The River Spawn were everywhere.
Rose stared across the battlefield in disbelief.
Twenty.
There were twenty of them.
Twenty enormous creatures moved across the lake, their bodies twisting through the water like serpents. Their scales reflected the faint light above the surface, while streams of water continuously wrapped around their bodies.
For several seconds, Rose simply stared.
Then she finally spoke.
"How the hell did those River Spawn become twenty?"
Cynthia's expression remained cold.
"We killed them."
Rose glanced at her.
"And?"
"They didn't die."
Cynthia's eyes narrowed.
"They split."
A pause.
"Every time we killed one, more appeared."
Rose's expression changed.
"So you stopped killing them."
"Of course."
Cynthia looked toward the lake.
"We aren't stupid."
"The moment we realized killing them only increased their numbers, we changed our strategy."
"We tried distracting them while taking their eggs."
Her eyes hardened.
"But they were stronger than expected."
"Every time we got close to the nest, they forced us back."
Rose slowly nodded.
That explained the exhaustion of Cynthia's group.
Five days of fighting something that only became more troublesome whenever they killed it.
That wasn't a battle.
It was attrition.
Nora stepped forward.
Water immediately began gathering around her feet.
"I'll handle the front."
Rose glanced at her.
"Are you sure?"
Nora nodded.
"Let's see how far I've come."
She raised one hand.
A figure appeared beside her.
Another.
Then another.
Three Noras stood across the battlefield.
The River Spawn immediately noticed them.
Their enormous bodies surged forward.
Nora continued.
Four.
Five.
Six.
The duplicates multiplied across the shoreline.
Soon there were ten Noras.
Each carried the same expression.
Each possessed the same aura.
Each had water swirling around her body.
At the center of them all stood the real Nora.
Her God Body appeared around her.
Dark armor covered her body while the Seven Arms of Destiny unfolded behind her.
She slowly rose into the air.
For a moment...
She looked less like an Initiate and more like a deity watching a battlefield from above.
Nora opened her third eye.
The world changed.
Threads of destiny appeared everywhere.
The River Spawn's destinies were strange.
Simple.
Too simple.
Their threads were much weaker than those of humans.
Nora raised Thread Breaker.
She swung.
A single destiny thread snapped.
The River Spawn immediately staggered.
Then—
The shattered thread split into two.
Nora's eyes narrowed.
"So that's their secret."
The creatures' destinies could reproduce just like their bodies.
It was almost as if killing one aspect of their destiny simply caused another branch to take its place.
Fortunately...
The number of River Spawn did not increase.
Nora exhaled.
"Still troublesome."
She couldn't understand the entire structure.
Not yet.
Their destiny was likely far more complicated beneath the surface than she could currently perceive.
And their control over water was even more frightening.
Every River Spawn could manipulate the lake around them.
The entire battlefield was effectively their territory.
But Nora had prepared for this.
Her ten duplicates simultaneously raised their hands.
Water rose.
Runes appeared across its surface.
One seal.
Then another.
Then another.
The duplicates began drawing the same sealing sorcery across the ground.
The symbols connected.
A massive network of blue runes spread beneath the battlefield.
Nora's Ocean Sealing Sorcery activated.
The moment the seal was completed—
The River Spawn's aura weakened.
Their control over the surrounding water dropped sharply.
Their movements became slower.
Their physical strength diminished.
The seal didn't destroy their power.
It simply prevented them from accessing most of it.
Nora looked toward the others.
"Everyone."
"Stop."
Cynthia immediately understood.
Rose stopped.
The other members of the cohort stopped attacking.
Even the River Spawn seemed confused.
Then Rose raised one hand.
Vines erupted from beneath the ground.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
They wrapped around the creatures' bodies before tightening simultaneously.
The River Spawn struggled.
But the seal had already weakened them.
Their resistance was no longer overwhelming.
One by one...
They were restrained.
The other groups stared.
They had spent five days fighting these creatures.
And suddenly...
Their strength had dropped to the level of ordinary Initiates.
Cynthia's eyes narrowed.
"So that's what her new technique does."
Nora didn't answer.
She simply maintained the seal.
The runes beneath her feet glowed faintly.
She could feel the strain.
Even after all her training, controlling a seal over so many powerful creatures was exhausting.
But she couldn't stop now.
Cynthia suddenly moved.
She rushed toward the lake.
The surface appeared deceptively small from the outside.
Once she entered it...
Her expression changed.
The lake wasn't a lake.
It was an ocean.
An enormous underwater world stretched beneath the surface.
Cynthia quickly reached a secluded area.
There...
The eggs waited.
Twenty enormous eggs.
Each one stood nearly two meters tall.
Their surfaces shimmered faintly beneath the water.
Despite their size, they were surprisingly light.
Cynthia lifted one.
The others immediately followed.
Soon the entire group was carrying the eggs away from the nest.
The River Spawn became frantic.
They struggled desperately against Rose's vines.
Their bodies twisted.
Their mouths opened.
They released furious cries.
But Nora's seals continued suppressing them.
Cynthia carried one of the eggs to the shore.
She looked at it for a moment.
Then she began cooking.
The smell spread quickly.
Once it was ready...
Cynthia took the first bite.
Her expression changed immediately.
A powerful energy surged through her body.
Her muscles tightened.
Her essence began circulating violently.
Her physique transformed.
The others who ate the eggs experienced the same phenomenon.
Their bodies became stronger.
Their bones became denser.
Their essence pathways widened.
Even Rose eventually took an egg.
The moment she consumed it...
Pink light erupted around her.
Her body seemed to become more refined.
Her skin took on a faint crystalline glow.
The flowers decorating her aura became brighter.
Even her movements felt more graceful.
Nora stared.
"So this is the effect..."
Her eyes immediately turned toward her own egg.
She couldn't wait any longer.
Once it was properly cooked, Nora began eating.
The first bite was enough.
BOOM!
A tremendous wave of energy entered her body.
Her core trembled.
Her essence surged through every pathway.
Nora immediately sat down.
She couldn't waste even a fraction of the energy.
The energy continued pouring into her core.
More.
And more.
Her core began changing.
Reforming.
Expanding.
The transformation was so intense that Nora almost lost consciousness.
Yet she endured.
She continued absorbing everything.
Her body became stronger.
Her senses sharpened.
Her essence pathways became more resilient.
Even her understanding of destiny seemed to deepen.
For a brief moment...
Nora felt as though she could control everything around her.
Water.
Essence.
Destiny.
Life.
Nothing seemed impossible.
Then the System spoke.
Congratulations.
You have advanced to a new class.
Mythic Class achieved.
Mythic Core: 0 / 8,000.
Nora slowly opened her eyes.
A smile appeared on her face.
She had expected it.
The expedition had given her too much.
The battles.
The fragments.
The River Spawn eggs.
The Runic Sorcery.
Everything had accumulated until her advancement became inevitable.
Nora looked at her hands.
"Mythic..."
She could feel the difference.
It wasn't merely more power.
Her entire existence felt denser.
More complete.
More capable of supporting her abilities.
Rose also looked pleased.
The energy from the egg had strengthened her considerably.
She could already imagine what this would do for her Elite-grade mount.
"It seems..."
Rose smiled faintly.
"...this expedition wasn't a waste after all."
The others began testing their newly enhanced physiques.
Some stretched.
Others circulated essence.
A few simply sat down to recover.
The battlefield gradually became quieter.
The River Spawn remained restrained.
Their twenty bodies struggled helplessly beneath Rose's vines.
Nora looked toward them.
For a moment...
She felt almost sorry for them.
Almost.
Then she remembered how many times they had nearly killed everyone.
The sympathy disappeared.
---
Several days later...
Nora returned to the Human World.
Rose personally escorted her to her new residence.
The expedition was finally over.
For a while...
Nora simply rested.
Then time began moving.
Days became weeks.
Weeks became months.
Nora continued hunting.
Training.
Studying Runic Sorcery.
Her progress never stopped.
Eventually...
She completed another major advancement in her core.
During that period, news reached her.
Mark had died.
The monster outbreaks had also begun spreading.
Nora quietly listened to the reports.
The world was changing.
Something was happening beneath the surface.
And she could feel it.
The future was becoming increasingly difficult to read.
Yet Nora continued moving forward.
She hunted.
She gathered fragments.
She trained her will.
She refined Ocean Sealing Sorcery.
Eventually...
She learned how to use materials as mediums for her seals.
Rope.
Cloth.
Weapons.
Stone.
Anything capable of carrying her will could potentially become a vessel for Runic Sorcery.
That discovery changed everything.
A simple rope could become a seal.
A weapon could carry suppression.
A wall could become a barrier.
Her understanding of Runic Sorcery expanded rapidly.
The Thread of Seven Hands continued revealing new knowledge.
Nora learned that many other Runic Sorceries followed similar principles.
But she didn't immediately attempt to learn them.
Ocean Sealing was enough.
For now.
She wanted mastery.
Not quantity.
Then—
Mason finally appeared at her home.
Nora had already prepared.
She didn't fight him directly.
She didn't need to.
Her seal activated.
Her will descended.
And Mason was defeated.
The battle ended far faster than he had expected.
Afterward, Nora contacted Sophia.
"Continue investigating Mason."
Sophia nodded.
"Understood."
What Sophia didn't know...
Was that Mason had already been captured.
Nora simply kept that information to herself.
There was no reason to reveal everything.
---
The memories slowly faded.
The battlefield.
The River Spawn.
The eggs.
The Ocean.
The Great River.
Mason.
Everything gradually disappeared into the depths of Nora's mind.
Nora slowly opened her eyes.
She was back in the present.
For several seconds...
She remained silent.
Then she sighed.
"...That really was one hell of an adventure."
A faint smile appeared on her face.
The flashback had ended.
She had spent months reliving events that had shaped her into the person she was now.
But somewhere in the distant Spiritual Realm...
Two figures were still trapped.
Two people who had fallen into darkness with nowhere to go.
Their story...
Was far from over.