Despite his nervous laughter, Dorian had managed to calm down enough to go on to explain just how bad fire ants could be. Of course, there was no way of knowing just how many of their original traits these ants had kept, and what had changed and evolved thanks to the System. Either way, though, their description posed a scary challenge.

  It wasn’t just fear of fire ants that made Aaron apprehensive, though. He remembered seeing the heavily guarded mound and entrance to their home. It was like an entire army of ants was marching around the thing, and there were even peak E-grade ants guarding the entrance itself, and he could only imagine what he would find inside. Not to mention that was a couple of weeks ago by now, and who knew how strong they had gotten since then. Aaron himself could handle hordes of enemies, and he had in the trials many times, but the ants were stronger and more numerous than anything he had faced there, and he alone wouldn’t be enough to take them on. Even with Talia and the others, it would be a tall order.

  We’re totally not ready for that yet.

  With an apocalyptic ant colony on their border, it seemed like he wouldn’t be getting much time to relax. Unless he got hold of some good, high-quality ingredients, cooking was put on hold. He could only justify the time sink if he was confident he would grind a bunch of quick levels.

  Which left him pondering his next move. Grinding, even if it led to less favorable Skill options, seemed vitally important. He needed levels, and he needed them quickly. The ants weren’t just going to sit around and wait for him to get stronger.

  But there were also the two other beast lords encroaching on their territory. And they had to seriously consider the possibility that those beast lords were as deadly a threat as the ants were. After all, they were all from the same quest.

  That led him to his next thought. Before he could go all out grinding, he needed to figure out what those beast lord threats were. If the other two were as dire a threat as the ants, they needed to know. And if not, then perhaps they could be used to grind against in preparation for the ants.

  Nodding to himself as Talia raised a brow, since he had gone silent as the group continued to talk, Aaron placed all of his newly acquired free points from grinding his Profession into Dexterity. Then, he started to limber up, followed by rapid-fire snacking.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Oh, right. We need to deal with this.”

  “He really does eat a lot, doesn’t he?” Ryan said.

  “And I thought my teenage sons were bad,” Dorian said.

  “You don’t all have to stare,” Aaron said, turning away as he continued stuffing his face. “Look, if the ants are really as bad as all that, then we need to find out what these other beast lords are. So, I’m preparing to go out and scout, okay?”

  “He’s not wrong,” Talia said. “We can’t go all in against the ants if we don’t know the other threats against us.”

  “So, do we have a plan then?” Ryan asked.

  “I could go out with some scouts to study the ants,” Dorian interjected. “Try to learn some more about them while you investigate the other beast lords. Perhaps I can even learn something useful about them, so that when we do decide to face them, we might have some advantages.”

  Talia looked at Aaron for an answer.

  “Wait, I’m not a leader, remember?” Aaron shook his head. “But yeah, that sounds like a good idea. You do that, Dorian.”

  “And what are we doing, then?” Ryan said.

  “We?”

  “Mate, I might not be as insane as you are, but I’m not just sitting around waiting to be saved.”

  Aaron looked at his friend for a moment and then just nodded. Ryan wasn’t quite as bullheaded and risk-prone as he was, but he also wasn’t some pushover.

  “Okay. Well, I dunno if I’d call it a plan. But I say we go investigate the beast lords. If we can take them, we do. Grind out experience to prepare for the ants. If not, we retreat and find something easier to kill, I guess.”

  “Not much of a plan,” Talia said.

  “We need to move out anyway,” Ryan said. “The remaining beasts around the camp are pretty weak, and we need everyone to get stronger. Not just us. It makes sense to leave the weaker beasts for weaker people to kill while we go hunting for bigger prey.”

  “In that case, I’ll gather a hunting party,” Talia said.

  “A hunting party?” Aaron questioned. “Doesn’t the base need them? Besides, I’m used to fighting alone.”

  “The base needs strong warriors, and they can’t get strong without hunting,” Talia rolled her eyes. “No one is forcing you to fight with others. You can do your own thing. But we don’t know what we'll find. There might be swarms of beasts guarding the beast lord. With numbers, we’ll have people to handle the weaker beasts while you can go crazy fighting the lord alone if you like.”

  “Good points,” Aaron relented. “Okay, fine. I like it. We use my relay stone to keep in contact with the camp.”

  “Good,” Talia said, and patted Ryan on the shoulder to follow. “I’m going to gather the group. Meet us at the edge of camp in an hour.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Aaron collected Zero for the hunting party. He had half a mind to bring some goblins along with their wolves, too, but the goblins themselves were still underleveled. They were catching up quickly, but still had a long way to go, and even though their wolves could hold their own, he worried that bringing them along would just result in unnecessary casualties.

  At the edge of camp, he found Talia and her small hunting party. The party included several of Julius’ people. Ryan and the hunters, Aaron, had killed the beaver and also joined the group. In total, there were about twenty people, considerably more than he had expected.

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  “Big group.”

  “Yeah, and for good reason,” Talia said, walking over to him. “I know what you’re thinking. Look, you don’t have to worry about them. Your job is to deal with the beast lord if we encounter it, or any other strong beasts. Let Ryan and me deal with the group. Everyone here understands the risks they are taking coming along.”

  Aaron nodded. He reminded himself of Elvanas once more. He needed to get used to this. Trying to cover everyone’s backs was a bad idea. Sure, people would die. That was the reality of the world they lived in now. But if they all remained weak, more would die. After all, he wouldn’t always be around, as he too would have to go out in search of more strength if he didn’t want to end up subjugated in the multiverse.

  His gaze swept across the group, and he noted their high spirits. These weren’t terrified goblins trying to escape a jungle with their lives. These were warriors ready to defend their home.

  “Okay, sounds good,” he finally said. “I’ve picked out our first target. Want to see?”

  “Of course.”

  “Come,” he said, looking into the sky and then shooting up into it with a gust of spiritual energy.

  Talia summoned her avatar and its wings, and wasn’t far behind, lifting into the sky with huge flaps of shimmering white wings.

  “There, that’s where the marker is pointing,” Aaron said, pointing out into the distance.

  Luckily, it was a clear day, as they were high above the clouds, and even still, it was hard to spot the destination, as it was quite some distance away.

  There was a visible darkness in the direction Aaron pointed. Like there was a cloud of dark smoke that just lingered in the air, distinguishing it from the surrounding land. At the center of the darkness was an impressive mountain, with what appeared to be a huge cave opening near the foot of it, though it was hard to make out details from such a distance.

  “That’s it? The ominous dark mountain?”

  “Seems like it.”

  “I shouldn’t have expected anything less,” Talia put on a steely gaze and nodded. “Shall we then?”

  “We shall,” Aaron smiled, and the two of them drifted back to the ground where the group was waiting.

  “Alright, everyone, we move,” Talia said, waving a hand in the air and gathering them all up.

  There were additional, unplanned benefits from their excursion. The group got a better feeling for the lands that surrounded their base as they marched.

  The flat, grassy plains and peat bogs that surrounded the Bellagio and adjoining campgrounds didn’t extend that far in the north and east. Aaron’s camp, which occupied the eastern flank, had flat, grassy paddocks and occasional patches of trees for several kilometers, and was then bordered by the light wooded forests he had been searching for ingredients in.

  In the north, the basin reached the ocean with sharp jagged cliff edges where waves crashed, and to the north west, the directions that they were currently heading in, scattered, skeletal trees and burnt land gave way to rocky mountains.

  Roaming boars and hell hounds hunted these burnt and blackened lands between them and the mountains, and they provided a nice bit of experience for the party as they passed through it.

  Even Aaron took a few kills, despite the beasts being rather weak for him, and pushed himself to level 65 in the process of their journey.

  He didn’t want to make a habit of killing beasts that were too easy for him, but he felt a degree of urgency, and so he made an exception. Then again, it wasn’t all bad. Even against beasts of his own level, he could gain some insights while wearing his energy-draining ring.

  But a few roaming beasts did little to slow the group down, and before long, they had reached the base of the mountains, and a disturbing chill filled the air.

  “This isn’t just cold weather,” Aaron said, extending his [ Soul Vortex ] out. “I’m pretty sure there’s an aura in the air. A Skill, or maybe something else. Its origin is too far to get a good read, but it’s certainly affecting the area.”

  “Good to know,” Tali nodded. “But do you know what it does?”

  “Nah,” Aaron shook his head. “Not yet, anyway.”

  “Everyone, on your highest guard,” Talia called out, and they continued cautiously toward the mountain.

  It wasn’t just the aura that put Aaron on edge, though. The beasts had thinned the closer they got to the mountains, and there had been no sign of any beasts for some time now, well before he had even felt the aura.

  Not only that, but they had yet to see any sign of the beast lord or its followers besides the aura. It hadn’t taken anywhere near this long when entering the territories of the wendgio or simian reaver, indicating that this beast had a bigger territory and was likely stronger.

  But Aaron was also constantly getting stronger, and now he had Talia and her people at his side. Not only that, but he had hesitated at the thought of going back and killing the simian reaver and the wendigo first. The ants were obviously expanding, and he wanted to keep them off their backs as long as possible. And since the D-grade beasts seemed to respect each other’s territories, he hoped that would mean that those two would keep the ants at bay for a while.

  “Look at this,” Talia said, lowering beside a beast corpse. It looked like a giant, horned cow. But it was hollowed out and gaunt with no color in its fur or skin, like it had been drained.

  “That is… disturbing,” Aarom grimaced.

  “Ah, fuck,” Ryan said. “What are we getting ourselves into?”

  He was right. They were potentially marching into a deathtrap. But they had no way of knowing until they saw their target. Besides, the ants hadn’t just instilled fear in him. It was urgent. A reminder that if he sat around and took his time, the world would keep spinning, and the deadly beasts that inhabited it would keep growing stronger.

  “I didn’t force anybody to come with me. Keep moving,” Aaron said without missing a step as he climbed the rocky path up to the mountain base.

  The group shared apprehensive glances but followed his lead, and soon they reached the cave entrance. The thing was absolutely massive, its ceiling maybe thirty or forty meters above their head, and it was dressed in vines and protruding roots wrapping around and peeking through its rock walls.

  “So, what now?” Ryan asked.

  “Set up patrols and form a perimeter. Secure the area and wait for further instructions, got it?” Talia commanded.

  “You heard her. Step to, everyone.”

  “Wait, Talia. I think we'd better fall back a little,” Aaron said. “Set up base a bit further back until we know what we’re dealing with. I don’t like the aura here.”

  The mission had been a little disappointing so far. He had really hoped that they would find some more concrete evidence of what they were up against before having to enter a creepy ass cave.

  “Ryan,” Talia said.

  “Yep, on it.”

  Ryan called over his people and directed them back. Aaron led them back out of the aura’s range.

  Tracing back on a slightly different path than they had taken to reach the mountain, they found a small town in the burned and blackened land. It was mostly abandoned, burned-out wooden houses, but a couple still had roofs intact.

  At first, they figured that the desolate village was just a leftover from the integration.

  “Aaron, come look at this,” Talia beckoned him over, and he followed her into one of the houses.

  On the stove was a pot filled with meat and vegetables. It was cold, but not mouldy or anything.

  “This isn’t very old.”

  “Exactly,” she said.

  “What the bloody hell is going on around here?”

  Ryan entered the simple kitchen a second later.

  “We’ve gone through everything. Not a person in sight. But we’ve found scratch marks and broken timbers. Like, there was a struggle. But no corpses.”

  “Just keep your guard up,” Aaron said and turned to Talia. “Think you can guard my soulless body for a while?”

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