There were still a few hours until the sun would rise. The goal of bringing all of the victims back before the Celestials woke up was starting to look bleak, thanks to how injured most of the Blight Walkers were. Most of the night was spent healing their countless physical injuries.

  The only good part of the night was Sya’s waking up only after a few hours of sleep. Arden would have figured that she would be out for quite a long time, between her capture, possession, and subsequent trial, but the Starborn in her prevailed.

  When she woke up, she was surprised to be in a dimly lit triage tent with Arden and Vera at her side. She wasn’t able to see that much after her rescue, but now she could. And she could tell that both of them looked more attractive. Vera already looked amazing before, but now she transcended human beauty standards. As for Arden…

  “Why are you only marginally more attractive now?” she asked.

  Vera laughed.

  “Seriously?” Arden said. “That’s the first thing you say when you wake up? Not ‘where am I?’

  “Hey, Arden,” she said. “Where am I?”

  “A medical tent just outside where you were being held. We came here to rescue you and everyone else who was taken, alongside some Miasma mooks.”

  “Mooks?” Laurent asked, a few beds away, helping Santos with one of their last patients. “That’s a bit harsh.”

  Sya sat up in bed and looked around the tent. The familiar stench of rot that came with Blight Walkers was being combatted by the overpowering smell of antiseptics. Sya was able to see just how many victims Yaan had, and it sickened her.

  “We were going to try and be back in the city proper by sunrise, but it looks like it won't happen,” Arden explained. “We spent most of the night trying to keep everyone else alive.”

  “‘We?’” Vera asked with bags under her eyes.

  “Okay, everyone but me has been pitching in to help with essence, but it’s not like I’m being lazy. I don’t have stellar essence.”

  Sya kept looking around the tent. It took a while, but she managed to tear her eyes away from her fellow victims and instead trained them on the other four people that she didn’t recognize.

  “Who are they?” she asked.

  Vera answered.

  “The three guys are from Miasma, and the woman in the dress is one of their contractors. They’re all Starborn.”

  “Why is a Starborn wearing a cocktail dress here?”

  Savish groaned.

  “The aspects are good!”

  Arden picked up the slack.

  “She’s Savish. She helped me and Vera out when we first got back from our trials. The doctor in the lab coat is Santos. He’s the healer. He already did a quick check up on you. I can vouch for him. He’s good. The one in boring metal armor is Laurent.”

  “I don’t like that description,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with simplicity.”

  “I agree,” Arden said. "Simple is good. It’s also boring. Then there’s the leader of Miasma, Chorzo. He’s the one wearing the chest plate that looks like a blast furnace knocked it up.”

  “I take it back,” Laurent said. “I’d rather be called boring than have you describe interesting Satellites.”

  “Wait until you hear his take on villainy,” Vera said with a teasing smile.

  “Yaan did all this?” Sya muttered.

  Instantly, the atmosphere chilled at Yaan’s name. The humorous facade that everyone was trying to put on for Sya crumbled, and a solemn silence followed. The unfamiliar Starborn all quietly returned to their duties.

  Arden pulled a device out of his inventory and handed it to Vera to activate. It could only be activated with stellar essence, which Arden did not have despite being a Starborn. A translucent veil that blurred the outside world came up around the three as Vera activated the device.

  “Sensory veil?” Sya asked.

  “Yeah,” Arden answered. “I figured we could use the privacy”

  Sya slowly hugged her knees as she looked at the pair.

  “For what?”

  There was a pause as Arden tried to find the right words to preface what came next.

  “You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to. I understand if it’s too much to talk about right now after what just happened.”

  Sya sighed.

  “I was worried this would be the reason. I’ll tell my story.”

  “You don’t have to,” Arden reassured her. “We can wait.”

  “No,” Sya said with resolution in her eyes. “You’re involved now. Again. You need to know.”

  Arden slowly nodded his head. Vera wondered what Sya meant by that.

  “How is he already involved?”

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  “Two reasons: His connection to Yaan, and his recent awakening as an Archon.”

  “We'll get to that near the end though,” Arden said. “How were you kidnapped? What happened to Cirai and Podren?”

  *****

  A few months ago…

  Sya didn't know how to answer all of the questions that she was being bombarded with.

  Only a day had passed since Other-Arden was defeated by the combined efforts of Arden, Vera, Other-Vera, Sya, Podren, Cirai, and the Archon of Life as well for some unknowable reason.

  Cirai and Podren constantly pestered Sya for answers following that event. They felt that they deserved answers, and Sya believed that as well.

  The only problem was that she was pretty much in the dark as well.

  She had a few nuggets of information, but most of those only yielded more questions.

  Apparently, revealing that Other-Arden was from an alternate timeline where his source of power abandoned him to come to this world’s Arden did not suffice.

  Eventually, Sya had enough.

  “Look,” she said as the pair of Association Starborn kept asking questions. “I don't really know anything about this. If you want answers, I won't have them. The only person who might, and I cannot stress this enough, might know anything is Arden. But until he finishes his trial, we won't know anything.”

  She looked around the all but destroyed warehouse that only a few days ago was presumably bustling with Association Starborn. It was a miracle that the building hadn't come down on top of them after the fight with Other-Arden.

  “For now, let's get out of here. We need a new place to hunker down.”

  *****

  A few days had passed since then, and Sya was beginning to realize just how much she relied on her brother. Arden was always the one to go and get food for them. Then it was Vera after Arden was framed for murder.

  Now, the responsibility fell to her, alongside her protectors.

  The municipal building was gone, as was the Association branch, now that it had collapsed shortly after leaving. Rations were no longer an option.

  If any of them wanted to eat, they would have to graduate from hunting cans to hunting Celestials.

  They were all prepared for that eventuality, but it worried all of them. Cirai could barely fight, Podren was a healer first and foremost, and Sya was a Blight Walker. It wasn’t exactly a well-rounded team.

  The other problem when it came to hunting Celestials was their number. Hundreds, if not thousands of stargates opened, and each one released a lot of Celestials. Not all of them had the dubious kindness to only hold sixty or so skeletons to be systematically eliminated.

  Thankfully, not all hope was lost. Although there were a lot of Celestials, there was kind of too much. Unless they were special like the Maverick, most low-tiered Celestials were just mindless wild animals. Wild animals that could still easily kill a person, but wild animals nonetheless.

  And wild animals had turf wars.

  Sticking to the shadows, the group of wayward hunters moved through the hellscape that used to be the slums. Everywhere they went, sounds of Celestials would echo out, at all times. Sneaking into the city proper was a no go, what with Sya being a Blight Walker.

  Night fell, and the trio sat around a fire in a somewhat safe spot that they had found over the course of the day. Two lizards over a meter in length were roasting over the fire with some of Arden’s swords being used as both a spit and a kebab. It was a testament to the sad state of affairs that weaponry hundreds of years old were the only things that could be scavenged to use as cooking tools.

  As they waited for the lizards to cook up, Sya asked the pair of Starborn some questions.

  “How long does a trial normally take?”

  Podren prodded the lizards, testing how tough their hides were after roasting them. They still weren't cooked all the way through yet.

  “It depends,” he said. “All trials are different. Some are thrown into an easy trial, and some are thrown into hellish ones. How long it takes is dependent on how long it takes for the scenario to reach its conclusion. The first trial normally lasts a few days. Maybe a week, two at the most."

  “Arden and Vera have been in their trials for five days now,” Sya said with a sigh. Worry gnawed at her heart. She was anxious. “I miss them.”

  “They’ll be back,” Cirai said, trying to comfort the Blight Walker. “They’re strong. We’ve all seen that. Be it a Stargate, a rogue Starborn, or an evil twin, they’ve always won. They’ll beat their trials.”

  Sya believed that Cirai’s words would have been more believable if she wasn’t actively trying to believe her words as well.

  There was another moment of silence as Podren removed the lizards from the fire, and cut into one, pleased by the heat and the smell. They were ready. Not for the first time, he lamented the lack of seasoning, but he couldn’t be disappointed. The meat alone tasted divine.

  All three of them cut into the first lizard. The second one would probably not get eaten, but it was good to have just in case. Podren placed the second one in his inventory for later. If they were good, then that second lizard could be used over the next few days.

  After cutting the lizard meat into finely cut strips with his scalpel Satellite, Podren presented the meat to each of the women to eat.

  Sya immediately understood why Arden had such a fascination with eating Celestials after only her first bite. It tasted great, far better than the ground beef that she ate alongside Arden and Vera.

  “What were your trials like?” she asked the pair of Starborn.

  “I can go first,” Podren said. “My trial was in murim world. You know, martial arts, qi, that sort of thing. I was part of a caravan that was attacked by bandits.”

  “Did you fight them off?”

  Podren chuckled and shook his head.

  “No. The attack had already happened by the time I woke up. I was a med student for a few semesters before my trial, so I did what I could to keep the members of the caravan alive. Did some quick medical work and survived for a day or so before the escort agency found us and brought us back for real treatment. There were a few Celestials, or sacred beasts as the Status called them, along the way, but they weren’t much with the aid of an escort service. Once we returned, my trial was completed, and bam. Healing powers.”

  Cirai spoke next.

  “Mine wasn’t anywhere that exciting.”

  “I told you that I basically just sat around for a few days before being escorted back to safety. Does that sound exciting?”

  “Comapred to mine, yes. I was only in there for a few hours. I ran a few errands for a group hunting dream beasts.”

  “That sounds interesting,” Sya said.

  “It does. Imagine my surprise when I found out that dream beasts are basically just manifestations of internal negativity, and that their weakness is diagnosing the victims. I was pretty much a therapist. I told someone they had an oedipus complex, gave them a potion, and beat the trial.”

  Sya started to snicker.

  “If you get stronger by telling someone about their fetishes, call Arden a sub next time you see him.”

  Before the two Starborn could laugh at Sya's remark, they disappeared. Vanished. One moment, they were with her enjoying a meal of Celestial meat, the next Sya was alone.

  Completely alone.

  The food dropped to the ground as Sya immediately shot up in a mixture of confusion and fear.

  Arden and Vera were both gone, trying to complete their trials.

  Cirai and Podre vanished. Whisked away to someplace Sya didn’t know.

  Only Sya remained.