Beastforged Bond

Returning home wasn’t what it used to be. The Bastion had been my safety net ever since I was born, but the events of the last two years changed a lot. Everything, in a way. Not only my perception of the Bastion, the Rulers, and the Council, but also myself. I couldn’t view myself the same as before, not after going through all this, not after sucking the Netherkin’s home dry of Essence. Because that was what we did. We destroyed a beautiful ecosystem.

Volix had been trying to make it sound better by explaining that the Netherkin were dead and that the Death Spirit’s artifact must have been there for centuries, to not only transform the underground ecosystem but also to allow its Essence to seep into the Serash Valley.

Nonetheless, it didn’t feel quite right, even less so as we searched through the underground ecosystem to find the Netherkin’s actual home, which we did. We found ruins, or what was left of them: stone frames and foundations that hinted at the existence of homes, as well as a massive pillar adorned with an even greater sphere.

That very sphere was none other than the artifact the Elemental Phoenix had talked about before. It contained an ocean of Essence even after centuries of emitting it, transforming the artifact into the equivalent of a Source, if not better.

I really didn’t understand the Netherkin. Honestly, if the Death Spirit gifted them something as precious as an Essence-based Source, how could they have been daring enough to ask for more? It made no sense. And yet, we consumed all the Essence the Source emitted over the centuries, only to tap into the Source itself as well.

But we failed to suck it dry. It didn’t work, simply because the Source hoarded too much Essence. There was so much of it that everyone could feed their Soulkins until they had to retreat to spend months digesting the power that allowed them to grow, mutate, and potentially even evolve. And that was not all. We, all of us, started to convert Essence into pure, highly compressed ether to temper our bodies and perform our ether-expensive techniques.

Practicing Fortress and Mindbreaking Shell was no longer a problem. It was one of the simplest things I did in the Netherkin’s home with the Source’s power supply.

That turned into a problem. We didn’t know how much time had passed since we descended into the Netherkin’s underground home. It had to be a long time because I managed to reach the 8th Volume of the Blastor Refinery technique and filled several higher-ranked Gates, yet… we couldn’t tell. We were uncertain and, worse even, we couldn’t tell how much more time we would have to spend down here if we planned on emptying the Essence Source.

That was also why we did it. Why we pocketed the Essence Source.

At that time, Scott was worried the Death Spirit would seek us out to punish us for taking her Source, but Volix was not all that worried about that. He told me to store the Source and that it would be fine as long as I kept it on me. When I asked him why it would be okay as long as the Source was on me, the Elemental Phoenix didn’t answer.

I trusted him anyway.

That was how we ended up back at home, waiting at the Bastion’s outpost, hoping our family was fine.

Lea retrieved an old watch and turned it on as soon as we reached the outpost. Once online, she pressed a button and crushed the watch.

“Now we wait,” was all Lea said, leaning back against a creaking wall of an outpost hut. “And don’t even think of going online on the Nexus.”

There was no need to ask why. Raffael Torch found out about me and Volix. It was already dangerous enough to return to the Bastion with all the Seekers the Ruler of Fire must have deployed to find me, but we had to return to find out how our family was.

In the worst case, Raffael had already found and killed them.

No, that did not happen. I had to remind myself, hoping that it was actually true.

Not nearly as bad would be if Raffael found and kidnapped them. Being used as a hostage was still better than being dead.

Caught in my own thoughts, I played with the wiggly tentacles curled up in my palm.

“Why again did you bind something like that? It’s disgusting, and it is not like you are shy of choices.” Daniel shook his head at me, his grimace hurting me almost as much as it hurt my Soulkin.

The wiggly chaos of tentacles unfurled, revealing a palm-sized eye adorned with dozens of smaller and larger tentacles. The eye resembled a lizard’s, except that it was a mixture of black with the iris of a purple swirling vortex.

Truth be told, it wasn’t handsome or beautiful, but it was impressive. And young.

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“I am just telling you,” Daniel grunted when I glared at him.

“And I think you’re wrong. Tessa isn’t disgusting.” That was how I felt, genuinely, and the young Horror Tessar sensed that as well.

Our bond grew stronger in a burst, while waves of gratitude and happiness oozed from the bond.

Tessa hatched not too long ago, yet growth spurts made it so that she had already reached her racial limit. It was all thanks to the Essence she consumed, which I was no longer sure had been a good thing.

The Horror Tessar was still only palm-sized, even when she should have been much larger. She ought to be a terrifying eldritch being, only to end up looking so cute.

Cute, not disgusting. I reassured Tessa once more.

She pressed herself firmly against my palm before retreating into the World, which had grown a lot in the last few months.

At this point, Tessa was the weakest of my Soulkins, and that despite advancing to the Unblemished Rank not too long ago. She hatched in the last quarter of our stay in the underground ecosystem, yet was already an Unblemished beast. And yet she was still the weakest, if the Mirage Serpent was to be ignored.

Resh had yet to finish his evolution, but he no longer felt like the weakest of my Soulkins. If anything, he’d be one of the strongest once he burst out of his evolution cocoon.

Only Volix would be stronger, and that had brought its own share of troubles.

The Elemental Phoenix…well, I did sacrifice a lot to push him further. He’d consumed more than 10,000 soul energy units to reach the Peak of the Guardian Rank. Even then, I didn’t know if that had been a mistake. I pushed another 15,000 units of soul energy into Volix so that the Elemental Phoenix could advance to the Overlord Rank. And what did I receive in return for the exorbitant sacrifice, which drained most of the energy I’d accumulated in the eons we spent in the Netherkin’s ruins? I pushed Volix to the Overlord Rank. Even that had been a close call.

The Elemental Phoenix was the worst money sink I knew. It was a pain in the butt, yet…it was all worth it. The difference between the upper end of the Guardian Rank’s Peak and the Overlord Rank may only be one soul energy unit, but the difference in power was drastic–enormous even.

And it brought forth endless pain. Advancing to the Overlord Rank was no problem for the Elemental Phoenix. It was just power to Volix. To me, it was terrifying. I spent weeks screaming at the top of my lungs as my mind and soul were tempered. If Volix had been a physical beast as well, the empowerment would have been more evenly distributed, but that was not the case. No amount of physical tempering helped me endure the pain induced by becoming a Grandmaster in terms of mind and soul.

But that was old news already. There was no gain without pain. And if the pain I’d gone through was equivalent to at least one-third of the power I earned from Volix’s advancement, I would be satisfied–happy even.

I was ready to return to the Bastion, and so were the others.

Waiting at the outpost made me anxious. It certainly didn’t help either when Scott stiffened. A horn grew from his forehead and his eyes turned white.

“Oh, no.” He gasped, his face almost as white as his eyes.

Scott spun around, voice shrill as he shouted. “We need to leave!”

“What? Why?” Daniel asked, while his sister was already on the move.

If Lea learned one thing about Scott since we left for Serash Valley, it was to trust the damn Oracle. She slapped Daniel in the back of the head and was ready to go all-out using Soulfusion when I noticed something in the distance.

“Merlin and the others are coming here,” I called out as soon as I saw multiple life sources in the sky, heading toward us from the Bastion’s outskirts.

One was a Brown Wyvern…no, dragon. It was massive, its wings spanning no less than one hundred meters. Its head had to be larger than the outpost’s biggest hut, its body longer than most buildings.

There was no doubt about it; the Brown Dragon was none other than Dirk, his evolution a complete success. And on his back was one more enormous life source and four much smaller sources.

“Everyone’s here,” I said as the Brown Dragon emerged from the dome. Dirk didn’t slow. He didn’t descend either. Instead, Chloe Zerog’s voice rang in my head.

‘Get up here. We need to leave as soon as possible! ‘

The others looked like they heard Chloe Zerog’s voice as well. Daniel summoned the Thunderstorm Roc and leaped on its back, hurriedly followed by Lea. Aureus emerged beside me, no questions asked, and both Scott and I climbed on his back.

A moment later, gravity shifted and we burst into the sky to join our family above.

“Raffael found us!!” Merlin shouted at the top of his lungs as we closed in on Dirk.

Scott was the first to leap from Aureus’ back. He sailed smoothly through the air and landed on the Brown Dragon’s back without further problem. Lea and Daniel followed shortly after, all while I stayed back, eyes focused on the Bastion and its life sources to look ahead.

Then I saw a glimmer of something that crushed my confidence of victory, and I too joined the others on the dragon’s back.

Only when everyone was properly positioned on Dirk’s back did the dragon accelerate. He flapped his mighty wings and flew away from the Bastion at a speed I didn’t account for such a massive beast.

We were fast, but the glimmer in the distance grew larger. Then came the roar. It reverberated across several Zones and rang in my ears, the wrath and bloodlust echoing within me.

Raffael Torch had arrived, and I did not doubt for a second that his old Magma Dragon would catch up to us soon.

“Are you ready to fight a Ruler?” I asked Merlin in the most confident voice I could muster. “I really hope you have an ace up your sleeve.”

“More than one,” Merlin reassured me, before crumbling that very reassurance in the next sentence. “I just hope it’s enough.”

He let out a hollow laugh and clasped my shoulder. “Can you manage Raffael while Dirk and I kill the Magma Dragon?”

I felt like laughing out loud, but, unfortunately enough, Merlin looked at me too serious to be joking.

Really now? You want me to fight him alone?