Weeks had passed, and Bjorn had made frustratingly little progress. There were no signs of a mana tree, no glimmer of mana crystals, just an endless, merciless struggle for survival. The vast skynd, which had initially seemed like a blessing, had turned out to be a nightmare.

  The Sanguine Traveler was far from the only threat. Unlike the mindless beasts that charged headlong into danger, the creatures here were smarter. Many of them dispyed a disturbing level of intelligence, hunting with patience and strategy. Bjorn found himself having to run more than fight.

  He learned to stay away from the deeper parts of the forest. His instincts screamed at him to avoid whatever slept within its shadowed depths. He knew the Sanguine Traveler had been trying to lead him there, like a hunter driving prey into the waiting jaws of something far worse. Bjorn hadn’t rested properly in weeks. Every time he thought he had found a moment’s peace, something emerged from the dark, forcing him to fight or flee. Unlike him, the monsters here didn’t seem to need sleep.

  With that knowledge, he roamed the edges of the isnd, always watchful, always hunted. The Chaos Lands had long since abandoned any natural order. There was no longer a day and night cycle anymore. The eerie glow of the aurora stretching across the sky and the distant hellish bze of the burning skynd casting flickering shadows over the ndscape.

  He had been walking the perimeter of the skynd for two days now. If not for the treacherous terrain, he might have finished sooner. While much of the nd was ft, a portion of an entire mountain had been ripped from the ground along with the rest of the floating ndmass. Or rather, most of a mountain. The massive structure looked as if something had sliced it cleanly from the rest of the range, leaving jagged edges that jutted over the abyss.

  Navigating the sides was a dangerous gamble, but Bjorn needed a complete map of the area. He refused to move blindly through this nd, not when the monstrosity lurking in the forest could awaken at any moment. He wouldn’t let himself be cornered. He wouldn’t die here.

  “Look there.” Failsafe said.

  Bjorn turned one of his heads and saw that there was a skynd that was close enough to be connected. The problem was it was also a few hundred feet down and he would have to climb to get there. The ndmass had a ke in its center and another woodnd.

  “We’ll come back to this. Let’s see if anything else is connected.” Bjorn said.

  “Yeah, I agree. We should probably practice our climbing before doing something like that too. That is a deep drop.” Failsafe said, his head looking over the edge. “Yeah. I’ll look out for any pce that maybe a good to practice first.”

  “Good idea.” Bjorn said.

  “Well good news though. We aren’t dead add the world hasn’t turned into an Infernal Pne hellscape.”

  Bjorn stopped walking. “Has it been thirty days already?”

  “Yep, that means that the others are keeping us afloat on time.” Failsafe said.

  “Good,” Bjorn said but his concern was evident as he continued trekking forward. “But that means we don’t know how long we have. Tomorrow the facility could explode for all we know.”

  “True, but tomorrow we could come across whatever is hibernating in that forest and get eaten. Let's not focus on all the negatives.”

  Bjorn grunted but agreed, he needed to focus on survival and finding the supplies needed to create the Angel Core. The facility was now Tanisha’s responsibility and he had to trust in her strength. The Chaos Lands were dangerous enough without also being distracted.

  He pressed forward, his cws digging into the loose rock as he made his way along the mountainside. His heads swept across the terrain, scanning for threats. It was never safe here. Every shadow, every jagged outcrop, could be something waiting to kill him. It had been a few hours since he saw his st monster creeping along.

  His cws scraped against the stone as he moved, the unstable ground shifting slightly beneath him. He stepped forward and the mountain moved.

  A deafening crack split the air as the rock beneath him lurched. Jagged ptes of what should have been stone unfolded into limbs, mandibles, and bde-tipped appendages. The thing rose from its slumber, shedding yers of camoufge, revealing an insectoid nightmare of serrated limbs and chitinous ptes that looked like fractured earth itself.

  Bjorn had no time to react before it struck. A bded limb shot out coated in corrupted mana and sliced through his front leg like wet paper.

  The pain was instant and blinding. His severed limb tumbled into the abyss, a stream of crimson spttering against the rock following the limb. Bjorn roared in fury as the creature surged forward, all jagged legs and gnashing mandibles, its many-eyed face a swirling void of monstrous hunger.

  The hydra was off bance against the sudden opponent, his remaining limbs digging into the unstable rock, but the beast barreled into him before he could brace himself. They tumbled together, smashing against the mountainside, cws and fangs tearing into each other as they fell.

  Pain followed impacts. He smmed against the stone, his massive body rolling and colliding with jagged outcrops, trying to grip onto something, anything, to stop the uncontrolled descent. The creature was on him, its bded arms like mana infused swords raking across his hide, tearing into his flesh with a horrifying speed.

  His armor snapped around him, along with his magical defences. The damage had already been done and more was coming even faster.

  Bjorn twisted, snapping his jaws around one of its spindly, knife-like limbs, ripping it free of the monster in a wrenching twist. The monster shrieked as it grew more determined. Another bde-limb plunged into his side.

  The ground rushed up to meet them.

  Bjorn hit first, his body skidding along the crumbling slope, but the beast tched on, its mandibles cmping onto his shoulder, its many limbs finding pces between armor to pierce into him. It wasn’t going to let him go.

  He couldn’t wrestle free and he knew at that rate it was going to tear him apart. So he pulled on his core and forced his magic to give him everything he had. Pgue Fire spilled out not from one of his mouths but from all four. A surge of toxic heat burst from his jaws. It burned them both as the heat bckened his scales to coal.

  A swirling plume of white aetheric fme crackled with all his fury. The fire focused into a searing beam. The moment the fmes touched the creature’s exoskeleton, it cracked and split, the outer shell bubbling and peeling away like molten sg.

  The thing screamed, its agonized wails a horrific, ear-piercing shriek that echoed through the mountains. It twitched, its many limbs spasming uncontrolbly. Again Bjorn felt the terrifying nature of monster vitality as it tried to rip him apart despite the fmes. Then in a moment of weakness its grip lessened.

  Bjorn saw his chance. He kicked off separating himself from it. He turned and his cws sunk into the rock wall as he scrambled for purchase. The monster tumbled away, vanishing into the abyss below.

  His cws dug deep, stone crumbling beneath his weight. He hung there, his body trembling, blood dripping from his severed limb, from his torn sides, from the dozens of wounds gouged into him.

  “Oh fuck.” Bjorn screamed. “W-what?”

  “I don’t know what that thing was.” Failsafe said equally shaken.

  They saw it hit the ground of the skynd below. It wasn’t dead. It got up and shook itself and ran off into the distance still on fire. Bjorn only hoped that the toxic nature of the pgue fire would kill it soon.

  “We have to go down.” Bjorn said weakly. “I am not going to make it going back up.”

  “Yeah, be careful I’ll look out for any more of those things hiding in the rock face.”

  Bjorn’s entire body screamed in protest. His burnt scales cracked and fked as he hung there, bleeding freely from his torn side. His front leg was gone, the wound still gushing despite his regeneration kicking in, trying desperately to seal the gaping stump. He was healing, but not fast enough to stop the weakness seeping into his limbs.

  His cws scraped against the brittle rock as he shifted his weight, his remaining limbs shaking under the strain. The skynd below was far, but going back up was out of the question. He wasn’t sure he had enough strength left to fight gravity, let alone another one of those things. If more were waiting for him. He had used aether which was like a beacon for monsters to gather.

  Each movement jarring his broken body. He had to keep moving. If he stopped now, if he hesitated for even a second, his grip would fail and he’d fall. Bjorn swallowed back the pain and continued his descent. His body was too heavy, his bance thrown completely off without his front leg. The jagged stone cut into his bleeding cws, sending sharp jolts of pain up his limbs. His remaining heads darted in every direction, scanning for movement.

  Bjorn exhaled shakily, his grip slipping for a moment before he dug in harder.

  “You good?” Failsafe’s voice rang through his mind, tense and shaken. “Go slower if you need to.”

  “No. We take too long, I will pass out.” Bjorn hissed through clenched fangs.

  “Yeah. Thought so.” Failsafe’s voice was tight, but steady. “I’ll keep an eye out. Just keep moving.”

  Bjorn gritted his teeth and pushed on, every inch downward was a battle against his own failing body. His regeneration was working, but not fast enough. The stump where his leg had been was now scarred over, but the deep gouges in his side were still open wounds, his flesh still knitting itself back together.

  CRACK!

  The stone beneath his back leg crumbled.

  Bjorn’s body lurched, weight suddenly pulling him downward. He snarled, instinct kicking in, his remaining limbs scrambling for purchase but there was nothing as the ledge gave way.

  Bjorn plummeted, his body smashing into the cliffside, rock and debris cascading around him. He twisted, all four heads snarling, cws reaching for anything to stop the fall. His talons caught something.

  His body jerked, the impact sending a fresh wave of pain through him as his cws bit deep into the rock. His body dangled, his vision swimming from the force of the stop.

  “Bjorn!” Failsafe screamed.

  “I’m… fine. I’m fine.” He growled through clenched teeth

  “No, Bjorn look.” Failsafe said.

  Bjorn focused his rapidly dwindling attention onto what Failsafe was seeing. His eyes opened wide as the rge cavern opened up on the side of the skynd. He wouldn’t have to climb all the way down to the one below. He Slowly scaled down to the entrance a few feet below him. He wasn’t going to take any chances so he opened his mouth and breathed a powerful bst of pgue fire into the opening then followed up with Poison Cloud before alternating until his body was close to overheating.

  When nothing came out to fight him he colpsed inside. His chest heaving, his body shuddering from the sheer effort it took to get down. He could still smell his own burning flesh, his scales charred, his body still bleeding. But he was alive.

  “Failsafe, I think I am going to take a nap, buddy.”