Sitting inside the Rhino, the cohort members were scattered about—some eating, others simply talking.
Arthur, for his part, was looking at his runes while expanding his Aether sense to ensure no creature would attack them by surprise, Sylvie doing the same.
Sighing, he still couldn't believe a very important fact.
In this week of killing creatures one after another, he hadn't received a single Memory or Echo…
His luck with Memories had been tremendously horrible throughout his life.
In his First Nightmare, he only received one—not counting Dawn's Ballad, since Grey had given it to him rather than it being a drop from a kill. Then, during the journey to the Dark City, he might have obtained half a dozen at best. And once in the castle, even fewer.
Most of what he had were either bought from Stev or received during his short stay in Ravenheart.
One might think that, given his position within the clan, he would have Memories coming out of his ears. But the reality was that he could have—he simply chose to give those Memories to the King's Wardens, since they needed them more than he did.
Speaking of Echoes, his luck with them had been even worse… just one, and a Corrupted Tyrant had destroyed it…
He closed the runes and focused on the Rhino's living area.
Currently, Owen was driving the vehicle, while Jet was talking to the command center about a mission they would have soon.
In the living area, Emily was looking at her tablet, Hale was eating, while Sylvie, Seishan, and Regis were playing a card game.
Arthur had been really curious about something related to the young engineer… and using his sharp eyesight, he decided to check if it was real.
Emily had been constantly holding her tablet, not getting much involved in the board or card games they played, always with the excuse of checking something about the Rhino on the tablet.
But Arthur didn't believe her in the slightest.
The short woman had been hiding something, and he intended to find out…
So, using the reflection from her glasses, he tried to see what she was doing.
Reading something from the reflection of glasses was tricky, so it took Arthur a while to see clearly. He ended up narrowing his eyes slightly while paying his full attention.
Slowly, the words began to appear—just fragments without context.
"—beautiful black hair..." "—her gaze..." "—Crimson lips..."
Arthur frowned.
That sounded suspiciously cheesy.
He narrowed his eyes even more.
Another line appeared.
"Even surrounded by hundreds of legacys..." "Arthur could only see..."
'Me? Or another Arthur?'
The next word took several seconds to become legible.
"Seishan."
Arthur blinked. Then he blinked again.
No. It couldn't be!
His eyes must have been deceiving him… and unfortunately, there was only one way to find out.
Arthur continued watching–a bit scared.
"The music faded away..." "...The world itself seemed to disappear."
"Only the warmth of her hand remained..."
Arthur felt a shiver run down his spine.
'What kind of person writes something like that?'
Another line.
"His golden eyes reflected entire galaxies..."
Arthur almost choked on his own saliva and felt another shiver run through his body.
The screen shifted slightly.
"My Queen," Arthur whispered softly. "Your beauty eclipses the stars themselves."
"Seishan blushed, her cheeks turning a delicate shade of crimson..."
Arthur slowly turned his head toward the real Seishan.
The woman was focused on her cards while playing, her cheeks their usual gray tone. The Rhino's interior lights made her black eyes look darker than usual, and her hair shone with a different intensity.
At that moment, Arthur thought he would quite like to see the image of her blushing…
He canceled that thought immediately and looked back at the tablet.
"No matter how many lifetimes passed..."
"I would find you again..." "In every world..." "In every dream..."
"He leaned close to her a—"
"…lips meet in a soft, warm kiss."
Arthur's eyes widened fully because his traitorous mind perfectly imagined the scene of him kissing Seishan!
Suddenly, the heat from the air conditioning was too much—what other reason could there be for his cheeks to be completely red?
Damn Emily! How could she read something like that?!
He decided to take one last look and barely made out the title at the top of the page.
"King and Queen of Both Hearts..."
"...Chapter 47."
"Song Ball..."
Arthur finally couldn't take it anymore and stood up from where he was sitting. In one swift motion, he snatched the tablet from Emily's hands.
"Hey!" the orange-haired woman shouted. "What do you think you're doing?!"
Arthur looked at her with no emotion in his eyes.
"I need the tablet for something, so I'm going to use it." He smiled mischievously. "Or were you doing something important with it?"
Emily jumped from her seat and tried to snatch it back. When she realized she couldn't, she crossed her arms and looked at him with her deep green eyes.
"Yes! I was in the middle of checking some very important sensors!"
'And she dares to lie to my face!'
He raised an eyebrow.
"Were you? Then there wouldn't be a problem if I took a look at those sensors, right?"
"Why would you?" She looked at him seriously, though her shoulders trembled slightly. "If you don't know anything about them!"
Arthur observed her for a few seconds before smiling.
"Oh, I don't?"
She crossed her arms.
"No."
Arthur mirrored her, crossing his arms and talked slowly only for her to listen.
"Then I suppose I wouldn't know anything about how galaxies reflect in one's eyes."
Emily felt her heart stop.
"…"
"Nor about how certain people find each other in every world and every dream."
Emily let out a choked sound as she brought her hands to her chest while her face turned completely red.
Arthur smiled satisfactorily.
"Curious name for a report about sensors." He handed the tablet back to her. "You know, I don't think I'll need it after all."
Emily took the tablet slowly and held it to her chest. Her green eyes were completely lost, and her face almost matched the color of her hair.
Only then did Arthur realize that everyone else was staring at him strangely.
"What?"
None of the four said anything for a few seconds, looking at him and then at the engineer beside him, consumed by embarrassment.
Regis was the only one who dared to ask.
"What was that?"
Arthur shrugged.
"Nothing important, right, Emily?" The poor woman nodded. "Just some sensors she identified with her Dormant Ability. Nothing to worry about."
Sylvie and Regis narrowed their eyes as they looked at him, because they knew Arthur wasn't letting them read his thoughts at that moment… while Seishan and Hale just shrugged.
At that moment, Jet came out of the communications center and looked at the scene with judging eyes.
"What happened here?"
"Nothing."
Jet looked at Emily, consumed by embarrassment, hugging the tablet, then focused on the rest.
"Whatever." She moved forward and headed to the cabin. "We have a mission, so get ready. Arthur, your father is on the line—he wants to talk to you."
He nodded and headed to the communications center.
There, he found his father's tired face.
"Arthur, my boy!"
Arthur smiled widely as he noticed his father's face light up upon seeing him.
"Dad, it makes me happy to see you."
"Me too. Tell me, how are things going?"
Arthur's smile became more forced.
"Good, for now. Nothing we can't handle, but I have a feeling that could change soon. And you?"
"Ah, yes. Jet told me about what you've been doing." His father leaned back slightly in his chair. "On my side, we're managing well too. The cohort is working smoothly."
Arthur was about to respond, but at that moment, he saw his father turn his head to listen to something, and finally, his father nodded twice.
"You're going to have to excuse me, Art." His father began. "We just got a mission, and we won't have signal."
"It's fine. Take care."
"You too, son!"
The screen went black, showing the end of the call.
During it, Arthur could notice the exhaustion in his father's eyes, and how his shoulders dropped slightly when he was told about the new mission.
He thought that being in Antarctica would make him less worried about his father—but that didn't seem to be the case.
Fortunately, he knew his mother was in Falcon Scott, the most protected city on the continent, doing administrative and healing work.
Arthur let out a sigh and left the room, rejoining the cohort in the Rhino's central area.
Everyone was there except Emily, who apparently had gone to drive for some reason.
"Art, could you come here—we have an important mission," Jet suggested.
Arthur smiled at her attempt not to order him around and approached the table.
On it lay an enormous map, showing a mountainous zone with a Category Three Gate exactly at its peak.
Jet crossed her arms casually.
"A Category Three Gate is blocking a division's path to its destination, guarded by a powerful Corrupted creature. From initial observation, it is at least a Devil… however, it could also be a Tyrant. Us and another cohort are the closest, and the government is sending us together."
Arthur raised an eyebrow.
"What cohort?"
Jet grinned darkly.
"Sunny's."
He returned the smile, and Jet continued.
"The gate is southeast of here, about seventy kilometers away. Emily already knows the place, and we'll arrive at night."
Hale looked at the map for a few seconds and asked.
"A Corrupted Tyrant? Can just two cohorts kill it?"
Arthur could perfectly understand Hale's doubts. Although they had already killed other Corrupted creatures in their training, they never faced a Tyrant and the fear of facing a Corrupted Tyrant as an Awakened was still hard to ignore.
But that was exactly what his cohort was for—to face as many Corrupted creatures as possible that would complicate the process of converting a small number of cities into impregnable fortresses, relocating the entire human population of the region into these fortresses, and then holding out for as long as necessary to evacuate everyone.
"It's just a Corrupted Tyrant," Seishan replied, looking at the map.
Hale blue eyes widened at such dismissal of a creature of that magnitude.
"The five of us plus Sunny can easily kill one," Sylvie added.
By this point, Regis was already an individual member of the cohort instead of just his Aspect Legacy—that was why his cohort was now eight instead of seven.
Hale immediately regained his soldierly composure.
"I'll help Emily on the way, then—maybe we can get there sooner."
Everyone agreed, and then they discussed other aspects of the mission with the little information they had. Once that was done, they continued playing cards until they reached the site.
In the next several hours, the armored vehicle briskly traversed the wild expanse of the Antarctic Center. Powerful spotlights installed on the Rhino's roof flooded the landscape in front of it with stark light, cutting the dimness with wide beams.
The Rhino was doing an amazing job of navigating the complicated terrain in Emily's hands. Furthermore, with Hale's help, it moved toward the rendezvous point with sufficient speed—sometimes using existing roads, sometimes cutting through untouched wilderness.
It climbed or descended tall hills and mountain outcroppings, traversed stretches of frozen marshlands, and waded through labyrinths of giant boulders with equal ease.
Eventually, Owen, who hadn't been doing much besides playing around, decided to sleep and go to the Dream Realm to receive information from other divisions.
For now, nothing completely unexpected had happened, so there shouldn't be much drama.
Only a week had passed since the beginning, so nothing bizarre had happened yet to change the plans, although it surely wouldn't be long before something did.
All the Awakened in the cohort were anchored in Ravenheart, and for that reason, the government decided to move some of its own agents to the Citadel to create an information connection spanning the second most populated Citadel. In Bastion, something similar should be happening.
By almost noon—which, of course, looked the same as morning, evening, and night for some time now—the Rhino reached the ruins of a small outpost, where a similar carrier was parked in the shadow of a broken wall.
Arthur got out of the Rhino first and headed toward a cohort of people gathered around a fire, having a cozy meal.
The first to notice him was Sunny, who had surely sensed him from kilometers away.
His friend stood up from where he was sitting and came to greet him.
"Arthur, I'm happy to see you."
They shook hands and nodded at each other.
"Thanks, me too," Arthur replied. "I notice things are going well for you, if you know what I mean."
"Oh, that?" Sunny chuckled. "It's going quite well, actually. I notice it's the same for you."
He nodded with a smile.
"Luckily."
Only the two of them—and Sylvie—could understand what they were talking about.
The first thing Arthur did upon seeing him was check the number of cores Sunny had. His friend had six dark cores in his chest.
Sunny had already become a Terror.
Finally, the rest of his cohort joined the conversation.
"Sunny," Jet said. "You got here before us."
He shrugged.
"I was in the area." Then he turned and looked at Seishan, Sylvie, and shot an aggressive glare at Regis. "Ladies… Bastard, it's good to see you too."
The two women nodded while smiling at him, and Regis smiled but for a different reason.
"Oh, Shorty, long time no see."
Arthur noticed Sunny clench his jaw at being called Shorty again.
Fortunately for him, the rest of his cohort approached and began greeting everyone. Sunny's cohort was composed of Belle, Dorn, Kim, Luster, Quentin, and Samara.
On his side, Emily, Hale, and Owen who had already returned from the Dream Realm also introduced themselves, and the group of Awakened stayed back while the Masters separated slightly.
Jet got straight to the point.
"I know you weren't waiting around doing nothing, Sunny. What do you know about the Guardian?"
He glanced at them with a dark expression.
"...It's a Tyrant, alright. Large, thick armor. It resembles an insect. There are around five hundred drones under its command, many of them Fallen. I've noticed at least two dozen Corrupted lieutenants, as well."
That was a lot of creatures, and with most being Fallen, it would be a complicated fight. Still, Arthur was quite confident.
Sunny continued. "The Tyrant has no weak points, but the rest do—a slight deformation in their chitin at mid-back height."
"So… what do we do now?"
Jet's smile was dark and vicious.
"What else? We kill it."
Sunny blinked.
"How?"
She waited for a few moments, then looked at Arthur and Sylvie.
Sylvie crossed her arms.
"Arthur and I will handle the Tyrant. I can fly in my transformation, and Art has the greatest destructive power among us with Regis."
Arthur added.
"It'll be your job to handle the rest."
Now it was Jet's turn to speak in a nonchalant tone.
"I'll take care of the rest of the Corrupted, while Seishan and Sunny can eliminate the remaining Fallen with the Awakened's help."
Seishan shrugged.
"Well, that sounds like a plan."
Sunny blinked… then blinked again.
"What!" He opened his arms incredulously. "We're talking about killing a Corrupted Tyrant!"
The four Masters looked at him strangely for a few seconds, not understanding the problem so much… slowly, they remembered that talking about killing a creature of such magnitude with its minions among five Masters and nine Awakened could be difficult.
Arthur shrugged.
"It's just a Corrupted Tyrant. It's the first, but it won't be the last we face during the campaign. Better get used to these things soon."
"Besides," Jet added nonchalantly, "the five of us are more than enough."
Arthur called Owen over, and seconds later, the blond Awakened was in the circle.
"I need you to create a sensory network between the six of us. Use your vision, add my hearing, and Sylvie's sense of smell."
"Right away." Owen replied, closing his eyes and using his Dormant Ability.
Which was… strange.
His Dormant Ability allowed him to share his senses with other people, but now that he was an Awakened, it allowed him to create a sensory network between a maximum of seven people, making them all connected while using the other members' senses.
This meant that right now, the cohort would possess Arthur's enhanced hearing, the sense of smell of someone blessed by Beast God herself like Sylvie, and Owen's night vision.
The only thing Owen lacked was the ability for them to speak mentally—but Sylvie, Arthur, and Regis could already do that. However, this left Jet and Seishan without communication.
For that reason, they always fought in pairs with him and Sylvie on opposite sides, so they would complete the cohort's communication…
From one moment to the next, Arthur's vision completely changed, allowing him to see perfectly. His sense of smell improved to ridiculous levels, letting him almost smell the blood of others—something Sylvie and Seishan could do perfectly.
"Wow, what the hell!" Sunny said, completely confused.
Jet smirked.
"Amazing, right?"
Sunny nodded, still quite dizzy.
Seishan clapped lightly.
"Well, if we're ready, chop chop—there's a Tyrant and its minions to defeat."
After that, they didn't spend much time thinking of anything else to add to the plan—which was quite simple.
Sylvie, Arthur, and Regis would handle the Tyrant. The method wasn't decided yet, but that was another matter. Jet would take care of the rest of the Corrupted creatures—her Aspect being perfect for that—while Seishan, Sunny, and the rest were in charge of defeating the remaining Fallen.
The last two were chosen because their Aspects also worked well against multiple creatures at once. Sunny's might not as much, but he was smart enough to work around that problem.
Those were more like roles, because the plan itself was nonexistent.
There was just too little information at their disposal to form one. Without knowing what the Tyrant, the few Devils serving it, and the lesser soldiers of the hive were capable of, what was the point of creating rigid strategies?
The battle ahead was going to be decided by raw power, resolve, and the ability to swiftly adapt to changing circumstances.
Luckily, the cohort had more than enough power at its disposal.
Two Ascended Titans, an Ascended Terror, Jet—who was similar to an Ascended Devil in strength—plus Seishan and Regis. There was hardly a more fearsome human force in the Antarctic Center—maybe a Saint or not, who knows.
Would that power be enough, though?
They were going to find out soon…
Creeping up the slope of the mountain with a morose expression, Arthur remembered that this would be the third Corrupted Tyrant he had encountered. On none of those previous occasions had he had the opportunity to kill one. Now, however, he would have no other option if he wanted to live.
They continued climbing the mountain, trying to go unnoticed. The boots of their armor crunched into the snow, causing slight slips the higher they ascended.
The five of them hid behind black rocks, traveling between them in small intervals to get as close as possible. But they didn't succeed.
Arthur noticed how one of the hidden insects wandered to the edge of a protruding rock outcropping and froze, its long antennae twitching in the wind.
He frowned and approached Sylvie.
In the next moment, the Nightmare Creatures hiding behind the rocks move.
They ran forward with surprising agility and then jumped, twisting their bodies into tight spheres. Hundreds of these spheres then rolled down, approaching the hiding Masters with terrible speed.
He frowned again as he noticed how the Tyrant moved forward and opened its maw, disgorging a cloud of darkness from it. The cloud flowed down like an avalanche of volcanic ash, swallowing the figures of rolling creatures as it overtook them.
'Sylv!' Arthur shouted mentally.
At that moment, Sylvie stepped forward and took her dragon form. From one moment to the next, the shape of a majestic Dragon appeared in front of them.
Sylvie's transformation was now even larger than before—measuring nearly ten meters in length and almost twice as wide. The scales of her body shone with their own light, turning a terrifying scene into something fascinatingly beautiful.
The next instant, she flapped her wings, and the cloud of black ash was torn apart by hurricane-force winds. She soared high into the sky and then plummeted down, intent on attacking the jade beetle with her terrifying mouth armed with razor-sharp fangs.
The two collided, and the Tyrant jumped back with an ear-piercing screech. A beam of darkness escaped from its maw again, but Sylvie was already rising into the sky as she circled to deliver another attack.
Sylvie used her Dormant Ability to manipulate the ambient mana and launched a powerful spell at the Tyrant, but with incredible speed for its body size, it evaded completely, and the spell vanished into the skies.
Even so, the Tyrant was hopelessly outmatched by the speed of its flying opponent.
Its black eyes stared at the silhouette of the Dragon with an indescribable, inhuman emotion, and then, the Tyrant straightened. Its carapace suddenly seemed to split in the middle and move aside like a giant gate.
From beneath it, four long, translucent wings emerged and then blurred, causing the massive creature to rise into the air.
It would have been an eerily beautiful image... if it wasn't so dreadful.
The Corrupted Tyrant was a rank above Sylvie, while she was two classes above it. Yet still, the rank difference was very substantial for the fight.
Even so, it wasn't the time for Arthur to participate in the fight against the Tyrant. Sylvie was going to have to hold out for a few seconds against this difference.
He looked down and saw the hundreds of Nightmare Creatures bearing down upon the two cohorts like an avalanche. Contracted into balls of white chitin, they were rolling down the mountain slope with tremendous speed, all their vulnerable spots safely protected.
At that moment, the three Awakened from his cohort began launching Transcended arrows at the creatures coming down the mountain. The members of his cohort weren't archers, but that didn't mean they weren't good with a bow.
Furthermore, one of the Awakened from Sunny's cohort was Samara, and she was adding her prodigious firepower to the deadly fight.
A few seconds passed, and the tide of abominations was almost upon them…
"Art!"
He turned around and saw Jet running at him. Her short raven-black hair was dancing in the wind, and her eyes were burning with chilling blue light. She was wearing light black leather armor wrapped tightly around her body, and a familiar dark glaive trailed behind her.
He didn't wait for her to reach him. Instead, he moved closer and extended his hand.
The moment their hands touched, Arthur gripped hers firmly and felt the Aetheric Pathways…
The next moment, Soul Reaper Jet's glaive was passing through the body of one of the Corrupted abominations before it could even react. The creature stood rigidly for a few more moments, but then suddenly convulsed, trembled its massive body, and came to a shuddering stop.
Its white carapace was perfectly whole, with not even the smallest crack on it… and yet, the massive beast was dead.
Arthur watched it all with admiration in his eyes.
But Jet was immediately moving, running toward the next Corrupted target.
In the distance, Sunny and Seishan also began their combats, marking the moment for Arthur to start his part.
High above, the battle between Sylvie and the Tyrant continued with the same intensity, making the entire mountain tremble with their impacts.
Arthur felt the Aetheric Pathways and went to take a step but in that moment the Spell spoke in his ear. But he didn't focus on that and appeared on Sylvie's back with Dawn's Ballad firm in his hand. His seven augmentations coursed through his body, increasing every fiber of his being to the maximum strength of an Ascended Titan.
His golden eyes glowed slightly with dark intent.
By this point, Arthur already knew what needed to be done to defeat the Tyrant. Breaking its chitin would be very complicated as long as it remained in the air, so his intention was to destroy its translucent wings.
Arthur relayed the plan to Sylvie immediately. After she twisted her torso to dodge an attack from the Jade Beetle, she used her powerful tail to propel him directly toward one of the Tyrant's wings.
He flew at great speed, moving his body slightly to dodge a wingbeat he detected through his Aether sense.
Dawn's Ballad, in the next instant, struck one of the translucent wings head-on and tore through it.
The Tyrant let out a sound of pain and twisted its body toward where Arthur was, but Sylvie used her sharp fangs and completely tore off another of his wings.
To finish the beating, Regis emerged from his core, materializing in all his glory, and with his teeth imbued with Destruction, he ripped the third one out entirely from the root.
That completely stripped the Tyrant of its ability to fly, causing it to begin falling toward the mountain under the weight of its massive body. Which would have been good for them…
…If it weren't for the fact that it was about to land directly on top of Jet.
Arthur noticed it immediately, and before his golden eyes could even widen, he used Godstep, appearing in the trajectory of the Jade Beetle's fall.
With the speed of everything that had transpired, Jet hadn't even realized what was about to happen and had fully committed to an attack.
Arthur, driven by the fear of seeing Jet crushed, didn't perceive this. And the moment he materialized in front of her…
Jet's dark glaive struck him square in the chest—
—Shattering his Titan Core completely and fracturing his Terror Core.
For a fraction of a second, Arthur felt absolutely nothing. Then the pain came. It was an exquisite agony in his soul.
The Aether that composed the cores began to crumble slowly, prolonging the agony. Cracks ran across the entire surface of his Terror Core one after another, each tearing an involuntary gasp from him as unbearable pressure compressed his chest.
Arthur opened his mouth to scream… but only a choked sound came out.
Then, finally, his Terror Core finished shattering.
The Aether contained within it did not disappear.
It remained trapped inside his body for a brief instant, desperately seeking a new vessel. For a fraction of a second, it seemed to be drawn toward the remaining cores…
But finally, it abandoned his body through his pores, just as the Aether from his Titan Core had done.
Arthur fell to his knees as his hand instinctively clutched his chest, his entire body trembling. He tried to breathe, but even inhaling sent new waves of agony through his chest. His pupils dilated, and he closed his eyes tightly while clenching his jaw.
Creating a new core was already painful, but now he had just broken two… and the pain was worse—much, much worse.
He had no time for anything—not to react using Godstep, nor even to stand back up.
Time seemed to freeze for a second—
—The next, the body of the Corrupted Tyrant crashed onto the mountain, making it tremble under its weight.
Crushing him and Jet simultaneously.