Was that panic setting in? The trembling of his lips and the tightness of breath—it sure as hell felt like it. His heart wanted out of his chest and back to the fortification now. But there was a problem. Even if he could abandon others, which he never would, his body had practically turned to ice—muscles locking, every instinct screaming at him to run. None of it seemed able to get through to his numbing mind.

  Thankfully, he managed to stammer out his words, even if a little pathetically. “This is... yours?”

  The creature tilted its head at him with what could only be curiosity. Her blank mask of a face—smooth chitin incapable of forming an expression—practically bored into him.

  Were you the one who stole my child?

  She spoke again, in the strange way that defied logic. Her voice pressed against his mind like a horde pushing against walls, trying to consume thought, trying to drown everything else beneath its weight. His temples throbbed, vision swimming.

  “No,” he eked out. “But I’m the one who wishes to return it.”

  The creature tilted its head the other way.

  You wish to return what you stole, once your death was a guarantee?

  What could he say to that? He was more than a little certain this was the way the quest should go. On the other hand, the creature wasn’t wrong. But he didn’t take the egg—that was Raquel, or at least the Black Bridge company he’d sent into the hive.

  But that was semantics now. This thing didn’t care.

  Reaching into the back of his mind, he had to get the system to scan it. There was no way a simple Gravity Forging realm creature could give off such intense pressure.

  The readout flowed an instant later.

  ————————————————

  ///: Acquiring target stats…

  ————————————————

  ///

  Creature Type: Hive Queen

  Cultivation level: [Core Formation-1]

  Talent: [None]

  Talent Fragment: [None]

  ///

  ————————————————

  His heart dropped through his stomach and kept falling. Hive Queen. Core Formation Realm.

  Hadn’t the Flowerbank mercenaries said that Core Formation realm cultivators couldn’t get into the trial realm? Surely that should have meant that nothing in this place should even be close to that level of power. So then what was this?

  “We never meant to take the egg,” Hector continued, the words struggling to come out under the sheer weight of the pressure this Hive Queen was giving off. “It was an accident. Part of a quest.”

  The creature again tilted her head. Her blank mask remained a void of emotion—not that he should have expected any emotion from what amounted to a human-shaped bug.

  A quest. So you are here with the human who captured my people and torments us in this prison.

  “With him?” His voice cracked. “With who?”

  At his side, Quiness had frozen as well, staring at the Queen with an expression he’d never seen on her face before.

  Horror.

  In equal amounts to what he was feeling right now, and Hector had to at least be thankful for that. It meant he wasn’t overreacting and that she, much like him, didn’t have a plan for even this situation.

  You do not know his name, yet you enter the realm so casually.

  The Hive Queen crushed grass beneath her as she stepped closer, pressure building on him with each footfall. This had to be the Core Formation Orbit he’d heard about. He’d never been immersed in one before. If she wanted to, she could probably crush him and the wall he stood upon to nothing.

  He was so outclassed that fighting would be more than pointless, a waste of his time and of hers. The snap of a finger would be all it would take. If it happened, hopefully, he wouldn’t notice.

  He gulped, his throat bulging, and then he caught what sounded annoyingly like a small scream. His gaze flicked to Lincoln. The boy was practically trembling as the Hive Queen closed in.

  You must be one of those trial takers, then. I would feel sorry for you if I didn’t have my own issues.

  She paused.

  You wish to return the egg? Then give it.

  Lowering his arms—hands shaking, fingers numb—he placed the crystal egg on the outstretched hand of the Hive Queen as she raised herself with her tail.

  Balancing on the spiked appendage should have been difficult. Impossible, even. But she did it so casually, as if gravity were merely a suggestion she’d chosen to ignore.

  With a soft clink, the egg settled into her palm.

  Her blank face broke. A smile bloomed there. That of a loving mother, warm and soft and achingly human. It lasted but an instant before the same blank facade returned.

  As you have returned it, I will spare your flesh. Not that I could have done much anyway.

  She seemed to muse to herself for a moment, eyes going somewhere distant.

  But even if I do not act... Girdenth will no doubt arrive.

  “Girdenth?” Hector questioned, his voice pitching higher than he’d have liked.

  The Great Dragon will not let a void beast run rampant within the trial realm. Even if it is but a distraction.

  Hector paled. Void beasts. The same things that had attacked at the Hilda Festival. Slaughtered all those people. But he hadn’t seen any void beasts since arriving. The only thing that came close was the...

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  And then it clicked. The worms.

  Their black carapaces differed completely from the carapace of the bugs. It was like comparing a dark night to a slightly dull brown. Similar, yet all that difference could mean a world of trouble.

  Goodbye now, human.

  The Hive Queen’s tail coiled beneath her.

  Then released.

  She launched into the air with a sound like a whip crack, her wings snapping wide to catch the momentum, and in the space of a blink, she was a blur of black rocketing across the sky toward the distant forest. Toward the hive.

  Gone.

  The surrounding swarm began receding.

  Mandibles that had been frozen in threat lowered. Bodies that had been pressed against the mud wall pulled back, streaming away in rivers of chitin and clicking legs. The pressure that had been crushing Hector’s chest eased, letting him breathe for what felt like the first time in minutes.

  Then a screech split the air.

  It came from behind him.

  From the fortifications.

  All three of them turned—him, Quiness, Lincoln—and what Hector saw stole the breath he’d only just recovered. A black worm loomed within the fortification.

  Loomed was the only word for it. The thing was massive; its segmented body coiled and writhed as its head reared back to let out another roar that shook clumps of dirt from the mud wall on which Hector perched. The void-black of its carapace swallowed the light around it, making it seem less like a creature and more like a hole in reality given form.

  But that wasn’t the only thing that froze him in place. A figure stood before it.

  Small. Human. Female, from the silhouette.

  And from her back—

  Wings.

  Not wings like the Hive Queen’s membranous appendages. These were something else entirely. Thick strands of light cascaded from her shoulder, each one moving independently, flowing through the air like silk caught in invisible currents. They were spindly. Tendril-like. Too many to count. And they moved, lashing and coiling with a life of their own.

  Above her, the air began glowing.

  Light gathered. Churned. A sphere of radiance bloomed into existence high above her head, spinning faster and faster until it became a ball of pure white energy that hurt to look at directly. It grew—bucket-sized, then larger, then larger still—until it hung there like a captured sun.

  Then it began to spin off pieces.

  Fragments of light shot from the sphere like bullets—crack-crack-crack-crack—each one trailing brilliance as it streaked toward the worm. They punched into its carapace with sounds like hammer strikes on wet meat. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Chunks of chitin exploded outward. Ichor sprayed in arcs of black before turning into specks of light. The creature’s roar became a shriek, which became a gurgle, which became nothing at all.

  The barrage didn’t stop.

  More fragments. More impacts. The worm’s body came apart piece by piece, segments separating, flesh shredding, light consuming, until what had been a colossus of void horror was simply... gone. Rendered down to streams of flowing light that drifted over the fortification walls, carried away on the wind like countless butterflies.

  Silence.

  The ball of light winked out.

  The winged figure remained.

  Hector stood there, mouth open, mind blank, completely and utterly at a loss for what was happening. But if this was a new threat, he had to know what they were dealing with. Figure out a way to save Jodie if she were still...

  ————————————————

  ///: Acquiring target stats…

  ————————————————

  ///

  Cultivation level: [Gravity Forging - 3 ]

  Talent: [Beast Integration, Blazing Arsenal, Inferno Bastion]

  Talent Fragment: [None]

  ///

  ————————————————

  No, that made no sense, that couldn’t be… then again, battle intent. Hector leapt off the wall and landed with a thud on the ruined grass, not even sparing Lincoln a glance. He had to get back to that fort.

  Now.

  —- —- —- —-

  Hector wouldn’t consider himself an angry person, but watching crazy amounts of destruction had a certain charm to it. And what Jodie had done was beautiful. There was no other word for it. She’d rendered a void beast, something that put fear into the people of the slums, to nothing but light.

  And yet, acknowledging that beauty didn’t change the panic hammering through Hector’s heart.

  Because Jodie was the one up there. And from the growing speed of her descent, she’d be nothing more than a splat on the ground within moments.

  His feet continued pounding against the grass, and he shot a look at Quiness. She was a minor realm stronger than him; surely she’d be able to race ahead. And if not, catch her before she met the ground. Help them get the gate open.

  Because it wasn’t too far from them now. Maybe a hundred meters.

  “What was that—” Lincoln started.

  “Jodie,” Hector replied before the boy could even finish his question.

  Lincoln’s eyes asked how Hector could be so certain.

  But he simply nodded to the boy. Lincoln could only trust him. And the system scan, while it didn’t name her outright, confirmed as much. Because no other person in Gravity Forging-Three could do something like that, and had Jodie’s exact Talents.

  Though really, Jodie shouldn’t have been able to do that; that amount of power was far beyond anyone in the Gravity Forging realm.

  But then again, battle intent was not something any of them understood. And without Jodie opening up more about it, it wouldn’t be something he understood for some time. But given what she’d just done, they needed to talk.

  As if having gotten the message from his earlier look, Quiness—stone-faced as ever—stared ahead.

  Then she moved.

  Her feet tore through the grass like blades through silk, each stride eating meters of ground, grey robes snapping behind her in a banner of motion. The distance between her and the fortification walls shrank with impossible speed.

  “Open the gates!”

  There wasn’t even a trace of haste in her voice. But it was a clear and sharp order.

  A mercenary standing on the wall—face still locked in visible awe—snapped to attention as if struck. His mouth opened, voice carrying across the wall.

  “Gates! Open the gates!“

  More voices joined. A chain of command rippled through the fortification. Metal groaned. Wood creaked. The massive doors began parting with heavy clunks that echoed across the field, each one marking another second he’d have to catch his friend before she landed.

  Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.

  Within moments, Hector was through them.

  And Jodie continued her descent.

  The wings of light had faded—guttered out like candles in the wind—and now she fell. Not plummeting, not quite. Where most things would have picked up speed by now, she descended at a steady pace, as if something still cushioned her, still fought against gravity’s pull.

  But even so.

  He wouldn’t make it in time.

  He pushed himself. Pulled on [Volt Runner]. His legs burned with borrowed speed, muscles screaming, lungs heaving—

  She slammed into the ground.

  CRACK.

  Stone shattered. Mud erupted in a geyser of brown and grey, chunks of earth spraying outward in all directions. Something wet struck Hector’s cheek—cold, gritty—and ran down toward his jaw. More splattered against his chest, his arms, his legs.

  He barely reacted.

  His knees hit the ground before he registered the decision to stop. The skid tore through mud and gravel, static crackling off his legs in arcs of purple light that zapped through the wet earth, leaving char marks in their wake. His hands were already reaching—already moving—and then she was in his arms, her head cradled against his chest, her body limp and small and fragile in a way that made his heart seize.

  His fingers found her throat.

  Pulse.

  He needed to find a pulse.

  The seconds stretched. His own heartbeat roared in his ears, too loud, drowning everything else. Where was it? Where was it?

  Thump.

  Soft. Steady. The rhythm of life travelled through his fingertips.

  He let out a tired breath.

  She’d be fine.

  There were no other injuries on her. Her clothes were a mess—singed at the edges, torn in places, covered in dust and debris—but aside from that, not even a drop of blood. Not a scratch. Not a bruise.

  His gaze drifted briefly toward the sky.

  How had she done that?

  How had she even survived any of that?

  It was almost as if his mind had stalled. The questions piled up with nowhere to go, each one crashing into the next without resolution. Could battle intent really do that? It had made her faster, yes, deadlier. But wings of light. A halo. Power that could reduce a void beast to nothing.

  Was this really just battle intent?

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