The Dragon Goat was lured with a can of half-opened Spam.

Uncle and niece located a sheltered space between two crags, Transmuted a thin ledge, and then set up their Portable Habitat. Once they were snug and secure, a length of Everlong String and a can of processed meat managed to isolate a wandering goat looking to forage.

When the bleating omnivore came close enough to the entrance, an ambushing Caliban in its spider guise materialised from its Invisible pretence and pierced the creature with its foreclaws.

"Shaa-shaa!" Caliban deposited dinner at Gwen's feet, waving its scythe-like limbs.

"Thanks, Cali." Gwen patted her pet's head, careful to avoid the forelimbs.

They were outside the house proper, in the grey zone that extended twenty-odd meters in a radius around the bungalow. The pocket dimension had been empowered to afford extra storage, though anything outside the dwelling was stowed at the owner's own risk.

"I am going to show you how to dress your kill," Jun instructed Caliban to hang up the goat. "But first…"

Jun held out a bowl and collected the blood.

"A pint of the fabled heart-blood of a Draconic-something. It'll be _fortifying_. Go on."

Gwen stared at the bloody gloop in horror.

"I'll pass."

Jun wagged a finger at her picky eating.

"You down a full-sized healer kicking and screaming, and now you're squeamish about drinking some blood? Just think of it as medicine."

Gwen had no retorts. She took the bowl, held her nose, and then slammed the shot like a Bloody Mary.

To her surprise, the blood did not taste too disagreeable. If anything, it had a hint of oxidising iron in an old factory. The flavour was a strange synaesthesia, nostalgic too; the blood's olfactory stimulus reminded her of the abandoned St James Station in Sydney, with its rusted rails.

As with the Queen Bee, Gwen soon felt a heat roaring in her torso. Hopefully, it was the fire of vitality and not the water of dysentery.

"We'll have as many pints as it takes for the diminishing return to hit." Jun nodded happily, drinking a bowl himself. "Oof! That's the stuff."

After a few more bowls, they got down to work.

"Alright, Caliban, take the hind legs. Yep. Just like that. Now spread them. Good. Forelegs too. Very good. Okay, Gwen, you're up."

As a born and bred city girl, Gwen wasn't entirely sure what dressing an animal involved, though she could guess it didn't include bowties.

By now, the Dragon-Goat was mercifully deceased. Caliban held the goat like a rack, rearing on its hind legs by locking its chitin-plated joints. The carcass was thus splayed like a cheerleader jumping in mid-air, in the likeness, _"gimme an X!"_

Jun passed Gwen a bowie-knife.

"Cut here and here."

Gwen sawed away, striking sparks.

Jun raised an eyebrow.

"Tough customer. Alright, draw me a mote of Void onto your fingertips."

Gwen concentrated for a second, then carefully raised a stark-white finger with a dash of darkness at its extremity.

"Try again."

She did as she was told, with Jun giving the instructions slowly and meticulously. Where her fingers touched, the skin and flesh quickly fell apart. The unconventional use of her element gave Gwen an idea, though the execution of it was a little terrifying to entertain.

"Right. So, the belly and bowel contents are high in contaminants and must be removed promptly to avoid contaminating the flesh. The body's organs need to be removed as soon as possible. Yes, that means everything from the throat to the anus."

Gwen held back her Military Rations as bundles of stuff emerged, splattering the ground with obscene noises.

"You see that? That's a scent gland. Mature male goats and deer have pungent scent glands. Do you see those? Balls. You don't think an animal of this size would have balls bigger than its brains, no? That tells you a lot about these Dragon Goats, hahaha."

Her uncle's jocular manner made her both pale-faced from the gore and blushing from the brusqueness. Indeed, the Dragon Goat's member was like a bloody eel.

Before Gwen could riposte her uncle's ill humour, Ariel dashed from the porch, snatched up the foot-long wang, and then fled.

"Ariel!" Gwen felt a rush of blood reddening her face; she willed a jolt of Conjuration mana into compelling Ariel's obedience. "For fuck's sake!"

"Ahahaha! It looks like your mongoose has a craving for snakes!"

"Arrrgh! Ariel—!"

* * *

Her uncle took over sentry duty, gifting Gwen the opportunity for a good night's sleep. As Caliban was an existential insomniac, Gwen instructed the creature to keep Jun company.

She found that whenever Jun patted the void-serpent, she could feel a phantom sensation upon her Astral Body. The strangeness kept her from sleeping, like a caress in her bones that she couldn't scratch, subtle but infinitely distracting.

When morning finally came, she felt more tired than ever, while Jun appeared fully refreshed.

"Blood not agreeing with you? I heard it could act like caffeine for some people."

"Something like that." Gwen had to rinse and gargle multiple times; her morning breath may be because of the blood, but more likely, her restlessness was to blame.

When the two re-emerged, the rising sun had cast a deep shadow across the valley, punctuated by geometric rays of burnishing coral which lit the peaks with fiery contours. Gwen found the splendour breathtaking until the cloud banks rolled in, making the majestic surreal. The valley's temperature, especially before it could receive the sun's consecration, was single-digits at best. Cooling currents of elemental air and water thus flowed down the mountain, epic streams of lazy mana, pooling and congealing, swirling in eddies and streams until they reached the bottom, collecting into the Sky Lake.

"Magnificent." Gwen had seen Life of Pi in IMAX, but the view exceeded even that.

"Yeah." Her uncle stood beside her, happy and refreshed. "Alright. Let's buff up! Fresh crystals for all your gear."

* * *

As they marked a perimeter for their hunt, the duo placed teleportation beacons here and there for insurance.

"I suggest we proceed opportunistically," Jun suggested, satisfied that they had several routes of escape planned. "The goats and the small fauna will help, accumulatively at least. A little draconic Essence here and there. Even a mosquito has meat if you're eager enough. Wen said there should be diminishing returns on your Consume; I say let's find out its limits."

The duo's ultimate target was the deer herd.

As expected, the Thunder Deers were guarded by a massive buck the size of a people-mover van. In addition to emitting AOE Lightning, it made a cacophonic noise when charging, creating a thunderclap on impact. Gwen had witnessed one such attack when a civet-like predator tried to have a go at a fawn. The resultant sound from the stag was like rolling thunder, echoing from cliff to cliff, refracting from the surface of the Sky Lake.

Their secondary target was the Dragon Carp. A voracious, vicious and mindlessly species willing to eat anything. Watching the dumb fish, Jun figured that they could likely fish one by using Ariel as bait.

"EEEEeee?!" Ariel presented itself eagerly, happy to serve.

Her innocent pet had eaten half of the goat member, forever losing its innocence. When she made it vomit, the bitten parts were gone as though atomised.

"Both of your Familiars are strange, to say the least," he noted. "Caliban's on a whole other level, of course. Ariel is likewise unusually salient, or I should say, 'invested' within the Material Realm. It has taste, it can feel, it knows pain..."

"Is that weird?"

"I am not a Master Conjurer, so I can't offer any educated advice." Jun shrugged. "But let me remind you that you ARE running a _Signature Conjure Familiar_ unique to Kilroy."

Jun's reminder made Gwen think of her deceased Master, engendering a tightness in her chest. She thought of the last time she had seen him, asleep beneath Sufina's Lifetree, presided over by the expressionless face of his eternal guardian, Master and Familiar, silent in the cold dark Grot.

Was her Conjure Familiar yet another legacy from her Master?

Her Master had drawn the Summoning Circle himself, had he not? Her Opa had likewise said the duo spared no expense. There was even a mention of Griffin blood, Powdered Mithril—

Now that Gwen had received a practical education, the remembrance astounded her. _Griffin blood?!_ Where does one acquire Royal Egyptian Griffin Blood in Australia? _Powdered Mithril?_ That stuff was from the Demi-human Dwarves, from the depth of the Glocknergruppe range, east of Brenner Pass.

_And herself?_ She had been just a fledgling Conjurer.

Now that she was educated, those medium-tier Warding Glyphs looked suspiciously like Conjuration Glyphs. According to the instructions given by Magister Birch, the ones in her memory matched that of a Twin-Radii Octogramic Summoning Circle.

An upper-tier circle formula used for a tier 1 Conjuration spell? Nothing made sense.

"Hey, focus." Her uncle nudged her. They were lurking not far from the edge of the lake, two mucky cats eyeing the fish in the pond.

"So, Ariel lures the carp when it clears the water. We'll both Alpha-Strike. I'll go for the limbs and fins; you go for the tail. We only need the head and torso. Caliban will collect, and then we'll make for Safe Point Alpha. We'll extract to Delta or Epsilon if anything goes amiss to regroup and assess."

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Yessir." Gwen performed a salute.

She ran the map locations through her head again, then commanded Ariel to go and drink.

They had earlier discovered that allowing her lightning Familiar to bathe in the hyper-condensed mana increased its constitution little by little. Were it not for the fact that the waters were filled with tier 5 Ariel-eating Carp, Gwen would have happily allowed the little furball to soak.

After a minute of Ariel's one marten, the full monty bath show, the first fish happened upon them.

_The early carp gets the weasel!_

With a burst of Elemental Air, Water and Lightning, the glassy-eyed carp emerged in its six-meter glory. The front of its body resembled a koi, while the rest resembled a predatory Arowana crossed over with a sea snake.

"Elemental Sphere!"

"Ashen Spear!"

Jun's spell struck first, executed with both finesse and precision, severing the creature's tendrils which it used for elemental attacks. The main body proved far too resistant even for Jun's penetrative potential, disabling only one of its four frontal fins.

More importantly, Jun's Negative-Energy drain filled the struggling fish with Ashen thoughts of despair and apathy.

_Whoomp!_

Gwen's Void-empowered orb imploded upon the petrified carp, striking its lower torso; first shrinking, then expanding into a two-meter sphere before erupting again as a concentric ring of necrotic ink, severing the creature in twain.

As the carp's initial momentum brought it forward, Caliban emerged, first hooking into the front half of the still writhing Dragon-Carp, then fleeing for the Safe Point Alpha.

"Gwen, you're up."

Jun informed her that it was best they save his translocation device for emergencies, meaning it fell upon Gwen to act as their Dimension Door to and from the sheltering recess of the twisting pine grove.

Once inside, her uncle checked the surroundings for danger with Ariel aided the Ash Mage by sniffing out potential adversaries while Caliban laid out their quarry.

The two Mages inspected their still-living prey.

To their relief, the Dragon-carp was a creature of lightning and air. Its eyes were glazed over, two giant yellow spheres which reflected the faces of its assailants. It opened and closed its mouth like a landed fish even though it could breathe the air as easily as it did the Elemental Water of the Sky Lake.

From lake to plate, the poachers had a window of several minutes. These Magical Carp were hardy creatures. Without Jun, Gwen would have struggled to keep her prey from fleeing into the depth. Even with two-thirds of its body missing, its Draconic constitution could likely keep it alive, mayhap even regrow its lost lower half.

"Consume!"

A fraction of the creature's elusive Essence became absorbed by Jun's amulet; the other portion by Caliban.

Gwen sat crossed-legged on the pine-needle-strewn floor, anticipating the rush. The ecstasy arrived a minute later, filling her with supernatural vitality, hitting 4 or 5 on the Nephres-Index.

As before, the pair cleaned up their murder scene, then waited.

When no pursuers appeared, they snagged a few Draconic goats, whose attraction to small furry animals scurrying for cover far exceeded their capacity to process caution and safety in numbers.

While they waited for the Thunder Deer herd, the pair continued their Ariel Dragon-noodling. There were a few close calls when the marten was nearly swallowed, but Gwen found that she could unsummon her Familiar, even if it had entered the gullet of a four-hundred-kilogram carp. Any injuries Ariel sustained quickly recovered once her pet returned to the Pocket Dimension of her spell.

The second day thus came to an end, three carps and a dozen goats stuffed into The Lurker in the Dark's limitless gullet without the slim creature showing so much as a bulge.

Caliban coughed up three fist-sized Cores of various clarity. The carps' Cores were without hosts, but at least they were lightning. On the other hand, the goats were a mixture of primary elements that made them seldom more useful than low to mid-level materials.

"Feed them to Ariel?" Jun suggested. "How desperate are you for crystals?"

"Not overly much," Gwen handed the loot to her pet. "I am flexible."

"Wait, don't feed Ariel now. What if it goes to sleep? You said that's what happened last time."

"Oh yes, of course." Gwen was reminded that Ariel had been out of action for almost a week after the eland Core. She needed her marten with her right now. Any potential boosts for her familiar would have to wait,

"The Dragon carps are dumber than I anticipated," Jun noted suspiciously once the duo retreated into their den. "You know what they remind me of?"

"Pets?" Gwen thought of the Koi she had seen in Qīn's pond.

"Cattle." Jun dug his chopsticks into a leg of roasted Dragon goat. Another reason for dressing the animal was to release the leftover Essence and residue mana so that mundane heat could be used to cook it. In high-class restaurants, Magically trained Chefs prepared chomps of vitality-filled Auroch-hinds with arcane fire in enchanted kitchens. There were rarer, higher-class restaurants where actual Mage chefs prepared rare and exotic Magical Creatures, crafting alchemical cuisine with magical properties.

"They milk… the Carp?" Gwen tried her best to imagine how such a thing was possible. Did reptile fish even produce milk? Maybe they excreted gloop, one which could be synthesised into something edible.

"For... meat," Jun corrected Gwen's overactive imagination, bemused and amused. "Did you notice how they kept to the Sky Lake even though they could swim through the air however they pleased? Maybe it's a pen to fatten them up?"

"Hmm…" Gwen knew all about the dangers of stealing livestock. The greatest Australian folk song of all time was about an old swagman thrifting an escaped jumbuck til the troopers chased the poor bastard into a billabong, where he joined the fishes. Even now, they say one may hear the winds singing "Waltzing Matilda". As for why the story made a popular children's limerick, it spoke volumes for the morbidness of Australian bush humour. "Should we relocate?"

"No, not at night." Jun carved out another generous portion for himself. "We'll check on the Thunder Stag and its herd again tomorrow. Whether it's present or otherwise, we need to move out."

With dinner done, Gwen washed up. From the kitchen sink, she watched Jun undergo the rite of drawing Essence from his Kirin Stone. Her uncle wasn't even bothering to hide his Necromancy now. He gratuitously _masticated_ , for the lack of a better arcane metaphor, the Essences captured in the heirloom at every opportunity, keeping himself in peak condition.

Thinking of Jun's proposal, Gwen felt full of disquiet.

For how long could they remain hidden, poaching the Magical Beasts?

Now that they were in the thick of it, her optimism that a Lightning Spirit presented itself miraculously seemed ever more dubious. What was the tipping point where risk outweighed the reward? She was too inexperienced to know. Nonetheless, she trusted Jun absolutely to make the right decision, regardless of the tinnitus buzz pinging her Divination Sigil, whispering that all of this was hubris and folly.

* * *

"Ryxi, it's not Golos," Ayxin halted her two half-siblings by placing her body between them. "He took one carp. I was there when he caught it."

Ryxi snarled, his serpentine form sleek and slender as he coiled and uncoiled with barely contained rage, his ivory scales glimmering.

"Those were meant for Father! They were a gift!"

Unlike his siblings, Ryxi was the descendant of the White Serpent, one of the original residents of the Three Heavenly Peaks. Unlike the Yinglong, the Spirit-Serpent lacked the draconic vitality to survive past its second millennium, choosing instead to spend its final few centuries hibernating until its children could find something to prolong its life. Celestial Peak was where it made its home, though it was more accurate to say that the peak _was_ its _form_ since the great serpent slumbered in the guise of a skyward block of pure white granite. Over the years, Dragon pine and other flora had taken up residence on its body until it resembled a part of the original landscape.

Of all their siblings, Ryxi was the oldest, though not the most powerful. Ruxin was the most powerful, though the Thunder Dragon rarely came home, preferring to wander abroad and consort with their oceanic cousins, the Hailong. Ryxi took after his mother, possessing a scholarly soul who found joy in rearing rare butterflies for half a century.

Both brothers knew that Ayxin was the favourite, she had the most clout when any issue was presented before Father, and therefore it wasn't worth it to anger her.

"I am missing FIVE Dragon-carp!" Ryxi snapped. "Goats too! Nothing else within Father's demesne has an appetite like this greedy, insatiable lizard!"

"There should be other tracks."

"What tracks?! The only tracks I could find was this fat lizard trailing carp-scales, blood and guts all over my territory!"

Golos' temper flared.

"I don't like your tone, brother. When was the last time you shed your skin? I hope it won't take another century for your scales to grow back," the wyvern threatened his sibling smugly. He knew the spineless Ryxi couldn't stand up to him, not before and certainly not now. It was just a carp; father was barely awake these days. When would he even have the time to eat stupid carp?

"Shut up! Both of you!" Ayxin spat, her draconic eyes sparked with annoyance. "We have an intruder into the realm. I believe they took Angkar."

"Who? The earthen whelp? He's useless." Ryxi seemed confused about what possible use anyone could have for something as diluted and un-dragon-like as Angkar. Hundreds, if not a thousand, beings like Angkar in the lower reaches. Ryxi wouldn't even consider them Father's spawn, for they were merely mundane Magical Creatures who had taken up aspects of their father's immortal Essence as his slumbering spirit permeated the mountain. If someone cared about those bastards every time they died, he would have no time to tend to Bonzai, fish, or silkworms! How would Ayxin like it if she had no silk to cover her immodesty? Golos was terrible enough as he is.

"Maybe one of the others ate him?" Ryxi suggested. The list of culprits could go on virtually forever. Angkar's primary defence was to become a tasty, crunchy ball. Both he and Golos could arguably swallow Angkar whole.

"No, this is different." Ayxin put a finger to her lips, making the others stare. "It's the intruders, I know it. They have no scent and leave virtually no tracks. All I found was Elemental Ash and something else."

"What is it?"

"I don't know." Ayxin couldn't put it into words. It was truer to say that she detected an absence. However, Angkar had ceased to exist. Where his scent was everywhere at first, it suddenly disappeared as though their sibling had evaporated. "Look, forget about Golos. Keep an eye on your flock. Stop playing around with your insects and miniature trees, and stay near Sky Lake. Tell me as soon as you find something. Hold them down until we can arrive."

The three Dragonkin were perched, coiled, and seated on a rocky crag overlooking the Sky Lake below. The moon hung high in the sky, though only a little pierced the thick banks of elemental air circulating to and fro from one peak to another.

"Fine," Ryxi muttered, displeased with the unsatisfying outcome. "I shall be as watchful as my originator, a veritable stone sentinel."

* * *

"We're in luck!" Jun hollered.

The duo was indeed in luck.

After more than two days at the Sky Lake, the Thunder Stag and its herd finally returned.

They were there as soon as uncle and niece had emerged from the Habitat, each animal carefully taking turns drinking from the liquefied elemental air of the lake.

The buck, a big brute well over four meters and zinging with excess motes of lightning, stood guard while the females drank one after another, guiding their fawns to sup at the condensed mana.

"We'll have to take down the buck first," Jun observed. "As for the rest, how ambitious do you feel?"

"Very."

"Heh, alright. That means we'll try to corner the whole pack, the females, fawns and all."

Gwen fought down the thought that she was mass-murdering innocent beasts. Though the Thunder Deer had Draconic facial features, they remained gentle creatures with a clear emphasis on herds and family. The old Gwen of Sydney would have surely revolted at so much slaughter.

The current Gwen was hungry in more ways than one. "Alright, what's the play?"

"Distract with Ariel, alpha strike the buck, disable, not kill, until you can Consume. I'll construct a Blade Barrier to the left and right in a triangular arc, pinning them against the water. Assuming they can't fly, they should be trapped. Start Consuming as soon as it is safe to do so. Once Barriers are up, I'll help you with the rest."

"Are we giving up being discrete?"

Jun nodded.

"Calculated risk. The Stags are too skittish to hunt one by one. Here is an opportunity, Gwen. A docile, high-tier, Elemental Spirit. It's too good a chance to pass up. There are potentially two dozen cores here."

"No risk, no gain." Gwen convinced herself.

"That's right. Keep an eye out. Remember, stick close if we run into the Demi-humans from last time. Extraction via point Beta to Episolon."

"Alright, Uncle."

Gwen stilled her guilty heart.

Indeed, the prospect of a high-tier Spirit drowned her protest. By God! If she could get her Affinity to Eight, her spell volume and damage would be immeasurable! For the IIUC, she could keep casting without pause until the opposing Abjurer was OOM, then continue unabated until victory was all but certain!

She thought about Lulan's speciality, that spell-flurry of ceaseless strikes! If she could perform the same with Lightning or Void, they could make a ridiculous range-melee combination.

Gwen felt shivers up her spine. All she could do was ask nature to forgive her transgression.

_I am sorry, deer fawns._

To Doe, or not to Doe, there was no question.

It was time to crash the stag's party.


Ariel again played the Judas Goat, making itself visible as it sashayed toward the Sky Lake's edge to partake in nature's bounty.

Initially, the Thunder Stag regarded the unexpected intruder with wariness. By instinct, its caution was quickly dispelled by curiosity as it noted an ancient, emerald presence, more alluring than anything the stag had ever encountered in its half-century of existence.

The source of the glow was a viridescent light held in the marten creature's mouth-pouch.

The stag ventured closer, followed by a few braver females, licking their Draconic snouts. Others soon followed, perceiving that it was safe when the alpha began sniffing the minuscule predator.

Soon, the herd formed a small semicircle around the marten.

" _Hrrmph!"_ The stag nudged Ariel, demanding that it give up whatever prize it held, greedy for the delicious fecundity withheld by the marten.

Bullied and harassed, Ariel dropped the crystal at the buck's feet. The marten was gone in the next second, remembered only by a streak of silver.

"Neerrrgh?" The stag nudged the crystal. Perhaps it was edible?

The crystal cracked.

_BUNG!_

Though Thunder Deer were no strangers to a good racket, the _Flashbang_ that now struck the herd seared their eyeballs and jarred their brains.

The resultant din echoed far and wide across the misty sound, sending the lake's surface to churn.

"NEERRRRGH!" The stag panicked, swinging its mighty sixteen-pointers to and fro, knocking aside doe and fawn in its frenzy. Its eyes became dark; its ears rang with tinnitus. All it could smell was fear, the scent of blind terror from its herd, with the females shitting and pissing as they hysterically scattered.

_Whirp! Whirp! Whirp! Whirp! Whirp!_

There was a strange metallic vibration in the air, so loud as to be audible even to the stag's impaired sensory organ.

It inhaled the redolence of blood, tasting the iron in the air.

A female had died!

Then another!

And another!

"EEEAARMF!" the Thunder Stag Buck roared, gathering lightning into electrified horns. It would envelop its entire surrounding with a lightning field, bypassing its herd and injuring its enemies.

"Conjure Elemental Void Swarm!" A series of chants concluded somewhere near it.

Sudden vertigo overwhelmed the herd, sending the weaker creatures tumbling to their knees. The stronger ones buckled and bolted, only to run into a wall of scything blades formed from scalding ash, severing limbs and heads. Those that survived the dismembering sank limply onto the grassy knoll, choosing instead to bleed out, losing the will to flee.

_Shaa shaa shaa..._ a strange sound followed.

The buck was cunning enough to wait until the sound of crawling intruders could be palpably felt within the perimeter of its electro-sensitive fur. As the charge in its horns peaked, it unleashed a semi-dome blast of lightning and thunder, forming a circumference of crisscrossing electricity twenty meters across and expanding rapidly.

With its reserves spent, the stag snorted the scent of charred grass, ionised air, and lingering ozone.

"Neerrrgh!" it warned its females not to stray too far.

_Shaa shaa shaa..._

_Shaa shaa shaa..._

_Shaa shaa shaa..._

The strange noise came on again.

The stag circulated a jolt of lightning through its body, fortifying its fur with an electrified charge capable of instantly killing lesser creatures.

All around it, the insane bleats and neighs of its females tempted the stag to flee. Within its hormone-induced brain, self-preservation and herd instinct fought for dominance.

Its vision returned as its wounds healed.

The stag raised its head proudly, its electrified irises contracting, ready to ignite the first enemy it spotted.

The first and last thing it saw was two tentacles, one red and the other blue, a fraction of a second before their lamprey's lips, lined with thousands of grinding teeth, kissed its eyeballs.

"SHAA-SHAA!"

A three-metre Death-Gila brought the stunned stag to its knees, its jaws distended impossibly, ready for the feast to come.

Caliban needed no coaxing from Gwen to execute the dazed stag with two direct strikes to the eyes, instantly causing its body to go limp.

When her Void-Familiar had been caught in the Lighting AOE, Gwen had felt her heart skip. Even in its thick-skinned Gila form, the energy had been enough to de-glove Caliban from faceless mien to bladed digit, stripping away its obsidian toad skin to reveal pulsating purple flesh beneath. Had Caliban been a creature with actual biology, it would have died from the shock.

Chocked full of usurped vitality, Caliban recovered in the next instant, drawing upon its stores to replenish its physical presence within the material realm.

Gwen gave up her excess without reserve, willing her creature to gorge itself.

Meanwhile, her previously repelled Void Swarm again manifested, fueled by carp and goat. Her error had been a product of inexperience; she couldn't hold onto the final incantation and had blown the spell's payload too soon.

As for her long-anticipated Void Elementals, courtesy of Magister Wen's extensive research on her Master's signature incantations, the result proved spectacular and terrifying.

She had presumed scarabs or even long-limbed netherworld aberrations, but she got lampreys—slick, slithering lampreys—roving as an oily, oozing mess of hungry mouths, moving en masse.

Thousands of lampreys swarmed over one another in an eager bid to reach the feast before them. What was worse was that, like Caliban's serpent form, the things had no eyes.

Worse still, Gwen had seen the spectacle before. Though she had no dark egg to house her swarm like Elizabeth Sobel, her inadvertently identical manifestation hinted at their undeniable link.

"Mao, that's a terrifying sight!" Her uncle also felt the Void's impact, growing paler as he maintained both Bladed Barriers. "At this rate, we're definitely going to have company! Get Consuming!"

Gwen needed no encouragement from her uncle.

Caliban was already at work.

It sucked in the four-meter stag with a single gulp before turning upon the hapless females.

Meanwhile, her swarm had reached the weakened herd members too hurt or injured to thrash and kick. The lampreys slithered up the bloodstained coats of horrified deer as they bleated in hysteria, lapping up the scarlet dew. Except for those made insensible by Jun's Ash, the rest began an insane shriek that echoed around the valley, filling Gwen's ears with madcap, child-like wailing.

_Gods!_ She was going to be sick! Gwen willed herself to steel her proverbial spine. _But she couldn't relent now!_ The slaughter must continue. She was doing this for a Lightning Spirit! To stop would be an insult to her uncle's endeavour!

She scanned the horizon. Gwen knew it wouldn't take long for reinforcements to arrive. That Druidic Essence empowered Flashbang, the Thunder Stag's AOE, the slaughter within which they were now engaged; each one was enough to draw the Yinglong's ire.

_“MEeaaaaaah!”_

_“Meeeeeh!”_

_“EEeeaa!”_

_“Baaeeah!”_

_"SHAAA!"_

Unlike Caliban's Master and her uncle, her pet had no qualms. Young and old, large and small, wounded and maimed, the Void-worm had never known a more celebrated orchestra in all its life. The feast was endless. It leapt from creature to creature, Consuming one after another, shrugging off lightning strikes that would strip off its hide, shatter its carapace or displace its limbs.

Somewhere, a fawn tried to hide by digging into the carcass of its mother.

Caliban cared not. The more it fed, the haler it became.

By its third doe, the Void Swarm joined the slaughter; prey ceased struggling altogether as a swarm of dark and unspeakable things smothered their bodies and delved into every orifice, natural or otherwise.

"Careful." Jun hid behind Gwen, safe from her hungry, hungry lampreys. "Good god, that is A LOT of Essences. My Kirin Stone is hot with absorption. Another minute, then we DD! Exfil to designation Beta!"

"The Cores…" Gwen wanted the Cores.

"Don't be greedy," Jun cautioned her. "Caliban already has the buck stowed inside and a dozen others. Besides, you'll be out like a candle."

She blinked.

It was true. Gwen had been so concerned that she had neglected that she wasn't consuming one or two of these things but dozens!

"Caliban! We're leaving!"

She drew up her next spell effortlessly. "Dimension Door!"

She left the swarm manifested as they made their escape, taking as much of the biomass into her as she could. Like Caliban, each lamprey was returning to her tiny slivers of health; en mass, they added up.

Like the wind, the pair blasted through the cloud forest on her Dimension Doors, moving faster than she had ever accomplished in all her career as a Mage.

Two kilometres into the mist-shrouded pine forest, Caliban delivered its payload.

"Uncle! Help—!" Gwen let loose a cry more embarrassing than anticipated, stifled by forcibly clenching her jaws.

She had commanded it to hold on, but there was a limit to her Familiar's proverbial bladder.

Jun caught her as she doubled over.

Her breath was coming in rags; her eyes were rolling back into her skull. Gwen hid her face against Jun's chest. The alternative was too upsetting.

A quick manipulation of the Portable Habitat opened up its near-invisible entrance, after which the two were gone from sight.

Ryxi had never been gladder that he wasn't the combative sort of Dragon-kin.

The lineage of the White Snake were intellectuals of Elemental Air. They were scholarly beings, creative and interested in the world. When met with an interesting stimulus, their first instinct was to study the thing, a world's difference from, say, its Thunder Wyvern half-brother, whose preference would be "can I eat it?" followed by "what if I mated it?"; when one failed, Golos chose destruction.

When the culprits appeared, he had been meditating in the Sky Lake, well covered by the clouds.

A first, Ryxi felt cheated. If he had caught Golos bloody-clawed and gore-toothed, there would have been a case to make in front of Father.

His first instinct was how to toy with the two humans. After all, Ryxi was a master of mirage and illusion, and these were puny mortal beings. He watched with great interest as the creatures ambushed his animals, waiting for them to expend their mana before he could strike.

Ryxi relished his herd; he often milled their horns to make alchemical medicine for himself, crafting pills for his father and mother. He disliked the buck; Ryxi had a strange suspicion that the boisterous brute might be a spawn of Golos.

One of the Mages passed a viridescent crystal to its pet, a ferret.

The gem was of great interest to Ryxi because there was a familiar but also alien energy within it. He watched it being delivered to the stag.

_BUNG!_

_An incapacitation spell! How wonderful!_

His scholarly curiosity lasted until the larger Human manifested a dark fire, heat without matter, an all-consuming force that sapped all life.

"Heavenly Father above!" Isn't that the power of the Drought Goddess?! Ryxi would have opened his eyes wider were they not set into his skull by bone plates. A second barrier went up, ashen blades reeking of desolation and destruction cornered his herd.

Ryxi shook head to tail, all fancy of fighting fleeing from his mind. It was a cowardly thing to do, but he wasn't about to go tail-to-toe with a descendant of the thrice-damned Drought Goddess. His ancestors, the original occupants of the Three Peaks, had learned that the hard way. Now only his mother remained.

Just as the White Serpent didn't think things could get worse and he should probably report to Ayxin, he felt an aversion strong enough to turn his gullet.

A horrid beast was ravaging his stag! It was eating his deer alive! Yinglong above, he saw it penetrate the buck's SKULL with—tentacles? WHY IS THERE A DEATH GILA?! ARE THOSE NOT FROM THE FAR PLANES?

Ryxi had no idea his race— the divine White Cloud —could regurgitate into their mouth without prior abdominal contractions. Now he knew. He had inhabited this body for almost five centuries and was still learning new things.

Then a swarm of dark things began to consume everything in sight.

The White Serpent held the goat carcass in his mouth, afraid to provoke the condensed mixture of Air and Water that made up the Sky Lake.

"Caliban! We're leaving!"

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

_Thank the Dragon-father!_ Ryxi thought to itself.

He waited another minute to ensure the poachers didn't double back to catch a delicious White Serpent guiltily slinking away.

Ryxi knew he had to find his half-siblings as soon as possible. If the Mages were to escape the mountain range, he would lose track of their whereabouts.

The serpent lifted effortlessly into the air before speeding toward Ayxin's territory, adjacent to their father's White-Jade Palace.

_The Drought Goddess had returned!_ Ryxi baulked, and her attendant controlled a Death-Gila!

Gwen dreamt of a white-jade palace.

A palace sculpted from granite, shaped by wind and will until it was perfect.

Nine mystical thresholds led from the saddle to the mount's zenith, for thereupon Lotus Peak perched the White-Jade Hall, within which sat the Nephrite Throne.

Within its vaulted hall, a mighty presence slept, slumbering the years away, bathing in a concourse crisscrossing with Elemental Air, Water, and Positive Energy. There, amongst the throne room pillared in white, in the midst of which sat an enormous lotus, she saw Master and Mountain both bathed in incandescent light.

The peculiar synaesthesia induced a wave of déjà vécu.

There had been a time when she, too, experienced the intimacy of land beneath one's feet, entwined body and soul. The old Dreamer, Goolagong, had slapped her chest, thighs and buttocks with earthen handprints, dabbed her forehead with ochre and red earth and painted her abdomen.

_"Kapi! Kapi! Kapi!"_ uttered old Goolagong, slapping her thighs.

Gwen had slapped her belly, following awkwardly.

The landscape beneath her feet shifted.

As in a lucid dream, she travelled where she wished.

Red earth, blue skies. Short, stunted trees sighed at waterless creeks. A flat and vast expanse now stretched before her, extending from nowhere to infinity, its distance maddening.

Here was the Dreamtime, conceiving a continent rich and untouched.

Gwen blinked; she was back in Huangshan again, her face wet with dew as she stood upon a Dragon pine, watching the cloudscape unfold as a silk-screen painting.

The mountain called to her. It compelled her.

She had taken so much of it inside her already.

Why not join it?

She could be the land, as unmoving as the three Heavenly Peaks. She could be the air itself, wandering and weightless. She could bath in the light of the risen sun. She could shower in the rain cascading from the crags, awash with white water; she could delve into depthless gorges below.

But the vastness frightened her and threatened to overwhelm her, so she _dreamed_ of more familiar places.

Within herself, Gwen saw the intimate glow of Almudj's Essence, forming the contour of a multi-hued serpent coiled and slumbering.

The outward world pressed in.

Almudj's will rolled outwards like a tide.

Her world folded inwards, pulsing like a heartbeat. She was straddling two worlds, disorientated to the extreme.

Like a retreating tide, the two visions flowed into each other; the ebb and flow of life and land, living in one another, falling apart, coming together. She felt homesick for the native jacaranda, the blood gum, the iron-oxide earth. She saw a Dragon Pine wilt, fighting the dry, foreign wind. She saw, from the misty peaks awash with rain, bushfires of the black north choking the blue sky, she saw a harsh horizon rimmed with red drought. How could a tree from a temperate land withstand such a thing?! Gradually, the arched, gnarly pine growing from a granite crag withered; in the next moment, it was abloom with flaming galahs, fuming with wild wings!

The pine needles, the wet squelch of fecund southern soil became overpowered by the scent of blooming dogwood under the stark moon, sweet from the hint of thunderstorms crackling cane fields.

From a red-stone throne in a vast desert, she saw the ponderous form of Almudj staring out, its obsidian orbs iridescent amidst the scintillating colour of its rainbow scales.

From the triple-silhouette of an eastern mountain, she saw the shape of a winged dragon; its wingspan stretching from peak to peak.

Gwen gasped, her breath catching in her chest; the pressure from the two beings was immense.

A thick-fingered pair of dark-skinned hands took her by the wrist.

_"Kapi! Kapi! Kapi!"_ came the voice of old Goolagong, slapping her thighs. " _Come, girl! The corroboree is this way!"_

_"Almudj!_

_The rainbow snake_

_see it take wing_

_the wind_

_and water fills the rivers and gullies_

_and billabongs!"_

_"Migloo girl! Did you know that Almudj dislikes strangers?"_

Gwen tried to speak, but she was in the grip of a power far greater.

"Yes." old Goolagong pointed at the winged dragon haughtily. "Almudj will attack strangers! It is known!"

"Woa! WOA! It's me!"

Gwen's fist smacked into something solid.

"Ooomph! Careful now." Jun's face hovered over his niece, wincing. "Are you alright?"

Dazed and nodding, the girl straightened her camisole and then pulled her legs closer to her body. Her eyes swiftly studied the room before returning to his face.

"I am okay now, Uncle Jun." She saw him nursing his ribs. "Sorry..."

Jun retreated, wondering if he should imbibe a healing potion. His ribs felt like someone had rammed them with a small truck.

When he had heard the commotion, he burst into the thankfully unlocked bedroom to find her writhing on the bed, grinding her teeth with a dangerous intensity. Failing to wake her even with a slap, Jun ran to the kitchen, fetched a wooden spoon, and shoved it into her mouth. Bodily wounds could be healed, but a severed tongue could spell the end of their poaching adventure.

_Still, the girl was unnaturally strong!_ Too strong, in his expert opinion. She could rival a buffed Transmuter! Was the Draconic Essence to blame? There was plenty of it in his Amulet, but the girl's Consume had never interacted with Human nor Demi-human Essence before, such as those of the bipedal Gila or the Merfolk.

Unsure of how to proceed, he kept her grappling before resorting to more drastic measures, like flushing her body with his Ashen mana. It would alleviate her struggle, but they had neither access to a medical facility nor a healer who could offset the Drain. It would be disastrous if he accidentally triggered her priceless Contingency Ring.

What would Magus Shultz think if Gwen disappeared and reappeared in the Pudong Tower, raving mad, frothing at the lips?

Perhaps more terrifyingly, his mother's wrath would be unthinkable! Klavdiya had been against the trip herself, preferring Gwen to travel with her peers to well-explored Dungeons.

Thankfully, the girl recovered. Unthankfully, she then punched him.

"Sorry," the girl apologised, her expression full of mortification.

He told her not to worry.

Perhaps it was best he injected the healing potion out of sight.

"I'll be in the kitchen. Come out and explain what's happening to yourself, if you can. If you can't, we're going home. I'll have breakfast ready."

He felt his terms were a little harsh, but there were no 'maybes' when a Yinglong hung over their heads. If Gwen suffered an episode while they were hunting, the best he could do was trigger her Ring and run for the woods.

In silence, he made breakfast: nutritious ration soup and toast with milk and Wildland honey.

His niece emerged ten odd minutes later, hair slicked back in a ponytail and padded up in her sneak suit. The girl seemed taller, Jun felt, or was it her presence that changed?

"Uncle." Gwen turned to face him seriously, ready to explain.

Jun took a sip of his military coffee. The acrid taste must have been modelled on the philosophy that what couldn't kill you woke you up.

"I am listening."

His niece took a deep breath before opening her hands, cupping the familiar glow of her Druidic Essence.

Jun leaned toward the brimming liquid.

It was different somehow. The energy felt alive, wilful, possessed by a commanding presence.

A _Draconic_ presence.

Had all the Dragon souls she inadvertently consumed joined with the Druidic Essence? Or had the girl always been capable of assimilating Essence as an innate ability?

When he dipped a finger into the mana, he felt goosebumps.

Jun had fought Dragons before. Staring down an adult Dragon gave one the feeling of facing down a storm front stretching across the horizon, a tsunami drawing back the tide, or a forest fire that blackened the sky.

Spellcraft may have allowed Humans to harness the energies of the Planes, but nature easily reminded them that she was effortlessly more potent.

That was the feeling he got now from the dancing viridescent mana within Gwen's hands.

"Uncle Jun." Gwen's face was equal parts apprehension and excitement. "My Druidic Essence… I think it has gone and taken on a new nature!"

Gwen was very sorry she punched her uncle Jun.

The first few seconds of her groggy wakefulness had been punctuated with irrational fear, especially as a man was pinning her arms. Though Faceless and Edgar were a lifetime behind her, some things refused to be forgotten.

Her precious clothes were drenched and tattered. There was something in her mouth that she'd been biting, which turned out to be a cooking paddle swaddled with a pillowcase.

The guilt of punching her uncle was overshadowed by the lucid vision she had just undergone.

When was the last time she had Sang the Snake, dreamt the Dreaming? Not since her Xmas adventure with the girls, when they fought Wanka. Had Almudj awakened? _Had she awakened it?_ She recalled seeing the red rock of Uluru; there was something else—the Three Peaks! Lotus Peak! There was a white-jade hall and the Yinglong!

"I'll be in the kitchen. Come out and explain yourself..." uncle Jun understood, as always. He was always worried for her.

Once she was alone, Gwen turned her mind inward.

Last time, when the Rainbow Serpent had left, a part of it had remained in her, a spark of primordial divinity that had made her special, giving her a way to combat the hunger of the Void.

This time, Almudj's intervention was born from anger and possessiveness.

Calming herself, Gwen rationalised the phenomena.

Almudj was an old and natural existence, a mythical being from times immemorial. Dragons, for all intents and purposes, even Chinese ones, were largely the same thing. Creatures of magnificent elemental Affinity intimately linked to land and legend.

Assuming she was Almudj's kin, wouldn't that mean that her possessing its _Essence_ made her an extension of Almudj's domain, sharing its presence and being? If so, her voracious consumption of the _Essence_ of creatures engendered by the Yinglong would she not offend Almudj?

After all, she had been cramming Draconic vitality into her body intemperately for days. Just in the last twenty-four hours, she had Consumed at least a dozen deer, including a buck.

_Oh no._ Gwen bit her metaphoric tongue. Did that count as cheating on Almudj?

She switched to her mind's eye.

Within her Astral Body, she saw that the fortifying vitality stolen from the Draconic creatures now nourished her Druidic Essence. For Gwen, her limited understanding of the mystical phenomena could only be clarified by the imperfect analogy that Almudj, _a_ _native fauna,_ was subsuming the _invasive species_. After all, her Rainbow-scaled kin hated usurpers and invaders more than anything.

For now, her 'Amuldj' Essence swelled with vigour, floating beside raw motes of lightning and Void. As for her Astral Body, it glowed a bit brighter but otherwise remained the same.

As for what her Druidic Essence 2.0 portended—

She had no idea.

If nothing else, her Divination Sigil remained as quiet as a church mouse.

Once outside the Habitat and within the grey zone, uncle and niece were eager to see what her new mana had portended.

"So, your Druidic Essence is taken up with the Dragon juice," Jun observed. "Try circulating it—"

His niece closed her eyes—

"Steady now..."

Jun self-buffed with Detect Magic. He saw the viridescent Essence infuse his niece's body. There was the distinct feeling of existential oppression again, though it was faint. It was stronger than what the pangolin could manage but far from the Wyvern.

"Can you cast anything with it?"

Gwen pointed a finger away from them.

"Barbanginy!"

A cobalt arc of plasma appeared in the distance. A regular old Lightning Bolt.

"Mao!" Jun noted the change in his nieces' Affinity far more readily than Gwen herself, whose brows furrowed. "Try again!"

Gwen shook her head.

"I can't work it into the Sigils." The girl looked devastated by her continued inability to tap into her Almudj-Essence. "It's the Spellcraft, I am sure. Our element-integration algorithms aren't compatible with it. I can feel it trying to feed into my mana channels, but my spells refuse to recognise it."

Jun felt a wild thrill thumping through his chest.

"Nonsense! Lightning! Gwen! Please give me the best blast of Lighting you possess! Lightning! PURE LIGHTNING!"

Gwen's eyes glowed electric-blue as she channelled the maximum allotment she could muster. With his encouragement, the girl was giving it everything she had.

"Lightning Bolt!"

A bolt of lightning ionised thirty-odd meters away, as thick as Gwen's leg, its plasma so vivid as to leave a scar burning across their vision. An ear-splitting _CRACK!_ resounded a split-second later, almost deafening the duo.

"What's your Affinity NOW!?" Jun held his niece's shoulder. His voice quivered.

"I- I don't know." The pitch of the girl's voice rose at least two octaves. Her heart rate rose well over a hundred. Her breathing quickened as she tried to clear her head for a better measure of what was to come. "Let me try to gauge my mana-quotient."

Jun helped Gwen with a quick breathing routine to soothe her mind.

"Okay—now keep going."

"Lightning Bolt!"

"Lightning Bolt!"

"Lightning Bolt!"

"Lightning Bolt!"

"Lightning Bolt!"

"Lightning Bolt!"

"STOP!" Jun halted his niece. The grey space was shuddering. Any more, and they might deactivate the Portable Habitat.

Regardless, he was certain Gwen's Affinity had gone through the proverbial roof. The clarity of her lightning Mana may as well be directly harnessed from the Quasi-Elemental Plane of Lightning itself.

"I am not sure, but it's using three-quarters of the mana I used to," her voice quivered. Like Jun, Gwen was trying to work out the calculations in her head. Without instruments, they could only manage an educated guess.

It was common knowledge that Elemental Affinity impacted casting cost and power. Previously at 4.8, Gwen enjoyed an unprecedented discount of mana cost at 50% of her lightning spell's designated VMI cost. With a decrease of 25% on her current casting, if she had to ballpark a figure-

"Tier... 6?"

There was an old saying amongst Elementalists. 'Four's hard work; Five's talent, Six is good luck." It meant that no matter how hard a Mage laboured, they may never reach a baseline tier 6 elemental Affinity.

"Tier 6?!" his niece squealed with glee. "I am tier 6, Uncle! Unbelievable! Amazing! Oh! I can't believe it!"

"Ha! Congrat—"

Before Jun could confirm her growth, his nostrils filled with the soft scent of floral shampoo. His niece had wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him fiercely.

"Tier 6!" Gwen's gleeful voice choked with happiness. "That's incredible, Uncle. I… God… I …”

_Was she crying? Why was Gwen crying?_ Jun couldn't fathom why Gwen was so distraught. All he could do was wrap his arms around her slim shoulders and the small of her waist, feeling a patch of wetness built on his collar.

Jun had imagined a moment like this in the past. He, too, once had the proverbial dream of a family, of a child who had been accepted into an elite university, her future assured. As a father, Jun would congratulate her, and then she would hug him—like so. When later he was told of his infertility, he had buried those fancies.

They remained in place, the girl sobbing and the uncle patting her back, for longer than either would have liked to admit.

"You have made me happier than you know." His niece pulled away before facing him, her eyes wet and a little swollen, her white face melting his heart. Suddenly, she lifted her lips to his grizzled chin, then kissed him on the cheeks. "Thank you, Uncle Jun."

"I am glad t-that you're happy." Jun released the girl. The touch of her softness lingered, moist against his stubble. His mind struggled to find something suitable to say that wouldn't betray Hai, his bastard of a useless brother.

"I am _happy_... too," he remarked after a while, unable to find the words.

His niece materialised a handkerchief and applied the corners to her eyes.

"Sorry." She sneezed into it. "Got a little 'too' emotional there. Ha! Not very becoming of me. Let me freshen up. Then we can go. We have to relocate as soon as possible, right? We can test the new Essence later when it's safer, probably back in Shanghai."

"Yeah, that's fine." Jun felt more paternal at this moment than he had his entire life, finding himself drunk on the unexpected bliss. He touched a hand to his chin, wondering how else he could dote on the girl, his heart flushing with immeasurable affection. _What else could they do?_

"Maybe there's a herd of Void-deer somewhere too? You never know!"

Jun's insensible gesticulation had not escaped his niece's notice, who bit her lips before fleeing for the ensuite.

Watching her go, Jun felt a novel satisfaction.

_Happiness?_ He wasn't one for sentimentality, but if this wasn't it, then no other satisfaction would suffice.


"Ryxi…"

Ayxin pinched the centre of her brow ridge. In her draconian form, she had a single horn—a little protruding ivory tooth forming a distinct and aesthetic addition to her androgynous appearance. However, her eyes had grown glacial with displeasure, the ultramarine of her vivid orbs resplendent against the obsidian slits that formed her iris.

Golos spat a glob of phlegm at their eldest sibling. The viscous gunk splattered on Ryxi's Emperor-moth silk robes. Their eldest took the insult with measured dignity.

"I don't know what to say." Ayxin shook with emotions she didn't know she still possessed. "The Drought Goddess. You expect us to believe that?"

"It's the truth!" Ryxi had chosen to bypass the stage of haughty denial, arriving straightaway at despairing defeat. Their eldest had presented himself in his Draconian form, a slender male with a feminine silhouette, the equivalent of showing one's belly. It was degrading, but it drew sympathy from Ayxin.

Ryxi knew he had humiliated the lineage by not attacking the intruders, but what did his siblings expect him to do? The last time he had struck an outsider was two decades ago. The last time he fought Golos, the Wyvern had stripped off half his precious scales, after which Ayxin had to intervene. "It was terrifying! They were slaughtering my stock like Merfolk! There was a hideous creature eating them alive! Alive, Ayxin! Swallowing them whole! The Death Gila stabbed the buck in the eyes with its members!"

Golos shifted its impressive bulk.

"It kills with its penis?" Golos demanded. "How big are we talking?"

Ryxi made the dimension with his hands.

"That's nothing. Are we talking, prehensile or what?"

"I think it had a mouth on one end."

Golo's reptilian face took on a contemplative air.

"… Lined with teeth!" Ryxi added.

"This thing is an abomination!" Golos declared, snapping his maw and shifting his barbed tail. "We have to kill it!"

"You two idiots!" Ayxin snarled. "Silence!"

"Grrrr!" Golos snapped back. He hated it when Ayxin treated him like a wyrmling. They were almost the same age, and he had twin Draconic lineages.

"Hissaaaak!" Ayxin's face contorted, extending a forked tongue.

"Aaeeeee!" Ryxi bolted for cover.

With a twist of its densely muscled back, Golos swung its tail across the plateau like a whip, stirring dust, pebble and lose plants unfortunate enough to be caught in its path.

"Jilg Soti!" Ayxin spat from her petal-like lips, invoking the bloodline magic gifted from their mutual father. Though Golos was the better brawler to Ayxin, it was no match for the most prominent of the Yinglong's endowment—the ability to invoke Magical effects via sheer will and Dragon Tongue. Few Dragon-kin could develop the power of the pureblood, and even fewer could master it. Ayxin was an exception. That was why she was her father's favourite.

A few inches from her face, Golos's spiked tail halted.

"You cheat!" Golos gnashed its teeth. "Try fighting me with your body! Your REAL body!"

"We need to apprehend the assailants!" Ayxin's scales bristled with malice. "Fighting me is only going to delay father's wishes."

"Fight me, pissant!"

"Vataka!"

Golos knelt, crashing against the granite and sending up another dust cloud.

"Guuaaarrgh!" Golos opened its muzzle.

"Don't you dare!" Ayxin glared at her brother coldly.

"Huurrrgh—"The shriek of thunder and lightning rose to a crescendo.

"Saut coi!"

Before the rumbling blast of superheated plasma could emerge, Ayxin commanded Golos to close its mouth, catching his breath attack halfway. Golos' eyes bulged as thunderous lightning travelled up its sinus and blasted out its nose and ear holes. For all its comical effect, Golos felt as though a small mountain had fallen onto his head.

Hammered by his breath, he slumped onto the plateau.

"Tut-tut." Ryxi watched Golos' suffering with evident glee. "Idiot!"

"Can you find them?" Ayxin turned her wrathful mien against their eldest sibling. "Your answer better be 'YES', else I am feeding you to Golos."

Ryxi's retort choked in his mouth.

"Y-yes." His uncertain answer was full of apprehension.

Why the hell was his siblings so strong? Their youngest, Golos, was reasonable. His mother had been the alpha of the southern range for half a century before the Yinglong took an interest. As for Ayxin, the Dragon-kin had shown up one day at the mount demanding to see Father. Ryxi had taken Ayxin, who knew only her human form, to see their esteemed patriarch.

It had been at least two centuries since. The mountainous realm of their father remained as immutable as the three peaks themselves. When the Humans came to parley half a century ago, Ayxin had taken care of their affairs, with the humans conceding the entirety of the territory they called Anhui in return for peace and annoying skirmishes.

Though the humans were hostile, it was impossible to know the patriarch's magnificent mind, so Ryxi could only guess what the Yinglong would want with these poachers. He was sure his father had no interest in punishing the humans for stealing deer. As for Angkar, Ryxi couldn't recall who the pangolin was supposed to be. He was just an Essence spawn, one of the numberless thousands.

"Doton Szcy!"

Ryxi activated the bloodline magic of the White Serpents, a form of greater Clairvoyance tied to the mist that permanently surrounded the land.

"I asked the Mists to distinguish their passing," the Draconic-sprite explained. "They have no scent. That's why you couldn't find them. Their equipment makes them almost invisible."

A large pool of water appeared in front of the two humanoid Dragon-kin. The two leaned in closer, jostling for space against the unconscious Golos. Dragon form was great and all, but there was only so much space on top of the peaks—if they all took their natural states, at least one of them would have to hover by the edge awkwardly.

"Nothing!" Ayxin hissed. "There's no one there!"

The scrying pool showed an empty patch of forest.

Ryxi wasn't entirely sure if White Serpents could sweat, though his scales did secrete a slimy substance.

"They may be in a Pocket Dimension. The humans often hide in such spaces."

"Bah! Keep an eye out." Ayxin approached the unconscious body of her half-sibling wyvern. Golos' breath was shallow and feeble. Cobalt oozed from every orifice on his face. "You are not to rest or sleep until they are found."

"I obey, Ayxin." Ryxi's prideful Draconic heart bled blue blood as he bowed.

"Irisv!" Ayxin touched a finger to Golos' face.

Healing energy infused Golos' head.

The restoration continued for half a minute as Golos' torn scales mended, his eyes returned to clarity, and his serpentine neck again rose into the air.

"What happened?" Golos looked around confusedly.

"You lost consciousness." Ayxin folded her arms. "Rest, Golos. You're on standby. We're moving to intercept as soon as this 'Drought Goddess' appears."

Golos glanced at Ryxi, who mediated with a swirl of mist entering and exiting his nostrils. The memory of their last exchange came flooding back. Golos knew he had lost again. He could always ambush Ayxin, of course, but that would be meaningless, not to mention Father would be very angry indeed.

"Fine." Golos shook its massive head. He would have to take it out on their prey. "I obey."

Gwen emerged into the heavily shaded pine forest, slipping from the grey space of their Portable Habitats' Pocket Dimension.

Jun followed shortly, after which Gwen retrieved her Habitat, stowing it within her ring.

"This way." Jun lead the way with his peerless orienteering.

Their destination was six hours away by foot, including shortcuts undertaken via Flight, Feather Fall and Jump.

"The gorge should have some fascinating fauna as well," Jun spoke of the marked map they had received from Anhui's Rangers. "Draconic Mermen. Some may even be lightning, although those would be the elite warriors."

More lightning affinity, Gwen couldn't help but feel her lips curl.

"Do you think Consume has a limit?"

"It must have," Jun pointed out. "There is balance in all things. Even if it can take you beyond tier 7, there has to be a cost."

"I don't feel any different," Gwen assured her uncle. Though she was inclined to agree, there had to be a limit.

Once her fevered celebration cooled, she was forced to acknowledge the unnatural state of her Affinity.

Jun had informed her earlier that possessing a tier 6 Lightning Element made her the top five per cent of all Elemental Casters. Additionally, that she was only seventeen meant she had room to grow. Unilaterally, she gained raw power; abstractly, she gained future autonomy and respect from her institutions.

Just like that, her IIUC selection appeared closer and within reach.

For the prospect of her ultimate freedom, she wept.

For her uncle's paternal generosity, she cried.

In a way, Jun's warning was more superstition than fact, but Gwen trusted her uncle's intuition because her Divination Sigil had been buzzing like an alarm clock since they left for the gorge.

When she mentioned this to her uncle, they had stopped, hid, and then set an ambush. When nothing appeared for almost an hour, they began their trek again.

"Perhaps something in the gorge?" Gwen queried her uncle. "We might get swarmed by Mermen or ambushed."

"We'll be cautious," Jun assured her. "Does your Divination pertain to yourself or our quest?"

"Just me," Gwen replied. "Mayuree said that our trip was going to be fortuitous. She's right so far! Bang on the dot. Gods, I still can't believe it, tier 6!"

"Yes, yes, tier 6." Jun chuckled. "Alright, let's keep going. We're just getting started!"

"They're headed for the Buxian Gorge." Ryxi displayed the vision for his half-siblings, refracted from his conjured scrying pool.

"There's a female." Golos licked his lips. "She looks delicious."

"That's the Drought Goddess," Ryxi pointed to Jun.

"Brother..." Ayxin wondered if Ryxi had spent so long holed up in the Sky Lake that he had become a carp.

"Pretty masculine for a Goddess," Golos grunted. "Looks tough."

"I'll take the male." Ayxin pointed at the vision in the pool, rolling her eyes. "You can't handle him."

Golos' scales bristled.

Ayxin waited until her half-brother finished stroking his machismo, glaring at Golos until he averted his gaze.

"Ryxi, I don't want them seeing us until we're close. I am going to separate the girl so Golos can have fun. My Misty Realm needs to catch our 'Drought God' by surprise, or else they'll teleport away."

"Then I shall coax the sea of clouds." Ryxi lowered his head. "There shall be rain and thunder to mask our approach."

"Good. Golos, take care not to break the girl. She has to be brought before Father alive. No eating her."

"Blargh!" Golos hesitated. "Alive is fine?"

"Be careful." Ayxin scrutinised her half-brother, ensuring that his wounds were healed. "No one will help you if you become fodder like Angkar. From the sounds of it, she's got a Death Gila as a Familiar. If she's a full-fledged Necromancer, flee."

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

The gorge came into sight.

The sheer drop was best traversed via a free fall from the cliff using Feather Fall, though that would expose the two of them to sharp-eyed spotters wary of churning shrouds and cascading mist.

Gwen and Jun discretely made their way down the mossy crag, avoiding the gruel-like slick and the occasional block of deceptively anchored mud. She slipped once or twice, though Jun always caught her, once by the scruff, another time by the wrist.

They arrived twenty minutes later at a metasequoia bursting from a fissure, forming an umbrella over the scene below. The duo was resting above a Merfolk village, a sizeable one with a hundred huts and what looked like extensive warrens dug into the granite. It was the first time Gwen had seen a Demi-human village. She studied the layout intently, noting with disquiet how much it resembled those rural communities she had seen on her previous travels.

"Map."

The two stretched their cloaks between them, forming a hidden canvas. As always, the Japanese-made military equipment astonished Gwen with its versatility.

Jun produced a pair of binoculars.

He jotted down notes on the map of the gorge, marking down patrols, numbers, and types, explaining the legend.

"Here, you try. It even works with Detect Magic. It's a Carl Zeiss AG 70—300mm, made in Germany." Jun noted his niece's interest in the maker of the ocular device. "It was a gift from your grandfather."

Gwen adjusted the nosepiece, placing the device over her eyes.

The Merfolk below looked almost human. The males stood just over five-foot, discounting their crest-fin, with a slick dermis which suggested they were likely descended from eels. The females were smaller, with thinner frames and proportionally longer limbs. Despite the familiar silhouette of their bodies, the males had a larger upper torso, while the females had wide birthing hips. As with most Merfolk, their faces were horrendously ugly, with wide lips that looked like open sores and milky eyes with indistinct pupils. Despite their eel-like nature, their foreheads had scales that resembled markings.

The ones Gwen could spot radiated a strong presence of Elemental Water. When Gwen willed the device to zoom in upon an abnormally large hut, she caught the distinct glow of Elemental Lightning, its motes of mana sharp and precise.

"Four or five of them." Gwen marked their locations on the map.

"Good." Jun tapped the cartographic chart. "You plan and execute the operation this time. I'll be back up. The younglings are tier 1 at best, their warriors about 3. The Lightning Warriors would normally be General Class, an equivalent of tier 5, but I wouldn't worry about their chances against you."

At the sound of Jun's suggestion, his niece regarded the village with an unreadable expression.

"Can you do it?" Jun wondered what the girl's hesitation was.

"Yeah." Gwen met his eyes. Strangely, they looked mortified. Was this the same sorceress who had just cornered and slaughtered all that deer?

He placed a firm hand on her back, feeling the tension in her spine.

The girl flinched. Her heart was racing.

Jun reminded himself that the girl was seventeen and green and hadn't Purged a Village before. She was a survivor, but one warzone did not make a warrior. It took the death of teammates, friends, and acquaintances, again and again, to make a man or woman stone-hearted. He had no desire to wish calamity on his niece, but she had to acclimate herself to walking the Path of Violent Conflict.

In the Wildland, mercy to one's enemies was cruelty to oneself.

The secondary objective of their poaching adventure was to whet the girl's edge and hone her killing instinct. Jun hoped the girl recalled his promise that she would walk away from this trip with more than just a Spirit.

"They're only fish," he assured the girl, finding her hesitation endearing. "You can't make a Jiang-bing without breaking a few eggs. No sushi roll without fish-men roe. If we leave them, they'll grow to be a menace."

His banter did not appear to sway her.

Jun waited while the girl stared into the middle distance, contemplating her options. When she opened her eyes again, they were clarified with renewed purpose and determination.

"I don't want to kill beyond our objective," the girl answered.

"So be it. If that's your choice, then we'll wait." Jun was not opposed to his niece's strange ethics.

When he and Hai were boys, Guo had taken them to the Wuxi Frontier and made them slaughter Merfolk until their mother threatened Guo that she would take her sons home, with or without him.

For now, he would bear her tender burden and buy her the time she needed to come around. That was the fatherly thing to do.

He pointed a finger toward the darkening clouds.

"Rain is coming," he elucidated to his niece, instructing her to observe the volumetric increase in Elemental Water. "Always remember people, time, and place. Without the congruency of all three, you will always be at a disadvantage. Let the rain obscure everything; then you begin your mercy mission."

Gwen nodded.

The girl observed the Merfolk below, some by themselves, others in twos and threes. Her breath sounded heavy, for the atmosphere was full of moisture. Her body language looked rigid despite the Enchantment embedded in her skin suit. She glanced at Jun, who nodded back.

His niece closed her eyes to wait, not wanting to see the village life. What she wanted to fight was monsters, not fishermen.

Side by side, the hunters waited for the first drop of rain.

The spawning pool simmered, warmed to perfect brooding temperature by quasi-magical firestones.

Beside it, a sleekly shaped Merfolk, a female, decorated the sides with precious gems. Her name was Glugurp, meaning the 'gleaming of silver streams at midnight'.

Glugurp's mate, Bhu, was the best warrior in the village.

Bhu had been blessed by the Dragon God of Lotus Peak and could use the endowment of heaven to punish the tribe's enemies.

His lineage made Bhu desirable as a mate, and he had since spawned with many females.

But Glugurp knew herself to be special to Bhu; every time Glugurp set up her spawning pool, Bhu would bring her insects, sweet fruits, and even flesh from creatures he had hunted.

Tonight was special because the rain would be plentiful and the thunder would be loud.

The Water Priest had said that children hatched during this time would receive the blessing of the Master of the Mount. It meant that maybe, some of her spawn would be like Bhu.

If enough of them survived, it would make Glugurp very influential in the village. She may even become a Sacred Mother.

One day, her children may invade the village across the gorge and usurp their hunting ground.

When the tribe became large enough, they could leave the Dragon's Mountain.

Thinking about this made Glugurp very excited.

It also made Glugurp angry and upset.

Hairless ape-men ruled the outside world. Not the ape-men of the woods, by the Sky Lake, but ape-men wearing exotic skins and wielding terrific powers. The elders had said that these Humans were all blessed by their Gods. They had the means to control fire, water, earth, everything, even the heavenly thunder.

Humans were scary, Glugurp agreed. But they were a future threat. What they endured here and now was what troubled her mind.

Half of her little ones had to be offered to the Dragons during her last spawning. The village Elder even offered her most beautiful daughter, Gui, whose scales were blessed by the golden sun, to the Thunder Wyvern. The Elder hoped that, perhaps, the indescribable beauty of Gui would entice the Wyvern to spawn with her, thereby empowering the village.

Glugurp was sure that Golos would mate with Gui and plant his seed in her pool, a thing her daughter had meticulously decorated for the Wyvern, lining it with all the precious babbles in the village.

Then the Wyvern came, but not to spawn.

The thrice-cursed Golos ate her daughter.

Gui screamed just once; then, she became two halves.

Glugurp wasn't sure what she had expected.

Why did the elders say that Wyvern lusted after Gui? There were plenty of others the Wyvern could have eaten.

Then came the famine.

Winter was unseasonably cold.

Only a dozen of her children survived.

Then came the fire.

They said a Dragon started it.

Or humans.

Or it was an accident.

No one knew the truth.

All she knew was that she had lost more of her precious ones.

Then there were raids.

Some against them, and some they orchestrated against the other tribes.

After many summers, Glugurp was left alone.

Her pretty ones had died, all of them.

Her chest grew sore when she looked at the other females' elvers.

But the village survived.

It was the wet season again.

It was time to spawn again.

Bhu would have to do his best; she hoped his body would keep up. He was no longer a young fish, and there were many females.

Though she alone would be the first.

Thunk!

A strange sound. A fallen cone, perhaps, from one of the Dragon trees, dislodged by the rain.

Glugurp went to investigate.

The gorge resounded with the pitter-patter of rain.

But where were the frogs' songs? What happened to the night birds trilling from the shelter of their bowers?

The lack of nature sounds frightened her.

Bhu, she told herself. I need to find Bhu, my Dragon-hearted love.

"What has happened?" Her neighbour. Though not as beautiful as Glugurp, a young female came to see if Bhu had arrived. Glugurp does not like the upstart, whose only worth was her youth. Bhu had visited her a few times, though not as often as Glugurp.

"Nothing, go back to your hut," Glugurp snapped at the young female.

Glugurp hoped that Bhu wasn't on his way to see her now, for they may miss each other, then that young one would receive his seed first.

Nonetheless, she was afraid; she had a gut feeling. Glugurp was very good with her gut feelings. Were she not so fertile, she would have become a Water Priest.

Glugurp made her way to the Elder's hut. The largest building in the village.

During the tribe's glory days, it held over two thousand warriors.

Now they have only a hundred.

One of the reasons why Bhu was so important.

The Elders knew this; they had asked Bhu to become an Elder, even though he lived a mere twenty summers.

The other females were busy preparing their huts and decorating their pools.

A few of the young males gawked at Glugurp.

Glugurp was very attractive.

Glugurp has silvery, shimmering scales and very supple limbs. Her abdomen was very large for a Merfolk of her size, meaning she could produce many eggs.

Glugurp bared her teeth at them; the young men gurgled shyly.

They would not receive a chance to spawn with Glugurp, not while Bhu was around. They knew this.

Still, they were young warriors, useful in their way.

She has made it to the large hut.

Where are the guards? Glugurp wondered.

There were usually two burly warriors standing guard. Kar and Vurg. One season, she spawned with Kar. He is a good eel but not as good as Bhu.

The ground was soft with mud. Glugurp saw misshapen footsteps leading into the Chief's hut. The squall was heavier now; the air was growing electric.

Should she enter without an announcement?

The Chief would beat her.

Or not.

Not if Bhu has anything to say.

"Glugurp is coming in," Glugurp said to no one.

The inside of the hut was dark.

Too dark.

Where was the light?

There was usually moss or magic, just enough to see.

Clack!

Pottery shattering. A drinking vessel.

What was that?! Glugurp felt her heart jump.

She walked forward slowly.

"Guards?!"

She raised her voice.

The rain drowned out her voice.

The hut has many rooms.

She proceeds to the guard room.

Many of the warriors had designs on her. This pleased Glugurp. She can persuade them to do things for her, even though they are afraid of Bhu.

"Jukl, Fup, Dui, are you here? Where is Bhu?"

She smelled it before she saw it.

Blood.

Merfolk blood, the colour of bruised cerulean.

Jukl was slumped forward. His head and torso were missing.

Fup was missing his chest and right arm.

Dui's head was attached, but it looked like something chewed through his lower abdomen and attempted to decapitate him.

Glugurp felt her blood run colder than usual. She began to secrete a milky ooze all over her skin, a defence mechanism.

She turned around.

Only darkness.

"Guards!" she called out. "GUARDS!"

A flash of lightning.

CRASH!

Then a sound of thunder rolled in.

The rain was falling harder now.

For some strange reason, she felt a sensation like the time Bhu had taken her up onto a cliff, and they dared each other to dive into the depth of the pool far below.

Glugurp quietly exited the guard room.

The second room did not burst open with burly Warriors.

There was ash on the floor. The dark motes stuck to her feet.

Maybe out of morbid curiosity or perhaps the courage given to her by Bhu, Glugurp approached the double door of the Chief's meeting room.

She hesitated at the threshold, then pushed.

The door opened.

Glugurp saw.

A huge frog… no—a toad—was trying to swallow Bhu!

No.

NO!

It was swallowing Bhu whole.

That flash of lightning and thunder, was it from Bhu?

Her Chief lay to one side, mangled. His skin was charred, and his eye sockets smoked.

Bhu did not do this. Bhu wasn't that powerful.

Four other warriors like Bhu, one of whom was Bhu's spawn from another mate, lay here and there, unmoving. One of them even looked awake, though his eyes were wide and vacant.

"BHU!"

Glugurp couldn't help herself.

"Let go of Bhu!"

She spat a glob of gastric acid at the giant frogman, conjuring a water missile to attack its face.

She once had the potential to be a Water Priest. It was known.

The toad's chest convulsed. There was a sucking sound.

Bhu was gone.

Glugurp stared, disbelieving.

Her Dragon-hearted Bhu, just like that?

"Get out. Go!"

"Gwen, that's a female..."

"Uncle..."

"Gwen! Do you know how much that one female can spawn?! Our combat doctrine prioritises the females!"

Strange language came from the limbless dark.

Glugurp did not understand the voice calling her in the dark.

"Void Bolt!"

Glugurp recognised the sound of human magic. It was extremely distinct, the melody of its incantation like nothing that could exist in nature.

A dark shadow consumed her lower limbs.

Glugurp lost her balance and fell to the floor.

The pain came. Her legs were gone!

"Wuaah, whuaaah!" Glugurp flailed. “It hurts… ah... ah… Bhu…”

What was happening? Why was this happening?

The monstrous toad plucked another Dragon-blessed warrior from the floor.

WHY! Glugurp felt the warmth drain from her lower body. Why this cruelty? What had they done to deserve this? The Dragon Gods! Why weren't they there to defend Glugurp? Protect their people? They had sacrificed so much and lost so many of their children to appease the powers that be!

Else where her spawning pool glistened.

It was supposed to be filled with eggs by tonight.

"GUUAARRGK! DAMN YOU!" Glugurp cried out, only to have her cry drowned out by thunder. Her pretty Gui. All her pretty ones are gone. Gone forever. The Gods were cruel, and they didn't care. "WHERE ARE YOU?! WHERE ARE YOU, LORD GOLOS?"

CRRAK-CRASH!

A blast of thunder erupted overhead.

The hut's roof splintered, flying every which way, scattering all over.

The sound was so loud, its eruption so intense, that Glugurp was sure she might never hear again.

Not that it mattered now. Glugurp was dying.

The rain cascaded into the room, splattering over the bloody floor, over the stunned warriors, over two vaguely humanoid silhouettes, over the tenebrous form of the toad, over Glugurp's body.

Glugurp's eyelids enfolded her orbs, wiping away the blurry vision. There were two Humans here, now exposed by the thunder blast.

Then came a flash of lightning. One of the human silhouettes disappeared.

"UNCLE?!" the female cried out.

Next came a thunderous bell-beat of wings.

Glugurp could barely keep herself conscious. The rain was freezing. Had it always been so cold? Wasn't it summer? It was spawning season, she was sure.

A familiar shape landed atop Glugurp.

A cruel face Glugurp would never forget, not even as her world grew too dark to see.

Lord Golos.

Their God was here.

He was here to avenge Bhu, to avenge all her pretty ones, doomed to be never born. A petty master who came to avenge the theft of his livestock.

The gorge was lovely, dark and deep; it was only now that Glugurp could sleep.

But she as happy.

The Gods listened, after all.