Fire, like greed, is a consuming torrent.

SynnForessa was hungry. She lay unmoving on her stomach, curled up under the bushes. Her stamina had fallen below 2%, and she couldn’t even hunt a rodent if she wanted to. Dammit, the more she wanted to eat, the hungrier she got. The hungrier she got, the more she wanted to eat, it was a vicious cycle perpetuated by her attribute. She was in grave danger right now, as this area was a yellow zone, and at any time, a monster could pop up and attack. She would be helpless to defend herself, even with all her power, because of her hunger and low stamina. Damn it! Her mind was slipping, and she struggled to stay awake.

“Master,” she prayed in her mind to the Nine-Tailed Fox. “Please save me.”

He was here, she could feel him watching her like he always did, but as The Unrivalled said, he never spoke to her anymore. Would he watch her die? She was a red player, so unlike all the others from her tutorial batch, she hadn’t been dropped inside a starting village governed by a guild. After speaking to the 1st Floor overlord, she had been thrust into the middle of nowhere. Her alignment was negative, so she could not enter safe zones to find food or shelter. For the past three days, she’d been living like this, going from yellow zones to red zones, killing corrupted creatures, and scavenging what she could of the regular animals for food, cooking and eating, but those were few and far between.

Her mind was falling into unconsciousness, and as hard as she tried, she could not fight it.

“Hey Kijira, someone is lying down here!” There was a rustling in the bushes as someone shouted.

“Damn, she looks rough, is she dead?” another voice asked. “I can’t scan her.”

There was a gentle hand placed on SynnForessa’s heart, and then the person spoke, “No. Maybe she's shrouded. She’s alive, but it looks like she used up nearly all of her stamina, and her HP is declining as well.”

There was silence for a moment, and then one of the girls spoke up. “Haibo, Ayanda, don’t look at me like that. We can barely save ourselves, and you want us to carry more baggage? She’s a red player!”

“I didn’t say anything,” the other person protested.

“Really, with those puppy dog eyes?! I swear to the fucking gods. Kijira, carry her. We’ll make camp soon, but she better carry her own weight when she wakes up.”

'Thank you, Master,' SynnForessa thought as she finally fell unconscious.

When she woke up, she was warm, and her stamina had steadily risen above 50%. There was a fluffy blanket draped over her, and it was evening now. SynnForessa sat up and looked around, a delicious scent catching her nose's attention. She turned in that direction and saw three figures sitting around a small fire, roasting what smelled like pork. Her stomach growled.

One of them turned to her and stood up abruptly, sword drawn, as she watched SynnForessa stand up. She was a dark-skinned human, with a large mass of curly black hair tied back as she watched her walk towards them. “You're awake?” she asked, alerting her two companions, who, while not drawing their weapons, eyed SynnForessa warily.

“You can put away your sword, I don’t intend to harm you, ch-.. human,” SynnForessa said, sitting on a log close to the young woman. She had almost called her a child out of habit, but she shook her head. SynnForessa was not an old woman, she was not 532 years old, no matter what the system said. She could barely remember her previous life. She’d been reborn, so as far as she was concerned, she was 32 years old, and not an old woman. “You saved my life, and for that I am grateful. Thank you,” she said, bowing her head.

The girl finally lowered her sword and sat back down. “Sure.”

“I’m Kijira, I’m the one who healed you. Are you feeling better?” One of the other women asked. She was a red-skinned demonkin, and judging by the colour of her skin and one horn on the side of her forehead, SynnForessa guessed that she must be descended from the Paimon Clan.

“Yes, thank you. My name is... Synn,” she said, looking at the meat roasting on the sticks in the fire and drooling. She had no desire to be recognised as a member of her tutorial batch's top ten. She doubted they could scan her since she was Shrouded.

The third girl laughed, she was also a dark-skinned human, and her hair was braided back in neat lines. “You must be hungry, don’t worry, the food’s almost done, Synn. I’m Ayanda, and the overly cautious one over there is Khaya.”

Sure enough, once the meat was cooked, Ayanda handed one of the sticks to SynnForessa, and she looked up at the girls in awe. First, they saved her life, and now they were giving her free food? They were truly the angels of legend, not the tainted and monstrous ones used by the saint gods! What good people! Her master had not abandoned her after all.

She put her hands together and closed her eyes. “Thank you for your providence, Master,” she said. There was no response from him, but she had faith in him, and she knew that he had led these girls towards her to save her.

“So, Synn, what are you doing here alone? What level are you at?” Kijira asked.

SynnForessa was inhaling the meat. It tasted amazing, and she devoured it like the starving fox she was, not letting even a single piece of it go to waste. “Trying to level up,” she said, her mouth full. “I’m level 5.”

“Level 5?” Khaya gasped, watching her incredulously. “Synn are you insane? This is a level 8 field. Those two are level 7, and I'm level 8 but we’re barely making it with three of us! Are you from our tutorial batch?”

SynnForessa nodded. “It’s fine, I can handle myself.” Hunting wasn’t the problem for her, finding uncorrupted food was. She was still trying to level up her cooking skill so that she could cook and purify the meat from corrupted creatures once it reached the Intermediate Level. It sucked that all her skills had been reset to Beginner level 1, most of them locked until she reached certain levels. She would not be able to go for a different build, and would be stuck with the skills from her old life. “Where did you get uncorrupted meat?”

Ayanda grinned and pointed to the beautiful longbow placed next to her. "A level 5 regular boar chased us around for a couple of minutes, but once I got it in my sights, I sent an arrow straight into its eye, and Khaya got it right in the neck with her sword,” she said.

Kijira gave her a light push, “Hey, I’m the one who slowed it down with the debuff, otherwise, you never would have hit it!” she protested. “I remember you running like mad before I debuffed it!”

They both laughed as if the memory were both funny and terrifying. They looked to be relaxed but alert, and SynnForessa wondered why that was. Sure, this was a yellow zone, but she was pretty sure that with the three of them, they should be able to handle a hunting field of this level, yet they seemed to always be looking around as if waiting for an attack.

“It’s time to sleep. I’ll take the first watch,” Khaya said, once everyone was done eating, and Kijira offered a waterskin to SynnForessa.

There was no protest from the others, and, as SynnForessa suspected, it seemed like Khaya was the leader of this party. They bade her goodnight and huddled together under the blanket that SynnForessa had woken up on.

“You can sleep some more too, that way, your stamina will regenerate faster,” Khaya told her.

SynnForessa shook her head. “I’m good. I’m a foxkin, we’re nocturnal creatures. You can sleep too, I’ll keep watch.”

Khaya, however, rejected the offer. “No. I don't trust you.” She was really paranoid.

"I promise I won't hurt you. Why are you girls so ill at ease anyway? Is there a powerful monster in these parts?" SynnForessa asked curiously.

"You're better off not knowing. I'm sorry about this," Khaya turned and looked her in the eyes, and then she spoke. "We're moving on tomorrow. We don't want you here. You need to go your way, and if anyone asks, you never met us," she said authoritatively. "Be careful, and don't be recklessly putting your life in danger when you fight."

SynnForessa felt a fog start to cloud her mind as she heard the words, mana pooling into her head, but just as suddenly, it cleared. What the hell? She clutched her throbbing temple.

"Sorry, sweetheart," SynnForessa said with a clipped smile. "That won't work on me. My mental resistance is pretty fucking high." Spending years trapped in the Void had raised her mental resistance to its maximum of 31%. It was one of the few things that The Unrivalled hadn't reset when she reincarnated her.

Khaya stared at her, at first in surprise, then fear, and her hand went to her sword again, but seeing that SynnForessa wasn't moving to attack her, she hesitated. "I... I'm just trying to protect my friends," she said quietly.

"Look, I may be red, but it's not because I murdered children or anything. It's because..." SynnForessa paused. "It's because a lot of innocent people died because of my greed."

Her greed. Once it awoke, she did not stop until she took everything. To prevent it from taking more than she needed it to, in this life, SynnForessa would not desire anything. In her past life, if she wanted something, then she would take it, no matter the cost. So, she would not want anything. Of course, that was not working out for her at all.

"You'll forgive me if I don't take you at your word," Khaya said, throwing a dry log into the fading fire. "The only other red player I know has been hunting us since the tutorial. I have no idea how he finds us, but he always does."

Ah, they were being hunted? Well, that explained a lot. "Why?"

"Hell, if I know. He killed all of our teammates in the tutorial! If I hadn't gotten that attribute, Kijira, Ayanda, and I would be dead too." Khaya said, anger lacing her words.

“Well, your attribute wasn't very strong, so I doubt you're using it on your friends. I'm guessing you don't know how to use it well, but you need to work on it. It's not pure mind control, is it?” SynnForessa asked curiously.

Khaya sighed. “No. The truth, a lie, and a suggestion. It's synergistic with my Calling. The Unrivalled really fucked me over on that one. As if I didn't already know what a fucking liar I was.”

They were both silent for a moment, then Khaya asked, “You know, me and the girls survived the tutorial because I used my attribute to manipulate Vavucidsforenkka into allowing us to fight the final boss. How the hell did you survive the tutorial at your level?”

How was SynnForessa supposed to explain that she defeated a maestril miniboss, and had her karma syphoned until only her soul shard remained? How was she supposed to explain that she was the reincarnation of a former constellation? She settled for a version of the truth. “A human man saved me. I don't remember clearly what happened, but I do know that his battle would have been easier if he'd just killed me, but he chose not to. I'm grateful to him.”

She hoped to meet that human again and give him her thanks. She did not remember what he looked like, but they were tied by karma. She hoped that she would know when she met him again... if he survived the tutorial. She still could not believe that she had given away her Void Star. If she had been fully lucid, her greed would not have allowed it.

“What a nice guy,” Khaya said with a smile.

“You're a nice person, too. Your suggestion was just for me to leave, and you told me to look out for myself, too. Even though it was risky, you and your friends saved me. Thank you,” she said honestly

Khaya scoffed and looked away. “Me? I'm just a hypocrite, that's all.” Her gaze fell on her two friends huddled together in that small blanket, and she said, “I'm a liar too. Sure, Vavuciadsforenkka is chasing us, and he has killed us before, but I know where I need to go for us to be safe, yet I'm not doing it.”

SynnForessa drank some water from the waterskin, and, seeing that the fire was dying, she flicked her thumb, and a negligible amount of mana was released from her mana core, igniting the fire. “Where would it be safe for you?” she asked.

She was wondering why Khaya was talking to her like this. Perhaps she hadn't had much time to deal with everything herself while busy looking after her friends, or maybe she just needed to open up to a stranger.

“With my… my uncle. I know he's searching for me. He's not someone who loves being in the public eye, so I know he's putting himself out there trying to show me where he is, so I can go to him. He's very far away, and I'd need some gold to get to him, which I don't have. But there is another reason..." Her hands trembled, and her voice shook. "Do you have any family, Synn?"

SynnForessa shook her head. "I had a mother once, but she's gone now." Everyone in her world was gone.

Khaya nodded and looked down. “I don’t know what it's like in your culture, but in ours, as my mother’s brother, my uncle is obligated to look after her family in her place. He never strayed from the demands of our culture. He lived his life providing for our family, never living for himself. I just can't do it to him again, not when I saw how alive he looked in that video. I've never seen that look of just life in his eyes. The closest would have been back when he started running.”

She looked close to tears, and SynnForessa couldn't understand why. “You clearly care about him, so why aren't you going to him?”

“Shall I tell you a story, Synn?” Khaya asked and continued without waiting for a response. “A beautiful young woman from a poor village, fresh off high school with no money for university, caught the eye of a rich boy from the nearby city. The boy came from a family with multiple businesses and even better, the spirits of their ancestors said they were compatible. Of course, the girl’s mother, a spiritual leader in the village, was happy and approved of the union, so the two got engaged."

SynnForessa stocked the fire again and said nothing. "Before they got married, the boy had to go away for a year to finish his Business Studies degree so he could take over his family’s company. The girl didn’t dislike her fiance, but she hated how much of her life was out of her control. She was young and scared and she hated how much her mother was rushing the union, so she rebelled and got together with someone she knew her mother disapproved of. The village outcast cursed by the ancestors. He was ecstatic...this was the first time anyone had been so kind to him.”

“Is this about you?” SynnForessa asked, frowning.

Khaya laughed. “No. My brother sent his goons to threaten any boy that I ever tried dating...so I don't have much experience there. Anyway, the girl in our story, unexpectedly got pregnant and reality came crashing in. She didn’t actually want to spend the rest of her life as the poor wife of a cursed man. She wanted to go to university, be a nurse and leave the village for a better place. What do you think she did?” she asked.

SynnForessa had no idea where the story was going but she answered anyway. “She ended things with the outcast and chose not to have the baby?”

“No. The outcast loved her dearly, but he had nothing, so he begged her to have the baby and give it to him. He’d take him away and raise him elsewhere. Her fiance didn’t even have to find out. And so for the next few months, the village was astounded when the village outcast kept going in and out of the spiritual leader’s house. The spiritual leader and her daughter didn’t leave the house for months. Rumours swirled until the village outcast was seen one day, leaving the village with a baby.”

That wasn't how SynnForessa had expected the story to go, but she supposed if the girl felt guilty for using the village outcast, she would have done as he asked.

“The old woman told the people a tall tale to protect her daughter’s reputation and so as not to jeopardise her upcoming marriage. She claimed that she had disregarded her ancestors’ warnings and fallen for the cursed outcast, that she had his child, but she had done a cleansing ceremony to wash away their bad luck so it wouldn’t befall her daughter. She garnered sympathy and the villagers begged the ancestors to forgive her and cleanse her spirit. Her daughter got away with it, married, went to university and even had two more children of her own.”

For some reason, SynnForessa found herself invested in the story. “What happened to the first child?”

“He was raised by his father, and they moved back to the village two years after he left. Unfortunately, there was an accident and his father died. His grandmother…who everyone believed to be his mother, refused to care for a cursed child and dumped him at her daughter’s place where he grew up.”

Khaya stared into the fire as if she feared it would swallow her.

“Synn, it's been almost thirty years and he still doesn’t know,” Khaya whispered, tears in her eyes. “I wish I never found out. How do you tell the person you love the most in the world something like that? How do you tell someone who already has abandonment issues that he was abandoned by not one, but two mothers? How do you tell a man who worships the ground his father walked on that he lied to him his entire life? I can’t do it, Synn," she gasped. "If he knew that I knew that truth, and didn't tell him all this time, even after how much he's loved and protected me—how much he's done for me, it would break him, and he'd never forgive me,” she said, looking down.

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"I don't understand. If he loves you that much, he should forgive you," SynnForessa said. "This isn't your fault."

“He doesn’t deal with his issues, and that makes him delicate mentally, so I don't think I can face him right now. We're in a whole new world, yet I'm still lying to him. Maybe I should just take my brother’s offer instead,” said Khaya looking down. Her face was distraught. "I'm conflicted, Synn, and I don't know what to do. Can I really put my life before his again when I don't deserve his protection? I should just take the easy way out. Neo will look after me... he always stepped up in Uncle's absence."

Still, it wasn't right that Khaya knew that this person was searching for her desperately, and she still chose not to go to him or send a signal.

“You're a very selfish person,” SynnForessa concluded.

“That I am, Synn. That, I am." Khaya yawned and stood up. "I have no idea what to do. I think I'll take that nap now. You keep watch. Don't attack us in our sleep.”

*

SynnForessa parted ways with the girls the next morning. She knew that they couldn't risk taking her with them, but she truly wanted to find a way to pay them back for saving her. Now that she wanted to do it, she knew it would haunt her until she did it.

“Don't worry about it,” Khaya said, giving her some of the dried boar meat that they had left.

“Thanks for letting me get all that shit off my chest last night, sisi.”

“Be careful. Let's exchange mana signatures, and if you need my help, just call,” SynnForessa offered. After exchanging their mana signatures, they went their separate ways.

It had only been for one night, but being with other mortals had felt good. SynnForessa had almost forgotten that feeling of being normal and just living day to day. It was nice. She managed to kill two corrupted goblins that wandered into her path as she walked along the forest, bored out of her mind. There was no loot here, and she was just grinding some levels so that she could get to Tier 1 and upgrade her class.

Half a day later, she sat in the forest, eating, when suddenly, a delicious scent wafted into her nose. She felt the stir in her mana core, and her whole body trembled, greed rearing up. She licked her lips. It was the scent of a strong flame.

SynnForessa ran back the way she came on all fours, she was almost drooling, and even though she could not do a complete transformation as of yet, she could turn her hands and feet into paws, making it easy to run. The distance that had taken her half a day to cover was covered in less than an hour because she had just smelled the scent of delicious fire. She hadn't had any fire since her reincarnation, and her body craved it.

Finally, she arrived at a clearing and found the source of the fire. It was coming from a dragonkin. He was tall, as all of them were, with blue scales covering his entire body, talons raised as he dodged a slash from his opponent. She stood up on two legs and straightened as her mind snapped out of its hunger-induced frenzy when she saw who he was fighting. Khaya was desperately fending off the dragonkin’s assault.

Her face soured when she noticed that Ayanda and Kijira lay wounded on the ground. Was this the person who was hunting the girls? He was level 10 according to her scan, yet he was busy chasing around level 7 women for sport. SynnForessa clenched her fists. What a load of crap! Was hunting a part of this dragonkin's Obsession?

Khaya swung her sword with as much strength as she could muster, but the dragonkin’s mocking laughter filled the entire clearing. A blade of wind flew from Khaya's sword, yet Vavuciadsforenkka effortlessly flew into the air, evading the attack with a taunting smirk. His wings were short, and they could not get him far, but for a simple battle like this, they were enough.

Then, with a grin, Vavuciadsforenkka opened his mouth and unleashed his magma breath skill, scorching the ground beneath him. Khaya, quick on her feet, utilised a skill to move as one with the wind, dodging the brunt of the magma, but the force of it sent her crashing into a tree, leaving her heavily wounded.

That was it—the skill that smelt delicious to SynnForessa. It wasn't a star, but her attribute could eat all fire-based skills. Besides, this dragonkin had hurt the people who saved her. She was not going to stand idly by. Quickly, she tapped into her mana core, regulating her mana expenditure, and fire coursed through her veins as the core activated.

“Hey, baby lizard, why don't you pick on someone on your own level?” She shouted as the dragonkin had been making his way towards the fallen Ayanda and Kijira. It was a weak taunt, and wrong because he was 4 levels ahead of her. SynnForessa conjured a ring of fire around herself, the flames spiralling outward. The searing heat served as both protection and an offensive barrier between her and the advancing dragonkin.

Vavuciadsforenkka trained his reptilian eyes on her, flapped his wings and prepared for another attack. “Who the fuck are you, bitch?!” he snarled.

The karma pressure he released towards her was threatening, like a predator warning another not to get between him and his prey. To SynnForessa who had fought in actual divine wars, this amount of karma pressure was laughable. “SynnForessa. Remember the name.” She unleashed her ring of fire outwards, and while it did burn through Vavuciadsforenkka's scales, the damage was pitiable compared to its normal damage.

“I don't care to remember it. No hunter remembers all the lesser mortals he's killed!” he screeched, and several of his scales hardened, and he detached them from his body. They headed straight for her, they were as sharp as knives and strong as steel.

"Lesser? Is that how you justify bullying them?" SynnForessa asked, her voice strained, as her mana drained away as the Fire Ring acted as her shield, melting the scales to protect her. She sneered at him, but the truth was, that she was worried. Yes, she was strong for her level, but she was only level 6, and it wasn't easy fighting against a level 10 dragonkin. The only advantage she had in this fight was her experience.

More than ever, she wished she had a weapon. At least the magic circle for Fire Ring was stored in her mana core, and all she needed to do was visualise it and cast the spell for flame spikes to erupt from the ring. The flame spikes took off at her command towards the dragonkin, but he dodged most of them by flying around, and the ones that did hit were stopped by his nearly impenetrable scale armour. Thankfully, because of her Avatar of The Nine-Tailed Demon Fox God title, her casting speed for fire spells was quite fast.

While in the air, he started using his talons to cut into his own skin. Bloody mist erupted from the cuts. The metallic scent and mist of Vavuciadsforenkka’s blood polluted the air. It made it difficult to breathe, and SynnForessa started coughing in pain as the mist surrounded her on all sides.

[Warning! You are under the curse: Venomous MistBlood. -15HP/s while the curse is active.]

She could feel the curse inside the mist corroding her body, it reminded her too much of the years she'd spent fighting against corruption in Zamone. The pain stung badly and she could feel her fur starting to corrode from the poison on her skin. She couldn't help but moan desperately and writhe on the ground as the mist started to penetrate deep into her bones.

Just when she thought of ripping her skin away to remove this pain, she felt a wash of warm energy come over her, and the pain slowly started to disappear.

[Player Kijira Masako Pandora has cast Neutralise Toxin on you. All poisonous debuffs reduced by 30%]

Kijira, despite being injured, was awake and focused her energy on dispelling Vavuciadsforenkka's Venomous Blood skill.

With the poison slowly leaving her body, SynnForessa seized the opportunity to prepare another attack.

It seemed that a skill this powerful took a lot from the dragonkin too, and he was hunched over, gasping. He might have a lot of mana, but this skill seemed to prey on his health as well as his mana. He glared at Kijira, who was now healing Ayanda, but before he could do anything to her, SynnForessa attacked again.

"Incinerate!" Her Fire Ring intensified, transforming into a large spiky red flame that propelled itself towards Vavuciadsforenkka.

"Stop interrupting my fucking hunt, you stupid dog!" He screamed, his scales tightening around him. She now understood why her earlier attacks did not work well on him. He must have had a skill that transformed his already strong scales into stronger armour, because even this fire barely penetrated them. "Why are you here anyway?"

Shit. SynnForessa was still in pain. She had low health as she had put all her points from levelling up into Mind to increase her mana pool. As a dragonkin, Vavuciadsforenkka could spam skills as he liked because of his naturally high mana pool. Would she have to use 'Meteor Strike’ to defeat him? No, using divine skills before Tier 1 was suicide.

"These girls that you're messing with took care of me. Think of it like an older sister beating up her baby sisters' bully," she said.

The dragonkin looked at her incredulously. "Is there a brain under all that fur, or is nonsense the only thing capable of coming out of your mouth?" he spat.

She was keeping him distracted, as her mana core slowly formed a suitable sear for her other skill, to mark him. She was also trying to allow her mana to regenerate as much as possible. Fire Ring and Incinerate were very mana-consuming. She needed her mana back at 100% if she was going to use her attribute. "Nonsense or not, I'm going to kick your arse because if not for those girls, I'd be starving right now."

“How simple-minded and stupid. That is your reason for interrupting my hunt? This is why, in the past, your kind all bowed to the great dragons as your gods!” He said, breathing deeply in the air around him. Shit, was he preparing to use another skill?

“Don’t give me that crap. A hunt is when you chase the prey, then you catch it and kill it. You don’t toy with your food, letting it go, and then hunting it over and over again,” SynnForessa snapped. “I guess it makes sense though, those are the tiniest wings I've ever seen on a dragonkin. Be honest, you’re just a feeble coward with an inferiority complex. You’re afraid that you won’t find good, easy prey in the Tower, so you chase those weaker than you.” She was trying to provoke him, and as hotheaded as he was, it worked.

“Feeble? Feeble is what your entire existence will become under my breath!” He shouted, his mana filling the air. "My wings are just fine, look!"

He flew high into the sky to suck in the air he needed. She knew that the dragonkin had no choice but to use his breath attack now, and she was ready. Her mana core was prepared. Everyone's mana core was different, and for SynnForessa it was a visualisation of her attribute. Greed. It was in the shape of a greedy mouth that consumed all types of fire.

So, when Vavuciadsforenkka opened his mouth and roared out his breath attack, a large mass of scorching red magma erupted from his mouth towards her. At that moment, on SynnForessa's arms, on her chest, and on her face, multiple mouths appeared, and she licked all her lips in anticipation, almost drooling.

‘80%,’ she decided.

The magma struck her body like a wave, and her mouths opened wide, and she ate every drop of the hot fire greedily. It all flowed into her body. She absorbed 80% of the attack, her resistance nullifying the rest, and the heat went throughout her entire body, fogging her brain like a drug, and she wanted more. Pure, so pure. The mana of the dragonkin was so pure that she salivated in delight. The magma built up a fire in her body, and her greedy attribute absorbed it all. This feeling of buildup was always addicting. But what truly brought her fulfilment was the moment of overflow, when every drop of fire she was holding in those mouths burst out and reflected back at its caster.

The magma was released from SynnForessa's body, and it struck the unprepared dragonkin who had been smirking at his victory, right in the chest. He managed to react quickly to use his arm to block some of it and avoid a fatal injury. The magma burned through his scales and he screamed out in pain as his own attack injured him. No matter how strong his physical defence, dragonkin breath was one of the scales' weaknesses.

SynnForessa came down from the high and nearly plopped onto the ground in mana exhaustion. The attribute took as much mana as the reflected percentage of the skill. She had just lost 80% of her maximum mana, and some health and she had no mana potions left.

She tried to cool her head, to remain standing, and to cast one more spell. If Vavuciadsforenkka healed himself, it was over; she had to bluff.

He glared at her hatefully from his place on the ground as his burned skin sizzled, and she cast the sear on him. He could not defend himself from it. Her eyes locked onto his, the mark of the sear burning with a fiery intensity on the broken skin of his arm. The image of a small fox was curled up in that mark, and she could feel it linked to her mana.

"That sear will let me know if you get within 500 metres of my little sisters. I can teleport to your location instantly." Her voice was surprisingly calm for someone on the verge of fainting. "Leave, and never bother them again, or face the consequences.”

Realising the gravity of the situation, now that he was injured and marked, he reluctantly stood up. “This isn't over!” He clutched his broken arm, glared at the other three girls, and unfurled his short wings, taking to the air.

SynnForessa's fire dissipated, and she collapsed on the ground, where the scorched earth alone remained as a mark of the fierce confrontation that had just taken place.

“Synn!” Khaya and her friends ran over to her, and Kijira immediately started to heal her.

Healing could wait, it wasn't what she needed right now. “Mana,” SynnForessa breathed.

Ayanda searched inside her satchel and produced half a bottle of an inferior mana potion. “Here, sorry, this is all we have,” she apologised. It looked like she had a few cuts on her body from the dragonkin’s scales, yet she was worrying over SynnForessa.

She took the mana potion, and her MP rose a little, enough that she would not faint from mana exhaustion. “Thank you,” she said, nodding in appreciation at the girls. "If you hadn't helped me, his venomous blood would have taken my life."

“We had to use every coin we had for Kijira to learn that skill, with how frequently he’s been hunting us,” Khaya said with a shrug, sitting down next to her. “But what you just did—I've never seen magic that powerful before. That was… you're amazing!”

If that amazed her, then she had a lot to learn. There was another pressing matter, though. “Khaya, he's a hunter. The sear will deter him for a bit, but as long as his Obsession still views you as prey, he'll never stop hunting you,” she said to them.

Ayanda’s enthusiasm deflated. “So what, we have to run from him for the rest of our lives? That's fucking nuts!”

“We never did a damn thing to him, we were just placed in the same tutorial as he was, that’s it!” Kijira added in frustration.

SynnForessa felt sorry for them. They were barely adults, and yet they had to deal with this shit. “Khaya,” she said with a meaningful look at the girls’ leader.

Khaya held her gaze for a moment, then sighed. She unclenched her fists, determination etched across her face. “Hey, Kijira, Ayanda… let's take the Jahreela Saamp's offer,” she said.

Kijira looked at her blankly, but Ayanda stared at her in surprise. “You want us to go to Pranav, and not to Langa?”

Khaya shook her head. "No. My brother sent me a message through a blood eagle. He sent a location where he and his group were. He said that if I was in trouble I should go there and he would look after me.”

“But still. I'm sure he's with Pranav. He got Neo arrested, is it really safe to go to him?” she asked hesitantly.

“Neo got himself arrested. It was his choice to join the gang,” she said with a sigh. “Besides, let’s be practical here. Malume is thousands of kilometres away at Risa’s Plateau while Neo’s at Kirtisn Valley. We don't have enough gold for a teleportation wheel. If we hired a lucent carriage, who'd help us through the level 10 red aerial zones?”

“I get it,” Ayanda said through gritted teeth. “Can’t you respond to his videos, though, tell him where we are? Maybe he will come to us.”

"Yeah, sure, let’s just post our location publicly on his profile and have weirdos come after us,” Khaya shook her head. “Look, Neo reached out to me, offering me protection. He feels bad for not being there for me when my… never mind…His place is only 30 kilometres away. We’ll go there, and if Neo isn't able to protect us, then he can get us transport to malume. He has many flaws, but my brother always protects his own. Of that, I'm sure.”

Kijira finished healing SynnForessa and said, “I'm tired of running. I don't care if your brother is the devil himself, let's go.”

“You can say that because you've never met him, Kijira. But if he's still glued to that arsehole Pranav’s side, then it's a problem. He's the fucking worst. Fine, we're poor anyway,” Ayanda complained. “Fine, let's go to him, why not?"

Khaya turned to SynnForessa. “Are you coming with us, Synn?”

There was a moment of pause as SynnForessa watched the girls. In the end, she could only hope that Khaya made the right choice for both herself and her friends.

SynnForessa stood up. “You'd just slow me down,” she said. “Take care of yourselves, and if you need me, don't hesitate to call.”

She had gained something valuable from this encounter. Her alignment had increased by one, and she had not been trying to raise it. If she wanted to get rid of the red status imposed on her by her greed, she had to save more lives. Alignment increased not by the number of lives saved, but by the intention of the person saving those lives. She hoped that The Unrivalled would have mercy on her, and that she would be able to get rid of her thousand negative alignment points without having to save the lives of a million people.

Although considering that a billion foxkin had died because of her, she supposed there was no way to make up for those lost lives. It didn't mean that she wouldn't try.