I had just finished saying goodbye to Tinus when Ikala said he would handle a coup with raw force. I didn’t know that at the time, but I heard about it when I was halfway to the teleportation circle. A Drokai scout intercepted me at high speed.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “We felt abnormal pressure, and there’s something breaking out in Wraithwood. We don’t know what yet, but we’ve sent messages to Serenflora—they’re sending troops to investigate. We’re asking permission from Tinus—”

  I didn’t wait for her to finish. If Serenflora and Helfine wanted to come to our aid, I’d accept them—but I wouldn’t count on them. I spread my wings and streaked across Lake Nyralith like a shooting star, crashing into the area beside my teleportation circle like a meteorite. Kline teleported onto it a moment later, and then our vision flashed blue, and we felt our bodies warp through space and time.

  —---

  “Let’s make something clear,” Ikala said as he approached Tyler. “Mira’s pact does not prevent me from slaughtering every last person here. I’m required to keep mum, live in Wraithwood for at least a few years, and protect this forest for as long as I’m here—but that’s it. That’s how stupid that girl is. She’s weak, pathetic, and indecisive—and it’s cost you your rule. So if you think our pact will save you—think again.”

  Tyler watched Malo unsheathe his sword. The blade lit up with arrays, much like Vengeance, but his oozed black miasma.

  “You’re strong, Malo,” Ikala said. “I respect you. But you’re way out of your league. So if you want to prevent a massacre—sheathe that sword and use your words.”

  Malo didn’t sheathe his sword, but he did speak.

  “What do you want?”

  “Requests,” Ikala said. “This is the most dangerous forest in the world—no one survives. But we came here, we cursed ourselves, we gave up our families, friends, and lives. Why? A gold reward? No. We came here for power. And if we want that, we need to go beyond Mira. She’s weak, and so long as she’s in power, she’s not going to let us get stronger. You wouldn’t let us get stronger. I respect that. It prevents situations like this. But unfortunately for you, it’s happening anyway. In the next three months, all of us will have regained our strength, helped people evolve, and then we’ll defend our little ‘village’ from Mira’s friends. Tell me, how many rewards do you think we’ll get for that?”

  Ikala released intense magical pressure, and his allies soared in confidence. That said, Tyler’s display and logic dampened the mood, leaving most people fearful and divided.

  Tyler wanted to talk—but he couldn’t. He was terrified.

  The person to meet his words was Aiden. He spoke cool and calm, and confidently.

  “None,” Aiden said.

  Ikala looked snort and saw Aiden riding Kael beside Sina, leading four of the lurvine.

  “You gotta lot of balls to keep talkin’ shit,” Ikala said.

  “I’m just relaying a fact,” Aiden said, unmounting. “I get that there’s a book of provisions for epic requests, but you didn’t even think to ask your guide if throwing a coup was a good idea?”

  Panic spread through the loyalists, and one after the other, their faces paled. Ikala wasn’t going to open his guide in battle, but his people’s faces said it all.

  Ikala sent a sidelong glance to his friend. “What?”

  “It says…” The woman winced.

  “Intentionally sabotaging Mira’s epic questline as a participant will result in a guide penalty that eliminates guide usage for ten years,” Aiden completed.

  “Bullshit,” Ikala said.

  “What? Did you think an epic request was for show? We could’ve bought an army, idiot. We have the treasury of a small nation.”

  Ikala thought through the revelation carefully.

  Aiden pressed on. “As for Areswood—you’re not going to survive.”

  Ryn howled, and one of the trees suddenly erupted in blue flames.

  “The food and Diktyo water were in that tree. And without the latter, you’re going to die from poisons, beasts, and trap plants. Then’ll come two armies, wyverns, and a guardian that can balloon to eighty feet in height. And even if you survive… even if you get what you wanted from this forest. Even if you didn’t get penalized, the second you leave this forest without proper authorization, you’re going to be cut down by Dante soldiers. I know this because I just negotiated the deal the second you set your little plan into motion. Mira has reservations on such mechanisms—I do not.”

  Tyler shivered, wondering when Aiden had become so cold. He supposed his time running The Nest and learning from the Claustra made him callous—or at least apathetic. Perhaps he learned how the families worked, the corruption under the surface, the leverage the Claustra had over the families—the evil within—and it had made him lose empathy for people. Whatever it was, Tyler thought it was badass.

  “So here are your options,” Aiden said. “You’re going to sit down and twiddle your thumbs until Mira gets here, and pray, pray to God she’s lenient with you. Or, B. You can continue down this path, kill as many of us as you can, and suffer gruesome deaths.”

  Aiden’s words struck terror into everyone’s heart but the leader’s.

  Ikaka pulled up his guide, eyes dead and floating, and then chuckled. “Okay. I’ve learned my lesson and asked for advice. And from what I just heard, we’re free to pull a coup as long as we get permission, through brutal torture or otherwise, to be accepted by Mira and continue this quest. And that means, we’ll do it like this. I’m going to force every last one of you into a slavery pact, and once she gets here, I’ll kill or traumatize you one by one until she accepts one, too. And trust me—you’ll be begging her to comply.”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Sina snarled as the lurvines spread out. They glowed with orange light as Aiden enchanted them. And then they erupted in blue flames.

  Aiden turned to Malo. “Take care of this.”

  Malo’s sword erupted with what appeared to be black flames. “Dantes, soldiers—barriers up, then run. If you’re within fifty feet of Ikala, hostage or otherwise—you’re dead. So run.”

  Ikala turned to Tyler, but he had already grabbed Sarah and started running into the forest. He wasn’t strong enough to contribute—but he was strong enough to flee, and stay out of everyone’s way. He now understood Kalas’ teachings. He needed to stay out of fights where he was a liability, and cruel as it was, stay out of fights where death was guaranteed.

  As he ran, he heard a lulled silence, followed by a laugh and two words, “Try it.”

  —---

  Kline and I teleported through the forest so fast that we moved ten miles in less than two minutes. We hit Wraithwood, and I used Wood Wide Web to locate Tyler, who had wisely fled the scene and was making his way to the Diktyo River with his girlfriend, Sarah. He couldn’t enter, but she could, and the River Guardian would protect them. She was no doubt coming.

  After locating Felio and Jaylin riding lurvines with guards up north, I was able to fly to the scene. But that small amount of time I wasted was enough to spell tragedy.

  As I flew into the military encampment, invisible under Cloak of the Predator, I saw Kael, Ryn, Sina, and Dain wrapped in blue flames. They were all attacking one man who oozed power. But Kael abruptly stopped, veered off, and grabbed Aiden by the neck, still on fire, and jumped out of the way.

  The next moment, calamity struck. Three hundred meters of trees, rocks, and ground cover suddenly exploded into shrapnel and firewood as a wind spell ripped through the area—killing Sina, Ryn, and Dain instantly.

  I watched the whole thing under Moxle Dilation, and even under a state of frozenness where trees don’t even sway because it’s too slow, I saw this gale force rip apart everything in almost real time.

  Not even the fourth evolution beast had an attack so devastating.

  And Sina… she just… exploded in front of my eyes.

  I rushed for her, but I wasn’t fast enough. I just saw her as eighty red lines developed on her fur, and then she blew away like sand in a wind gust.

  Sina… fucking Sina. The same Sina I never let visit Nyralith or the crypt. The Sina who was all bluster and uncooperative, but the first to protect me or let me ride her. Sina. They killed fucking Sina! And Ryn! The same lurvine that Kai and Jaylin rode back to camp on. And Dain. I was never close to Dain until this exact moment. All the memories of the lurvine flashed through my eyes. He was the wild child, the one eager to prove. Strong, rambunctious, rushing into battle. He glued himself to Kael out of respect.

  My mind slowed, and Brindle’s memories took over. As if instinctively, I threw up my hand and captured the Nearan blueprints of all three lurvine before they erupted and scattered in the breeze. Then, I took those balls and flew through the three-hundred-meter blast site. As I did, I pulled the aura from the desolate smear of meat and fur. Once I hit the last of it, I dropped to the ground and turned back to Ikala and the battlefield.

  There was devastation all around me. It looked like a colossal train had ripped through the forest, plowing through everything. The ground was scarred with gashes, and the trees were missing, some unrooted, some still rooted, but with ninety percent destroyed like broken popsicle sticks. Wood and splinters were everywhere. It was just wide open in the forest for three hundred meters, and the trees behind that had been marred with explosive impacts of flying rocks and wood. There must’ve been fifteen hundred feet of total or partial destruction.

  Annihilation.

  That’s the word that came to mind—a word that actually made sense for once.

  I looked at the end and saw a lone figure. Ikala.

  And as if in a trance, I walked toward Ikala on that three-hundred-meter patch. As I did, all of the Aura I had pulled from the blood and fur rose from the ground in a ghostly white hue, as if it were steam from a teacup. As it rose, it pooled around me, hiding my feet as I continued to walk.

  This was the lurvines’ Aura—their bodies. And flying over me was their Nearan blueprint—their alive mind, memories, and beliefs.

  I walked through the area with them, determined to allow them to confront their killer.

  I took off my hood so he could see me—and then he understood what entity he was dealing with. Beyond that, he had no idea what I was doing—but he knew it wasn’t good. So he lifted his hands for another attack—but an arc of deep black energy cut across the land to his side.

  It was Malo.

  I activated Moxle Dilation as the fight began. It was so fast that it only looked to be slightly slower than a regular-paced fight under a seventh evolution technique. Still, my freshly established second evolution core was greater than most people’s third, and my Mental Shielding was deep into the second stage. So the fact that they weren’t near-frozen under my technique was mind-boggling.

  These two had centuries of Nearan development, and my four years had barely caught up, giving me a small advantage.

  Malo was death. That sword he held left black after trails, and when Ikala unsheathed his sword to fight back, Malo’s cut through it like butter. But it wasn’t just that. The blade started disintegrating down to the hilt and beyond, so Ikala threw it mid-battle and avoided the blade with his life.

  It was fast-paced and brutal, but Malo was winning until two of Ikala’s friends attacked from his flanks. Then, it became a high-speed attack between three people.

  Malo managed to cut through one man’s arm. The arm disintegrated up to the shoulder as he screamed, but Ikala’s other friend filled the gap. Kline jumped into the battle from invisibility and hit her with phantom claws. She flew forward, and his clones pounced, ripping out her throat as ten Klines finished off the other friend. Still, it wasn’t fast enough to reset the momentum.

  Ikala enchanted his legs with a spell, and he sped up and kicked Malo with a crack, sending him flying. I heard the boom—but I didn’t stop walking slowly.

  The slowness wasn’t for dramatic effect. Ikala had ripped apart my friends—my family—into hundreds of thousands of pieces, and I had to collect them. I wouldn’t miss a single speck.

  Kline’s One Beast Army attacked Ikala. The man killed the clones as fast as the portals arrived, but he wasn’t prepared for the scale of the attack. Ikala counted ten Kline clones when they fought his friends, so he turned back to me after he killed ten, only for ten more to appear at once and hit the man with phantom claws.

  The attacks ripped through him. But to everyone’s surprise, Ikala used a defensive spell and barrier combo to block at the last second. Both barriers eventually broke, but the dampened attack made sure the blades didn’t hit him hard.

  With frightening speed, he killed the other ten Klines. It wasn’t until Kline’s real body used Silvern’s Triumph that the man actually took damage.

  The attack was overwhelming.

  Claw marks spread fifty meters on the ground, splitting it like broken fault lines. Two trees had three-foot sections blasted out of them, as if a solid section had been deleted, and the massive trees came flying down. This was an attack that would obliterate a normal person, but it only sent Ikala flying. It messed him up, but he had dampened the attack with barriers, defensive spells, and his tempered body, so it didn’t kill him. He got up and continued attacking, launching himself at Kline’s real body and making my little warrior teleport far away to survive.

  Ikala was bleeding everywhere, but he was furious, grunting like a wild beast. He still had plenty of fight left in him—and he was strong.

  I wasn’t sure how he got so strong—but it didn’t matter.

  I walked on slowly, picking up more soul fragments.

  I looked like a true Wraith by the time he returned his gaze to me. There were barely thirty meters separating us, and the aura had stopped collecting. I was just surrounded by it, that deep aura fog that comprised Sina, Ryn, and Dain’s bodies and personalities.

  A cool wind broke the silence as Ikala and I stared off with one another.