The transport to the Scarlet Wastes was a different beast entirely from the one that had taken us to the Whispering Chasm. It was lighter, faster, and built for rapid insertion and extraction. The atmosphere inside was tense and professional, a world away from the resentful silence of my previous mission.
Scout Team Sigma consisted of three members, not including Elara and myself. Their leader was a woman named Anya, whose lean frame and sharp eyes spoke of countless hours in the field. Her aura was a muted, efficient [Ghost Walk (B-Rank)], making her movements seem almost preternaturally quiet. The second was Roric, a broad-shouldered man with a [Stone Skin (C-Rank)] aura that felt like weathered granite. The third was Kael's opposite—a lithe, silent woman named Lyra whose fingers constantly twitched, her [Wind Blade (C-Rank)] aura a barely contained whirlwind around her hands.
I was the obvious outlier. My F-Rank aura was a void amidst their palpable power. Their gazes, when they fell on me, were not filled with Jax's malice, but with a cold, professional skepticism. I was a variable they hadn't accounted for, a piece of cargo with a questionable label: "Handle with Care. May Identify Unstable Mana."
Elara sat beside me, a calming presence despite the complicated emotions her proximity stirred. Her own A-Rank aura was a controlled blizzard, a stark contrast to the scouts' utilitarian power. She didn't speak, but her occasional glances were a silent question: What are you, Leon Grey?
The journey was spent in near silence, broken only by Anya's terse updates. "Approaching the perimeter. Sensors are picking up residual breach energy. Stay sharp."
When the ramp lowered, the air that washed in was dry, acrid, and charged with a familiar, unsettling energy. The Scarlet Wastes stretched before us—a vast, crimson-hued landscape of shattered rock and petrified, twisted flora. The sky was a perpetual twilight, stained orange by dust and lingering mana from the S-Rank breach. In the distance, the jagged scar of the breach itself was still visible, a weeping wound in the world held in a fragile stasis by colossal suppression towers.
"Grey," Anya's voice was a whip-crack. "You're on point with me. Your job is to walk five paces ahead and tell me if the ground is about to eat us. The rest of you, standard diamond formation. Vance, you're in the center."
I nodded, falling into step beside her. My [Mana Sense (A-Rank)] was already at work, dissecting the environment. The mana here was a chaotic soup—the violent residue of the breach, the dying embers of corrupted life, and the harsh, sterile energy of the suppression fields. It was like trying to listen to a symphony played by a hundred different orchestras, all out of tune.
DING! [Skill Detected: Environmental Acclimation (B-Rank)] - Replicating... Complete.]
DING! [Skill Detected: Suppression Field Resonance (A-Rank)] - Replicating... Complete.]
I was learning just by breathing the air. Anya's skill at adapting to hostile environments and the complex, city-level mana of the suppression fields were now mine to passively master.
We moved forward, our boots crunching on the red crystalline dust. For the first hour, it was uneventful. I pointed out a few minor mana sinkholes and unstable energy vortices, which Anya noted with grunts of approval. The scouts moved with a lethal grace I could only admire, their eyes constantly scanning for physical threats.
It was Lyra who spotted the first one. "Contact. Two o'clock. Sand Shrikes."
Emerging from behind a petrified tree were three creatures that looked like six-foot-long centipedes made of rusted iron and glass. Their legs scraped against the rock with a sound that set my teeth on edge.
[Target: Sand Shrike.]
[Threat Level: C-Rank.]
[Skills: Crystal Shard Projection (C-Rank), Vibration Sense (D-Rank).]
"Standard protocol. Roric, tank. Lyra, flank. Grey, stay back and... do whatever it is you do," Anya ordered.
Roric stepped forward, his skin taking on the color and texture of the surrounding rock. The Sand Shrikes launched volleys of sharp, crystalline shards at him, which shattered harmlessly against his stony hide. Lyra became a blur, wind blades slicing off legs and antennae with surgical precision.
It was a flawless display of teamwork. But my [Analytical Combat Sight] saw something else. I saw the precise frequency of the shrikes' vibrations, the way they communicated. I saw a pattern.
"Anya," I said, my voice low. "There's a fourth one. Burrowed. Ten meters ahead, right below that large red rock. It's the pack leader. It's directing them."
Anya's head snapped towards me, then towards the rock. "How do you know?"
"I can... feel the vibrations. The pattern is different. More complex."
She hesitated for only a second before barking an order. "Lyra! The rock! Now!"
Lyra didn't question. She pivoted and unleashed a concentrated wind blade that struck the ground before the rock. The earth erupted as a larger, iridescent Sand Shrike burst forth, screeching in fury. It had been setting an ambush.
The battle was over in seconds with the pack leader exposed. Anya finished it with a single, precise dagger strike to its nerve cluster, a move guided by a skill I instantly copied: [Death Blossom (B-Rank)].
As the creatures lay still, the team looked at me. The professional skepticism in their eyes had been replaced by a wary, newfound respect. I had just proven my value in a way no amount of Vanguard files could.
Elara's gaze was the most intense. She had seen it all. She hadn't missed the certainty in my voice, the absolute lack of doubt.
On the journey back to the extraction point, the mood was lighter. Roric even clapped me on the shoulder, a gesture that would have shattered my collarbone a month ago. Now, my [Drake's Vitality]-enhanced body barely registered it.
That night, back in the temporary camp set up near the suppression fields, I checked my progress. The constant exposure to the Wastes' chaotic mana was acting as a catalyst.
[Mana Core Circuit: 8.2%]
[Drake's Vitality (B-Rank) - Progression: 72%]
[Environmental Acclimation (B-Rank) - Progression: 45%]
But the most significant change was in my body. The [Cellular Empathy], now at 2.1%, had been subtly integrating the toughness of the wastes, the resilience of the scouts, and even the unique crystalline biology of the Sand Shrikes. I felt harder, more durable. The F-Rank vessel was being reforged in the crucible of the Scarlet Wastes.
As I sat by the campfire, Elara approached and sat beside me. The others were already in their tents.
"You weren't guessing back there, were you?" she asked softly, her eyes reflecting the flickering flames. "You knew."
I looked at her, the girl from the silver-spired world who was now sitting in the dirt of the apocalypse with me. The pretense was becoming harder to maintain around her.
"The world is made of data, Elara," I said, evading a direct answer. "I'm just... better at reading it than most."
She studied my face, her expression unreadable. "Be careful, Leon. Reading data is one thing. But out here, the data fights back. And some people would kill for a tool that can read it as well as you do."
She stood and left, leaving me with the crackling fire and the hum of the suppression fields. The phantom had proven his worth on the frontier, but the cost was a brighter spotlight. The lord's road was leading me deeper into the wilderness, and the shadows I relied on were growing thinner with every step I took.