Scarlet flew low and saw Azeloth leaping after her at an impressive pace.

Her sense of smell and Intuition mixed already told her where the other strongest creature in the vicinity was, so she didn't need to go too fast. Besides, even at maximum speed, she might not be able to throw Azeloth off quickly. They weren't the weakest of Emperors and had proper guidance from a prior generation so it was expected they had reasonable enhancement to their physique outside of mere Fortifications and skills.

Even comparing bloodline, both were born from a pair of Emperors, just like her and Ebony. Their baseline traits shouldn't be much lower, unlike most of the Elcrians.

Following her she could ignore, but the damn frog dared to spit his slime ahead and hit her target before she even began her hunt?!

'Enemy!' Red felt a little blinded before the owl on her shoulder pecked her mask, sending both mana and Will to surround her. Not that it could pierce her Intent but at least she noticed she wasn't being herself.

This creature was also scaled, and it had multiple tail-like appendages. It was quadrupedal, like the Ark Elmpeld, with a long neck. Both species held many similarities, but this one was a little larger, 4 metres long and just under 3 metres tall, with its tails being thrice as long.

She sent ranged thrusts forward, but her body lunged to land her next strike at the same time the pressure from her sword thrust arrived on target.

The clang of metal and rock grated before sparks spread. 'Hard even under its joints….'

She laid upon a dozen strikes on the same spot within this thought, but they barely left a scratch mark, and neither heat nor lightning went through either.

Blood magic was always under the suppression of a creature's magic body. Until she got her blood into her target's bloodstream, it was not easy to meddle and manipulate another creature's blood directly.

She would have trouble even against a Journeyman now, and only the unclassed had little resistance to her blood magic. At least until they were invaded by her blood.

'Even its eyelid is covered by a shiftable exoskeleton… what is it exposed to to evolve this way?' She slowly shut Ebony's Will away. He was taking the fun out of fighting a new creature.

Azeloth caught up and arrived in the air by spinning like a top with a greataxe she didn't see earlier. With the creature's attention caught by her, Azeloth landed his skill on one of the appendages hit by his spit slime.

Watching the tail-like appendage a metre thick and heavily defended by these scales, get lopped off in one strike she wondered what she was doing wrong. But not for long, it wasn't hard to deduce the slime having a destructive or weakening effect.

Her physical stat lost to Azeloth, but not her physical strength after her augmentation. Admittedly, he had far higher producible strength after his active skills activated. The effect of skill levels wasn't something she could cover with pure stats between someone who's a proper Emperor and herself as a Grandmaster.

Barely able to differentiate foe from friend, she focused on the injured creature first, but her immediate attempts to poke at the cut limb to dig her sword and blood into the creature were stomped out by another layer of scale.

The earth and metal mana sealed the injuries so fast!

The owl on her shoulder left before she knew.

The only thing left in her view was the prey that thought itself predator.

Her view saw flashes and shadows of the incoming appendages stabbing towards her. Twin swords reacting to the slowed view, she fended off the tail stabs along the ridges of the layers of scales. Digging her feet into the ground when the stab pushed her back, her wings flapped hard to counterbalance the force.

Parrying and deflecting each tail stab that increased her Sword Art's strength and speed, her body was placed under the pressure of the powerful blows too fast to redirect all its force.

Her sight turned hazy over time as she was locked onto the spot, seeing possible hits with Intent, slow-moving hits coming soon and the view of the present whenever the force knocked her senses back to real time.

So hazy she was that her Intuition kicked in a moment too late when the creature used its shortened and injured tail to come in at her torso from the side.

Cracking her ribs and sending her sideways, her body transmuted but still forced to scatter over a kilometre away before she reformed back where her upper body and mask were.

With her Sword Art combo destroyed, the built-up strength and speed were reset.

The pain gave her a moment of clarity. 'Why isn't it coming?'

She looked into the distance and raised her brow, 'it's panting?' She figured the beast had some sort of acceleration going on to keep up with her Sword Art's acceleration, but they barely exchanged blows for a minute.

Regardless of the Conditioning or the new monster, she wasn't able to let the opportunity go to waste.

Her charge was met with a timely block with two appendages, preventing its open mouth from being stabbed. But the block faltered for a moment, and she felt it push back ever so slightly.

It swiped her up, and she backflipped before swinging a wave of fire over. The exhausted state of the creature gave it slip and allowed her to sneak under it to send another flaming swing up before it shifted and clawed at her.

Over and under, she danced across the scaled beast while it swiped with its claws and appendages to put her down or parry her swings. It wasn't nearly as nimble once she took off the ground, but it showed surprising deftness with its moves against a smaller opponent.

Its scales turned red hot but maintained their structure throughout the roasting, however, its panting built up faster and faster.

A low endurance beast, which needed to breathe had a clear weakness. It was strong externally, so she just had to burn it internally.

'I have to be careful here or I'll overcook its meat.' Due to her obsession, it took over 6 minutes to take the beast down. It was cooked, so she had to use the meat in a different type of dish. She was considering a soup since she didn't season the meat while cooking it.

Staring at her twin blades, she got fire spit at her when considering if she should lace them with salt covered with her life force to prevent melting or dissolving. Since they were bonded to her and her mask, they knew exactly what she felt, especially when she was thinking of them.

"Heh, Ebony has infected us into thinking battles last longer than they should." She had been so confused when the creature panted that she forgot, fights usually don't last long.

Even if they did get stronger, it was not uncommon for fights to end within minutes if not seconds.

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Ebony couldn't wrap his head around it but the more strength and mental power one had, the more people and creatures spent them in a powerful move or two. He tries, obviously from how mana-intensive some, if not all, of his spells are.

Thanks to him, she had a ridiculous energy capacity and no way to exhaust herself explosively without killing herself.

Allowing her husband's mental hands to envelop her again, she noticed the owl and Azeloth watching silently nearby. Her nose scrunched up for a split second, 'don't land on another shoulder but mine….' That was too petty of Black, and Red wasn't so childish as to voice that out.

When she closed the distance between them, the owl evaporated and the ore zipped into her hands. "Ah, I haven't cooled down.'

Azeloth's protective suit saved his skin. Heat was one of the most basic dangers after all.

"You're pretty good huh?" She pat the shorter person's shoulder and bent down to meet his eyes.

The pent-up emotions Black tossed to her and to go somewhere and the roasted prey behind her just didn't have the stamina.

"Uhm…just alright ma'am." His shoulder tightened when she closed in with her blades still drawn.

"Have some confidence." She saw no other target at the moment.

❅❅❅

'How do I get a planet to shut up?' Ebony pondered very seriously.

It wasn't an organic creature. Its body was technically the seas, the earth and the skies.

To his knowledge, it wouldn't feel pain.

'This area is silent and the mana density is a few times lower.' Ebony moved one of his Numbers to take over the Scout Pigeon down south.

"A dungeon. Right, dungeons parasite on Worldcores." Three made a realization.

"That's a good reminder and all but it's not like we can increase the number of dungeons nor can we make them more of a nuisance for the planet." Seven shrugged.

"But I can." Ebony listened to their Will transfer conversation.

"Ah. Are you sure you should?" Seven immediately understood his idea without any sharing.

"Xin's uncomfortable."

"Let's find another dungeon to make a base, it'll be quieter. Hopefully that means her Intuition feels less hostility. Then we'll work on this Epic-ranked dungeon."

Five attached himself onto one of the Explorer Wolves caught by a dozen Snow Mangoes.

His body melted around the vines and escaped the clutches of the plants while sonic vibrations pulsed through every vine in range. The phantom figure's limbs swiped across the small field. Five's attacking arms snapped together and transformed back into the chomp of an Explorer Wolf.

Chomp. Dash. Chomp. Dash.

They gathered all but two Snow Mangoes within their bellies and continued on their journey. It was a monster plant and not a normal ingredient, so they had to be sealed. They were only King-ranked or Epic rarity fruits, but they could still serve as snacks or dessert.

'I'll send them back. Don't want them getting bruised.' Five commented, creating a few large Scout Pigeons within the Wolves' belly and sending them out of the ice body with the Snow Mangoes in a package. The separate ice constructs divided like a water droplet smoothly exiting a body of water.

That initiative had Ebony doing the same for all Scouts and Explorers that already harvested some fruits and wild vegetables or the handful of small monsters that attacked unprovoked.

With his staff, controlling and conjuring a thousands of Scout Pigeons was made easier.

Since they had a fraction of a point of Will imbued while being the carrier of a Will Relay Buffer they did not need complete control at all times. With some triggers that would notify his mental attention was all they required before he could manually control them.

The Scout Pigeons could be destroyed rather easily because of their lack of reaction and inability to cast many spells.

The Explorer Wolves were made of 2 points of Will each; they were more reactive and were able to utilize more of his spells at any time. This was how much Will he decided was enough for a Number to be sent in times of danger. If they had to go further, the amount of Will he made them with would be higher so that it could survive till the entirety of a Number was sent.

All of the constructs, including the Turtle Forts, technically didn't have a Will limit, they just needed a bigger vessel if the volume of Will he wanted to imbue into them increased.

At the same time, none of them could cast his Domain but he could link up to them through the Will Relay Buffer and cast their Domain over an extravagant mana and Will consumption. This was also limited by the rate of mana and Will the Buffers could transfer without breaking.

Due to these needs, he placed another bulk order on crystals for his Will Relay Buffer.

His Conditioning and general mana expenditure recently had made him poor again. Booking a 3-kilometre-long ship and its entire crew wasn't exactly affordable.

By the time Xin returned with Azeloth had smoke rising from his slimy body, he found another dungeon. One with a blue portal that should have the strongest monster at Grandmaster rank. So he guided the group to the campsite he decided on.

"It's dialed back." Xin nodded in confirmation of his speculations.

"ITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHYITCHY" Was all he heard around the dungeon, while the Epic dungeon area's mutterings were louder and more annoyed.

Having scouted over ten thousand kilometres in every direction, he stopped the expansion and combined the Pigeons into Wolves and the Wolves into Turtle Forts. This was enough distance for them to get ready for threats that may come from outside the range. Besides, Xin's Intuition had a questionable range that highly depended on the degree of danger or otherwise.

"So you've already found out how to silence it?"

"Just an idea around the dungeons. Parasites."

"Alright, I'll be resting. You should recover too."

Having spent all their mana against the Void Tardigrade, he did need to recover. Fighting the Ark Elmpeld with only regenerated mana took some time and effort.

The other 3 or 4, if Miss Wiggles was included, recovered during the meal preparation and meal itself. He didn't have the chance earlier.

Spawning so many scouts didn't exactly help his mana conservation.

Dusk, now embodying his staff, would share a name since they couldn't separate. He inserted Dusk into the thin layer of snowy ground and had it grow a tree around them.

It shouldn't take more than half a day before they could recreate Dusk and its seemingly indestructible runic tree form again. A tree sprouted almost instantaneously. It was standard procedure for shields and fortifications at natural density when low on mana before slowly compressing it to their limits.

However, even uncompressed, Dusk's original body was overly stacked with runes and took time to mould. With Dusk's current lack of Will, only the small fraction that wouldn't be erased with time or wasn't absorbed by the staff remaining, Ebony had to manually help the formation of this construct.

Putting aside his mental simulations to help speed this up, now he realized how the collective of his Will made Dusk's stacking runes. It was pure repetition, gruesome work.

Having seen Azeloth's capabilities, Ebony had all his Apparitions stop moving to conserve mana and just act as sensors while they recovered. The two Toddium bodyguards did their jobs and patrolled despite their lack of mana. Ebony shared part of his aura to speed their mana and stamina regeneration.

With his Mireloom developed, his mana pool wasn't something he could fill up as fast as he used to, and he wasn't in excess now, so he had to manually push out mana to help the Toddiums heal.

Speaking of healing, he also sealed Xin's arms and the area on her torso surrounding her rib cage injury. It was taking surprisingly long to heal.

'Toxins entered her bloodstream and she fell asleep to fight it or escape the pain while her body gains resistance?' Ebony knew that the creatures here had powers of poison or toxins. The meat they ate was prepared well, but her injury was caused by a living opponent.

Sitting in the bomb shelter of Dusk's temporary body, he placed her head on his lap while he got Dusk up to speed.

Mana conservation being key, none of his constructs moved and scouted. All his mental processing power was rebuilding Dusk so he couldn't go into a trance. Not that he had to, he was meditating even now.

There was nothing better to do than to sneak a peek under the mask and caress her head while she slept.

She had an intense fever in the middle of her restful sleep for about 3 minutes before it died down and her complexion returned to normal. Her body must have gained resistance already.

"Stop it. Too much affection. I won't be able to hold back." She suddenly opened her piercing eyes to complain before she went back to sleep.

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