Teyva looted the bodies of the two elven ascendants, their bodies turning to dust. She ignored the prompts alerting her to whatever obscene amount of experience she’d gained from this wanton act of slaughter. She felt cold, her blood aching in her veins. She’d been holding back ever since she saw Yaga. Rage was her entire world right now and not even this massacre was enough to sate her. She glanced around, watching at the rilks dragged the bodies about, picking them clean of equipment and material before pulling them down into the tunnels below. Her lip twisted morbidly, her children would eat well today.

  She turned her attention back to the loot she’d acquired from the bodies.

  The aspect stones were of no use to her for now, though perhaps she could find a use for them later. She held on to them just in case. The aspect shards were a genuine prize, though, especially given how much exp she’d probably gained. She moved her attention to the next set of prompts while she walked away from the piles of dust.

  “Mother?” Nephral asked, breaking her concentration.

  She cleared her throat and reached up to stroke his head, “Yes, love?”

  “Are you okay?” He asked pointedly.

  Teyva glanced around at the bodies again and let out a breath, “No,” She said, “I can’t process it, if I’m being honest.” Teyva thought back to that moment in the woods when she’d first taken a life intentionally. When Azrael had helped her through it. She shivered and rubbed her arm, forcing her thoughts back to that cold frame of mind. She couldn’t think about their suffering right now, not while the humans were off attacking her home. She ran her hand over Nephral’s back and exhaled again, “I’ll get through it.”

  She returned her attention to the prompts;

  Disconcerting, but according to her sheet her alignment was still neutral. This was fine, then. She could live with those consequences.

  She made a face, did she even have time to rest in order to use attribute points? She was still a good distance from Osan so she supposed it was possible. According to her backlog of prompts, she’d gained enough experience to bump her all the way to level 16. She shuddered a little at the implications of just going around slaughtering ascendants and armies to push her experience points higher and higher. What was the level cap anyway?

  A pair of rilks rushed by, carrying loads of materials and food in their powerful arms. Whatever the situation, it was likely that the people of Osan were going to need every bit of resource they could get. She had the rilks collect the supplies in one place and then begin disassembling tents to draw over the pile of resources so they would be protected from the snow. She could move the supplies over after things were secure.

  A glorious victory! Viira hissed into her mind.

  It isn’t over yet, darling, Teyva said evenly.

  My children are flush with strength and vitality, we eagerly await the next battle.

  Good. It’ll be soon. Leave some of your children to handle the materials and guard them. We should move on.

  Yes, Mother.

  Teyva returned to the carriage and climbed inside, urging the mimic back into the air. She leaned back and crossed her legs, “Going to rest and level up, Nephral. Wake me when we arrive.”

  “As you wish,” Nephral said with a quiet nod.

  Teyva slipped into the place of her soul for the first time since she’d banished Rani. The dark violet clouds were gone, replaced with a storm of white and gray. Flashes of amethyst lightning coiled around the roiling clouds, paired with claps of thunder. Teyva set to work quickly distributing her stat points. She didn’t have a lot of time before she arrived at her final destination and she needed to be ready.

  All fifteen points went immediately into Influence. Her damage output soaring. She woke and pulled her aspect shards from her inventory and set to work making choices. She hadn’t even seen the tier-two abilities for the Siren yet. So that would be four shards to use. In total she would have 10 to work with. She opened up Titan first to get it out of the way.

  She felt the familiar strain as her muscles grew tighter and denser, she felt the skin on her face tighten and the strange gem-like scales spread further across her collar and forehead. She took a breath and pushed herself to continue. She quickly chose from Pale Dawn, Facsimile, and Labyrinthian.

  “Now for Siren,” Teyva muttered and pulled up the list of tier-two abilities.

  It was a tough choice but she picked [Aria of Health] first, she would need it when they arrived at Osan. With her choices made she closed her eyes and quickly slipped back into the void to distribute more points. She had to work fast. Another fifteen points into Influence shot it up to 110 and further boosted her attack power. She’d snatch up the next stage of [Titan Blooded] to make up for not spending more on endurance.

  She woke up and snatched up her next set of shards.

  [Titan Blooded V] was of course her first choice, bumping her health even higher. More changes took place, her bones becoming heavier for a moment before her body adapted to the feeling. A little woozy from the sensation she had to lean back and rub her face.

  “You’re pushing yourself too hard, mother,” Nephral warned.

  “I can’t hold back,” Teyva grumbled, “I can’t leave anything to chance.”

  She grabbed her next shard and snatched up [Improved Mind Trap], Completing Tier 3 of Labyrinthian.

  Next was Facsimile with only one ability left to pick for Tier 3.

  She turned her attention to Pale Dawn and grabbed [Pale Ray]

  Last she rechecked the list of Siren abilities and snagged [Talisman]. Immediately there was a faint flash of light and what looked like a cylinder of pure crystal appeared in the air and landed in her hand. She grabbed it and turned it over in her palm, its smooth surface pulsing with mana. It felt like a heartbeat.

  “Death Magic,” Teyva said quickly.

  An instant later portions of the crystal began to crumble until she was left holding what appeared to be a carved crystal skeleton in her hand.

  “Superb,” Teyva said, slipping the talisman into her pocket. With her abilities chosen she checked her prompts before resting again.

  “Oh right! I almost forgot!” Teyva blurted, “This is awesome!” She mused on how it would be effective against a large number of enemies like the army she was about to face up against. It was kind of a relief, she didn’t like how it felt when her summons were defeated, even if they were just unsummoned like when Azrael used her anti-magic abilities. This would give her even more options as well, as her mana regeneration was the only thing that limited what she could do.

  She checked her last prompt, notifying her that her three growth items had grown again.

  Absolutely brilliant, she was already thinking of ways she could use these. Especially the new attribute for the Masque. With only one shard left to use she leaned back and closed her eyes, spending the last of her points on willpower to bump her Mana up a bit. That put her mana over two thousand!

  Teyva woke to the sound of Nephral’s voice. “Mother! Mother wake up please! We’ve arrived at the battlefield!” The sphinx shouted, pushing against her leg with his tiny paws. Teyva shook her head and snapped out of the momentary grogginess, snatching up her last Aspect Shard and pulling up Titan.

  “How bad is it?” Teyva asked, selecting [Summon Giant].

  “Bad, mother, very bad, I do not see any of the Four on the battlefield, nor do I see their patron beings. The Azar are being pushed back into the city as well. Though it does look like they gave as good as they got,” Nephral said, sitting on his haunches.

  “Has anyone noticed us yet?” She asked.

  “Not that I can tell, no.”

  Teyva straightened herself up and leaned forward, peering out the window and grimacing at the carnage below. Her gut twisted at the thoughts running through her head. Were the other members of the Four okay? Where was Thrake? Didn’t the humans send ascendants too? Where were they? She ran her fingers through her hair and took a deep breath. “Okay, time to make an entrance.”