Ryker slipped into the forest and immediately turned his Spirit Energy usage way down. Relying on [Divined Steps], he slipped through the trees in unpredictable ways, using the terrain advantage to quickly increase the distance.

In the back of his mind, though, he was worried about a few things.

He was cautious not by nature, but necessity. He never took anything for granted, and the first 18 years of his life had forced those happenings down into his very bones. It could be said that he was practically obsessive about it.

Thanks to this, he didn’t dismiss Ravenna despite the fact he had assumed that he could defeat her quite easily. As such, he had already left the Shadow Clan in a state where normal communication could continue for months without Ravenna being any wiser about the true state of her Clan.

The problem, though, was that with Ravenna’s strength, those sorts of schemes were meaningless. If intelligence was enough to rise up in the world, Ryker wouldn’t have been treated so poorly by his family for so long.

When you were dealing with someone of this level of strength, they could easily step outside the box you tried to confine them in. This made things… especially troubling for Ryker.

On the one hand, if he went all out and tried to kill her but failed in the end, she might have more reason to contact the Shadow Clan and the contingencies he had left in place might fall through.

On the other, if he just focused on escaping, her curiosity about his identity would once again lead her to contacting the Shadow Clan.

The only path seemed to be to not only do his best to kill her, but to also make sure he succeeded. But that…

How could he guarantee that?

‘There’s only one way… but would she be so foolish?’

Ryker’s gaze sharpened and the polished edges of his [Divined Step] movement technique dulled somewhat.

[Divined Step] was best applied in the heat of battle. It could read an opponent’s movements and find the path to survive and evade it, or counter and attack a weakness.

Its second best application was precisely in these sort of dense forests where agility and sudden changes of movement were king.

It might be lacking in pure straight-line speed, but here it was unmatched.

Even so, Ryker dulled it a bit, starting to make “mistakes”.

In the eyes of others, his steps were still exquisite. But it was like he was playing a game of chess, and rather than picking the top move, he was picking the second and third every time.

His consistency was unmatched and Ravenna was swiftly gaining. He had already seen through the fact her straight-line speed was far beyond his, but her agility was very much lacking.

Every time Ravenna was close, Ryker would burst forward with his Spirit Energy, slipping out of her hands.

‘He will run out of Spirit Energy soon,’ Ravenna thought to herself. ‘The fact he’s already displayed it this much though… is he harming his foundation to go this far? And what is this movement technique, how can he be so agile?’

Ryker described Ravenna as un-agile, but she didn’t carry the same assessment of herself. In fact, she didn’t believe that it was that she was lacking, but rather that Ryker was too monstrous.

The more she saw of this, the more certain she was that he was from the Enlightened Empire. But why was he here?

Of course, there was a sliver of hope that he wasn’t… which was precisely why she hadn’t struck out to kill just yet.

Time ticked by and they moved deeper and deeper into the forest. Ravenna was shocked to find that they hadn’t run into a single beast the entire time. Logically, with the sort of population concentration in the Enlightened Wilderness, the odds of running into one should have been practically 100%.

‘Something is fishy…’ Ravenna frowned.

Suddenly, the surfboard of darkness beneath her faltered and her large eyes sparkled.

Her Spirit Energy?

It had been so long since Ravenna fought a long, drawn-out battle that she didn’t even realize that she was chewing through her Spirit. It was like she had been in the middle of a marathon, only to suddenly hit a wall that could either stop her and force her to quit, or she would have to burst right through.

She looked toward Ryker’s back in complete shock. Just how had his Spirit seemingly lasted even longer than her own? How did this make any sense?

‘No, I have to capture him now.’

She had to move before her spirit energy ran out. A fair palm reached out and she slapped at the ground. It only seemed to be a lit pat, delicate even.

Ryker sensed the energy ahead of time and his steps flickered and changed, he weaved into and out of the line of the palm’s strike.

Lines of trees had their bark scraped off, some of the smaller ones directly snapping in two beneath the might. By the time it reached Ryker, the strength had dissipated enough to return the First Ascended level.

Ryker pivoted in the air after launching himself forward. He wrapped chains around his fist and punched out.

BANG! BANG!

His speed accelerated beneath the added moment, disappearing through several lines of trees. If not for her Domain, Ravenna would have lost track of him entirely.

Her eyes opened wide in sock. Just who was this child?

She shook her head, shuttling forward even faster. She could feel her Spirit Energy dwindling away, but for an expert of her caliber, even a sliver was enough to raze a city to the ground, let alone deal with Ryker. If she didn’t have such extravagant Spirit Energy habits, this would have never happened.

Just as she was about to prepare another attack, she sensed a second aura.

‘Beast. 9th Enlightenment Realm?’

Her expression changed. Running into beasts was fine, but running into a 9th Enlightenment Realm beast when they were still so close to the edge of the forest was ridiculous. Was it really a coincidence?

She flashed forward, following after Ryker, only to find him slipping past a whipping stretch of vine and zipping by the tortoise beast as though it wasn’t even there. She tried to evade as well, but she quickly found that maybe she had been wrong about her agility all along… maybe it wasn’t so good after all.

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Without a choice, she could only strike out a palm, partially shattering the shell of the beast and sending it flying.

This happened again, and then again. It seemed Ryker was capable of finding all the 9th Enlightenment Realm beasts in the forest, and every time, because they saw her as the greatest threat, they would act against her first.

It was absolutely infuriating.

At first, she was just curious. But by this point, a bit of a temper she thought she had long since lost began to bubble up once again.

However, she forced it down. If she really ran out of Spirit Energy in the middle of this forest, even she would be in danger.

Just when she thought of turning around, Ryker came to a stop, seemingly heaving for breath. She appeared over him, frowning and just about to say something when a flash of silver blue appeared first.

The chains appeared around her Spirit Beast holding pouch first. She was shocked when she suddenly realized that she couldn’t communicate with the beasts inside any longer.

‘What ability is this? A Spiritual Resonance?’

However, it was too bad. Beatrice was still on her shoulder. This little boy was making the same mistake as everyone else, assuming the beautiful butterfly was harmless—

An aura the likes of which shook her heart to its core.

Ryker’s fatigue seemed to vanish into thin air as he layered his Divined Chains with Temporal Weave. A burst of power erupted and the region around the butterfly was suddenly sealed off.

‘I don’t have much time,’ Ryker thought to himself.

He had been able to decipher the Spiritual Patterns of the beast pouch with ease. He had seen many of them before by now, and it was a single, unchanging object. Sealing it off and not allowing Ravenna to call forth more beasts was easy.

However, sealing a living thing was far more complex. Usually, you could only seal a few aspects of it. For example, stopping a creature from using a particular skill or talent.

Just now Ryker hadn’t done that. He used a general purpose seal to block off the space around the creature, and it had taken his body from a state of faked fatigue to true fatigue.

Using his Spiritual Resonances normally had little impact on him, but synergizing them like that made him feel just like anyone else who used their Spiritual Resonance… like he was a beached whale.

There was no other choice. It was either he go all out now or he risked Ravenna retiring to the Shadow Clan, and he certainly wouldn’t allow the latter.

With a step, he rushed forward. His lungs screamed, but his body exploded forward once again. His Wind Type Spirit Energy swapped for Fire Type Spirit Energy and he pooled his Time Type Spirit Energy into his body.

A wave of flames followed his fists, piercing through the air like an arrow and shriveling up the surrounding shrubberies as though it had evaporated all of the moisture from the air in an instant.

Ravenna shook off her shock. After being played by Ryker again and again, much of her rust was being forcefully shaken off. She realized by this point that she had no choice but to take this boy seriously.

Her eyes glowed with a sudden violet light and she slapped out shattering the arrow of flames as though it was made of wet tissue paper.

However, even now, Ryker managed to catch her by surprise once again.

He continued coming forward despite her attack. He used [Divined Step], stepping to the side and taking the blow right into his left shoulder. But even as his collarbone and chest erupted into a rain of blood, his body pivoted and spun, not allowing the attack to slow his forward momentum by much.

He walked through the rain of shattered flames that obstructed her vision and appeared right in front of her. Even though she hovered on a surfboard of darkness, their height difference was such that they looked into one another’s eyes on a perfect level.

The next thing Ravenna saw was a fist wrapped in chains rushing for her face.

“That’s enough!” Ravenna spoke for the first time, her temper finally flaring out of control.

A wave of pressure slammed against Ryker and sent him flying, his body nearly collapsing beneath the pressure.

Ravenna’s chest heaved, her unhappiness flickering in her eyes. To think she had been pushed to this extent by a little boy, how could she not be furious? Was it really a mistake for her to abstain from battle for so long?

“Huh?”

The sense of danger came too late. She tried to pull on her Spirit Energy, only to find nothing more than wisps to pull upon.

A towering pressure crashed down from behind her, shattering her surfboard of darkness and pressing her into the soft soil. However, the position was anything but comfortable.

Her body was too suppressed to look back, but her Domain picked up an enormous, behemoth of a creature.

ROAR!

Its three heads roared at her, practically shattering her eardrums.

BANG!

Beatrice the butterfly managed to shatter its way out of Ryker’s seal. The entire sequence hadn’t lasted even five seconds, and yet it was still too late.

The little butterfly fluttered around anxiously, but every time it tried to get close, Phoenix would press down into Ravenna’s body harder and the whimpers would force it back.

Phoenix’s weight was already enough to crush a person into minced meat. In reality, the only thing protected Ravenna’s body from such a state was her Second Ascended status.

Ryker coughed up a mouthful of blood and forced himself up, propping his back up with a tree.

“Son of a bitch…” he cursed beneath his breath. He really didn’t think he’d end up in such a state so quickly after the first time. It had only been a couple weeks since Auberon left him in a sorry mess, now here he was again. “… I need to break through to the Ascended Realm as quickly as possible.”

He was exceptional at crossing levels to do battle, no one could deny that. But the problem was that there was a qualitative gap between the Enlightenment and Ascended Realms that made it difficult to bridge the gap.

If he was a First Ascended, it was likely that even an Elevated from this world would be no match for him. But despite being in the Peak 9th Enlightenment Realm now, a mere Second Ascended, who had severely underestimated him for that matter, had left him in such a state.

Ryker took a breath and forced himself to stand. With a tap to his waist, he pulled out what looked like a meatball and popped it into his mouth. Quite quickly afterward, his wounds began to heal, and when he circulated his Time Type Spirit Energy, he was practically back to peak condition in an instant.

‘Looks like I was right,’ Ryker grinned.

Giving up his lifespan just to heal wasn’t worth it at all. But what if he used his status as a Spiritual Cook to form pill-balls of condensed Combat Type Spirit Energy. If he used it normally, his body would just implode from all the excess energy. But if he used his Time Type Spirit Energy, he could forcefully flatten the curve and commandeer the energy for his injuries.

He hadn’t been 100% certain of its success until now, but things had worked out perfectly, and he had the Divine Daggers to thank once more.

Their Spiritual Patterns were capable of sucking a beast dry and leaving nothing but a pile of ash-bone. Studying some of those patterns to find a method of concentrating a beast’s blood into a meat pill wasn’t too difficult with Ryker’s skill.

“Tell your Spirit Beast to calm down. I will not hurt you or it, I only want to restrict you because I can’t have you running around.”

As he spoke, Ryker snapped his fingers and the forest around them became a sphere of crisscrossing silver-blue chains.

The moment they took shape, Ravenna’s attempts to replenish her Spirit Energy fell flat. She was entirely helpless.

“I have no desire to hurt such a beauty,” Ryker chuckled, “so how about you listen to me? If you end up dying, then I’d have to deal with your enraged beast. It would be a lose-lose, don't you think? But this way, I won’t kill you nor humiliate you, so you can rest assured.”

Ravenna hesitated before she realized that Ryker was correct. If he had such sinister intentions, whether she told her beast to calm down or not would hardly matter. She was already at his mercy, after all.

It was only after Ravenna whispered a few words to her beast that it stopped flying around so frantically.

Ryker took a seat on the forest floor, looking into the struggling Ravenna’s eyes.

“You’re quite powerful,” Ryker said after a long while, “I didn’t think I’d run into someone of your caliber. Care to share how you grew so strong? It can’t be a coincidence.”

Ravenna’s gaze flickered, a familiar pair of eyes flashing in her mind again. Her gaze dimmed and various emotions flashed. Ryker distinctly picked up hints of guilt and humiliation, making him even more curious.

After a moment, Ryker decided to check what was on her, and to his surprise…

Ryker pulled out a familiar dagger, it was sleek and inconspicuous, but even if it was burnt to ash, he would recognize it just the same.

It was another Divine Dagger.

‘Did she use it to increase her talent? If she did, that would be very unfortunate… but if she only used it to increase her cultivation, that would be good.’

Ryker shook his head. He didn’t really care one way or another, honestly. It was just that he was hoping he had found a rare talent. If her soul talent was built off the back of this faulty treasure, then his interest in her could be said to have waned considerably.

But then again, though her cultivation was so high, her talent seemed to only be at the 5th Circle. Logically, if she was using it to increase her talent, especially considering the progress she had made cultivation wise, she should have been a 6th Circle talent at worst.

‘There are still too many variables, no need to expose how much I know about the Divine Daggers to her just yet. Even if she’s restrained, who knows if she might slip from my fingers later.’

“Alright, we’re going on an adventure.”

Ryker bound Ravenna with chains and hoisted her onto Phoenix’s back. Like this, an unlikely group strolled through the forests, headed to its core.