Seeing what had happened to the Redian who had stepped on the glowing glyphs that Burl had placed the largest of the three raised his hand to stop the uninjured Redian from setting off another of the glyphs. The Redian that had been blown up landed with a muffled thump on the ground a couple of seconds later and I held out hope that it had been injured for another couple of seconds, but the thing got to its feet and shook its head like it had been stunned a few seconds after that.

“Jeez these things are tough,” I grumbled as I prepared to start firing spells into their midst.

“They are indeed,” Burl nodded as the largest Redian drew a strange weapon from its belt. The weapon almost resembled some sort of steampunk gun except for the crystal at the front of it. My suspicions about what the weapon was were confirmed when the Redian fired a blast of light from the weapon at several areas around them setting off the glyphs that Burl had hidden.

With a heavy heart I sent my Minions in, knowing that I was probably sending them to their deaths. As they surged forwards, I started firing Caustic Bombs into the midst of the Redians. All three of the Redians snarled as the first projectile splashed them with acid but it seemed that it was more of an annoyance to them than something that was actually dangerous.

“An acid-based spell huh?” Burl asked as he started firing massive bolts of blue energy that looked like larger more powerful versions of my Mana Bolt spell. “That’ll be quite powerful when you increase its Level a bit, but I don’t think that it’s going to do a lot to these Redians.”

“It’s not really meant to,” I chuckled as the ground under the Redian’s feet turned to muck courtesy of my Sticky Bog spell. “It’s just meant to distract them. Since I don’t think that I’m strong enough to actually do any damage to them so I’m going to focus on distracting them enough that you two can bring them down.”

“I see,” Burl nodded as one of my scorpions engaged the Redian that stepped on Burl’s glyph. “That’s not a bad plan but I think that you might be slightly underestimating what you can do.”

“You might be correct,” I agreed as one of my scorpions tried to plunge its stinger into the Redian only to be blocked by its shield. “But I’ve been working with pretty limited information up until now.”

Burl opened his mouth to reply to me but was interrupted by the sudden scream of pain that escaped my mouth as the Redian sliced one of the scorpion’s claws off with a single strike of its weapon which resembled an oversized serrated cleaver.

“What’s wrong Rick?” Burl asked worriedly as the beetle crashed into the Redian preventing it from finishing off the badly injured scorpion.

“I’m connected to my minions at a deeper level than normal for a summoner,” I explained through gritted teeth as I cast Heal Minion on the scorpion. I didn’t think that the spell was going to be able to save the minion at this point, but it might allow it to last a little bit longer. “Which means that I feel everything that they feel.”

“That seems like a really bad idea,” Burl pointed out as I staggered to my feet.

“Probably but I didn’t actually have that much of a choice,” I replied weakly.

My other minions were only faring slightly better. The other scorpion had engaged the smaller of the two remaining Redians and only fared slightly better because this one was dual-wielding the hook-like weapons that I had seen in the vision that the Admin had shown me. It was even able to slip its stinger through its defenses and inject its venom. Meanwhile my Gel Colony was raining acid down on the remaining Redian in its split form while the Redian fired back with its weird guns that seemed to fire something similar to a Mana Bolt. Surprisingly, this didn’t seem to do much to any of the pieces of the Gel Colony, so I was mostly unaffected.

It was at this point that Drem made his move striking the Redian that had cut my scorpion’s claw off with his massive blade. The Redian attempted to block the attack but I managed to order the scorpion that it had injured to grab its shield with its remaining claw which unfortunately left it open to an attack from the gun wielding Redian that blasted a chunk of its head off and left me gasping in pain even as Drem brought his blade down on the Redian’s hook shaped weapon and disarm it completely.

Seeing a chance, the beetle surged forwards while the Redian was still staring at its now empty hand in surprise and knocked the Redian to the ground before pinning it under its bulk. Then Burl piled on as well summoning vines out of the ground to wrap around the Redian’s limbs.

Just as I thought things were starting to go well again the dual-wielding Redian’s skin started turning a strange purple color and it completely destroyed the head of the scorpion that it had been fighting in the next few seconds. The sudden surge of pain flooded through me that dropped me to my knees as my breakfast explosively evacuated my stomach.

Apparently the Redian with the gun finally figured out what was going on because as I recovered from a minion being killed for the first time a blast of magic hit me in the shoulder nearly ripping my arm completely off. The impact sent me flying backwards almost a meter before I landed on my back sending yet another jolt of pain through my body that nearly caused me to black out completely.

“Rick, get back,” Burl practically shouted as he helped me up and cast some sort of healing spell on me that slowed the bleeding. “If you die then we lose all of your minions and if that happens not only will we all die but the others will be lost in the forest.”

“Yeah,” I grunted through gritted teeth as I cast my Restore spell as well. “They’re way stronger than I thought they would be.”

I started retreating towards the forest making sure to take a different route from the one that the refugees had taken just in case something went wrong. However, the Redian that had shot at me obviously didn’t like this idea and fired several more blasts my way. I let out a stream of curses as I dodged the first blast before casting my Mana Barrier spell which shattered as soon as the bolt of energy made contact. Surprisingly, the bolt didn’t actually penetrate and actually just exploded along with the Mana Barrier while I leapt aside in an attempt to avoid the last bolt. Unfortunately, my injured arm which had been dangling uselessly at my side the whole time I was trying to escape somehow managed to get in the way and was ripped the rest of the way off drawing another blue streak from my lips. This was by far the worst I had ever been injured but through a combination of what I was assuming was my Willpower and my Unbreakable Will Skill I managed to stay conscious once more.

I knew that my Cellular Regeneration Skill would eventually allow to grow a new arm but that wasn’t going to matter if I couldn’t stop myself from bleeding out. After looking around for a bit I found something that seemed to be a pretty normal vine and cut it down with my axe before wrapping it around the stump of my arm as best as I could and using my Nature Shaping Skill to both hold it in place and tighten it so that it could actually act as a tourniquet. As the flow of blood slowed, I also continued to cast my Restore spell while keeping an eye on what was going on back at the main battle.

While I had been making my escape Drem had been forced to engage the dual wielding Redian that had killed my scorpion while the remaining scorpion which was probably mortally injured finished off the Redian that had been pinned under my beetle. The gun wielding Redian was currently exchanging fire with both my Gel Colony and Burl who was proving himself to be quite an impressive fighter despite being the Yajashian equivalent of a historian. However, the Redian himself was quite skilled himself perhaps even more so and managed to get a lucky shot off on the core of one of the smaller Gels that made up the Gel Colony which destroyed it completely sending yet another jolt of pain through my brain. Apparently, it also pissed off the Gel which started to form up into its larger whole and firing larger blobs of acid. Now that the Redian was actually injured the acid was really starting to take affect but it still wasn’t doing anywhere near as much damage as I would like.

Now that I couldn’t directly take part in the battle, I started to think about what other things I could do while ordering the beetle to help Drem with the Redian that had apparently activated some sort of berserker Skill or at least one that increased its Stats by what seemed to be a pretty significant amount. It managed to take all of two hits before one of the Redian’s hooks ripped the rest of the scorpion’s head to shreds.

It was at this point that I completely lost my shit and decided to do something drastic that I had been avoiding for quite a while now. Drawing upon what little remained of my concentration I attempted to reach through my connection with the Gel Colony and cast a spell through it.

I groaned as blood started ripping from my nose but sure enough it did actually work, and a salvo of blue energy bolts blindsided the dual-wielding Redian. The individual attacks didn’t do much but together they were enough to throw it off just long enough for both Burl and Drem to deal even more damage to it. They weren’t able to bring it down, but they were able to injure it badly enough that the beetle was able to hit it like a runaway train and send it tumbling through the air for several seconds before landing near the Gel Colony with an ugly sounding thump.

The Gel Colony reacted immediately grabbing the weakly struggling Redian and enveloping it whole. Drem, Burl and the remaining Redian watched on with horrified looks on their faces as the Redian’s already weak struggles ceased completely and the body started dissolving. The Redian recovered from his shock just in time to catch the beetle’s next charge on with its gun which left the weapon looking rather worse for wear. However, that was about the limit of what the attack did which was surprising considering the sheer mass of the beetle but the Redian wasted no time in letting go of the weapon and drawing a broad bladed knife from the back of its belt and stabbing the beetle in the eye before it could retreat. The blade didn’t quite penetrate far enough to do much more than blind it, but I really didn’t want to go through the pain of losing another one of my minions, so I ordered the massive thing to retreat as quickly as it could while casting my Heal Minion spell on it.

It was pretty obvious that we were going to win this fight at this point but judging by the crazed look in the sole remaining Redian’s eyes it didn’t care about any of that. All it seemed to care about was that it still might be able to get a lucky hit in that killed one of us. It charged at Drem with its knife and ducked under a powerful swing before trying to stab the warrior in the armpit. Drem immediately dropped his weapon and wrapped his arms around the Redian even as its blade plunged into his flesh.

Honestly, it was quite impressive that Drem was willing to take a hit like that. Especially considering the mouthful of blood that he spat up which suggested that the Redian’s knife had punctured his lung. Still, he managed to immobilize the normally stronger Redian long enough for Burl to send several stone spikes through its back with enough control that none of them hit Drem who let go of the Redian and ripped the knife from his armpit with a grimace before falling to his knees.

I started staggering towards them as Burl quickly rushed over to heal Drem. I almost fell over before I reached them, but the beetle arrived in time for me to grab it with my remaining arm before I completely fell over.

“Oh my, are you alright Rick?” Burl asked as he stared at the stump of my left arm. “I knew that it was too dangerous for you to fight the Redians at the moment.”

“It’s fine Burl,” I replied quickly. “I don’t regret sticking around to help you guys out. Besides my arm will grow back eventually.”

“What are you talking about?” Drem asked. “I know that you’re new to this, but your arm won’t grow back unless you have a really rare Skill.”

“Well, I have the Cellular Regeneration Skill and according to the Skill Description it allows me to grow limbs back,” I replied causing Drem to start spluttering in embarrassment. “As well as preventing me from aging.”

“Let me guess, that’s another Skill that you got from your Soul Aspect?” Burl guessed and I nodded in agreement. “Well keeping you alive just became my number one priority then.”

“While I appreciate the sentiment, may I ask why?”

“Your Soul Aspect is one of the strongest ones that I’ve ever heard of,” Burl replied. “And that’s without even knowing everything that you’ve already unlocked. Not only can you summon creatures that are unlike anything that I’ve seen before you just unlocked one of the most sought-after Skills for a summoner. The ability to cast spells through your minions. Not only that but you no doubt have a number of other Skills like your Cellular Regeneration Skill that will make you a force to reckon with if once you reach our Level. In fact, I don’t doubt that you would’ve been able to take on all three of those Redians by yourself without even being injured if you had been even 5 Levels stronger than you are right now.”

“A Soul Aspect makes you that much stronger?” Drem asked curiously as he looked at me in amazement.

“Very rarely,” Burl replied quickly. “Like I said Rick’s Soul Aspect is one of the strongest I’ve ever heard of and to be honest I’ve only heard rumors about Soul Aspects as strong as his. If I had to guess I would say that it’s at least a Mythical-Ranked Soul Aspect.”

“Wait, isn’t that a lot rarer than a Mythical-Ranked Skill?” Drem asked.

“That’s right,” Burl agreed before seeing the confused look on my face. “Let me explain. A Mythical-Ranked Skill is incredibly rare. So rare in fact that one person in about three million might have one. However only about one in ten thousand people ever unlock their Soul Aspect which makes someone with a Mythical-Ranked Soul Aspect is so rare that we only really have legends about them.”

“I see,” I nodded. “Well, I can tell you that I don’t have a Mythical-Ranked Soul Aspect. However, mine might be even rarer.”

“Really?” Burl asked. “Well, maybe we should put this conversation on hold for now. It sounds like it’s going to be a long one and I could really use some sleep.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” I agreed before turning my attention to the corpses that we had created. “Do you guys mind if I let my Gel Colony eat these?”

“I’m sorry, what?” a flabbergasted Drem asked. “I might hate Redians but isn’t getting your Minions to eat them a few steps too far?”

“Why?” I asked. “We can’t just leave the bodies here and besides need to restore the Essence that they cost me when they killed two of my minions anyway.”

“Well, you’re not wrong that leaving the bodies here would probably be a bad idea,” Burl admitted as he glanced at the Gel Colony with an uncomfortable look on his face. The Gel Colony had already eaten one of the Redians which were distantly related to Yajashians. For all I knew it might even be possible for a Redian and a Yajashian to interbreed. So, I could understand why Burl and Drem were so against the idea of my minions eating the bodies of the remaining Redians. “But what is this Essence that you’re talking about?”

“Essence is a special resource that I need to summon my Minions,” I explained. “I have several ways of obtaining it. I can absorb it from my fallen enemies with Essence Drain, let my Gel Colony eat them or I can get a small amount from eating but since that last one requires quite a large amount of food to work it hasn’t been very useful to me.”

“I see, so that’s why you want to let your Gel Colony eat them?” Burl asked and I nodded in agreement. “Well, that would probably be the fastest way to deal with these corpses and I am starting to get a bit worried about the others.”

“Really?” Drem asked with a horrified look on his face. “You’d let him feed them to his minions because it will take too long to bury them?”

“They’re our enemy boy,” Burl growled. “And believe me when I say that they’ve done far worse things to our people than feeding their corpses to things. Besides, you saw what Rick and his minions went through in that battle. If this will help them get stronger than I have no problem with it.”

“Well thank you Burl, but you don’t need to worry about the others,” I told him as I ordered my Gel Colony to go ahead and devour the bodies. “My Dragonfly is with them. So, I’d know if anything went wrong.”

“That’s true I suppose,” Burl agreed. “But you’ll understand that we won’t feel comfortable until we see them for ourselves.”

“Of course,” I agreed. “Shall we get going then?”

You want to leave right now?” a rather pale looking Drem asked. “Don’t you want to wait until your Gel Colony has finished eating?”

“Nah, once the Gel Colony has enveloped the bodies it can move around just fine,” I chuckled. “It won’t be as fast as it is normally but that’s fine.”

“Well, if you say so,” Drem agreed with a sigh. “I’m sur that the others will still arrive well before us no matter what we do anyway.”

“That’s true,” I agreed then groaned as I realized that I hadn’t explained about Tane.

“What’s wrong?” Drem asked worriedly. “Is your arm troubling you?”

“My arm can’t bother me it’s been ripped off,” I replied drily. “But that’s not what I was worried about. I forgot to tell Xan that there was someone waiting for them back at where I set up base.”

“Really, there’s another one of the people that Sibao brought here from your world living with you?” Burl asked excitedly. “What are they like.”

“Well for starters they’re actually a native,” I replied with a chuckle. “But I’d be willing to bet that you and the other Yajashians will be more interested in them than they would be in another human.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that Tane is a tree,” I replied and grinned when they both gave me a confused look. “A very special type of tree that might be the only other being on Edra capable of using the System themselves. Tane has even been able to create a new body that resembles our own using a Skill that they learned.”

“Well, that is interesting indeed,” Burl agreed. “You really are full of surprises Rick. And don’t worry about your friend. I’m sure that Xan won’t do anything too hasty. Well probably not anyway. Actually, maybe we should hurry.”

“Yeah, that would probably be wise,” Drem agreed hurriedly. “She’s had a rough time recently and might react poorly if she gets surprised by something.”

“Alright, I’ll try and get in contact with Tane and let them know what’s going on,” I agreed as I awkwardly clambered onto the beetle’s back. “Let’s go.”