Ragryno couldn't find the words to describe just how terrible he thought this idea was. Hunting a rank 3 monster while being at rank 1? Physically, no—how could that even be possible?
He remembered his fight against a rank 2 shadow, which was clearly defective since it couldn't fight back. He had been on the verge of death, and if not for some miracle that kept him alive, he would have certainly perished.
He glanced at his left, wooden hand and nodded to himself.
"This... This is impossible! How are we, at rank 1, supposed to stand against a rank 3 creature? Fine, it could've been a rank 2 beast, but rank 3?!" the boy began to protest fervently. He definitely didn't want to sign up for such a horrible adventure. It was literally a death sentence—and he had no desire to meet death just yet.
Everyone silently stared at him until Livia finally broke the silence with her "arguments."
"We don't have any other choice. We physically can't get to the other parts of the map at the moment," she said, stepping closer to Ragryno, who was glaring at her intensely.
"Why can't we reach the other areas?" The boy was clearly surprised by this. Could it be that more rank 3 monsters were blocking their path to other significant places?
"The answer is simple—distance. Even to reach this point on the map, it'll take at least a month, maybe more. Last time, we spent two weeks just getting here, and damn it, I'm not even sure if we made it halfway," Zack said, sitting on a nearby bench, completely covered in the dust of time.
Alex and Catherine stood to the side, silently listening to the conversation between the other three. They chose not to intervene, perhaps because they barely knew Ragryno or didn't know what arguments to offer in favor of this decision.
The boy himself still wasn't convinced. Distance... So what? Couldn't they just embark on that long journey? What was the problem?
"Well... So what? Distance isn't an insurmountable obstacle. I'm sure we can make it through. Even if it takes months, what's the difference if we can escape the forest?" Ragryno said, completely baffled by what the issue was. Yes, they'd have to cover a great distance, but if it meant avoiding a rank 3 creature, it was the best decision they could make. Why couldn't they just go around it?
"Yeah, easy for you to say when you're not responsible for an entire camp of people who would quickly die if you leave for too long," Zack said, resting his head in his hand.
Hearing this, Ragryno realized he had completely forgotten about them. But... who cares? Why should he? If they wanted to survive, why didn't they become stronger and protect themselves? This was the question he wanted to ask.
However, the words never left his throat, because Ragryno suddenly felt something, some kind of effect on his body. Instantly, he used his mana perception and was slightly surprised...
Strange foreign mana particles were floating in the air, trying to settle on his wooden hand, which at the moment was emitting a turquoise light. They were trying to penetrate it, but due to the constant mana flow into the hand, the particles simply bounced off.
The boy looked at his companions and saw them staring at him in surprise. Just as Zack was about to make another joke, Ragryno raised his hand, making him fall silent. Everyone in the room became more focused.
"Did you sense something?" Alex asked, raising his axe and preparing for battle. Everyone looked at Ragryno warily, but they were also slightly confused since no one felt anything except for the Elf.
"Something strange and unfamiliar... I can't give an exact assessment of what it is, but it seems something is happening outside. I feel a strange, foreign mana trying to seep into my wooden hand," the Elf said, turning his head toward the temple's exit. The arch was covered in darkness, not letting any light inside. Ragryno had seen something similar before—in the ritual temple. He found this coincidence quite intriguing.
Were there other temples here where mana contract rituals were held?
Ragryno wanted to think about it, maybe even conduct a small investigation, but that wasn't important right now. His words instantly tensed up the whole team, and they were already heading toward the temple exit.
"Be ready; we might have an enemy waiting for us," Livia said, manipulating mana in her hand. In just a few seconds, she held a strange blade, one that Ragryno had only seen a few times in his life. It had a very thin edge and a sharp point. Usually, such weapons were only used for thrusting strikes.
'If I remember correctly, this was called a rapier... But then why did she use those up-and-down movements at the stream?'
The boy was puzzled by this, but he quickly dropped the thought as they stepped out of the temple. At first, none of them noticed anything. The Elf found this odd, as the strange mana pressing on his hand had only increased. But he saw nothing... Absolutely nothing.
Wait...?
A strange thought suddenly struck Ragryno. He sensed the mana's effect through his constant scanning, but why couldn't he see it? More importantly, what did he need to do to see the mana?
"Channel mana into your eyes," Ragryno immediately said, performing the action himself.
The others looked at him in surprise, as if they didn't understand what he was talking about.
His multicolored eyes instantly turned turquoise, and the boy felt his vision sharpen, but with that, he also felt intense pressure on his eyes. Turning his gaze to his companions, he saw that their eyes hadn't changed color at all. Rather, they were all surprised by the fact that his eyes had turned a different shade. But Ragryno focused not on them, but on the strange crimson mist swirling around them.
Upon seeing it, Ragryno involuntarily took a step back, his body covered in goosebumps.
'What is that?'
"Listen, Ragryno, I get it, but how did you channel mana into your eyes? How are you even controlling it internally?" Alex suddenly asked, looking completely lost.
Livia remained silent, but it was clear she too was wondering the same thing, as were the others. This truly surprised Ragryno. Could they not manipulate mana within themselves and send it to specific parts of their bodies? For Ragryno, this was truly odd, as he did it completely instinctively, without much effort.
"Alright, focus already!" Ragryno mentally slapped himself, bringing his attention back to the world around him.
The mana trying to penetrate his companions' bodies was unnatural. The elf didn't respond to the question directed at him; instead, he kept trying to understand its concept and figure out how it worked. But no success—what he saw was utterly chaotic and impossible for him to comprehend.
To give a simple comparison, his mana, which was called chaotic and unstable, was nothing compared to what he was seeing now. If his mana was like a hurricane due to its low stability, the mana he saw now was like a tsunami of hurricanes.
"Hey! Wake up! What the hell is going on?" Zack yelled, completely snapping the elf out of his mana analysis.
"I'm trying to figure it out! There's some messed-up stuff happening around you, trying to get into your bodies!"
The entire group started looking around, utterly confused by what the elf was talking about. Meanwhile, Ragryno returned to his attempts to grasp what he was seeing and what it was trying to do. It was clear—this thing wanted to get inside everyone. But, amusingly enough, it couldn't enter Ragryno's body at all. Yes, it tried, but it seemed to hit an invisible barrier inside him and simply bounced off.
With each passing second, the stream he saw became more and more chaotic. Judging by Livia's expression, the elf guessed that she had started to feel the flow as well. Ragryno noticed how the mana inside her flowed toward her hand, and her weapon slowly transformed into… a shield? Or at least something resembling a shield. But she made the right call, as the chaotic energy seemed most interested in the shield she was holding.
'Isn't it heavy for her to hold an entirely metal shield?'
"We need to get out of here, now!" Livia said. No one was going to argue with her, and everyone silently nodded, except for the elf, who kept making new discoveries for himself.
Now, the mana was more visible than ever. As it turned out, the veil was just a shell. Inside, chaotic mana flowed like through a pipe. Finally, Ragryno saw what it was trying to do, as Livia began channeling more mana into her shield. The chaotic mana was simply trying to devour it.
The team began moving. Ragryno followed them without distraction until one simple thought crossed his mind.
'Where is this mana even coming from?'
He saw that the veil became more transparent at some distance from them, until it disappeared entirely. As if someone wanted to cover their tracks... But why? Ragryno decided to find the answer immediately, pouring more mana into his eyes. Instantly, he felt an unpleasant burning sensation in them, and his eyes started glowing even brighter, like two beacons. Now, he saw the mana flows even more clearly as they passed through the veil, and he found the trail. And damn, he wished he hadn't.
The mana flows came from above, from the sky. Near the temple, there were very few trees, and in fact, there had been fewer and fewer trees as they approached the temple, so nothing blocked the sky. But what Ragryno saw in the sky made him stop, and he felt the confused stares of his group, who were clearly in a hurry. Alex, who was ahead of Ragryno, was the first to notice.
He walked over and put a hand on Ragryno's shoulder.
"Hey, what's up?" Alex said worriedly, looking up into the sky after Ragryno. Despite his limited talent for magic and his inability to see much, even he felt that something was up there.
The others, seeing what was happening, instinctively looked up.
Meanwhile, Ragryno paled and broke out in a cold sweat. What was in the sky defied any explanation. Above them, there was a cloud, entirely made of chaotic mana. But that wasn't what had caused Ragryno to stop—it was what he felt from the cloud.
"The third…" he muttered under his breath.
Right now, above their small group, there was a massive concentration of chaotic mana, and it was alive. A creature of the third rank, sending chills down the spine of every one of them. Everyone stood frozen, in the middle of the ruins, staring at the sky. Even those with no talent for magic could still see how unnaturally compressed the space in the sky was.
But Ragryno didn't remain in a state of shock for long. He heard footsteps approaching and felt a sharp sting on his cheek. Livia had slapped him to snap him out of it.
"If you don't want to die, we need to move now!" she said loudly, though her voice was trembling with fear.
Everyone snapped out of it as if waking from a dream, and Ragryno couldn't quite understand why he… had been so stunned by that cloud. Yes, it was third rank, yes, much stronger than him or anyone else in this group. But he wasn't standing face-to-face with the nightmare creature from his dreams with two massive tusks instead of arms. The group quickly started moving into the forest to return to camp.
At first, they moved at a fast pace, trying not to fall behind Livia. The creature's presence above them was only getting stronger, making one thing very clear.
"We won't make it. It's too close. We need to find some kind of shelter," Zack muttered through gritted teeth.
Curious, what was he even seeing? The others were sensing the creature through mana perception, but how was Zack seeing it?
Everyone nodded at his suggestion, but the question remained—where could they find shelter in the middle of this forest so that the creature wouldn't notice them? What if it had already noticed and was preparing its attack right now?
"I... I think we should go to the temple!" Catherine said awkwardly. And it was indeed a decent suggestion. Where else could they take shelter other than in a place like the temple?
"This is bad… What if it attacks the camp? It's heading right for it," Alex voiced his concern, quickly scanning the surroundings as if looking for something.
Everyone fell silent. After all, if they hid now, what would happen if the creature decided to attack the camp? There were about 40 people there, and Ragryno was sure that the creature would hardly pass up such a rich source of mana.
"What if it already knows and is heading there right now?" Ragryno suddenly said his thought out loud.
"Then it means we need to stop it," Livia blurted out, causing everyone, even Zack, to look skeptically at such a proposal, knowing full well that their group of four and an elf was unlikely to handle such an overwhelming task.
Livia probably realized that too, as her tone wasn't very confident. But Ragryno had an idea.
"What if we don't stop it… but redirect it?" the elf said, crossing his arms. He wasn't entirely sure how to do it, but he had a guess, judging by how the creature had tried to devour Livia's shield, which she had already dispelled. Ragryno continued manipulating the mana inside his body, focusing on his eyes, and noticed that the veil—resembling wide strips of fabric—was trying to enter his body more persistently. This meant it was interested in his mana and its quantity, which meant… this could be used to their advantage.
"How do you suggest we do that?" Livia asked seriously, looking at the long-eared elf.
"I have a hunch that it's probably… just hungry and wants more mana. That's why it's heading toward the camp, since there's the largest source of it… But! What if we create a source, maybe with less mana, but closer than the camp?" Ragryno spoke with a confident tone. There were, of course, many nuances to consider, but if they could pull it off, what other options did they have?
"Whoa, I don't wanna burst your genius plan, but there are five of us here. Yeah, maybe you've got more mana than each of us, maybe even more than all of us combined… But are you sure you have more mana than 40 people? And will that really make the creature choose you over them?" Zack said skeptically.
Ragryno understood that what he had in mind was indeed a tough challenge, but hadn't he already escaped impossible situations before? This was just another one, and he was determined to deal with it.
But alas, none of their plans proved to be correct, for no one knew what would happen right after Ragryno's fleeting uncertainty. Everything around them suddenly turned crimson, and mana became palpable to everyone nearby. Feeling the abrupt changes, Ragryno lifted his gaze to the sky to see a small cloud completely changing.
It wasn't that the cloud became something else… No, it simply took on a completely different form. The form of a giant eye, now staring directly at the group of five standing together, utterly speechless. But Ragryno was the most shocked of them all, as he now felt the presence of that third rank more distinctly than before.
Now Ragryno felt it everywhere. It watched him with its enormous eye, and he, in return, stared back at it. Ragryno had the strange feeling that the creature was looking specifically at him and not at the group. This made the boy incredibly uneasy, extremely uneasy.
"Quick! To the temple!" Livia shouted, breaking into a sprint and prompting everyone to follow suit.
The air became even more saturated with the mana of the creature. Everything around them turned crimson, radiating from the eye. Ragryno felt fear, intense fear of this monster.
'Is this the third rank?'
And this is what they plan to fight? This monster that could destroy cities! How do they even imagine facing something like this? If the gap between the first and second ranks was barely noticeable to Ragryno, the gap between the second and third was simply colossal.
Meanwhile, Ragryno began to hear a loud hum. The wind grew stronger by the second as they quickly returned to the temple. In the distance, lightning struck. It all felt like the beginning of the end of the world. The ground began to tremble slowly, forcing them to slow down.
"What the hell is going on?!" Zack shouted in an uncertain voice, and Ragryno heard the fear and disbelief in it.
"The amount of mana this creature is using is just incredible!" Catherine said with admiration, causing Ragryno to question her sanity. Who could admire something like this at a time like this?!
"Save the talking for later! If you don't want to die, run faster!" Livia shouted again, forcing everyone to shut up.
The mana in the air only gathered more and more, and Ragryno saw with his own eyes how it began to slowly seep into the one with the least mana among them—Alex. The boy's face began to contort in pain, pushing Ragryno to run even faster.
Since they hadn't gone far, the temple was now practically in front of them. The completely dark arch beckoned the five first-ranks. But… who could have predicted that even here their plans wouldn't succeed?
"STOP! EVERYONE STOP!" Ragryno shouted, forcing them all to halt. He was surprised that everyone listened to him, but it was a good thing because the next second Ragryno saw a strange creature with a transparent, shadowy body appear from the sky.
The creature was large, and like a bomb, it dropped onto the temple. Dust and stone from the temple flew in all directions. A wave of dust engulfed the group, forcing everyone to hit the ground, slowly realizing that their only hope for salvation had been completely destroyed. For a while, Ragryno lay on the ground, feeling a few small stones hit him.
After some time, he scanned everything around him with his mana senses and was horrified. The mana of the third-rank creature kept growing, almost constantly. But that wasn't the worst of it—he had lost track of one of the people in its aura.
Quickly lifting his head, he opened his eyes and saw that everyone was lying on the ground, covering their heads. Livia remained down for a moment longer but eventually lifted her head and looked at Ragryno. Their gazes met, but soon Ragryno's gaze slid to something else.
Not far from him, he saw a body... Catherine's body. The girl lay with wide-open eyes and mouth. Something red slowly dripped from her mouth, which Ragryno immediately recognized as blood. But as his gaze moved lower, he saw that her lower body had been impaled by a massive stone shard.
Livia followed the elf's gaze and saw the scene too. In disbelief, Ragryno began to rise to his feet, still sensing the aura where the temple had once stood. Everything around was crimson, and the air felt heavier due to the dust still hanging in the air, though it was quickly dispersing due to the fierce wind.
Zack and Alex also stood up, and Alex was the first to rush to Catherine. He fell to his knees in front of her and, in disbelief, touched her face. Ragryno saw tears begin to fall from Alex's eyes. But despite this… the boy shifted his gaze toward the temple.
With the dust settling, he could now see the creature standing in the middle of it and feel its aura. This wasn't the monster that was still a giant, foggy eye in the sky. Ragryno realized this immediately, as he felt it was a second-rank entity.
The creature had a transparent body with lightning constantly flashing inside. It had a humanoid form, except instead of legs, it had a whirlwind supporting its upper body. It had two long arms with five long, transparent claws. For a moment, the creature just observed Ragryno, as he, in turn, observed it.
Ragryno was deeply shaken. His feelings, his thoughts—they were all mixed up. He felt a dull ache all over his body from the electric blast, but even now, he could still feel the creature above trying to break into his body with its aura. Everyone was silent, but Ragryno understood how they felt.
He hadn't known this girl for long, and he simply didn't care about her; perhaps that's why her death didn't really affect him—he had seen too many similar things during his childhood. But despite all this, he was still angry.
'Why does crap like this keep happening in my life?'
As it turned out, this was only the beginning, as more second-rank auras began appearing in the sky. Within seconds, the entire team was surrounded by numerous auras of strange elementals.
"Everyone… Everyone, gather in a circle!" Livia shouted, creating a rapier in her hand. Ragryno could feel the amount of mana she was pouring into it, and now she was under the influence of the creature in the sky.
Only Zack and Ragryno weren't yet affected by the draining mana. At Livia's command, everyone formed a circle, watching as more and more creatures were summoned by the entity above. Ragryno had already drawn the weapon the girl had gifted him, gripping it tightly in his right hand.
Ragryno glanced at Alex and saw pure, primal rage on his face. He was furious over the girl's death, so Ragryno assumed they were either related by blood or just close friends.
"Damn it, Ragryno, you're a terrible talisman!" Even in this situation, Zack tried to lighten the mood, though it was unsuccessful.
Ragryno heard Alex muttering something under his breath, looking at the many thunder elementals.
"Screw you, Zack! Focus and get ready to fight!" Ragryno quickly responded, shifting his gaze to the enemies before him. Each of them was a second rank, with only a few being first-rank. The fight was completely unequal, and Ragryno was already forming an escape plan.
He wasn't an idiot to risk his own skin...
"Promise me you'll trust me, Zack, Ragryno!" Livia shouted, apparently assuming a battle stance.
"Ugh, trusting someone like you is dangerous, but whatever you say, princess!" Zack said, changing his stance as well. He held two short daggers—at least now Ragryno knew what his talkative friend fought with.
As for Ragryno… Well, he simply held his blade in front of him, just like many did in the slums when they demanded food or something else. He decided to remain silent and not give any promises, gripping the blade in his hand tightly, preparing for the approaching elementals.
He only wondered why the girl hadn't said anything about Alex.
The answer came almost immediately, as the enraged boy broke formation and charged at the elementals with fury, raising his axe high.