I couldn’t save everyone. No matter how hard I tried, it was impossible.

  The weave felt torn in several spots, mirroring my rough appearance. I was drenched in a mixture of sticky sweat and blood. Even now, blood kept running down torn skin that slowly knitted itself together.

  If not for the Elemental Phoenix, consuming two jerky stripes in quick succession would have killed me. The first stripe had almost been too much already, pumping weave and veins with raw ether that had yet to be annexed. Worse, I couldn’t annex it fast enough, forcing me to squash it momentarily and infuse it into my traits. That hadn’t been the best decision, as it strained the traits even more.

  Then there was the excessive use of my traits. It wasn’t the first time I’d used Paralyze, Predator, and Nullblade at full power, but I’d never had to use the traits this often at 120%. The inner World connecting Soulkins with Blessed took it like a champ, but even a highly malleable World had its limits. If not for its extraordinary adaptability, something would have happened. I didn’t know exactly what would have happened to my World, but it promised to be something bad.

  I would have kept your World together. Just like it keeps your core intact, my fire would have protected the World,

  Volix commented, which was a relief, and I was happy to have the Elemental Phoenix by my side.

  Without the former Emperor, I’d be dead now. Or crippled. Liquefied ether that resembled lava circulated through the weave, restoring it as my gaze drifted across the dead bodies. My stomach revolted, and I wished for nothing more than to vomit, yet the rest of my body resisted and forced me to stay at the peak.

  Volix’s liquefied ether carried the phoenix’s properties. However, it didn’t only restore the weave; it augmented my body, pushing it to new heights. So did the Blazing Gates as they leaked fire-attuned ether to absorb the Elemental Phoenix’s liquefied version.

  Ether of greater quality and quantity seeped into the Blazing Gates, pushing the enhancement they provided to new levels. But as pleasant as the gains were, I had no way to stop the Gates from leaking. They’d never stop leaking liquefied ether, which I couldn’t reproduce yet.

  Nonetheless, sensing the Blazing Gates’ efficiency increase as droplets of liquefied ether replaced gaseous ether, I couldn’t help but dream about replacing the gaseous ether within all the Gates. Filling them with liquefied ether would further amplify my physique’s greatest advantage: its leakage. As beautiful as the massive Gates were at the time, I’d never expected the leaks to turn into an advantage.

  Dozens of Ether Gates filled with liquefied ether were several times more efficient than Gates filled to the brim with gaseous ether.

  As pleasant as the news was, my mood didn’t improve in the slightest. I’d been too weak to rescue the Blessed. Almost thirty young Blessed died to the twenty Bakurean, their lifeless corpses giving me chills. We won, but at what price?

  Not only Blessed died. Soulkins summoned to aid them lay beside them, their corpses a mangled mess.

  But some Soulkins survived. Or was it better to call them beasts now that they were no longer bound to their Blessed?

  Some beasts survived the fight. Unfortunately, some of their Blessed hadn’t been as fortunate. A few beasts fled the training hall as soon as the bond fizzled out, but most stayed with the remains of their Blessed, mourning the loss of their family.

  A handful of Wild and Awakened beasts caught my attention. They would have died fighting the Bakurean. I highly doubted anyone would have been stupid enough to summon them in combat. That meant… the Blessed summoned them on the brink of death. They released their Soulkins knowing their lives were forfeited, hoping that at least their Soulkins would make it out alive.

  That, if anything, deserved my utmost respect.

  The beasts’ pain, their mournful screeches and squeals, resonated with me. They did little to ease the blade of guilt twisting in my guts.

  The Outsider’s attack was not something I’d expected. Fuck, nobody anticipated it. But it happened… and it wasn’t over yet.

  Glancing down at my hands, I found them covered in dark red blood. Blood of the Bakurean I’d killed. They’d been the ones to attack us first, yet I killed them. Neither body nor mind had resisted long against the instinct to kill Outsiders. Sure, they attacked us with the intention to kill, but… I swallowed hard.

  “Please don’t tell me you were just contemplating whether you did the right thing.”

  Daniel appeared beside me, several deep gashes marring his chest and arms. “Adam! You can vomit and cry once this is done for all I care, but I need you to get your act together. We need to make it out of this hellhole first!”

  He was right. We might have survived the first attack, but the battle wasn’t over yet. The sound of combat reverberated throughout the flying ship, and we had no idea how bad the situation was outside the training hall.

  “You’re right.” I nodded, barring the dark thoughts from my mind. Then I turned to Nox. “Get back here. No, you will not stay summoned. If you really want to fight, you will fight alongside me! I don’t care what you want. We’ll either use Soulfusion, or I’ll distract the enemy and you’ll manifest in their dead angle to kill them. Is that clear!?”

  The Ferronox Mantis stared at me unmovingly. Discontent flooded the bond, but I couldn’t care less at this moment. Too many good Blessed and Soulkins had died around me in the last ten minutes, and I wasn’t going to watch Nox follow them into the grave.

  “I don’t want to sound like a jerk, but can Nox really understand you? I read only a line or two about Ferronox Mantises when the instructors told us about the Collapses, and everyone says they’re mindless killing machines.” Daniel pointed at Nox with a questioning look. “Except for their deadly combat awareness, they have no–...oh, shit.”

  A Nullblade scythe whizzed past his head, nearly taking him out for good. Nox appeared before him, scythes brandished to finish the job.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Stop it. Daniel doesn’t understand that you’re a lot better than your brethren. He’s just following the stereotype,” I said, reining in the killing intent oozing from the bond.

  “That doesn’t mean it’s fine.” I turned to glare at Daniel, who raised his arms in surrender.

  His gashes tore open again at the sudden movement, prompting me to retrieve a few serums. Looking around, I caught sight of more severely wounded Blessed. We had a few peers with healing abilities, but not many were present. Those who were either hadn’t made it through the fight or were already exhausted.

  Digging deeper into the onyx ring’s storage, I retrieved two cases filled with serums.

  “Listen up, everyone!” I said, ether amplifying my vocal cords. “We need to figure out what we’re going to do now. The training hall can be transformed into a small retreat in an emergency. Those too severely wounded or too exhausted to keep fighting, stay back here. Everyone too weak to fight the Bakureans or affected by the sudden attack should stay here too, tending to those in need of healing. Barricade here and use those serums to ensure we don’t lose any more lives.”

  Daniel regarded me in surprise but nodded, turning to the other Blessed as well.

  “We need to get to the others. Bakureans aren’t known for doing a lackluster job. They’re disgusting bastards, but as far as I remember from classes, they don’t half-ass their jobs.” He cleared his throat, explosions and pained roars filling the silence. “We need to check the deck to assess the damage, find and protect the machine room, and…come up with a contingency plan if the ship sinks to the ground.”

  The glazed eyes of several Blessed caught my attention, but I ignored them and focused on those who appeared calm. As calm as one could be after getting attacked by highly aggressive Outsiders.

  There was a little back and forth between the Blessed, and it took a while before the first reached out to the serums I’d offered. Movement spurred into action, and we left the training hall with a group of 10 Experts. Daniel and I were the youngest, but we were among the strongest. Only one of the female Blessed was stronger. Her final Rank in the Grand Camp had been in the Top 10, if I remembered correctly.

  As strong as we were, the group was smaller than I’d hoped. However, too many Blessed were too shaken to leave, and others had no more ether reserves to fight. Just like everyone else, I too was exhausted. But there was no way I would stay in the training hall. Not until I knew where Scott was.

  You’d better be fine! I growled, releasing tendrils of fire, while the Elemental Phoenix controlled them, moved them to ether streams around us, absorbing and annexing them instantly.

  “Scott is probably on the deck,” I said.

  Scott had been as mysterious as ever. We’d learned a lot more about him over the last year, but he was often by himself. He liked that and could be found on the deck, leaning against the railing, staring into the distance most of the time.

  “We need to check out the machine room first,” Lydia, the Top 10 cadet, cut in sharply. “Saving your friend is important, but if he’s not dead yet, he’ll die with the rest of us if the engine or one of the ether generators is destroyed.”

  A low growl escaped my lips, which was partially Nox’s fault, but I didn’t bother suppressing the Ferronox Mantis either.

  “She’s right,” Daniel added softly, jaw set and fists clenched. He liked this as little as I did.

  “Fine. Let’s make it quick though.”

  Moving through the flying ship ought to be a simple ordeal. Every floor was set at a specific theme. The current floor was filled with training equipment and the like. Countless expensive ether devices spread out all around us as we rushed to the staircase. We encountered little resistance on that floor but collided with a pair of Bakureans wrestling with one of the Instructors.

  Their blades and claws dug deep into the Instructor’s massive body, but he shrugged it off with ease. The blades fell out as his body regenerated rapidly, which only seemed to agitate the Bakureans further. Their heads snapped forward and crunched down on the Instructor’s neck and face, and he retaliated by tearing their arms out.

  The Bakureans were the equivalent of Peak Experts, possibly strong enough to fight a recently advanced Master, yet the Instructor tore through them. But he was far from unscathed. His complexion was pale, and his hulking frame of three meters in height and width shrank with every wound that knit itself together.

  Lydia flashed before our eyes. She transformed into glistening light and appeared behind the first grappling Bakurean, spikes of light jutting from her heels as they crashed down. The impact was deafening, followed by the sound of a cracking skull.

  Lydia spun around, a saber of light conjuring in her hands as she kicked the second Bakurean. A split second later, the saber carved deep gashes into it. We were upon the Bakurean within seconds, but the Instructor had already responded to the fading pressure, his massive hands shooting toward its head and shoulder, pulling the Bakurean apart.

  “Thanks.” The Instructor scrambled to his feet, his massive frame filling the staircase. He regarded us for a moment, his wounds healing rapidly, consuming some of his body mass in the process, and a dark shadow clouded his face. “Looks like they hit you too. Training hall?”

  “Yes, Sir.” Lydia saluted, expression neutral. “They tore the walls apart and executed a surprise attack. We managed to close the holes in a timely manner, but 21 Bakureans, most at the equivalent of the Expert Rank, entered successfully. We lost 33 Blessed to eliminate the threat, most of which were weaker Experts.”

  She rattled down the turn of events, including how we split up and where we were heading.

  “They tore the living quarters apart as well,” the Instructor grumbled to himself, his attention shifting back to us. “The machine room, you said? They should be safe…” He hesitated for a moment. “But it might be best to see if more of those nasty fuckers infiltrated the ship. Search for survivors in the living quarters. There may be a few stragglers, but the worst threats have been dealt with.”

  “What about the deck?” I asked before Lydia could drag us away.

  “Merlin and the others are dealing with the threat,” the Instructor said, but the grimace on his face told me all I needed to know.

  Orders given, he turned away and rushed downstairs.

  “Let’s follow him. Clearly, he can’t deal with more than two Bakureans at once,” Lydia declared domineeringly before she rushed behind the Instructor. Two followed behind without a second thought, my mind a scrambled mess.

  “What about the injured in the living quarters?” one of the remaining Blessed asked, voice squeaky and filled with uncertainty.

  “We’ll go there,” Daniel said, exchanging a glance with me. “Lydia and the others can take care of themselves.”

  The others looked anything but confident or comfortable with splitting up, but Daniel rushed upstairs, and I followed in a hurry. Footsteps rang out behind us, but my attention lingered on the chaos before me.

  The living quarters looked like a minefield after a series of unfortunate incidents. Parts of our rooms, rubble, and a mess of bodies–burned, squashed, and torn apart–remained. Bits and pieces of dozens of Blessed unraveled in the hallway before us, yet the only thing we were looking for was missing: signs of life. There were no survivors.

  No, even if there were survivors, we would never find them. Not when the ceiling above us cracked and burst apart as a colossal mass of brown scales rocketed through it, squashing all that remained of the living quarters.

  Rubble whistled past my face, and pebbles cut into my cheeks as a familiar frame crashed down before us, letting out a defiant roar even as dozens of Bakureans rammed their blades into his wings and body.

  The thrashing beast was none other than Merlin’s Wyvern, and it certainly did not look like he had the upper hand.