"I can't keep up yeah!?" Athena shouted from behind her.

"Okaaay!" Scarlet heard her own words drag past her ears.

She had been slightly peeved at being told not to search for Ebony during her time on Elcra, but having Athena around helped. Whenever she tried to go towards Tidal or follow her gut feeling about where Ebony was, she would end up lost in a forest or fall into a river somewhere. It was odd, but there was clear intervention from her Clan.

They might not have done anything. She didn't interact with the older generation much, but she knew how powerful they were. For the mind mages, her not being able to meet Ebony or the other way around might just be because some or maybe just one of them thought 'these kids shouldn't meet' and the world might bend to make that happen. For that was their Will.

The constantly excitable Black had already chewed off Athena's ears so Red took over to let the poor woman have some peace for once.

She was great company, both for Red and Black.

Athena was a talent, it was too bad she didn't have highly evolved ancestry.

Red chased the little bestial creature down. They were ten months into this hunt of theirs.

When she was younger, around the time she met Ebony, there were talks about one of the towns completely disappearing into a massive hole in the ground. That meant Navin's barrier and everything included was swallowed up in an instant.

That felt like ages ago but to many of the Imperial Citizens of the Empire of Ebbin Waves, it was relatively recent that, they couldn't forget. People lost their homes, family, and lives so it was not surprising that they couldn't forget in mere decades.

Whatever this creature was, it might just be Elva's apex predator. That was what her Intuition told her.

That easily settled her itinerary and she had brought Athena out on a wild goose chase for over ten months now.

It was only recently confirmed to be a creature's doing and not a natural disaster or machinations of some Noble family, or an attack by Lure because the beast had shown its tail once more when it tried to chomp a Dungeon up in broad daylight.

Dungeons in the Empire's territory were always manned and guarded at all times, when the creature failed to eat a portal but swallowed a couple of mountains, there were survivors to tell what happened this time around. Something about rivers of the creature's blood flooding the range because it tore its flesh when part of its mouth went through the portal while the rest of its body remained outside.

The only weird thing was how such a seemingly massive creature disappeared into thin air almost immediately. There weren't any underground tunnels and neither were they aerial traces.

Scarlet had been following her Intuition and sense of smell for a strong monster and likely what Elcrians thought as Abberants. There was no other reason why such a strong creature wasn't eating people daily. The creature had a purpose and was more than a monster feeding on a Worldcore's Essence.

Black had caught the creature by its tail twice but all she had saw was a short curly hair that she confirmed was a tail on the second sighting. The creature was likely able to drastically change its size.

On both sightings that she followed her Intuition, the little beast escaped before Red could take over. It seemed to know to escape before Red appeared and also to completely avoid her whenever Red was in charge.

However, the beast wasn't able to hide from Black. That was a minor advantage Scarlet didn't expect to have from her passive rest state.

"horgg" A grunt sounded, followed by light snoring. This was her chance; the beast had gotten tired after consuming a lake full of fish.

"I recognize that porky smell anywhere!" Red zoomed out of the forest and into the clearing that was made from the beast's eating habits.

The little pink but extremely chubby piglet oinked, groggily waking up but too slothful to snap awake immediately by her presence. It wasn't getting away so easily this time.

A flicker of irritation showed in the piglets large pupils, squeezed between its chubby cheeks. It opened its mouth at Scarlet.

Red's body tensed as her feet and blood wings pushed her away. 'Gravity magic, is that what they call a black hole?'

Red jerked left as hard as she could but she failed to dodge completely as one of her blood and flame wings were eradicated from her control. A large sphere and suction dragged at her from that direction as the air and mana present at where the piglet chomped at disappeared and caused the reduction in pressure.

That was when Red saw the Piglet's eye shot up, fully awake.

"Was my blood delicious little piggy?"

"Oink." It licked its lips and barred its non-existent fangs.

Scarlet couldn't use the blood the piglet ate to attack it from its internals, she lost complete sensation over the consumed blood.

Just when she was about to get into an exciting hunt, her Intuition cooled off.

The piglet…fell asleep.

Red was absolutely livid but Black found it…adorable.

"It just ate its fill and fell asleep, I understand." Her blood had so much energy it radiated life force enough to weigh any Imperial fighter down. Black felt like she found a kindred spirit.

Red, having lost all purpose with no good hunt let Black take over. Their Intuition wasn't so poor that they couldn't tell from an act. The piglet was truly dead asleep.

Black went to the small creature no bigger than a puppy and hugged it in her arms. Then she took Scorchy and poked the piglet, bleeding it out for her swords to eat and herself to indulge.

The piglet squealed and waved its nubby front hooves in its sleep. It was a weak pat on her chest at best. Even her rest state wasn't hurt by this [Pig of Besotted Gorb Lvl 892]

Black impulsively took the chubby piglet into her custody. It had good taste and clearly had a superior nose or intuition for good food. They could find good food together. This piglet seemed to be an evolved version of the treasure-hunting pigs she knew of.

She was aware that some of the mushrooms she sourced in Tidal were from tamers who had a mushroom-sniffing pig. The treasure-hunting pig was a similar breed that was currently monopolized by one of the Beastmen Nobles. There were no more wild ones.

This little piglet seemed to be the same breed but an Aberrant of them.

The reason such a valued tamed monster wasn't causing internal wars was because they were known to only be able to evolve up to Master rank at best. The mushrooms or treasures they could find were limited as their range was limited and so were their perception for unknown objects or items of value.

But here she was, with an Emperor lying knocked out cold after having its belly filled. The blissful smile on its chubby face showed how satisfied it was with its meal.

"I'm here, did it run away again?" Athena had her large arrow doubling as a stake in her hands when she ran over.

It must have been too quiet so she eased her chase and only caught up now.

"You caught a baby wild boar?"

"Identify it."

Athena looked back at the piglet in her embrace before she took a deep breath and jumped back in fright. "Is that the horror of the Lost Town?!"

"Probably." From her best friend's perspective, she must have been a little afraid having never seen an Emperor ranked creature.

"It's horrify..ly cute. Sooo-- you're going to bring it to the authorities?"

"No! I'm keeping it."

"…it ate hundreds of thousands of people. The Empire wants it dead."

"Aish, everyone needs to eat." Black waved Athena's concern off, "hey uh, don't tell people. It's gonna be troublesome."

She understood how the people who lost family or loved ones might feel but as a bystander, there should be no hostility between Athena and the piglet. It was always weird to her how people thought it was alright to eat animals and monsters but when it happens the other way around, they would indiscriminately fault every monster of the same race. Even people who weren't affected by it. But neither side was wrong, she would want to hunt down anything that tried to hunt her grandmother down for example.

Sure, monsters couldn't control their base desires to eat anything with beneficial essence but not all creatures were monsters. This piglet was clearly not a monster.

"…You're really keeping it? It's gonna eat you up in your sleep."

"Hmph, it won't. I'm keeping it!"

"Don't tell me you're going to bring that into the city."

"She won't eat people anymore." Scarlet didn't have to check, this was a female pig.

"And how do you know that? Athena crossed her arms in disbelief.

"Its not starving anymore. That's why she went after a dungeon during her second appearance. She must have been desperate when she had to swallow a town but she never made another town or person disappear did she?"

"You speak pig?"

"You won't understand, this is basic behaviour. Why would I fault her for trying to survive." Scarlet also drank Ferroquad's blood when she was starving. They were people, a different race but still people.

She chose not to drink people's blood… except Ebony's when she was younger but that felt more like she was offered to, and she couldn't exactly deny an offer of food from a safe source.

But when she was starving? She didn't think it was wrong in any way for any creature to eat what they had at hand, it was merely basic survival instinct.

Leaving no room for objections, she brought the satisfied piglet along.

When the piglet woke up hours later, probably due to Scarlet's outdoor camp cooking the first thing it did was hobble towards the wok.

"It's not ready yet, food is more delicious after cooking."

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"Oink." It looked up and stared at Scarlet with moist eyes. Then it rubbed its face over her boot and gave her leg a powerless chomp.

"You want to eat me more?"

"Oink!" She shook her head before chomping Scarlet's angle again.

"Just my blood?"

The piglet rubbed her face against her boot again.

"Did you chomp up a town a few decades ago?"

The pig rubbed its hooves against the dirt floor and walked in circles around Scarlet.

"See?" Scarlet raised the piglet and pushed the level 892 creature into Athena's face.

It was fun to see Athena getting so jumpy.

"Want to follow me? I love hunting for good food too."

"Oink!"

"Try my dishes first, you won't eat raw fish as often after eating my dishes, I'm sure of it."

The Pig of Besotted Gorb was successfully won over as it hoped around their camp over and over again after eating a bowl of her mutton stew.

The piglet burped with its belly facing up and four limbs kicking in the air. After resting a moment, she flipped herself over and chomped on Scarlet's sleeves after giantizing itself to the size of a bear without so much as a bat of an eye. It got a little skinnier but its adorable pink self didn't change in appearance.

Sitting down, it urged Scarlet to ride her.

The pig happily accepted Scarlet's pointing to Athena, and they both climbed up after some pacifying from Scarlet. Athena also lost most of her immediate fear after watching the normal but excitable eat their dinner.

The cheerful pig then scared her, both of them when it opened its mouth and chomped a hole in space. Then happily trotting in before Red could take over Black. It was the fastest 'trot' either of them had ever seen.

"I didn't sign up for this!!"

The complaints fell on deaf ears.

The piglet landed and turned small again. Picked up by the neck Red turned it around but didn't say anything before moving the piglet into her embrace position again. "Where did you bring us?"

"Oink!"

"I smell it! This is your stash?"

Getting a snort as a reply, "I can have something here? Anything?"

More snorts replied came to her.

"Let's go, Athena!" Red excitedly let her nose hunt for food in this foreign, barren-looking environment. It seemed like a dry desert with cracked earth but the weather wasn't hot or stuffy.

There were no dangers about, and Scarlet was beginning to think there weren't on Elva. The familiar mana, the smell of this place was slightly different. She could also smell the salty sea from every direction but she couldn't see it so this piece of land should be rather large. It should be an island of some sort for her to smell the sea all around.

Leisurely dashing for Athena to keep up, Red suddenly stopped and dug her feet along the ground to break her dash, her head snapping towards the lump of mana she sensed a the edge of her senses.

"Athena, help me see what's there." She asked the archer with better eyes; an active sight enhancement skill surely beats her normal eyes.

Nodding, Athena let Red carry her by the armpits up into the sky. The piglet hung herself on her shoulders.

"Oink?" The pig saw what she was curious about along with Athena.

"What do you see?"

"A large turtle is climbing ashore. This island is not that big. I know where we are, we are on one of the islands between Elva and Tova."

"What kind of turtle?"

"It's blue all the way through but…it's turning transparent right now. Oh, I can't see it anymore."

"It turned invisible?" Scarlet didn't feel anything odd, merely curious about the creature.

"Yeah. Wait, I think I see something splitting off from its body. Wolves…"

"Wolves splitting off from a turtle's body?"

"Ah, they are transparent too but I can see some light reflection every so often when they move too fast…they are fast!"

"Let's go." Red felt nothing from her Intuition. There was no interest in the turtle or the wolves.

But this silence from her Intuition bit at her Intuition. She felt the oddness immediately.

A gentle pat on her shoulder revealed the piglet's nose pushed against her mask.

The piglet breathed out loudly from its nose. Red pushed Athena's head out of the way and the piglet shot out a black beam from its mouth.

When something similar appeared from the other side of the island, Red noticed the gravity vortex immediately.

Did the turtle or wolf just cast a gravity vortex to counter the piglet's gravity magic?

Curious.

The piglet was alarmed and squealed before pushing itself of her shoulder and increasing its size. All the way till its back touched her feet, while she was flying in the air.

How big could the pig turn itself? Where did its mass come from?

Standing on the massive pig's back, she raced to the front only in time to watch the mountainous pig shoot out the same dark beam that took her blood wing off.

Everything in its path was affected, trees erased, the earth dug out, the ocean curved down, the skies torn bending away as they turned dark.

"Is the turtle in there?" Red questioned.

"Gone, wolves too. Annihilated. Hmm?"

"Don't leave me hanging."

"There's something shiny…a crystal ball. It's cracked."

The destruction left by the piglet's attack settled down, winds came pouring, the ocean splashing back.

"Woah, the turtle reformed from the crystal ball? I think it's a golem and the core survived."

Red tried to get closer, at least enough to see the creature in question. She wasn't sure if she could survive the attack that just passed through the space in front of her, no matter her regeneration. Transmutation wouldn't save her from the annihilation either.

Piglet was slimmer after the attack, she was just like Scarlet. Extreme storage of energy for highly destructive skills.

When she got close enough to see the cracked sphere inside a crystal blue turtle with magnificent musculature and a shell on its back, her fingers tapped dozens of times on her sword in a mere fraction.

'Something strong is coming!' Black couldn't and wouldn't hold Red back at this point in time.

With a whip of her wings, she left Athena and Piglet behind. Her twitching fingers from before and her current Intuition was telling her that whatever or whoever was coming, linked to this turtle was going to give her one of her best hunts or fights in her life. Perhaps even better than Ebony.

Before she reached the turtle that managed to fully form in the meantime, she smelt the incoming figure. It felt oddly familiar but Red dismissed it when she couldn't recall where it was from.

A figure wrapped in the same disgustingly dense mana was popping in and out, a blink-type movement skill. Shi Ling also had a similar skill but she also had a blink-type martial art more built towards offense than movement.

The figure's face was shrouded in burning cyan mana, wafting off intense heat from the exterior layer of mana.

Red probed if this was a good fight by sending concentrated killing intent meant to disable, dipping into her mask's assistance with Intent. She felt her Intent drop into an ocean of indifference.

Completely ineffective.

Grinning under her mask, Red believed that the Nings didn't lie. Elcra was quite special, there wasn't a need to go elsewhere.

"I didn't mean to trespass, we have no reason to fight…but I didn't know there was a strong fighter out at sea, so how about a friendly duel. My name is *^$&^%, you are?"

Red was irritated. After tossing out killing intent, it wasn't so easy to swap back to talking. However, her Intuition snapped her out of it, was something wrong with her ears?

"I couldn't quite hear you, but that doesn't matter. I'll remember after we fight. I'm ^*%*^&^%*" Red squashed the annoyance when she heard her own words get censored.

Something was very wrong here.

Black spoke in her mind, 'Something is odd about his mana. Mental influence of some sort, I can't squash it out.'

"That makes it simple." Red squashed her unease, if anything was messing with her ears or mind the obvious foreign interference was in front of her.

Mental influence was a sensitive thing, anyone would take it as hostile and hostiles could be killed.

A sizable cube smashed into her at neck breaking speeds. She reflexively transmuted and let the cube pass through her body and bodysuit.

Her mantle reformed as well after the cube passed through her.

'Isn't this one of the totems they prayed to? Who is this?' Black spoke while Red drew power from the Symbol of Might.

The stranger was also a swordsman. Her dear twins screeched when they clashed. The man deflected every blow, one after another. He sped up using her force while she continued to build her Art.

Red wanted to see how far the man's Art could go against hers. His sword blows were extremely heavy, boosted by gravity they may be.

The heat produced on impact was just a cover up, his blade and mana were cold. Some sort of mana heating skill perhaps but she was hardly bothered by heat of this degree.

Her target's magic body was immense, overwhelming her surroundings. She gathered her Intent and forced her Blood Halo to conjure but it was immediately pelted with more spells of cold nature than she could count.

Not even a hundred strikes into her Art and her opponent's sword broke, with a bit of charring and her Intent to stop vitality, the wooden sword with great amounts of life force couldn't heal.

It was a shame. It wasn't easy to find a good swordsman and when she did, he had a weapon of unsuitable quality.

Unsure what element was being used, she only knew they were very resilient against her fires. Then the man's sword zapped her. Conjured ice over the broken wooden frame.

Cold seeped into her bones through her skin. 'Should've transmuted against that' But her Art would reset and she would lose what she built up.

Her Blood Halo couldn't break free, her opponent's magic broke down, but it was endlessly healing. Yet she didn't feel like she could burn out the mage's mana.

What she was amazed about was how beautiful he was fighting. Using pure technique, he seemed to exceed her battle intuition and her swords were unable to scratch him till her speed and power exceeded the next minute.

Her heart pulsed once more, the regenerated Tapewyrm squashed, and its nutrients distributed.

She was careful with this Core Skill of hers nowadays. Whenever Red was in charge, her Core Skill had long passively kept her at peak state. The only build-up of power now came from her Sword Art alone.

But her Core Skill merely mutated, its original effect changed but didn't disappear.

The only difference was that she was now pumped with gluttony as her stomach grumbled and everything moving looked like edible sustenance to her.

Red gulped. She was so tempted to lick the blood that didn't evaporate on her blades.

But no, Black didn't allow them to dirty their body with unclean blood of unknown origins.

It seemed like her opponent noticed her temporary instability and he took full advantage of it.

Gravity and the almost solid mana grabbed her body as if to prevent her from turning into flames and escaping. He swung to decapitate her. She saw it coming but didn't move to parry it.

Blood seeped over her blades, as they stabbed and pierced into the man's chest.

Voracious teeth made of blood chomped on the man's internals. She might not want to eat the unknown individual, but her swords didn't have that concern.

Her emotional perception didn't pick up any concern or reaction from the pain that would've been natural from a creature taking such an attack.

But oddly, her heart hurt from stabbing him. This mental influence that made their opponent feel calm or even reflect emotional distress from attacking him was likely another protective measure.

Intent burned the pain away.

Scarlet's neck split, the mana didn't stop her from transmuting, merely making sure her flames didn't scatter and reform her body elsewhere. After the large blade passed through, she merely reattached the flames and reformed her neck.

'He has strong regeneration too?' Red had pilfered the Vitality through her twin swords to make sure regeneration was stopped or at least affected but her target was capable of regenerating his heart from nothing.

What an amazing creature she found.

Feeling something cold on her neck, she touched it by pulling one of her swords out.

'Fire?' She couldn't suppress the growing blue flame on her neck, it kept growing in size and volume of mana.

Her very life force was being frozen. Sealed might be more accurate.

A new Blood Hao was cast around her neck and it spun with great speeds but it was barely doing anything other than having its life force frozen and sealed inwards.

That's when Red felt Athena coming behind.

"Don't interfere %&$*^&$"

Black cursed when they couldn't even call 'Athena' out.

Scarlet's Intuition spiked up, this was bad, extremely bad. Bullet time hit and she saw the man casually casting a random fire spell to toss at Athena.

It will probably kill Athena nearly instantly.

Could the Piglet protect her?

No, would she protect Athena?

This won't do, this man needs to die immediately.

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