By the time I had calmed my fearful heart it was morning. The combat itself had not been particularly frightening, the Territory barrier absorbing all the attacks, but the scale of it was what had unnerved me. It was one thing to clash in combat with similar-sized opponents, fighting with spear and wind, but to face such huge foes that could annihilate me without me being able to respond…

Damn, that’s just like those old-school MMORPG’s that used to mix in high-level aggressive mobs in low-level areas…

Cracking open a beer I downed half of it, feeling the warmth in my stomach. Still, it’s only the tide that has brought such things to my door… the chances of running into something like that around here is slim otherwise… besides… I needed to construct the Throne of Heroes. Even was I to choose to stop now, if I managed to get that built I wouldn’t have to worry about living a pretty decent life ever again… besides, I made promises to Shaeula, and she’s really grown on me… I can’t abandon her now. It’s too soon to panic and give up. Countermeasures… that’s what I need…

I spent a few more hours thinking while sinking beers. I should have been pretty drunk by the time I had finished, but probably due to my enhanced statistics I was merely a little tipsy. I had largely buried my fears, my mind working on plans. The first thing I needed to do was return as soon as the requisite ether had been gathered. Leaving it to build up more than I required could attract some dangerous predators. Since time was running at around a fivefold rate in the Boundary at the moment I couldn’t really leave it more than a day here on the Material.

To that end I decided to spend the entire day gathering aether, which should give me enough to enter my Territory. I quickly got to work, noticing that the flow seemed larger and smoother than normal. Energy was flowing around my lunar chakra in particular, and also spreading to my heart node, generating noticeable wind energy. Since the accumulation of aether was going so well, it wasn’t even nightfall before I had accumulated enough to comfortably re-enter the Boundary. Around sixteen hours had passed, so at a five-fold rate of acceleration a bit over three days should have passed in my Territory, assuming the tide had not declined. It may even be a bit more if the tide had not fully peaked.

With that thought in mind I re-entered my Territory, to be greeted by the surprised Shaeula.

“You have-have returned quickly. I must say I am-am surprised. You looked rather shaken from our-our encounter with the wyrm. It was sadly-sadly disappointing. My master must be made-made of far sterner-sterner stuff if he is to keep-keep his Oaths with me.” As usual when she was annoyed or disappointed her repetition of words had increased noticeably. Patting her head, causing her to flinch back, I apologised.

“What-what are you doing…?” she began but I cut her off.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t as brave as your master should be. The scale of the enemy caused me to lose my nerve a little, but I’m all good now. I’ll step up my game and be worthy of your loyalty, I promise.”

“Hmph. See that you do-do. It is not like I care-care for your sake, it would inconvenience me-me greatly should you not show-show some backbone.”

And there’s the tsun. I missed that.

“I know.” I said wryly. “Anyway, have there been any more attacks? I was worried the large build-up of ether may lure in more predators from the tides.”

“There were some-some incursions.” She allowed. “However they were merely scavengers. Most of them we managed to lure-lure towards the Defensive Emplacements on-on the border to help us deal with them. The others I-I handled.” She puffed up her modest chest in pride.

“Good going. I admit to being worried.” Checking on my Territory I could see there was only one and a half astral days left until the upgrade of the last Ether Spire, the other queue was empty. In terms of Ether we had just over forty thousand again. Back to where we were before.

“I don’t feel comfortable with this sort of ether lying about. If that wyrm comes back I don’t want to have to waste it all again. I wonder if there is anything we can do?”

“I can not-not think of anything. Such predators can find ether in many ways, by smell, taste or even by sense-sense. By the way-way Akio, your chakra networks seem-seem to be working in good order, especially your lunar-lunar and heart nodes.” Her eyes glowed as she appraised me.

“Yeah… I admit it felt pretty easy gathering the aether this time, even back on the Material. I think I’m finally getting the hang of it. If you don’t hurry I’ll win our bet!”

“Hardly-hardly. I am well-well placed to win. While you were away I have been honing my skills-skills, which proved far-far too deadly for those who attacked us.”

“I look forward to seeing them in action. But don’t count me out just yet. Anyway…” I transferred my gaze to the bright halo of ether that was circling my Silo, pondering our best course of action. “Can you detect large concentrations of ether?” I asked Shaeula.

“I must-must admit I am not an expert in this.” She said. “Wind elemental energy I can-can sense, and extremes of power my mystic eyes can divine-divine, but ether… if it is large enough maybe-maybe, but here in our Territory any presence would be masked-masked.”

“Damn, no good huh?” I lamented. “Oh well… I suppose all we can do is guide away any scent and hope that is enough.”

I quickly outlined my plan. Beside me the Kamaitachi gathered his wind energy and blew a gentle breeze outwards, sending the air around the ether blowing to the distance, away from our Territory. Once that was done I demonstrated how to fold a current of wind around the Silo in a sphere.

“If you take over, this should stop any scent getting out, and the wind we blew away earlier should hopefully lure anyone that tracks ether by scent away from our Territory. We only need to buy enough time to reach our ether goal.” I considered our options, and rather than waiting, it seemed it would be better to try and go out and find more enemies to defeat and Etherite ores to break down. Damn I’m regretting turning the last lot to ether. This time I’ll keep them until we are close to the goal.

“All right then.” I said, hefting my spear. “It’s time to go ether collecting. Do we know where there are any targets?”

“I saw-saw some winged creatures earlier, towards Grulgor’s territory. They looked like they were not-not too strong. Our elemental wind should clearly have-have the advantage!” Shaeula exclaimed.

Aww she’s getting all pumped up. How cute. “All right, we’ll head that way then. We need to stay wary and not provoke Grulgor or his trolls yet though. There’ll be time enough for that when the Throne is built.”

Calling for support we had five elite weaselkin with us, armed with bows, slings and staves. That was quite the reassuring retinue. Of course, the wyrm would sweep us all away with ease if it caught us out in the open but… damn, I guess I’m not quite over the fear yet. Still, in the open we can see it coming and hide. Worst case, so long as Shaeula and I survive we can restore her elites from the Barracks and… that train of thought didn’t make me feel good, but it was pragmatic. I was aiming to be an Astral Emperor, so I would need a measure of ruthlessness to succeed, no doubt.

It didn’t take too long to find a Red Etherite outside of our Territory. The falling shining white ‘snow’ sometimes left a small ore behind when it vanished. A second soon followed, but we were in the disputed zone between us and Grulgor, so I was feeling rather tense. Maybe I’ll drop another couple of Defensive Emplacements here when the Throne is queued up…

Still, my fears proved unfounded as a third ore was uncovered by Shaeula. As I took it from her my eyes widened. Something was coming. In the far distance there was a big sinuous shadow… it was hard to tell through the vividly lit haze, but it was likely the wyrm…

Luckily it is far away… still, there were numerous other dots closing in through the skies, getting bigger. I count ten, no… twelve…

Shaeula gazed through the bright tumult with her amber eyes. “Flying beasts. Not-not the ones I saw earlier… but we should-should still have the advantage.” With a gesture she attacked at range, tight javelins of rotating wind lashing out from her hands and soaring through the sky. “How-how is that? I think I win-win our wager.”

“Not yet.” I chuckled, as the javelins missed. “But damn, you are definitely close. As I am forever saying, I need to step up my game.” The flying monsters were closer now, looking like large bats. Most of them were a dull grey colour barring their red eyes, but one was larger and covered in coarse black hair. “So here’s my attempt.” My own javelins of air shot out, and one bat disintegrated as it was pierced, flaring away into ether. The others scattered instantly, two of the grey bats protecting their seeming leader.

“Damn, I wanted to get two with that.” I complained, but the bats were manoeuvrable. Arrows and sling stones from the elites were flying out, but the bats evaded them easily. Shaeula managed to down one with a slashing wind blade, and I dispatched a foe with another lance of air, but now they were close enough to fight back.

“Scatter-scatter…” Shaeula ordered, but her kin moved too slowly, and one fell, decapitated by an emerald blast of wind.

“Curse-curse you!” she roared, killing the attacker with her wind snakes, which were now more like tentacle drills, leaner, faster, more flexible and rotating cruelly. Two more perished with dying squeals as she ripped them apart.

“Don’t worry, you can bring him back…” I soothed, deflecting several blasts of wind that were aimed at her with my own elemental energies. Pushing back I shredded the wings from one bat, which fell with a pitiful wail, only to be bludgeoned to death by the remaining black weaselkin. I was about to attack again when the lead foe attacked, drawing in a breath and releasing it.

“Holy shit… is that a combo attack?” I channelled wind energy into a wall, shielding Shaeula and myself as best I could as the bat belched out a stream of wind energy… which was being consumed by fiery elemental energy, boosting the flames to a torrent. The sea of yellow and green energy pushed against my own green barrier, starting to eat into it, wringing drops of silvery sweat from my brow, vanishing as they fell to earth.

“I could… use some help…” I grated, as the remaining attackers swerved to engage the other weaselkin, one of which was already screaming in pain as the fires crept round my defences to burn him. With a wail his pain ended, a blade of verdant air slicing through him.

Shaeula gritted her teeth and let out a rather menacing growl. Eyes flaring amber her wind drills condensed together into one and pierced through my barrier and the oncoming storm. Just as it looked as if it was going to fell the foe, the two bats guarding the leader threw themselves into the blade, being ground apart like mince. This bought enough time for the boss to flit away, flames dying down.

“Oh no you don’t…” I snarled, drawing in the wind barrier and converting it to numerous nail-sized small vibrating spikes. Sending them screaming forwards I barraged it like I was using a shotgun, punching numerous holes in its wings and drawing vile blood from its body. Injured, it fell from the sky, and I was there to meet it, my spear plunging deep.

Behind me Shaula finished off the now leaderless bats, and we paused to take in our victory, which was hard fought. Two weaselkin had perished and another was injured. Still, in terms of ether we had made roughly three thousand. I guess those bats were elite and the red one was a leader class, like the Kamaitachi. It made sense, as they could use wind and even fire, plus they could fly… it’s just a shame we couldn’t persuade them to join us… if we could set up a Barracks for them we could have an air force…

Oh well, there was no use crying over what we couldn’t have. Dismissing the weaselkin, allowing them to take the injured one home we spent some time hunting for Etherites and dealing with lesser enemies we encountered. We never ran into a pack as fierce again, nor did we see Grulgor’s trolls.

In the far distance we could hear faint howls and roars, and could occasionally see the shadow of the wyrm, but fortunately it never came our way again… and then it was time. Breaking down Etherites I accessed the build queue, silvery letters across my vision.

Finally, the last piece of my puzzle is queued. In just ten astral days, we can move to the next stage…