The first three hours had been…underwhelming.
Magibeasts snarled and slithered into their path—sabrewolves, drakelings, shadowfang coyotes—but the group barely slowed. Charles didn't draw Raijin's Emberfang. The guards dispatched them with the ease of sweeping leaves.
Wendy groaned, tossing her daggers in the air with a dramatic scowl. Her shoulders slumped as she exhaled sharply. "Seriously? If we keep breezing through these chumps, we're going to walk out with pockets full of lint."
"Patience," Charles murmured, eyes narrowing at the horizon. "The Highlands always wake up ugly."
And ugly it got.
A blast of glacial air tore through the ridge, snapping the Thunderhoof Stallions into formation. Kael's sword shone. Korel drew an arrow as the air thickened.
The fog cleared.
Fourteen big shadows moved through the fog, their blue scales like broken ice and their wings leaving icy trails. Their eyes glowed with rage.
"Frostback Wyverns," Borris said under his breath. "They're not supposed to be awake this time of year."
"Much less in packs," Donald said as he drew his sword. "Something's not right."
Wendy's grip on her new daggers got tighter. "Perfect."
Charles stepped forward, lips quirking. "Dressed in ice, nowhere to go. I'll warm them up."
Before anyone could argue, he leapt.
Raijin's Emberfang came alive, runes glowing as violet flames spiraled out. The wyverns screamed, scattering and summoning blizzard winds.
One dove straight for him.
"Come on, you frozen turkey."
He met it in mid-air.
Steel met scale with thunder. His blade cut the beast's wing, violet fire flaring with each stroke. The wyvern shrieked, ice breath crossing Charles's chest, but the flames burned hotter, melting frost instantly.
"Too slow," he growled, driving Emberfang straight into its throat. Frost-core cracked, violet fire erupting from the wyvern's eyes as it crashed.
Another rushed from behind. Charles twisted mid-air. Emberfang's blade sparked as he launched a lightning arc, bisecting the beast and slicing its tail, then finished it with a downward cleave. Flames erupted, spraying blue blood and scales.
Two down. Another dove.
Wendy appeared above the next wyvern, her voice cutting through the mist: "Mine!" She drove her glowing green daggers into the creature's eyes. The wyvern thrashed but died instantly, crashing motionless onto the rocks.
Kael and Andy charged into the pack. Kael swung his blade, shattering bone and ice. Andy, berserker aura flaring, smashed through wyverns.
Karel's arrows ignited, skewering wyverns. Korel moved beside him, rapier flashing and dismembering wings and necks.
Borris didn't even flinch. He gripped his iron staff and summoned a wall of force to block a breath of frost before smashing the beast's skull with a single crushing blow.
The fight was over in less than three minutes.
Charles let out a shaky breath and returned Emberfang to its sheath. He ran a hand through his hair, wincing at the static. The last wyvern fell to the ground. His shoulders were steaming, and there were still sparks in his hair.
"Only four?" he asked SIGMA.
[Confirmed. Four people have died. Started the primary user's rights.]
C"Only four, SIGMA?" blood off his face. "Should have gone faster."
Wendy landed next to him, out of breath and smiling. "I got three!"
"You mean you took three?"
"I call it... redistributing effort."
He rolled his eyes and bent down to cut through the chest of the first beast with ease.
[Items acquired: 4 Frostscale, 4 Wyvern's Frostcore, 4 Blizzard Fang, 2 Frozen Wingtips, 1 Frostspike Gem, 1 Wyvern's Soulstone, and 4,000 Gold Coins added to your Aether Reserve Link]
"Not bad," he muttered, slipping the Frostspike Gem into a side pouch. "This'll come in handy later."
Wendy examined the Soulstone and raised eyebrows. "Immunity to freezing attacks? Do I look like someone who gets cold?"
"You look like someone who cries when the tea goes lukewarm."
"Blasphemy."
The group regrouped quickly, none worse for wear. They dragged corpses aside to extract materials, chests puffed with pride or exasperation. Borris looked faintly annoyed, scowling as he cleaned monster gore from his staff while eyeing his companions.
"We're wasting light," Kael called. "Storms coming."
Karel tilted his head toward the horizon. "Pressure's changing. We've got two hours before the clouds. Karel tilted his head. "Pressure's changing. Two hours before clouds roll in."hoisted a wyvern skull onto the back of one Thunderhoof. "That was the appetizer?"
Donald grinned. "Remind me to never ask what counts as dessert."
Charles mounted his stallion and pointed Southwest, where SIGMA determined a high concentration of mana.
"Throm Vale's heart is waiting."
And like that, they rode again—through mist and cold, laughter and lightning, into the unknown.
Stormheart and Stonefang
They should've known the quiet wouldn't last.
Three hours after the first wyverns, the cold turned to. They knew the quiet wouldn't last."Core Realm activity—multiple Stormbound Titans. Power: Rank 1. Count: 23. Clusters."
"Finally," Charles muttered, flexing his shoulders beneath his cloak. "Something with a punch."
"Finally," Charles muttered, flexing. "Something with a punch."st pulsing with violet lightning. It roared, answered by a sky-bolt that scorched the slope.
Kael grunted. "Permission to engage?"
"Hold," Charles said, Raijin's Emberfang humming with anticipation in his grip. Charles said, Emberfang humming. "Let's get some cardio in, Wendy."
She dashed forward, her Windblade Daggers already glowing. "One flank each?"
"Let's dance," Charles smirked, vaulting up a wind-carved boulder with grace.
The titan slammed both fists into the earth.
BOOM!
But Charles had vanished. Emberfang alight with lightning, he used [Vyrstride: Flicker Dash] and reappeared atop the titan's shoulder, slicing downward in a burning arc that exploded with stormfire.
Wendy surged beneath the creature, blades twirling. With precision only a true assassin-in-training could muster, she carved the tendons beneath its knee, disrupting its stance.
The titan howled.
"Oh no," Charles called from above. "Wendy, it's about to—"
THOOM!
A windshock blasted out, flinging boulders and trees. Charles hit the ground rolling, smoke rising from his grazed shoulder.
He groaned. "I should've stayed in the damn carriage."
Wendy pounced again. "Quit complaining. You're the one who said 'cardio.'"
Two synchronized strikes—Raijin's Emberfang to the chest, Windblade Daggers through the back—and the titan fell with a thunderous crash, its stormheart pulsing once before fading.
By the end of the skirmish, 23 titans had fallen. Charles personally fell eight,
SIGMA silently cataloging the loot:
8 Titan's Storm Hearts
8 Thunderstones
8 Stormbreaker Runes
4 Wind-Touched Armor pieces
Special Drops:
2 Storm Titan's Cores
1 Titan's Soulstone
The others split kills without fuss, focused on beast cores and drops. The guards gave Charles and Wendy the spotlight, watching tactics and teamwork. Despite his low cultivation rank, the young lord fought with poise and dangerous fire.
And then came the mountain.
It was halfway up a sheer cliff trail when the first rumble shook the stones beneath their mounts. Kael steadied his Thunderhoof, eyes narrowing. "We're being watched."
"More Wyverns?" Wendy asked, daggers ready.
"No," Charles said, tapping his ring. In truth, the scan command activated SIGMA's internal map, glowing faintly inside his mind. "Bigger."
The next roar didn't echo—it shattered. Rocks fell in clusters. Trees bent from an unseen wave of force.
The Earthshaker Behemoth appeared from above, its silhouette massive, molten-cracked hide steaming. Glowing magma pulsed beneath stone plates. Its jaw opened, roaring with molten heat that turned the cliff to lava.
"That," Charles said in a calm voice, "is what I call cardio level two."
The others moved back.
"Are you sure?" Andy asked, holding on to his war axe.
Charles motioned for Wendy to come closer. Partner round. Let's see how our combo does against tectonic nightmares.
"Copy," Wendy said coolly, her lips twitching in a half-smile.
They fought together.
Wendy's footwork, which was better because of the wind, danced through the molten cracks, and her daggers hit their targets perfectly.
Charles blocked molten breath with Raijin's Emberfang, creating a firewall that held against lava. SIGMA tracked Cragstorm's rising, just before Charles jumped and stabbed the monster in the eye.
With a final coordinated strike—Wendy through the heart, Charles through the neck—the beast fell, thunderously, and they both staggered away.
They fought and felled six more Earthshaker Behemoths in this fashion, one at a time, climbing higher, each battle a lesson, each victory a step toward mastery. Though Charles bled from two different cuts and Wendy had a burn on her thigh, neither complained.
"Why," Wendy panted, wiping sweat from her brow and making a face as she examined her bruise, "do you keep smiling after each one?"
He said, "Because I used to file taxes and sue board members for a living. Compared to that, lava monsters are like therapy."
Once more, SIGMA beeped. Charles's fake spatial ring hid the loot by taking it out of sight, putting it in his inventory, and covering it up:
6 Earthshaker Cores
6 Pieces of Molten Stone
6 Behemoth's Hides
6 Fangs with Rock-Skin
Special Drops:
Three Earthshaker Gems
1 The Soulstone of Behemoth
His coat was heavier now, covered with ash and dried sweat, but his eyes shone.
And then came the roar.
Not from the side.
From above.
The peak of the mountain split with a thundercrack, and something huge—ancient—unfolded from the rocks.
Charles blinked, heat rising in his blood.
"…SIGMA," he said slowly. "How big is that one?"
[SIGMA: Entity classified as Core Realm Rank 8. Estimated threat: Extreme. Recommend caution, withdrawal, or boss music.]
"Perfect," he murmured. "I was wondering when the real fun would start."
The Surge and the Sovereign
When the sky cracked with that loud, ancient roar, Charles didn't flinch.
He didn't even look up.
Because SIGMA had already told him about the danger, long before the others did.
[SIGMA: Found Apex Entity. Type: Dragon. Rank: Core Realm 8. The estimated radius of the territory is 30 miles. Warning: The threat level is high. Hoarding Potential: High. Be careful. Level of excitement: not important. You are going anyway.]
Charles gave the mental equivalent of a smirk. His lips twitched with a thrill most would call suicidal. But to him, this was just excellent business.
"It's about time," he murmured, violet flame flickering at his fingertips.
Wendy tensed beside him. "My lord… that was no wyvern."
"No," Charles said, cracking his neck. "That was the top of the food chain."
Around them, the entourage had frozen. The six Thunderhoof Stallions twitched nervously, their storm-charged hooves scraping anxious sparks into the dirt. Even Coachman Rob stood from the driver's perch, his wind-cloaked sleeves flaring behind him.
Kael and Karel instinctively placed their hands on the blade and the bow. Donald's fingers gripped his hilt tighter, and Andy's mouth formed a low whistle.
Borris muttered, "We're either about to make history… or become part of it."
Charles turned toward his guards with a sharp nod. "Leave the steeds and carriage. This is a scouting ascent. Rob—secure the perimeter."
"Aye, young lord." Rob cracked his knuckles and stepped down. "Been waiting for a reason to stretch the old bones."