He didn’t expect her to reach him so quickly. In fact, he hadn’t even expected that she would make the first move. And then the speed with which she flew towards him was truly astounding—

But ultimately it didn’t matter. His shield flared to life just in time to repel her fierce assault, no doubt inflicting grievous injuries on her at the same time. His shield was no doubt his most powerful ability—early on, in the first days after his ascension, he had been disappointed by a seemingly defensive ability. He was made to fight, after all.

Yet he soon realized the power of the shield. Not only would it protect him from nearly any blow—it retaliated with a devastating counterattack. In fact, he could easily use it while on the pure offensive by weaponizing it while in close range.

But in just the time it took to blink, his shield shattered. So surprised was he that he failed to react to the rapid strike of her own claws. It had been a long time since he had fought anything that so closely resembled his own form—his kin were invariably weak, and his real foes were nothing like him.

To make matters worse, her claws carried a terrible affliction. It didn’t take any time at all for him to realize that whatever her toxins were, they were incredibly potent and would surely cripple him quickly if left unattended.

It was a good thing that his very blood carried a solution to that. As he purified himself of the rot, he also quickly dropped down to the ground before she could strike him again. In those brief moments, he had also observed that she barely seemed to have been affected by his shield.

Dangerous. For one fifteen levels below him, she was quite fearsome. The fact that she could obviously counter his shield made this all the more troublesome. But of course, that only made this fight more worthwhile. He could no longer progress by killing weak prey.

As she flicked her tail towards him—a kind of attack he had never seen any creature use before—he prepared to catch it. When her toxins exploded through his hand, he grimaced. He wasn’t surprised by it, but it was still annoying. But he held on.

At the same time, he finally reached out his mind to all of his nearby kin. She had been carrying a little one—her young, perhaps? He had seen many like the little ones before, but had never given them much thought. If it turned out that they ultimately grew up to become like this, he would definitely be paying them more attention.

But in any case, the little one was now undefended. Should things go wrong here, it might be useful. And so just as she suddenly yanked him away from the ground and they both streaked through the empty air, he commanded his kin to capture her and take her up to the den.

His mental connection broke when a branch impacted his face.

Gasping, Zoe heaved deeply for a few seconds before forcing herself to snap to her feet. Steadying herself against the closest tree trunk, she activated {Meditation} and began quickly centering herself. This time, the experience clearly hadn’t left her as ill as it had before—she had managed to prevent the wave of nausea from actually rising up, and her mind was clearing more rapidly.

Still, it was quite unpleasant and also rather inconvenient. How long had she been out? She hoped it was like her ascension at level thirty three and that no time had actually passed. It would be pretty bad if something like this happened during a fight that was still ongoing.

In any case, there were several other important matters that demanded her immediate attention. The first was Millie. The scattered fragments of her vision were just beginning to congeal again, but she had a deep feeling in her gut that Millie was in trouble.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Rapidly clawing her way back up the mountainside, Zoe searched for Millie while consciously honing in on {Predator’s Eyes.} It didn’t actually take her long at all—less than a minute—to arrive at the spot where she was pretty sure the battle had first taken place. There was no sign of the girl.

Cursing, Zoe focused on the remnants of the vision. It was coming together quickly, and it didn’t take her very long to put together what happened. The big one had some kind of mental command over the regular sloths and ordered them to capture her and bring her back to its lair or whatever. Fuck.

While Zoe earlier had no doubt that Millie would be fine against just a few of the regular sloths, there was no way she would have been able to stop all of them from capturing her in a coordinated effort.

And of course, all of the sloths were gone. So diving back into the memories that were not her own, Zoe tried to get a more detailed feel of what the giant sloth had ordered the others to do. After a few moments of deep concentration, she was pretty sure the ‘den’ was somewhere straight up—or at least, the way to it from here started in that direction.

Pushing her concentration even harder, Zoe began to get a hazy picture of the den itself and ‘major’ landmarks along the way. It was far, far less detailed though, and it quickly dissolved away into nothingness. It seems like this aspect of {Devour} won’t give me much about memories that aren’t the ones it originally shows me. Still, it was better than nothing.

Setting off once more, Zoe quickly made it out of the trees. From here, it was mostly scraggly shrubs and creeping vines. After a dozen or so meters, she see all the way down to the bottom, as surveying all the mountains around. In fact, she was already higher than most of the other peaks.

Someone with a good eye and a bit of luck might be able to spot me from down the river. With that thought, Zoe decided to push herself even harder. While she suspected that the dangerous presence she now felt again from behind was already following her, there was still the chance it wasn’t, and was just headed towards the same target.

If that were the case, she didn’t want to be spotted.

So Zoe pushed her body even harder. For the first time since being corrupted, she actually felt like she was truly pushing her body to its physical limits of strength and power. She had been critically injured quite a few times, yes, but this was a different kind of exertion.

So along with {Kinetic Enhancement}, frequent dashes, and even boosts from raw {Kinetic Manipulation}, Zoe reached the mists of the cloud layer in just several minutes. The vegetation, while still present, had grown even sparser.

{Kinetic Enhancement has leveled up! Kinetic Enhancement is now level 8}.

Well that’s nice. Actually breathing hard from the workout, Zoe briefly stopped at a small ledge formed by some large, loose rocks just inside the misty white vapor. {Predator’s Eyes} and {Mana Manipulation} both informed her of a thick, concentrated mix of air, water, and a little ice mana. Funny, it’s quite a bit colder up here than down by the river. While part of that was probably just mundane altitude and lighting differences, there was no doubt natural magic involved as well.

Zoe could also feel the presence of her possible follower again. She was pretty sure that it was a single entity now, and also that it posed a significant threat, even to her. Significant as in, considerably more powerful and dangerous than the giant sloth. Something that could genuinely threaten her and not just Millie.

Briefly checking her status—she remembered getting a few notifications—she saw that she had leveled up to thirty-five and that she had actually gained a new ability.

{Arcane Reservoir - 1, Gold}

I think that was from the sloth. If that were the case, it would be the first instance of her {Devour} ability actually granting her something from consumed ‘traits.’ Zoe hoped it would give her some insight. Also Gold, huh? Seems not too bad.

She would have to experiment with whatever it was soon.

Finally preparing to resume her ascent and track down Millie, Zoe spared one last glance down at the landscape below. From her low position sheltered by the rocks, she suspected that she wasn’t herself visible—the mist actually obscured her own view a little bit.

A brief flash of brilliant gold caught her eye.

Suddenly alert, Zoe narrowed her eyes a the spot of the illumination. It was hard to make out from so far, and she would never have been able to spot it had it not been for the chance reflection of sunlight—but a small, humanoid figure was approaching along the riverbank.

The person turned out to be too far for Zoe to successfully appraise them. But when the light caught again and Zoe supplied {Predator’s Eyes} with additional mana, she had no doubt about what they were.

A paladin. It’s another god-damned paladin.