Lightning from the forest, signifying the breakthrough of a beast. It was only the one strike, nothing uncommon. That might have the potential to slow down the incoming confrontation, assuming they weren’t in the forest at the moment.

Puren Ning drags the beast up the pathway. Rocks slide down the side of the mountain as they are dislodged from the unmoving body passing over them, cascading down the slope to rest at the bottom. This is still the best option she could come up with. She was the one who could tell where to step, and letting the beast have any kind of autonomous movement at all would have him stepping in the wrong place and fall all the way back down to the start. Dragging was easier than carrying at least.

Far away, the lightning strikes again.

Two within minutes of each other. That was uncommon. It was almost as if someone was stupid enough to kill a Rank One Beast in the forest itself, and not do anything with the body. Taking the power of what you killed was the central precipt of the Chaotic Demon Sect, as that was how every creature in the world functions. Plants grow off the energy of the ground, and the Energy of the Heavens, the beasts eat the plants to grow, stronger beasts eat those beasts, and if a human was strong enough they could eat those beasts.

With the time acceleration in the forest, the density of the energy was diluted throughout all the beasts in the area, who lived and died before even reaching Rank One. If that mass of energy were to accumulate into fewer beasts, those remaining would be more powerful. That was why hunters would go into the woods, hunt, and take the entire beast out of the forest for the villagers to eat. If it was allowed to empower the beasts, they would soon be unable to keep themselves safe from their attacks, much less eat them.

Again, and again, lighting strikes.

It was probably too much to hope for that the beasts being struck were immediately dying. That wasn’t really that much of an issue for Rank One. Each successive rank grew more dangerous, but nearly any beast reaching Rank One would be able to survive a single bolt of tribulation lightning. The fact that any beast that didn’t reach a certain level of constitution would die to the tribulation certainly skewed the incidence of powerful beasts toward the side of giants with powerful bodies.

Aside from lightning mice.

In silence, Puren Ning continues dragging her beast up the rocky pathway as lightning increases in frequency. The fact of the matter was that the more time the subjugation team wastes in the forest, the more time they would have to get away from the area they were assumed to be. Unfortunately, within the forest they could afford to waste time. Still, they may be able to reach this dot, acquire it, then move on to the next one. That would randomize their path a bit at least.

“How much longer are you going to take?”

Anger surged back up into Puren Ning, and she considered dropping the beast. Narrowly outpaced by survival instinct, her spite burned hot as she steadfastly ignored the text in front of her. If she didn’t need to stick by an incredibly powerful creature to take advantage of the gigantic opportunities the world just threw in front of anything that got the slightest bit ahead of their peers, she’d toss it down the mountain and let him deal with the subjugation team on his own. That wouldn’t leave her in his good graces though, and would potentially lead to her death when it finished them off without her before turning his attention toward the one that slighted him.

Ascending to an outcropping beyond the scree, she twists her body and tosses the beast about a meter. He didn’t weigh particularly much, but she wasn’t particularly strong. Now that she was on flat ground, she could turn around and see what was going on.

Lightning was flashing down in a constant storm above the forest, and a visible wave of Heavenly Energy was pouring into it. That almost certainly was a bad sign. Turning back to the ledge, the beast was standing himself up.

“The master commands enter inspection mode.”

Her vision turns purple, and she gasps. In white in front of her is an array, more complex than anything she had ever imagined. At four of its five extending points was an imprint of a body, but that wasn’t the most difficult sight to take in. Above her, there was a sort of trail coming from six directions, and another array made out of solidified Energy of the Heavens. Moving her head, the paths shimmer, and objects fly back from out of nowhere down the white lines. Stepping closer, the objects spin around slowly, following her gaze as she looks down the wires to find they have a single starting point. Near the edge of the array on the ground, the paths cease being predictable.

Two beams come down from above, but one stops short while the other goes all the way to the ground. The one at ground level looks familiar. A sphere, in the same white as everything else, but the same shape as the helmet on her head. Now she had more questions.

“What is this,” she questions, pointing at the helmet ghost on the ground, “and why are you showing it to me?”

Gesturing to the array in the sky, and the centerpoint of the lines, the beast monologues, “This is where I died. Where I was ensnared by tendrils of energy and obliterated. At the time, I was distracted by ensuring that this entire planet wasn’t collateral damage in a being beyond your comprehension's attempt to destroy me, with a slight emphasis on enabling my own continued existence. While I don’t remember anything beyond the initial framing, the array is my work, sealing a fracture in the fundamental nature of reality. My incredibly cosmic powers may be temporarily out of my reach, but enough externalized power is contained within my armor to destroy worlds. Here, in the place where I lost it, are the traces of what used to be, and what occurred to bring us to this moment in the present. I’ve brought you here to find my armor, and this glimpse into the past provides the clues needed to bring forth the reality I seek, that of me, in all my power, ascending once again. Before you is a choice. Glory and power at my side, or obscurity as you are ground to dust by the endless passage of time.”

Most of the time, she couldn’t stand the beast, but sometimes it said some beautiful things. Rather than being ground to dust, she would be doing the grinding. All would tremble before her.