Elijah looked inward, focusing on the facets of the mind. He’d always envisioned them as crystals that were somehow also apertures that he could open and close to permit more ethera into his soul. So, when he looked at them, that was what he saw. However, there were a couple of them that, to his perception, were stained black.

The trauma facets.

Those were where he put his pain. His dark feelings. The rage and sorrow he wouldn’t allow himself to properly process. When he looked inside those facets of his mind – even for a second – he couldn’t stop himself from recoiling in horror.

Even so, he knew that he would be incapable of taking the next step in mind cultivation until he dealt with it. So, what was the answer? What was entailed in that process? He wasn’t about to commit to spending years in therapy to process his trauma. Not only did he not have the time, but he suspected that doing so would be so torturous that it would just add to his burden.

Perhaps that was an issue all its own.

Regardless, he suspected there was a more magical method of dealing with the mental strain of his collected trauma. Maybe it was as simple as pressurizing his ethera and scouring the facets of any residue.

In any case, Elijah was still contemplating it when Rakhan stirred. So, he pushed those thoughts to the side and asked, “You ready to get this thing done?”

The hunter nodded. “We must work together. To do so, I must know your abilities. I will take your secrets to the grave,” Rakhan said, bowing his head slightly. “As you know, I am a hunter. Therefore, I have abilities to assist in tracking prey as well as striking hard and fast. Finally, I have some abilities that mimic those of an Explorer, and they are meant to make wilderness survival and traversal easier.”

Elijah had figured as much about the man. “Traps?” he asked.

“I typically carry some trapmaking supplies with me, but I have deployed most. Not all, but my traps will be limited. Should I return to the city and replenish my supplies?”

Shaking his head, Elijah said, “We’ll just work with what we have available. The creatures here aren’t all that strong. I’m more worried about the rift at the center of it all. If it’s been neglected for as long as it seems to have been, it’s going to be powerful.”

Indeed, rifts were fairly stable for the first phase of their existence, but at some point – Elijah wasn’t certain what marked the threshold – they began to expand. And with that expansion came increased power. Subsequently, closing them was that much more difficult.

From what he felt, this one had been left alone for quite a while.

“Why did they leave it so long?” Elijah wondered.

“Ah. I may have the answer to that question. There is some question of jurisdiction,” Rakhan stated. “The police believe it falls under their purview, while the guilds claim it as well. Until they reach an agreement, no one ventures inside.”

“The guard at the gate said some guild members train here.”

“Normally, that is the case, but as you suspected, it has been neglected for some time. It seems to have gotten out of hand,” Rakhan responded.

“Do you know how long it’s been like this?”

“Weeks at the very least. Perhaps as long as two months.”

Elijah groaned. “Not good. Okay, so we’re going to have to go inside this rift and close it,” he said. “Chances are it won’t be easy, either. As far as I know, the challenge scales.”

“Indeed.”

“And I’m a lot higher level than you. So, I get it if you want to stay out. There’s a chance things are going to get pretty bad, especially for you,” Elijah said.

“I will come. Perhaps I will be of use.”

Elijah asked if he was certain, reiterating how dangerous it could be. As far as he could tell, Rakhan was no higher than one-fifty. That meant that he would find himself at quite a disadvantage in the rift.

“I will not abandon my duty.”

“Suit yourself. I’ll try to make sure you make it, but…well, I’ll probably have my hands full,” Elijah said. “Once the rift is down, I’m going to try to heal the local wildlife. I don’t know…I don’t know if it’ll be possible, but I have to try.”

“I will assist in any way I can,” Rakhan stated.

With that, Elijah slapped his hands together and said, “Let’s get this thing done, then. Don’t freak out, by the way.”

With that, Elijah shifted into his newest shape. Despite the warning, Rakhan flinched when the form of the scourgedrake took hold. Still, he maintained his discipline well enough and stopped himself from drawing one of his weapons. That spoke well for him, considering he now found himself confronted by a ten-foot-long, obviously venomous raptor-dragon.

“Follow me. I’m not holding back if we get attacked, so try to keep up,” Elijah said, his voice oddly guttural. At Rakhan’s nod, he took off, eschewing the use of his shorter arms and instead kicking the door open. It flew off its hinges, which he told himself was entirely intentional.

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Then, he was off and running. He kept his pace to one Rakhan could maintain, but it wasn’t long before the first attack came in the form of a coyote. The thing was gaunt – almost skeletal – and its eyes were entirely black. Tendrils of corruption stood out from its thin body, but despite its obvious starvation, it moved with deceptive power and quickness, throwing itself at Elijah without a hint of caution.

Elijah responded with comparable fury, though instead of biting the creature in half, he chose to lash out with his hind claws. The coyote practically exploded as the talons bit deep, parting flesh and shattering bones. In the space of an instant, what was left of it was slamming into a nearby tree.

But where there was one corrupted beast, there were many, many more. In moments, a deluge of monstrous creatures burst free of the brush. Rats the size of german shepherds, coyotes, a dozen species of birds, and even a couple of giant frogs leaped upon Elijah with merciless hate.

That was when he first used Spreading Blight:

His tail lashed out, the barb biting deep into the nearest creature. It died almost instantly, practically melting from the potent toxin. However, that wasn’t the true benefit of the new ability. Instead, the advantage lay in the fact that, once one enemy was infected, then many more were soon to follow. Elijah flicked his tail, sending the gooey carcass to slam into a frog. Even the briefest contact spread the infection to the amphibian, but its constitution attribute must have been a bit higher than the first beast, because it lasted a few seconds before it died with an agonized croak.

But not before three rats clambered over its convulsing corpse. They too were infected.

Even as Spreading Blight leaped from one animal to another, wreaking havoc along the way, Elijah kept moving. He’d not had a lot of practice with the new form, so it took him a few moments to get his feet under him. Once he did, he wondered how he’d ever fought any other way.

His back claws were absolutely deadly. As sharp as any sword, they parted flesh with ease. On top of that, his new form was incredibly strong, so where the sharpness left off, the sheer force he could bring to bear took over. When that failed, his tail came into play, lashing out almost of its own accord.

In that way, it was similar to the Shape of Thorn. The experience he’d gotten using that form stood him in good stead, and he seamlessly shifted to using one facet of his mind to control the new tail.

And then there were his jaws.

They weren’t quite as comparably powerful as they’d been in the old Shape of the Predator. Back then, the crocodile-like physiology had lent incredible strength to his bite. His new form was obviously much stronger, but compared to the rest of his body – or the creatures he often fought – it wasn’t quite on the same level. Still, it didn’t need to be, either.

Every bite inflicted Ethereal Sepsis, which wasn’t quite as powerful a toxin as the one associated with Spreading Blight, but still strong enough to take care of the corrupted beasts.

In short, it was a massacre.

Sure, Elijah took a few hits here and there, but the resultant wounds were nothing a quick use of Wild Resurgence couldn’t take care of. So, by the time Rakhan caught up, Elijah had already dealt with the small horde. He was covered in toxified flesh and fluids and surrounded by more of the same. But his own scales were entirely unmarred.

“We need to keep moving. The longer we sit in one place, the worse it’ll be. Hop on.”

Rakhan gave him an even look, and for the first time since they’d met, the man looked a little flustered. And it wasn’t difficult to understand why. In his current shape, Elijah wasn’t exactly a welcoming sight. His bright green markings told any creature with half a brain that he was not to be touched.

To the hunter’s credit, Rakhan only hesitated for a moment before he followed Elijah’s directions. In a moment, he was sitting uncomfortably atop Elijah’s back and clinging to his spines.

And that was not pleasant at all.

Indeed, to Elijah, it felt like someone was pulling one of his fingers, which given the location, was an incredibly odd sensation. Perhaps he’d underestimated the usefulness of those spines. If they were that receptive, then there was a good chance that they were sensory in nature.

Elijah took off, practically skating across the uneven ground as he followed the feel of the corruption in the atmosphere. He vaulted fallen trees, leaped over streams, and even killed a few more corrupted beasts before he finally saw the physical evidence he’d expected since the beginning.

Long, black vines of solid corruption snaked across the forest floor. When the sense from Soul of the Wild touched them, Elijah found himself recoiling in disgust. He’d felt similar before, but that was back when he was far less sensitive. Soul of the Wild was a powerful tool, but sometimes, it could have its downsides.

Still, he pushed through, shoving those feelings into one of the tainted facets of his mind as he followed the tendrils. They twisted along the forest floor, often twining around tree trunks, and Elijah even saw a few instances where animals had been caught by the grotesque things.

The more he followed them, the more they reminded him of the Veinroot Hollow back in the Chimeric Forge. The form was different, but the theme felt similar enough that it evoked a sense of disgust he couldn’t deny.

Fortunately, Central Park was not an overly large place, and he soon found his way to the origin of the tendrils. After bursting through the tree line and into a clearing, he came to a screeching halt only a few feet from the rip in reality hanging in mid-air.

He said, “Get off. Get ready. We’re about to go in.”

To his credit, Rakhan didn’t hesitate to leap free of his back. And soon enough, he’d yanked a large battleaxe from where it had been secured to his back. Not a traditional hunting weapon, but it was probably appropriate for the task at hand.

Of course, the hunter had an entire arsenal secreted across his body. A pair of shortswords hung from each hip, a spear crossed his back, and there was even a sling hanging from his belt.

In only a moment, he announced that he was prepared to do battle. Meanwhile, Elijah shifted into his human form, ready to take on whatever was inside the rift. Not wanting to hang around and become enmeshed in another fight – after all, he still wanted to save as many of the local animals as he could – he stepped into the rift.