I pressed my palm against the tome's cover, threads of silver glyphs crawling into my skin before dissolving into pure light. The Eternal Breath Tome let out a sigh like a dying star as it vanished into the swallow of my Pocket Ring. A flick of thought followed, next I stored the Prime Elixir—its vial glowing with liquid eternity— into the safety dimension ring as well.
"Good haul," I muttered, closing the pocket dimension with a sharp snap of qi. "Now...back to the lower mortal realm."
I allowed the Spirit-Man tether to unravel. I could feel my soul slam back into my flesh, lungs shuddering as I drew my first true breath in what felt like hours. My eyes flickered open.
And I froze.
Something vast and massive loomed over me, its figure washing over my prone body.
Gleaming plates of jagged frost blood armor, runes pulsing with bloody light, and a crown-like helm grown from the skull of the Bull-Horned Behemoth itself. Each breath it exhaled fogged the air like a glacier's storm.
It was Felicity.
A towering silhouette leaned over him, eclipsing the fractured sky. Armor grown from the Behemoth's core gleamed like ice-forged steel, runes pulsing with a dark arterial glow. Her breath plumed frost and blood-mist. She was less a woman now, more a war-beast crowned in glory—an armored exo-suit of living death.
I blinked twice, my mouth going dry. My eyes went wide, then—almost against my will I squeezed into a comedic squint as a sheepish grin tugged ay my lips. "O-Oh. Totally normal. Leave for five minutes and you… turn into a frost-demon kaiju. Yup. Completely fine."
The helm creaked and unfolded, revealing Felicity's face framed in jagged frost bone. Her lips curved in a sly, knowing smile, equal parts playful and terrifying. She leaned closer, red-glint eyes narrowing with mischievous delight at the way Ash's aura twitched.
"Master," she purred, her voice velvet wrapped in fangs. "Don't be so jumpy. It's still me. I like that you see it… this new power, this monstrous edge. But you know better than anyone—" she tapped her armored breastplate with a clawed gauntlet, the sound like iron striking iron, "—my loyalty hasn't changed."
Her smile sharpened, predatory but adoring. "Our Blood Phage contract still binds me as tightly as the day we forged it in the cursed river. I'm yours. Body, blood, and blade."
She tilted her head, feigning innocence, though her grin betrayed her relish in making him squirm. "You do still trust me… don't you, Master?"
I gave a shaky thumbs-up, trying not to show the chill running down my spine.
"…Totally. A hundred percent."
But my heart drummed harder than I'd liked to admit, because while her words were reassuring… the look in her eyes promised something else entirely.
I felt the ground tremble as Felicity's armored gauntlet reached down. Before I could protest, she scooped me up with careful ease, cradling me in a palm broad enough to be a shield wall. My legs dangled uselessly as she straightened to her full, towering height.
The landscape itself seemed to bow before her—blood-frost winds curling from her armor, scattering stone dust in the canyon. Each step left a print etched in ice-rimed qi, footprints that hissed with necrotic blood vapor.
"Uh," I mumbled, clutching onto one of her clawed fingers for balance. "So… I'm guessing you didn't just find that armor set while I was gone."
My gaze wandered over her shoulder—then froze. Not far behind us, the corpse of the bull-horned Behemoth lay cracked open like a hollow mountain, its stone-hide already collapsing in on itself. The flesh was decaying at a speed that defied nature, dissolving into pools of black ichor that steamed into the air.
My eyes went wide, and my lips curled into a wry line. "Yeah. Okay. Two plus two equals Felicity just ate a Behemoth."
Felicity's laugh rumbled from inside her helm, low and almost metallic with resonance. She tilted her head down, her crimson eyes gleaming through the frost-etched visor as if daring me to challenge the conclusion.
"Correct, Master," she said, amused. "It was rude enough to interrupt me while I guarded you. So I harvested it."
I swallowed, forcing a shaky grin. "Harvested. Right. Totally normal day in the Beast Vein Continent."
I hesitated, then looked up at her again, brow furrowed with a mix of awe and concern. "So… how long does this form last? And… can you actually revert? Because, uh…" I gestured vaguely at her towering exo-suit body. "You're kind of… large."
Felicity's eyes softened, and for the briefest moment her sly smile lost its edge. "This form is revertible, a new ability granted to me by the Behemoth core. I can transform into it at any time I wish. The Behemoth's core has granted me newfound strength. I could collapse the form now, but…" She glanced toward the horizon, where the sun dipped lower, staining the sky blood-red. "…night falls soon. The wilds grow hungrier after dusk. We should find a place to rest before I shed this armor."
I blinked, then gave a reluctant nod. "Right. Shelter first, nightmare silver blooded phagel girlfriend later."
Her helm unfolded enough to reveal her grin—wide, sharp, and playful. "You do squirm so deliciously when you call me that."
I groaned and slumped against her gauntlet, muttering, "This is my life now."
Felicity strode forward, carrying me like a sovereign bearing her prize, every step shaking the earth as dusk swallowed the canyon.
The forest stirred as Felicity carried me across the scarred cliffs and broken ridges. Packs of lesser beasts trailed in the distance—Dunder snatches with antlers, scaled apes dragging clubs of stone, winged flying serpents swooping low before darting back into the shadows. None dared come close. They paced at the edges of sight, snarling and restless, curiosity battling terror.
But Felicity's monstrous aura pressed outward like a tidal wave, an iron-fanged proclamation that this territory was already claimed. The creatures circled, uneasy, but never broke the invisible wall around her.
What did not flee, however, were the quiet figures hidden higher in the canyons—scouts draped in dusk-colored silks, masks pale as the moon. Their spirit-signatures trembled with alarm as they watched the Frost blood-armored woman stride with a man in her hand. Whispers carried over their clan links:
"That's not human qi… what is she? How did she become that""
"Should we report this directly to the elders?!"
"They're heading toward the ruin. Stay out of sight. Do not provoke."
I glanced back once, sharp-eyed, and narrowed my gaze. I didn't see the scouts outright, but I felt the way the shadows lingered too long. Felicity noticed too—her crimson eyes flicked sideways, dismissive. She whispered low, so only I could hear. "Vermin. Let them follow if they dare."
At last we reached a ruin—a shattered temple half-swallowed by roots and stone fall, its spire cleaved but its upper floors still intact. Felicity leapt lightly, her armored steps ringing like a bell through the stone temple, she placed me on the third-story floor where fragments of a mural still clung to the wall.
"Here," she said, her voice echoing metallic from within the helm. "I'll keep you safe."
Then, with a hiss of qi, her colossal form dissolved. Armor plates of blood-frost cracked, steaming away until Felicity herself stood beside me once more—slender, beautiful, and only faintly rimmed in crimson glow. She gave me a small, crooked smile as if to say See? Still me.
I exhaled and let my shoulders drop. I summoned a flicker of my Ember Coil Flame and fed it into a ring of broken tiles. A modest fire sprang to life, dancing against the cold stone walls.
I drew out the Eternal Breath Tome from my ring, the silver-clad pages unfolding with living script that swirled into the air like a storm of runes. Sitting cross-legged, I began to breathe in rhythm with the tome, each cycle pulling rarefied battle essence of the land into my core. Hours passed like moments, the fire dwindling to embers, Felicity paced silently along the ruined halls, her rapier loose at her hip as her senses swept the night.
Finally, I set the tome aside. my body still hummed, but exhaustion nipped at the edges of my focus. My comprehension waning. I reached into my ring and withdrew the Prime Elixir. The vial glowed faintly, its stopper capped with a crystal dauber shaped like a dropper. I hesitated, remembering the Firefly King's words, then carefully lifted a single bead of the liquid and let the drop fall onto my tongue.
The effect was instant.
A surge of vitality roared through my veins, slamming into my ribs and chest like a thousand gongs. My breath came easier—no, effortlessly. The crushing pressure of this land, that heavy, bone-grinding weight, peeled away from me in an instant as if the world itself recognized my right to exist here. My marrow sang, my heart rejoiced with renewed vigor and vim, and my scattered dantian opened like a blazing gate.
My eyes widened, reflecting the firelight. "One drop… just one drop did this?!"
I clenched my fist, marveling at the sensation, awe breaking into a quiet laugh. "This is absurd. This elixir… it's not medicine—it's rebirth."
Above me, the shadows of the temple stirred. Outside, in the dark, the mysterious clan scouts tightened their watch. And somewhere in the wilderness, the beasts fell strangely silent.
My fist slowly unclenched, still trembling from the rush of power coursing through my veins. I looked at the vial again, the liquid within shimmering like captured dawnlight.
But instead of being greedy, a thought came to mind, "I'm not the only one who needs this."
I turned toward Felicity, who was still prowling the temple's edge, silver eyes cutting through the dark like a predator.
"Felicity," I called, quietly lifting the vial. "Come here a second."
She tilted her head, braid swaying, and padded over. The firelight painted her cheeks in crimson and gold. "What's wrong, Master? Did the Elixir—"
I shook my head. "Nothing is wrong. But this… it isn't just for me." I uncapped the vial and lifted the dauber, steady as a surgeon. "Open up."
Her brows arched. "Oh? Feeding me like some pampered noblewoman?" A sly grin tugged at her lips, but she parted them all the same, leaning down to me.
I held the dauber above her tongue and let one luminous drop fall.
The instant it touched, Felicity gasped—her pupils flaring scarlet, eyes glowing like molten rubies. Her aura flared out with a pulse of blood-crimson frost, rattling the broken temple walls.
She clutched at her stomach, staggering back a step, then straightened with a sharp laugh. "Wh—whoa! Hah! That really packs a punch!" Her voice rang bright, edged with awe.
Her dantian stretched, expanding like a vessel reforged in fire, qi pathways humming as if reforged in singing crystal. I could feel it—the way her blood qi deepened, the frost threads weaving denser, heavier.
"Your energy pool's grown," I said, watching her aura settle into a denser crimson-frost glow. "Stronger foundation, wider reserves. That single drop just bought us both another lifeline."
Felicity's grin softened into something warmer, but her eyes never lost their playful gleam. "Master...You really do spoil me."
I corked the vial again, stowing it carefully in my ring. "I don't spoil you. I invest in us."
Her laugh echoed through the ruin, light yet edged with power.
The forest beyond the canyon whispered with restless leaves. Somewhere between shadow and starlight, a small party moved silently—feet finding stone and root without a sound. At their head, a nervous scout pressed a palm to his chest to steady his pounding heart.
He glanced back at the cloaked figure following him, sweat slicking his brow. "E-Elder, I swear it wasn't a trick of the light. She was huge! This, this woman! clad in monstrous armor, frost and blood mist pouring off her like a Sovereign of old. Even the beasts kept their distance!"
The cloaked elder's voice was dry as gravel. "This better be worth rousing me from meditation at such an hour." His steps were unhurried, but the ground seemed to bow faintly beneath his qi-laden tread. "You claim one of the hundred prodigies has already seized a behemoth's core?"
The scout swallowed hard. "N-not seized, Elder. Consumed. I saw her crush the Bull-Horned Behemoth—then walk away in its skin. The boy with her… it must be Ash, the Sovereign-Slayer."
The elder's cloak shifted, faint moonlight catching the edges of embroidered sigils—too faint to place, yet undeniably the mark of a major clan. His eyes, when they narrowed, gleamed like sharpened steel.
"Show me," he said.
The scout hesitated, gesturing toward the distant ruin where faint red mist still clung like a bruise against the night sky.
The elder folded his arms, gaze lingering on the temple's broken silhouette. "So… a girl who grows to the size of giants and a boy who slays Sovereigns. Hm."
His lips thinned into something between a smile and a sneer, "Sounds like a true beast of prey.
Perhaps the Meeting of the Hundred Clans was more...advantageous than expected."