Larin moved with purpose, his boots pressing into the uneven ground with practiced ease. Every step was deliberate, every movement designed to minimize noise and leave as little trace of his passage as possible. He had long since learned that the borderlands between Xiaxo and Kirat were not just a battlefield but a diverse ecosystem that could either aid or betray him. The craggy hills stood like silent sentinels, their jagged peaks tearing through the sky, while deep ravines stretched like scars across the land where rivers once roared but had long since dried up.
The borderlands were not kind. The earth itself was hostile, slippery stones underfoot so loose they shifted as one could barely lift his feet, brittle grass whispering with the faintest breeze. For one who did not know its ways, it was a death trap. But for Larin, it was an opportunity. It was a weapon.
He took the long way around, staying far from the ruined roads that had been deliberately destroyed to hinder Kirati war machines. The open paths were too obvious, too exposed. Instead, he maneuvered through the labyrinth of natural barriers, noting every rock formation, every twisted tree root, every outcrop that could serve as an advantage or a liability. The Kirati forces did not understand this land the way he did. They had long severed their ties with the natural world, relying instead on brute force and technology. That was their weakness.
The first step was disruption.
Larin began collecting raw materials, his fingers working with practiced efficiency. His knowledge of alchemy, passed down through Xiaxoan tradition and reinforced by his own experiments, made him more than just a warrior. It made him a craftsman of destruction.
Redroot Blossoms, crushed and powdered into fine dust, mixed with blackened Blacksap resin. When ignited, it would create an intense incendiary reaction. He hollowed out several Shatterbark pods, their fragile shells perfect for containing the volatile mixture. The result—primitive but deadly firebombs that would explode on impact, sending waves of fire licking at anything within reach.
For his traps, he turned to nature's deadliest weapons. Spinetail thorns, so fine they were nearly invisible, were threaded into the underbrush in places only a trained Xiaxoan scout would know to avoid. The venom they carried was swift and merciless, paralyzing the nervous system within moments, leaving its victim suffocating in silence.
But these were merely the beginning.
He set up [Manathread Tripwires] between boulders and along the narrowest of passageways. These enchanted fibers, so thin they could only be seen when the light hit them at just the right angle, were connected to explosive glyphs buried beneath loose earth. The moment a careless Kirati soldier tripped the line, the glyphs would activate, unleashing a violent detonation that would not only kill but collapse the very terrain beneath them.
Then there was his most insidious creation—[Sinking Bog]. A mixture of Binding Mud and Aether Salts, spread in carefully strategic places to convert solid ground into killing machines. He covered them with thin layers of dry foliage, dirt, and loose gravel. Should an unsuspecting soldier tread on one of these traps, the ground would liquefy and suck him in with a wet, swift drag, suffocating him under the weight of the land itself.
He even wove Xiaxoan hunting techniques into his strategy, embedding [Venomous Snare Vines] into crevices and cliffside overhangs. Once triggered, these enchanted roots would lash out like serpents, wrapping around the limbs of their prey and injecting a hallucinogenic toxin. Those unfortunate enough to be caught in their grasp would not die immediately. Instead, they would thrash, scream, and claw at their own faces as their minds collapsed into terror-induced madness.
Every trap was carefully laid, each one meant to take advantage of the ignorance of the Kirati forces. They could not see through the land the way Xiaxoans could. They could not wield [Sinlung] the way he did. To them, the forest was just an obstacle to be burned, the hills an annoyance to be flattened. They would never know the silent death that lay waiting in the very air they breathed.
Larin labored, the palms of his hands chafed from cutting glyphs from stone, his back aching from crouching over alchemical mixtures. His mind burned with concentration; he marked every placement, being careful to not set two traps too close to one another. He could risk nothing less than utter carelessness.
The hours stretched out interminably yet he did not falter.
He pressed deeper into the borderlands, far beyond the reach of Xiaxoan-controlled territory. He listened for the telltale sounds of movement—marching feet, clanking armor, whispered orders—but the land remained eerily silent. That, more than anything, put him on edge.
By this time, night was falling, and across a hundred or more critical locations, he laid down a vast network of traps. Scouts that the Kirati sent through these paths would never return. A battalion that they sent would be delayed; there would be time for the Xiaxoan forces to strike.
Larin crouched atop a high ridge, surveying the landscape below. The jagged cliffs, the winding paths, the dark crevices—each one held death, waiting to be sprung. The land had become his ally, his weapon.
He gripped his bow tightly, the weight of his mission pressing against his shoulders.
The war was coming.
And when it did, he would make sure that the land itself fought alongside them.