Lily crouched over another group of monsters. She was torn. She knew that they had somewhere to be, and getting there as soon as possible was the best option. By all rights, she should be taking Erik and her bonded and flying as fast as she could manage in the ancient structure's direction. But she couldn't.

The confusing mess involving these monsters was too strange, too troubling for her to simply ignore it. So as a compromise, she let Erik and Sauma capture another group for her to test and experiment on so that she could find out everything she could and then be done with it. Once her curiosity was satisfied, they could move on without this distracting her.

So she was working her way through the Ki that formed another of these wolf-dragons. They seemed to be the most common type of monster in this forest. Sauma had webbed up and captured them by the dozens. At this point, Lily's main concern was proving to herself whether or not these monsters were shroud-formed. It seemed impossible to her for that to be true, but all signs so far had been consistent with an artificial monster.

With that in mind, she used her aura sense to observe the most fundamental difference between a natural and shroud-formed monster. Sitting at the core of a monster's energy was the clump of Ki that constituted its brain. Or rather, it was the piece of Ki that led a monster to form a brain.

The interactions between physical reality and Ki were strange. In most cases, Ki was invisible and intangible except through something like a shroud, which was also made of Ki. Essentially, the energy existed on its own plane of reality, separate from the physical world. Only in a few circumstances did that energy begin to touch and change the rest of reality. One of those times was through a shroud.

Another was monsters.

The monsters needed to have a physical form to affect the physical world. There was no other way. Only the physical could change the physical, just as only Ki could change Ki. But it was this fact that made monsters such strange things. They were simultaneously real creatures with physical bodies while also being nothing more than a fluctuation in the ambient Ki. The Ki formed a pattern that spontaneously created physical mass, but the second that body was compromised and the monster died, the Ki also fell apart, and the mass it had generated collapsed.

Monsters were at once both mass and energy. This led to oddities like the core of Ki, the closest thing the monster had to a brain, which was almost always situated at the center of the creature, while they still had a skull that held grey matter and acted as a physical brain. By all rights, it made no sense.

Either way, a monster's brain was a simple thing. Lily checked against her bonded and their Ki brains just to make sure, but what she found was both what she expected and, at the same time, confusing. A natural monster's brain was a mass of hate for everything that lived, especially intelligent life, like dragons and humans. A key difference from shroud-formed monsters, which had a brain that more closely resembled a natural creature's.

Her bonded could think and feel at the level of an animal close to their natural equivalent. Snowball had a non-magical bear's level of intellect, while Sky had the mind of a natural Roc. As such, they weren't consumed by the same endless hatred that characterized natural monsters.

And that was the strange part. Despite resembling a shroud-formed monster in every other facet, these wolf-dragons had the mind of a wild monster. All of them had the same angry, wrathful core that only a natural monster held. It was an inherent contradiction. If a creature shrouded had created a monster like this, that monster wouldn't obey any commands or bond to the shrouded that made it. It would remain the killing machine its natural brethren were and be useless to the shrouded.

So, Lily still had no idea what was going on. The only way to confirm whether or not these wolf-dragons were natural or not would be to find the source. Which meant either hunting down the shrouded creator or seeing a natural manifestation. Both options would take too long and rely heavily on luck. It seemed that Lily's curiosity was doomed to go unfulfilled.

Just as Lily was about to throw her hands up and declare the whole information-gathering attempt a loss, Snowball wandered over and started nosing the wolf-dragon she was currently standing over. It snarled and jerked, but Sauma's webbing was both durable and dense. It could barely move an inch.

"What's up, my fuzzy boy?" Lily locked her arms around the bear's neck, rubbing his fur and cooing in his ear. "What do you want?"

Snowball rumbled in appreciation and the affectionate attention before focusing back on the prone and retrained enigma. He inhaled sharply through his big blue nose, huffing out a breath. The sensation and request Lily felt through her bond made her stared at the bonded bear in surprise.

Snowball thought the monster smelled good. As in, edible good. He wanted to eat it. Which made absolutely no sense. Monsters didn't eat. They might bite and swallow, but whatever went into their bodies did nothing to nourish them. Wild monsters subsisted entirely on the ambient Ki, and bonded monsters subsisted off their master's shroud.

"Are you sure? Sky, get over here." Lily signaled her other bond, wanting to see if this was a phenomenon unique to the bear. Immediately, the Midnight Roc alighted next to her, staring at the monster. A little hop and a slight peck, and Sky was also looking at the wolf-dragon in surprise. She had the same sensation that Snowball did. There was something appealing to them about the monster.

"Well, if you think so, I'll let you. But I'm going to be watching to make sure nothing goes wrong." Lily patted them both on the head, giving them permission to try and eat the monster. Snowball needed no further encouragement, reaching out with a paw to rip open the sort-of wild wolf-dragon. At his current size, his paw was the size of Lily's head, and his claws were as long as her whole hand. It was amazing to think that he wasn't even half-grown by Icecrag Bear standards.

Sky was more conservative, hopping as birds sometimes do over toward another monster and nibbling lightly at its hind leg as Snowball shoved his face into the discorporating guts of a disemboweled monster. Lily watched both with her aura, wondering how this odd monster's Ki would interact with her pets. Again, she was in for a surprise.

Some element of the monster was integrating into her bonded's Ki. At first, she nearly panicked, thinking it might be harmful to them. Instead, Snowball and Sky's energy patterns were getting stronger. The contradictory nature of the wolf-dragon's Ki pattern seemed to fuel her bonded's. Both of them began to grow slowly but noticeably. A process that normally took months of slowly accumulating the shroud she fed into them passed by in a matter of seconds as the pair continued to eat.

This was, obviously, a massive discovery. It would normally take roughly two years for her bonded to reach their fully grown forms. But at the pace they were going, a few hundred of these monsters would fulfill that quota instead. Her pets could go from their juvenile states, where they only had a portion of their natural abilities, to fully grown monsters that could do serious damage.

Yet, Lily was torn. She had gotten her pets because she wanted pets. If she had truly been concerned about maximizing their growth, she could have force-fed them her shroud. It would have reduced their growth time by over half. But she had chosen not to because she wanted to watch them both grow up. Now that there was an opportunity to take them all the way in a fraction of the time, she wasn't sure she wanted to.

Then again, they were in an immensely dangerous situation. Not allowing her bonded to gain all the power they could put both of them in danger. Was she just being selfish? Or was forcing them to grow faster than they would naturally more selfish? So Lily was torn.

Those questions stayed with her as Sky and Snowball finished off their first meal. Once they were done, both settled down as a pulse traveled through their bodies. Suddenly, the amount of growth they had gained dropped by a large margin. Before, they seemed to have gained almost a week's worth of growth from that one monster. Now it seemed closer to a day. But in return, more subtle changes appeared in their Ki.

Lily watched closely, once again worried that something had gone wrong. After several minutes of careful inspection, she relaxed. At the same time, she made her decision.

"Ok, you two. Eat as much as you want." Lily sighed, directing her bonded to eat their fill. The changes to their pattern looked similar to some elements of the monsters they had consumed, but half-formed. Lily guessed that if they ate enough, her two pets would gain certain abilities from these monsters. But right now, those changes were incomplete. Maybe they would vanish with time, but Lily didn't want to risk the partially completed process hindering her bonded's growth. They would have to eat enough to finish the changes, just to be safe.

Luckily, the end result should be stable. Lily wasn't an expert, but she had read enough books on the topic just to be sure she could take care of Sky and Snowball. According to what she had learned, changes like this were actually common in bonded monsters. They would adapt and take on elements of their bonded's shroud. The major differences here were that those changes normally happened when they were full adults, and they weren't caused by her shroud.

"Well, I guess we'll be here for a while." Lily turned to look at Erik, who was currently in a hammock formed of Sauma's webbing. The arachne was hanging overhead from thousands of spider threads at the center of a massive, nearly invisible web. She had spent the last few minutes scattering webs far and wide as a defensive net. While the range of her webs wasn't as far as Lily's aura, it didn't require active attention to alert them to incoming monsters or dragons.

"Yeah, that's fine." Erik lazily waved a hand, not looking up. "Sauma caught a few of those good-tasting birds from earlier. Maybe make us a campfire, and we'll have an early supper. I don't think the Pillar will go dark for another couple hours now."

Lily nodded, even though he couldn't see the gesture. "That's a good idea. I'll get us started."

Once again, Lily used a mixed cloud of gasses as an instant fire starter. A few ice blades cut down enough branches from the nearby trees to provide ample kindling. After Sauma handed off the birds she had snagged, another use of ice blades had the feathers plucked, and the small creatures carved up, ready to cook.

All the while, Sky and Snowball continued to chew through the monsters that Sauma kept pinned down. Her webs were impressively strong. On a whim, Lily tried to cut a small strand with her sharpest ice blade, and it actually bounced off. It would take her some significant effort to get through those strands. Sauma's quiet and respectful demeanor didn't give the impression of power, but she was undoubtedly a strong incarnation. Lily only hoped hers was as impressive.

Before long, the meat was ready. Lily ate it off the stick she had shoved it on. Wrapped in Sauma's threads, the wood didn't burn. It was a bit oily and gamey but had its own charm. Lily would agree with Erik's assessment and say that the bird was surprisingly good. The lizards and other animals their team ate in the tunnels under Black reach hadn't been nearly as tasty. Creating a cloud of salt and pepper for toppings helped balance out the oil and meaty flavor, making a rather impressive meal. Especially considering it was made while they were essentially in hiding.

"So, what do we do next?" Erik asked, grease and liquid fat dripping from his chin before Sauma passed him a napkin of silky thread.

"We keep doing what we've been doing. Just, we also snag any monsters along the way to feed Sky and Snowball. Once these changes are complete, we can stop doing that and just head for the structure at full speed. Hopefully, Caeden and Cat will be there waiting for us. They'll be traveling faster than us with Cat's Brutes. Though not nearly as quietly. I hope they don't run into any problems." Lily hadn't let herself worry about her roommate and boyfriend, mostly because there was nothing she could do about it. She didn't know where they were or what condition they were in. She just had to hope they could manage their own situation and meet up with her safe and sound.