Though I was confident that we could slay the beast, I had killed a peak tier 4 classer before, after all, I still felt somewhat apprehensive.

“Are you sure we can’t just sneak in and take the liana? I can apparate up there with a skill of mine, you know?”

Emeri shook her head. “No chance. Extracting the liana’s medicinal parts requires time and skill. Time and skill you wouldn’t have in that situation. Leave the liana to me. First, let’s kill the paradise bird. Then, if its partner shows up while I’m in the middle of harvesting the plant, you need to hold it off until I finish.” Emeri proposed.

It sounded like a solid plan, if only the very basics of one. Actually killing the creature could prove to be more complicated than she made it out to be. Furthermore, Emeri’s sudden shift in attitude still confused me. Maybe her affinity was affecting her somehow? Either way, we didn’t have time to plan or argue further, since the bird’s partner would arrive in a few dozen minutes. Before then, we would have to whittle down the colossal creature roosting before us.

“Ready?” I asked. Instead of replying, Emeri readied her spear and lifted it behind her back, intent on throwing it at the paradise bird.

I jolted into action and, as quietly as I could, approached the creature. Light gathered behind me, coalescing on Emeri’s spear. The white flash illuminated the dark forest as if it were a second sun, stirring our prey awake. The paradise bird blinked lazily, its massive eyes not used to the sudden brightness. By the time it realized what was going on, it was already too late. Emeri’s spear screeched as it flew, waking up the forest’s inhabitants, before reaching the bird’s torso and sinking in with a wet squelch. The light-affinity mana dissipated, and the spear quickly lost its luster, but the damage had been done. The beast cried out in pain and beat its wings angrily, which unleashed a scorching gust that tore up the nearby roots and singed my skin.

The creature had a fire and wind affinity. It used this to devastating effect when, suddenly, the gust escalated into a full-blown twister that reached the canopy of the forest and shook the liana at the roots.

“Shit!” I cried out. “We have to get it away from the liana!”

Emeri ran past me and grabbed onto her spear, which was still lodged in the creature’s flesh, before pulling it free by using some kind of skill that made her arms light up with golden light.

Frantically, I looked around the forest in search of a better spot to fight. Who knew the creature would be willing to damage the liana to defend itself? Did it not understand the plant’s worth?

Finding no area large and wide enough, I came to a conclusion. I charged past Emeri and took flight using [Aura step]. “We have to go up and into the sky! It’s the only way!”

“Are you crazy?” Emeri asked incredulously. “You want to fight a wind-affinity monster in the sky?”

While we were talking, the liana continued to shake violently because of the tempestuous wind. Seeing this, Emeri quickly relented. “Fuck!” she cursed, before turning into a white flash and tearing off into the sky above the canopy.

“Did she learn to swear from me?” I mumbled, momentarily taken aback. I chuckled and shot off after her using Aura step. A few seconds later, the dense canopy of the forest gave way to clear blue skies. The sun bore down on us and illuminated the forest. A myriad of colorful trees spread out before us, making for an entrancing sight. We had never realized that the dark forest’s trees had multiple colors until now, and it became clear that we had been missing out. Never before had I seen such a beautiful sight…

Our moment of appreciation was quickly interrupted by the sound of a pair of colossal wings beating. The trees near the clearing were torn apart as a multi-colored bird shot out of the forest, a gust of wind propelling it upwards at an unimaginable speed. The bird’s momentum suddenly changed, launching it towards us instead.

“Go! I’ll block it!” I shouted, creating a series of black chains in the process. Emeri did as instructed and got out of the way just in time for the beast to barrel past her, right at me.

The creature had underestimated my movement skill, though. My aura step’s main advantage was that it allowed me to get in and out of battle in an instant. Right as it was about to hit me, I sent my chains toward the monster’s wings, where they encircled its appendages. Meanwhile, a small explosion at my feet sent me tumbling in the other direction, which meant that the beast had just barely missed me.

Nonetheless, the scorching gust that had carried it at such incredible speeds still left a mark. My black cloak was starting to burn up, while my burn wounds were healing.

Thankfully, my chains had done their job. One of the paradise bird’s wings had managed to break the chains with a strong beat, but the other had been too late. I had used [Hollow essence manifestation], which blinded our opponent and bore down upon it like an invisible pressure. Onyx chains wrapped its left wing to its body, keeping it from moving. I would have to stay close to feed the chains more mana and keep my essence manifestation in range, but this combined entrapment had a dramatic effect.

The creature lost its balance in the sky and nearly fell back into the forest. It managed to use wind mana to suspend it into the air, but would have to keep up this expenditure if it wanted to stay up here. Furthermore, its speed had been drastically reduced.

By now, Emeri had re-joined the battle and was aiming for the monster’s weak points with her spear. I, meanwhile, bombarded the creature’s head with ranged attacks such as overloaded orbs and sword arcs. I was too scared to use sword laser though, since that would mean letting go of my chains.

Within seconds, the creature was covered in deep and shallow wounds alike, its luminescent blood dying its feathers. After being caught off guard for a moment, though, it was starting to struggle against its bindings again. I felt the strain through my connection to my chains, which were drawing increasingly more and more of the mana I overloaded each second.

“I can’t hold it much longer! Go for one of its wings!” I shouted to Emeri, who took to the idea with remarkable enthusiasm. She paused her assault in favor of gathering her mana. A white circle shimmered into existence around her, while other nearby light faded out of existence. Like a minor solar eclipse, the only point of light was Emeri’s mana, concentrated on her weapon. Then, with a single thrust, an giant ethereal spear appeared and shot right through the creature’s free wing. The whit circle followed it, and the darkness rushed into the hole it left in the wing, as if it were water filling a newly made pit in the sand. By the end of her skill, more than half of the paradise bird’s wing had been turned to ash, the wound cauterised by the darkness, which now lit up into light. Seeing an opportunity, I let go of the chains and apparated to the wound. I stabbed my sword into its flesh and left a corrosive curse mark, before launching into a combination attack that escalated the mark with each repeated attack.

A moment later, the beast that had finally been freed, let out a terrible cry. Its body heated up to the point that I feared that I would melt if I continued my attack, so I apparated away into the distance. Thankfully, Emeri had thought to make some space between her and it as well, because the bird suddenly erupted with a rainbow-colored light.

A halo appeared around it, not unlike Emeri’s previous skill. Its purpose, however, was less focused. Instead of a single strike, the rainbow-colored light swallowed up the bird’s form while radiating incredible heat.

Even the tough trees of the dark forest were lit ablaze. Under this terrific temperature, they wouldn’t last long. Things got worse when the radiating glow finished charging up. It flashed white a few times, before exploding. The dome of light expanded instantly, covering everything nearby in its all-encompassing fire. The forest became covered in a blanket of fire- and wind mana. It took everything Emeri and I had to escape the blast’s heat, which we knew would turn us to ash if it swallowed us. Thankfully, the rapid expansion finally stopped right before it reached us, and collapsed inward.

Relieved that we survived, I couldn’t help but laugh, which loosened some of the tension.

“I can’t believe we survived that! That was like a tier 6 skill!” I said, astonished. And it was true. Any attack that could kill me with a touch, yet encompassed such a large area had to be of such a high tier. Had we underestimated the creature?

The area cooled down significantly, yet it still took a few more minutes before we dared approach the creature again. Once the dust had settled, we hesitantly approached the center of the explosion.

We were prepared for a fight, but it turned out to be unnecessary. Instead of a wounded and tired paradise bird, we found a grey, dried-out husk of similar size and shape.

We stared at the corpse for a moment, caught off guard.

“Is it… dead?” I wondered aloud.

Ding! Combat finished. Congratulations on reaching [Hollow essence Knight] level 63!

The system notification answered us.

“It gave its life for that final skill…” Emeri noted sadly.

I sighed. “Why don’t you go harvest that liana. I’ll see about harvesting this corpse for anything valuable.” I proposed, to which Emeri nodded mutely. Neither of us wanted to kill the creature’s mate after a sacrifice like this. Wounded like it had been, it could still have run away if it wanted to. Yet, it refused. Maybe it wanted to protect its territory, maybe it wanted to kill us to stop us from ever harming its mate, who knew…

I turned around and noticed that Emeri had left, so I got to work myself.

None of the daggers I kept to skin creatures could pierce the bird’s hide, so I had to use my tier 4 sword to dig into its charred flesh. Much like burned meat, the creature broke apart like dry charcoal. I tore apart chunk after chunk, until I eventually reached the center of its chest, where I expected to find its core. Sure enough, it was there. What was left of it, anyway. The bird had shattered its core to use its last skill, so only broken pieces were left. Strangely, those broken pieces still shone with the colors of the rainbow, as if there was still life in them. Curious as to why, I pocketed the shards.

Unfortunately, I found nothing else of interest in the corpse, so I headed over to Emeri. I found her back at the clearing, hunched over the top of the liana’s flower. She was carefully digging a knife into its stem, bleeding the golden blood of the plant into a glass vial. I watched her work silently for a few minutes, until the plant was bled dry. She closed the vial and stored it in a spatial bracelet, at which point I made my presence known.

“Hey there. Did you manage okay?” I asked, trying to feel her out. I wasn’t sure how she was taking the creature’s death, after all.

“Sure.” She replied quietly. “Did you find the bird’s core?” she asked without looking up.

“Yeah, though only its shards. They still seem to have mana in them, though.”

This fact made Emeri curious, too. “Really? How? I didn’t think dead cores could store mana…”

“That’s what I was wondering. We should get it appraised at the border city. For now, let’s get out of here. I don’t want to be here when the other bird arrives.”

Emeri nodded, and that was that.

About an hour later, when we were already far away from the scorched crater, mournful birdsong resounded throughout the inner reaches of the dark forest. Emeri hung her head low and listened, while I tried to drown out the noise.