"Do you know where Antares is? I finished his request and wanted to give him this back." Baron said, pointing at the shining Dane Axe in his hand.
"I was looking for him too. I was gonna ask about Ly- Do you feel that?" Sophie said, noticing a cyclone of mana circling west of their camp.
"Is a beast evolving or something? But why would they be so… Antares! Wait, where's Lycaon?!" Baron noticed.
Running toward Lycaon's cabin, they noticed his mana signature wasn't inside and already assumed the worst. If he wasn't inside his cabin, then it could only mean that he was with Antares.
"Gather Lendell, Lexi and Katlynn. I'll go ahead and help him." Baron instructed before leaving.
'I swear Lycaon if you try to hurt Sebastian, I will end you with my bare hands!'
_____
Lycaon watched as Sebastian fell to the ground while holding his chest in agony. Although he had his suspicions about it, he didn't think he would be correct about him trying to rank-up.
"Are you serious?! You want to rank-up now?!" Lycaon asked in distress.
The feeling of his bones constantly shattering and rebuilding themselves was agonizing for Sebastian. Not only was his body rebuilding itself, but his blood was going through a transformation as well. Though compared to others, he was experiencing something far worse than everyone else.
He had three different types of blood coursing through his veins. The blood of the Founder and the heart that was transplanted in his body. The heart itself was coursing a different and special type of blood throughout his body without him even knowing what it was.
Lycaon, on alert, noticed a shift in mana pressure as he felt multiple mana signatures approaching them. Readying himself for combat, he formed one blue orb in his left hand and formed one red orb in his right hand.
"I'm not sure if you thought this far but this doesn't look too good for me" He said to the unconscious Sebastian.
Soon, three groups of beasts jumped out from the forest and proceeded to circle around him and Sebastian. After a few seconds, one group lunged and eventually noticed that Lycaon released his red orb.
"Repulsive Red!"
Flying through the air, the red orb absorbed the lunging group and continued on forward. The other two groups saw what had happened and proceeded with caution. It wasn't everyday you'd see a group of beasts become vaporized.
As if they could sense the imminent danger, the two groups dodged out of the way as they saw a giant red orb fly past them. As the orb was approaching him, Lycaon stuck his hand out and absorbed the red orb.
Although he wanted to release his blue orb, he couldn't as releasing it would leave him wide open for another attack. As powerful as he was, he couldn't keep his slowed field up while he was attacking as doing so would require a lot of mental capacity, which he didn't have.
"Fine, if you're not gonna come to me, then I'll go to you!" Lycaon shouted as he flash-stepped in front of the group of Skinwalkers.
"Blue Abyssal Attraction!"
Releasing his blue orb, the Skinwalkers felt a strong gravitational pull as they were sucked into the blue orb. Unlike the red orb, he had full control of the blue orb as he circled it around, destroying the surrounding trees around him.
The last remaining group of beasts recognized the opening and lunged for Sebastian. They almost managed to take a bite of him but they then collided with an earth wall.
Bang!
"Here I thought you were gonna harm him but you're protecting? Make up your mind whether you're gonna kill him or ally with him." Baron said, descending onto the razed battlefield.
In his hands, he wielded a giant war hammer and slammed it onto the ground. Although he wasn't proficient in enchanting, he could do some basic enchantments.
"Shattering Earth!" He shouted.
A streak of bright yellow energy was infused into the ground and large cracked followed it. Soon the ground burst open and shout out fragments of earth toward the beasts, killing them.
Rustle!
"We're here!" Three people shouted in unison as they came out from the forest.
"Before we get into scuffle, I'd like to say it was Antares' idea." Lycaon said, trying to prove his innocence.
"That was obvious, otherwise he would have done it in the camp." Baron replied.
"F*ck you. I was just trying to explain myself."
"We'll hear it from him after we eliminate the rest of the beasts."
As soon as he finished those words, more beasts started to appear from the forest in response to Sebastian's ranking-up. Out of the six, Lexi was the first to step as she wanted to understand the limits of her power.
Approaching the horde of beasts, Lexi's blade started to glow faintly and hummed with her heartbeat. Leaping into the air, she held the blade by her side before slashing all around herself through the horde.
With such swiftness, not every beast was lucky to dodge her flurry of attacks as even if they did, the blade would release sharp waves of poison, Those infect with the poison would experience nausea, as the poison she used mainly affected the brain. Obviously they would need prolonged exposure to the poison to reach that stage but with her flurry of attacks, it wouldn't take long for them to reach it.
"I can't be outdone, can I now?" Lendell questioned himself as he stepped up to face the other horde of beasts.
Pulling out his swords, he began to infuse them with his magic as it was evident by the strange purple mana surrounding his blades. Compared to his last set of greatswords, his current set was finally able to contain his mana without breaking down.
Jumping forward, he landed in the horde of beasts and grinned as his abilities were best suited against a group of enemies.
"RAHH!"
By stomping on the ground, his gravity magic activated as every nearby beast in ten meters was slowed down around him. Obviously, they didn't just sit there to allow themselves to be killed as they lunged at him and bit down on his suit of armor.
Pulling the blade together, he infused them with his gravity magic as he increased the weight of the blades. Slamming them down, the nearby beasts were sent flying through the air while some even died on the spot from the strong attack.
Bang!
"Heh! Who do they think they are? Why must one get close to face their opponent when you can be far away and safe." Katlynn said as she raised her hand to the sky and summoned multiple golden longswords before clenching her fist. "Hundred Blade Fury!"
Opening her hand, a hundred golden longswords shot down toward the horde of beasts, killing half of them in the process. After a few seconds, she fell to one knee as she started to breathe heavily.
"You should have summoned only twenty-five of them. You would have lasted four times the amount you did right now." Baron said. "By the way, did you ever perfect that move you wanted?"
"Combining both Blue Abyssal Attraction and Repulsive Red proved to be harder than I expected so no. Though I almost managed to combine them, I ran out of mana." Lycaon revealed.
"I suppose I'll do it myself."
Creating an earth golem, he instructed it to go forth and kill every beast. Listening to the command, the golem ran forward and rolled into the horde, killing a numerous number of them.
"ROAR!!!"
A single loud roar was enough to gather everyone's attention as they felt its mana pressure comparable to an D-Rank individual. Not only was it bad news, but they had nearly used up all of their mana reserves against the horde.
Lycaon still had mana remaining but he couldn't do much especially with his predictable large attacks. Unlike other magic, space magic was very limited to a few attacks.
Coming out from the forest, a giant majestic lion-like beast with a mane that flickered with flames appeared. Its eyes shined with an intense, magical glow, revealing the power within.
"An Ignisfelis…" Lycaon spoke in disbelief.
Ignisfelis was a legendary species in the world. Sadly in the outside world, they went extinct since they were highly sought for fire-enhancing gear.
Upon seeing such a legendary beast, Lycaon didn't want to kill it. From the looks of it, it seemed to be an adolescent male that still was growing.
"Everyone! Don't kill it!" Lycaon instructed.
"You aren't the leader anymore, I am." Baron replied.
"Don't you know what an Ignisfelis is? These beasts are thought to be extinct! If we can capture it and find a female, we can revive its entire species!"
"Wait, Ignisfelis? Didn't Kai's father say these beasts are sacred and noble protectors?" Baron remembered.
Like a flash, the Ignisfelis appeared in front of Sebastian and looked at him with genuine curiosity. Those who saw this, immediately ran toward him in hope of gathering the beast's attention.
"Wait! He isn't trying to harm him!" Lycaon shouted.
Stopping in their tracks, they watched as the lion-like beast laid on top of Sebastian and covered him in its flames as if it was trying to protect him.
"He's trying to protect Sebastian from any harm." Lycaon revealed.
"Why would he do that?" Baron asked.
"I don't know. Not much is known about them other than them being protectors."
"What do you suppose we do? Do we just wait until he awakens?"
"Yes."
______
A Few Hours Later…
The Ignisfelis opened its eyes and proceeded to stand before walking off of Sebastian as if it knew he was gonna awaken from his slumber. Soon, he opened his eyes and sat up. The other saw this and tried to approach but the lion stopped them.
He then looked at his surroundings as if he was confused where he was. While he was in his state of confusion, everybody noticed his presence was more powerful and denser than before.
"How long was I out?" He asked.
"About four hours." Baron guessed.
"Be right back. I wanna test my new strength."
In front of their eyes, they saw him disappear and leave an afterimage behind. Those who saw this were greatly surprised as they never saw him make a move. It was as if he wasn't there in the first place.
Jumping from tree to tree, Sebastian expanded his every energy in his arsenal to gauge the capacities of his abilities. Just as he had thought, his spiritual energy capacity was now twice its original size.
As he was expanding his energies, he also noticed of how unstable the energies were within his body. During the year, he finally decided to enter his mind space and check up on the interior and noticed that he had different types of energies floating around.
There were a total of nine different energies within his body that were currently running rampant. He had his five aura and the four unknown energies within his body. He found out that the only way to stabilize them is by creating crystals with the energies but that was a hard process.
Since he was focused on the energies within his mind space, he failed to notice the approaching beasts coming in his direction. Only after the beast lunged and pounced on him, did he noticed the beasts were upon him.
"Roar!"
After being pounced on, he noticed they were similar to the fire lion he saw when he had awakened. He also noticed the fear they were emitting through their bodies as if they were being hunted.
'Are these children perhaps the lion's? But where is the mother then? It would be her job to protect the cubs while the father is out hunting.' Sebastian thought as felt multiple incoming beasts.
"Roar!"
"Of course it had to be Abyssal Leopards…" Sebastian said, dissatisfied.