“Let’s get inside quickly!” Rebecca shouted as the group made it to the house, the Living Manifestations shrugging them off. Most of the Profound Toxic beasts gathered up behind Bin while some of the others ran off.

  Philip Sr. grabbed the door handles of the double doors leading into the house from the enormous backyard and pulled on them hard. “They’re not budging an inch!” he shouted, trying again and then again. “They’re locked up tight!”

  “Of course they are,” Molanda scoffed. “This is my house and I don’t keep my door unlocked for no reason when I’m not even at home. One of our staff will come out in a moment. However…”

  “However, we’re not going inside,” Clan Leader Gul said.

  “Not going inside?” Philip Sr. blanched. “What the hell are you talking about? Why would we not go inside? You want to stay out here instead or something?”

  Ihasu stepped in between them. “We have a clash of perspectives here, I think. First of all, grandpa, let me do the talking,” she said to grumbles from Gul. “Rebecca, Philip, you have to understand that being inside this building will not protect us whatsoever if whatever attacked earlier decides to come this way.”

  Rebecca frowned, her lower lip trembling with anxiety as she threw her arms up in a sweeping gestures toward the gigantic estate. “How is that not going to offer any protection? I mean, look at it!” she shouted just as the door swung open, a worried woman greeting them, starting with Molanda and Andihar, then Thalandi and Uja.

  “Gunja!” Molanda said. “Your families, are they here?” she asked the woman.

  “Most. Some presumably still on the way. They all know to come here in case of an emergency. Thank you, Lady.”

  “Good. Get the barriers in the storage room downstairs and make sure everybody gathers outside.”

  Gunja nodded and hurried back inside. Ihasu resumed their previous conversation. “You have to realize that the Awakened humans you’ve met in Forest are nothing compared to the kind of forces wielded by whatever has attacked Gimleh today. At the levels these peak high-rankers operate at, a building like that is nothing more than material to rain down upon our heads. It could destroy it with ease. We’re much safer out here under open skies where we at least have a chance of seeing it coming.”

  “And Eik is going to fight that?”

  Ihasu smirked. “My husband could destroy it even more easily.”

  “But you said it would be safe!” Philip Sr. protested. “You said there was nothing to fear in Gimleh!”

  Her own fear and frustration surfacing, Ihasu threw her hand up. “There isn’t! This is not Gimleh’s danger! It’s an outside force invading! This is not normal! By that logic, Forest is much more dangerous!”

  Philip Junior’s parents both looked conflicted but couldn’t really say much to it as they clutched their son’s hand tightly. There was no question that even relative safety on Earth—or, in fact, just in Forest—was a very recent phenomenon that was certainly not a given.

  Over the last couple of years, expeditionary groups had been dispatched to all corners of the world. The good thing was that they had located and either recruited or befriended human settlements of vastly differing sizes.

  Eik and his company had yet to establish any real contact with any of them but he had talked to Ihasu plenty of times about his intention to make time for visits to some of the larger places. They had already begun exporting medicine, construction materials, weapons and armor, potions, and last but not least, information to these other settlements.

  For now, each settlement including Forest were sailing their own ships as far as governance was concerned, but they had established a mutual defense agreement early on, whereby all others would send military and material aid in the case of any major attack on another city.

  The tough thing about these exploratory ventures was the inevitable realization of just how many people had been obliterated in the past twelve years. Survivors were not even remotely close to making up a majority. An initially optimistic guess of ten percent was probably too high of a number to describe the truth.

  For every settlement they had located with people living there, they had found five more abandoned or exterminated.

  It had made many lose the last shreds of hope of eventually reuniting with friends and family.

  “Did you hear that second series of explosion earlier, Ihasu?” Eik’s father Rasmus asked. “It sounded like it’s quite a bit closer to us than the previous one was, didn’t it?”

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  She nodded, turning her attention to him as Rebecca and Philip Sr. followed the families of the staff of the Dayarunar estate to a small copse of flowering trees where five layers of reinforced barriers hummed into existence above their heads. They would do little to protect against any direct attack but were equipped with enchantments of concealment and basic environmental cover. “I noticed,” she said.

  He followed her as they walked with the others. “Do you think it’s something we should be concerned about?”

  “I honestly can’t say, dad. I just hope Eik gets a hold of it soon. There is no doubt people are dying out there.”

  “Will he be okay?”

  She squeezed his hand and put on the brightest smile she could muster at the moment. “Isn’t he always?”

  The smile Rasmus returned was tense at best, hiding his anxiety with much less success. He took Bin’s little hand in his. “Let’s go to the others, sweetheart,” he said and looked around. “Where’s your brother?”

  Bin followed his eyes. “I haven’t seen him since we came to Uncle Andi’s house.”

  That made Rasmus stop cold, a tight knot of worry spreading through him as he grew light-headed. “Wh-What…?” he stammered, calling to Ihasu who had fallen a little behind to talk to Molanda. “Ihasu, have you seen Goo anywhere?”

  “N—” she tried but lost her breath when she saw no sign of him. “Goo? Where’s Goo? Goo!” she screamed. “Goo, where are you?” Her voice quickly rose to a shrill cry as she dashed back to the house in a panic.

  “What’s going on?” Gul asked, appearing at her side. “Is Goo gone?”

  “Yes, grandpa! He’s gone! How could you let this happen? You’re an S-ranker!”

  “I-I don’t…” Gul trailed off as he sent his senses outward, his heart pumping away at a million beats per minute. He easily reached the outer perimeter of the Dayarunar estate grounds but even then he could find no sign of the boy. “I can’t find a trace of him anywhere nearby! Andihar?”

  “Neither can I!” the elf called from the barrier. “We would surely have noticed if he was taken but if he slipped away quietly on his own, then… It’s much easier to notice when something appears in the proximity than when something leaves—especially when its a presence one is used to.”

  “Well, someone find him! Find my son!” she screamed, tears streaming down her face.

  Another sudden blast obliterated almost an entire neighborhood in a single strike like a bomb dropped from a plane. This one was pretty much next door and the force of the attack sent shock waves through the air that ripped at the trees, tore up the earth, and drew ripples of chromatic color across the layers of the domed barrier as they passed.

  Responding to her orders even as the aftermath of the strike still roared, all Living Manifestations present sprung into action, leaping across the tree tops in the same direction. They appeared to know where they were going.

  “Goo!” Ihasu yelled and followed as swiftly as her legs could carry her.

  “No, Ihasu!” Gul called after her, catching up to her in the blink of an eye. “I’ll go after him!” He seized her by the arm but she struggled like a wild animal against his vise grip.

  “He’s my son!” she shrieked, voice breaking halfway through. “I’m going to get my son!”

  “No, you stay here!” Gul ordered gruffly. “I’ll go and find him!” Faster than she could follow with her eyes, he vanished, a trailing gust of wind indicating his travel direction.

  Without even considering obeying her grandfather, she gave chase, going the same way the Living Manifestations had—straight toward the most recent explosion. She sobbed as she ran, fear pushing her legs past their limits.

  How could she have been so stupid? Goo was five percent reason and ninety five percent raw instinct. When his father Eik went into battle where else would the damned boy go but after him? No matter how one twisted and turned it, she should have seen this coming from the moment Gimleh was attacked and have kept her fingers firmly on the collar of his shirt.

  If something had happened to him, she would…

  Two more blasts crackled and forced her eyes closed as dust and debris battered her face, but she never stopped running. “Goo? Goo!” she screamed, hoping that her voice would reach that little boy who, despite his uniquely strange origins and ferocious personality, seemed to enjoy his time at the table drawing with colors the most.

  He shouldn’t be out here all alone. She couldn’t let him.

  “Goo!”

  Out of nowhere, she was ripped backward by the arm, the force of it ripping the limb out of its shoulder socket. “I told you to stay back!” she heard her grandfather shout as he hauled her back toward the estate.

  “Let me go!” she howled. “I have to go back and find G—” But when she managed to look back up at him, she saw her son wiggling futilely in his great grandfather’s arm. Gul’s aura must have been interfering with the boy’s natural ability because he seemed unable to let himself melt out of the embrace.

  Suddenly, something crashed through a cluster of already crumbling buildings, heading straight for them at a speed that surpassed Gul’s own by a frightening margin.

  Tusks as long as its body protruded from its mouth, leading the charge through the summons dispatched by Gul, destroying them as easily as if they hadn’t been there. The warped but unmistakably humanoid face made the sight all the more chilling, its eyes dead and uncaring.

  With a fling of its head, a white ripple of energy surged forth at a speed that gave even Gul’s S-ranked reflexes no time to dodge, claiming one of his legs and carving a deep gash in his rib cage. He groaned in pain and tumbled to the ground, losing his grip on Goo and Ihasu as they rolled.

  The spawn of the Lord of the Moon landed heavily in front of them. Warping hauntingly around the massive tusks, its smile left no doubt of its enjoyment of the moment. The cruelty in its eyes was maddening.

  She must have broken her hip, because Ihasu couldn’t for the life of her get to her feet, resorting to dragging herself through the sharp debris, her eyes seeing nothing but her son and grandfather ahead.

  This was hopeless. She cried as the hulking abomination, built like a boulder with limbs, towered above her. It locked its gaze onto hers, lifting a trunk-like foot high above the helpless Goo and Gul. She could swear it was giggling with glee as it watched the tears pour down her cheeks.

  Like a bolt of lightning, an object like an orbital missile struck the monster with such force that it drove consciousness out of her—but not before a familiar sight spread across her vision.

  The sight of a deep, comforting blue.

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