A summary of "Starblood 7:
Wild Hunt" by Roman Prokofiev

This book is the seventh installment in a litRPG series about the survival of Earth colonists in the Dyson Sphere megastructure, written in 2024. The story centers on defending the newly discovered Ygg-Tree of the settlement of Sky from the destructive influence of the Wild Hunt season and necrotic swarms of insectoids led by alien spirits from beyond. The colonists are forced to hastily seek military alliances with the native tribes, while simultaneously mastering the artifacts of the extinct Kel race.

The beginning of the Wild Hunt season

The sign of the Wild Hunt has lit up Unity — a harsh period of ordeal that forces aggressive fauna to migrate. Sigurd Morozov, now a Silver-ranked Ascendant, reflects on the nature of his immortality after parting ways with the powerful alien White Devil. The hero speaks frankly with Vincent Cassidy, the head of the freehold. Rix learns the truth about the ancient Kel, who secretly trained Sigurd. In exchange, Vincent reveals his secret — the stigmata of the Order of the True Ones, masterfully concealed under the guise of a standard Ascension system. For successfully planting the Sapling of the Great Tree, the Observer rewards Sigurd with a unique gold reward. The hero chooses a powerful weapon — the Spear of Ygg-Light. He immediately donates the illium artifact to the freehold for use against the advancing hordes of Worms.

Commanding a Griffon combat helicopter, Sigurd and his co-pilot, Fury, conduct continuous sorties. Wild tribes of bull-men — the Tauri — are moving in unprecedented numbers, cutting off the colony from the outside world. During a high-altitude reconnaissance mission near the Lonely Peak, Sigurd and Eirik’s squad stumbles upon a broken ward. A green, necrotic creature — Zelvan the Devourer — bursts forth from an underground tomb. The creature destroys the aircraft with a powerful energy pulse. Sigurd uses his Rune Artifact silver skill, restoring the damaged multi-ton machine right on the battlefield with Star Blood. The squad narrowly escapes the thousands-strong Tauri horde that arrives in the restored helicopter.

Soon, a distress signal comes from the Broken Lands. Assol’s raiding party is suddenly attacked by previously unknown Worms — Jumpers and Executioners. Sigurd and machine gunner Anatoly Grokhot descend into deep, dark canyons. The Earthlings track down and methodically destroy the deadly bronze insectoids, rescuing the wounded Assol and the remnants of her shattered group. Anatoly Grokhot suffers a serious wound from a poisonous chitin blade. Sigurd saves his comrade with a reusable elixir. The captured essence cores of the slain Worms have a strange dark color with blue sparks, revealing their affiliation with a distant, previously unknown Hive.

New threats and allies

The enemy finds a hidden path to the freehold. At night, a flying squad of Jumpers drops a combat specimen onto the protected plateau. The Executioner breaks through the firing lines and deeply wounds the Ygg-Tree Sprout with a claw. The trunk miraculously heals with its own hardening golden tears, with the active participation of the star-symbiotic beast, Kysh. Recognizing the scale of the danger, Vincent Cassidy immediately assembles a large force for a counterattack. The Earthlings stage a massive ambush on the Horseshoe Plateau, liberally flooding the narrow canyons with fuel and laying pheromone-scented bait.

A night operation devolves into a massive firefight. Freeholders burn and shoot dozens of insectoids using gauss turrets and smart grenades. Observing from the air, Sigurd notices the overly organized actions of some Worms attempting to bypass the fire trap. Having tracked down the mental source of the swarm’s control, the hero engages in combat with the Imago Executor. This sentient Worm telepathically commands its brethren. Sigurd uses the silver skill of Mental Domination, freezing the creature in place, and kills it with a blast from the Ygg-Light Spear. At the moment of the Executor’s death, Sigurd gains direct access to its alien memory. He sees the endless tunnels of the Great Hive and a colossal, heavenly-ranked Worm slumbering within a slimy cocoon. The Observer of Unity gifts the hero with the golden Rune-Saga of the Hive, ordering him to immediately spread this knowledge among the Ascendants.

Realizing the impossibility of dealing with the savage army alone, Rix Vincent and Sigurd set off on a vertibird to the Sea of Grass. In the nomadic settlement of Blazing Horn, they meet the native king, Plainswind, and his flaminica wife. During a spiritual tea party, the peoples form a military alliance against the Taurians and the Devourer. In exchange, the king demands a systematic supply of firearms and training for his people in the engineering intricacies of the earthlings.

Upon returning to the settlement of Sky, the freeholders discover an unlikely guest. A half-mad golden Ascendant from ancient local legends, known as Grandmother Jasper, sits peacefully right next to the Sprout. She gifts Travinka, Sigurd’s wife, a silver Jug of Starry Water, which greatly accelerates the Tree’s growth, and the next second, dissolves into a cloud of dust. Meanwhile, the scientific department, led by Doctor Minos, is actively using the recovered Worm Cores and Sigurd’s Rune Constructor to create improved combat Symbols, equipping the freehold’s fighters with them.

The Battle of Lonely Peak

A horde of thousands of Tauri storms the Freehold’s Southern Post. The defenders desperately repel the attacks, encountering the corpses of bullmen — reanimated creatures completely insensitive to pain — raised by necrotic magic. Having exhausted their plasma and kinetic energy reserves, the humanoids retreat in an organized fashion along winding mountain paths. Vincent Cassidy unleashes a pre-arranged, man-made rockfall on the enemy, burying thousands of savages under tons of rock. Soon, the main forces of the Grass People arrive at the Lonely Peak. A pitched battle begins. Nomads mounted on enormous war Creatures smash into the Tauri herds, unleashing devastating rune tornadoes.

Vincent’s group secretly lands right next to the Devourer’s rocky lair. The creature emerges from the cave and displays its gold rank. The Freeholders’ Silver Runes cause no visible damage to the ghostly, six-meter-tall monster. The green amoeba disintegrates, attacks the fighters with squads of ghosts, and attempts to escape into the Sea of Grass. Sigurd dons his Skyhawk armor and quickly pursues the fugitive. He burns out herds of Tauri from the air with his Incinerating Gaze, reliably cutting off the Devourer from any reinforcements.

Vincent Cassidy, Eirik, transformed into a gigantic ape-like monster, and Sigurd overtake the spirit in the lowlands. Scientist Minos reports via vox-channels the creature’s vulnerability, hidden within the chaotically shifting energy core — the phylactery. Sigurd activates the golden Rune of the Temporal Loop just in time, rewinding reality exactly three seconds. Having gained precious knowledge of the Devourer’s evasive trajectory, the golden bird powerfully blows away the thick fog with its Aetheric Breath. Cassidy calmly plunges the Spear of Ygg-Light precisely into the wraith’s exposed black heart.

With a silent scream, the Devourer disembodied, leaving behind a blinding green flash. The victors collect the shattered fragments of the phylactery and return to the gloomy underground tomb. Kassidi casts the fragments into the dark well, sealing it forever with the Seal of Unity he received as a reward. For this unprecedented feat, the earthlings and the Grass People receive vast reserves of Star Blood. Sigurd takes the golden Being — the Scriptorum Necrolyte, which holds the ancient knowledge of death and necrotic artifacts. The personal battle tally of defeated enemies earns Sigurd the honorary title of "Tanaan."

Secrets of the Domain and the Dungeons of Kel

The next day, a detachment of Tree People, led by King Iniess Greenleaf, arrives at the freehold. The Golden Ascendant arrived mounted on enormous dragonflies and harshly demanded vira for planting the Sprout. Sigurd pays with the golden Saga of the Great Worm. Seeing the monstrous abomination in the thoughtforms, Iniess sternly declares: "The enemy lives. He will be found and destroyed." She accepts the debt as fully paid and leaves her silver warriors in the settlement to guard the Tree around the clock. The alliance between the factions strengthens.

Vincent and Minos accompany Sigurd to the captured silver domain of Vizu Aran. Doctor Matthias is amazed by the surviving technology of the ancient race, including an unknown construct for creating Creatures and a massive ring-shaped ditch piled high with the bones of thousands of Ascendants. In one of the halls, Sigurd discovers a surprise from the departed White Devil. The former Kel-Lady handmaidens, the Phantom Maidens Aiho and Clumsy, have been carefully stored in deactivated pillars of Timelessness, their memories erased. Sigurd takes the freed girls to the freehold. The ancient alien also left behind a Communication Item — Talking Stones — but has not yet made contact.

Deadly secrets lurk even within the Nebo Freehold itself. Minos leads Sigurd to a restricted area of deep excavations beneath the ancient ruins of the outpost. On a hidden lower level, securely protected by an impenetrable field of Time Stopped, stand three Sarcophagi of Endless Sleep. Within them, the cloned bodies of three high Kel sky hunters, who long ago destroyed the White Devil’s mountain abode, slumber peacefully. An unprecedented threat from Eternity lurks right beneath the feet of the unsuspecting colonists. Sigurd must decide the fate of this terrifying discovery.