Chapter 7: Six Seconds—and Everyone Gets Stronger
The war mist churned.
The first wave came through.
They weren’t beasts this time, but lizardmen in battered leather armor. Gray-green scales covered their bodies, and each carried a wooden shield and a rusted sword. The one at the front stood noticeably taller than the rest, with two short axes strapped across its back.
[Marshscale Warrior]
[Level: 2]
[Combat Rating: 3★]
[Ability: Heavy Strike]
——
[Marshscale Captain]
[Level: 3]
[Quality: Elite]
[Combat Rating: 8★]
[Abilities: Heavy Strike / Throwing Axe]
Thirty-seven Marshscale Warriors and one Elite Captain were advancing on Cassian’s left. Similar groups had appeared ahead, to the right, and behind the Domain at the same time, bringing the total number of attackers to more than one hundred and fifty.
A normal Rank I Domain had only just completed its first advancement. Most starting troops would still be Level 1, so the safest response to a four-sided assault like this was obvious: use walls and defensive structures to stall the enemy and minimize casualties.
The Forgotten Shrine didn’t have real walls.
Veyra glanced left, then at Cassian. "The left is mine?"
Cassian nodded. "Mm."
A dark-gold spear formed in Veyra’s hand. All seven Eclipse Chains gave a soft metallic rattle as she stepped toward that side of the Domain.
The Marshscale Captain on the left raised an arm and hurled both axes.
Veyra didn’t bother to dodge. She swept the spear once.
Bang!
Both axes shattered in midair.
The next instant, Veyra vanished from where she had been standing.
Boom!
A dark-gold arc tore across the left flank. More than a dozen Marshscales were thrown backward as if they had struck an invisible wall. They had not even hit the ground when the second spear arc cut through the formation.
Blood burst across the line.
By the time the light faded, every monster on the left—including the Level 3 Elite Captain—was down.
System messages flashed across Cassian’s vision.
[Veyra killed Marshscale Warrior.]
[Battle Essence +4]
[Veyra killed Marshscale Captain.]
[Battle Essence +30]
[Aether Crystal +5]
[Refined Chest ×1]
...
Veyra looked over the bodies. "Too weak."
"How much did you use?" Cassian asked.
"Less than half."
"Use less next time."
She turned her head. "Afraid I’ll ruin your merchandise again?"
"There’s nothing here worth devouring." Cassian looked toward the other three fronts. "That may not always be true."
Veyra gave a quiet snort and stayed where she was.
The twelve Blackfang were already hitting the other three sides.
Pack Dominion spread through them without a roar or a moment of confusion. Four took the front, four the right, and four the rear. They did not hesitate, circle, or wait for individual commands.
On the front, the Marshscale Captain had barely started to raise its axe when all four Blackfang struck almost together. One forced its shield up. A second clipped the back of its knee. The third tore into the weapon arm at the same instant the fourth went for the throat.
Crack!
The Captain dropped before it could make a second attack.
The same kind of coordination was already tearing through the right and rear formations. Pack Dominion did not make the Blackfang stronger; it removed the wasted motion between them. One beast opened a guard, another hit the exposed target, and the others were already moving to the next body before the first one fell.
Three fronts broke almost at once.
Cassian stood at the center of the Forgotten Shrine and barely needed to give another command.
[Blackfang killed Marshscale Warrior.]
[Battle Essence +4]
...
Kill notices stacked over one another faster than he could read them. The Blackfang never stopped to chase a single target or wrestle one down. They ran straight through the collapsing formations, ripping open whatever the next beast had already exposed.
Then the entire Domain fell silent.
[First wave of the First Blood Trial completed.]
[Battle Duration: 6 seconds]
[Allied Casualties: 0]
Cassian looked up. "Six seconds?"
Veyra dismissed her spear. "Too slow?"
"A little fast."
He had expected the newcomer trial to at least show him something unusual. Instead, it had ended before DEVOUR found a single target worth taking.
The system was already calculating the results.
[First Blood Trial settlement in progress...]
[Marshscale Warriors killed: 146]
[Marshscale Captains killed: 4]
[Allied Deaths: 0]
[Domain Core Damage: 0]
[Battle Duration: 6 seconds]
[Battle Rating: A]
Cassian’s brow lifted slightly.
A.
More rewards followed immediately.
[Base Reward: Aether Crystal ×100]
[Base Reward: Battle Essence ×1,000]
[A-Rating Bonus: Aether Crystal ×1,000]
[A-Rating Bonus: Battle Essence ×10,000]
[Refined Chest ×3]
Including the rewards generated during the battle itself, his new totals appeared.
[Current Battle Essence: 13,640]
[Aether Crystal: 1,131]
[Refined Chest: 4]
[Common Chest: 11]
Six seconds earlier, the Forgotten Shrine had still been an F-grade ruin without even a basic troop of its own. Now its storage had finally begun to look like something worth having.
Cassian, however, wasn’t looking at the storage.
A new description had appeared beneath Battle Essence.
[Battle Essence]
[Can be used to advance the Lord, heroes, and dominated units.]
Cassian looked first at Veyra, then at the twelve Blackfang.
Veyra noticed immediately. "What are you calculating now?"
"How to get the most value out of what I just earned."
Cassian raised a hand.
[Veyra — Current Manifestation Level: 1]
[Advance to Level 2: Battle Essence ×2,000]
"Advance."
Boom!
Dark-gold light descended from the Domain Core and covered Veyra. The seven Eclipse Chains snapped taut behind her, but they did not stop the power from entering her body.
[Veyra advanced to Level 2.]
[Seal Status: Unchanged]
[Manifestable base power greatly increased.]
[Comprehensive Combat Rating: 27★ → 49★]
For the first time since the trial ended, Veyra’s calm expression shifted. She slowly closed one hand, testing the power, then looked up.
"This power..."
"Isn’t divine power," Cassian said.
"No."
"The Domain is strengthening how much of your current self you can manifest."
A smile appeared on Veyra’s face. "Not bad."
Cassian wasn’t finished.
He upgraded all twelve Blackfang next.
Columns of light fell one after another.
[Blackfang advanced to Level 4.]
[Blackfang advanced to Level 5.]
...
The Battle Essence he had just earned disappeared rapidly, but the changes in the pack were just as visible. Their frames thickened, their fur darkened, and their claws grew longer. The Level 3 and Level 4 beasts had nearly doubled in overall combat strength.
Veyra leaned against a broken wall and watched Cassian spend most of his new rewards almost as soon as they reached his hands.
"You aren’t keeping any?"
"Resources sitting in storage don’t kill anything."
"You spend freely."
"Resources only have value when they become useful."
Cassian opened the Domain map. War mist still covered most of the region; only the route he had personally traveled and the three-hundred-meter area around the Forgotten Shrine were visible.
He looked at the twelve Blackfang.
"Four groups. Three in each."
The beasts raised their heads together.
"East, south, west, north. Explore outward. Mark any resource points you find. Kill anything you can handle. If you can’t handle it, come back."
Cassian paused, then added one more instruction.
"If a corpse has anything unusual about it, don’t chew it apart."
All twelve Blackfang lowered their heads.
A second later, they scattered into the war mist in four directions.
The darkness on the map began to recede little by little.
Less than ten seconds later, the first message appeared.
[Blackfang killed Mud Lizard.]
[Battle Essence +3]
Almost immediately, a Blackfang from the west came charging back out of the mist with a giant lizard more than two meters long dragging from its jaws.
It dropped the corpse in the clearing with a wet thud and turned around without stopping, disappearing into the mist again.
Cassian gave the corpse one look.
[No high-value core ability detected.]
Not worth his time.
Veyra walked up beside him. "They’re all gone."
"Mm."
"What about me?"
Cassian turned his head. "You stay."
Her eyes narrowed. "Why?"
Cassian looked at the seven Eclipse Chains stretching back into the shrine, then toward the darkness beyond his Domain.
"If they die, I lose twelve wolves." He paused. "If something happens to you, I can’t afford a second you."
Veyra was silent for two seconds.
"That is an awful way to put it."
"It works."
She turned toward the shrine, took a few steps, then stopped.
"Cassian."
"Mm?"
Veyra didn’t look back. "Next time you say something like that, you can count the money a little less."
Cassian watched her for a moment, the corner of his mouth lifting.
"We’ll see."