Beastforged Bond

B4 Chapter 29

Scott was the last person I expected to step into the Zerog estate. He’d been reclusive for quite a while and rarely responded to messages.“I need your help,” he repeated quietly.

Before I could respond, Mom dragged me out of my room. “The others are waiting in the living room. You guys should talk there.”

Others? Did that mean Fabienne and Sophia were back from the ninth Bastion? That would be amazing! Excitement struck me like a skytrain, and I rushed to the living room but couldn’t find either of the women.

Instead, Daniel sat on the couch with Lea, and my arrival interrupted their banter.

Lea was still a mystery. It was hard to figure her out. We’d sparred often enough to know a thing or two about each other, but I didn’t feel like I really knew her.

Whatever. Shaking my head, I turned back to Scott. He walked into the living room with Mom, who departed after dropping off a stash of cookies and other sweets.

“I found the divination beast again,” Scott said when no one uttered a word. “The Soulkin I’ve been looking for all this time.”

“Again?”

I remembered Scott telling us that he already knew what beast he was going to hunt. It’d been a Guardian beast at that time, as far as I remembered. In all likelihood, it still was a Guardian beast, but it should be stronger than it used to be.

That was yet another reason I’d expected Scott to come asking for help much earlier. Since that never happened, Daniel and I thought he’d already captured the beast without us.

“I lost it a while ago. Now I found it again. And it’s being hunted by beings… or something like that.” Scott let out a deep, regretful sigh. “The visions aren’t very clear. Honestly, they have been a little messy in the last few months. It’s almost like the future doesn’t want to be seen anymore.”

The pain in his words caught my attention. His entire being was laced with something I noticed only now; Scott was exhausted. He looked bad. Really bad.

There was no external injury, and Lifesight couldn’t detect internal injury either, yet Scott looked like he was on the verge of collapsing. Our friend was worn out. Mentally drained, which was more than a little understandable.

Scott had a massive World, but it was worse than even the most common World. That was how I thought of Scott’s World. It was large enough to link a Monarch without shattering, yet it was so restrictive that it was near impossible to fill in a lifetime. Scott could only bind divination beasts. And those were incredibly hard to find, let alone capture.

Most could see into the future in one way or another, which made it increasingly difficult to trap them. The vast majority of Hunters wouldn’t even know a divination beast was nearby because it would go into hiding the moment dangerous beings got close. Then there was the part where Scott needed a powerful divination beast.

Sure, an Evolved divination beast would give him a few more Gates to refine, but Scott needed more than that. And that, be it Unblemished or greater, was hard to come by. It would only grow more difficult the stronger the beast he was searching for.

By now, Scott’s only Soulkin was Destiny, and even she only barely reached the Unblemished Rank with quite some effort. That being said, our friend did not grow nearly as much in the last year as the rest of us did.

“I know it’s a little late and that the situation is far from great, but I need this Soulkin,” Scott clenched his fists, determination burning in his eyes. “But if you’re too busy to help, I understand. It has been a year since you offered help, and so much has changed. I would understand if–”

“You can keep those words to yourself. There’s no need for them, right?” Daniel turned to me with a smile.

I reciprocated it. “Of course not. I don’t make promises I don’t intend to keep. But even if I hadn’t offered my help, I would help you anyway.”

The part where Scott didn’t know what was hunting the divination beast or that his visions had been a mess as of late were a little worrisome, but those were issues we could tend to later.

“When are we leaving?” Lea leaped to her feet, a fire burning in her eyes.

“You’re coming as well?” Daniel grimaced at his sister, earning him a punch to the upper arm.

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“What a stupid question. As expected from my mother.” She sighed deliberately. “Do you really think I can let my little brother go into the wild alone? Our parents would never forgive me if something were to happen to my weak, little brother.”

Daniel leaped to his feet, cheeks burning red. “Weak? I’ll show you weak!”

Scott’s eyes shifted between the siblings and their banter as it grew more and more violent. He then looked at me in uncertainty. “Are they usually like that? I mean… we need as much firepower as possible, but can they really work with each other?”

His question didn’t even echo through the room when Daniel leaped at his sister. She sucker-punched him with quite some force, but Daniel barely moved. A scuffle ensued, and Scott’s uncertainty only grew.

“It’s fine. They actually love each other dearly. Pain and violence are their love language…in a way.” I shrugged lightly and let out a chuckle when the Zerog siblings stopped to glare at me.

“I don’t like her!”

“He’s an idiot!”

“Anyway,” I dismissed their response and smiled at Scott, “we will be fine. They work well together.”

“Okay…”

It was time to leave. To rescue a divination beast and give it some time alone with Scott to befriend it. After all, forcing a divination beast into a bond was not a good call, not if you were in dire need of a strong soulshare.

***

The cruiser came to a halt above the Serash Valley. Other than being a Forbidden Zone, it was no less than several thousand kilometers away from the nearest Bastion.

Mankind’s influence this far out in the wild was nonexistent. Nature prevailed, and so did the natural hierarchy.

“We’ve arrived.” The milky white hue coating Scott’s eyes receded momentarily. “The beast is still in the Serash Valley. I am sure of it.”

“Let’s go down then. We stayed long enough in that tin can!” Daniel exclaimed, more than ready to escape the cruiser after being stuck in it for hours.

His sister was just as eager. She removed her seatbelt, looking like she was thinking about jumping out of the cruiser.

“I need a few minutes to locate the target. Maybe a little longer to make sure the beast won’t notice me.” Scott intercepted the siblings.

I nodded slowly but activated Lifesight to scan the sky. As much as Ruler Kazriel’s cruiser was a masterpiece with the means to camouflage similarly to Mirage Serpents, it wasn’t perfect. Several avian beasts noticed us earlier, although none had been strong or fast enough to keep up with the cruiser.

The sky was relatively empty, which was as good as it could get. The few lifesources I located didn’t bother with the camouflaged cruiser either. Hence, I studied the Serash Valley instead. It was a marvel of lifeforce. Several trees spread across the valley were lifeforce sources much greater than Guardian beasts. They towered much higher than their counterparts, their roots reaching several kilometers in every direction.

It was marvelous, yet the beauty of the Serash Valley didn’t pull my attention for long.

“You can stop searching for your beast. I think I know where we have to go.” I grimaced and infused more ether into Lifesight, hoping the trait was wrong.

I knew it. Your friend’s words didn’t make any sense. But that isn’t too bad. I hope you know that. You did have to take care of those rotten creatures either way. Now you can get rid of them help your friend all at once. That is good enough.

Volix said, as Lifesight showed me and my Soulkins where we had to go. Precisely, the trait showed us what we couldn’t see.

It pinpointed five spots void of life, masses that appeared to devour the life around them. Or cast it aside? It was hard to tell from a distance, but something was happening down there.

The masses void of life moved around fast. They were in quick pursuit of another being. A strong lifesource that wove through the valley like it knew exactly where it had to go and what it had to do. It shot past an even greater lifesource without slowing and pushed it against the others, only to return to strike when the voids of life were forced to engage with the stronger lifesource.

The voids were Spawns. The Devourer’s creatures. And they did not appear very weak if they were strong enough to clash with the lifesources of a Guardian beast and something that was even stronger. An Overlord? I wasn’t quite sure if the stronger lifesource had reached that level just yet. I needed to be closer to tell that much.

“I think your divination beast is down there being hunted by Spawns. Creatures that don’t belong to Razarn…or anywhere else, really. They’re incredibly deadly and resemble Chimeras, just that they can alter their appearance mid-combat. They do use the traits of the creatures they consumed all their lives.”

The others looked at me like I had a few too many screws loose.

“What? I encountered one of them in a Forbidden Zone. After falling from that ship on our way back from the Grand Camp. That nasty bugger nearly killed me using a ton of traits against me.” I grimaced at the memory. “Destroying their heads should be more than enough to end their form, but they take on another form a moment later, so we’ll have to figure out how to kill them.”

“Your soon-to-be Soulkin is being hunted by immortal creatures? Great!” Daniel rolled his eyes.

“You think we can manage?” Lea asked, still preparing for our descent.

“We’ll have to see.” I shrugged. “The divination beast–if that’s what I saw–pushed the group of Spawns toward one of the strongest beasts in the valley, and it doesn’t look like either side is winning.”

“Great,” Lea grumbled. “It was about time.”

“Time for what?” Daniel snorted in response. “To fight immortals?”

“Follow my trail.” I opened the cruiser’s hatch without a second thought. “Don’t close the comms. I’ll check out the situation from up close.”

A moment later, I leaped out of the cruiser. This time, I wasn’t falling. I dove, wings sprouting from my shoulder blades.

It was time to hunt the Devourer’s Spawns. And to help Scott with his divination beast, of course!