'I wonder what the Soldier looks like. If it's from the same biome, perhaps an Ark-whatever with earth-metal elemental reinforced scales and multiple tails or long appendages.'

"Do you know about this Soldier of yours?" He questioned Hex.

"This place was left to develop naturally. However, a creature does come to mind from our harvesters' previous few collections. Far south, there is a desert continent past an ocean. I believe the prominent creatures there are mineral and ore-based, and thanks to early over-harvesting, death is prevalent there. There is a high chance this 'Soldier' is a form of golem or undead." Hex replied.

"Any chance of it being an Elemental? I read that Elementals are birthed on nearly every Worldcore and are usually among the strongest."

"None. All of Worldcore's Elementals are under our employ. They manage the biomes and environments wherever they are and have long been extricated from the Worldcore's Essence."

"How did you do that? Elementals require the natural, ambient elements to level and grow. And survive. Aren't they the cleaners of a Worldcore?" Ebony heard an interesting piece of information without paying for once.

"Secret."

"Money?"

"Let's say you won't accumulate enough in a million years unless you evolve and continue to grow at your pace for another the next few centuries. Or get extremely lucky once."

"Got it." He was just called poor in a different manner. 'This God of Knowledge puts a price on everything. I need to study the power of money more than I was prepared for.'

"…please don't speak of the Gods so casually."

"Did they just read my mind and complain about it?"

"That is nonsensical. No, but with the Medallion. They can at least notice when you are referring to Them." Hex denied the accusation.

"This Medallion, it's somehow reading everything about me, isn't it?" Ebony had his doubts about this Medallion that his portable module of Hex is circling.

"…We bear a message. 'No, We dare not.', end of message." Hex curtly stopped all their tiny lights from moving around the Medallion before repeating what they heard.

The next few internal minutes, he annoyed Hex by asking about the Rime Tribe over and over again. His physical body riding baby Orca while papa Orca took Vent away. Speeding back to the campsite.

None of them were in a state to take on or even escape a Saint.

'My stealth isn't good enough to hide from the Worldcore we're on. Does it even have perception abilities? I doubt it has traditional sight, sensing me by mana would be obvious enough. Should be using this 'Soldier' or monsters full of its essence to 'see', just like a dungeon using their spawned creatures as their sets of eyes. Hiding should still be on the table.' His Scout Pigeon looked back at the liquid nitrogen river.

'We could make use of that box, but I have too little information on what it does or how it works.' He was of the mindset that if the box or its contents couldn't kill him, it would do little to a higher being.

"No luck waking Vent?" He questioned the adult Chilblain Orcas.

They whined back in annoyance.

As for his partner, he knew she was awake but acting asleep while seated in front of him. She snuggled back as much as she could and rubbed her head against his face.

Attacking back, he whispered, "Once we reach, should we move or stay still and prepare a defensive?"

"Go back where we came from. The assault team has already arrived and is tracking us down." Red wouldn't place her personal comfort ahead of their safety, but she continued to act asleep.

"Can we win with them?" Ebony knew a full group of Emperors was part of his hired security team.

"I don't know. Probably not at the moment. Both of us need to be back to peak, and I can't get a good grasp of the team captain's strength." Red breath turned hot from her internal enhancements rising.

"How about Vent? Has your Intuition about him changed?" Ebony had third-hand knowledge that Vent went to pick a fight with a Saint. A monster of the same rank should at least be in the same ballpark of threat to Vent, right?

"Yes, far beyond what I can perceive now." She didn't feel any attack on her pride when she said that. They used to be too young and weak to perceive Vent properly, but her current assessment was

"I suppose." He gave a thoughtless reply while using Mana Discern more intently.

"I can't take it much longer." Her light whisper tickled his ears.

"Take what?"

"I don't smell your scent on me anymore. I'm in pain…"

'The toxins and radiation mixed with the odd Will got through?' He didn't panic and assumed her nose wasn't in good condition. This was already beyond their recovery.

So he took out one of the many potions they got as part of their wedding gifts. Since none of the Xengs were good at healing, they sourced only the greatest potions, but 'great' was subjective when it comes to potions. It needed to be catered to the person's Physique, not just their extremely high effective Constitution.

'Legendary Worldcore's natural environment is deadly enough for us. At this rate, I can ignore it for another few weeks before I get weakened by the environment and sooner or later die if my body doesn't adapt fast enough.' They were adaptive, with their bodies gaining resistance relatively fast due to their regeneration, but it was far from absolute.

Ebony wanted to stay here for longer periods.

Alas, only so much training took precedence over his life.

"Disgusting…I need flavour to wake up." She groaned at the potion.

She peeked with an eye open to catch a curl on his lips before shutting them when the flavour of his lips came. 'Urgh, need to put some rules down….' Red thought when she got overexcited by the intimacy. There was only so much Black could hold back for her, and Ebony already misunderstood what she meant by not smelling him or being in pain. Her meditation skill had too much fuel and couldn't burn it fast enough.

A spike of danger annoyed her even further. 'I'm in the middle of something!' She forced herself to push the face away from hers. The sudden loss of contact made her feel a sense of loss, but made what's left behind taste even sweeter. Sweeter than honey.

"Hunker down, wake Vent up." Red sat up and stopped fooling around since she wasn't getting the attention she desired.

Dusk absorbed Scout Pigeons one after the other, retrieving as much mana and Will as they could. The crystals were gathered by gravity and put into Ebony's pockets and bracelet.

"That's some impressive volume of essence," Ebony reported a gradual rise in overflowing life force and mana, stamina was a back burner as usual and didn't affect any of them.

Feeling the weight on their shoulders, knees and mind rise, he didn't need to tell his ragtag group that something was coming.

"Grade 2 Saint." A fresh voice interrupted.

"Good morning, Vent."

"Good day to you too. I believe you got me out? My---in the river…" Vent patted himself down after waking up without getting confused by the situation.

"Sorry about that, that was me. I can pick it up." Ebony apologised for rudely tossing someone else's belongings into a river.

"No need to trouble yourself. I can't use it at the moment, we have something more important to deal with now. Undead abomination. Aerial…no, those bone wings are an add-on hastily to give it flight. Skeletal."

"Tch. Bone soup or stew.. I prefer meat….' Xin clicked her tongue.

"How can a Saint be Grade 2?" Ebony questioned.

"The general understanding is a reset after evolution from Emperor onwards due to the large discrepancies from individual to individual. Even more so for Higher Beings who have long life spans. Pretty much all freshly evolved Saints, no matter the race, are considered Grade 1 or lower in comparison, regardless of their skill set and overall Tiers. There are many exceptions. But for a monster, this one is not young."

"Can you see it already?"

"Tier 6 Vision-based skill. Do you have a Domain present? It's coming with a target in mind, all of us. I'll start attacking." Vent rowed his shoulders to warm up from his hibernation.

Miss Wiggles gulped.

None of them even saw a target yet.

Vent spawned or pulled out his bow from his spatial storage and had it drawn.

The Orcas shook Ebony and Xin off, Papa and Mama Orca supported one of Vent's feet each while baby Orca was under both Orcas.

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Xin covered her ears with her hands before the first snapping shockwave shook the very ambient Will apart.

Unable to see an arrow or the bow string, they were seeing a flashing shadow pull back and release.

A blue string shot up, only thousands of kilometres away did the 'string' begin to parabola down.

'is that a bow or a water gun?' The long 'string' was one arrow chasing the last, but they were fired so fast it looked like a stream was connected from Vent's bow.

"Grade 2 defence, we can't kill it as we are." Vent reported as if he had already hit the target.

"Would these be of use?" Ebony pointed to the fruits growing from the Turtle Fort that they were already under. Except for Vent, who was still in the air.

"That's a lot of mana and life force….I see your combined spell. Yes, they will do better than the arrows I have on hand. Let me see how much force they can take."

Ebony repelled a plum bomb they've prepared to Vent's direction. He grabbed it and put some grip strength in. "Good, it will reach. Pass them all to me. Your Will can denote them outside your range?"

Vent untied a rope from his waist and used his mana to tie all 5 full-powered plum bombs they made in the past few days to a single wooden arrow that carried mist on the arrowhead.

"Yes, it'll know when to explode."

Vent bit the wooden arrow between his teeth and set a different arrow on his bowstring, aiming up to the skies instead of his previous straight shot. "Ending Mist. Winter's Commencement. First Snow."

'Interesting...his voice is embedding Will into his mana. Is that how chanting gives a spell more strength?' Ebony didn't think Vent was the type to say move names out loud, but he could tell its purpose immediately.

"Join me, that's our prey. Hit any mist pockets, each one would transfer your attacks to an arrow I've embedded in our prey."

Vent doesn't miss a beat. He seemed ready for a hunt since the moment he opened his eyes from hibernation.

Their eyes were stuck staring at the sky with tens of thousands of mist bubbles.

'Did he already land that many arrows in the Soldier? Now that's an archer if I ever saw one.' Ebony had seen more mage-worthy Frost Elves than archers. Mist space portals or damage transferring arrow takes the cake.

The Orcas were already preparing their combined spells since they knew what their master could do, but Ebony and Xin didn't take long to understand.

"Shall we-" Ebony shut himself up when he saw Xin already lobbing a fiery blood lance into a seemingly random mist bubble her Intuition told her to target.

"Vitality Pilfer works! An undead's life force is weird! Disgusting, I can't purify it for use or consumption. Its bones must be rotten…"

Instead of using his mist pockets, Vent shot the arrow with their plum bombs into the distance.

Ebony had Dusk in hand, running his Will and mana through to form a simple non-Skill spell.

A fireball.

He skipped too many steps with his spell casting. The basics of a fire spell, a ball of fire. Only cold instead of hot.

They were mostly prepared for their next evolution, but he still had properties of his frost flames that he was experimenting on. With more practice, he would make Fortifications cheaper in terms of the natural potential used. One could never be overprepared.

Target practice wasn't very exciting. They had no idea if they were making a dent or doing anything worthwhile with their energy.

Ebony didn't even know if his plum bombs hurt their target. It was so far away that they were out of his Will Relay Buffer's range, and no information could be sent back. If the plums detonated, there would be no more Will to send a message back by now, so Ebony was clueless about what was out of range.

'Doesn't feel like space magic, not a trace of that element. Our spells are eaten by the mist and brought away? There is a time delay. So there is physical transportation, no spatial tunnel. But it's even eating Miss Wiggle's gravity vortex shot, and mine too. So gravity can't affect this mist?'

"It's crossing the ocean now." Vent didn't stop adding new mist pockets with old ones disappearing. The target is probably removing them as they spoke.

"…You mean, it hasn't even left the continent it was from?" Ebony thought the rise in essence told him of the nearby creature.

'Are we even close to an ocean?' Thinking about it more, he shouldn't be too surprised. A King would have skill levels over a thousand if evolved properly. A Tier 6 Vision-based skill would give an Archer whatever he wanted to see, even if Ebony didn't know the specifics.

"Your spell is pretty destructive. It took time, but it broke one of its wings. Hmm, are those allies?"

"If there's a Toddium Captain, yes."

"I see. Good. He seems to have decent strength."

Ebony released the Toddium brothers from their seal but not their protection, to report the situation to their leader.

They spent the next half an hour lobbing attacks, including physical attacks. Everyone but Ebony needed to conserve mana for body enhancement magic. He was very intrigued in the mist pockets that could even absorb physical blows, store the attack and transfer the attack somehow.

A team of 4 dog-eared people and 2 more Toddiums rushed over on a vehicle. Wearing the same style of space suit as Azeloth and Aethel. The dog-earred people were humans, not even different enough to be considered Sub-Humans. They wore the same style of space suit, but not the same type, as they didn't need to accommodate for their non-existent slime.

The vehicle they sat on looked oddly like a saucer, very similar to how a UFO is usually depicted on Earth. The assault force's vehicle was made for speed.

Ejected out of the vehicle one by one, the bodyguards he hired rolled into action.

"I got the report, I'll deal with you two later." The Toddium Captain was the first to land within his Domain. "Frost Elf, pleasure to meet you. Didn't think I would ever meet one of your people in my life."

Vent nodded in return before resting his bow and arm by his side. "I will reinforce this Domain to one of Winter, it will arrive in approximately 2 hours."

"Escape?" The Toddium Captain asked what he thought was an obvious choice.

"Grade 2 Saint, can your ship outrun that?" Vent answered with another question, but his curiosity was real.

"It can match a Grade 1 in overdrive for one standard day. So no. Hmm….what is your opinion, Sir Frost Elf?" Despite not knowing Vent personally, the Captain was being very respectful with his tone and body language.

"We can't kill it now. But I believe we can make it turn tail." Vent said seriously.

"With this party?"

"Yes. Ebony, will you be our defence and support?"

"Mmm. How big is our target?" Ebony needed to know if he should expand his Domain for his aura, gravity and sound to suppress opponents. Even if it might not change the outcome since it was not effective enough against the Orcas, it would still be better with than without.

He found it almost funny how an Emperor-ranked Ark Elmpeld could be placed to the ground just from magnified gravity and the weight of his mana temporarily, but a King Orca could still fight at greater powers than Ebony himself within his Domain.

"About the same size as your turtle statue, with the tree."

'The Domain can remain the same size.' Ebony then felt like puking when foreign Will tried to hold Dusk up figuratively.

'Is this how the Elves stack their Wills together to form a Domain? I don't like it. Feels like adding impurities to what is me, to become more than me. I suppose that's the whole point for the Elven territories.' Ebony decided to take this as an experience. Besides, Dusk was currently too weak, so he wasn't against some support.

At least Vent wasn't fusing or mixing their Will, just adding some foundation for Dusk to stand on.

"A suppression-focused Domain, as expected from your main elements. A shame our power is insufficient to slay the undead…"

"Sir—" The Toddium Captain interrupted Vent's internal hunting assessment.

"Vent."

"Sir Vent. Are you aware of its—rule?" The Toddium Captain hiccupped unnaturally.

"Possibly the basic for Undeads. Undying. If not, then something to do with the sand element, but only one of the two or a very weak version combined."

"It's gonna be troublesome if it's Grade 2 Undying focused." The Toddium Captain frowned. Ebony was pretty sure that was a frown, but he was still new to their biological features, and he had barely learned about humans, so he could be wrong about toad expressions.

"Shields up!" Vent shouted for their benefit, but his Will already pushed Dusk to summon as many turtle shells as they could.

'Sandblasting?' Ebony felt his mana dwindle furiously as the wall of turtle shell was 'melting'. The Soldier finally got them within its range.

"We need to survive 2 hours of this?" Aethel's jaw dropped.

Tiny sand particles got through and peppered holes into all of them.

The assault team unleashed their own defensive skills and equipment abilities.

Xin let the sand particles pepper her as flames spawned where the sand hit, she was unharmed while letting glass shards pass.

Miss Wiggles opened her mouth wide and sucked in the sand while the Orca's mana skin absorbed and dissolved the sand particles.

They became glass particles through his vibrational mana armour and pushed a millimetre into his Mantle of Reservation before they shot out. 'Xin's Intent managed to make my Will understand what to let through or not. Should be working fine now.' He watched his spell over Xin rather than himself.

Ebony and Dusk layered the shields up as fast as they could, but they weren't faster than the increasing intensity of the sandblasting.

'It's a bit weak.' He honestly thought so.

No matter the distance, he was prepared to be wiped out by any ambush. But his shields were resisting successfully.

The sandblasting came from piercing one layer of Mantle of Reservation to two, passing through his liquid mana layer twice and dozens of ice turtle shell layers. They shattered on impact with his skin due to his vibrational reflection, not much of a threat.

'Is the mist and natural environment also interrupting this sandblasting?' The large area of effect spell had a wide spread across the entire forest, so that must have weakened the attack. The frozen mist from the fancy box touching the nitrogen river was surprisingly not blown away. The frozen mist continued to be released from the river. It was unknowingly helping to spread the sandblast across a larger area.

The Captain's cheeks bloated up twice his body's size, and he spat slime out of their Domain.

'I guess these Emperors' attack can reach.' Ebony wasn't even seeing a target yet, but at least he knew the direction thanks to the sandblasting.

Using his edited Resonant Battle Hymn that no longer copied a song or its lyrics, he played his Will to vibrate according to his wishes of strengthening his allies' Intelligence and Constitution.

They got a bit uncomfortable when the forceful, hyper-compressed jelly mana entered their stream without their consent. Only Vent, the bodyguard captain and vice-captain, could actively resist, but they allowed his mana through.

The dog-eared vice-captain was an older gentleman with grey hair. Ebony had known him since they'd sparred once on the ship after he found the man to be a martial artist. The man stood there with his hands behind his back since he wasn't a ranged fighter. Ever so composed at the threat of a monster Saint coming. He was quite the fearsome close-range combatant to be against.

Even with Ebony's Phantasmal Shade Sovereign Arts, tricking the man with a Shade was impossible but overwhelming the man was simple enough. As experienced as he was, his adaptability was on the weaker side. Getting shoulder-tackled and hip-checked too many times to count, the older martial artist seemed to forget that every part of the human body was a weapon.

'Good on mana Dusk?' He connected through his mindspace.

"The buffers we've placed are supporting a good portion of our defensive spells but our pool is dipping and consumption is accelerating."

"Let us handle it bossman!" One of the dog-eared human bodyguards cracked his neck from stretching.

"A Legendary beast, I haven't fought one, but a monster is still just a monster."

The confidence from his hired team was comforting to have.

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