Zen lifted the skull up and wiped the snow off it.

  "Barry, how long did it take us to get here from when the distress call first reached us?"

  "Ninety-Two minutes," Barry said, keeping his eyes on the forest surrounding them, scanning every inch of it for potential threats like most of the crew was doing.

  "And yet there's nothing but bones remaining already..." He flipped the skull around, looking for even an ounce of flesh, but it was nothing more than a pristine skull with part of its jaw broken.

  "Acid?"

  "The scanner isn't picking up on anything of the sort. There's a lot of DNA scattered around, but I'm going to need time to go through it all."

  Barry narrowed his eyes at a flock of crows circling an area several miles northeast of them in the forest, "I don't think we have that kind of time."

  Zen followed Barry's vision and spotted the crows. It wasn't easy to tell even with night vision, but it looked like they were advancing toward the Protector's position.

  His feet had also been feeling strange for a while now. He assumed the random vibrations hitting his feet were from the four men currently excavating the black box buried underneath the Protector Substation, but the vibrations hitting him were too intermittent, and he swore they were increasing in strength with each passing second.

  "You might be right about that. " Zen stood up and ran over to the men digging up the black box. "How far along are we, boys?"

  "Almost there, Commander."

  He watched and waited as two of the men used their plasma cutters on the double-layered Saronite box that held the datachip they were trying to retrieve. It had only taken a few minutes for them to cut a hole big enough to grab the chip with their suits retrievers, but in that small amount of time, Zen had been more than certain that something massive was approaching, and probably far more than just that. His men's scanners were all picking up on latent ether in the distance now, which meant they weren't dealing with Humanoids. Not that it came as a surprise to him.

  "Got it!" One of his men said as he inserted the datachip into a slot on his armor.

  A rumbling sound echoed out, but it was clear from the way everyone there was looking around that nobody knew where it was coming from.

  "Anyone have anything on their scanners?!"

  "Nothing here, sir---"

  Then, almost all at the same time, their scanners picked up on something large in the sky approaching them. Zen looked up with his night vision just as a massive pitch-black object burst into flames, causing every man there to be blinded for a moment as their visors automatically disengaged the night vision.

  "METEOR!!!" Barry shouted from behind him.

  It wasn't something they'd ever dealt with personally, but they'd all been told multiple times in training that Satyr needed to be dealt with first above all else. If you allowed them to channel, then you were going to be on the receiving end of some of the deadliest spells in the world.

  But even though his eyes re-adjusted quite fast after that, Zen already had all the information he needed. He knew exactly where that meteor was heading and why that only left them with two options. The first was to kill the Satyr, but they didn't even know what else was out there yet, and those powerful vibrations suggested something much larger than a Satyr, so that option was only if they had no other choice.

  "The train station! Withdrawal formation!!" Zen shouted as he made a beeline for the southwest.

  The men formed into a line to his left and right just as the meteor slammed into their dropship. Their training had told them that nine out of ten times it'd roll for a while before exploding, but this one instantly detonated, sending all of the men flying forward and rolling through the snow.

  As Zen was jumping back to his feet, he could see Demons, Werewolves, and an unknown type of creature sprint out of the trees behind them. The Werewolves were the most surprising part, but he didn't have time to speculate why the supposed 'Guardians of the East' were joining up with Demons.

  A hail of ether-formed purple spears rained down on the squad, ripping through the trees as if they were paper, but the blue barrier that formed along the entire line of Protectors was unfazed.

  Whatever had created the spears was clearly not used to dealing with Protectors, because it then swapped to a new spell that sounded like dozens of pistols firing at high speeds. A second later, much faster but more precise little purple dots slammed into the barrier.

  And while that normally would've been impressive, as it had enough power and speed to bring down Awakened around the Demi-God tier, or even the Demons that it was currently working with, but for a squad-based Protector barrier, it was nothing. Physical components were required if you wanted to bring them down with spells or abilities, like the meteor. The meteor would have crushed the entire squad, as it had weight and gravity to it. But pure ether had neither of those things.

  The Protectors were fast as well once they moved and channeled as a unit. Too fast. The Werewolves, who were normally proud of their ability to catch anything, stopped halfway through the ruined village and looked back at the Satyr and Tengu, awaiting further orders. Their current order of 'Just chase them' wasn't going to work, and everything there knew it.

  Yuji idly watched as the incinerator dealt with his recent victim. Before turning it on, he had checked the inside and saw that some of Ryu's bones were still present, so he knew Hisui was going to remain to a certain degree as well.

  Should I dispose of them in one of the compactors? I feel like it's a wasted opportunity though. There's no way any evidence related to me is still intact inside the incinerator here, so people finding these bones shouldn't be an issue.

  He kept thinking about how attempting to only use Zen was too small-minded. There were other ways he could surely worm his way into Dai's inner circle, especially since the man appeared to be fond of Yuji, or just fond of whoever was connected to his uncle, but either way, it was a boon for him.

  It'd be a lot easier if I had that transform ability already, but maybe that's the point of this trial? It really does feel like a training mission on hard mode when I consider what the bonus wants me to do.

  It was hard for him to concentrate though. After absorbing Hisui, he had felt like his entire body was amped, and it was just begging him to be active and do something. All the exhaustion he had been feeling since the whole ordeal started had been wiped away, and even though he ran the entire way to the water depository carrying Hisui, he wasn't winded even a little.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Yuji left out the back and ran up the slope, then kicked his way up the cliff just as he had before. He had only realized while hunting Hisui that it had begun snowing again. The warm weather had taken a complete one-eighty after the Domain Crystal was turned on, which is something he wanted to ask Sarah about later, but for now that meant it was really cold out again.

  However, that somehow didn't mean anything to him at the moment. He had his hood down and had even removed his gloves. No matter how cold the air felt, it wasn't actually affecting him directly. Between the unending surge of adrenaline and the temperature no longer affecting him, it was obvious that the soul absorption he'd done had done something to him.

  Odds are it's temporary, or I hope it is anyway. Not having to worry about the weather would be amazing, but this never-ending adrenaline high is driving me insane when I have nothing to do with it.

  Upon reaching the top of the cliff, he immediately ran forward and scaled the next one too until he was on the ground level, where he kept running straight until he was certain nobody below would be able to see him.

  He then pivoted to the left and began jumping as high as he could while still moving forward, wrapping around the entire undercity until he reached the warehouse district.

  The feeling to do something. Move faster, jump higher, absorb more blood and souls, none of it was fading, but it wasn't getting stronger either, thankfully.

  No one there, or there, or there...

  He made sure nobody was going to see him, even though he was certain nobody would even if he had made the jump in broad daylight on a warm day, but after making sure anyway, he ran and jumped all the way down to Warehouse-C's roof. And the second he landed he ran to the edge and jumped to the next warehouse.

  Yuji continued hopping around pointlessly for a while until he spotted something on one of the roofs.

  Is that a person...?

  He backed up and got a running start before jumping all the way over to the roof of the Pyrite-Generator building. Warm water splattered onto his pants as he landed, but they and his boots were designed to ward off snow and water. It wasn't a problem for the current him to have warm air rising from above while the freezing cold air pelted him, but he couldn't help but wonder how long how hellish it'd feel under normal circumstances.

  Yuji walked over to the body and froze when he saw the girl's face. Everyone in town would've recognized her right away, which is why his first thought was to flee and get as much distance from her corpse as possible, but that plan was halted when he heard her mumbling to herself.

  She's alive?! And sleeping here of all places???

  A dangerous and wild idea hit him as he watched Ava sleep. He had an idea as to how to use his 'Night Terror' ability now, but it was way too easy to subdue Hisui. He knew it wouldn't be so omnipotent that it'd work on one of the Hargravens, who were all known to be Awakened, but it would give him a general idea as to how to use it against non-normal people.

  Yuji slowly walked over to Ava and sat down next to her left side. He then reached out with Night Terror and connected his soul to hers. Right away, he could tell that her soul was in a state of panic. Not because of Yuji, but because the idiot was sleeping in a place that could easily kill her. Souls had no awareness as far as he knew, but it did know that the body it was housed in was currently in a very precarious position, and thus it was trying to wake her up.

  He was unsure of how much time he'd have for testing purposes, but he still chose to pour a very small amount of mana into Night Terror. As the ability activated, Yuji could feel the 'Tension' on her connection ramp up, and when it was around the seventy percent mark, he dropped the mana flow to zero, giving her soul time to rest.

  This really does feel like I'm playing a fishing mini-game.

  Yuji repeated that act a few more times, which had raised the subjugation of Hisui earlier to around ten percent, but Ava was still at zero.

  As expected. I don't know what tier she is, but as a person still in their trial, she's guaranteed to be stronger than me, so this would probably take several full nights of channeling. Or maybe even weeks?

  After letting her soul rest for the ninth or tenth time, he felt it max out almost instantly all on its own.

  Shit, did she sense me?!

  Yuji stood up and was just about to bolt when he realized that she was merely waking up. He watched as Ava turned back and forth a little while stretching.

  ... Hmm.

  "Ava, why are you sleeping here?" He chose to say instead of fleeing.

  "Eh?" Ava turned toward Yuji and tried to open her eyes, but they were frozen shut. "Arrgh, why?!" She began scooping up warm water and splashing it onto her face all over until she was finally able to open her eyes.

  "A Human?"

  "Yes, a Human. Now why are you sleeping in a place like this?"

  "It's warm and comfortable!" She splashed the water and then made two peace signs with her fingers.

  ... Is she stupid?

  Ava stared at Yuji, looking him up and down, "Were you going to assault Ava?"

  "What? No, I wouldn't do that."

  "Not pretty enough?"

  "You're beautiful. That's not the problem..."

  Ava clapped her cheeks and mushed them together, "I'm bewtifulll~."

  Yuji laughed and shook his head. He didn't know what to expect from a conversation with a Hargraven, but this was far outside his expectations.

  She suddenly held her arms out at him and puckered her lips, "Kiss. Kiss. Wake the princess."

  "Yeah, uh, I'm not going to do that either."

  "That's right, you won't! Taking Ava's first kiss would mean death. She'd kill kill kill kill kill kill---" She began making little gun shooting emotes with her hands all over the place.

  This girl is beyond strange, that's all I'm really learning from this.

  "BUT!" She suddenly shouted and held her arms out again, "... Ava will let you carry her home. Her back hurts when she tries to move. Be honored, Human." She said before closing her eyes again while making kissing noises for some reason.

  'Beyond strange' might be an understatement.

  Making a connection with the Hargravens might be something he could use in the future, and he didn't know anything about the girl, so just leaving her to maybe die wasn't something he wanted to do. Not that he really expected her to die, which was all the more reason to help her. If he said no to her here, that could make him an enemy of her family. Now that he really wanted to avoid.

  Yuji bent down and scooped Ava off the water-covered roof. She leaned her head against him and closed her eyes. He had been wondering what she'd think of his floating ability, since it'd obviously out him as an Awakened, but her eyes were closed and it looked like she was already halfway to falling asleep again.

  He leapt from one building to another, landing on the Hargraven's mansion in less than a minute. They lived somewhat close to the Pyrite-Generator factory after all.

  "Ava, I probably shouldn't knock on the roof door, yeah?"

  "Mmm..." She mumbled without opening her eyes.

  After a quick scan of the street below, he saw that there were three people resting on the chairs outside of the restaurant down the street a little. He could see large swaths of smoke billowing out from them.

  Dai is still out here?

  Their chairs were all faced in the direction of the platform, looking away from him, but that was still more than enough for him to run to the alley and jump down there first before swinging around to the front of the mansion.

  There were two sets of doors. One was big enough to fit someone twice the size of Riddick, which had always made the townspeople wonder just how big the Hargraven's Clan Leader was, and the other was a normal-sized set of double doors.

  He reached out and pushed the button on the right side of the door. He couldn't hear the sound of it ringing inside, but he figured it was just because the place was so gigantic to begin with.

  The door slightly opened around a minute later. Yuji immediately recognized her as Esta. She was warily staring at him through a small crack in the door. "Yes? Do you need something?"

  He smiled and moved to the left a little so she could see the face of the person he was holding. As soon as she saw Ava, she fully opened the door and sighed, "Do I even want to know where you found her?"

  "She was on the roof of the Pyrite-Generator building, and uh, she was asleep."

  Esta put her hands over her face, "Why must you put us through this..." She then turned around and yelled, "Lundy!!"

  However, as they waited, it became clear that the butler was not going to arrive.

  "It appears he might need some more time to recover. How annoying..." She then reached out with her arms, intending to pick up Ava, but she stopped and pulled back when she saw how wet and half-frozen Ava was. Apparently not wanting to ruin her black dress, she stepped back and looked at Yuji, "Do you mind carrying her to her room? I planned on giving you a reward regardless, but I would appreciate it if you did this for me."

  "Sure. I don't mind."

  Esta smiled and turned to lead him. Yuji followed her inside and went to shut the door, but it shut all on its own, locking soon after that without any assistance as well.

  It already feels like I'm stepping into another world...