Chapter 609: Consuming the Blood Current

  It wasn't often that Raghi could sneak anywhere, but somehow he was the one being sent into the Earth Union. Experimentation had shown that the invaders were suspicious of anyone with over 500 Power, fearing them to be elites. But if they looked at Raghi, they would assume he was just a thug with a level of strength that didn't threaten them, so they would ignore him.

  Hopefully. There was a chance he was going to his death.

  As he walked through the village, Raghi instinctively touched the potions that had been sewn into his cloak. Juray had been adamantly opposed to him going to spy on the invaders before he had made it clear how important it was to him. She had compensated for her worry by giving him as many potions as she could, enough that he needed to be selective or that alone would have looked suspicious.

  He kept a flask at his belt that could revive him from near death, and that was some comfort, even if it wouldn't do any good against the invaders. Juray was also trying to work on some sort of teleportation potion, but even if she had finished, their aura would have suppressed it.

  As he got closer, Raghi saw what they had known: the invaders had taken over an Earth Union palace, demanding to be treated as gods. Because they hated everything on the continent, that seemed to amount to being given what little food and drink they didn't hate, as well as attended to by servants.

  There was an Earth Union prince's corpse hanging outside the front, but other than that Raghi didn't see any bodies. A lot of people from the Elemental Nations would be glad to hear it wasn't worse, if he made it back to give them the information.

  No one stopped him from entering, because the invaders didn't need guards. They were strewn across the courtyard, each with servants to wave fans and keep them cool. That seemed absurdly wasteful when there were countless Wind Union methods to move air, but maybe the waste was the point.

  "Is there any food that isn't complete shit?" The Class-user named Budajix rose from his stolen throne, hurling a plate to the floor.

  "I'm terribly sorry, my lord. I'll have a servant take care of it right away." The second speaker made Raghi stare: it was the Prince of Pebbles. They'd feared he was dead, but here he was, serving the invaders.

  Except he hadn't been stripped to rags like some of the other leaders, he was still wearing his noble robes. In fact, he seemed to be sitting beside the invaders, commanding his own people like slaves.

  This was already worse than they had feared.

  .

  ..

  .

  Kai sat atop the corpse of the Razorshark, occasionally taking another bite even though the essence had already formed within him. He could continue like this for a very long time, but it felt good to rest his body without needing to fly or swim from time to time.

  The monster he called a Razorshark had been a reasonably powerful one, the larger brother of the vicious little fish that had so terrorized him on their first pass through the Blood Current. Even though he was far more powerful than he had been the first time, it had been a bit of a struggle, and he was interested in what he could do with its power.

  Now that he understood there was a larger world, he had new theories about the Blood Current: it wasn't that the ocean was randomly powerful here, the red waves must represent an inflow of monsters from more powerful regions. Why they were here, and why they turned the waves red, he still had no idea.

  It didn't matter for his present purposes. Now that he had finally defeated and eaten the Razorshark, he could build a more powerful aquatic ability, which would be an essential step in his path to reaching the golden dragon. Through all his swimming paths and other hunts, he'd tried to stay close, catching glimpses of golden dragons just often enough to be sure he was still in their flight path. But he wasn't going to make the same mistake as last time, which meant different preparation first.

  Because he needed to strengthen his new essence anyway, Kai placed the Razorshark into his soul and began swimming toward the dragons' paths. As he did so, he examined the specifically aquatic monsters within his spirit.

  <

  Sahagin's Soul - XIV (xi)

  Razorshark - III (gamma)

  Octowrath's Tentacles - V (epsilon)

  Great Cetae - X (kappa)

  >

  Sahagain's Soul had served him well for years, rising all the way to the xi rank, near his current maximum. It had been essential in fighting recently allowing him to eat monsters like the Razorshark, along with an octopus stronger than the others. He also had the Great Cetae's essence from back in Cloudspire, a whale-like creature that had controlled water.

  Did it make sense to try to feed any of those into Sahagin's Soul? Given how effective it had been, Kai was reluctant to throw it aside while he was in the Blood Current, even if it one day might need to be replaced.

  He settled on developing a second aquatic skill: while it seemed a bit wasteful to use two slots for that, he was currently fighting dangerous monsters in the ocean. The work wouldn't be wasted long term, because he could one day develop a third water-based ability, then merge all three. Until then, his goal was to maximize his short term power in the water, and that meant another ability.

  Once he'd decided that, the rest of his decisions were simple. He kept building up the Razorshark essence as he hunted the golden dragon while preparing the other two for a merger. Unlike Sahagin's Soul, which focused on movement and grace in the water, he wanted to develop a heavyweight ability. Actively control the water around him, draw power from the ocean, and be able to fight even the nastiest creatures in the Blood Current.

  So, after finding a peaceful part of the ocean, Kai floated and examined the essence within him. This was a simple feeding frenzy, merging the three abilities together:

  <

  Greatshark's Presence - II (beta)

  >

  The new "Greatshark's Presence" ability was immediately useful: it seemed to extend into the water around him, giving him stronger awareness and control. Combined with Sahagin's Soul, he could swim faster underwater and hit far harder. That was exactly what he needed.

  Before the hunt proper, he needed to deal with that monster that launched crimson spheres from great distances. Kai searched around the path of the dragons, getting a better sense for their flight paths without actually trying to catch one. His actual goal was to lure out an attack... and without warning, he finally got one.

  The sphere was still a dangerous technique, but he was prepared: Kai was using both Bloodtail's Armor and the Voidshell Essence that Zae Zin Nim had given him. He took the crimson sphere head on, absorbing the impact and piercing through it, sweeping toward the source.

  Kai launched a single Manticore's Sting as soon as he estimated the path, even before he had seen anything. It shot out over the ocean like a thunderbolt, and nearly at the horizon, he thought he spotted the source: a surprisingly small jellyfish-like creature, the same crimson as the spheres. When the Manticore's Sting approached, it shot into the ocean far faster than a monster like that should be able to move.

  Briefly he saw it glimmering in the depths, then it was gone. The stinger hit the surface and created a massive water spout that obscured everything else.

  Tempting as it was to go after the jellyfish that could launch such powerful attacks, Kai needed to remain focused. There would be future years to fully explore the Blood Current, years when Deadwaste wasn't under attack. His goal now had just been to show the monster he wasn't easy prey and push it away, so that it wouldn't distract him from his hunt of the golden dragon.

  That hunt required a completely different set of abilities, so Kai readjusted the monstrous essence within him as he prepared for the hunt. Some of his choices were obvious, and at the last second he removed Baleful Breath to replace it with Monstrous Tail, which might be more useful underwater.

  <

  Name: Kai Clanless

  Total Power: 1192

  Monstrous Hunger - XV (omicron)

  Cultivation: Nascent Foundation 85% (267)

  Savage Heart: 30 (304)

  Physique Level: B-5 (525)

  Beggar King's Robes: +3 (15)

  Soul Level: 9 (81)

  Direboar's Strength - XV (omicron)

  Behemoth's Heart - XII (mu)

  Thunderbird's Wings - XI (lambda)

  Sahagin's Soul - XIV (xi)

  Greatshark's Presence - II (beta)

  Manticore's Spine - VI (zeta)

  Monstrous Tail - VII (eta)

  -

  Baleful Breath - VIII (theta)

  Tyrant's Claw - XIII (nu)

  Void Gaze - IX (iota)

  Famished World - VI (zeta)

  Mutefang's Stealth - XV (omicron)

  Isulfr's Bite - XII (mu)

  Legion Bite - V (epsilon)

  Wallcrawler's Feet - V (epsilon)

  Abominalgum - III (gamma)

  Bloodtrap - III (gamma)

  Slime's Immortality - II (beta)

  Silver Demon - II (beta)

  Voidmaw's Bite - II (beta)

  Bloodtail's Armor - IV (delta)

  Deepclaw Essence - II (beta)

  Deathmaw Essence - II (beta)

  Voidshell Essence - II (beta)

  >

  The growth of his human soul during the incursion brought him extremely close to 1200 Power, which meant he could grow to 2400 total. To do that, he needed to improve his base strength further, and finally bringing down the dragon would be a key step in that process.

  This time, after getting the scent of the dragon, Kai pursued it beneath the water. Thunderbird's Wings was a flexible enough ability to use underwater, and combined with his other essences he could move shockingly quickly. But it wasn't enough just to catch up, not with so many other variables. He needed to find the golden dragon at the perfect moment so he could definitely fight and defeat it, then use its essence.

  To do that, he went back to his Goralian roots: watching beasts closely, learning their habits, developing a real plan. Maybe he could have won with raw speed now, but the dragon was strange as sacred beasts went, so he thought that learning more about it would be useful.

  What he found was that the dragons actually needed to eat, unlike monsters, which mean their paths followed logical routes. He guessed that they moved between continents consuming larger sources of meat, like carnivorous sheep that grazed across multiple fields, and that life cycle made sense to him. What the dragons got out of interacting with humans in Krysal remained a mystery, and he decided that it was going to have to remain one, because in the short term he needed power more than answers.

  With his new speed, Kai was able to evaluate multiple dragons until he found the largest and strongest.

  It was a real beast, massive with scars across its weathered scales. Unlike the younger dragons, it stayed high above the sea, perhaps avoiding the most dangerous monsters in the Blood Current. But it was also warier, canny from years of life, and fast enough that he wasn't sure if he could intercept it from a great distance.

  In that case... Kai's grin might be monstrous, but his smile was that of an old hunter.

  Chapter 610: Lethal Traps

  So far, Lostwreck had been less of a nightmare than a mausoleum, and Omilaena had to admit that she was a little disappointed.

  Their initial explorations had been extremely hesitant, concerned that they might be completely outclassed by remnants of the Whispering Death. So far the dangers they had encountered, including monsters and unstable sections, had been reasonably dangerous: Omilaena guessed that anyone with less than 1000 Power would die on Lostwreck. But they were past that point, and they needed to aim even higher.

  Since the illness didn't seem to be in evidence, they had started to move faster. They soon discovered an overrun kingdom that had once been filled with cultivators. While the disease had been hard on them and drained many of their resources, there were still some intact vaults and other resources, so Zin Nim remained there, exploring in between cultivation sessions.

  She was the only one who had uncovered anything unique: a special case that contained seven cultivation pills of different colors, though one was missing. Normally Omilaena might have wanted to experiment with those, but she could leave that to Zin Nim.

  It was easy for her - Omilaena was looking for something much more nebulous. She'd run across sources of chakra, yes, even valuable ones, but they were just one more tool in her kit, nothing that would change the game. Nothing that would allow her to finally finish her Physique transformation and unlock the sort of power she needed against their enemies.

  Currently she was digging through a building that had been some sort of smithy, which was notable mainly because it used chakra and was half-buried. She had discovered some metals to absorb with Lethal Artisan, but they were all incremental improvements, nothing truly impressive.

  Beneath a mass of bones, which were easily tossed aside, Omilaena found a sealed trapdoor to a basement. The seal was a pretty potent one, so this might actually contain an untouched vault. After raising all her protections again, she heaved on the doors, tearing the basement open to see what was underneath.

  And death wafted up to her.

  All of Omilaena's instincts took her away from the subtle puff of air, and her chakra cloth blocked part of the impact, but they weren't quite enough. She could feel something, latching on to her body and soul. There was a burning in her blood, different from anything she'd felt so far, and she didn't have time to waste.

  Omilaena reacted immediately, concentrating fully on the Prana Jewels. Even they alone wouldn't have been enough - she had to combine their link to her soul with her Azure Core, forcing out the poison within her body, draining it into the jewels. That let her breathe again, but the jewels began to heat up until they were painful against her skin, like they could burn through her.

  She staggered backward, tearing off every piece of jewelry and wrapping them in her chakra-laden cloth. The Prana Jewels were glowing almost violently, barely able to contain the power that she had drained from herself...

  And she had a bigger problem: the burning of her skin hadn't stopped.

  Her animal instincts told her to scratch at herself, as if she could tear away the skin that was becoming agonizing. Intellectually her instinct was to pull back, analyzing it - there was a layer of chakra on her body, like dust that couldn't be shaken off.

  Deeper than that, another instinct made her leap into the air and begin rushing back to Zin Nim. Even as she vaulted from ruin to ruin, she wondered if she was making a mistake: was the disease or whatever component of it remained contagious? No, thinking that way meant giving up, and she couldn't do that. The burning became agony that wracked her mind, but she forced herself onward anyway.

  At last she smashed through a wall into a chamber that contained familiar qi. Zin Nim sat calmly reading a scroll.

  "Fire, now!" Omilaena demanded. "Burn off my clothes!"

  "This is hardly the time t-" Zin Nim's eyes widened as she sensed some shadow of what had happened. Instantly she whirled, drawing up her Coldfire Corona and sending it flooding over Omilaena.

  Even though the flames hurt, they burned less than the foreign chakra that had been burrowing into her skin. When it was done, Omilaena dropped to one knee, her body smoking... yet she felt better. She could think again, and she realized that the major remaining threat was the Prana Jewels.

  "This too," she said, dropping the bundle.

  Zin Nim incinerated the cloth and any lingering chakra, which left only the Jewels, still blazing with light. Now that she had gathered herself, Omilaena began generating metal, building a box in the air around the Prana Jewels until she couldn't see a hint of the glow - she still felt the intensity of the poison in her soul, however. Once she was holding a shielded box, they could breathe again.

  "Just what happened?" Zin Nim demanded.

  "Well, about that..." Omilaena explained about her encounter and Zin Nim delved into new levels of scowling throughout the brief story.

  "Do you think you unleashed the Whispering Death again?"

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  "No, I think it was just a remnant of the damage. Remember, the Whispering Death wasn't some impossible illness, probably just a phased disease that came from the outside. It's highly dangerous, but not unstoppable."

  "We should be cautious anyway." Zin Nim glanced in the direction she had come and Omilaena nodded, since it didn't hurt to have her scour the location.

  That left her alone, carrying the box she had just created. Within, there was a poison of incredible intensity, potentially exactly what Omilaena needed. But holding it now, she wasn't sure she could even keep it contained, much less use it.

  .

  ..

  .

  The sun shone off the crimson ocean, which moved in steady waves. There were no leviathans or great beasts disturbing the waters today, and the depths remained still, so in many parts of the ocean there was only a peace to be enjoyed by no one.

  A sacred whale's corpse drifted through one of those peaceful places, delicious meat for many of the monsters, but as yet untouched. It had died recently, its blood still joining the red of the currents. A few smaller fish smelled it but kept their distance, fearing greater monsters that might be attracted.

  Far overhead, a massive golden dragon soared on warm winds, going minutes in between flapping its leathery wings. When it smelled the dead whale, it turned a very slow arc, examining the peaceful waves in no particular hurry. Nothing lurked deep beneath them, and those fish that had dared were scared off by the growing shadow of a dragon sweeping down.

  At last the dragon spiraled downward, landing atop the great beast, preparing to eat an unexpected and welcome meal. And as its jaws opened, the whale's flesh erupted.

  Kai burst from his hiding place within, claws extending to slash the dragon's head. It pulled back with surprising speed, but Kai had also been preparing two Manticore's Stings, which shot out through the dragon's wings. Both struck, tearing through the thin leather and destroying its ability to escape.

  But the elder golden dragon showed no signs of wanting to escape: it lashed out with its great tail, intending to swipe Kai off the whale's corpse. He raised one claw and caught the blow, which forced him to take a step but couldn't knock him away. Kai grinned, even as the dragon roared and lunged to bite him with jaws as large as his torso.

  When it slammed down, Kai caught the upper and lower jaws, preventing them from snapping closed. The dragon tried to crush him, then realized in alarm that Kai was actually physically stronger than it was. Of course, he knew what would come next: fire welled up within the dragon and exploded around Kai at point blank range.

  "One of you already tried that!" Kai roared from within the flames. "It didn't kill me then, it can't kill me now!"

  He breathed back, Baleful Breath overwhelming the golden flames as it surged directly into the dragon's maw, roiling down its throat. The beast panicked, trying to pull away, but Kai's grip on its jaws was as strong as its attempt to bite him. So long as they remained locked like this, Kai was cooking it from the inside out.

  Such a powerful beast refused to die easily, throwing its entire body against him. Kai definitely felt the impact of its scaled chest, and he lost his grip... but his claws instead tore into that chest. Instead of trying to cut through the scales, he just got a good grip, then pushed the dragon down, off the edge of the whale's corpse and into the water.

  At the surface the dragon struggled mightily, realizing what would happen if it was driven below. But it was too late: Kai assaulted it from above, knocking it under the water before he pursued. Once they went underneath, his combination of Sahagin's Soul and Greatshark's Presence was overwhelming.

  Soon enough Kai burst out of the water with a belly full of golden dragon. Even though he had no time to waste, he was almost disappointed that it hadn't lasted longer. Whatever powers made the golden dragons hate him, he tasted that hate until the very end, but it had been consumed and now he controlled that power.

  <

  Golden Dragon Essence - I (alpha)

  >

  And it was quite the power. He could easily have used the dragon's essence for fire breath or flight skills, but he thought that his abilities for those were superior. What he wanted most was strength - no, not just strength, a deeper sort of power. The dragon was physically strong, of course, but it also radiated might on a spiritual level, so intense that it could even grant abilities to humans by contact.

  Years ago, the golden dragons had spurned him, but now he had consumed their power. He needed to draw on that potency and make it his own.

  Flush with success, Kai wanted to either begin working with his essences or keep hunting. The Blood Current was flowing temptingly close, no doubt with other monsters worthy of eating. But he wasn't doing this just for his own power, which meant he needed to be smart about what he did next. As soon as he thought about it in those terms, his decision was fairly obvious, so Kai forced himself to begin flying south.

  Adding in travel time, he would have been away from Deadwaste for a full month, and anything could have happened in that time. Once he finished, his strength was closer to the invaders - it might not be enough to take on all five, but the situation might have changed. If he wandered off pursuing his own power when he could have done something, he would never forgive himself, so he would check in with Deadwaste before he decided on his next training, if necessary.

  That didn't mean he wasn't going to develop his new power. As he flew, Kai discovered that the dragon's essence could be used to add potency to nearly anything, improving stamina or even speed as he flew. He could capture the majority of that, if he just found the right combination. This needed to be an exceptional power that could carry him through the battle to come.

  But every component of monstrous essence needed to be built up first, if he wanted to develop this into a true ability. Before he could return to Deadwaste, he needed to return to his earliest strengths.

  Chapter 611: Fragments of Lostwreck

  As she flew, on a mission to acquire great power and perhaps decide the fate of her world, Zae Zin Nim found herself thinking about her wife. It bothered her how much Omilaena was willing to risk, tempting fate with Insanities. She admitted that from a different angle it could be seen as ambition, as they would never grow unless they took significant risks, yet that didn't make those decisions any less maddening.

  Perhaps Omi's recklessness could be considered the Ninth Insanity of their world. Was that something that might amuse her? Zae Zin Nim was too stressed to care for any jokes at the moment.

  Even as she flew south, high above Lostwreck, Zae Zin Nim kept thinking back to Omilaena. Her wife was still in the abandoned capital, imprisoning a fraction of the Whispering Death within several layers of defenses. The problem was that even that wasn't enough - without her attention, it could escape, or even explode from the Prana Jewels.

  The early experiments had proved difficult. Apparently the disease was mostly one of chakra, meaning that chakra itself was ineffective against it. Mana could be used to scour it, and qi seemed to be the most effective method of control. Unfortunately, Omilaena couldn't keep up with the intense qi required, hence Zae Zin Nim had taken it on herself to quest for her wife.

  At last she saw it: the vicious icy sea that prevented anyone from sailing further south. According to the invaders, if someone could survive the icy fingers, they would eventually reach another land, but Zae Zin Nim had no intention of going that far yet.

  Instead she searched among the icebergs, seeking out those that were charged with unnatural power. The entire sea of ice definitely seemed bizarre, perhaps caused by some other Insanity from outside their world. All that mattered was that the result included various icebergs with natural treasures: some glowed blue with mana, some had cores of chakra, and qi wafted from others. That was the entire reason she had come this far.

  As she searched, Zae Zin Nim couldn't help but evaluate everything she passed, just in case it was useful. She did end up taking a few pieces of ice, since they might have some use, and placed them within her spatial bracelet. None of them were what she needed.

  After a day of searching, at last she found something suitable: a spike of ice so intense that it froze the sea where it touched, creating a massive iceberg around it. The spike had incredibly intense ice qi, enough that it would have been classified as a treasure even on Cloudspire. It wasn't 'pure' by those standards, with a strong element of chakra binding it to the ice, but that didn't seem to matter so much any more.

  When Zae Zin Nim reached out, her Coldfire Corona lit up automatically around her hands, preventing her from damaging them on the ice. She needed to be extremely careful finding a way to transport it, then she hurled herself back north.

  Now that she carried a potential solution with her, Zae Zin Nim's mind wandered from her wife's recklessness. Her own work on Lostwreck had been more productive, right up until this development. She had discovered multiple societies that seemed to have been cultivators, before they had been annihilated by the Whispering Death.

  She wasn't so lucky as to stumble across an unprecedented treasure or a legendary cultivation technique. The best she had found was the case of rainbow pills, each of which surpassed what she knew, but seemed difficult to use. It seemed that the blue pill might be useful for Omilaena, if only she didn't need ice qi, and some of the others seemed unnatural enough to be suited for Kai. None of her efforts had determined if any would be appropriate for her.

  Better than pills, there were multiple manuals that she could figure out, some of them even written in a language that was half-familiar. They spoke of cultivation very similar to what she knew, but they used different language. Some even called the second stage "Body Purification" just like the invader had.

  As far as she was concerned, this was strong evidence that what he said was basically correct: there was more cultivation in the outside world, stages that no one could attain here because their qi wasn't dense enough. The stages she had known were likely just shadows of the true cultivation, at least to a certain point.

  Far from discouraging her, she found this exciting.

  Because, contrary to what the invader had claimed, Zae Zin Nim wasn't convinced that he actually understood what he spoke of. His techniques were powerful due to his natural phase, but they weren't sophisticated, and it was strange to think that an accomplished cultivator would be working with a bunch of scruffy sailors.

  No, it seemed more probable that he had been a failure who left a sect, and in that case his supposed wisdom was likely wrong. Even if there was a stage of cultivation she knew nothing about, it was inconceivable to her that improving one's dantian and qi could be harmful. More likely the opposite was true, and higher realms were like the stages she knew: building a strong foundation made the next stage more powerful, not less.

  So she intended to stay the course: she would reach Sky Soul just as she had planned. And then, after they finished the invaders, she would discover whatever lay beyond it.

  When Zae Zin Nim returned to the familiar ruins, she found her wife kneeling with the box hovering in her hands. She looked exhausted - without an improved Physique, or stamina like Kai had, Omilaena was the least able of the three to continue like this without rest or sleep. But the way she smiled weakly when she saw Zae Zin Nim...

  "Are you alright?" Zae Zin Nim asked.

  "I'll manage," Omilaena said. "You seem like you're dying to show me something, though."

  "Yes, use this." Reaching into her spatial bracelet, she revealed the intense shard of ice. "Your cultivation must be close, you've been working on it for so long. You might need something physical to take you over the edge, since you altered your cultivation."

  "Then give me a break with this."

  Omilaena gave up the box, which Zae Zin Nim left hovering in a sphere of blue flame. She could do that easily enough, but the fundamentally spiritual poison worried her. It had been trying to waft out from the beginning, slipping through Omilaena's barriers to strike them again.

  Relieved of her burden, Omilaena took some time to clear her mind and shifted to a meditation pose. Despite her complaining and lack of discipline, Omilaena really was a good cultivator - in some ways, she had the easy talent of a genius that Kai made up for with hard work. When she was really determined, like now, Omilaena could make great breakthroughs.

  Except she wasn't simply drawing qi into her dantian like she would with a normal breakthrough, because the qi was concentrated in the tattoo on her arm. Normally it was nearly invisible, but the blue-white tendrils were glowing now as they absorbed qi from the ice shard.

  Just in case the breakthrough required ordinary qi or other assistance, Zae Zin Nim pulled medicinal pills and other items out of her bracelet and set them in front of Omilaena. She even considered the rainbow pills before deciding that she didn't understand them enough. Her wife didn't seem to need them, though, only taking a qi pill in order to top up her reserves as she struggled to break through.

  Then, with troubling swiftness, Omilaena grasped the ice shard with her bare hand and pressed it against her arm. She cried out in pain, and Zae Zin Nim gasped in sympathy, but Omilaena kept driving it against her skin even as it threatened to freeze her. Slowly, inch by painful inch, she began tracing the tattoos that she had placed on her arm.

  Partway through, the tattoos began growing on their own, creeping further down Omilaena's arm. They surged intensely and suddenly the ice shard dissolved, leaving Omilaena gripping her own arm.

  "Did you...?" Zae Zin Nim nervously inspected her wife's soul and then breathed a sigh of relief.

  <

  Name: Omilaena

  Total Power: 1969

  Heart of Poison: Level 93 (651)

  *Prana Jewels: Level +6 (42)

  Lethal Artisan: Spinel Rank (335)

  Nascent Ice (250)

  Path of Venomsteel: Step 11 (165)

  Physique: D-9 (245)

  Soul Level: 9 (81)

  Azure Core (+200)

  >

  "That hurts like balls," Omilaena muttered, rubbing her arm. "My head hurts too much to judge, was that a good breakthrough? Is that what you'd hope for the Nascent Foundation stage?"

  "It appears to have 250 Power, which is the theoretical maximum." Zae Zin Nim knelt down beside her wife and took her arm, tracing the silvery lines. "This is very impressive, Omi. I'm glad you finally found a way to break through. You have nearly 2000 Power now."

  "And I need more than that." Despite her tone, Omilaena didn't pull her arm away, just turned back to look at the box hovering within the flames.

  Instead of her previous methods, Omilaena encased the box and the Prana Jewels within pure ice qi. This was far more effective, locking away the dangerous power, though the additional strength behind Omilaena's techniques couldn't hurt.

  "I think I could handle further remnants of the Whispering Death," Omilaena said, "but I don't know if we have time to keep exploring Lostwreck."

  "What, then?" Zae Zin Nim asked.

  "I need a way to get this poison under control and make a Physique breakthrough, and I don't think I'm going to do that here. Have you found enough resources?"

  "Perhaps... perhaps I have."

  There would be more time to explore Lostwreck one day, but for now, Zae Zin Nim realized that she most wanted to return to a different continent.

  Chapter 612: What Strength Means

  Raghi grunted in pain, straining to keep his arm in place. His elbow was being ground into the stone below so hard that his bones ached, but he held out a little longer. Of course he had no chance: the invader slowly and surely pushed his arm back until Raghi let himself collapse.

  "Hah!" The invader burst to his feet, raising his arms skyward like he was a champion, and the others hooted and laughed.

  On the ground, Raghi cradled his sore arm and there was no acting involved there, it hurt badly. Obviously he had lost - the invaders had twice his strength in fully phased form. This wasn't the first time they had beaten him in arm wrestling: the invaders never seemed to tire of proving their strength over a much larger man and took pleasure in humiliating him.

  It was a role Raghi took on gladly, because while they were overpowering him, they weren't hurting anyone else. He had seen other men have their arms snapped in half because they locked into a position where their opponents used their full power. There were tricks to losing with his arm intact without appearing to forfeit and making the invaders angry.

  "Cheer up," one of the men said, pulling Raghi to his feet. "Maybe you'll win next time!"

  "I think he's getting stronger," one of the others said, with a bit of an unpleasant laugh.

  Shaking his head with a rueful smile, Raghi pulled back, still cradling his arm. Having spent weeks with these invaders, he thought he understood them: they were normal men, beaten down by the world, who had suddenly obtained great power, and they reveled in it. They weren't mindless barbarians, they just wanted to stroke their egos and be showered in gifts and praise.

  How different was he from them, really? Raghi remembered many bitter thoughts while he had served under Fhazi Lantrian, including some dark daydreams, before Kai had helped him escape that life. He wanted to believe that if he had obtained such an over-powered fantasy, he wouldn't have used it like this.

  Over time Raghi had become an accepted part of the invaders' court, if it could be called that. They recognized him by sight, even the five most dangerous ones, and didn't think much of him. That gave him the opportunity to examine them in greater detail, which he hoped to survive to take to his allies.

  Yangix and Jonijix were the two most dangerous, and growing more so - their Power didn't increase even a single point, but they were developing new ways to use their abilities. Other than that, they couldn't be more different. Yangix seemed to view himself as a benevolent tyrant, arriving to elevate the benighted peoples underneath him. By contrast, Jonijix seemed to think of nothing but base lusts, and it was fortunate that everything else kept him distracted, or he would have done much worse.

  As Raghi went back to the shack he slept in, he glanced toward the main square. Jonijix was harassing an Earth Union woman who had a false smile plastered on her face and it made Raghi's blood boil. She wasn't so similar, truly, but she still reminded him of Juray. Whoever she was, she didn't deserve to be abused like this, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do.

  Not far away, Budajix hurled down a carafe of wine and the explosion of clay distracted everyone, followed by his verbal explosion. Raghi had been watching the man and he seemed to be bitter and angry. He was trying to get drunk, but even the strongest wine didn't seem to have much effect on him, so he was perpetually upset. Combined with the raw power of his punching technique, he was the most likely to kill a servant... or Raghi, because he wouldn't have any more chance if one of those hit him.

  It looked like no one was going to die today, because the servants rushed in with more alcohol. Raghi turned away to find the others.

  He didn't see any sign of Fodajix, the lead invader that he knew least about. The man didn't have any dramatic powers, but he seemed to have some sort of reinforced body. Of course, Raghi couldn't harm a single one of the invaders, but Fodajix would be able to resist attacks even from others who could use phases, which made him dangerous to elites who tried to hit hard and fast.

  That left only Quorthix, who bothered Raghi in a different way. The man seemed to have ancestry from some different species and the abilities it granted him were hard to pin down. He also seemed more driven than the others, restless and searching for something else.

  And then, as if summoned by his thoughts, Quorthix appeared beside him. There was something wrong with his movements, just a little too graceful, and his skin shone unnaturally. Before Raghi could move, the other man had an arm around his shoulders in a parody of camaraderie.

  "You know a little about strength," Quorthix said quietly. "Where are these stronger fighters coming from? I've seen a few with some real grace, a little power. Do they have finer clothing and weapons?"

  "I d-don't know the details." Raghi's stutter wasn't an act, it was nerve-wracking to have someone who could easily kill him that close. "But they're mostly from other continents. People from Rosemount and Cloudspire have... always been stronger than us."

  "Yes, it seems like you're the Deadlake of the Deadlake. Pity." Quorthix snorted and let him go, then pulled away before Raghi could say anything else.

  Should he have tried to say more? Raghi didn't seek their attention, since that was a huge risk, but whenever he saw the opportunity, he tried to subtly push them toward the other continents. The only thing he could do to protect everyone was redirect the invaders, but so far it hadn't worked.

  Would it work on Quorthix? The man's motives were hard to determine, other than that he didn't seem satisfied with the wine and women that the other invaders had grown accustomed to. He sought something greater... if he needed something phased, he might not be any happier on the other continents, and Raghi wasn't sure what he would do then.

  The next day, Raghi felt better - he was getting stronger, even if the difference was trivial to the invaders. He ventured out to see what else he could do, whether he could protect even a single person or nudge the invaders onto a different path. But to his surprise, he saw that the invaders were packing up, taking their favorite pieces of loot as if they intended to travel.

  "Move out!" Quorthix yelled. "There's a land further south with some real treasures, these pathetic fucks are just too weak to fight the monsters there. Trust me, you'll forget all about this garbage soon enough!"

  Where could he have gotten ideas like that? Raghi looked around and saw the Prince of Pebbles standing not far away, having been fully accepted as a traitor to his continent. He was sending the invaders... south? Surely he wouldn't be so petty as to send them to Goralia, where they would be just as dissatisfied with everything.

  No, Raghi realized, he wasn't thinking like an elite. If they went south, they would be headed to the Frontier and the wasteland beyond the wall. What on earth was the Prince of Pebbles thinking?

  .

  ..

  .

  Over the course of days, Kai flexed all of his relevant essences, refining and developing them for the upcoming merger. One of his choices for a new strength technique was more than obvious, but he also worked on the essence he'd earned in the incursion, since that was one of the few that could possibly match up to a dragon.

  By the time he needed to rest after several days and nights of intense training, he knew exactly what he wanted to do. Kai didn't need the direct rest normally, but he wanted to be at his sharpest for this. He pulled a hovering ship from his spatial ring and set it up so that he could get a little sleep.

  He woke up in the middle of the night, wide awake despite the darkness all around. As many times as he'd seen the ocean at night, it was eerie now, a shifting dream world of black and the deepest blue. With no sounds, not even birds or monsters, the world was still, and Kai realized that it was time.

  Even though he no longer needed the visualization, Kai shifted into a mental world of his soul, returning to the dark island that represented his monstrous essence. The spiritual ocean around that island seemed to mirror the real ocean, dark and serene. He walked through the statues embodying his power until he came to the oldest, and set his hand against the Direboar's flank.

  "It's been a long time," Kai said aloud. "In a way, you started all this."

  Maybe talking to the statue was pointless, but it felt appropriate. The Direboar had been the first strong monster he had ever fought and the first monstrous essence to enter his soul, even if he hadn't understood at the time. It was even possible that the Direboar had triggered one of the first changes in him that had led him to being rejected by Goralian society, tumbling into his path to monsterhood, and somehow returning as the savior of Deadwaste.

  Of course, it was stupid to feel sentimental: the Direboar had been a purely malicious creature that tried to eat him. But the strength he'd taken from it had made him more than human, and without it there were many fights he couldn't have won. He felt nostalgic to think that this essence was falling behind, even if it was inevitable: that ability had been built from a single gamma-ranked monster, nothing more, so it was finally time for it to be consumed for good.

  "Everyone ready?" Kai asked, and two more statues slid through the sand to join him.

  The golden dragon was the second, a new statue that had gained detail and substance as he refined the power. And the third was the Deepclaw he had fought in the incursion - its strongest characteristic had been its raw strength, so it would be foolish for him to use it for a claw improvement or a tunneling ability or something absurd.

  <

  Direboar's Strength - XV (omicron)

  Deepclaw's Power - V (epsilon)

  Dragon's Strength - V (epsilon)

  >

  Considering the three essences with spiritual sight, he had Direboar's Strength at omicron rank and the other two at merely epsilon. Yet, with the instincts he'd developed through feeding so many monsters to one another within his hunger, he knew that the Direboar was actually the essence that was going to struggle to keep up. The Deepclaw and the golden dragon were good counterparts, but if he merged them mindlessly the Direboar might dissolve in the process.

  That power still represented dense strength from years of training, so Kai didn't want to abandon it. He searched through his soul for other essences, particularly ones that had been with him for a long time. Soon he settled on the Bloodtrap - that had been a vampiric plant he'd consumed on Rosemount, but over the years he had never really found a good use for it.

  Funny to think that he'd absorbed that essence so long ago, before he was even married. Not as old as the Direboar, but old enough, and strong enough.

  So Kai fed the Bloodtrap to the Direboar, giving it a surge of new vitality. Before that faded, he forced all three powers together and then consumed them all, fusing them within the crucible of his hunger until they became something new.

  <

  Dragon's Might - I (alpha)

  >

  So many powers replaced with a single essence: Dragon's Might. It had begun at the alpha stage, hinting at its potential in the future, but the instant Kai placed it into his soul his eyes widened.

  Those eyes opened in the real world, the vision of an island blown away by the power he felt surging through him. Even at alpha rank, Dragon's Might made him almost as physically strong as Direboar's Strength had at its maximum, but it was more than that. The power had a spiritual layer as well, letting him impact the spiritual as well, and he knew it would be a terror combined with Famished World. In fact, it combined better with all his abilities, even stamina or speed, subtly enhancing them with new synergies.

  His physical body was responding as well, his muscles rebuilding themselves into a new form. When he tested the Savage Heart, parts of his body grew black scales along with the usual armored plates. It made sense that this resonated better: he had absorbed the Direboar by accident when he knew so little, hadn't even accepted the monstrous side of himself. Now that he was unified, he could do so much more.

  But there would be time for that later. Kai took to the air and surged toward Deadwaste with a dragon's roar echoing in his soul.