Seth stood at the tunnel's mouth, his fingers already burning from the aether he channeled through Ravenous Arrow's grooves. Ahead, a Glacial Shield-Horntail, already covered in wounds, charged into Colossus ahead.
The scorpion's massive frame skidded across the permafrost from the assault before he unleashed a Chitinous Taunt for the second time in the fight. The compulsion hit the foe like a physical tether, wrenching its three crystalline horns away from the shadows where Nightmare lurked.
The scorpion didn't wait to get hit to layer his defenses with Quartz Armor, followed by the shimmering hazel glow of Desert Aegis. When the Glacial Shield-Horntail charged again, its hooves sparking with aether against the ice, Colossus dug his legs in and met the blow.
The collision echoed like a battle ram slamming into a city gate.
The beast's horns shattered part of the hardened rock-plating. When a crack spiderwebbed across a section of Colossus' shell, a soft, chime-like sound erupted from the rear. Lumi spun in an elegant arc, and a pulse of mending radiance flowed from her front paws. The light stitched the chitin back together in a wash of warmth.
Nightmare seized the occasion to strike from the blind spot.
The direwolf surged from his invisibility, jaws dripping with the corrosive smoke of Gloom Fangs. He tore into the foe's hindquarters, the dark smoke of his spell hissing as it ate through the glacial hide. The foe thrashed in response, its spiked club-tail swinging in a blind arc that hit the direwolf and sent him skidding a dozen feet away across the slick floor.
The beast's eyes turned a murderous, glowing white as it locked onto that new target, preparing a retaliatory charge now free of Colossus' taunt. Showing no sign of hesitation, Colossus rushed forward to intercept with his own body, but Seth could tell he was going to be a blink too slow—until Lumi let out a sharp chirp.
She cast another spell, and a swirling vortex of blue light enveloped the scorpion before sinking into his body. Colossus' speed spiked, which allowed him to slam into the Glacial Shield-Horntail just as it was about to reach Nightmare.
'She should be casting that on me, not Small Bite!' the direwolf growled through Link before using Predator Hunt, then Shadow Step to bite at the foe again.
'You gotta be nicer to her for that!' Seth answered as he breathed through the strain and wove the Null affinity at his fingertips.
Through their previous fights, Seth knew Lumi's boost lasted only about ten seconds, yet it was a giant surge to all attributes—which was exactly why Nightmare was envious. He wanted his Strength, Agility, and Arcane Power to be enhanced so he could cause even more damage.
Finally, the grueling process of the Ravenous Arrow reached its peak. After half a minute of intense channeling, the pallid, ghostly projectile solidified in Seth's grip. It warped the very air around his hand as he nocked it.
Without wasting a second, he pulled the cerulean string to his ear and loosed.
The arrow split the very air, then struck the Glacial Shield-Horntail squarely in the neck, where its armor and hide had been weakened by one of Nightmare's previous bites. There was no explosion. The projectile simply buried itself deep, and a heartbeat later, the aetheric density in the beast's throat collapsed inward.
The creature's eyes went dull as it hit the ice with a loud thud. Nightmare pounced and ripped through its neck just to be sure.
Seth rolled his eyes and approached the cooling corpse while Lumi fluttered away from Colossus for the first time since the beginning of the fight. She stopped between both Seth and Nightmare, where she released the third and final spell she had shown so far.
A shimmering circle of particles rose from the cave's floor and rippled upward in a ten-foot radius.
The light moved through Seth's tired limbs, slowly removing the minor frostbite on his skin while a noticeable hum swelled in his Well, nearly tripling its usual regeneration rate.
Seth knelt and pulled a dagger to harvest the beaststone from the horntail's chest. Sadly for Nightmare, when they had returned to the cave with Lumi, the corpse of her giant drake companion had already been torn apart by scavengers for its beaststone. At least, Seth still had the one from the ice golem.
'You're sure you don't want to make her participate in the war?' Nightmare asked, eyes watching the blue particles drift around them. He looked uncharacteristically thoughtful as he nudged a mote of light with his nose. 'Small Bite's Desert Aegis helped the others massively in the first battle... This regeneration and healing? It could give everyone an even bigger advantage.'
Seth glanced at the tiny otter, who was currently trying to "groom" a patch of Colossus's stone shell with her paws of light, then looked back at the direwolf. "With her Toughness, a single spell could kill her," he said, fingers closing around the blue beaststone before pulling it out. "In a larger battle, neither Colossus nor I can guarantee her security at all times."
Nightmare let out a rattling huff. 'She would never get hit. And even if she did, with Desert Aegis, she would have more than sixty Toughness. That's more than enough to survive at least one spell.' The direwolf turned toward the scorpion. 'And Small Bite would never let that happen. Right?'
Colossus was too busy clacking his smaller pincers together in a rhythmic series of taps as Lumi hovered around him to answer right away. As if sensing their gaze, the scorpion paused, his stone-plated head bobbing in a nod.
'Yeaahh!' he exclaimed. 'I'll always protect her.'
Seth looked at the direwolf and let out a long, weary sigh. "You are so manipulative. You only want her to take part in it so you can take more risks and kill more enemies."
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'The mind must control the heart,' the direwolf replied with an infuriatingly smug expression. 'We need to use all our cards to save as many lives as possible, remember?'
"Yeah, yeah."
Seth rolled his eyes, then stowed the enemy's beaststone in his Endless Pouch. With a quick pulse of aether through his necklace, he recalled the three beasts inside.
Silence descended once more upon the cavern, and Seth began the walk back through the winding, frost-etched tunnels. His boots crunched on the cave's floor, the sound echoing off the jagged walls. A few minutes later, he reached the large chamber where they had set up camp.
Elena still hadn't moved. She remained seated cross-legged near the center, the fur jacket draped over her now dusted with a fine layer of frost. The Frigid Tulip beside her, once a vibrant beacon of icy power, was now a pale, translucent ghost of itself.
Seth took a seat a few yards away, leaning his back against a jagged protrusion of rock. He pulled a strip of dried meat and a skin of water from his pouch, eating in silence. The moment he finished the bland meal, he pushed himself up with the intention of moving to the far end of the cave to practice his summon of Ravenous Arrow once again.
The goal was to reduce the casting time to the minimum, like he had done with Identify and all his other spells.
Yet, just as he was about to move out, a hitching breath broke the silence.
Elena stirred as her eyelids fluttered. The tiny, residual glow of the tulip beside her flickered once, twice, and then the plant simply crumbled into fine dust that drifted across the ice like ash.
The noblewoman rubbed her face with the heels of her hands, as if she were surfacing from the bottom of a deep, dark well. Her emerald eyes eventually found focus, landing on Seth, who was standing a few feet away.
"S-Seth?" Her voice was raspy and cracked from the days of disuse.
"Yeah?" Seth answered. He leaned back against a frosted boulder, arms crossing over his chest.
Elena looked around the cavern, brow furrowing as she took in the small campsite he had created. "How long... How long did it take me?"
Seth reached into his pouch and pulled out one of the small, brass-bound timer-artifacts. He squinted at the glowing dials in the dim light. "This is going to ring in about ten hours," he said. "So... six and a half days."
"What?" Elena's head snapped up, the fur jacket sliding off her shoulders. "That long? I thought—I felt like it had only been a day or two." She paused, her eyes searching for his. "You stayed with me the whole time?"
Seth shook his head, looking away toward the dark tunnel on the left. "No. I went into the other cave every so often. Nightmare pulled some beasts my way so I could make sure nothing reached you while still getting some hunting in."
'Another good occasion to lie and win her heart completely missed,' Nightmare said through Link. 'You could have told her you stood guard every second without sleeping. I'm sure she would have loved that.'
Seth ignored the direwolf as Elena slowly pushed herself to her feet. She swayed for a moment, her knees weak, but she caught herself against Seth, who had just stepped forward.
"Still..." she said, her voice softening as she looked at the spot where the tulip had been. "Thank you, Seth."
"No worries," Seth answered, pulling his arms away while making sure she would hold on her own. "You would have done the same for me."
Elena offered him a tired smile. "Yeah. I would have."
She looked down at her hands and turned silent for a moment, as if she were reading a screen only she could see. Seth didn't need a prompt to know what she was doing: she was going through the boost of the Seed.
"Happy?" he asked.
"Yeah," Elena replied. Her voice had just gained a bit of its usual strength. "Very. It's... it's more than I expected." She looked up at him and pressed her lips into a thin line. "It feels like everyone got a significant boost during these two weeks. Devus, Jenna, even Selena. Everyone except you."
Seth smiled. It would've been easy to show Lumi to her right then—but he held back. He didn't want to get Elena excited, only for it to turn into disappointment if the bond failed once he reached Silver. Part of it was caution; part of it… was lowering his own expectations.
"I actually found a beast that could become my third bond, but I couldn't bond with her yet," he said. "We'll see how it goes. Though she's too weak right now to take part in the war."
"That's still amazing!" Elena said, brightening. "Oh wait, she? What's her name?"
"Lumi," Seth replied. "Colossus picked it."
"Oh, that's a beautiful name," Elena said with a smile. She leaned closer to his necklace—and Seth felt a faint warmth creep up his neck. "Good choice, Colossus."
The scorpion's voice echoed from the teardrop. "Thank you! Oh, and she can't talk, but I'm sure she'd say thank you too!"
Elena laughed softly, then looked back at Seth. "I can't wait to meet her. What kind of beast is she?"
Seth shook his head. "Let's keep it a surprise."
"Oh, come on," she protested.
He shrugged. "I can show a new spell instead."
Elena raised an eyebrow. "The one from the spell-shard? Aetheric Bow?"
Seth nodded. "You remember my Null affinity?"
The noblewoman frowned slightly, curiosity flickering in her eyes. "Yeah… why?"
"Turns out Professor Storm was wrong," Seth answered, a wry smile playing on his lips. "It doesn't mean I don't have any affinity. It's a kind of... anti-aether affinity. At least, that's how it feels when I use it. And I modified that spell with it."
"You what?" Elena blurted out.
Seth didn't answer with words. He reached out his left hand, and the air shimmered as the cerulean bow manifested with its translucent limbs. He then turned toward a distant boulder of solid ice and began to cast.
The air around his other hand's fingers warped, flickering as he forced affinity to withdraw from his aether, to lose its color and heat.
His breathing deepened, and half a minute passed in silence.
Once the spell was ready, a pale arrow appeared in his grip, barely there, as if it were struggling to exist at all. The space around it seemed to pull inward, faintly distorted.
He nocked it, pulled the string tight, then released.
The projectile made no sound.
It was simply there—and then it wasn't.
It crossed the distance in an instant and plunged into the heart of the boulder.
There was no explosion, no flash of light, yet the large rock groaned nonetheless. Cracks raced across its surface, and the massive thing crumbled into a heap of fine pebbles.
Elena stared, eyes wide, lips parting in disbelief. "It… it consumes the aether?"
"Kind of." Seth let the bow dissolve into mist. "It creates a dead zone of aether on impact, which means It's extremely strong against barriers. Like Protecting Belts."
Elena let out a sharp, almost exhilarated breath. "Seth, that's amazing! It'll be incredibly useful. You'll finally be able to stay safe in the backline and pick off the Empire's soldiers from a distance."
Seth raised an eyebrow, and a smile spread across his face. "Do you really think I'm going to stay in the back?"
Elena's excitement faltered, replaced by a grimace as she sheepishly rubbed the back of her neck. "Yeah... no. I don't."
Seth laughed. He looked around the silent cave, then turned back to her. "Do you want to stay here a bit longer to hunt some beasts, or do you want to get moving?"
Elena straightened her robes, the fatigue in her eyes replaced by a sudden realization. "We should head back. I want to know if Jenna and Devus have finished their battles."
Seth's throat tightened. He had been so focused on Lumi and Ravenous Arrow that he had completely forgotten that his friends had entered the Warfare Rifts a week ago.
They could already be dead and he wouldn't even know it.
"Yeah," Seth's voice turned grim. "Okay. Let's go."
They both reached into their pouches and pulled out a slip of ivory parchment. With a sharp tug of aether, the Escape scrolls flared in their hands.
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