Edward finished absorbing the blood essence of the Rocs as the clouds above him thinned, the occasional ray of sunlight piercing through the cracks. He swallowed his saliva as he reflexively searched for additional Rocs. I wished there were more of them. I’m still feeling hungry. He paused realizing the itch pushing him to hunt for more monsters, the growing hunger asking for more. My body reclaims more blood essence. Finally! I must be close to a breakthrough. The same thing happened when I broke through to the predator and patriarch rank.

But the breakthrough to the patriarch stage was quite violent. My body acted on its own seeking more blood essence and taking it from the closest available sources. If the passage to the next rank is the same, I have no guarantee that I will be able to control myself, I’m a danger to anyone around me while in such a state. I have to break through before the Andherians come back.

For now, the symptoms weren’t that severe, only an urge for more blood essence in the back of his mind, but it would intensify as he grew closer to the breakthrough. Edward was ready to contact Balara to inform her of the events and ask for his next task, but before he could do so Adotinus asked his attention through the clone that Edward had left with them.

Edward had not paid much attention to it, he had other things to deal with and Ignis and Adotinus had left it alone being busy setting up runes in anticipation of the Andherians' arrival. Only a little more than a day had passed.

“Hey, Edward, you there? The spatial anomaly is showing signs of instability. We don’t know if it means their imminent arrival or if we still have some respite, but this seems like a good time for you to come back. Since something the like of Nepehlin is supposed to come out, we won’t be able to stop it on our own. We need you there.”

The clone focused and looked out at the sky. The spatial anomalies were moving, folding themselves in strange and unpredictable ways while the sky itself turned blacker than ever.

Shit! I had hoped I would have gotten more time. It has been barely more than a day. I can’t come back right now. I’m so close to a breakthrough and this will make a huge difference.

“I’m sorry. Can you hold on for a few more hours? I’m close to the next rank. If I can trigger an evolution, I’m confident I would have no problem dealing with something like Nephelin on my own.” Edward excused himself.

Adotinus’ eyes widened in shock. “The next rank? There is truly such a thing? How the heck did you reach its threshold in a single day when it’s supposed to be nothing more than a legend?”

“Honestly, I think Nephelin’s essence unlocked something. From there on I only needed a lot of blood essence. And I mean it when I say a lot. This is not something that would be achievable if not for the surge. I’ve lost count of how many predator-level monsters or above that I have killed.”

Adotinus shook his head. “You are freaking unbelievable. But that doesn’t change things on our end. If the one coming is at the same level as Nephelin we may be able to hold on for an hour, but if it’s stronger than him we don’t stand a chance. An hour is an enormous amount of time for a fight. If the sides are unbalanced a few minutes is all it takes to eliminate the opposing faction. All we can do is pray that they will still take some time to come through. You better hurry.”

Edward and his clone both nodded. “Thank you. I’m going as fast as I can. I’ll come back as soon as I break through. Just hold on.”

“Just go and come back in time to save our asses!” Adotinus urged him.

Edward looked at the state of the city while his other clone was explaining the situation to Balara. He may have avoided most of the Rocs’ lightning but the city couldn’t do the same. Numerous craters were left below in the streets, and sometimes the buildings themselves had been impacted, leaving charred holes inside the walls. Small pieces of rocks projected by the explosions were spread everywhere adding to the general mess.

Edward focused his attention on his clone after he had explained the Rocs were dealt with. “You want us to believe you exterminated all of the Rocs in less than one hour. Do you take us for fools?” one of the council members interjected aggressively.

Edward ignored him. “The situation has changed. My time is running out. I need you to tell me where the most important concentration of powerful monsters is located.”

The angry man continued to yell. “What so that you can agitate them and bring our doom?!” The feeling seemed to be shared by the majority of the people present. Edward hadn’t stayed long enough to gain their trust, and his claims were too outrageous for them to take him at face value.

A cold wave of aura unfurled from his clone silencing the complaints. “I. am. serious,” he said formulating each word deliberately and slowly. “I need their blood essence to increase my power in preparation for a fight against a powerful monster. And if I feel unconfident enough to need to increase my power it should make you think twice about what kind of monster I have to face. If I fail, I can tell you without hesitation that all of you will die by its hand as well,” he told them while looking each of them dead in the eyes.

Seeing how serious he was, cold determination oozing from him, they hesitated and swallowed back what they were about to retort. After a handful of seconds, Balara sighed. “You are really not making it easy on us. What you ask could mean a death sentence for us depending on how it turns out. But from what I sense from your determination you are dead serious, and I don’t feel like angering someone who could kill all of us.”

“Thank you. What I said earlier still holds true, an army is on the way. Even if I’m not here it should help you deal with the aftermath” Edward told her waiting for the follow-up.

Balara smiled weakly. “As I told you before, Rocs are only one of our problems. Other monsters are roaming this region. Behemoths are tough and powerful but are lonely creatures. Troglodytes are weak but numerous and make up the majority of the monster's fauna. Now if you truly want a large number of powerful monsters there are some things worse than Troglodytes. Go deep enough inside the caverns and you will find them.”

She pulled a map and put her finger on a location Northeast of their location. “On Iltham’s forsaken peak, you will find a network of caverns. They are full of Troglodytes but make no mistake the caverns go deeper. Delving to that level is not something done easily, getting out of it is almost impossible. You have been warned. Now do what you have to do and leave us alone.”

I would have appreciated a little more sympathy after I dealt with the Rocs for them but I can understand their concern. I simply didn’t have the time to earn their trust.

He didn’t bother going back to them and he let his clone dissipate. He oriented himself to face the peak they had told him about, it wasn’t the tallest mountain but it was visible from the city, not that far and looming over it. Edward didn’t waste any time and teleported in this direction, reaching it in less than ten teleportations.

He projected his aura and immediately understood Zakrens' inhabitants’ concern. The peak appeared more empty than full and he could sense the inside teeming with life. He moved close enough to the summit so that his teleportation had the range to pierce through the mountain’s crust. This wasn’t the normal way to enter and it would be unknown territory compared to what Balara had told him but he didn’t care, this was the fastest way.

Once inside it was total darkness and he could only rely on his aura, his eyesight completely useless, it was something he was getting more and more used to lately. The second striking change was the silence, not a sound could be heard apart from a few droplets of water falling down. Edward found himself in a large empty space, an aura platform under his feet to avoid falling inside the void.

Stalactites were hanging above him with numerous bats in between, but they were only at the awaken level and Edward didn’t bother chasing them. Instead, he moved deeper in, dropping a hundred meters at once with a single teleportation. Now closer to the ground he discovered the first Troglodytes, four of them were facing him on the opposite wall thirty meters away.

They were humanoid in nature, from what he could tell, the same height as a human, although their arms appeared longer than usual and ended with claws. Bone spikes were jutting out of their backs, their teeth were almost entirely constituted of canines, and they had no hair nor any facial features apart from their large mouth.

Despite their frightening appearance, they were only at the awaken level, Edward ignored them and continued to go deeper. Now that he was farther from the summit, space began to constrict, the large cavity separating into several rooms and the number of Troglodytes increasing, this meant that Edward had to move closer to them. He landed on the cavern’s ground as the cavity he was following stopped and he paused to decide which direction to pursue his descent. One Troglodyte was standing only ten meters away from him and although it was blind it somehow detected Edward’s presence, turning its eyeless face toward him and emitting a shrill cry that was soon echoed by myriad others.

Edward shrugged. So be it. You are only at the awaken level but if there are enough of you it may be worth it. The monster didn’t even use aura as a protection, and Edward produce a single aura tendril directly impaling it and sucking its blood essence in one go before disregarding the corpse.

The silence of the cavern was broken as a furious stampede ensued punctuated by shrill screams. This was precisely the scenario that a team of explorers would have dread of. Isolated in a complex and unexplored environment surrounded by enemies from all sides. There would have been little chance to come out alive having to carefully track one’s way back while pursued by countless enemies.

For Edward, it was only a dilemma between waiting for enough Troglodytes to gather to make it worth it or directly heading deeper to hunt for more powerful monsters.