The massive white wolf lay sprawled, its fur losing the once-bright shine as the dungeon’s mana faded. For a while, its chest still rose and fell painfully from many wounds, but eventually, even that movement ceased.

  A final tremor ran through the canyon as the dungeon’s will retreated once the System confirmed the kill.

  “It’s dead,” Raphael spat, not looking particularly relieved. His eyes were bloodshot, and his clothes were splotched with blood, both his and others’, but his focus didn’t waver. He snapped his fingers, and space folded, vanishing the corpse into his ring.

  “We need to get back to the camp. Now,” he snapped.

  Nick nodded in agreement and forced himself to breathe through the ache in his coils, even as he let the Crest fade, and his [Territory] collapse. The Shard’s orb flickered with residual energy before going dark.

  “Let’s get back in formation,” Raphael muttered. “Malik, can you walk?”

  Malik’s reply was a low grunt. He stood upright, pressing one arm against his ribs to steady himself. Willow’s magic and potions had sealed the gash across his torso into an angry scar, but each step made his face twitch.

  “I will have to do. We gotta move,” Raphael repeated and was the first to start walking, clearly not wanting to know what else the dungeon might throw at them.

  I’m not sure what we could do if another Guardian came at us. I’d probably have to sacrifice a lot to ensure my survival, let alone that of the others.

  It wasn’t a particularly comforting thought, but knowing he wasn’t completely helpless gave him the strength he needed to follow after Raphael.

  They hobbled back through the canyon maze in a close group, trying to avoid making loud noises that could attract attention and sticking to the shortest route.

  For a while, it worked. They pushed through two narrow corridors, climbed a sloping shelf, and crossed a basin of broken rock where only a few pale lizards moved, falling to Terence and Monte’s blades.

  Then the first howl echoed down the canyon behind them, followed by another, and then another.

  Yvonne looked back over her shoulder, and whatever she saw made her speed up. Monte’s knuckles turned white on his hilt, and Terence’s breathing hitched.

  Raphael didn’t look back. “Ignore them. Keep moving.”

  A howl came closer, once again drawing their focus to the back, which was when a shadow dropped from above.

  Nick’s head snapped up instinctively, but he had no warning, no early sign, and no clue where the swarm had been nesting. The canyon ceiling was a jagged jumble of ledges and cracks, and the beetles were already there, clinging to the stone in clusters.

  The first volley of glowing globules fell upon them.

  “Down!” Raphael shouted, and they hurriedly pressed themselves against the wall as explosions rumbled through the corridor. Fragments of stone filled the air, hitting everyone, and the blast crushed into Nick’s ribs, making him taste blood.

  Willow instinctively threw up a barrier, but she was trembling, and her ward was thin and uneven, only capable of blocking shrapnel from shredding faces, but not sturdy enough to hold up against a sustained bombardment.

  Another howl echoed, closer still, and Nick realized the dungeon was herding them, trying to exhaust them so completely that they would collapse on their own.

  I’m almost there, he told himself again. I can’t give up now.

  He couldn’t reach into the ether for this, not after everything he’d done to get here. But that didn’t mean he was completely out of options.

  The globules rained down again, and this time one hit close enough to send a shockwave that knocked Lina off her feet. She hit the ground hard, dazed, and a third volley came before she could roll away.

  Nick saw her eyes widen as she realized she was too slow. A gust of wind howled from behind her, redirecting the projectile back into the swarm.

  “Keep moving,” he said, voice low with exhaustion. “I’ll handle the defense.”

  Raphael’s gaze flicked to him, sharp as a razor, but he didn’t ask how he planned to do that.

  “Do it,” Raphael said, and urged the group forward. “Willow, keep your ward in the front alone. Everyone else, run.”

  Nick squared his shoulders, and the Shard lifted into his hand as if eager, and for the first time since the fight started, he focused inward.

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  He couldn’t reach into the ether, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t imitate its presence for a little while.

  Pulling several monster cores from his ring—hobgoblin cores, goblin cores, a few cracked ones from earlier battles that were too impure to sell but still held some residue—he let them float around him, and once he was sure he had enough, he crushed them with a flex of his will, not allowing himself to cry over the waste.

  The air around him was filled with wild mana and the echoes of death, spreading uncontrollably in what would have been just a waste to anyone else.

  Nick didn’t flinch from it. He embraced it, molded it, and compelled it to obey his will, acting as if this cloud of wild mana were a tiny ether.

  He lifted the Shard and channeled the power into a swirling storm around the group, which grew faster and more powerful the more of himself he poured into it, until the world around them blurred.

  “[Spiritual Hurricane],” he cast once again, but this time, his touch was much heavier.

  Etheric wind spread outward in a wide, controlled circle, faint at first, nearly invisible, then thickening into a spiral of pressure that lifted dust from the stone and held it there. The air rippled, distorting the howls, and the beetles on the walls stuttered as their grip slipped.

  The hurricane surged upward and outward, tearing into the beetles’ souls as much as their shells. Some simply ceased to exist upon contact. Their inner glow faded, and the will that powered them flickered out.

  Others were ripped free and hurled into the canyon wall hard enough that their bodies detonated uselessly.

  The ring moved along with them as they ran, encircling the group. It deflected the next volley mid-flight, as the etheric wind caught the globules, spinning them off-angle, and sent them back from where they came.

  Nick’s teeth clenched as he was forced to crush more cores to keep the spell going. His own reserves were running low, and he simply couldn’t sustain the emotional demands of the spell on his own. Every few minutes that [Spiritual Hurricane] raged, another core would have to be crushed, but he didn’t hesitate to do so whenever it was necessary.

  The howls behind them grew louder over time. Shadows moved at the far end of the hallway, and shapes started pacing along the higher ledges, following them.

  The pack was coming.

  Nick pushed the hurricane further, making it bite into the stone itself, stripping pebbles loose and turning them into spinning shrapnel. The beetles now fell in clusters, and the path ahead became clear as the entire swarm succumbed to his frustration.

  He stumbled ahead, only able to keep up with the group through sheer willpower.

  Somewhere behind the storm, something powerful prowled, and he could sense its focus.

  Under any other circumstances, he would not have shied away from the challenge, but now, he could barely bring himself to move forward and only thought about taking his team back to the camp.

  Soon, the corridor opened into the widened basin that marked their fortified base. Nick saw the jagged walls Lina had constructed, the stacked stone barricades Malik and Yvonne had built, and Willow’s wards shimmering faintly where they’d been anchored.

  The hurricane hit the threshold, and the runes he’d carved at the camp’s cardinal points lit up in response, as if asking whether he needed them.

  He directed all remaining power of [Spiritual Hurricane] into them, strengthening Willow’s wards until they were sturdy enough to resist any attack, and finally allowed the hurricane to collapse, barely staggering into the basin before his knees buckled.

  He barely made it to a boulder and collapsed into a sitting position without any grace, the Shard slipping from his hand and hovering only because of its spatial properties.

  His vision tunneled, and he barely managed to say “Potions,” fumbling at his ring for a few seconds and finally producing a small bundle of vials.

  They were Ogden’s work, and more valuable than anything even an Archmage’s apprentice should have possessed, but now was not the time to worry about that.

  He shoved them into Willow’s hands first without looking. “Share them.”

  “I need…” He swallowed. His mouth tasted like copper, and he could feel several things in his mind pressing for his attention, from the System notifications to a new presence. “I need to meditate.”

  Raphael’s voice reached him from far away. “Do it. We’ve got you.”

  Nick nodded once, as if that was all the reassurance he needed, and let his eyes close.

  His mind-space was quiet.

  Considering how wild the past few hours had been, he expected more chaos. The uncertainty he’d felt alone should have caused that, but if he thought back, even in the worst moment of despair, he never stopped moving or doing something to fight back. So, really, he shouldn’t have been so surprised.

  After some time, and he had no idea how long, but he knew it had to be more than a few minutes at the very least, he finally gathered the strength to allow the notification pressing on his mind in.

  That’s nice. I’d probably need to destroy five more nests to get a level at this point, but I’m not going to complain.

  That done, he finally turned his attention to the new presence. Considering his background and experiences, Nick knew to be very cautious of sudden new things in his mind, but for once, he wasn’t worried, as it had been his own actions that caused it to happen.

  A sapling had grown during the day, tiny and delicate, yet undeniably strong. It was a splash of green amid a space filled with white mists and shadow, giving the whole a healthier appearance.

  It had sprouted near the deepest connection within him, close to where the mind brushed the soul. It was remarkably solid yet ethereal, something that shouldn't have existed, and it had now become an undeniable part of him.

  It was Malkuth, The Kingdom. The root of his presence, now undeniably connected to the World.

  He reached toward it and felt its effect immediately.

  The constant urge to reach outward had been, in some way, an instinctive attempt to complete himself. He hadn’t even realized he wasn’t whole, but now that he had an anchor, he could see it.

  “Mortality is a trait of the physical, not the ethereal. Now my two sides are one.”

  At the same time, he delved deeper, where the sapling’s roots touched his soul, and he sensed a slight tightening of its structure.

  It wasn’t crystallization yet, but it was a definite step toward it.

  The ritual is working, he thought, and that idea brought a tired, nearly hysterical sense of relief. To think he’d be able to take the First Step on his grandfather’s masterwork in these circumstances… But maybe it was exactly because of where he was that he could do it at all.

  No System chime sounded to celebrate his success this time, but he hadn’t expected one.

  After all, the Great Work wasn’t complete yet.

  Nick woke to shouting.

  His eyes snapped open, and for a moment, he didn’t remember where he was. Then his senses unfurled, freeing him from the prison of flesh he’d placed on himself, and he realized something had gone wrong in the past few hours he’d been out.

  There was way too much anger in the air, and none of the reasons he could think of to justify it were there.

  Across the fire pit, Yvonne and Malik circled each other like wolves.

  Her blade was out, held low, and her posture was coiled and predatory, yet she didn’t strike, even though she clearly wanted to.

  Malik stood with what was left of his shield raised, breathing hard as the bandages on his torso stained through again. His face was twisted in a mix of pain and fury, and Nick knew he was the one initiating the conflict, even if its roots were older.

  “Don’t,” Willow was saying, voice cracked. “Please stop and thi—”

  But her words weren’t heard because the two charged at each other with murder in their eyes.

  45+ chapters: