The first three hours had been…underwhelming.
Magibeasts snarled and slithered into their path—bloated sabrewolves, horn-backed drakelings, shadowfang coyotes—but they barely slowed the group. Charles didn't bother drawing Raijin's Emberfang. The guards dispatched them with the enthusiasm of someone sweeping leaves.
Wendy groaned, tossing her daggers in the air. "Seriously? If we keep breezing through these chumps, we're going to walk out with pockets full of lint."
"Patience," Charles murmured, eyes narrowing at the horizon. "The Highlands always wake up ugly."
And ugly it got.
A blast of glacial air tore through the ridge, rattling the Thunderhoof Stallions into formation. Kael's sword glinted. Korel drew an arrow smoothly, his body leaning as the air thickened.
The mist parted.
Fourteen hulking shadows glided low through the fog—dark blue scales glinting like cracked ice, wings leaving frosty streaks. Their eyes glowed cold white with fury.
"Frostback Wyverns," Borris muttered. "They're not supposed to be active this time of year."
"Much less in packs," added Donald, drawing his blade. "Something's wrong."
Wendy's grip tightened on her new daggers. "Perfect."
Charles stepped forward, lips quirking. "Look at them. All dressed in ice and nowhere to go." He cracked his neck. "Guess I'll warm them up."
Before anyone could argue, he leapt.
Raijin's Emberfang roared to life in his hand, runes lighting down the blade's core as violet flames spiraled outward in a coiling blaze. The wyverns screamed in response, scattering and flaring their massive wings to summon a blizzard wind.
One dove straight for him.
"Come on, you frozen turkey."
He met it in mid-air.
Steel met scale with a thunderclap. His blade carved the beast's wing, violet fire flaring with each stroke. The wyvern shrieked, ice breath crossing Charles's chest—but the flames roared hotter, burning red-white and evaporating frost instantly.
"Too slow," he growled, driving Emberfang straight into its throat. Frost-core cracked, violet fire erupting from the wyvern's eyes as it crashed.
Another rushed from behind. Charles twisted mid-air. Emberfang's blade hummed with lightning as he launched a crackling arc, bisecting the beast and slicing off its tail, then finished it with a downward cleave. Flames exploded, spraying blue blood and scales.
Two down. Another dove.
Wendy appeared above the next wyvern, her voice cutting through the mist: "Mine!" She drove her glowing green daggers into the creature's eyes. The wyvern thrashed but died instantly, crashing motionless onto the rocks.
Kael and Andy charged into the center of the remaining pack. Kael swung his earth-forged blade, shattering bone and ice with each strike. Andy, roaring as his berserker aura flared, slammed into wyverns, his weapon smashing through scaled bodies.
Karel's arrows flew, each igniting with fire and skewering wyverns. Korel moved beside him, rapier flashing with elemental slashes that dismembered wings and necks easily.
Borris didn't even flinch. He gripped his iron staff and summoned a wall of force to block a breath of frost, before smashing the beast's skull with a single crushing blow.
Within three minutes, the skirmish was done.
The last wyvern thudded to the ground as Charles exhaled and sheathed Emberfang. Steam curled from his shoulders, his hair still crackled with residual lightning.
"Only four?" he asked SIGMA.
[Confirmed. Four kills registered. Primary user loot rights initiated.]
Charles smirked and wiped blood off his cheek. "Should've moved faster."
Wendy landed beside him, breathless and grinning. "I got three!"
"You mean you stole three?"
"I call it... redistribution of effort."
He rolled his eyes and bent down to carve through the first beast's chest with practiced efficiency.
[Loot Acquired
– 4 Frostscale
– 4 Wyvern's Frostcore
– 4 Blizzard Fang
– 2 Frozen Wingtips
– 1 Frostspike Gem
– 1 Wyvern's Soulstone
– +4,000 Gold Coins credited via Aether Reserve Link]
"Not bad," he muttered, slipping the Frostspike Gem into a side pouch. "This'll come in handy later."
Wendy examined the Soulstone, raised eyebrows. "Immunity to freezing attacks? Do I look like someone who gets cold?"
"You look like someone who cries when the tea goes lukewarm."
"Blasphemy."
The group regrouped quickly, none worse for wear, dragging corpses aside to extract materials. Borris looked faintly annoyed that he hadn't smashed more.
"We're wasting light," Kael called. "Storms coming."
Karel tilted his head toward the horizon. "Pressure's changing. We've got two hours before the clouds roll in."
Charles wiped soot and frost from his coat. "Then let's move. The wyverns were the appetizer."
Andy hoisted a wyvern skull onto the back of one Thunderhoof. "That was the appetizer?"
Donald grinned. "Remind me to never ask what counts as dessert."
Charles mounted his stallion and pointed Southwest, where SIGMA determined a high concentration of mana.
"Throm Vale's heart is waiting."
And like that, they rode again—through mist and cold, laughter and lightning, into the unknown.
Stormheart and Stonefang
They should've known the quiet wouldn't last.
Three hours after the first wyverns, the cold turned to charged wind. SIGMA scanned in Charles's mind: "Core Realm activity—multiple Stormbound Titans. Power: Rank 1. Count: 23. Clusters."
"Finally," Charles muttered, flexing his shoulders beneath his cloak. "Something with a punch."
The first titan lumbered behind a windswept ridge—a 30-foot stormcloud beast with obsidian limbs, chest pulsing with violet lightning. It roared, answered by a sky-bolt that scorched the slope.
Kael grunted. "Permission to engage?"
"Hold," Charles said, Raijin's Emberfang humming with anticipation in his grip. "Let Wendy and me get some cardio in."
Donald mumbled through his scarf, "Cardio? Sure, if yoga was trying not to get fried by giants."
Wendy dashed forward, her Windblade Daggers already glowing. "One flank each?"
"Let's dance," Charles smirked, vaulting up a wind-carved boulder with grace that belied his Foundation Rank.
The titan slammed both fists into the earth.
BOOM!
But Charles had vanished. Emberfang alight with lightning, he used [Vyrstride: Flicker Dash] and reappeared atop the titan's shoulder, slicing downward in a burning arc that exploded with stormfire.
Wendy surged beneath the creature, blades twirling. With precision only a true assassin-in-training could muster, she carved the tendons beneath its knee, disrupting its stance.
The titan howled.
"Oh no," Charles called from above. "Wendy, it's about to—"
THOOM!
A windshock blasted out, flinging boulders and trees. Charles hit the ground rolling, smoke rising from his grazed shoulder.
He groaned. "I should've stayed in the damn carriage."
Wendy pounced again. "Quit complaining. You're the one who said 'cardio.'"
Two synchronized strikes—Raijin's Emberfang to the chest, Windblade Daggers through the back—and the titan fell with a thunderous crash, its stormheart pulsing once before fading.
By the end of the skirmish, 23 titans had fallen. Charles personally fell eight,
SIGMA silently cataloging the loot:
8 Titan's Storm Hearts
8 Thunderstones
8 Stormbreaker Runes
4 Wind-Touched Armor pieces
Special Drops:
2 Storm Titan's Cores
1 Titan's Soulstone
The others split kills without fuss, focused on beast cores and drops. The guards gave Charles and Wendy the spotlight, watching tactics and teamwork. Despite his low cultivation rank, the young lord fought with poise and dangerous fire.
And then came the mountain.
It was halfway up a sheer cliff trail when the first rumble shook the stones beneath their mounts. Kael steadied his Thunderhoof, eyes narrowing. "We're being watched."
"More Wyverns?" Wendy asked, daggers ready.
"No," Charles said, tapping his ring. In truth, the scan command activated SIGMA's internal map, glowing faintly inside his mind. "Bigger."
The next roar didn't echo—it shattered. Rocks fell in clusters. Trees bent from an unseen wave of force.
The Earthshaker Behemoth appeared from above, its silhouette massive, molten-cracked hide steaming. Glowing magma pulsed beneath stone plates. Its jaw opened, roaring with molten heat that turned the cliff to lava.
"That," Charles said calmly, "is what I call cardio level two."
The others stepped back.
"You sure?" Andy asked, gripping his war axe.
Charles gestured for Wendy to come forward. Partner round. Let's see how our combo fares against tectonic nightmares."
"Copy," Wendy said coolly, lips twitching in a half-smile.
They fought as one.
Wendy's wind-enhanced footwork danced through the molten cracks, her daggers scoring precise hits. Charles parried the Behemoth's molten breath with Raijin's Emberfang, creating a firewall of violet stormflames that held its ground against lava. SIGMA's battle aid tracked the timing of Cragstorm's rise—seconds before Charles flipped off a boulder and plunged the sword into the monster's eye.
With a final coordinated strike—Wendy through the heart, Charles through the neck—the beast fell, thunderously, and they both staggered away.
They fought and felled six more Earthshaker Behemoths in this fashion, one at a time, climbing higher, each battle a lesson, each victory a step toward mastery. Though Charles bled from two different cuts and Wendy had a burn on her thigh, neither complained.
"Why," Wendy panted as they finished the sixth, "do you keep smiling after each one?"
"Because I used to file taxes and sue board members for a living," he replied. "Compared to that, lava monsters are therapy."
SIGMA beeped again. Loot was extracted discreetly, stored within its inventory, and masked by Charles's decoy spatial ring:
6 Earthshaker Cores
6 Molten Stone Fragments
6 Behemoth's Hides
6 Rock-Skinned Fangs
Special Drops:
3 Earthshaker Gems
1 Behemoth's Soulstone
His coat hung heavier now, stained with ash and dried sweat, but his eyes gleamed.
And then came the roar.
Not from the side.
From above.
The peak of the mountain split with a thundercrack, and something huge—ancient—unfolded from the rocks.
Charles blinked, heat rising in his blood.
"…SIGMA," he said slowly. "How big is that one?"
[SIGMA: Entity classified as Core Realm Rank 8. Estimated threat: Extreme. Recommend caution, withdrawal, or boss music.]
Charles licked his lips, flame flickering between his fingers.
"Perfect," he murmured. "I was wondering when the real fun would start."
The Surge and the Sovereign
Charles didn't flinch when the sky cracked with that thunderous, primordial roar.
He didn't even lift his head.
Because SIGMA had already warned him, long before the others even sensed the danger.
[SIGMA]: "Apex Entity Detected. Classification: Dragon. Rank: Core Realm 8. Territory Radius: Estimated 30 miles. Warning: Threat Level—Severe. Hoard Potential—Substantial. Caution advised. Excitement level: Irrelevant. You're going anyway."
Charles gave the mental equivalent of a smirk. His lips twitched with a thrill most would call suicidal. But to him, this was just excellent business.
"It's about time," he murmured, violet flame flickering at his fingertips.
Wendy tensed beside him. "My lord… that was no wyvern."
"No," Charles said, cracking his neck. "That was the top of the food chain."
Around them, the entourage had frozen. The six Thunderhoof Stallions twitched nervously, their storm-charged hooves scraping anxious sparks into the dirt. Even Coachman Rob stood from the driver's perch, his wind-cloaked sleeves flaring behind him.
Kael and Karel instinctively placed their hands on the blade and the bow. Donald's fingers gripped his hilt tighter, and Andy's mouth formed a low whistle.
Borris muttered, "We're either about to make history… or become part of it."
Charles turned toward his guards with a sharp nod. "Leave the steeds and carriage. This is a scouting ascent. Rob—secure the perimeter."
"Aye, young lord." Rob cracked his knuckles and stepped down. "Been waiting for a reason to stretch the old bones."