I glanced at the tir again, more out of habit than necessity.
[Ti left until the King's Gas begin: 1 week, 5 days]
[01:15:32 ]
[01:15:33]
[01:15:34]
The journey had taken more than 7 hours.
And also, two full days had passed.
I let the numbers sit there for a mont before dismissing the display. Ti was tightening around , not enough to panic, but enough to remind that every decision from here on out needed to be deliberate.
Gork glanced down at the map once more, tracing the rough markings with his finger, then lifted his head and scanned the terrain ahead.
"We should be close enough now," he said, voice steady despite his fatigue. "From high ground, we ought to be able to see their base."
I nodded once and activated [Warp], reappearing high above the canopy. The forest stretched endlessly beneath , a sea of green broken only by the occasional clearing or jagged outcrop of stone. I swept my gaze across the horizon, letting distance and elevation do the work for .
It didn't take long.
There it was.
A break in the natural pattern. Structures that didn't belong. Defensive placents that were just subtle enough to avoid casual detection, but obvious once you knew what to look for.
Bingo.
I warped back down to ground level in front of Gork.
"I see it."
He let out a breath he'd clearly been holding, shoulders sagging slightly as the tension drained out of him. For all his confidence earlier, part of him must have been worried that we'd miscalculated, that the landmarks had failed us, and we'd gone astray.
Knowing we hadn't eased him instantly.
"So," Gork said after a mont, rolling his shoulders as he straightened, "what's the plan?"
Hmm… the plan.
"I don't know yet," I admitted, my gaze still fixed ahead, "but I'll figure sothing out."
Gork shot an odd look at that, clearly not reassured, but to his credit, he didn't press further. I could tell the uncertainty was starting to weigh on him, though. Heading to enemy territory without a concrete plan, had a way of doing that.
"First things first," I continued, cutting off whatever concern was building in his head. "We're taking a short detour."
I turned west from where we stood, my attention locking onto sothing that had been tugging at the edges of my perception for a while now. At first, it had been nothing more than a faint pressure, easy to dismiss amid everything else. But now that we were this close, it was unmistakable.
Auras.
Not just one or two, but many of them, layered and overlapping, dense enough to distort the air in a way only powerful beasts could manage. They were gathered together, not scattered, which ant this wasn't random wildlife. It was either a nesting ground, a territorial congregation, or sothing worse.
Either way, it was an opportunity.
I was level 48 now, only two levels away from reaching level 50, the threshold that would trigger my class evolution. That alone made my decision easy. If I could evolve my class before confronting the rival clan, everything afterward would tilt further in my favor.
More power. More options.
Not that I lacked confidence, as I was.
With the number of abilities I possessed, the control I had over space itself, and the experience I'd already accumulated, I had every reason to believe I could handle what lies ahead.
I just wanted layers upon layers of safety to fall back on if things went sideways.
That was all.
Confidence was one thing, but insurance was another.
And evolution wasn't just a bonus; it was a force multiplier.
If I could secure it now, then whatever plan I ended up forming would rest on much firr ground.
Besides, I'd learned the hard way that there were still beings in this world I couldn't afford to underestimate. Creatures like Ariel's mother. The Overseer. Entities whose presence alone bent the air and reminded how far the ceiling really was.
They were leagues beyond .
And I didn't just want to survive them soday.
I wanted to surpass them.
"Detour?" Gork asked, confusion creeping into his voice. "Where are we..."
He didn't get to finish, as I activated [Warp] mid-sentence, locking onto the cluster of auras I'd been sensing and tearing us away from the rival clan's direction entirely. Space collapsed around us, the forest blurring into nothing, and the mont we reappeared airborne, I received a notification from my passive skill, [Finder], which automatically alerted whenever another Chosen was nearby.
Ding!
[A Drugar Chosen is in range]
I raised a brow.
A Chosen?
It couldn't be Gork, my [Finder] skill had already reacted to him the first ti we t and never again after that, so this had to be soone else.
I refocused on the auras.
Among the many pressing against my senses, one stood out sharply, its presence heavier, denser, and far more defined than the rest, as though whatever owned it was fully aware of its own power and had no reason to hide it.
I couldn't help but wonder if that particular aura belonged to the Chosen the system had just alerted about.
But there was no point in standing around and speculating.
The only way to know was to see it with my own eyes.
Gork, whom I had tucked under my arm as we warped, spoke suddenly, his voice tense.
"Chief… there's a Chosen nearby," he said, swallowing before adding, "and sothing else. Sothing… scary."
"I know," I replied calmly. "That's exactly where we're headed."
"What!!"
Once again, the word barely left his mouth before I warped again, space folding cleanly as we crossed the distance in an instant. We reappeared high above a clearing, the forest thinning out beneath us, and that was when I saw movent below.
What the hell...
I reacted imdiately, warping again without hesitation and setting us down on the thick branch of a massive tree overlooking the clearing, the leaves swallowing us before any eyes turned our way.
As soon as my feet found purchase, I released Gork and turned fully toward the source of the pressure that had been pulling at my senses for a while now.
Then I looked.
Really looked.
And for the first ti in a long while, my jaw dropped.
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