Vath couldn’t decide whether he liked traveling or hated it. It turned out that Lita had been planning on letting them go out on missions again after they had finished their first layer in second tempering; then the arena had happened, and she had insisted that they finish the second layer first. She’d even threatened to make it the third layer if they didn’t work hard or did something dumb again, so they’d been on their best behavior. It had taken a few more weeks to finish both layers, and they’d spent them much like the previous months. It had required modifying their cultivation method to account for the ratio they had, but that hadn’t been too difficult with guidance. The one major difference was that after a bit of cajoling, Wald and Lita had consented to bring in other disciples for them to spar with. They’d told them that the arena had shown them how limiting it was to only know how to fight three other people as well as they did, and that more variety would prepare them better. Which was true. But if they were being honest with themselves, they were just tired of having the same fights over and over.

Wald had acquiesced very easily, but Lita had only agreed under a condition. They would fight disciples in their stage one on one, but in exchange, the four of them would fight in a group against either Wald or Lita occasionally in the rotation. She claimed that it would help with their ability to fight as a group, that it would help them get used to fighting things of a higher stage, and that knowing when you can’t win is an important skill to have. The four were convinced that it was another punishment for mentioning the arena in a positive light.

With Wald, the four still couldn’t win, but there were a few times they pushed him hard enough that they could see victory as a possibility before he recovered his momentum and beat them. His ability to simply freeze and cancel techniques, and sometimes targeted parts of their own bodies, was simply terrifying, and they still didn’t know how he did that. His domain also seemed to restrict their movements and their essence, so perhaps it was an extension of that. Without those, they were confident that the four together could win most of the time, although one one one was still a distant goal. But with them? He had a hard counter to their largest attacks, and combining his domain with his superior attributes made him so much faster than even Kaser that it was almost luck when they did manage to land a solid blow. In all, he was a mountain in front of them. One they were sure they could climb in time, but they weren’t there yet.

Lita, though… If Wald was a mountain above them, Lita was the moon. She started every bout with them by releasing her domain on them and asking what they should do if they ever felt something like this elsewhere. It felt like they were slowly inching towards being erased. Like too long in that field would make them cease to exist, even though she claimed she was restraining it. So they answered the only thing that made sense, “Run.” Every time she indicated that that was the only answer she would accept, and then proceeded to prove that there was no running from someone like her at their current stage. Her attributes were so far beyond theirs that they could have combined them and still not reached her. She had a dozen techniques at least she was able to use, unless she was somehow doing all of this free form or through some other method they didn’t know. She flittered between them, never really striking, but unbalancing, forcing them out of their rudimentary formation, and making them stumble just as skills activated - which sent them careening off course if they activated at all. A few times they’d even hit each other with their techniques, and their crowning achievement was the one time the other three had distracted her just barely enough that Emara had singed the absolute edge of her robe with a bolt of lightning. It was the only time they’d managed to hit her across several dozen spars, after all. Still, they couldn’t say they hadn’t learned a lot in the last weeks, even against Lita.

They’d eventually all moved onto inscribing the third layer, and finally Lita let them go, although only with many more precautions than previous excursions had required. There had been numerous tests to confirm that the brothers truly couldn’t be tracked via essence technique or infused item, and when that was established, items had been procured to extend that protection to Emara and Dornah. They’d all been given healing items, emergency talismans to call for help, more provisions than they’d need for the length of the trip, the brothers had picked up their new weapons, and Lita had even slashed a hole in the air that managed to teleport them hours outside the sect to be sure that no one saw them leave. But finally, they were hunting again, and this time, they had something he was excited to find. It was a Void Beast, albeit a young one, and they were supposed to bring back its core. Fighting Beasts of your same affinity was a good way to work on mastering yours, and for Beastkin, one of the best ways to get items that would help with unlocking and advancing your bloodline, though neither was guaranteed, of course.

Which led to Vath’s current predicament. The end goal was enticing, and it was certainly refreshing to be out in nature again, without the restrictiveness of sect life. The freedom was easily the best part. The problem was, traveling was boring. Mile after mile of plodding down a road with nothing to look at but plants and trees got old very quickly. Sure, he had his brother and friends to keep him company, but they could only alleviate so much. Vath couldn’t wait until he could rip open portals like Lita or use some other advanced means of transport. Because two straight weeks of walking, with only similar scenery, small chats, and a tiny bit of training at night before sleeping to break up the monotony, was pure torture. The sect might have been restrictive and the same every day, but at least there had always been something to do, even if it was mostly more training.

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Thankfully, they were closing in on the reported demesne of the Beast they were hunting. They’d reach it today if they were lucky. Apparently the other three were bored too, because it took very little effort for Vath to convince them to pick up the pace so that they would reach it that day.

When they finally got close, it was near night, and, despite their impatience, none wanted to fight a Void Beast in the dark, so they settled in for one last night. They’d start hunting in earnest first thing in the morning, they decided. They finished one last bout of training, and tried to sleep. The morning came, and they rushed through breakfast and other early morning tasks before setting out into the forest. It didn’t take them long to find the first signs of a Void Beast; they were hard to miss. A large section of forest was simply missing pieces. Trees were dying not because of disease, but because huge chunks were simply missing out of their trunks. Huge divots existed in the ground, and there were no animal calls anywhere near the area. Even the river running straight through the area showed obvious signs of the Beast. This was what had tipped off the closest village that something was wrong. The river had odd pauses in its flow, and when a group of guards had been sent to discover what was causing it, they had taken one look at this desolation and ran back to call for sect assistance immediately. They’d actually somewhat lucked out, since Lita was looking for such an opportunity for them anyway. It might have even tipped the scales of her letting them leave.

Unfortunately, the guards hadn’t seen the Beast itself, so they didn’t know for sure what it was, but looking at this place, it had to be a Void Beast or something very close. Nothing else just removed things like this without leaving other signs or markings along with the destruction. But since they didn’t know what kind, they didn’t know where to start looking. The area was large, and wandering around was far from safe. On the other hand, it shouldn’t take more than a day or two to find even just by keeping an eye on the space. If it was destroying things in this large of a radius, it moved around a lot, either looking for food, or just because it liked the destruction.

It took more than a day before they spotted it, or rather, spotted the effects of its presence. They were near the river, and suddenly there was an interruption. It looked almost like a whirlpool was caused in the water for a moment, as if it was all being sucked to the same point. It didn’t last long, and they weren’t sure how a Void Beast had managed that, but it clearly wasn’t natural. For a moment they worried that it was a Water Beast or something like it, but no Water Beast would cause the kind of damage they had seen around.

When it finally climbed out of the river, they discovered they’d been half right. It was certainly a Void Beast, but it was more than comfortable in the water. It was a Voracious Gator. Empty Wolves were named for the fact that they were hard to find, and striking at the body of a high stage one was like striking empty air. The gators, on the other hand, were named because their stomachs were an endless void that could never be filled. That explained the wide range wandering despite the plentiful food in the river it was clearly making use of; there was still never enough for it.

It spotted them almost immediately and let out a rumbling hiss. The four spread out. It seemed content to wait for them to make the first move for the moment, but they were sure it wouldn’t last, so they didn’t dawdle. Dornah planted himself right in front of it, with Emara and Vath a distance to either side of him. Kaser flanked it as much as he felt he could get away with before drawing its aggression.

Dornah conjured his icy armor and a giant two handed hammer in the same material, and signaled the moment the others were ready to begin. The moment the signal was given, Emara and Vath released their ranged techniques. Emara’s hadn’t changed color despite mastering the technique, modifying it, and greatly improving her essence control. Her bolt had however grown quite a bit bigger and brighter, and it hit strong enough to make Dornah dodge when he could in spars, though she could still only throw one at a time. Vath focused on number and unexpected angles, though his potency was still notable. She, by contrast, focused on making one hit at a time hurt enough that blocking or dodging was simply required unless you outclassed her attributes by a wide margin. Even Wald didn’t take them head on without reason, though blocking and dodging was trivial for him if he wasn’t distracted.

Vath instead conjured half a dozen beams that shot out at the same time, and he noticed that a few even had small flashes of green in them. It was the strongest attack he’d thrown yet, and would do nearly as much damage as Emara’s if they all hit.

And then the four watched as the gator simply opened its mouth, a swirling nothingness in its jaws, and swallowed all seven attacks without a ripple of discomfort.

Vath was mesmerized. The sheer hunger of this Beast’s Void was entrancing. It resonated with him in a way that made him want to sit down and meditate on the insights that flooded his mind at that moment.

But his musing was interrupted by a quiet, “Shit.” from Dornah, followed immediately after by the Beast leaping straight at the giant in a blur.