The corpses of the Gangwrolves—if you could call their dissipating ghostly remains corpses—had barely vanished before the next wave arrived.

  But that didn't matter.

  ???

  [Status] KiAera's

  Age: 100 Cycles (25)

  Dominions: [Revise] [Virtuoso]

  APeX: [500,000 Units]

  Power Limit Cap (APeX): [500,000 Units]

  Attributes: [Fire] [Beast]

  Evolution Stage: [Emergent]

  Current Variant Grade: [Rare] (6%)

  ???

  I acknowledged I'd already reached my APeX cap at [500,000] units. Since slaying a gangwrolf would drive my APeX to hit its cap, I was forced to allocate the overflow of abyssal particles to raise the level of my technique skills.

  This was the only way to prevent the experience to not get wasted—not until I finally hit my [Conquers Limit] of 15 defeated Zeldritch. Where I could not accumulate anymore raw APeX.

  While I was being rushed by the beasts, I barely had the concentration to convert the APeX points into my [Spectral Flame]'s TECH. However, I managed to bump its level somewhere from [21,000] to [60,000]. That would help increase its striking power—added on top of my current power level of [461,233] Units.

  That would compose a strike of [521,233] units per hit—without considering my bonus parameters or any Zeldritzonian mechanics.

  My gaze swept the field when I heard another laugh. The Gangwrolves were out there. Everywhere.

  Eyes still gleamed in the darkness between the warped trees, dozens of them blinking into existence like phantoms.

  The MereShaman floated a half-step closer to me. Not protectively, but more like a connoisseur leaning in to savor the next act of some grisly theater. His robes fluttered as he conjured arcane geometry that already formed around his paws.

  "They are multiplying," he said. "Or perhaps converging from multiple realms. Hard to tell with spectral variants."

  The laughter grew sharper, then mocking. The ground itself seemed to ripple. One by one, phantom wolves peeled from the gloom, their bodies half there, half elsewhere.

  Wisps of violet miasma curled off them like evaporating mist. They came in circling arcs, moving like sharks tasting the water, weaving horrid patterns that I couldn't track for long without my head starting to spin.

  My hackles rose. "There's too many."

  "Then it is fortunate I am here," the MereShaman said, with airy arrogance—just before one of the wolves popped into existence directly behind us, its jaws splitting open in a grotesque grin.

  I lunged on reflex. The wolf snapped its head sideways, jaws scissoring where I'd been. MereShaman spun, paws flashing. A planar barrier flicked into being—and the wolf simply stepped through it, its form warping around the geometry with a greasy, reality-bending slither.

  The MereShaman went rigid. "Ah. Adaptive phase-type. Delightful!"

  "Delightful?!" I barked.

  Another wolf leapt from nowhere, claws aimed at my neck. I ducked—barely—but it grazed my shoulder as my [Spectral Claws] tore into its belly. Agony flared through me, and a chunk of my consciousness tanked in a gut-wrenching fashion.

  While I fought against the daze, the MereShaman retaliated swiftly with a savage whip of gravitational force that splintered the wolf's spine.

  But more were coming—too many shapes, too much flickering between dimensions.

  Their cackles crescendoed, mixing into a sound that felt like knives scraping my skull. I was surrounded, the wolves weaving tighter, jaws dripping shadow. My paws twitched helplessly. I couldn't hit what wasn't entirely here.

  Then another lunged directly at my face. Instinct exploded in me as I threw up my claws and roared.

  Something inside me buckled. Then shattered outward from fur and flesh. Then it erupted in a shockwave of ghost-light as the Chimera's Mark lit up the field.

  ???

  [[Imperfect] Aera's Avatar] {Awakened}

  APeX: [461,233] Units → [1,153,082] Units

  ? [Ultimate Tier] Zeldritch Trait: A manifestation of the conjurer's latent potential, this entity takes on a form shaped by the conjurer's deepest desires. While the manifestation may not be perfect, it currently provides a substantial benefit of a {2.5x} APeX Boost.

  ? Time Limit: 03:00 → 02:59

  ???

  A colossal figure had bloomed around me, towering into the warped canopy. It was very strange to describe. It had an outline of my human self, rendered in blazing, translucent blue.

  Its eyes opened at the same moment that mine did, breath rushing out in an exhale that rattled the leaves as I gasped.

  When I gathered my bearings the Gangwrolves were cautious, staying their distance. Perhaps they also sensed the oddity of this form. They were bristling as though sensing danger.

  I gave my ears a twitch and the avatar's hair swayed like a comet's tail sweeping around its shoulders. When it moved, I moved. When I snarled, it bared its spectral teeth. For a moment, I was almost certain that I saw through its eyes.

  Was it an extension of myself? Or was it possible that the evolution had triggered this change? Or had the gangwrolf that struck me prior caused this peculiar metamorphosis?

  I couldn't inspect myself for long, as several Gangwrolves decided to pounce on me.

  However, instead of the expected outcome of harm, their forms phasing through the phantasmal aura that shrouded me.

  They slammed against the surface of the avatar as though the transparent blue were a solid wall. I reacted instantly with a swipe, attempting to strike with my own claws. Instead, the avatar smacked them aside with tremendous force, tearing through their ghostly forms.

  "What… this doesn't make—" I realized I was suspended in the midst of the avatar, as though I were the core.

  "But more importantly I can do serious damage now," I breathed, staring at my paws inside the translucent specter.

  The MereShaman drifted back several feet, his orb stuttering. His eyes were half-lidded as he caught my position. "What in the sacred geometry is that? It looks horrific like your other form!"

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  "How would I know?" My voice echoed from the avatar's throat too. I flexed my claws, and subsequently the avatar's enormous hands closed into fists.

  A Gangwolf pounced as it fired a dangerous sphere of spiritual energy at me. I spun, and the Aera Avatar turned. I swung, and the Aera Avatar swung.

  The avatar's fist met the attack in a dazzling, brutal arc. It then connected with the wolf in a thunderous impact that sent shockwaves rippling through the air. The wolf didn't just crumple—it disintegrated, particles streaming away like dust in the wind.

  I stared, wide-eyed. My avatar's hands hovered before me, slightly shaking—no, I was shaking. It mirrored me perfectly.

  "That's it! A defensive revenant construct!" The MereShaman whirled in the air. "But how...? You're still an Emergent! That's advanced-tier spectrum manipulation, and it should only be possible as a Domaistral master—!"

  The remaining wolves howled in fury and dove in from every side. The MereShaman snarled, flinging out complex interlocking barriers that caught ten, then twenty, slicing them into pieces that dissolved into black mist.

  But the rest were mine.

  I roared again, driving the avatar's arms outward in a sweeping backhand. The blow caught half a dozen wolves mid-leap, smashing them into ghostly fragments that lit the forest in brief sprays of cold fire. The rest hesitated, circling, suddenly wary.

  "Fascinating!" the MereShaman breathed, eyes aglow behind his mask. "A conjured self-manifestation! An externalized anima! Oh, I knew you were dangerous. This is deliciously beyond standard evolutionary markers."

  "It feels exhilarating… but exhausting." I could feel the strain; my mana was siphoning fast, this form chewing through resources like wildfire.

  "Whatever it is, you've got it," the MereShaman hissed, summoning more barriers that danced around me like a shield-ballet. "So make exquisite use of it before it collapses and you implode!"

  The Gangwrolves charged again; less certain, but still hungry. I lashed out with both fists, then kicked, my avatar following the movements in perfect sync. Each strike sent the wolves shrieking into nothing.

  Above us, that obscene moon twisted into an even sharper grin, leaking threads of light like drool. The trees themselves seemed to recoil.

  But I turned back to the laughter below.

  The next wolf tried to pivot away. I reached out—my avatar's hand dwarfing it—and crushed it in a luminous fist. Its body broke apart like overripe fruit, spilling corrupted essence that my form greedily devoured.

  Then, as abruptly as it had come, the power winked out. My avatar cracked down the middle, light spilling out in thin streams—and shattered into blue motes.

  I dropped to all fours, panting, fur scorched at the tips, my limbs trembling under my own weight.

  The forest fell silent again. No more laughter. No more watching eyes.

  I looked up, shivering. The MereShaman hovered closer.

  "Well then," he said. "You truly are full of delightful surprises. I suspect we shall be excellent traveling companions after all."

  I glared at him, still gulping air. "You're… an absolute nightmare, you… know that?"

  He gave me a tiny, polite bow. "Why thank you. I do try."

  I huffed, then began surveying the area. The forest should have been dead quiet after our brutal culling of the Gangwrolves. It wasn't.

  Instead, an oily sound like sludge sliding across wet stone filled the air.

  From between the twisted trunks and the shadowy hollows, from beneath floating stones and behind gravity-bent waterfalls, a tidal wave of Gangwrolves emerged. So many poured out in a living flood of spectral bodies.

  Hundreds. Maybe thousands. Every grin stretched impossibly wide, eyes shining like flashlights fueled by malice.

  I felt my breath catch, throat locking up. This was it—this was the end. No avatar or desperate new power was going to save me from that.

  Beside me, though, the MereShaman only smiled.

  No—he grinned, fanged and delighted, as if he'd been hoping for precisely this scale of massacre. His paw lifted, swirling with cruel golden light that sharpened into vicious nets of sigils.

  "Oh finally, something worthy of my Ultimate Invocation," he crooned.

  Then he clapped his paws together.

  A ripple of geometry erupted outward. Runes and barriers spiraled together, collapsing into a golden globe of shifting fractals at the very heart of the charging horde.

  It distorted once—then collapsed inward, becoming a black hole of radiant arcane force that sucked the Gangwrolves toward it. The phantom wolves could only release a chorus of snarls and surprised shrieks.

  As their claws scraped futilely at the air, they were violently pulled from every direction, folding into the orb of annihilation. Amid it all, the MereShaman cackled above their howls as their bodies disintegrated into strings of shadow and were consumed.

  The globe throbbed, then collapsed into a pinpoint with a thunderous crack, leaving silence and scorched marks on reality itself.

  When it cleared, thousands of wolves were simply gone. Only faint, oily smears of residual miasma lingered in the air.

  The few remaining Gangwrolves staggered. Their smiles almost faltered. Their forms glitched as if they were considering to phase out of existence.

  But they gradually began to growl. Then, in perfect, eerie unison, they threw back their heads and screamed out a horrid noise—a bubbling, discordant sound that raised every hair on my body.

  "What the hell are they calling to?!"

  The MereShaman adjusted his robes, arrogance was pouring off of him in waves. "Probably something more desperate than themselves. But fret not, my trembling initiate—I assure you, nothing they summon will—"

  We heard a drip. Just a drop, echoing through everything.

  My body seized up, every instinct I owned suddenly roaring at me to run, hide, vanish. The MereShaman stopped mid-gloat, ears flicking to the disturbance.

  Above us, the moon twisted as it cracked open a monstrous eye that hadn't existed a heartbeat before. Its single iris dilated as it locked onto me. Then the grin cut across its surface—jagged, mouth-like, lined with needle teeth.

  From that maw, something crawled out.

  Something inside me shattered. Instinct exploded into a cold panic so pure, I almost cried. My legs locked, fur bristling to razor edges. My heart tried to claw its way out of my chest.

  It was simply sitting there. It was small and far away.

  But somehow I could distinguish it in the stained blackened sky—my vision was forced onto it—like peering through a microscope. The girl-like creature that emerged from the moon.

  It sat there kicking its dainty feet in a playful manner, swaying as it hummed a hollow lullaby.

  Its long black hair was a spill of tendrils, writhing like drowning hands, half-covering a face that seemed both hauntingly beautiful and utterly wrong. Beneath the strands, eyes glinted—bright with malignant amusement.

  It proceeded to lean forward despite my internal protest to scream: no.

  It dropped—fast and hard—defying gravity as it descended upside down. Its descent came to an abrupt halt. It remained suspended in the air.

  It leaned forward, still upside down, until its face was just inches from mine. My reflection swam in its pupils—and then my own mouth in the reflection moved first, whispering something I didn't say. Suddenly my [Insight]'s HUD flickered alive. Its name field scrambled into nonsense as I read—

  Wailfiend. W???????i???l???f???i???e??????d???.??? W????????????????????????????í????????????l???????????f????????????????????????e?????????????n???????????d??????????????????.???????????????

  [UniQue] V…ariant. A Rank E.

  The rank blinked. [E] became 13, then 999, then a set of symbols my brain refused to parse. Letters swam away like insects scattering from light. Stats began ticking backward. Every drop made my chest tighten.

  I tried to breathe. My lungs disagreed.

  My mind couldn't reconcile it. That rank was too low for the horror standing here. It should be an absurd relief—and yet it was like standing before a star that had decided to notice me. My breath fractured in my throat. My knees buckled. I couldn't move. Couldn't think. Ah!

  My HUD cracked at the edges, trembling. I almost thought I'd start laughing like the wolves—lose every scrap of self I had left.

  But then the creature's head turned. Its eyes slipped away from me, trailing lazily over to the MereShaman.

  He hovered there, orb flickering, ears coiling a touch too quickly. "You are… quite the apparition, aren't you? But you pose no true threat to me, little banshee. I have unraveled infin—"

  The Wailfiend drifted forward and gently tapped a single finger against his chest.

  The MereShaman's scream was not dignified.

  His orb burst, robes shredding around him as a wave of black miasma erupted from the contact point and devoured him in an instant. He spun in the air, screeching before being overwhelmed by invisible cracks in space. The darkness shredded through his layered barriers like paper, then engulfed him utterly.

  "Shaman!" I howled, lunging forward.

  Too late. A wave of liquid shadow erupted from the Wailfiend, washing over me in a monstrous tide. I tried to dig in, to brace, to shift—anything.

  It didn't matter as I was swept under, the world vanishing into suffocating black. I thrashed, vision warping into nightmare fractals. Shapes moved around me—coiling tentacles and countless shadowy hands grasping open in soft ripples of chilly touches. They all fixed on me, drinking me in, whispering in languages that made my skull feel soft.

  Just as my mind began to split a swirl of pink light exploded through the dark. Petals pirouetted around me in tight spirals. They formed layered sigils, then solidified into a magnificent shell—an interlocking, luminous nets that wrapped around me and the battered MereShaman's body.

  The eldritch hands ruthlessly slammed into it from the outside, clawing, trying to peel it open. Tentacles leered at it, furious. But the barrier held.

  I dragged in ragged breaths, tears blurring my vision as I clutched the MereShaman's limp form to my chest. His mask was cracked. His orb was gone. His eyes fluttered, then closed entirely.

  The barrier around us dimmed, settling into a soft, warm glow. I collapsed to my knees, still cradling the MereShaman, my own body shaking so hard it felt like it might fracture.

  I didn't know who had saved us. Or what. But if we survived this forest, it wouldn't be because we were strong. It would be because something even worse had decided—at least for now—to let us go.