The Fox woman's eyes remained locked onto mine, the space around her still frozen under my control. For several long seconds she did not blink, and I began to consider whether the faint residue I had sensed was rely incidental contact rather than allegiance.
Then she blinked once. Her pupils did carry so fear but I observed a hint of smirk forming on her face.
"I will tell you about the Star," she said finally.
The mont the word left her mouth, a circle flared to life beneath my feet. I had not detected it during my initial scan, nor had there been any visible runes etched into the floor or lingering in the air. Reacting instantly, I expanded my perception again, this ti probing deeper rather than wider. That was when I noticed them, three small Feran figurines placed casually around the shop, arranged in what had seed like decorative symtry. They were not ornants at all. Each of them was embedded with concealed spatial triggers, and together they ford a precise triangular anchor formation. The teleportation circle had not been carved into the ground; it had been projected and sustained through those three objects, perfectly masked until activation.
It ignited instantly, a layered spatial formation unfolding faster than even my Psynapse could dissect.
I did not waste ti attempting to overpower it.
The circle activated. Space folded and the shop vanished from before my eyes.
I arrived standing on cracked earth.
Dry wind swept across a barren landscape, carrying dust that had long since lost the scent of life. The sky above was dim. The ground was fractured in jagged lines that stretched toward a horizon where nothing grew and nothing moved.
It was a dead planet and I stood on a dead battlefield.
Before stood three figures.
They were already waiting.
A stone-bodied Elental stood in the center, brown veins of energy pulsing steadily beneath his surface. To his right stood a Feran woman, feathers framing her shoulders. To his left stood a lightning Elental, arcs of blue electricity flickering lazily around her arms.
The stone Elental spoke first.
"We were beginning to wonder if you would take the bait," he said, his voice deep and steady.
"So this was Selara's purpose," I replied calmly, scanning the area once more. "A trap."
The Feran woman tilted her head slightly. "A filtration net," she corrected. "You move unpredictably. It was only a matter of ti before you searched for a thread. We simply made sure the thread led sowhere useful."
I extended my perception outward, searching for concealed presences, hidden domains, layered formations.
"Are you the only three here?" I asked.
The lightning Elental smiled faintly. "Is that concern I hear?"
"No," I answered evenly. "It determines how much effort I will use."
The stone Elental's veins pulsed brighter.
"You have caused us asurable damage," he said. "A relay destroyed. Multiple Tier assets erased. Our envoy is displeased."
"And yet you are still aligning with the Eternals," I replied. "Why betray your own universe?"
The Feran woman's expression hardened slightly.
"Betrayal implies obligation," she said. "We don't believe in ours and theirs."
"The Eternals are not invaders," the lightning Elental added. "They are evolution. They reshape stagnation."
I stared at them.
"You call erasure evolution?"
"We call it survival," the stone Elental answered.
I exhaled slowly.
"Wrong answer. And by the way, who is this envoy you are talking about? Is it an Eternal, or one of our own?"
The stone Elental let out a slow, rumbling chuckle, the sound grinding like shifting boulders.
"It does not matter," he replied evenly. "You will not leave this place alive."
I gave a low whistle, glancing between the three of them without the slightest hint of tension in my posture.
"What makes you so confident?" I asked calmly. "The three of you are nowhere near enough for this. I just want information, where is the Trunk Gate?"
They replied with action. The air shifted and they made the first move.
The lightning Elental's domain expanded instantly, arcs snapping outward in controlled grids. The stone Elental stomped once, and the fractured earth beneath hardened into reinforced pillars that shot upward to trap movent. The Feran woman blurred into the sky, wind currents twisting around her as razor-thin sonic blades ford in her wake.
I stood there and watched them prepare their attacks without moving from my position. All three of them were in the late four hundreds, hovering around Level 490, which ant they were seasoned Upper Transcendents with refined control over their major laws. Under normal circumstances, eliminating them would not have required much effort. However, killing them would serve no purpose. They had gone through the trouble of preparing a trap specifically for . If I wanted to find their true base and uncover the identity of this so-called envoy, I needed them conscious and capable of speaking.
So I decided to defeat them using their own elents.
Essence churned within my channels, surging outward as lightning answered my call. Violet arcs flared around my body, snapping sharply through the dry air of the dead planet. I raised my hand and pointed toward the lightning Elental. Lightning gathered instantly in front of my palm, compressing into a concentrated point before erupting forward with a thunderous crack. A bolt of violet lightning shot straight toward her at such speed that even with her level, she barely reacted in ti. Her body dissolved into pure lightning, dispersing just as the bolt reached her, and reassembled several ters to her left.
The bolt continued forward and struck the cracked earth, detonating in a violent explosion that tore open the ground.
She did not get the chance to stabilize.
I fired two more bolts in rapid succession. This ti, when she dispersed to avoid them, the bolts curved mid-flight and pursued her like living predators. Her expression tightened as she was forced to remain in elental form longer than she intended, shifting repeatedly to avoid being cornered.
I turned my attention to the stone Elental, who had been watching the lightning woman instead of .
"You should pay attention here," I said calmly as I waved my hand.
The ground beneath my feet trembled violently before splitting apart. A massive palm ford from compacted earth and jagged rock, surging upward with explosive force before slamming down toward the pillars he had ford and his own towering body. He reacted quickly, raising his hand to form a dense do of reinforced stone around himself. The descending palm collided with it, cracking the do instantly while the surrounding pillars shattered into rubble. He dropped to one knee under the impact but held firm.
"Good," I comnted lightly.
I waved my hand again. Another enormous earthen hand erupted from beneath the first and ca crashing down with even greater force.
BOOM!
The second impact overwheld his defense. The do collapsed entirely, and the weight of both palms drove him deep into the fractured ground, burying him under layers of compressed stone.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the lightning Elental still evading the pursuing bolts. I extended my hand toward her once more, and two additional violet bolts ford and streaked toward her position, tightening the pressure.
Only then did I raise my head to look at the Feran woman.
She had not yet engaged directly. She was observing, calculating, and the subtle shift in her posture told exactly what she was considering.
Escape.
"No," I said flatly. "I won't allow that."
Her eyes widened ever so slightly, confirming my suspicion.
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