Just four or five metres away from them, a large cat shaped Oren Beast, probably a panther, or a tiger, was crouching, creeping closer to them with each passing moment. If time, and initiative had been on their side, Alnea would have tried to identify the Oren Beast first, and then devise a strategy to tackle it. Unfortunately, time was not on their side. The Red Herring Grass… As he had thought, none of these blood grasses were of the good kind.

Cursing at the grass, Alnea was just about to move his hand towards his waist, where his sword was resting, when Yuri reached out and grabbed his hands. “Don’t move,” she said, staring right into his eyes. Only when he had gulped, and given his nod, did she release his hand, before turning towards Cecilia.

“You too, Cecilia. Don’t make any sudden movements. The Oren Beast has creeped too close to us. If it senses even the slightest hint of danger, it will not hesitate to attack us. I will be able to handle it if it comes at us physically, but most probably, it will launch its Innate Ability. Neither of you wants big sis Nyssa to come, save us, just a few moments after she has left, right?”

Both of them shook their head, trying their best to not give in to their natural impulses.

“An Oren Beast attacking us moments after master has left… Is this just a coincidence? Why did she not warn us about it before leaving? Don’t tell me that she did not even see the Beast…”

“Oh, she saw the Beast alright,” Yuri said. “Rather, she purposefully left us in the centre of a patch of Red Herring Grass… This is her way of testing us. She wants to see how aware we are, and how well we can adapt to changes… And of course, how well we can cooperate.”

“…Then what are we going to about the Beast?” Alnea said, holding his hands in death grip, afraid that if left unchecked, it would dash towards the hilt of his sword. Even Cecilia was beginning to feel a bit itchy, and kept repeatedly cracking her knuckles. Only Yuri was as calm as ever, as if her nerves were made of Abyssal Cores, one of the toughest metals in existence. “Can I at least draw out my dagger?”

“No,” Cecilia said, shaking her head. “Yuri is right. The Beast… It is too close to us right now, waiting for the right moment to strike, but it would not wait for too long. Even slight movements that would make it think that we know of its existence will trigger it. Once that happens…”

“Then how are we going to deal with it?”

“Weapons are out of question… And your Arcana is too conspicuous.”

“You have already created an Arcana?”

“Not now, Cecilia. We will talk about it later.”

“Right…”

“…So, as I was saying, your Arcana is too conspicuous. Prepare your Spirit Piercing Needles instead. The Three Turn ones. And try to make them as strong as possible.”

“Okay.”

“As for you, Cecilia… have you created an Arcana yet?”

“I have… but it might also be little conspicuous. I have some other Arcanas from my clan—

“No. This is a training… and a test. Using Martial Styles is one thing, but using Arcanas... It would be best if we only use Arcanas that we ourselves have created.”

“…I understand.”

“Do you have an Aspects?”

“…I have one, but it has not been long since I tamed it, so I am not very proficient in its usage.”

“That’s fine. Wait for my signal, and then make sure to use the Martial Style that is best suited for that Aspect. Just try to deal as much damage to the Beast as possible.”

“…I can do that much.”

“Alright then,” Yuri said, before turning back to him. “We will be waiting for you, Alnea. Shoot your needles at the Beast when you are ready… or when it attacks. Whichever comes first.”

“…Got it,” Alnea said, before closing his eyes to better concentrate on his Spirit. The sooner he finished preparing, the sooner they would take the initiative. So, he did not waste time condensing the Oren threads one unit of Spirit Power at a time. Channelling Oren to the limits of his capacity, he quickly shaped all that Oren into two giant threads, and circulated them around his Spirit. They were large, and cut into his Spirit deeply, making him recall the familiar feeling of the fiery knives shredding his Spirit into pieces. But he held on.

Compared to the pain he was used to dealing with the when Forging his Spirit with the Art of Spirit Rebirth, the pain from the Spirit Piercing Needles almost felt like a tickle. Maybe a little more than a tickle, but at best, it just made him sweat a little. And even that was because how much Oren he was using. After all, this was the first time he was using the Three Turns Spirit Piercing Needles after reaching the False Rank. Rather, with how large the threads were, each condensed from over thirty units of Spirit Power each, it would have been more appropriate to call them as Spirit Piercing Daggers at this point.

Alnea quashed that thought as soon as it came to him. He could not afford to be distracted. The situation was very urgent. Of course, that did not mean he could skip the steps of the Art. He could not afford to make any mistake. And so, as the moment ticked by, he kept concentrating on his Spirit, forcing the threads of Oren to pass through every part of his Spirit, managing to complete their three circulations just in time as the Beast looked ready to pounce on them.

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However, before it could jump at the girls, Alnea turned towards the Beast, and pointed his hands at it. In the next moment, two slightly deformed blobs of Oren, larger than his palms, and with a slightly orangish hue, shot forward from his hands. Thankfully, the startled Beast had jumped before he had released the needles, making it unable to change its trajectory. And as he had predicted, the blobs of Oren reached the beast before it could cover even half of the distance between them.

The beast, taking the blobs of Oren to be just a normal attack of its enemy, tried to swat them away with its paws. Unfortunately for the beasts, the blobs of Oren were not like any other attacks it had faced before. They may be a little different in shape than his usual Spirit Piercing Needles, but they carried the same piercing power. As such, instead of being brushed off by the Beast’s paw, his Needles continued forward, and drilled their ways into the Beast’s head.

Normally, that would not have been much of a problem for the Beast. The Three Turns Spirit Piercing Needles was just a pseudo Art, after all. That too, of the Seed Rank. In contrast, the Beast was an Adolescent Stage Oren Beast. Such weak attacks would be of no use against it. That was unless he used an excessive amount of Oren, so much so, that the pain from the resultant explosion would be large enough to cause even an Adolescent Stage Oren Beast to waver, and whimper in pain.

And it did whimper in pain. The needles, if they could even still be called as such, were so fast, while the Beast was so close, that it did not even have the time to react to the attacks, before they were already colliding in his head, erupting in a collision of Mysteries. And in the next moment, the Beast, which was just about to reach for their necks with its claws, was down on the ground, whimpering in pain.

No matter how much pain it was feeling though, it was still an Adolescent Stage Oren Beast. A couple of moments after it had fallen down, it was already back on its feet, backing away from them, with a little wobble in its steps. It looked like the Beast was still a bit dizzy from the attack, and wanted to regain its balance before attacking. However, neither Cecilia, nor Yuri were willing to let the Beast go so easily.

“Now!” Yuri yelled at Cecilia, who nodded in response, before rushing towards the wobbly Beast. Meanwhile, Yuri herself took out a Glyph Disc from somewhere in her robe. Or was it from a storage device? Alnea could not see clearly. Maybe the side effect of using such large Needles was much stronger than he had thought. In any case, while he was still reeling from his headache, the two girls started taking care of the Beast.

“Prepare your Arcana, Alnea!”

“Right,” Alnea said, gritting his teeth, before facing towards the Beast. Cecilia had not let it run too far away from them. And it was also being illuminated from the green glow that was coming from Cecilia’s fists. That made it easy for him to make out its rough shape, and position. It would be hard to take aim in such conditions, and even hard to hit. The Beast would not just stand in place to let him hit it with his Nightmare Arrow. But that did not matter. At the moment, they were a team.

So, listening to command of his leader, Alnea concentrated on his Spirit, and began siphoning copious amount of Oren from the Origin Sea once again.

“Beyond the veil of the Night…”

It increased his headache a little, especially since he was not drawing Oren in a gradual manner, but was taking in large chunks, before shaping it all in the form of an arrow.

“Where the world slumbers just past her sight…”

But that also allowed him to cast his Arcana in the fastest way possible, so it evened out a little. Probably.

“I call forth the embers of the darkness…”

After he was done shaping the arrow, he reached out to the Mystery within the Origin Sea, and summoned it, letting it engulf the arrow in front of him, and seep into it, forming a Nightmare Arrow.

“To drown my enemies in the Nightmare of their madness.”

And with the addition of a blob of Oren at its tail end, the Arcana was ready. That was much faster than he had expected. Maybe those ten days of relentless using the Arcana were not a complete waste.

“I am ready,” Alnea said, glancing at Yuri, who was still carving some Glyph on her Glyph Disc. “…Will this work though?”

“You do not have to worry for that,” Yuri said, while continuing to carve the Glyph. “Just fire the arrow when I say so, and make sure that you hit.”

“That’s the point,” Alnea said. “The Beast… It is moving too much. I don’t think that I can hit it like this.”

“Like I said, you do not have to worry about that,” Yuri said, finally putting away the carving knife from her hand, before looking at him with a solemn expression. “Just make sure that your aim is true. You can do that, right?”

“…I can.”

“Good,” Yuri said, before turning towards Cecilia in the distance. “Step away from it, Cecilia! And get ready to deliver the final blow.”

“I am always ready!” Cecilia yelled back with a laugh. It looked like she was having a fun time fighting with the Beast. The Beast, on the other hand, did not look so amused. It had many places on its body where Cecilia had managed to wound it. Not too seriously, but enough to draw blood. The Spirit Piercing Needles had done their job, it seemed, and had given Cecilia the advantage she needed to take on the Beast by herself.

But as the fight wore on, and with the Beast beginning to make its counterattack, that advantage had lessened a little. And so, when Cecilia retreated, the Beast did not wish to let go, and chased after her, growling, and snapping its jaws at her. Unfortunately for the Beast, Yuri was already prepared for it.

With a thought from her mind, and Oren as fuel, the Glyph Disc began glowing in a greyish black light, which, at first, seemed indistinguishable from its dark surroundings. On a closer look though, the greyish light seemed capable of even making the darkness withdraw from around itself. As if the darkness was afraid of the greyish light. And the darkness that did not withdraw in time, just simply melted away. Or was it assimilated by the fog that came out from the Disc? No, it was…

“Now, Alnea!”

Yuri’s yell broke Alnea away from the daze that the grey fog had brought him in, just as he saw the grey fog wrapping around the Beast’s legs, trapping it in place. There were so many things he wished to ask, things he wished to know. But it was not the time to think about them. So, the moment he came back to his senses, he aimed his Nightmare Arrow at the Beast, and let it fly. Right on time, it seemed.

The moment that Alnea let his arrow fly, the Beast sensed the danger, and looked towards the arrow. Flying in rage, and frustration, it tried desperately to get rid of the bond, and even managed to succeed. But only when the arrow had struck it. It was quite a close call thought. Just a moment’s delay, and the Beast would have managed to dodge the arrow. Thankfully, he had not indulged himself with his thoughts. And neither did the girls.

“Finish it, Cecilia!”

“On it!”