The environment didn’t help my anxiety. The trees were larger and sparser than the ones around Wraithwood, allowing colossi to roam that section of the forest without running into trees. The area made me feel small and insignificant.
My anxiety must’ve bled through to Vian, one of Trant’s fourth evolution guards—who lived past domain lines—as we traveled within a mile of it, because he kept leering at me.
“If you’re too scared to keep going, we should come back when you’re ready,” Vian said. “It’s too dangerous to bring our leader out on a whim.”
“I think Kline and I can take it,” I said.
“You’re with our leader. You can’t think you can take something.”
“I feel confident.”
“That’s not good enough.”
Reta turned to me. “It’s fine. She can handle it.”
I took a sharp breath and nodded. “If you think so, let’s do this.” I lifted my hand, and Sina, Ryn, and Dain came out from my chest.
Reta rolled her eyes, but she didn’t stop me as I said, “Don’t hold back,” and set them loose.
Vian watched the lurvine hesitantly. “I’ll monitor from the skies.” He flew off as I sat down and closed my eyes beside Kline, preparing for battle.
Vian didn’t know why anyone thought it was a good idea to bring the leader of Helifine into the hunting grounds, but he wanted to beat the person responsible within an inch of their life. If he found the person who allowed a second evolution girl who was barely over a quarter century old to lead the expedition, he wouldn’t leave an inch.0
Vian didn’t doubt Reta and knew she alone had the power to protect everyone, but it was a matter of principle. No matter how talented Mira was, she was still a second evolution entity. The power differential between the second and third evolutions was vast; the differential between the second and fourth was unsurpassable. That’s what he thought as he spotted the minor colossi from above.
The area had large yet sparse trees, allowing the corigan, a lizard that was eighty feet tall and two hundred feet long, to move freely. It was feeding on an entire nest of third-evolution insects that were stronger than anything in the Fourth Ring.
“Why’d she think this was a good idea?” he wondered. “Overestimating doesn’t even…” He paused when he saw the ghostly lurvine rocketing through the forest. They were so weak under aura sight. If the beast looked like a star, the lurvine looked like candlelight. It wasn’t even a competition.
Or so he thought.
As soon as the corigan turned, a lurvine erupted into scorching blue flames that Vian could feel from a thousand feet up. The fire spread out with shocking range, and it was so hot that it incinerated the nest of spiders in a cloud of acrid smoke. The corigan inhaled deeply and released a guttural roar, charging toward Mira.
Another lurvine met it head-on. The corigan shot its sticky tongue at it, but immediately regretted it. As soon as it retracted its tongue with the lurvine in tow, it erupted in explosive flames that burnt its entire mouth.
Vian watched the beast screeching in a state of shock. The second set of flames was twice as strong as the first, causing powerful gusts of wind from the heat currents. “What was that?” Vian thought. “Aren’t those soul beasts?”
He had seen Reta fight—and her beasts didn’t fight like that. They morphed and twisted and increased in size, a seemingly invincible army that reformed after every attack. They were strong, and while they weren’t enough to fight a fourth evolution beast alone, they would corrode the enemy’s external aura shield, allowing even the strongest of beasts to be damaged by her magic.
But not the lurvine.
These “soul beasts” weren’t just using magic—it was extraordinarily powerful magic.
“She must’ve used everything,” Vian thought as the beast barreled through the forest. Despite the flames burning through its eyes, it still had its sense of smell and was blindly charging, crashing into five-hundred-foot trees with booming cracks. If Mira used everything, she would be killed without Reta.
But that wasn’t the case.
The last lurvine exploded, seemingly drawing an end to the fire attacks—
But nothing was farther than the truth. The first lurvine reformed, charged, and ruptured in scorching flames again.
Then one that had died reformed and exploded again.
He watched in a daze. “They are soul beasts…” he thought, trying to convince himself of the opposite. They were exploding in chain reactions as the corigan charged, each charring its scales further.
It was impressive, but it wasn’t enough. The lizard charged on, getting within two hundred meters of Trant and the hunting party.
“It’s not enough…” Vian thought, lifting a hand. He summoned a thousand massive glowing spears of light in the sky as he prepared to kill the beast before it killed everyone. Yet as he was preparing the strike, the ground underneath the lizard’s feet bubbled with white fog, and terrifying shrieks came from within it as fifty soul puppets the size of third-evolution beasts emerged from the ground, all furious, grabbing and ripping and snapping at the creature.
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The lizard screeched, and a howling gust of wind ripped from its mouth across the ground toward the group, shredding trees in its wake. As the trees separated into splinters the size of firewood, Mira waved her hand, and a massive barrier of pure aura cut off the wind. Once the gale force ended, there was no vegetation or trees for one hundred meters, but a perfect circle around Mira and the others was green and lush. The trees above the aura dome had been sheared off, leaving curved marks where the trees had been cut by the wind.
The corigan stared in shock, and then watched in terror as all the beasts it had just killed in its wind attack reformed in front of its eyes and started attacking again.
Panicking, it lifted its legs and stomped the ground with quaking booms, killing ten with every strike, but they reformed in other areas, overwhelming it. Soon, it couldn’t even move its legs. Cats and monkeys were crawling up them, and a few had made it up to its scales.
It thrashed violently, and that’s when Vian realized that the writing was on the wall.
It was, but not before Mira's cat got the last word. It grew to twenty feet, a third evolution in size, and lifted its paw. A frightening gust of aura in the shape of four claws cut across the forest, hitting the corigan head-on. With the aura shielding on the beast corroded from the soul puppets, the arcs of aura felt no resistance. So, in a profound demonstration of power, each claw sliced straight through its body, separating it into five equally sized pieces.
Just like that, Mira and Kline had killed a fourth evolution beast—as second evolution entities.
It took a good ten minutes of staring before Trant flew to examine the kill site; then, reality sank in, and Vian found himself flying down to meet his leader in a daze.
3.
Reta folded her tiny arms, making me smirk. The lurvines' flames were extraordinarily potent, and with my Kyfer’s core’s ability to amplify a nearly infinite amount of external mana without resistance, I could use them mercilessly. It was a power that was inconceivable, giving me a massive edge against armies and dense hordes of beasts. For the first time, she could see me pushing ever closer to Yakana, a human whose arrow had destroyed a mountain to create the Harrowed Pass.
Yet unlike Yakana, I wouldn’t need to resort to external methods. I’d have that power at the third evolution, not the fourth, so I could still fight on the front lines when the time came.
That said, it wouldn’t be enough to win a war.
If the history of the Vietnam War taught me anything, it was that while one side can have overwhelming power that could scar and burn the landscape, and massacre soldiers, it couldn’t win against people who were spread out, bleeding the enemy with millions of paper cuts.
I needed eyes everywhere, armies of humans and beasts and guardians to fight anywhere necessary.
Yet there was a certain and profound satisfaction knowing that whenever Kline and I were needed—we would leave hell in our wake.
“Torin, send for people to process this,” Trant said, examining the corpse. “It seems we’ll be going further.”
Vian’s eyes widened. “Leader! We can’t take you further.”
Trant smiled and looked at the beast. “I think we’ll be fine.”
It was fine.
Years of training had paid off. Kline’s One-Beast Army swarmed enemies with fifty clones that teleported in advanced drills as they used Sharp Bite and Phantom Claws to rip through the hide of beasts. He was strong enough to kill them, but the fur of the beasts was so strong he needed to bleed them dry without Silvern’s Triumph, which he had already used for the day. Still, his overwhelming might was on display.
Our magic was made for Demigods, entities of the seventh evolution, and now that our magic had obtained amplification properties, that power was coming to life.
Kline killed a fast one, and then we worked together to take out a third. I had my soul army eat away at its hide, then Kline attacked with One Beast Army. Once it was weakened, I shot it with three searing bolts from Nymbral, each piercing it like a streaking laser from a sci-fi movie.
The more we fought, the more Vian watched in awe.
It was slowly sinking in that Kline and I had vastly more potential than any of the other guardians. We were already destroying fourth evolution entities with demigod magic at the second evolution. By the time the auction hit, we planned to enter the third.
But we wouldn’t rush that.
There was something I had to do before evolving to the third evolution.
4.
Brexton sat with the hologram of Romulan Claustra, his ninth evolution patron god, in The Nest, drinking a cocktail with a slight smile.
Romulan stared at him with a wooden expression. “You’ve grown brazen to drink before me so casually.”
Brexton smiled. “To become a god, one must act like a god.”
“To become a god, one must survive until then,” Romulan countered. “And if you continue to make enemies, you’ll be killed the minute you don’t have the people to protect you. Preservation is the ultimate key to power. Don’t forget it.”
Brexton pushed aside his drink.
“No, drink. Just don’t forget how weak you are. Not right now.” Romulan poured himself a drink at Brexton’s suite’s private bar. It was just a hologram, but it was all for training. Romulan put the drink down on the table and sat. “There are gods flocking to Dronami, meeting with Alendrias to obtain permission to enter the auction. If you don’t have her permission, your auction…” He fluttered his fingers to show the opportunity disappearing. “Do you understand?”
Brexton nodded. “I’ll act with prudence.”
“Good. You’ve exceeded my expectations, so I’m giving you a chance—but if you act a fool, I’ll revoke that power in an instant. I’d rather not benefit from this ‘auction’ than to let it rot the business from within.”
Brexton shivered at Romulan’s warning eyes. No matter how competent Brexton proved himself to be in the last few years, he was a grain of rice compared to his patron, and he never forgot that—especially now. So he nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Romulan drank and then stood. “What about the beast tamer?”
“I have him taken care of.”
“Don’t tell me—show me. If Areswood’s beasts organize, no one is going to enter the forest. So if you can’t handle him, kill him.”
Brexton finished his drink and exhaled through his teeth. “Even though he’s a Claustra?”
“He’s a traitor. If anyone has a problem with it, tell them that it’s my assessment.”
Brexton looked for another bottle of liquor.
“Do you have a problem with it?” Romulan asked.
“No, sir,” Brexton said solemnly. “Not at all.”
“Good. This is your one chance—so don’t disappoint me.”
Romulan disappeared, leaving Brexton alone. After staring at his empty glass vacantly, Brexton stood and traded it for a full bottle underneath the bar, popping the cork and preparing to drink straight from the lip. The auction was years away, but time was flying by. It wouldn’t be long before Brexton Claustra was set to poison the few principles had left—and he wasn’t looking forward to it.
us by lowering it.