"Following?" Eik asked. "Following who? And where?"

This was not the same city they had started with. Judging by Andihar taking lead of the situation, it was probably the one he had gone to.

Andihar ground his teeth with obvious frustration. "We're not sure. But the fact that there are still traces of the fracture lingering, and that they failed to erase all of it properly here unlike the site where we found the first three Life Harvesters tells us that it was probably a recent and urgent development. Probably in response to our sudden aggression."

"But how did they do that? Move the Life Harvester so quickly, I mean."

"We haven't been able to figure that out. It goes against what the Oracle told us."

"So it's something she either didn't know about or hadn't realized was a possibility," Eik muttered.

A perimeter had been secured around the traces of the fractures left behind by Moon Shall Swallow and the portal specialists they had brought had shifted into high gear to reverse engineer the structure of the fractures and triangulate their destination. No matter how many times Eik saw specialists like them at work, he could never wrap his head around it.

Ihasu would practice all the time at home when she was off duty as well. She used micro fractures to practice materialization and would sit at the living room table and solve complicated calculations endlessly while Eik zoned out completely on a chair across from her.

Sometimes he felt so dumb. She was working on math problems to defy the limits of dimension itself while he watched an inch worm traverse the entirety of their house or counted the air pockets in his slice of toast. Man…

"And the cultists defending the cities? What have they told us?" Pölse asked, managing to sound professional now that he wasn't running his mouth like an idiot.

"Nothing," Andihar said with a sigh. "Most of them don't seem to have a clue what's going on, while a minority knows that something has happened but not what. It's like they've been made to forget or not notice."

"How?" Eik asked.

"Qarr the Pillar comes to mind," Gul answered.

"Qarr the Pillar…" Eik repeated to himself. "He's one of the Great Generals of the Moon. What's his specialty again?"

"Some kind of mental thing," the Ougi clan leader said. "Due to the nature of his powers, it's never quite been figured out completely."

Eik chewed on that for a moment. "So we've got him to worry about. Great. But what about other Great Generals of the Moon? Who's dangerous?"

Andihar and Gul exchanged glances as they mulled it over. "Woulaxi, I suppose?" Mn'Toakh said.

"I think I've heard the name, but…"

"Woulaxi the Mover." Pölse was the one to answer.

"The Mover? That sounds… less dangerous than the rest."

"He's not," Andihar said. "Yes, he's a fracture specialist but he can use his abilities to manipulate dimensional forces for so much more. He is incredibly difficult to hurt. I know because I've tried."

"You fought him?" Mn'Toakh asked. "I didn't know that. When?"

"Oh, many years ago now."

"How was it?" Eik asked.

Even though Andihar usually didn't seem to care much about the constant power struggle between Awakened, anyone who had made it to S-rank would obviously chase strength. He bit his lower lip as he muttered his response under his breath. "He's stronger than me, that's for sure."

"Seriously?" Eik gaped. Being the first S-ranker he had ever met, Eik couldn't shake a certain reverence for the elf.

"Don't be so surprised," Andihar chuckled. "I am not the strongest S-ranker, unfortunately. I don't doubt that you're stronger than me as well now, Eik."

"N—" Eik began but cut himself off. It was probably true, even if they had never duked it out seriously before. He wanted to deny it but it would be a insult when they both knew the truth. He remained silent.

"We should be ready to roll soon," Gul said with a glance at the fracture specialist. With that many high-ranked portal mages gathered together even a tough job like triangulating the destination of a dispersed fracture via the dimensional remnants didn't take too long to accomplish.

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Their army had already been transported to this site and were suppressing the cultists effectively. No matter how they looked at it, this was not all the cult could throw at them. The more time they spent here, the more certain they became that it had been a ploy to buy time.

Fuck. Eik anxiously watched the fracture specialists work. Even after seeing Ihasu practice every day he still didn't have a clue what the hell they were doing but it couldn't happen quickly enough.

Restless, Eik joined the troops in the suppression efforts, fighting side by side with them. His abilities devastated thousands upon thousands before a signal went up for the commanders to gather. Just in case there were Life Harvester they had been unable to locate for whatever reason, Eik held back on true mass destruction, attacking only what he could see as he soared above the buildings.

"We're ready to move," one of the fracture specialists reported. "We've managed to establish a stable path to what we believe is the destination. The portals can be opened at any time."

"Well, let's get going then," Eik said. The others nodded. There was no time to waste.

***

Eik went through second, following Andihar who donned the same enormous golden shield that he had used briefly during their rescue of the Oracle.

They were spat out into knee deep water right on the shore of a pool in the middle of an oasis. Eik quickly constructed a small platform of crystal to save the rest of the troops from getting wet feet.

The oasis appeared to stretch about fifty meters in all directions and on one side turned into a seemingly endless desert of matte, silvery sand with absolutely no signs of life. Within the oasis was a surprisingly rich ecosystem with plenty of small, insect-like creatures both flying and terrestrial, dug up mounds on the ground which alluded to some manner of burrower, as well as schools of fish in the pool.

Flora was lush and numerous, growing densely but stopping completely and abruptly right on some kind of invisible border. What phenomenon allowed for this Eik didn't know, but the contrast between the two biomes was fascinating.

Well, fascinating maybe, but wholly ignored in favor of more pressing matters.

Almost from the first moment they arrived, their senses were assaulted by an unbelievable spiritual pressure, easily rivaling that of an S-ranker. And it didn't seem to target them in particular, but rather a force that filled the air like a heavy, overwhelming smoke.

But it had an unmistakable direction to it. Opposite the endless stretch of flat desert was a sand bank about thirty meters tall, obscuring from view whatever might lie beyond. Pölse and Mn'Toakh came through next just as three more fractures popped into reality with hums of energy, deploying more and more warriors with every passing second.

"What the hell is this place?" Pölse wondered out loud. "There's absolutely nothing he—" he began but shut up as the spiritual pressure hit him at full force, rocking him for a moment before he regained his bearings. Eik wondered if he was a new S-ranker.

"I'm going to investigate," Eik told them. "Something's going on up there and it's too risky to let it continue unhindered. Ms. Mn'Toakh, could I ask you to join Andi and I, please? With your long range attacks, we would make a good three-person team."

Mn'Toakh and Andihar nodded.

"Pölse, you stay here with Gul when he pops through and secure against a potential ambush."

The prideful S-ranker spluttered as he tried to find words to articulately express his indignation. "You-You think you can just treat me like—"

"Yes," Mn'Toakh interrupted. "Yes, he will do that quietly."

Mn'Toakh clearly held strong authority, because even though it was with a frown and clenched teeth, Pölse did as he was told and started organizing their ranks as they came through the portals.

Mn'Toakh and Andihar followed Eik as he leapt through the oasis toward the sand hill. Halfway there they found what must have been the original egress point of the cult fractures, marked clearly by footprints, drag marks, and other unnatural signs of activity. Their own fracture specialists had located the spot with impressive accuracy, missing the exact location by no more than a couple dozen meters.

They didn't bother to stop and look closer at the scene, simply following the foot prints as they lead out of the oasis and up the slope, several smaller sand avalanches providing even more signs of a passing.

They suppressed their auras and crept up the final few meters of the dune to peak over the edge. About seven hundred meters or so away was a sight that laid to rest any uncertainty regarding the whereabouts of those many Life Harvesters unaccounted for.

"What… the fuck is that?" Eik whispered as they watched.

A surprisingly small group of cultists were gathered around and enormous sphere of metal hanging in the air, seemingly defying gravity as six massive chains kept it tethered to the ground like a balloon on a string, the object bobbing gently against their pull. There were no more than two hundred cultists present.

At least forty Life Harvesters were lined up around the sphere, abdominal sacks bulging grotesquely and looking ready to pop explosively. Divided into four lines, the foremost of the Life Harvester appeared to be in the process of being drained of their gathered energy, a hazy flux of matter rushing from their abdominal sacks and into the gigantic sphere.

More than eighty more Life Harvesters lay deflated in the sand, thrown to the side without a care. That made the total number of Life Harvesters in this project reach more than a hundred and twenty.

A shiver ran down Eik's spine as he recalled the devastating explosion of just a single beast when mishandled.

"What is that huge metal ball?" he breathed.

Andihar took a moment to answer. "I… don't know. This isn't how the Oracle described the steps of their plan at all."

Mn'Toakh looked extremely concerned.

"Just how long have the upper echelon of Moon Shall Swallow been suspecting the Oracle of turning on them?" Eik wondered out loud. "She got caught when she started making larger moves against the reawakening of the Lord of the Moon, but they must have distrusted her long before that if they had an alternative plan up their sleeve."

"That doesn't matter right now," Mn'Toakh said, voice slightly unsteady for the first time since the operation began. "I don't want to see what happens when the last of those Life Harvesters are drained. Whether our warriors are ready or not, we need to get in there ri—"

A projectile moving at extreme speed hammered into Andihar's shield which he only barely managed to raise in time.

"Go, go, go!" Eik howled, launching into the air from a prone position. "Engage!"

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