Chapter 613: Invading the Depths

  For a while, Raghi had felt like he was doing important work, gathering valuable intelligence for the elites. Now, as they headed into the Frontier, he no longer had any idea what was going on.

  Why was the Prince of Pebbles pushing the invaders into the wasteland? Surely no one could be short-sighted enough to promise them anything to get them out, and it would be unbelievably malicious just to move them to another nation at all costs. Then again, the Prince of Pebbles had seemed to betray his own people and made common cause with the invaders. Raghi had tried to speak to him, but he was scorning everyone from the continent.

  Now they traveled south in a great caravan, on flying vessels stolen from the Water and Wind Unions. Raghi had gone ahead, begging them to give in to the demands instead of throwing their lives away, and had at least avoided a slaughter. This way, the invaders had flying yachts with all the luxury they could want, keeping them happy a little longer.

  Occasionally they were attacked by monsters left over from the incursion, and of course they were blown away by the invaders, who laughed at the weakness of the continent. Once they had made Raghi fight one of the stronger ones, just to prove locals would really struggle. He'd barely made it through alive, even with one of of Juray's potions. If they did that to him again, with a stronger monster, he might not survive.

  Was this the time to retreat and tell the elites everything he had learned? Raghi knew they'd be smart enough to evacuate, if the caravan moved toward any elite outposts in the Frontier, but he might have done all he could. If he stayed on this strange expedition, he could easily end up dead and all the information he'd learned - including the invaders' horrible plan - would die with him.

  Instead he stuck around, losing to the invaders in arm wrestling and watching their arrogance miserably. Raghi wasn't a spy, and he wasn't built for this. Maybe this was a horrible mistake, or maybe he just wanted to abandon his mission and get back to Juray.

  He didn't find any solution: pushed by the invaders' strange power, the caravan reached the abyss at the heart of the wasteland.

  "Holy shit!" Quorthix leapt off his ship, gracefully landing beside the pit, and the other invaders clambered after him, shouting in surprise.

  They had been mildly surprised by the Frontier wall, but this was the first time that Raghi had seen the invaders truly shocked by anything on the continent. He personally found himself awed and discomforted by the enormous pit every time he visited, and perhaps it existed on a higher phase. Whatever the reason, it didn't have the same effect on the invaders - some of them began to hurl rocks over the side, while another pissed over the edge laughing.

  "This is where all the monsters come from?" Fodajix knelt by the edge, scowling into the depths. "What's down there?"

  "None of us know," the Prince of Pebbles said, rubbing his hands together anxiously. "Please, my lord, be careful. Even our strongest fear to tread h-"

  "Silence, fool." Quorthix stepped up beside them, staring down into the pit. "It's insulting to compare us to any of you."

  "Of course you're right, my lord." The Prince of Pebbles dropped to the ground, his forehead touching the earth, a picture of abject subjugation. "All of this is far beyond me. I do not know if the treasures below will be worthy of you, all I can say is that the items our strongest brought back were more glorious than anything I've ever seen. They make the greatest glories of my court look like trash by comparison."

  The invaders, particularly the five leaders, began to talk to one another. All the antics of the others had drawn some more monsters out of the pit, but they were cut down scornfully, and the invaders didn't seem to notice that they were becoming more common.

  As he watched, Raghi wondered if he really was stupid. Everyone thought of him as dumb because of how he looked, but he had been angry with the Prince of Pebbles for days and it had only just occurred to him that the man could be faking it. Faced with an overwhelming opponent, he hadn't joined them, he had slipped inside their trust to undermine them.

  But here, at the end... would it work? The invaders were arrogant, but even they weren't going to throw themselves into a bottomless pit. There was a lot of disagreement about whether or not to go, with Quorthix pushing them to seek these imaginary treasures while many of the others didn't want to bother. Monsters continued to attack, being treated as little more than distractions or amusements by the invaders, but Raghi began to back up instinctively.

  The Prince of Pebbles couldn't do the same, in the midst of the invaders and still trying to manipulate them. Now that Raghi understood him, he thought he saw the anxiety behind the man's exaggerated sycophantic praise. He was playing a dangerous game that could get him killed in an instant if one of the invaders suspected him.

  At last some of them agreed to venture down on one of the ships, while many of the others just had a feast on the remaining ships. All the servants they'd brought along with them rushed to take out the extra supplies, and Raghi realized they were even more helpless than he was... if the monsters did come pouring out, what would happen to them? What could even be done to help?

  Well, he had come this far, so he wasn't going to leave yet.

  He stayed around the edge of the feast, staring toward the group slowly lowering themselves into the abyss. Watching wasn't suspicious at all, since many were doing the same. Soon the invaders disappeared into the darkness, but Raghi focused on their souls to track them. The invaders didn't seem to have anything but instinctive spiritual sight, so as far as they were concerned, the expedition had vanished.

  Raghi could feel them fighting as more monsters climbed up the walls of the pit. Or, if Kai was right, the pit was actually creating them in response to the attack... and in proportion to the attack. The invaders had an overwhelming advantage over the monsters, but for how long?

  Then one of the invaders' souls disappeared.

  As a second and then a third disappeared, Raghi rushed to the side of the ship and stared over the edge, desperate to see what was happening. He couldn't properly sense the monsters they faced, other than an impression of mortal danger. Then suddenly he felt Quorthix leave the others, sprinting up the side of the pit with unnatural grace, vaulting back to the surface.

  Behind him, all the other invaders were snuffed out at once.

  "Get ready!" Quorthix shouted and his warning was the first any of the others realized that something had gone wrong.

  The other four leaders leapt to their feet, instantly alert and ready. Most of the others split into different reactions, some laughing at Quorthix, some panicking, some continuing their feast. A lot of them jumped off the ships, but within the chaos, the Prince of Pebbles sat as still as a statue.

  Amid the confusion, Raghi retreated to one of the flying ships used for supplies, finding the controls. He had planned to signal to the servants and other workers to join him and help evacuate. Before he could do so, the monster emerged and all other thoughts left his mind.

  Even though the abyss was unbelievably wide, the monster scraped its way out. It looked like a bulbous, misshapen sphere of incredible proportions, which might have looked absurd if it hadn't been covered in a riot of jaws and crimson eyes. Just one of those eyes looked like it was larger than Raghi's entire body, and the jaws... they varied in size and shape, but some of them were actively chewing on the bodies of invaders.

  "All together!" Quorthix gestured to the others. "Kill the thing!"

  As the monster scraped its way free, the invaders attacked. Their blades cut through it, just like they cut through everything else... but it hardly mattered, not to a beast of that size. Some of them were carried by their arrogance, but others began to succumb to the natural human fear of such a monstrosity.

  Yangix raised his hand and one of the eyes exploded in a bloody mess. Budajix joined him, sending flying punches into the monster's flesh. Jonijix assaulted the jaws with a wave of vicious water. But as Quorthix pushed in, striking at the wounds, it didn't seem to matter.

  One of the maws opened like a cavern and black smoke rolled out. Quorthix was swept up by it in the middle of his attack, spinning gracefully surrounded by an aura that vanished in the darkness.

  When the smoke faded, his bones and weapons clattered to the ground.

  That triggered the panic: as soon as the invaders realized they weren't invincible anymore, they became cowards again, screaming and fleeing. The monster was only just fully emerging from the pit, but its eyes were twitching wildly, as if searching, and suddenly they glowed.

  The counterattack seemed instantaneous, all Raghi saw was the aftermath. His eyes ached with the echoes of crimson beams that had shot from the monster's eyes, but it was worse for those near the pit: many of the invaders collapsed screaming, parts of their bodies burned away.

  Jonijix summoned a sphere of water that defended the main group, but the water evaporated under the assault of the red beams. Underneath it, the four surviving leaders looked shocked, and then they blurred away, fleeing faster than Raghi's eyes could follow.

  It was a complete rout, the invaders scattering in all directions. If the monster had been more aggressive, they might all have died, but the enormous beast moved ponderously. As it left the abyss, it floated into the air, rising like a ravenous moon. Faced with such a thing, who could possibly fight? What could they do if-

  "We're evacuating, right?"

  Raghi was startled by the voice just beside him: it was one of the women Jonijix had been preying on. She wasn't frozen by the monster, because everything was a lethal threat to her, and she had brought a lot of the servants with her. Now they stood beside him, grimly determined, and that shook him into action.

  "I'll help the others," Raghi told her. "Fly toward the wall and don't turn back."

  She nervously gripped the controls, but to her credit she didn't flee immediately. Raghi jumped to another of the ships and helped the other servants retreat. Many of them were clambering between ships or daring to jump, but he tossed those who couldn't. The invaders hadn't taken so many servants, and the enemy was thoroughly scattered now, so they might be able to evacuate.

  There was still one man unmoving, transfixed by the monster... the Prince of Pebbles. Raghi looked back to the ship and waved to the woman, who hesitated a moment before nodding. The vessel pulled away, fleeing from the monster at top speed, leaving them alone.

  Raghi turned back, jumping between ships toward the thin man. He knew he was taking a huge risk - the enormous monster might be floating south, but it was still too close for comfort. But after everything that had happened, he couldn't just leave the man there.

  "Come on, let's go!" Raghi grabbed the Prince of Pebbles by the shoulder, but the man was completely limp.

  "This will be my end," the Prince of Pebbles spoke softly, just above a whisper, his eyes locked on the monster. "I knew I was taking a risk, but this..."

  "No." Raghi threw the old man over his shoulder and rushed to the controls of the ship, desperately flying them north. He couldn't help but look back over his shoulder, where the monster still loomed in the sky, its jaws and eyes twisting unnaturally. It seemed so sedate, but if a single one of those beams struck him, it would be over...

  There was nothing he could do about that. Raghi fixed his gaze forward, concentrating on pushing the ship as hard as he could to put some distance between them. For a while it seemed like they might actually escape, then there was an explosion of pain and he was tumbling across the rocks.

  At first he lay on his back, thinking that the monster must have targeted them after all. As his disorientation vanished, Raghi realized that it couldn't have been the monster: its attacks would likely have been instant death, and the creature was now a distant sphere in the opposite direction. No, they had been struck by something from below that made the ship crash...

  "Did you know about this?" One of the invaders stomped toward him, a man Raghi recognized from their arm wrestling, his face furious. "You did this, didn't you? You lied to us!"

  Raghi smiled bitterly. He had come so far, seen the apocalypse crawl out of the abyss, and now he was going to die to a fool.

  Chapter 614: Branching Paths Against Monstrosity

  After venturing through Lostwreck, going back over the oceans was frustrating for Zae Zin Nim. She wasn't really losing time, since she could continue cultivating while they traveled, but the wait dug under her skin. There was so much she needed to do to uncover the deepest secrets of cultivation and yet she still needed to slowly move around this small world trapped in the middle of a lake.

  At first she had been more tense, since Omilaena was still carrying the Whispering Death, but it had proved completely under control within its multiple layers of protection. Omilaena herself was always occupied - she had the ingredient she needed to unlock new power, just not a path to it. Whereas Zae Zin Nim had an obvious path set before her and was no longer certain whether she should walk it.

  In her musing, Zae Zin Nim realized that it was unusual to see Omilaena without the Prana Jewels. Strangely, her wife looked more alluring like this, fresh and different. She seemed so focused, yet Zae Zin Nim wondered if she couldn't lure her out with justifications for dual cultivation...

  And then the world trembled and all thoughts of intimacy vanished.

  She couldn't see Deadwaste yet, so it was just a mass of undistinguished mana, and then something emerged. It was a titanic power, like a Sky Soul revealing their cultivation, yet this was worse. Like the twisted distortion at the Frontier, concentrated into a single point. All hope that it could somehow be new power from Kai faded, because she knew his monstrous essence, and this was something else.

  "What the fuck?" Omilaena had leapt to her feet at the same time Zae Zin Nim noticed, and was now muttering to herself. "It's like the incursion, but it's so concentrated..."

  "It must be a single monster." Zae Zin Nim didn't like that conclusion, but she didn't see another one. "One of unprecedented strength: the elites speak of nation destroyers, so this can only be..."

  "A continent destroyer. Well, that's less than ideal. It's tempting to theorize about how it happened, maybe the invaders triggered it somehow, but more importantly: what do we do?"

  "It makes the most sense to go to Deadwaste, of course. We can confer with the others and maybe find Kai again."

  "As much as we might want to... not a good idea." Omilaena rubbed her forehead with both hands. "Deadwaste contains dozens of fighters who are lethal, five we can't take on, and now this thing. I can't believe this changes the tactical situation enough for our overall strategy to change: we still need more power."

  Zae Zin Nim took a slow breath as she accepted this conclusion. "Then... you suggest that we don't get involved. We stay the course."

  "If anything, we accelerate it. All this cultivation stuff you're working on... can you do it here, or would it be easier in Cloudspire?"

  "It would be easier in Cloudspire. I don't want to leave you t-"

  "Go." Omilaena caught her in a fierce kiss and then pulled back. "I need to head north to Rosemount, so I'll check in with Deadwaste and find Kai if possible. Just focus on Sky Soul, or whatever answer you find. We need to return with enough power to end this."

  Still a bit breathless from the kiss, Zae Zin Nim wanted to respond, but she knew her wife was right. They were facing unprecedented threats, and this new monster proved that the situation could get even worse. Just based on the raw impression of power, Zae Zin Nim wasn't sure how much she could help even if she went right at that moment.

  So she reached into her spatial bracelet and removed one of her last ships, a Rosemount vessel. She gave it to Omilaena and watched forlornly as her wife headed toward Deadwaste, which was still filled with terrible invaders and now this abomination of a monster.

  But soon she needed to turn west, to return to Cloudspire. All she could do was trust the battle to her spouses and allies.

  In a strange way, Zae Zin Nim realized that this was the ultimate foundation built by so much work helping others. She had assisted Kai's students and the elites to maximize their strength, to deal with these problems while she took the necessary steps for her own cultivation. Somehow the apparently altruistic actions paved the way for her path to a final breakthrough.

  She just needed to make sure it was worth it.

  .

  ..

  .

  Kai had been glad to see Deadwaste again after so long in the Blood Current, and his speed increased further as he investigated the Elemental Nations. With Behemoth's Heart and Dragon's Might working together, he felt like he could fly for days.

  Seeing the continent from so far overhead, he wasn't sure what he could determine. Clearly the entire place wasn't on fire, but the invaders could be wreaking a great deal more human misery that he couldn't see. Because he had yet to find them, even though he was getting deep into the Elemental Nations. Stopping to talk to someone might be better than searching blindly, but random people might not actually have good information and that would waste his time.

  It was absurd to be worrying about minutes when he'd spent a month gaining new power, but now that he was back on Deadwaste, Kai couldn't help it. He had to justify that time he'd invested and the longer he went without finding any invaders, he more his imagination got away from him.

  When he reached the Earth Union he started seeing more signs of violence, so the invaders must have gone south. Yet what he saw now were communities rebuilding in their wake, not any invaders acting as tyrants. For some reason they were still traveling, but could they really have gone to the Frontier? It didn't make sense for them to head out into the wilderness, since it wouldn't have anything they wanted.

  As he left civilization and came into sight of the Frontier wall, Kai shifted to hovering in midair and tried to expand his senses. Most likely they had gone either east or west, which meant Krysal or Irun were the next to be in danger. He couldn't be sure which direction, so perhaps it would be better to find some elites and teleport to the right location. Yet the closer he came, the greater the risk that he triggered all the invaders to begin hunting him again, so he couldn't move recklessly.

  Then his heart tried to tear itself from his body.

  Kai clutched his chest, feeling as though his entire body was resonating like a gong. It wasn't pain, just a sensation so intense that he could barely tell the difference. Similar to what he'd felt at the beginning of the incursion, but this was more intense, more specific...

  South. He realized that there was something dangerous emerging from the center of the Frontier, like an incursion unto itself. His monstrous instincts responded with hunger, but the sacred beast within him wanted to run in terror, and his human instincts were stupefied.

  Somehow he ended up flying south anyway. Had the invaders triggered something at the abyss, or could this actually be unrelated? He remembered how the god-like beings had incited the abyss to send out more dangerous monsters, so the possibility of phased people bringing forth something terrible was all too real.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Even at his speed, Kai couldn't reach the center of the continent instantly. That monstrous presence was so intense he couldn't sense anything else, other than flickerings of powers moving in different directions. When he felt something in the sky ahead of him, Kai growled and prepared a claw, intending to cut it down...

  At the last second he held back and Inafay collided with him. They spun end over end in the sky, the impact stunning her, and Kai had to keep a grip on her arm before they could stabilize.

  "Kai, wait!" She had to pant for breath as she reordered the wind mana around her. "If you go now... you'll throw things off..."

  "What happened?" he demanded. "You can feel the monster, right?"

  "We don't know everything, but that's why you need to be careful." Inafay gripped his shoulder. "Whatever happened, it's made the invaders split up. Yangix got on a ship and is fleeing straight west. There are more fleeing north and if you get too close now, you might pull them back, and that's the last thing we need right now."

  His frustration emerged in a growl, but Kai accepted her logic. They headed south together at a more controlled pace, so he asked, "What do we know?"

  "Raghi went undercover with the invaders. If he's alive, he might be able to tell us everything, so keep your eyes open. We've needed to keep our distance, so it's hard to know why they decided to go south."

  As they flew, Inafay told him how the invaders had been acting in the Elemental Nations. It was a grim comfort that they weren't slaughtering people wantonly, but they were still acting as tyrants and their presence was spreading chaos across the continent.

  And now they had somehow summoned an unprecedented monster. At first Kai thought it must be his imagination, then he realized that he was actually seeing it: a sphere silhouetted on the horizon, so large that it could be seen even from leagues away. From such a distance all he could tell was that it was immensely powerful... it was difficult to tell how quickly it was moving due to size, but it seemed to hang in the air like an artificial moon.

  "Wait, down there!" Inafay pointed below and began diving.

  Kai had been so focused on the monstrous presence that he hadn't noticed, but when he looked down he took in the scene in an instant. Raghi was piloting a steel ship north, fleeing from one of the ordinary invaders. Even though the ship was fast, the invader was moving with phased speed that let him catch up even on foot. It looked as though he would already have caught them, if Tusquo hadn't been standing on the back of the ship, hurling arcs of mana downward.

  Even as he understood what he saw, Kai was bursting down, flashing past Inafay's own dive. Raghi was severely injured and Tusquo looked exhausted, so they couldn't keep that up for long. It was a miracle they had lasted this long.

  Fast as he was, Kai couldn't arrive immediately. On his way down, he understood a little more: Tusquo had partially mastered phases, so his cutting technique sent out mana arcs that had both speed and power phases. But his opponent was fully phased and stronger overall, so they only caused minor cuts and slowed him down.

  When Kai arrived, he wanted to slaughter the invader who was threatening his friends, but he held back. Instead he slammed into the man and grabbed his neck with one hand - a normal person would have been blown apart, but the invader was only stunned.

  "You never learn, do you?" The invader sneered and drew his sword. "You can't-"

  Kai tore off the man's arm. He had just intended to stop the attack, but it was over before he knew it. The invader let out a scream that Kai had to admit a dark part of him found satisfying - the man was so used to being invincible, he was completely unprepared for Kai's superior power channeled through Dragon's Might.

  "Do we need him alive?" Kai asked over his shoulder as Inafay caught up.

  "Maybe," she panted. "Raghi is more important."

  That had been the plan... but the invader's eyes went gray and his mouth closed. His remaining hand reached out to grip Kai's arm, and despite the difference in strength, Kai felt the fingers digging into his skin. Worse, the man's spirit seemed to be welling up, overflowing with a strange gray light...

  Before he could think about it, Kai had unleashed Baleful Breath. When it was done, the invader was nothing but ash, yet Kai still felt like he could see a hint of gray.

  Raghi and Tusquo were fleeing north, so Kai and Inafay caught up with them. They looked incredibly relieved, but Kai noticed two other things. First, the Prince of Pebbles was standing in the ship as well - Kai hadn't seen the old man in years.

  Second, they had a pile of objects that were more than just random garbage. Kai recognized the unfamiliar clothes, weapons, and even potions of the invaders.

  "Thank you." Tusquo dropped into a seated position, clearly exhausted. "I could not have managed that much longer."

  "Wait, are these from the invaders?" Inafay was picking up the items with a grin on her face. "We can use these against them! And they're splitting up, so we can isolate and-"

  "No!" Raghi turned from the controls sharply. His face was lined with exhaustion, but now there was a panic in his eyes as well. "I need to get to the elites, tell them everything. It's worse than we thought."

  Chapter 615: Fracturing Strategy

  Kai paced around the exterior of an abandoned elite base, his eyes constantly shifting toward the horizon. He accepted the logic that he couldn't run out and attack, not when it might ruin their strategy, but the monster in the Frontier was tempting him in multiple ways. It could be destroying Deadwaste while he sat around and talked to the others.

  "I can only say that I didn't expect it to be that strong." The Prince of Pebbles had been explaining his attempt to subvert the invaders, which had been taken of his own initiative, for some time. There was no trace of the bizarre character from years before, he spoke in a flat voice. "They didn't fear any of our monsters, so I thought a phased one might eliminate some. I was willing to give my life for the scheme, but now I've risked everyone's."

  "Why go to such lengths?" Inafay asked. "I know they were hurting the Earth Union, but..."

  "You didn't hear them talk. They were planning to carve up the continent and create their own kingdoms, as soon as they arranged some details. What they planned would have been... much worse than what we saw up to this point."

  "Well, they're split up now, so we have a shot at them. If..." Inafay glanced toward Raghi, who had been healing from the ordeal and Kai instinctively looked as well.

  It was more than the final chase: Raghi had been pushed to his limits for a long time. He bore a lot of bruises on his shoulders and on a spiritual level it looked like he had been battered in a way that Kai hadn't seen before. Kai checked in on his soul...

  <

  Name: Raghi Tonjin

  Total Power: 451

  Scrapper Class: 82 (92)

  Ironfist: Opal Rank (50)

  Physique Level: D-9 (245)

  Soul Level: 8 (64)

  >

  ...and was surprised to be reminded that Raghi had only 451 Power. He was as vulnerable to the invaders as anyone else without phases, and unlike the elites couldn't fight them even if he had phase mastery. Kai had tried to fight them, but doing what Raghi did took an entirely different sort of courage.

  When they first returned, Raghi had looked a bit shell-shocked, but now he noticed their attention. After closing his eyes and releasing a long breath, he sat forward to speak.

  "I was waiting for the elites," Raghi said, "but I might as well tell you. I spent a long time with the invaders, learning whatever I could. I thought I could figure out their abilities, their alliances, things that could be used against them. I got some of that. But... the most important thing..."

  "Something horrible?" Infay asked.

  "No, something smart. One of them - Fodajix - got his hands on Krysali communication crystals. I'm not sure how, but he figured out how to use them..."

  "Unfortunately, we couldn't evacuate all the elites, plus they've been stealing whatever they get their hands on. I'm just surprised they didn't destroy the crystals as too weak."

  "Well, they didn't. Instead they distributed them, as a threat." Raghi took a careful breath. "This must have been part of their plan to split up that the Prince of Pebbles knew about. Fodajix made a proposal: they check in with one another regularly, and if someone gets attacked, or doesn't check in, the others go on a rampage. Kill everyone they see. The plan is to take the entire continent hostage so we have no choice but to accept their rule."

  "Do they think that will work?" Inafay asked.

  "They might," Kai said, thinking of all his experiences on Cloudspire. "I get why you didn't want us to start picking them off. But did they actually agree to that plan?"

  Raghi shrugged wearily. "They distributed the crystals, at least, and I don't think they lost them in the attack. The main five... uh, four now... they don't like each other, but they realize that they need to work together. So now we have a threat hanging over our heads."

  It was worse than that: based on what he'd seen of the invaders, it was possible that one of them would become drunk or distracted and forget to check in. The others might not attack immediately, but it was possible, especially if they became paranoid. Now that the possibility of attacking the entire continent had been raised, it would always be lurking in the background as another potential disaster.

  The plan was clever, but only to a degree, because he saw a major problem with it: there was no way to deescalate. If they embarked on a path of genocide, the invaders were turning every single person on Deadwaste against them. Perhaps they expected everyone to be cowed, perhaps they only planned to make a few examples, perhaps they just hadn't thought it through. He didn't want to bet on it using other people's lives.

  "That's bad, but a stalemate actually works for us." Despite everything, Inafay was smiling grimly. "We need to reduce how much damage they do while we prepare, but otherwise we want to buy time. We could potentially train enough to take them all at once... provided that Kai and the others can gain enough strength to fight the strongest ones."

  She glanced toward him and Kai nodded back. "Right. We're working on it." All of that was falling on his shoulders now: the elites might be able to take one on their own, with significant losses, but otherwise Kai and his wives were the only ones who could plausibly win those fights.

  Of course, now they had the additional problem of the enormous monster floating over the Frontier. They didn't have any new information about it, so they were waiting on other elites. Once they arrived and Kai was in contact with Gunjin and the communication networks, a whole lot of things would probably happen at once. This was actually his last chance to rest, not that he could enjoy it.

  Before their speculations could go much further, a group dropped from the sky to join them. At first Kai was dismissive, since they didn't include teleporters, but they were led by Orotaisin. He and Inafay embraced tightly, but he pulled away to address the group.

  "I've completed our scouting," he reported. "The invaders have split into, at best estimate, six different groups. Yangix is flying over Krysal with four men, but so far he hasn't shown any interest in stopping. Jonijix headed north with a dozen men, but eight of them split off and are staying in the Earth Union."

  "Are they leaving the continent?" Raghi asked. "I was trying to persuade them, but..."

  "We can't be sure yet, but possibly. Unfortunately, two of the strongest stayed together: Fodajix and Budajix appear to be going to Goralia, with five men. That leaves a group of three headed to Irun, and seven who are wandering in the Frontier. Some of them may be in communication, but we aren't sure about that."

  Everyone else looked to Raghi, who immediately began sharing what he'd learned. That set off a cascade of everything else, from Wind Union hunters talking to Inafay to an Earth Union elite pulling aside the Prince of Pebbles. It became even more chaotic when Gunjin arrived teleporting several others, including Juray, who rushed to Raghi's side in concern.

  With everything going on at once, Kai was concerned about details falling through the cracks, but the elites didn't fall into panic. They quickly accepted the items taken from dead elites by Raghi, and Tusquo woke up from his healing trance to contribute. The items the invaders used were all potent, but as far as Kai could overhear, it seemed like it wouldn't be simple for them to take advantage. If people without a strong grasp of phases tried to use the materials, they could well kill themselves.

  That left only one major detail ignored: the apparently unstoppable monster in the Frontier.

  When he got a chance, Kai pulled aside Orotaisin and Gunjin. There was no time for greetings, and no need: their intentions and goals were instantly clear from the first glance. Kai barely even needed to bring up what was on his mind before Orotaisin nodded in understanding.

  "The continent destroyer is moving southwest," he reported, "possibly chasing the remaining invaders. I have one and only one piece of good news: it's slow. But the elites tried to launch a long distance attack and failed to seriously harm it, and its power is estimated to be beyond anything we've seen before."

  "Raghi saw it kill invaders," Kai told them, "including one of the five strongest. It seems to be fully phased, or close to it, and it's very destructive. If it gets to the Frontier wall, it will probably demolish it. And if it gets to a city..."

  "It's a bleak situation," Gunjin said, "and our resources are limited. In fact, we only have one card to try: Kai, are you willing to fight it?"

  "I can try." Kai rolled his shoulders, trying not to show any anticipation, because as much as the monster triggered his hunger, it seemed overwhelming. "Have the invaders gotten far enough away that we won't risk them coming after me?"

  "Yes, they'll be leaving the continent soon. We've done tests and the monster itself doesn't show signs of suppressing teleportation, so while it's more dangerous, it's a more conventional problem. How much time do you need to prepare?"

  "None. Let's go."

  It took almost no time to confirm with the others, then Kai and Gunjin stepped through a portal to the southern Frontier. They were still at a distance, but even from a league away, the monster loomed in the sky ominously. It seemed to have fixated more of its mouths downward, breathing a fell mist over the land below. Currently it fell on empty wasteland, but if it reached civilization...

  Kai stepped forward, cracking his knuckles and transforming them into claws in the process. There was no way this was going to be easy, if it was even possible. He viewed the first step as just analysis, figuring out what they even faced. As he strained his spiritual sight and monstrous instincts, eventually he managed to resolve something.

  <

  Monster: Abhorroid

  Threat: XXIV (Omega)

  >

  His soul called the thing an Abhorroid, and that sounded about right to Kai. What might matter more was that it was classed as an omega-rank threat, which seemed absurdly beyond anything he should be attempting to fight.

  But there was no one else. Kai gathered his power and rushed to attack.

  Chapter 616: Against the Abhorroid

  With an enemy this powerful, potentially the most powerful his spiritual sight could currently understand, Kai had no intention of ramping up slowly. By the time he flew anywhere near the Abhorroid, he had already fully transformed into his Savage Heart form.

  As he approached, he wasn't sure if the monster was even aware of him: it had dozens of eyes, but none of them were particularly focused on him. If it actually didn't think he was worthy of attention, that was almost insulting. Still maintaining his distance, Kai flew overhead, building up the strongest Tyrant's Claw that he could, then shot downward, throwing his full speed into the attack.

  His spiritual claws tore three massive slices through the Abhorroid, rupturing eyes and mouths across a swath of its body. Yet even that, his broadest attack, only looked like a normal cut when compared to such an enormous creature. It almost could have continued pulsating onward, ignoring him completely.

  It didn't: eyes all across the enormous mass began to turn toward him. For a moment they both hung in the air, staring at one another.

  That moment ended in a torrent of crimson beams shooting from the eyes, nearly instantaneous to Kai's view. Only his instincts allowed him to spin through the air, evading the onslaught. It wasn't just a single assault, the Abhorroid continued throwing out beams like it intended to continue forever. One of them nearly clipped one of Kai's wings and he realized that he was barely staying ahead of it.

  In desperation, he focused directly on one of the eyes and used Void Gaze before it could unleash a beam.

  .

  ..

  .

  He opened his eyes tumbling through the air and realized that he had blacked out. Kai's head ached and the very idea of trying Void Gaze again was painful. The Abhorroid floated in his direction, one of its eyes smoking but the others very much ready to continue their assault.

  The spiritual weight of this thing... Kai had seen that it was ranked omega, but he had underestimated just how much that meant. If he had tried that trick before creating Dragon's Might, he might well have killed himself in the attempt. Even now, he realized that trick definitely wasn't going to work and began considering other options.

  When the Abhorroid got into range again, Kai took to the air at a greater distance, giving himself more time to evade the crimson beams. He retaliated with Tyrant's Claws, but even when the monster was dripping blood across its underside, it wasn't slowing down. Switching to Manticore's Spine, Kai tried to create the strongest spines he could and land them directly in the eye sockets.

  Sometimes the Abhorroid distorted so that the spine hit nothing, practically disappearing into its shifting flesh, but he managed to take out several eyes. As strange and unnatural as they appeared, those eyes could be injured, even disabled. Kai did his best to destroy more and more, trying to limit the Abhorroid's offensive ability.

  Once he had part of the surface covered with scar tissue, Kai began shifting his strategy. He didn't think he could bleed out such an enormous monster, especially since it was likely regenerating, but this had given him an opening.

  Taking a deep breath, Kai shot toward the surface. More than the gnashing teeth and deadly beams, it was the size that intimidated him: it wasn't like approaching a beast, he felt like he was flying next to an entire world. But he pushed through that, drawing up the most powerful Baleful Breath he could before he found one of the largest open wounds and prepared to exhale.

  Before he could, the wound opened further: The flesh split open, revealing a pair of jaws that hadn't been there before. The maw was larger than his body, but it wasn't trying to eat him: instead it exhaled a breath of its own, a sort of dust that set off all his instincts.

  Kai instinctively used Baleful Breath in response, but the techniques passed through each other. Even as his fire and darkness tore into the Abhorroid's body, the dust struck him, and immediately his body began to burn.

  His retreat wasn't planned, wasn't even conscious, he was just hurtling backward, roaring in pain as his body seemed to dissolve. He reached up and tore armor plates off his own body, ignoring the pain and the blood, just desperate to escape the effect. Behemoth's Heart hammered like never before, desperately trying to keep him alive.

  He regained control at a distance, flooding qi around himself to suppress the fatal dust that had been trying to dissolve him. Across the wasteland, he saw the Abhorroid drifting, a crater in its flesh smoking. Baleful Breath had actually done some damage, but...

  As he looked down, Kai saw that his leg was covered in scar tissue, and he realized that he could barely move one of his arms. His body was so damaged that even Behemoth's Heart was struggling to repair him, and worse, his stamina wasn't recovering like normal. The simple fact was that he had come out of that encounter worse off, despite deploying his best skills.

  Of course he could push himself to keep fighting, but he didn't think he had it in him to finish off the Abhorroid... if it was even close to finished. Because while he had dealt it serious injury, it still floated like an abominable planet, and eyes were beginning to emerge from the twisted flesh. In fact, those eyes might be larger than before, as if it was reacting to him.

  This wouldn't be the end. Kai shifted his monstrous essence, took a deep breath, then threw himself back into battle.

  .

  ..

  .

  Kai lay on his back in the wasteland, staring up at the sky, and realized that he couldn't do it. No strategy or shift in abilities was going to let him beat the Abhorroid.

  He'd tried everything in his arsenal, and he wasn't completely outclassed. All his serious abilities, like Famished World, had a significant impact, just not enough. But the others... its eyes had remained fixed on him when he tried to use Mutefang's Stealth, and Legion Bite barely took off a tiny fraction of its outer layer. Isulfr's Bite might have some effect, but the risk was too high, given its black breath technique whenever he got close. Any weaker skills would be utterly crushed by its overwhelming power.

  What did he have left? Kai had time to think because the Abhorroid was floating some distance away from where it had blasted him, moving slowly but inexorably closer. The one obvious advantage he had was speed and mobility, otherwise he could well have died.

  Since he had time, Kai took inventory of his own soul, hoping that he would somehow find something that he had overlooked.

  <

  Name: Kai Clanless

  Total Power: 1207

  Monstrous Hunger - XVI (pi)

  Cultivation: Nascent Foundation 85% (267)

  Savage Heart: 31 (314)

  Physique Level: B-6 (530)

  Beggar King's Robes: +3 (15)

  Soul Level: 9 (81)

  Dragon's Might - V (epsilon)

  Behemoth's Heart - XIII (nu)

  Thunderbird's Wings - XII (mu)

  Tyrant's Claw - XIII (nu)

  Manticore's Spine - VII (eta)

  Baleful Breath - IX (iota)

  Void Gaze - X (kappa)

  -

  Famished World - VII (eta)

  Mutefang's Stealth - XVI (pi)

  Isulfr's Bite - XII (mu)

  Sahagin's Soul - XV (omicron)

  Greatshark's Presence - III (gamma)

  Monstrous Tail - VIII (theta)

  Legion Bite - VI (zeta)

  Wallcrawler's Feet - V (epsilon)

  Abominalgum - III (gamma)

  Slime's Immortality - II (beta)

  Silver Demon - III (gamma)

  Voidmaw's Bite - III (gamma)

  Bloodtail's Armor - V (epsilon)

  Deathmaw Essence - III (gamma)

  Voidshell Essence - III (gamma)

  >

  The fight had pushed him past his limits: the Savage Heart had improved, he'd risen to Physique B-6, and most shockingly his Monstrous Hunger had finally risen from the 15th to 16th rank. Almost all his monstrous abilities had grown in the battle, matching their potential from all his human growth. But given the enormity of what he was facing, it wasn't enough.

  Fine, if he accepted that, what did it mean? Kai was the only person on the continent, possibly in the world, that could fight the Abhorroid and live. Did he need to keep engaging it, keeping it within the Frontier? If it got to civilization, its slow pace would become a horror show, annihilating countrysides and cities in an unstoppable wave. But even if he could keep this up forever, was that any sort of solution? It wouldn't get them any closer to stopping the invaders, who were spreading out across the world.

  "Hey." Without warning, Omilaena was on top of him, straddling his hips. "That's a hell of a monster, huh?"

  "Be careful," he mumbled through burned lips. "It's strong. Even you..."

  "Believe me, I'm not going toe-to-toe with that thing. Or... whatever it has in place of toes. But I think I have an idea to at least slow it down, if you'll let me work with you."

  "Alright, what is it?" Just having Omilaena there gave him a little strength, so Kai sat up, instinctively putting a hand on her hips.

  "Don't panic, but... I have a sample of the Whispering Death." Omilaena pulled away from him and they retreated further from the Abhorroid, just in case. She didn't sound like she was joking anymore, so she must really have found it on Lostwreck.

  Omilaena removed an ice sphere from her spatial satchel, then opened it with extreme care. He'd never seen her that cautious, even amid all her experiments. Within he caught a glimpse of the Prana Jewels, which he realized she wasn't wearing, and then she closed them up again. She took out only a single earring, which she promptly encased in ice again.

  "This is a phased illness from the outside world," Omilaena explained. "I can't guarantee it will take down a monster that big, but it's the best shot we have."

  "It's a good idea," Kai said, "but I don't know how we'll deliv-"

  "I'm not going to assume that even the Whispering Death is enough. I want you to make one of those Manticore's Spines, one with the most intense venom you can. I'm going to apply this sample to it, then you launch that thing as fast as possible. That's the only idea I could come up with."

  "Right... wait, how did you find me?"

  "Kai, you have been fighting that thing for over three days." Omilaena gave him an odd smile. "I had time to come here and meet up with the elites, who caught me up. Zae Zin Nim is going to Cloudspire, by the way. But we don't have time for that now."

  He nodded, accepting that she was right. If he couldn't kill the Abhorroid alone, combining his power with Omilaena, and then an Insanity on top of that... well, he didn't see how he could top that.

  Kai floated into the air, staying opposite the Abhorroid. Omilaena hung around his neck, not playing around as they faced off with those eyes and teeth. When he began to grow a solid Manticore's Spine, directly over his heart, Omilaena reached down to grasp it. She applied her own poison to the tip while she maintained the earring in ice.

  "Now!" she cried as she pulled her hands back. "Now!"

  When he unleashed the Manticore's Spine, the force knocked them both back through the air. The stinger shot out like a thunderbolt, plunging deep into the Abhorroid. It disappeared into that enormous mass, and as Kai righted their tumbling movement, he saw it keep moving forward, wondering if there had been no effect...

  But then the monster began to slow. Jaws hung slack, eyes closed, and it began to sag toward the ground.

  For a moment Kai felt a surge of victory, but then black dust began to waft from all of the mouths simultaneously. As the Abhorroid struck the ground, it was surrounded in a cloud of the fatal dust, and then something lighter began to emerge from its jaws. The substance floated above and hardened into a misshapen shell, which eventually became a dome larger than any building Kai had ever seen, enclosing the Abhorroid within a strange lump on the ground.

  "Should we try to finish it now?" Kai asked. He could hurl a lot more techniques, but he wasn't confident they'd be enough.

  "Do you think you can kill it in one hit?" Omilaena asked back.

  "Almost certainly not."

  "Then I don't suggest it. I think that thing can keep fighting, and if it's threatened, it will get even more dangerous. Right now it seems to be isolating itself... that might be the best outcome for us."

  "So we're just buying time." Kai's lips parted and his monstrous teeth gnashed in irritation. "I know, we can use the period it's asleep to get strong enough to kill it, but I don't like this. It could wake up at any time. The risk..."

  "One of many." Omilaena touched his neck ruefully. "Kai, if an Insanity can't bring it down, we aren't going to do it. Not now... you'll have to become an Insanity yourself."