Dranta couldn’t hit me during our fight, but he wasn’t a pushover. His wind blasts would have ripped me off the ground, and I didn’t have much recourse to action on the matter aside from accepting my clothing being gone and having to fly everywhere with minor wounds, even if they instantly healed. He had serious power—

  But when Dranta released a full-powered blast into this minotaur head-on, it thrust its feet and nails into the ground, and only slid back fifty meters—its feet digging three meters deeper into the dirt a second—until it hit a tree—and the tree didn’t uproot.

  The trees in the Fifth Ring were far more reinforced by aura to prevent extinction from petty battles. That was obvious now.

  Dranta was shocked. “What the—”

  The beast lunged at Dranta, who barely jumped in time to prevent being obliterated with a palm strike.

  It occurred to me then that my lurvine explosions would kill the others, so there was no easy solution for killing this creature.

  Luckily, the team was good.

  Yaksa flew forward like a moving blender. She teleported to its leg and slashed with what would have sheared through the strongest third evolution beast—but it merely stuck into the beast a foot through its hide. It struck the Achilles tendon, making the creature roar in primal fear—

  But it didn’t actually cut through it.

  It lifted its hind leg and prepared to thrust it into the ground with enough force to kill her. Yaksa held on for dear life, as she didn’t want to fall before the stomp. Thankfully, Sika lifted her hand, and a telekinetic force ripped Yaksa off the beast and to safety. Weaden jumped after the creature cratered the ground with its leg and then rushed forward with a warhammer made of raw mana. It shone brightly as it hammered the stuck sword like a nail into a wall. The blade cut through its back leg.

  It was impressive—

  But that’s when it started to really attack. It flew forward, swatting Dranta, who was charging a gigantic wind bullet, out of the way. It lunged forward at me, but hit an illusion; it turned without surprise, then slapped the ground where Sika was standing. She dodged through a mixture of speed and a telekinetic push against the tree—but she couldn’t stop the attack.

  Towering rock spires shot out of the earth in all directions, uprooting the previously undisturbed trees and buckling the ground.

  Yaksa was fast enough to dodge, but one hit Sika in the chest. It broke the skin before she was sent flying into a tree. The impact knocked her out. Dranta tried to protect himself with a wind dome, but the aura-infused rock pierced right through it.

  Kline teleported there to save him.

  And that was one attack.

  The beast then slapped Yaksa and Weaden while they were recovering, but suddenly dodged when a blinding ray of condensed light shot at its wrist.

  It stopped moving and stared at me, Achilles’ heel healing in real time.

  “You were a very bad first opponent,” I said. “Aiden—Dominion.”

  -

  Yaksa thought that she had overcome fear through hundreds of gruesome battles—

  She hadn’t.

  Or rather, she had never felt fear before.

  Aiden's eyes flashed with green light, and her world went black. A feeling of souls clung to her skin, and when she looked up, she saw flash-hallucinations of formless souls as large as the minotaur. There were five of them. She also saw an endless horde of beasts that seemed to be clinging to the minotaur like sea creatures on rocks within the ocean. They were crawling on it—but despite the physical fear stealing her breath, the creature roared in defiance.

  It didn’t attack—it was temporarily frozen with hesitation and intimidation.

  Then the horror began.

  White bears and jackals and cats of all sizes and descriptions bubbled out of the ground at the minotaur's feet. They clawed their way up its arms and legs—crawling over each other to get higher and higher.

  The minotaur panicked and raised both of its fists.

  Yaksa was dead. She couldn’t move, let alone dodge.

  Suddenly, a winged blonde woman she had never seen before grabbed her and Weaden. Kline grabbed Sika. Mira grabbed Dranta. And then the minotaur hammered both its fists into the ground.

  An earthquake shook the ground for half a mile, making the trees explode from the shearing forces. The ground buckled so hard that rocks the size of houses flew at them.

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  The blonde weaved through the aerial bombardment with ease. She wasn’t the only one dodging effortlessly. Yaksa saw Kline teleporting onto rocks with Sika in his jaws. She also caught a glimpse of Mira running along the land and dodging the rocks and trees as if she were walking past obstacles on the ground.

  The minotaur had destroyed all of the souls holding its legs and then jumped four hundred meters to escape—but there was no escape. There were souls still crawling over its chest, and when it fell and hit the ground—triggering rock spires in its wake—all the souls that had been obliterated merely reformed and swarmed it again.

  “Its aura shielding is gone,” the blonde holding her said, “so kill it.”

  Suddenly, the angelic woman swooped down at the beast and dropped Yaksa and Weaden onto the jagged ground of rocks and trees. There was no choice or discussion on the matter. They were on their own.

  Yet things weren’t as they originally seemed. The soul beasts partially pinned the beast down, and when Yaksa teleported forward and slashed, it cut the skin.

  So that’s what she meant! Yaksa thought. Those soul beasts weren’t doing direct damage—they were eating the aura barrier that protected the minotaur from attacks. As a result, she was able to slash it.

  She sliced it fifteen times a second as Weaden created a net of mana that covered its head and squeezed. A wind bullet then sheared through the air, hitting the creature in the eye. The shielding wasn’t eaten away on the front of its skull—but it was on the back. It hit the eye, and the hydrostatic shock blew a hole through its skull. It died instantly.

  The area fell silent when it dropped to the ground.

  No one spoke.

  Mira and Aiden had saved them. The only thing they accomplished was learning the power gap between them and fourth-evolution beasts.

  Mira thanked Aiden and then turned to the rest as Kline brought Sika to her. "That's the hardest one I've ever faced. So don’t feel powerless. We’ll be here six weeks—so there’ll be plenty of chances for fighting.” She pulled out her backpack. “Haven’t used this in a while.” She fed Sika a beautiful, unnatural elixir as the group coalesced around her. Sika’s stomach and lungs filled with black gunk, closing them up. Mira then fed Sika another elixir, and the black melted as real skin replaced it.

  “I can help,” Weaden said. He put his hands on his sister, and suddenly her wounds vanished. His eyes widened in surprise. “That was remarkably easy.”

  Mira shrugged. “Yeah.” She stood and looked at the others. “I’m taking this core, but you’re not leaving here without four each. So if you’re feeling disappointed, don’t.” She looked at Dranta, who was staring into dead space. “And stop acting like this was the end of the world. We’re just getting started, so keep in the moment and practice. You won’t get another chance to do this before the war starts.”

  Mira gutted the beast and pulled out a peak-fourth-evolution core. “I was right…” Instead of the peak third evolution cores that were dark blue and orange—giving them the nickname “sunrise cores”—a peak fourth was orange and red. It was gorgeous. “I’ll call you… Blood Meridian,” Mira said. She handed it to Kline.

  He stared at it longingly, but it nudged his head toward Mira, as if to say, “You take it.”

  The two had a grumpy standoff.

  “There’s only so much I can understand…” Mira grunted.

  Suddenly, a guide wearing strange, formal attire walked out from behind a tree. He let out a huge sigh and said, “He says, you need it for your illusions.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “And you need it for your army.”

  “He says he needs aura. He wants an aura core.”

  “Then why haven’t you said something!” Mira cried. “I have a few more. Jeez, you’re such a man. Fine! We’ll find another peak fourth anyway.”

  Yaksa genuinely didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The scene was funny and cute, but Yaksa had almost just died. She was thankful. Fearful. Weak. It was a crashing cascade of emotions that erupted from her, and she burst into laughter and tears. Today would change her—that was a fact.

  2.

  That night, we feasted on fourth evolution meat. It attracted third evolution beasts, and we fed it to them after Kline used a lower form of Dominion to put them in their place. We were here for strength, not to weaken the forest. So I processed extra meat—and they gorged.

  The next morning, we kept eating. I needed aura and neara more than anything, so I processed all of the meat as the others, who realized their weakness, took the opportunity to get stronger.

  We left the next day, in what turned out to be a two-week hunt.

  I had to help with the next fourth evolution beast—but not the third. It was weak, and the group was eating fourth evolution meat and threading the cores. It helped out a considerable amount.

  That said, they were still weak, so we took three days off to eat and thread and find seeds to plant in the Fourth Ring. Then, they went out again. Kline helped on the fourth kill, but we only watched during the fifth through the eighth fights. Kline got tired of waiting, so he killed the next three to build up his Dominion and flex his One-Beast Army. I killed one after that.

  We spent the next week threading and eating. This was the highest quality of meat, and it gave the boundless soul core within me the most soul force I had ever had—

  But it was still only half full.

  After that week, Sika and Weaden worked to kill alone. Weaden could use aura blades, nets, and arrows in rapid succession; Sika was a speed user who utilized wind and electricity, along with telekinesis, which was clearly more effective against smaller entities. It was weak at first, but by the twelfth kill, she was able to grab a beast by its head with telekinesis and throw it into the ground as her brother created a massive hammer of aura and neara and bashed its skull in.

  Yaksa and Dranta worked together. Dranta would send a beast flying, and then Yaksa would catch up in the blink of an eye and start slashing the beast to ribbons as it was getting up. Dranta would then finish it off with a wind blast.

  During all fights, Aiden worked with Dominion, finishing off beasts and recruiting beasts for his Fifth Ring horde.

  That was a month in.

  During most of that period, I walked around, harvesting alchemic ingredients and jars of seeds. Kline and the lurvine had over a hundred preservation chambers on them. It still wasn't enough.

  The remainder of the trip was much of the same—and it was all under the Oracle’s watch, where it could directly assess my progress. That meant leveling. Sort of.

  Nothing I did was remotely world-shaking, but it was extreme enough to earn a single diamond request. That said, I was handed a rather enticing opportunity.

  —

  Congratulations! Scion Mira Hill is eligible for an epic campaign.