It was half past seven when hell broke loose on the Diktyo River rapids, three hours south of the Arithiel Pond, where I would evolve my core. It had only been ten hours since we left Aiden behind on our journey to Tranea Crypt with Kyro, our Drokai guide, and the migrating beasts were already attacking us.

Kyro woke up and yelled, “What the hell’s going on?” as the canoe suddenly rocked to the side, nearly pushing his tiny fairy body into the river of souls.

“Shut up!” I yelled as I pulled back Nymbral’s string and assessed my enemies. There was a pack of carnivorous goats bucking on the riverbank, with one the size of a bulldozer sporting sharp teeth that could bite through a small car like a can opener. All of them were yapping and bahing and kicking around dust as they jumped in the water, then bounded out again.

The second evs couldn’t handle the fog above the river, but their mother was more than capable. She was a third ev, and the only thing keeping her hesitant was Kline, who was sitting on the back of the boat, growling at her ominously, preparing to strike.

Suddenly, she released a massive battle cry and charged. I slowed time and created a hurricane arrow (as I was calling it) by creating a bolt of mana with spinning water at the tip. It was weak and hasty without time to speed up, so I yelled, “Close your—”

I didn’t get to say the word “eyes” to Kyro before she hit the river with the force of a tsunami. Even with the world slowed, she moved with terrifying speed, so I panicked and increased the output threefold before releasing it. The arrow burst with light and blasted right through the waves, turning them to steam before slamming into her right thigh. It didn’t puncture her leg, but it was enough to break her leg with a resounding snap, sending her flying forward with a splash.

The splash sent the whole canoe flying, tumbling underwater. It hit two rocks and almost slammed our heads onto the ground if I weren’t using magic to control it.

With a huge push, I used a spell to right the ship. It was full of water, but I used Separation to pull it out en masse and shoot it in random directions.

Kline clambered to the hull like a weak kitten, eyes filled with terror as his claws cut into the wood. As for Kyro, the half-drunk, half-hungover fairy who had just been blasted in the eyes with Nymbral’s flash before getting slingshotted into the river, flew out of the Diktyo like a flopping salmon, rocketing into the sky before screaming, “Fuck off!” at the top of his lungs.

I thought he was talking to me, but when I turned around, I saw the third ev had gotten up, unfazed by the fog or attack and started rushing at us on three legs from behind.

Kyro seemingly teleported above the beast’s head. He raised his tiny hands, and a glowing magic circle formed in the sky above the beast in this large net. The next moment, a crushing force hit the mother goat from above. The impact was so severe that it left a crater in the river.

The goat cried out in pain, but Kyro wasn’t finished. He created dozens of spears of raw aura that lit up like beacons in my vision and thrust them down on the beast like an iron maiden.

It was terrifying. Those spears would have punctured me like toothpicks in a strawberry. Unfortunately, the spears barely broke the hide of the beast, dramatically proving that skill only went so far. The curse suppressing Kyro’s power was, in fact, devastating.

That said, Kyro didn’t give up. He yelled in frustration, creating a dozen more spears that he flung into the goat’s eyes, eyes, nostrils, and mouth. It was brutal.

“You should probably pay attention,” Lithco said beside me. He had been teaching me how to navigate the boat with magic in case I needed to fight for the last two hours, and he apparently decided to stay and drink tea during the chaos like a fucking asshole.

Still—he was right.

Battle cries sounded all around us, and I found myself shooting small arrows into the goat’s offspring. I killed one, two—three. I thought I’d be useless with the bow, but I wasn’t. It wasn’t that hard when I could slow time and control the trajectories with my mind.

Kline had also joined the battle. He was like a god of death, taking out his embarrassment for clambering onto the boat like a kitten by ripping out a beast’s spine.

It was a mess, and before long, it was already over.

The mother goat released a harrowing cry, and her children turned to her in fear before disappearing into the forest.

I watched them leave with my heart drumming in my ears. The pressure was unbearable.

I thought I’d stay that way forever, but Kyro flew into the canoe in a panic, holding his empty bag that he had his brandy jars in. He rummaged around with savage ferocity.

“Where are they?” he cried.

“Calm down,” I said.

“Don’t you tell me to calm down.”

“Calm down.” I pulled off my backpack and unzipped it and pulled out a jar of amber liquid. “It’s right here. I figured this would happen.”

His eyes widened. “Oh, thank Yakana.” He reached out for the jar, but I pulled it back.

“You’re thanking the wrong person.”

“Oh, thank the River Guardian.”

I didn’t hand it to him and he huffed and flew past me, sitting on the bow with his arms folded, pouting like a child. “I refuse to thank you.”

“Seriously?” I asked dryly.

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“Yes, I refuse. You didn’t wake me up when there was danger, then you screamed at me and blasted me in the eyes with your light beam without warning.” He lifted a core in his tiny hands. It wasn’t a sunrise, but it was London blue topaz, at the very least, dark and rich. “I saved you from certain death—so we’re even. The least you can do is give me my booze.”

“Hoh? Well, I saved your alcohol from oblivion.”

He huffed.

Kline jumped into the boat, and I dried him off with Desiccation and released him to the back of the canoe again.

“Look, if you want a sorry, you won’t get one. Beasts’ve been tracking us for the last six hours. How the hell was I supposed to know when they’d attack?”

Kyro wiped his eyes and looked around. There were dozens of beasts stalking us in the forest, slinking in the shadows, waiting to strike. It was obvious.

“Ugh…” He clasped his face.

“See? Don’t blame me for getting drunk and passing out in a war zone.”

Kyro fell silent and sat on the bow, clasping his forehead, drinking from his flask. It left me feeling grumpy, so when he looked back at me ten minutes later, I had a mean mug, and he turned back. Five minutes after that, he did the same and got the same result. For the next hour, this went on and on until he was sufficiently drunk and capable of rational thinking, and guilt laced his gaze. His glances back became more frequent until he finally looked at the tiny core in his hands and sighed.

“Sorry. This one was my bad.” He threw it to me.

I caught it and stared at it almost guiltily. I only wanted an apology, but I couldn’t give it back without looking like I was refusing him. So instead, I said, “Here,” I handed him his alcohol, and he kissed the jar, hugging it like a climate change activist who chained themselves to a tree.

Only then did we move on. He looked at me for the first time, sitting there calmly as we floated downstream.

“Wait,” he said. “Where’s the oar?”

“In its cubby.”

“Then how are you navigating?”

“Magic.” I looked at the beasts. “Figured I’d need both hands to defend us, so I boughta spell to stabilize and navigate the canoe. It’s been smooth for an hour. That’s probably why you fell asleep.”

“Wait…” He furrowed his brow. “Are you saying you learned magic when I was awake?”

“Yeah. Well, kinda. You looked like Huck Finn with your fingers laced behind your head, blubbering drunkenly about how much you missed… whatever you said. But yeah.”

“First off, I’m not sure who that is, but I’m offended,” he declared. “Second off, I’m asking how. Just your guide?”

I frowned and looked to my left and saw Lithco in an identical boat to mine. He looked at me and then brewed a new cup of tea for sarcastic effect. It was like he was punishing me for ignoring him and was working hard to make up for lost time.

“Yeah. I can buy just about any spell I want and do so at will. It even teaches me. Albeit poorly.”

“That’s rude,” Lithco said. Kyro looked at him but saw nothing. He was all in my mind.

“I see…” Kyro said grimly. He put the brandy into my backpack and then returned to the front, stripping off his peacoat-style coat and wringing it out. He made it look unbearably difficult.

I sighed and flicked my hands, and all the water drained from his clothing, running in streams off the canoe into the river.

“Thank~you,” he said. Then he looked up with a serious expression. “Spells at will. Knowledge. Communication… If that thing wanted to conquer this forest, it would.”

“Lucky for you, I can’t,” Lithco said, sipping his tea. “The families monopolize resources, so everyone who comes here’s pretty useless. Well, unless they’re an upper who’s willing to tank the drain. But those’re quite rare and often ineffective.”

“Mira?” Kyro looked between dead space and then me. “Everything good.”

I thought about telling him that my Guide was a “real” human, but I felt that personifying the threat to Areswood Forest would make things worse, so I said, “Yeah. Just zoning out.”

Kyro narrowed his eyes and then sat down again, immediately grabbing his flask and looking into the distance with a pensive gaze. We continued on.

The next hour was spent in silence, with Kyro watching the second and third evolution beasts stalking us from the shadows. They decreased in number, but they doubled in size as we approached the mana vein under Arithiel Pond. The mana density increases, and the milky fog over the water became thicker, with the color and texture of whipped cream.

“We should stop for the night,” I said.

“Stop?” Kyro asked. “Here?”

“Yeah. I sent out a request to Elana to help me with my core and said she’s free tomorrow morning.”

“That your other god?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck…” Even if Kyro hated every human and god in the multiverse, he understood that the advice and power of a god wasn’t something someone should discard. It was the best move.

“Yeah…” I said.

“So… you seriously wanna sleep here?”

I pulled out the blue core and my ward, which was tied in with the paddle. “We’ll be fine.”

Kyro shrugged. “Okay…”

We stopped and set up camp at the river bank, putting the blue core into the ward before setting up a fire and eating. It was a peaceful night, at least while we were awake, so we sat around under the moonlight, swapping stories and listening to the fire.

It was simple, but something was hanging over the conversation, and Kyro’s face turned increasingly grave.

“What is it?” I finally asked.

“It’s just…” Kyro looked at me. “If this afternoon reminded me of anything, it’s that my body’s limitations are… “ He took a deep breath. “Frustrating. And once you start evolving… you can’t stop. Otherwise, you’ll permanently damage your core. So we only got one shot at this, and we’ll be relying on Kline.”

I froze. “Oh… you can’t stop evolving, he says. Tell me, Kyro. When the hell were you going to tell me this? Actually, why the hell are we even out here? If I knew this, I would’ve evolved downstream.”

I felt partially responsible for not doing research, but I had a demi-god, an actual god, and Lithco to help me evolve, so it wasn’t like I was going to prioritize that in the hellish week I had. So I put all the blame on Kyro—but he shot it all right back.

“You do realize we’re crossing into the Fifth Ring, right? These… pets…” He flicked his hands to the large beasts watching us with reflective eyes in the darkness. “Pale in comparison to a fourth ev. That beast that shrugged off your arrow is like a defenseless child against a fourth evolution beast, and unlike these beasts, the enemies we’ll be facing don’t have any rationality. The only thing that’ll save you right now is raw power and a prayer. So if we can’t do this, you might as well submit yourself to Thorvel.”

I closed my eyes, remembering how much Kyro fought against going to the Crypt—how adamant he was that it was a suicide mission—so I couldn’t blame him on that front.

“So what’re we gonna do?” I asked.

Kyro sent me a skin-crawling smile. I didn’t like it. Not one bit.