Elijah brought his fists down, pummeling the final troll into submission. And for these creatures, that meant death. There was no quarter expected, nor any given. The only way Elijah could have taken a captive was if he managed to completely subdue one of the things. And given their regenerative capabilities, that just wasn’t in the cards. Not without specialized equipment, at least. Even then, it would be more trouble than it was worth.

After all, their plans didn’t seem overly complex. There wasn’t much of an attempt at subterfuge. They weren’t a mindless horde, but their numbers meant that they didn’t need fancy tactics to reach their goal. They simply needed to abide by their ravenous natures.

They needed no compulsion to go down that path.

And Elijah needed no encouragement to cut them off at the knees. He didn’t hate them with the same fury he’d felt toward the wasps. Nor did he need to rid the world of their presence, as was the case with monsters or detestable people that had twisted their nature attunements to foul purposes.

He didn’t like them, though. It was the difference between a rock in his shoe versus a gunshot wound. One was easily worse than the other, but that didn’t make the annoyance of the rock any easier to ignore.

Elijah finally managed to finish the creature off when he ripped its smashed skull free of its neck. It came loose with a shower of bone and blood, adding to the gore-soaked terrain. Once, it had been an encampment. Now, it was just a pile of bloody ruins scattered with rapidly-decomposing trolls. Most of them were no longer recognizable. Just clumps of long fur and viscera, sometimes clad in the iron remnants of their armor.

Once his foe finally surrendered to their inevitable deaths, Elijah’s shoulders slumped in exhaustion. He had no idea how long the battle had lasted. Hours, at the very least. Perhaps as much as an entire day.

The problem wasn’t that he lacked firepower. He’d used every tool in his kit. And he’d never been in any danger of losing. Not really. He could have escaped at any moment, leaving mass casualties in his wake. The real issue was that even when he put them down, often with extreme prejudice, the trolls had a nasty habit of getting back up. Limbs regrew. Bones mended. Ruptured organs stitched themselves back together.

Their regeneration was on par with the earliest expression of Unchecked Growth. The difference, of course, was that Elijah’s ability had a cooldown. The troll’s regeneration was ongoing, though it had its limits. Elijah had found them, but only after inflicting massive amounts of damage. The ongoing regeneration – whether it was an ability or a natural trait – didn’t accomplish its task without fuel. And that fuel was not limitless.

Otherwise, Elijah would have never finished them all off.

Perhaps if it was one or two, he could have simply torn them limb from limb. But there were far too many, and they were way too durable for that tactic to work properly.

He’d once closed another spawn point, but by comparison, that one had been extremely limited, both in scope and in the levels of its protectors. Those trolls had been weak. The ones Elijah had just killed were anything but. If anyone else in the world had tried what he’d just done, they would have been forced to flee.

Even Sadie. Or Oscar. Or any of the other elites he’d met along the way.

That underscored just how serious the problem truly was. If one spawn point could tax even Elijah’s abilities, then what hope did Sadie’s army truly have? No wonder she’d been forced to swallow her pride and request his aid.

He knew precisely how hard that must have been, especially given that she’d explicitly sent him away. The back and forth was a little frustrating for him, and he could only imagine how difficult it had to have been for her. But then again, situations changed, and the sign of a decent leader was the ability to adapt to altered circumstances. He liked to believe that Sadie was one such good leader.

He took a deep breath, inhaling the stink of hundreds of rotting corpses. The rapid decomposition of trolls wasn’t just limited to their race. It affected lesser blood-attuned creatures as well. Things like the blood beasts didn’t rot quite as quickly, but they did decay far before they should have.

The result was that the entire chamber was full of that horrible smell, so Elijah didn’t need much encouragement to leave it all behind. Once he’d ensured that none of the more intact trolls were playing dead, he shifted into the Shape of the Sky and moved on. After reaching the connecting tunnel, he took on the scourgedrake form, used Guise of the Unseen, and sped along on his way.

According to his map and Sadie’s directions, he was only a few days’ travel from her forward camp. They hadn’t set up in one of the fortresses, and instead, had established a base of operations in the center of the troll’s conquered territory. Likely, that was as far as they had gotten before realizing that they lacked the power to punch through.

Hopefully, Elijah could help change that, especially since he’d gotten the better part of a level for his efforts. It hadn’t quite ticked over to two-twenty-three, but it was close. If he could find another spawn point, he could push himself over the edge with only a little extra effort.

Unfortunately, he found no such location.

What he did find was a fallen fortress that was swarming with trolls. Most of them were the barbarous footsoldiers they sent against the walls, but there were enough blood priests and higher-level warriors to give even Elijah pause. They didn’t defend the walls with the same vigor the elves might have, but they didn’t need to, either. What they lacked in discipline, they more than made up for in sheer volume of defenders.

Elijah was tempted to destroy the entire force.

He felt confident that he could, though he couldn’t help but wonder why he would take the time. Sure, it’d probably give him a level, and that would push him closer to his next specialization. That, in turn, would make him that much deadlier for when he encountered a truly dangerous foe. But otherwise? Those trolls would be replaced in a matter of days. Probably even sooner.

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And that experience he got? He had a suspicion that he’d hit the point of diminishing returns sooner rather than later. So, realistically, he’d only gain a few days. Maybe that would make a difference, but probably not.

So, he reluctantly turned away and continued toward his eventually destination.

As he traversed tunnels and caverns, he saw the increased presence of blood-attuned creatures. Some were even quite strong, though not quite on the level of a guardian. Instead, the overall level range of the region climbed with every mile he traveled.

That was both terrifying and encouraging. The first, for obvious reasons. He’d often considered just how dangerous a tide of blood beasts could be if they were closer to his level. When he’d destroyed the ones in the fallen forest, they hadn’t even given him any experience. That was how comparatively weak they were. But if they gained a hundred levels?

They’d sweep across the Hollow Depths, consuming everything in their path.

There was a note of distaste that came from that notion. He didn’t look at these creatures like he saw the Voxx. Sure, they shared some defining characteristics. The corruption stemming from the abyss smacked of raw consumption as well. But the difference was that blood beasts were, for lack of a better word, natural. They were true creatures that were part of a real ecosystem. Elijah wasn’t certain how they fit, but he knew without a shadow of a doubt that they did.

The Voxx did not.

They weren’t just alien. They were anathema to the very concept of nature.

And that was enough of a difference to allay Elijah’s fury. If a similar infestation of Voxx had threatened the Hollow Depths, he’d have had no choice but to act against it. That was his charge as a Druid.

The lines between action and inaction were fine, but Elijah leaned heavily on his instincts to show him the stark contrasts between the two. Perhaps one day he could study things more closely so that he understood it on more than an instinctual level.

Such thoughts accompanied Elijah as he followed the prescribed path, and eventually, he saw a fortified encampment in the distance. It was in the center of a large, mostly barren cavern. The only flora local to the biome was a type of scrubby, spiny bush. The fauna was similarly sparse, with only a few species of lizards and a huge colony of ants living beneath the surface.

The ants themselves were about as big as Elijah’s finger, but he could sense that they were stronger than they appeared. Almost as if they drew power from their collective existence, rather than from individual strength. He wished he had time to study them, but with Sadie’s camp so close, he didn’t dare tarry.

So, he shifted back into his human form and approached.

He was spotted after only a few seconds, eliciting a surge of activity as men and women took up defensive positions. The camp was, in a word, impressive, and it straddled the line between permanent and temporary. The palisade looked flimsy from afar, but it was infused with enough ethera to establish it as a true obstacle to any intruder. At its feet was a sizable ditch as well, and it was lined with familiar traps.

Inside the camp were tents and temporary-looking buildings made from wood or mud brick. Not the sturdiest of building materials, but like everything else in the camp, it was teeming with ethera.

Otherwise, the camp was guarded by a veritable tidal wave of Sorcerers and Rangers. Anyone who attacked would pay a steep price to take that camp.

But its true protection came from its isolated location. From what Elijah had seen, despite being behind enemy lines, it was far off the beaten path. The trolls had no reason to go in that direction, because there were no nearby fortresses to take or resources to gather.

If they were even motivated by the latter. Elijah wasn’t sure, and no one had been able to answer those questions with anything but a shrug and a, “maybe.”

In any case, he approached without making any sudden movements. The last thing he wanted was to alarm the guards and end up being filled full of arrows or roasted by fireballs. Aside from damaging his armor – which he’d vowed to keep intact for longer than his last set – it would hurt. Elijah doubted it would kill him, but that did nothing to mitigate the pain of those attacks.

He wanted to avoid that if possible.

“Stop right there and identify yourself!” shouted a woman, her bow drawn and an arrow pointed in his direction. She shimmered with enough ethera to mark her as ascended, though only just. No more than one-fifty, then. Probably lower, if she was on guard duty, even if she seemed like she was in charge.

With his empty hands raised to show he had no weapon and didn’t intend to attack, Elijah answered the request by giving the woman his name. He was still more than fifty yards out, but with their attributes, they were capable of reaching volumes normally associated with megaphones.

In any case, his identity was quickly confirmed, and he was allowed to enter the camp. Could he have done so without them knowing? Probably. The encampment’s palisade was impressive, but it wasn’t strong enough to stop Guise of the Unseen. He could have easily bypassed it.

That was the problem with temporary fortifications. They were far more secure than nothing at all, but they couldn’t hold a candle to something permanent like Kalki’s walls.

Although, he couldn’t help but think about the war elves’ stakes. He knew they were practically useless without the elves meant to operate it – Wardwrights, if he remembered correctly – but there was nothing to say that humans couldn’t establish similar classes. He would have to talk to someone about that.

The only problem was figuring out who could use such information. Most of his friends lacked the influence to steer people in that kind of direction. They would also have little information on how to accomplish the sort of manipulation necessary to push people into those classes. Not without spending a fortune on guides from the World Tree, at least. And even Elijah would be incapable of shouldering that burden.

Still, it was something to think about.

The interior of the camp was just what it looked like from outside, though Elijah had to admit that he was impressed with the level of organization on display. What did not impress him was that it seemed to be an army divided. People from each faction had congregated among their own, with little mixing involved.

That would need to change if they were meant to field a cohesive army.

Soon enough, Elijah was led to the command tent, which was located slightly off-center, situated between the combined forces of Ironshore and Argos and the representatives from Svetogorsk.

When he entered, he saw a few familiar faces gathered around a camp table, upon which was a large map that was far more detailed than anything he’d been given. On closer inspection, Elijah saw that it was actually multiple maps in one, with each semi-transparent sheet representing one of the many layers that comprised the Hollow Depths.

As far as Elijah knew, it extended from a mile or so beneath the surface all the way to the core. Indeed, when it had been described to him, it had reminded him of one of those old circle mazes, though three-dimensional in nature. Probably a bad analogy, but it helped Elijah understand the scope and layout of the system of tunnels and caverns that comprised the Earth’s interior.

None of that mattered much after he laid eyes on Sadie. He covered the ground between them in only a few long steps, and soon enough, they were face-to-face. He reached out, caressing her cheek as he said, “You look exhausted.”

“You don’t look so good yourself,” came a gruff voice from the other side of the table. Then, Kurik said, “Little tip – don’t lead by tellin’ a woman how bad she looks. Even if it’s true, they don’t tend to like that kinda thing.”

Both Sadie and Elijah ignored the dwarf. Instead, they embraced, and Elijah said, “I came as soon as I could.” When they broke apart, he gave her a smile and asked, “So, what’s the plan?”