B3 - Chapter 12: Galestrike Stalker

Seth knelt beside the cooling carcass of a Silver-tier jungle reptile and pulled an Iron dagger from his Endless Pouch to slip through the creature's dense muscle. He reached into the chest cavity, his fingers brushing against the cold, concentrated power of the beaststone before he wrenched it free. The gem pulsed with the faint red light of a Fire affinity.

In the past week, their efforts had yielded little beyond scraps of progress—only two spell-shards to show for it. One that could enhance the Agility of Rogues or Primalists, which they had given to Selena, and the other a powerful taunt that Seth had offered to Devus.

A few yards away, Nightmare was preoccupied with a patch of matted fur on his flank, his rough tongue working to clean away the dried blood of that last encounter. Nearby, Colossus stood motionless behind Selena, his multifaceted eyes locked on her as she meticulously harvested the stone from the second Silver beast they had taken down as a team.

Devus was sprawled on his back nearby, his chest heaving as he stared up through the emerald canopy. His shield lay discarded in the mud, and his formerly perfectly polished armor was now a roadmap of dents and scratches. "Seriously, why do all of them want to tear off our heads? Can't we just talk?"

Jenna leaned over him, hand resting on one of the twin blades sheathed at her hips. "Maybe it's something about your face?"

"Ohhh, go to hell," the Guardian retorted with a roll of his eyes.

Elena stood a short distance away, her staff planted in the soft earth. A small, genuine smile touched her lips as she watched them.

Seth pushed himself up, barely listening to the others. His gaze drifted past the humid foliage toward a jagged, mist-shrouded mountain peak visible through a break in the trees.

The banter of the group behind him felt like a distant buzz—until Jenna's voice rose a notch. "Stop being so depressed, Dev," she said, nudging the Guardian's side with her boot. "Did you really think we'd just stumble upon a contractable beast in only a few days of trying?"

Devus let out a long, theatrical sigh. "I know it's not that easy. I just had hope with Mister Beastmaster leading the way."

Seth glanced at his friend. "I made my contracts with a pup and an egg. Convincing an adult beast to bond with you is a different matter entirely. I don't even know if it's possible."

"Then let's find a pup or an egg?" Devus suggested. He sat up and wiped his face with the back of his mud-stained gauntlet.

Elena shook her head. "It wouldn't be useful for the war, Devus. A newborn isn't going to reach a combat-ready Rank before any of your battles."

"But it would be useful for the after," Devus countered, his eyes searching hers. "And I'm sure Milly would be over the moon. She'll have a new friend!"

Seth's jaw tightened at the word 'After.'

With the way the battles had been fought and the zero on every one of the empire's captive list, the concept of a life after the war almost felt like a fever dream. The odds of surviving until the final surrender would grow thinner each time they stepped into one of the Warfare Rifts. Elena must have noticed the shift in his expression; the smile on her face vanished, replaced by a shadow of apprehension.

"Okay." Devus pushed himself to his feet with a groan. "Let's get going, then. Jenna and I barely have a day left before we have to head back."

Seth nodded. "Sure."

Not wasting time, they began to move deeper into the vibrant green. On his walk, Seth couldn't help but think how silly his friend's goal was. In Kastal, finding a contractable beast was a feat many in the Adventurers' Guild had attempted for years without success.

Every Wielder could form at least one contract with a beast, but for all classes aside from Primalist, it was little more than gaining a powerful companion. They didn’t gain any attributes from the bond—only an ally that followed their commands and didn’t demand a share of the loot.

But Primalists played by different rules.

They, on the other hand, had spells designed to interact with their beast companions. The most coveted allowed them to temporarily boost one of their attributes by drawing on a fraction of a beast’s highest stat—a far weaker version of Link. Seth had even tried to buy spells like that before for that very reason.

Even so, the idea of securing such a companion was enough to tempt many that didn't even have the Primalist class.

The reality of Kastal made it nearly impossible, though. Most Wielders trained outside Rifts and only fought arcane beasts when they had no other choice, which meant nests and dens were rarely discovered.

Finding one within days would be nothing short of a miracle.

Seth kept that thought to himself.

Devus' easy grin and boundless optimism were one of the few things keeping the group's mood from sinking with the ongoing war and the coming battles—and Seth didn't have the heart to be the one who crushed that faint spark of hope.

'I don't think they're that rare,' Nightmare said through Link. 'People here are just too scared to go deep into the wild. I'm sure plenty have contracted beasts in that city we visited with the old prick.'

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'Asethka?' Seth replied mentally. 'Probably. From what Marcus told me, other nations hunt far more than Kastal. It's a cultural thing. Hard to find a direwolf pup when all you do is train inside city walls and high-aether-density chambers.'

Nightmare huffed. 'Direwolf pups are still rare.'

'Sure.'

The group spent the rest of the day navigating the tangled roots and hanging vines, encountering four more Silver beasts in the process. Each time, Seth checked for signs of young or nests, but they found nothing.

"It's a bummer," Devus said as the sun began to dip below the canopy, casting long, distorted shadows across the jungle floor. "But thanks for trying anyway, mate."

"We'll give it another attempt after our next battles," Seth replied. Deep down the promise felt hollow, a lie told to keep morale from shattering.

Jenna reached for her Endless Pouch. "Well, it's a—"

A deafening thud cut her off. The ground had trembled briefly, as if a massive tree had hit the forest's floor not too far away. Seth's head snapped toward the source of the noise, his golden eyes narrowing at the same time his core flared in warning.

He glanced at Jenna and Devus. "One last fight before leaving."

The duo looked at Seth, then at Elena and Selena next to them, before answering together. "Sure!"

Seth pushed aether into the teardrop necklace and recalled Colossus inside, not wanting the giant scorpion to ruin the element of surprise. Then he led the group through the dense undergrowth.

Behind him, Devus, Jenna, Selena, and Elena moved carefully, their steps muffled by the damp carpet of moss and rotting leaves. They soon reached the edge of a small clearing, where the forest canopy had been violently torn open. In the center, two giant creatures were locked in a brutal fight.

A jaguar-like beast with a shimmering silver-gray fur, which rippled with wind as it circled another massive beast. That opponent, a bear encased in jagged slabs of dark, metallic stone that grew directly from its hide, was roaring and slamming its front paw against the ground.

Both creatures were severely injured. The jaguar's side was carved open, blood matting its sleek fur, while the bear's stone armor was riddled with deep, spiderwebbed cracks. The latter's left eye had been destroyed entirely—now little more than a mangled ruin of blood and shattered flesh.

The air around them was crackling with the high pressure of both Wind and Earth aether. Seth could feel the intensity of the energy; these definitely weren't Low-Silver like all the beasts they had faced so far.

He waited for the moment they lunged at each other to cast Intermediate Identify.

The sheer power radiating from the pair made Seth's skin prickle and his core stir. He slowly pulled his communication orb from his pouch to infuse a silent message onto the smooth surface before tilting it toward Elena.

Seth: We will engage the winner the moment the other falls.

Elena read the message, and her brow furrowed as she looked from the orb to the monstrosities in the clearing.

Elena: It's dangerous. They're nearly at the limit of what we can handle.

She paused, then another message appeared in Seth's orb.

Elena: But I trust you.

In the clearing, the stalemate broke. The Galestrike Stalker let out a high-pitched cry, and its form blurred inside a cyclone of razor-sharp air. The spell met the Crag-Bear's defenses as the beast pounced. Wind shrieked the moment it slashed the metallic stone armor, and the bear roared before slamming its massive paws into the earth. Shards of jagged, metal-tipped rock erupted from the ground in a violent wave, seeking to impale the Agility-based predator.

The jaguar leapt and twisted in mid-air, but Seth could tell its injuries visibly slowed the maneuver. Seizing the opening, the Crag-Bear lunged forward, maw glowing with a brown aether. It caught the jaguar's shoulder in a bone-shattering grip. The Stalker lashed out with a final, desperate burst of wind, carving a deep furrow across the bear's throat—though the fight was already lost.

With a sickening crunch, the Crag-Bear wrenched its opponent's head sideways. The Galestrike Stalker's body turned limp, light fading from its eyes as it hit the dirt with a dull thud. The bear stood over its fallen rival and breathed heavily. Blood poured from its own neck.

"Now!" Seth roared.

He surged out of the undergrowth, dark aether already coalescing around his gauntlets. Behind him, the others erupted from the treeline and charged through the clearing.

Seth's teardrop necklace pulsed with a golden light, and Colossus manifested in a blur, the claws of his legs slicing through the muddy earth. The scorpion instantly unleashed Chitinous Taunt to seize the Iron-Hide Crag-Bear's attention. Devus moved in tandem, his shield shimmering with Light aether as he braced himself to anchor the beast's erratic, heavy lunges alongside the scorpion.

Behind them, Elena raised her staff, and a layer of crystalline frost began to creep over the bear's stone hide. The freezing aether sought out the deep cracks in its armor to slow its lumbering movements, while Nightmare surged from the shadows to cast still-evolving Mantle of Terror.

The spectral visage of a gargantuan wolf loomed over the clearing and lowered the bear's attributes. It was accompanied by the spectral vines of Chains of Darkness, which had just erupted from the dirt to lash around the beast's trunk-like legs.

Seth decided to hold back on Beastmaster Rage and instead let the shadow-blades of Dusk Scythes surge from his forearms. Lunging forward, he slashed open the bear's already wounded hind quarters.

On the other side, Jenna and Selena moved with careful precision, their blades wreathed in lightning and wind respectively, as they also carved their way through the creature's stony armor.

The Crag-Bear roared and tried to retaliate with some kind of area-of-effect spell, but before it could do so, Colossus rammed into it with Scorpion Charge, interrupting its channeling.

At the same moment, Elena thrust her staff forward and hurled a volley of jagged ice spears across the clearing. The frozen projectiles shattered against the cracked stone armor and forced the bear further off balance.

Nightmare and Seth seized the occasion to step into the pocket of the beast's guard. Scythes and teeth tore through the exposed, bleeding flesh of its neck as Jenna and Selena struck simultaneously from the rear, their combined power finally overwhelming the creature's staggering Toughness.

With a final, wet gasp, the Mid-Silver beast collapsed, its massive frame hitting the churned-up earth with a thud that shook the clearing.

Devus let out a long, whistling breath as the glow of his spell faded from his armor. He walked over to Colossus and gave the scorpion's heavy pincer a firm fist bump. "Always easy to fight by your side," the Guardian said with a broad grin. "Good job, buddy."

Seth unsummoned his blades and he looked over at the two fallen beasts. "Selena, can you harvest the stone from the bear?" he asked. "I'll go get the other one at the same time, in case there's more Mid-Silver around."

Selena nodded and drew one of her daggers, which she had just sheathed. "Sure."

Seth turned and began to walk toward the mangled remains of the Galestrike Stalker. The jaguar-like beast lay sprawled beneath a massive, toppled fern-tree, its silver fur matted with dark blood.

Just as he pulled his dagger from inside his Endless Pouch, a faint, high-pitched whimper reached his ears—the sound was so soft it was nearly imperceptible among the rustle of the leaves.

Seth paused, and his golden eyes narrowed as he scanned the tangled foliage surrounding the dead predator. Turning to the side, he pushed aside a cluster of moisture-heavy leaves and froze. Tucked deep within the roots of the fallen tree and huddled together in a trembling heap were three small cubs with silver-gray fur that shimmered with the faint traces of Wind aether.