavy. A Nyx slammed into its side and swung, trying to cut through the scales. The bear roared, staggered, and almost fell.

Enya’s head snapped toward it, and for the first time, she hesitated. Not because she didn’t know what to do, but because she calculated. She calculated the smallest bad.

A second Nyx shaped like a panther with one eye surged toward the platformed tamers behind, at the same time. The tamers were mostly safe up there, but not safe enough if the Nyx got a good angle.

Enya’s hand flicked. A thick branch rose near the bear, angled like a shield. But it was behind it, not in front of it, only blocking the Nyx’s path toward the rear line.

The bear was left completely exposed. And the Nyx already on it drove deeper.

The bear convulsed, then collapsed with a heavy, wet thud.

A tamer screamed somewhere close.

Enya didn’t look back. The shield branch grew thorns and slammed forward, crushing the second Nyx into a root, saving the back line.

The ground trembled as her vines moved even more, thick and fast, pulling, snapping, weaving. Then, quietly, something changed. Not in the fog or Enya’s weird plants. In the Nyxes.

One of them stopped charging. This one looked. More normal, as far as Raizen could tell. It had the basic humanoid shape, with three glowing eyes that looked like they were bleeding into each other.

It stood back from the swarm’s edge, half hidden behind roots. Taller than the others. Its outline didn’t flicker as much.

It just watched everything. Enya killed another bird-Nyx with a whip that split its wings in half.

The tall Nyx didn’t react.

Enya launched herself upward, swinging on a vine again.

The tall Nyx’s head tilted, tracking.

Enya hit the ground again, and as she did, she scattered seeds for another trap.

The tall Nyx didn’t charge into it.

It stepped sideways. It looked... patient.

The Ukaians didn’t notice. They were still staring at Enya, still trying to understand the impossible plants, the cleared fog, the way the swarm collapsed around her, the way she fought like this was the easiest thing.

But the tall Nyx watched like it cared about only one thing.

Her.

Enya kept moving, still in control, still dominating. She swung through the clearing on a vine like a pendulum, then used the swing to launch herself toward a small group forming near the left flank. She landed and raised a wall of roots behind them, cutting them off.

She split the cluster with a huge branch strike.

The tall Nyx stepped closer. Slowly. Very careful.

Enya didn’t notice it. She was too busy being flawless in combat. She surfed a vine rail again, cutting through fog and rain. She threw seeds, grew a ramp, and used it to launch herself into a high arc.

A Nyx below tried to slash her midair with its unnaturally long claws.

Enya snapped her fingers and a vine wrapped the Nyx’s arm, yanking it down so hard it got ripped apart.

She laughed behind the helmet. Then she landed. Mud slicked under her boot.

For the first time, her foot slipped. It was small. Barely a mistake. The kind any fighter made in rain. Yet Enya turned it into an advantage.

She let herself slide, body dropping low, and used the momentum to spin. Her plants whipped out from her sides like blades, cutting through two Nyxes as she rotated. She ended the spin in a crouch, one hand on the ground.

The tall Nyx moved.

It didn’t charge like the others. It darted, fast, straight through a gap in Enya’s lattice. The only small gap she completely ignored

Enya’s head snapped up. She pivoted, vines already reacting, a trunk starting to rise to block it. But it was too late.

The tall Nyx didn’t care about any of it. It raised its arm.

The darkness in its body flowed up the limb like liquid overflowing a pipe. The arm swelled, thickened, and the hand shaped into something smooth and rounded, as if it wasn’t even a Nyx’s hand anymore. It compressed, the blackness tightening into a dense point, smaller than a fist, even more solid than the rest of its body. It didn’t leak. It didn’t flicker.

It looked more like a bullet made of pure darkness.

Enya lunged sideways, vines whipping up like shields.

The projectile fired with a thundering sound.

It moved so fast, Raizen only saw it after it was fired, leaving a ray of black behind. It cut through rain without slowing down. It tore through fog like it wasn’t even there. And finally, the thing slammed into Enya’s chest plate.

For one impossible second, everything stayed dead still. Then the darkness exploded. The blast was blunt and violent. Not heat or flame, but a punch of force that shoved air, water, and life outward. Enya’s vines recoiled like they felt pain. A few branches snapped completely. Leaves ripped free from nearby roots and drifted down slowly.

The clear bubble in the fog collapsed as mist rushed back in, swallowing the impact site in gray.

And through the smoke and rain, the armored shadow spun backward, thrown like a broken doll into the fog.