-Star City-

James was mulling about the city rather early the next day and just as the suns were coming up, he sauntered over to the south-east corner were the guild plaza was located. This area was a vast open square with a wide cylindrical job board in the centre.

Every few meters the background colour of the job board changed and was titled after a different guild or faction. Surrounding the plaza were an assortment of buildings all bought and paid for by guilds that wished to set up a hall in Star City.

There were nearly 40 different factions that had a Hall in the Guild Plaza and room for another 40 on top of that. To set up an office or Hall in Star City, factions had to pay out the ass end. James was absolutely rooting their wallets with a fat evil smile and the majority of the Guild’s income at the moment was from renting the offices constructed here.

Small and large crowds of people were spread out through the plaza assembling teams or groups to take on a mission. Since it was only the second day, there weren’t too many jobs up yet, but plenty of the guilds had information from the free map released by the Brotherhood and were looking for more people to scout the areas marked as ‘hazardous’, like the snake pit or abandoned mine.

The majority of the people that had come to Star City were in the True Spirt realm but don’t let that belittle the number of Palace Realm cultivators that came for a chance at riches and glory. In fact, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that the ratio of Palace to True Spirit was actually higher than the Empire, with nearly 1 in 50 people being a Palace Realm cultivator.

Within a group of about 80 people near the Dark Brotherhood office were some familiar faces. The twins Hang and Danto from the Susso and Telly Clans were present with a handful of members while bickering and arguing with each other like siblings.

Emily had nearly 20 members of the Adventurer’s Guild with her and was accompanied by a large muscular man with short brown hair, a moustache as big as his face, and a pair of reading glasses on the edge of his nose. He carried a colossal broadsword as long as his body across his back and had the weathered, leathery skin of a seasoned adventurer.

Joining the group was 15 of Katsu Sect’s disciples led by the prissy Elder Xinshi, and finally, the two sect leaders of the Shield Maidens and Sword Masters, Kelsy the tidy little brunette and Tiny the midget whose sword was longer than his body.

Peppering this odd assortment or practitioners were some loose cultivators not affiliated with any faction and just there for the rewards posted on the free job board by the Brotherhood.

It should be noted that the Job board in the centre of the plaza was called the ‘free job board’ and was named such because anyone could take on a job from any faction as long as it was posted there. This encouraged free cultivators to come to Star City and attend bug hunts or assist guild missions.

As James walked up, he greeted Emily with a slap on the ass and then strolled past everyone else into the guild office. The moustache man gave Emily a questioning look and she just gave a hearty laugh in response.

After sorting out some affairs in the guild building, James walked back out and addressed everyone. “Alrighty then. Looks like we should have enough. First things first. You should all know why you’re gathered here. We’re about to undertake a mission that will most certainly lead to deaths, and you’ve all volunteered to come throw your lives away with me.”

As he said that he tapped his now ever-present earpiece and summoned Goliath. After a few seconds, the Goliath of Wrath descended from the fog on an Air Board and landed next to James in front of the crowd.

“Alright big guy. Run them through the operation. You’re now in charge.”

Goliath stepped forward and stood with a straight back and arms crossed as he surveyed the crowd. “I don’t know what you were told about this mission beforehand, but I must warn you all it’s going to be dangerous.”

When he said this, everyone shared a chuckle. James introduced the mission as joining him in death, so everyone had a pretty good idea this would be dangerous.

Seeing no one seemed worried Goliath continued on. “Fine, consider yourselves warned. This operation is being run under my direction, but because you’re all generally separate factions, you will be forgiven for some autonomy. That said, anyone who endangers the mission or endangers my team will be killed. There are no exceptions. I don’t care if you’re the son of the Heavens. You will not jeopardise my mission.

“In 1 hour I expect every last one of you to be equipped and ready to drop into a hot zone. That means in 1 hour and 15 minutes were going to be flying over the LS3 Quarry south of Star City and you’re going to be jumping out of a gunship into an area infested with spirit beasts in the hundreds.

“The Gunship will be providing long range bombardment, but there are ranged creatures in the quarry capable of dealing it damage. Our mission is to eliminate or mark as many of these creatures as possible and then to evacuate within 45 minutes.”

When he got to this point, James threw a duffle bag onto the ground and pulled out one of the Ultra Flares that had come through with them from Earth.

“This is a marking flare. From what we can tell, whatever this creature is, it can spit spines the size of an arm nearly two kilometres. That makes it too difficult to get in close enough and target. Everyone gets a flare. When you encounter one of these spitter’s you just pop the top and strike it against something, then throw it near the critter.”

Everyone was slightly confused. Dropping into a hot zone, marking flares? What sort of terminology is that? The first person to ask a question was the big man with a moustache.

“Guildmaster James, how do you expect us to fall free fall into this... ‘hot zone’? What’s stopping these creatures from just picking us out of the air or shooting down your... ‘Gunship’?”

James gave a grin then nodded to Goliath. The big guy then tapped his ear piece and quietly said something. After a few moments, the Velocity Gunship lifted off from nearby and then zoomed off into the distance. They then soon saw the huge Gunship fly past overhead followed by a sonic boom that shook the entire city.

While everyone was slightly shocked by that, the next thing they saw was a rapidly enlarging speck in the sky where the gunship had shot past overhead. It only took a few seconds before they saw a Brotherhood guild member falling from the sky like a rock. James then tapped his earpiece when he saw the guy coming into view.

“Rail 3, I want you to fire a couple shots off at the dot up there in the sky.”

Once he said that the rail gun on the battlements suddenly swung around and aimed up at the man in the sky. Another few muffled booms shook the city and everyone in the plaza watched as the jet stream from the Rail Gun shells seemed to curve around past the guild member and disappeared off into the distant skyline.

James with the smile of a devil turned back to his amazed and awed crowd then threw out a stack of paper strips with some writing on them. “Enough there so everyone can get one. We used something a little special to make these talismans so don’t expect to take one home and find out how it works. All you need to know is that...” ‘thunk.’

Before he finished, the thump of Harvy landing on the ground after that whole skydiving ordeal was heard. Everyone turned in time to see the last of his talisman burn away into ash. What surprised everyone was the mummified guy didn’t even seem slightly shaken.

James gave him a once over before asking; “Harvy, how was it? No issues on the jump?”

Harvy gave a polite bow to James then reported. “Evil Dark Over ... Ahem! I mean, Guildmaster James, there were no apparent issues. Just as you said, the moment I activated the talisman I became stationary for a moment with no backlash from the sudden stop. My speed then increased rapidly while falling. The talisman seemed to burn a little faster when it was deflecting the shots from the Rail Gun. Only the landing was still a bit heavier but shouldn’t be a problem for anyone in the True Spirit Realm.”

James gave him a wave to go mount up in the Gunship again then turned back to the crowd. “Well, there you go. This talisman was designed specifically for this kind of sonic speed drop. It does all the hard work for you. All you need to do is jump at the right time and be ready for a fight when you land.”

-Alecksa Souvenoff - POV -

He was definitely mad! Of all the crazy daredevils and mindless fools I’ve seen, he was the worst. ‘Just Jump when the light turns green’ he said. ‘Make sure you activate your talisman before you jump’ he reminded. ‘Don’t stand near anything with a flare on it’ he encouraged.

And then after the gunship gave a shudder, he pulled his lips back into that wicked smile he made whenever he was about to do something that would shock everyone and walked to the edge of the ramp. After hitting a button, the ramp of the gunship fell back as arrays lit up on the decking.

Nothing seemed to change in the compartment of the gunship. There was no whistling wind and to everyone’s great surprise there wasn’t even a gentle breeze entering into the ship.

I don’t know what those arrays were for, but according to the one with four eyes, when travelling this fast, the wind pressure would usually tear the gunship apart without the support of the arrays.

Not to mention that without those arrays, the wind would apparently have pulled us out the back of the ship and smeared us across the sky like a red cloud before the door had even cracked an inch ... apparently anyway.

I let out a long sigh as I watched Guildmaster James lecturing everyone again on what not to do. He and Goliath ran everyone through mission protocols in the case of anything going wrong.

My team and I were on this mission to gather intel on just how deep the infestation is. According to the strange flying artefacts, called drones, that the spirit of the machine, called Jasmine, sends everywhere around the forest, this infestation may be even worse than just some Spine Spitters and various other beasts on the surface around the quarry.

From what we saw through the ‘eye of the drone’ there was a series of caves that appear to have been dug out by the beasts in the LS3 stone. For what purpose? Well, that’s why my siblings and I are here.

Thanks to a little trickery with the elements of darkness, my brothers are capable of hiding us away in the shadows at a corner of the deck. When anyone notices us, Cassidy just fires off a little hair sized steel needle infused with her element, and they suddenly forget they’d seen us.

I won’t talk about what happened when James found out Cassidy had forgetfulness as an element. Mostly because I forgot exactly what happened. No doubt thanks to Cassidy. What I do remember of it wasn’t good, though. Cassidy was locked away in the lab for 3 straight days and refused to ever tell any of us what exactly happened.

While we waited in the shadows, a light over the ramp suddenly started flashing yellow. The Guildmaster reminded us all that our jump window was only going to be for a few seconds and then turned to stand at the end of the ramp. His talisman suddenly started burning and then the moment the light turned green he launched himself out of the gunship.

Following after him everyone else jumped out and soon 80 people were spread out across the sky over the valley. It seemed someone didn’t activate his talisman though because he jumped out and then collided with two other people creating a bloody mist spanning the jet stream of the gunship for a few hundred meters.

After everyone had dropped out from the ramp, the gunship slowly circled back and then did one last flyover. This was our drop point, and it was a little further away than the rest. The truth behind this mission wasn’t to target the Spitters but was to draw the attention of the beasts and give us a chance to enter the tunnels to investigate.

In all honesty, the Gunship was more than capable of just doing a fly over 4km up and raining down fire on the entire valley we referred to as The Quarry. Guildmaster James had said this mission would be as much about blinding people to the capabilities of the Gunship as it was about finding out just what was underneath the quarry all these beasts were so attracted to.

The moment the light turned yellow, our team of five lined up on the ramp and then activated our talismans. Without the least bit of hesitation, we jumped out the back when it turned green.

It was the strangest thing I’d ever experienced. Generally, nothing could stop me dead so fast without damaging me, but the moment I was past the arrays of the gunship decking I was frozen in mid-air for a few seconds while a particular part of the talisman glowed brightly and then burnt out.

Once it burnt away, the next part started to dimly glow, and my siblings and I fell through the air like rocks.

Down below us we could see the landscape for kilometres in every direction. Nearly 4km of Valley, depressed in between two hills with every stone and cliff face being the same glossy white of the lightning seeking spirit stones. An entire valley filled to the brim with LS3. It’s no wonder Guildmaster James was so interested in this place.

As we rocketed towards the ground, we could see groups of people fighting off spirit beasts and throwing flares into any cave dwelling that a Spitter was hiding in. Occasionally we even heard yelling and screaming pass by us on the wind.

For almost a minute we fell under the power of the talisman until we’d located our target. On the south end of the valley was an especially big cave entrance with 30 odd smaller tunnels scattered around it. All of them leading into the cliff face and underground.

We took what James had taught us and opened our arms and legs out to reduce falling speed. Then after a quick conversation over our coms we all became like arrows and dove towards this area.

While diving down, we saw hundreds of different spirit beasts crawling over rocks and through the hillside heading towards Guildmaster James. After another minute of falling the talisman burnt out its last little pattern and my team landed safely in a little grotto hidden in the trees.

We took a moment to ensure everyone was fine and then under the shadows of my three brothers, we snuck into one of the caves. As we moved deeper into the dark pit we could feel the hairs on our arms and legs starting to stand on end. It felt like whenever the Guildmaster was angry about something and the air all around him would feel charged with lightning energy.

The further we advanced through the caves the more intense the feeling grew and soon it was so intense I could feel my skin actually tingling. We could soon make out the sounds of roars and felt the ground shaking now and then as we pressed onwards.

After coming to a cross roads we went to the right and after walking a few hundred meters into tunnel the head of a snake taking up nearly the entire cave came forwards out of the darkness.

The moment it came into sight we froze stiff. The three boys spread out in a defensive posture around me and Cassidy then we all pulled out weapons. Tommy had a long thin sword on his back, Cash dual wielded a dagger and short sword and Junior had a black quarterstaff.

Cassidy only had her needles and a small strange looking weapon called an ‘Arc Pistol’. I had what the Guildmaster referred to as ‘the bow and arrow’. The weapon I held looked nothing like any bow and arrow I’d ever seen. Instead it looked similar to the Arc Cannon only painted black and a little smaller.

Guildmaster James had set me up on a little hill out in the Endless Forest and made me practise firing this thing for days. I still couldn’t hit anything more than a kilometre away, but the Guildmaster assured me I had the perfect skill set for something he called ‘sniping’.

The Bow, although it looked like an Arc Cannon and fired like an Arc Cannon was actually almost as silent as the darkness itself. It didn’t make the ‘boom’ the Arc Cannon made and seemed to be quite a bit less powerful, but the Guildmaster told me that surprise was half the power of long range sniping.

Apparently, sniping would be just as easy with the Arc Cannon because the projectile was so fast you wouldn’t hear it till it hit you. The problem remained that it was so fast the slug would deform and veer off target after about 500 meters. It wasn’t good for long range accuracy and worse still, what’s the point of being a ghost if everyone could spot you the moment you kill someone.

As my team of ghosts readied up, the snake continued to approach along the incredibly dim tunnel. Once it was almost upon us, it opened its maw and it huge fangs, the size of my leg, protruded out while it gave a vile hiss. The moment it revealed the soft inner bits of its mouth Cassidy and I fired off consecutive shots into its mouth trying to aim for the roof where it would strike the brain.

After only three shots from the Bow, the snake started hissing and thrashing about in the cave in a frenzy. “Back! Everyone back out to the crossways before it collapses the tunnel.”

I reached out and grabbed onto Cassidy then started back peddling towards the crossroad. As rocks and dirt fell down around me I heard a pained scream from behind. I turned to see Junior being dragged back into the darkness with an arm pierced through by one of those huge venomous fangs.

I flung Cassidy out of the tunnel and then gave both Tommy and Cash a look as I passed them running back into the tunnel after Junior. As I sprinted into the darkness, the cavern shook violently and behind me the roof started to collapse in. Without a second thought, I charged towards the thrashing retreating snake and deployed spirit energy into my body.

I loved and hated my spirit energy. It gives me only one bonus. When it’s active a single minute spans out into an entire hour and time essentially stops for me. The only problem is that unlike the Guildmaster whose energy allows his body to speed up to the same speed as his perception of time, my body remains very normal.

Although I get some of the basic perks of any spirit energy like increased speed and strength, when a minute becomes an hour it’s so far out of sync with each other it’s unnoticeable.

As the world slowed down to a near stop and my body joined it, I started to calculate my best approach and reaction. I spent 2 hours constantly fighting negligence. Every time I moved or took a step I had to maintain the thought in my head or my leg would stop mid motion. In real time it looked like I was dodging falling rocks and jumping across them like some kind of ghost in the darkness, but for me it felt like 2 hours of pushing my mind to its limit trying to maintain motion just to cross the 40 odd meters into the tunnel and towards the giant snake.

As the snake smashed its aching head against the cave walls while retreating, Junior was being thrown about like a ragdoll and his arm looked like it was moments away from tearing off his body.

As soon as I got to the snake, I employed my Famine energy and touched it. Although the scales seemed to significantly lessen the amount of energy I could force into it, the snake still slowly lost its strength. After only a few minutes of jumping back from a strike and then moving forwards to touch it, the snake finally collapsed.

I pulled the now unconscious Junior from its bloody fang and started to apply the first aid Guildmaster had taught us. After wrapping his arm and checking his pulse I could see he was on his last few breaths.

Tears streamed down my face and even without my spirit power employed it felt like an eternity as I held him in my arms and cried my sorrows out in the dark, silent collapsed tunnel.

It took me nearly half an hour to wipe my tears from my eyes. ‘No matter what, these creatures would pay. I’ll kill everything in this cave, no matter how powerful it is.’

With this thought in mind, I pulled Junior onto my back and then started to cut away at the snake. My only way out of this tunnel now was through the body of the snake.

-The Quarry-

James was covered in blood and sweat. He was exhausted and his blue robes were torn and singed. They must have killed hundreds of the creatures in the last hour. They already only had half their expeditionary force left.

James slung his Arc Cannon around and fired off a shot blowing the head off a 10ft long earth lizard. He then ran forwards and used its collapsing body as a stepping stone while whipping out a silver sword and giving a wild roar as he fell onto the neck of a stone golem. He circled his plasma energy and slashed at the little head rock of the golem.

Imbued with his plasma energy the sword cut through the rock of the golem’s body like a hot knife through butter. He jumped and rolled along the ground taking ragged breaths and holding a wound on his side that was dribbling blood.

‘Where the fuck are they? Don’t tell me the underground system here is that big they couldn’t give it a cursory check out in this amount of time?’

As James had that thought, a loud roar sounded out overhead and he watched as the moustached man launched himself from a high rock and decapitated a fire lion that had been spewing out flames at everything.

Surrounding James was 54 remaining members of the expeditionary force. As he glanced about, he saw Hang Susso holding Danto Telly in his arms as he cried and cursed at the sky.

Tiny and Kelsy were surprisingly still alive and standing side by side double teaming a creature the size of an elephant with huge yellow tusks and glowing red eyes. Every time it lashed out with its trunk Kelsy stepped forward and deflected it with her shield. Tiny would then take the opening and shoot past her like a bullet and release a wave of wind energy from his sword that cut into the joints of the creature’s legs.

Emily didn’t seem even slightly phased as she ran through the battlefield with a bright smile and shield bashing or hacking away at anything that came near her.

The Elder Xenshi had her sect disciples in a strange formation that circled around her. Every time a disciple was attacked, someone else managed to step in and save them. If they faced anything too dangerous, they all released a strange technique that merged into a single fist of rock that broke through the ground and launched their enemies into the sky.

As the battle raged on, the Gunship flew around the periphery like a dot far off in the sky. Every now and then the sound of projectiles from its railguns overshadowed all other noise and everyone would watch on in amazement as an area marked with a flare suddenly turned into a crater.

James tapped onto his coms device while catching his breath. “Jasmine, are they out yet?”

“I’m afraid not Guildmaster. Since 1 hour and 18 minutes ago I’ve lost them on coms.”

“Fuck! That’s it Jasmine, I can’t wait any longer. Signal the retreat. They just keep growing in numbers. I can’t even tell where the fuck they’re coming from to close off their little holes.”

“csshhhtt ... aster James, Alecksa an ... csshhttt ... can’t find ... csshhtt ... were out now but ... ccsshhht.”

Following the sound of a patchy coms signal, James heard Tommy’s voice broken with intermittent static and cut out. James just gave a broad smile then whipped out a flare gun from inside his robe and fired off into the sky. The moment everyone saw the blue flare, they started retreating back towards the forests on the north end of the valley.

Standing back in the grove to the south was Tommy, Cash and Cassidy. When they saw the blue flare they all turned back to the forest with stern hardened faces. They then started making their way back through the forest around the edge of the Quarry Valley to reach their evac point.

-Star City Security Office-

The security office was in the northern point of Star City. This office was essentially the nerve centre of the city and housed the quantum aerial that connected Jasmine to the Endless Forest. There was also a barracks big enough to house and equip 400 people. Although their guild only had just over 200 members now, they planned for more later.

In a room of the Security Office, James sat with what was left of his ghost team as they filled him in on what happened. His face was expressionless and stoic as they all filled in details of their mission with equally emotionless faces.

After a half hour debrief James stood up and tapped his coms. “Jasmine, I want constant surveillance on the Quarry. If my missing Ghost’s show up, I want to know about it immediately. Also, post a new Job. Any faction that assists in clearing the Quarry 3 days from now will be granted 5% tax deduction for the next two months. Any beast corpse they can carry away at the end is theirs.”

James then gave his three Ghost’s one last glance then left after some parting instructions. “You have three days to rest and prepare. We’re going back.”

-Quarry Underground Cave Network-

It was finally over. At least, that was the sentiment shared by the beasts when the humans retreated into the forests. They’d lost hundreds in the battle, but that was just a drop in the ocean. They were thousands. They had cave networks expanding and snaking around for kilometres underground.

While they ate the corpses of their dead brethren and retreated back into the underground something strange started to happen. Underground they had huge caverns where they slept and hid from the surface.

The Endless Forest tried to prevent spirit beats from building up too many in a single area, but that was only to prevent them stampeding its trees and forest. If they all stayed out of the way, they could hide entire hordes underground.

Which is exactly what they’d done in this case. You might have thought that spirit beasts were still just animals and tied down by instinct. That assumption would be mostly true. Except when a creature comes along that is powerful enough to force them to submit.

When such an advanced creature appears it usually builds a horde and then assembles them in an area with exceptional primal spirit energy. In this case, the LS3 that pervaded the mountains and earth of the valley was perfect. It channelled energy from kilometres of space on the surface all down into the underground and to another material that had formed deep in the subterranean over millions of years.

This material was a gem very much similar to the spirit energy storage gem James and Skay used to make their Spirit Storage Gel. There was, however, one major difference. This gem purified spirit energy that was pumped into it until it became a liquid. A single drop could instantly advance a barrier realm cultivator to the edge of the True Spirit Realm.

Although it took hundreds of years for this stuff to be refined out of the crystals it had been building up down here for so long there was a small underground lake of the stuff. This was why the Tower Realm beast that had gathered this horde had set up his lair here.

Regardless of all that though, something strange had been happening in the underground since the humans left. Entire dens were going mad and trying to devour each other. This wasn’t uncommon when so many different beasts lived in close proximity. What was strange was that it kept happening.

If the beasts were to try and describe anything they witnessed it would be a pale green mist filling a den of creatures. As the mist poured in from a tunnel, they would see the figure of a human shadow standing in the mist.

Apart from its shadowy figure, the only other specifics they could remember were the blood shot eyes that peered out from the mist and the crying of a human woman.

Once this mist touched a beast, it would go mad with hunger and devour any beasts that came near it. Whenever a spirit beast tried to attack the shadow, it would disappear from the greenish fog like ghost phasing into nothing.

For hours this had continued on, and hundreds of beasts had been killed and eaten by each other in their madness. Like a ghost, those bloodshot eyes and sobbing sound would float through the tunnels.

Soon the beasts started getting anxious and riled up. They began to search through the tunnels to find the ‘ghost of famine’. Every time a beast encountered the ghost it would lose itself to its hungry madness and start to fight and eat its compatriots.

If a beast ever encountered it alone, the ghost would disappear into its eerie green fog, and a soft ‘chuff’ sound would come. Whenever that sound came, a beasts eyeball would explode, quickly followed by its head or a knee joint suddenly collapsing without warning.

-Star City-

James stood in the Guild Plaza overlooking a crowd of hundreds. Nearly every faction in the city assembled their troops. The chance to reduce their export tax couldn’t be ignored. Although 25% doesn’t sound much different from 30%, it would be substantial in the long run.

Having a lower export tax would mean they could buy up other people’s resources here in the Endless Forest cheaply and then export it for less.

The other reason for the numbers was that the more people they brought along, the more beast corpses they could drag away with them. In an infested area like the Quarry, there was, without doubt, some rare and strange creatures worth a lot of Gold. If they could procure those beasts then that alone would be worth it.

James had Goliath brief everyone on the operation this time and in less than an hour they had a Big Berta loaded up with all these would be hunters. The Gunship took off ahead of them and started clearing a landing zone while the Big Berta came along behind with 10 Air Boards circling around as a guard.

To James’ and everyone else’s surprise, there were beasts pouring out of the underground and rushing into the forest the moment they touched down. As they disembarked and began a slaughter, the beast’s pouring out of the caves only increased, but instead of engaging the humans, they were fleeing into the forest in every direction.

Some of them seemed to be in a state of frenzy and attacked everything from the humans to the other beasts, but apart from this, the attack group only encountered minor resistance.

After a few hours of this, the entire valley was as silent as the grave. Apart from the hundreds of humans spreading out and investigating any kind of activity, there were no other forms of life.

James called in air strikes to close of any cave entrances they found until finally they reached the southernmost end of the valley and stood at the entrance to the largest and only remaining cave.

Once they were here they set up a perimeter and James had Jasmine start sending in the drones. As they flew into the cave networks, they planted little devices along the walls that served two purposes.

The first was to act as antennae and expand her direct control into the cave. The second was to release a sonic pulse every 100 milliseconds which was used to map the cave structure and track any activity.

After half an hour of this James got a report from Jasmine. He then tapped his ear piece and began talking. “Ghost 1, this is James.”

After a few seconds of static, a click sounded over the connection. Then a quiet voice followed. “Ghost 1 copies.”

James let out a breath. “Report.” He finally ordered.

“Guildmaster James, I’m lost in the underground. I may have overreacted a little and broke protocol.”

“Ghost 1, what’s going on down there? When we arrived, we saw hundreds of beasts evacuating the underground.”

“Well ... like I said, I broke protocol and directly engaged the enemy.”

“You did this yourself, what about Ghost 3?”

“Ghost 3 ... is dead.”

“Prepare for evacuation. Jasmine, I want her on the surface in the next 15 minutes.”

Once he finished giving orders, he turned around to the crowd of curious gathered elites and then bashfully scratched his head. “Ahhh ... well, it looks like my advance team has cleared the majority of the underground. I guess you didn’t need to...”

‘BOOM!’

Before he finished speaking the whole valley shook like an earthquake had just struck. While everyone staggered about or hit the deck a huge cloud of dust billowed out of the cave entrance.

James deployed his lightning energy and wind energy as he shot backwards from the cliff face. As he backed away, a deafening roar echoed out and was followed by a huge albino mole, nearly ten metres in height and 15 meters long, breaking through the dust cloud like a rocket.

It landed in the encirclement and released another ground shaking roar and stomped down, crushing someone flat like stepping on a ripe tomato. James slapped his ear and started yelling. “Jasmine, what the fuck is that? Why didn’t you pick it up with the drones?!”

“Unknown beast species. It appears to have dug a fresh tunnel to surprise attack us.”

While James pulled away from the entrance, Goliath, standing nearby on a tall rock, gave a roar and started firing his Arc Cannon at the giant moles head. James watched in shock as huge streams of sparks sprayed off the creatures head like striking a metal plate with a grinder.

After Goliath’s Cannon had fully deformed into a mangled wreck’ the Albino Mole staggered for a moment and then spun its beady white eyes in Goliaths direction. Once it had stomped a few times to regain its sense of balance, it loosed another roar and slammed it’s huge front paws down onto the ground creating an earth lance that pierced straight towards Goliaths body.

James gave a ‘tsk’ and employed his lightning energy to maximum. Everything slowed down and he bent down into a crouch. He then slapped the side of his boots and an array pattern lit up on the side of them.

To everyone else, even the Palace Realm cultivators who had comparatively higher levels of perception, James turned into a bolt of lightning that shot through the air and collided with Goliath. As they both fell from the rock, the earth lance speared through the empty air.

James and Goliath climbed back up to their feet unsteadily as they eyed the spirit beast. Everyone else had finally come back from their surprise and panic. They started to launch spirit techniques off like fireworks and Goliath grabbed James and backed away from the fight.

After pulling back a hundred odd meters, Goliath put James down on a rock. He then looked down and saw James’ legs covered in lacerations from the intense force he’d exerted on them by using the lightning boots. The boots were also torn to shreds and barely hanging off his bloodied feet.

As he sat down, James started applying clotting paste and then whipped out a little spirit battery that he clasped in his hand to start restoring his lightning energy. This happened in a matter of seconds as James used his lighting energy to speed up his first aid.

While they were a distance away, the Albino Mole went on a rampage and started throwing huge boulders of earth and earth spikes everywhere. People were dying left and right as they tried to fight back.

Unfortunately, the creature’s skin was as tough as steel, and only the more powerful Palace Realm cultivators could deal enough damage to even cause a little bit of bleeding.

The biggest wound the creature sustained was from the Arc Cannon fire it received to its hard head, which apparently still wasn’t enough to knock it out or kill it despite leaving a huge gash that spilt purplish-red blood everywhere.

Once James was ready, he climbed up on his aching bloodied legs. He then turned and gave some instructions to Goliath who then ran deeper into the valley to the north while yelling into his earpiece.

James then turned back to the battle with the mole. After taking a deep breath, he started moving forwards while his body pumped adrenaline into his system helping him cope with the pain of his legs.

He gave a loud whistle as he ran to the edge of the crowd. “Everyone back. Fighting retreat to the north. Pull it back into the centre of the valley.” When he finished yelling, he pulled out his silver sword from his hip then sprinted forwards to start targeting weak points on the mole.

Being the fastest person here, even with damaged legs, he was the only person that could tie it up long enough for everyone else to start moving back.

He watched as the plasma infused sword only cut about half an inch into the monster’s body. After a strike, he would jump back a few times then circle around it and strike in a different blind spot. After the majority of the weaker cultivators had pulled back it was only him and a few Palace Realms launching ranged attacks.

When he saw Goliaths flare launching into the sky, he grinned savagely. “Now, all of you start pulling back. Keep to it north. If it starts to engage another direction, distract it from the other side.”

Finished with his instructions, he sprinted towards the north and then would sneak back in and slash at a joint or cut he’d already inflicted trying to widen it. The mole rat was growing more and more enraged at not being able to stomp this fly into the ground. It launched earth spears or slashed long gashes into the ground that pulled up the earth.

After 15 minutes of drawing it back into the valley, James saw what he’d been waiting for. A large clear area not overshadowed by cliff faces or crowded by rocks. It was a flat area of brushes and shrubbery in the base of the valley.

Once he saw this, his savage grin only grew more sinister, and he spun in mid-step while launching a lightning bolt from his hand directly into the creature’s face.

The mole was well past the state of enraged now. It was blinded by its madness. If it could achieve nothing else, then it would kill this little fly. As James ran into the centre of the clear area, the now bloodied beast reared back and gave a loud roar. It then smashed its claws down and an earth ripple spread out from it, throwing the Palace Realms off balance and knocking James to the ground.

James scrambled forwards as the ground shook and tried to get his feet underneath him. With another rumbling growl, the Albino Mole charged forwards at its fastest speed trying to catch James before he could get himself centred again.

As the beast was closing in on him, James’ face dropped into a stoic, emotionless expression. He focused himself and then just as the beast was gnashing down to crush James in its teeth he slapped the ground with his arm infused with all 7 of his elements. A ‘boom’ sounded out and a huge cloud of dust rose up around him as the bones in his arm fractured and snapped.

He then rolled to the side and when he heard the snap of teeth where his body used to be, he pulled out a sharp pointed needle with a battery filled with lightning snakes.

He then stabbed it to the side and felt it pierce into the Giant Albino Mole. A stuttered roar echoed from the Mole and James gave a yell.

“NOW!”

As he sprinted as fast as he could away from the monstrous roaring creature, Goliath pressed a button and flares on the ground around the monster lit up like Christmas lights. The Mole reared up again as its paws tried to brush the electrified needle from its head.

Just as James broke out of the dust cloud in a dead sprint a ‘boom, boom, boom’ sounded out behind him and a heated shockwave spread out throwing him nearly 30 meters through the air and peppering him in shrapnel.

Everyone else watched on as the Rail Guns of the Velocity Gunship rained down focused molten supersonic death, causing the valley to roar with its echoes and the ground to shatter and quake.

After a full minute of sustained fire, the Gunship let up and the valley returned to the deathly still quite it had been when the other beasts had evacuated. Goliath ran over and checked out the bleeding, unconscious form of James. Everyone else had their eyes locked onto the cloud of dust and smoke rising from the impact zone.

Someone finally got the shits with the suspense and waved a hand through the air causing the dust to blow away with the wind. A 30 meter crater then revealed itself with the bloodied beaten body of the Mole laying at the bottom, trying to raggedly draw its dying breaths.

Seeing that the creature was somehow still alive, everyone paused in silence. Then simultaneously, every cultivator began charging martial skills or running forwards with weapons drawn. That was the general rule of hunting, the killing blow wins the prize.

While everyone was rearing back to launch their spirit techniques, a shot rang out. Everyone froze again and turned to see Emily from the Adventurer’s Guild holding a miniaturised Arc Cannon with a blindingly bright smile.

She then tucked her Arc Pistol back into her already tight Adventurer outfit and without fanfare walked into the crater filled with blobs of cooling molten black-iron and started trying to hack away all the good pieces of the beast.

Everything quickly devolved from there. People were screaming and yelling and claiming ownership while getting ready to have an all-out battle. The price they could get for a Tower Realm beast corpse was enormous.

Probably close to a hundred thousand gold just for its skin. Then there were its bones that could be forged into powerful weapons that could cut through another Tower Realm like butter. Not to mention they would amplify spirit powers to a whole other level.

Throwing around a martial technique with a weapon crafted from a part of this beast would be like throwing three of the same technique for the price and casting time of one.

Goliath didn’t seem to care too much about the beast. Instead, he hauled James up onto his shoulder and then marched off to the landing zone of the Gunship.

-The Lab-

Even in an unconscious state, Skay couldn’t force James to drink any of his odd mixtures. Every time he approached the table James was laid out on arcs of lightning would shoot off him. It was strange because it only happened when Skay approached him with something unknown hidden on his person.

James was perfectly healthy looking on his table with no wounds visible. They kept a small supply of flower power in the gunship which Goliath had liberally used on James the moment he had him on deck.

Exsue damn near refused to fly the ship back to the lab she was so worried about him. When he came onto the ship, he was covered in burns and bleeding shrapnel wounds. All the clotted lacerations on his legs had been reopened from the activity of fighting the Mole. Although the flower power healed his external wounds perfectly well, James had remained in a coma for 2 straight days.

After they’d left the valley, a small scale war broke out over the mole’s corpse and it ended up getting split between the 4 strongest factions on site. The Adventurer Guild was strong but it wasn’t strong enough to fight off everybody. This meant Emily had to make some concessions even though she got the final strike.

The other guilds had hauled away every corpse they could find, and the entire valley was cleaned out of damn near anything they could carry. They all knew that now the infestation had been cleared, the Quarry would become the property of the Brotherhood. That meant if they wanted to take anything then they would have to take it now before the Brotherhood restricted the zone.

Any rare herbs or interesting rocks were flogged by the guilds present. The caves were left alone after 20 people suddenly disappeared into the underground and a few survivors escaped screaming about the Ghosts with bizarre powers.

Even Palace Realms had disappeared in the caves. What no one knew was that Jasmine had the rest of the Ghost team drop in during the battle and secure the cave structure to prevent any nosey people from wandering around in there. Even the Adventurer’s guild didn’t dare travel in after Emily came out with a white face muttering about the Demon Trickster and the Soul Thief.

After everyone had left, the Ghost Team was pulled out. When the body of Junior was brought back to Star City, it was discovered he wasn’t quite dead yet. He’d just fallen into a death-like state due to toxins from the snake venom. Probably the only thing keeping him alive was that he was far too suspicious of the ‘Gentle Voice of Angels’ and the ‘Soft Heavenly Light’ to walk towards it.