Chapter 43: Generous Amount Of Fusion Points
Kaelor looked at the wardens and their meticulously shaped longbows. The wardens themselves stood like carved effigies of war, tall and broad-shouldered, their bodies a strange blend of lean elegance and brutal potential. Aside from their intimidating forms, Kaelor could sense something deeper, an invisible thread that connected them to him. Not loyalty, not duty... something older, instinctive. As if they were extensions of his own will.
He turned to a tree, one of the few left standing amid the clearing.
The lumberers had worked with deliberate spacing, cutting in wide arcs to open up the land, but a handful of stubborn trunks still dotted the terrain. This particular tree stood two hundred and fifty metres away, its dark-barked frame rising straight and tall like a lonely sentinel.
Around it, three other trees hovered close enough to confuse the eye. To a casual observer, it would’ve been maddening, nearly impossible, to know which one Kaelor’s gaze had fixed on.
’Shoot it.’ He said inwardly, his voice like a silent breeze inside the bond. Then he turned, slowly, to a warden standing on the ramparts just above him. Their eyes met.
Immediately, the warden pulled an arrow from its quiver, notched it to the string, and drew. The movement was fluid, disciplined, neither rushed nor hesitant. When the bowstring snapped forward, the very air around the weapon shimmered.
A wave-like ripple spread from the release point, as if the shot had momentarily torn through the fabric of stillness.
In the next heartbeat, a dull thunk echoed across the clearing. The arrow had flown true, burying itself halfway into the exact tree Kaelor had chosen.
Kaelor squinted, eyes narrowing with quiet astonishment. It wasn’t merely the eerie precision that struck him but the sheer, brutal force behind it. To drive an arrow that deep into such a mature tree at that kind of distance? That was the work of a peak-level Adept Bowman. And even among them, few could replicate it shot after shot.
But these wardens... Kaelor looked at their muscled frames, the stillness in their breathing, the latent fire in their eyes. They might be able to do it, not once, but over and over again, without falter.