She sent tendrils of mana into the sky bridge’s control platform while watching the baby divine beast out of the corner of her eye. Something about him was disturbing, but she couldn’t place her finger on exactly what it was. It wasn’t the suicidal drive to test himself against his betters; she’d seen that in plenty of mortals before. It wasn’t even the unshakable confidence that he’d somehow succeed, a mathematical impossibility just comparing his essence stores against any of the divine beasts.

No, it was nothing that he was and everything that he might turn into. She’d attempted to wrap him in her essence to prevent the guardians from attacking him, the same way she’d escorted thousands of other beings through a sky bridge over the years. It was a quick little workaround for when someone needed to use the place once, but she didn’t want them having unrestricted access to it in the future.

After all, having to hunt him down if he ran would be annoying. If she had to parse data logs from the guardians to see which sky bridges he’d accessed, ‘annoying’ wouldn’t begin to cover it. So, no, she’d nipped that potential problem early.

Except that when she’d tried to layer the essence cloak over him, the child had… eaten it… for lack of a better term. A month’s essence growth, just… gone. If she hadn’t known that the pantheon’s little essence funnel was inactive out here, she’d have thought she’d gotten caught in that somehow. But no, they knew the price of breaking the compact, knew that Legra would punish them.

Personally, she’d always thought that this particular way to balance the scales was idiotic. Tesir had caused a net loss of essence in the gods’ system when he’d killed a mortal inside the Garden, so the gods were allowed to send a champion to exact their revenge. It sounded good in theory, except that no mortal could ever hope to stand against a divine beast.

But now the pantheon had their own divine beast, albeit a baby one not even two decades old. It’s interesting, too. He’s young, but he’s already far stronger than I expected him to be. Is this their plan to kill Tesir? Extend their system past the boundary? That might work out here in the borderlands, but Tesir isn’t here. As soon as the child steps through the sky bridge, the connection will be severed, and if not, Legra herself will smite him for bringing the pantheon’s essence harvester to her domain.

She pushed those thoughts away. It was pulling her too closely to the part of her mind she’d partitioned off. Those were the Other’s concerns. She wasn’t that person. All she needed to worry about was activating the sky bridge and getting the wolf child back home.

Still… essence eater. What if…?

* * *

Velik made a show of looking around, noting the tracks in the dust and the architecture of the room. He observed anything even mildly of interest in a very obvious way so that Eslaka would know that he wasn’t watching her, because that was exactly what he was doing.

[The Wanderer’s Path] wasn’t limited by his vision. He could ‘see’ essence and mana, but he could also feel it all around him, in every direction. A divine beast would presumably have some similar level of sensory input, but he hoped she’d underestimate him and assume he was too young and ignorant to have developed such an ability.

Either the deception worked, or it failed but Eslaka was playing along anyway, because she didn’t make any effort to hide the essence manipulation she was performing on the sky bridge. Velik figured knowing how to turn one of these things on might be pretty important later, once he’d theoretically killed everyone else who could operate it.

While he wasn’t entirely certain it would come down to that, or that he’d get it right on the first try even if it did, at least this way, he had a place to start. He wasn’t sure he’d have even realized the blank, featureless panel in the wall controlled the sky bridge if he wasn’t watching her manipulate it with essence.

Something twisted around with the essence, spinning itself into a knot held in place through the tension Eslaka put on it. She released it, and it started unraveling. With a single movement, the divine beast hopped down to land next to him. “Five seconds to activation,” she warned.

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Velik grunted and tightened his grip on his spear. He didn’t think this was some convoluted attempt to separate him from his weapon, if only because he wasn’t entirely sure Eslaka needed it to pull him apart right now. Despite how much of a boost Morgus had given him with the LPS and transitioning to raw essence instead of only seeing the end result of that resource being allocated, he wasn’t convinced he could stand up to a divine beast yet.

Not yet, he thought.

Then the sky bridge activated and his whole world became a cloud of swirling essence. He was tossed around in it, a sensation not unlike being carried through the rapids of a river. It was so disorienting that he wasn’t even sure if the essence was flowing past him or if he was tearing through it. Either way, the experience was incredibly violent.

It ended so abruptly that he staggered forward several steps before catching himself with his spear. “Gods damn it, is it always like that?” he demanded.

Eslaka shrugged. “You get used to it, and it’s easier to handle when your own essence reserves are stronger.”

She didn’t move an inch, he noted sourly. But her essence did. Did it react to the stream to provide a shield that kept her from being tossed around? If so, it’s not about how much essence she has. It’s some sort of skill she made to protect herself.

Velik was starting to get the feeling that even with the LPS, he was still handicapped compared to the divine beasts. They were all pools of raw essence, twisting it whichever way suited them in an instant and unwinding it to be reused again later. If he wanted to do that, he’d burn through essence adjusting the configurations and allotment.

Then again, there was nothing to say that it wasn’t also costing them something. He was still trying to get a handle on exactly how much essence Eslaka had, and he suspected that it wasn’t a direct comparison to her own. The idea that a divine beast would have skills to hide their total essence seemed incredibly likely to him. It was a basic denial of information to a potential enemy, and for a group of people who could theoretically possess any skill, it would be monumentally stupid not to have that capability.

“Hold still a second,” Eslaka said. “I need to adjust the essence shell granting you safe passage for the guardians at this sky bridge.”

The building’s layout was similar to the one they’d started in, though everything was kept in much better condition. There were no crumbling stone arches or tarnished metal friezes anywhere. The golems and other mechanical monsters guarding the place patrolled with smooth, even steps or stood tall and solid at intersections and doorways.

It was also significantly cooler, a fact that Velik mostly noticed in contrast. He’d gotten used to the desert heat and barely felt it against his massive physical stat, but the abruptness of the change reinforced the fact that it was almost cold. Thus, he wasn’t surprised to see a mountainside covered in pine spreading out below him when Eslaka led him out the main doors.

“We’re about four hundred miles from our goal. I assume you can run that in a few hours,” she told him.

“If I had to. Are we in a hurry?”

Eslaka gave him a wary look. “Why? Did you want to go sight-seeing first?”

“Well, this is the rest of the world outside of humanity’s garden,” Velik said. “Can you blame me for being curious about what lives here?”

She sighed. “You’re just like Tesir. You don’t care about what lives here. You care about killing it.”

That’s right. I need more essence to close the gap.

“Everyone’s got to have a hobby,” he lied.

The divine beast snorted. “Somehow, I doubt that. And I doubt you’d want to tangle with the creatures that live on this mountain. They’d be the equivalent to something around level 100 back where you came from.

“But no, either way, we have other business to attend to. Your introductions come first. Then you can go play with the local wildlife all you want.”

Assuming Tesir doesn’t kill me first. You’re so casual about letting me take a shot at him, but I doubt he’s just going to stand there and wait for it to land. He knows why I’m here, and if I’m not ready to take him on, then the smart thing to do is disappear until I am. At least this way, they all know I’m here. There’s no reason for them to go back into human lands and target anyone else.

Now… how best to get away from my escort…

[Mana Drinker] and [Mana Control] were probably his best bets for fending off her attempts to capture him, and raw physicality to outpace her. She could fly, but he’d just go to ground. As long as he stayed in the trees, that would drastically limit her ability to find him.

Velik peered out past the cliff edge they were standing on. “Which way?” he asked.

“There’s a trail winding down the south side over there for those who can’t fly, but I think we can skip that,” Eslaka said. “You have some ability to temporarily walk on the air. Use that to descend to ground level.”

“Kind of a long fall.”

“I’m sure you can handle it just fine. You should be well past the point where a fall from any height would kill you if you screwed something up. Now, more importantly, are you ready to get your escape attempt out of the way, or would you prefer to wait until later?”