When they returned to the outer settlent, Neph separated the remaining share of monster at into two parts. One, much smaller part, she handed to Cassie. The other — incomparably larger — she simply set down on the white stones in front of their lodge.
Effie watched the whole process with obvious curiosity, arms crossed, head tilted slightly to the side. So did the slum dwellers who had gathered to welco the cohort back, their eyes flicking between the pile of at and Nephis's face, as if trying to read her intentions before she spoke.
Sunny frowned.
"What are you doing?"
Changing Star glanced at him, then gestured toward the small bundle of at in Cassie's hands.
"This is for us. We'll eat that until our next hunt."
Sunny opened his mouth to ask the obvious follow-up question, but soone from the crowd beat him to it. A man near the front shouted out:
"What about the rest? Are you selling it? What's your price?"
It was customary for outer settlent hunters to sell part of their spoils. That was how most people here managed to feed themselves at all. at could be traded for goods, for services, or — in very rare cases — for actual shards.
Neph turned toward the crowd and looked them over with a faint frown, the kind of expression that made people instinctively stop talking. When everyone had gone quiet, she said, in a flat, cold tone:
"My hunting party will not be selling any at. Ever."
A ripple of confusion passed through the crowd. Several people exchanged uncertain glances, clearly dismayed, as though they'd misheard her. Before any of them could react properly, Nephis took a step to the side, gestured toward the large pile of at behind her, and added:
"…Instead, we'll be giving it away. For free."
For a mont, nobody moved. Then, slowly, the slum dwellers began creeping closer, as if half-expecting this to be so kind of trick.
Sunny just stared at her.
'Of course she would do sothing like this,' he thought. 'Of course.'
He didn't say anything, though. Honestly, after everything that had happened over the past few days, he wasn't even surprised anymore.
***
anwhile, on Senrix and Elysia's side, things had gone a little differently.
They had only managed to recruit four people so far — and, funnily enough, all four happened to be from their own generation.
First was Elijah, the one who had once been thoroughly beaten by Nephis during a sparring match back in combat class. He had an analysis-type Aspect, but he'd been heavily trained for close combat, so he never strayed far from his sword. Instead, he used his Aspect mostly to analyze an opponent's strengths and weaknesses on the fly — a useful skill, even if it wasn't flashy.
Senrix ntioned that Elijah's Aspect was much weaker than his father's, but that he was still promising enough to be worth taking along. Elysia agreed without much hesitation.
Next was Terion, a rather odd-looking guy who claid to have a lightning-type Aspect. According to Elysia, though, it wasn't really lightning at all — it was electromagnetism. He was a swordsman who had spent a lot of ti studying history from before the Nightmare Spell.
Elysia explained that even though controlling electromagnetism sounded incredibly strong on paper, his connection to it was actually much weaker than usual, so in practice all he could really do was summon bolts of lightning here and there.
He also ntioned, almost proudly, that he had a particular fondness for the country of Japan, and that he liked katanas enough to train with one specifically. Elysia seed to drift off for a mont, lost in so mory of her own, before finally nodding her agreent. Senrix agreed right after her, without much fuss.
Next was Trisha, one of the most well-known faces in the entire academy — mostly because she was so likeable. There had even been a persistent rumor floating around that she and Eril used to be in a relationship.
Trisha brushed that rumor off imdiately, insisting that she and Eril were really just acquaintances, and that they'd only t because she happened to be a friend of one of his friends.
Her Aspect was crystal-based, allowing her to summon and manipulate crystal formations. She added, almost as an afterthought, that technically it was just a form of earth manipulation — just a much more versatile version of it.
Senrix was the one who pushed hardest for her recruitnt, mostly because her Aspect happened to be exactly what they needed for where they were planning to hunt. Elysia simply nodded along and let the matter drop.
Last was Aurelia — easily the most mysterious Sleeper in the entire academy. Almost nothing about her background was public knowledge. As far as anyone knew, only two people were aware of the full story: the Han Li scion, Caster, and the Durian scion, Eril.
Her Aspect, as Elysia recalled, was a Sacred-grade one that let her summon and control ice — sothing Senrix considered extrely strong by any standard. On top of that, she apparently possessed a mory that could multiply itself into four copies: a set of floating chakrams.
When she summoned them, each one looked like a hollow ring of dark, translucent glacial ice, the kind that seed to swallow ambient light rather than reflect it. The blades were jagged, razor-sharp shards of crystal jutting outward like frozen geotric snowflakes. Faint, pulsing neon-blue runes ran along the inner rim of each ring, glowing brighter whenever the chakrams were active.
The two recruiters agreed almost instantly. With where they were headed in the Labyrinth, having soone with an ice-type Aspect on the team was basically non-negotiable.
***
Not long after, the group set off and made their way through the Labyrinth, encountering a number of unusually strong nightmare creatures along the way — most were Awakeners, though a few turned out to be Fallen. At one point, they even ca across a Corrupted Beast and decided, sowhat recklessly, to fight it.
Safe to say, Elysia and Senrix ended up carrying the entire cohort through that fight.
The Corrupted Beast was a monstrosity in every sense of the word. It had eleven arms, which doubled as its only ans of movent, since it had no legs at all. Its head resembled that of an elephant, but twisted and grotesque, almost wrong to look at directly. Its body was shaped like a tiger's — and, just like the head, it was warped into sothing far uglier. To top it all off, it dragged behind it a long, segnted tail like that of a crocodile.
Elijah quickly pointed out that the creature's body had only one real weak point — its legs, or rather, the place where its legs should have been but weren't.
Acting on that information, Trisha, Terion, and Aurelia worked together to stun the Corrupted Beast. That was the opening the two leaders had been waiting for.
Senrix entered his Balance Breaker form and imdiately set off a chain of explosions around the creature, tearing apart everything nearby. At the sa ti, Elysia circled the battlefield at high speed, picking off any smaller nightmare creatures that tried to interfere while also peppering the Corrupted Beast with attacks of her own.
Then, midway through the fight, Senrix activated his Gigantomachia form, his body swelling rapidly until he towered over the battlefield, easily the size of a skyscraper. From that form, he turned every weapon system of the Crimson Engine toward the Corrupted Beast at once — and finished it off in a single, overwhelming barrage.
In the end, they didn't manage to obtain a mory from it — their luck was, as usual, spectacularly bad. As for the at, it turned out to be so foul that none of them could bring themselves to even try it, so Senrix simply burned the corpse where it lay.
After resting for a while and using the Soul Lantern to heal Senrix's body — which had been visibly cracking under the strain of his transformation — the group made their way back toward the Dark City and settled near its outer edge.
Aurelia, Trisha, Terion, and Elijah said they planned to head to the Bright Castle to gather more information while things were quiet.
anwhile, Senrix and Elysia got in touch with Nephis and Sunny to check in on how things were going on their end. From what they heard back, everything seed to be fine — for now, at least.
And that was how the day ended for the newly founded cohort.
___________
A/N: the next parts will probably be filler or sothing near that, this part of the story was when they did a tiskip after Sunny killed Harper, I will do a different thing here.
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