"How in the world did we not see this?" Kaspian asked as he looked down on several pictures of the predator beast's den.

Around the command table stood Kaspian, Helen, Lunaris, Arthur, Tess, and Elijah, as they looked over pictures of the predator beast's den.

A few hours ago Regis had discovered the predator beast's den within a shallow canyon several miles away from the camp. The area around it was rocky and baron with only a stream running along the bottom. From the air it looked like a canyon carved out by the water, however the opening from the top was narrow, hiding the much larger space underneath. The canyon roof was roughly ten feet thick at its thinnest, but underneath the canyon was actually fifty feet wider on either end. The canyon walls were then riddled with small caves that the predators lived in. It wasn't clear whether the beasts carved these caves out themselves or if they were just taking advantage of them, but regardless, when Arthur came to investigate and take several pictures, dozens of the predators began emerging from the caves. This however wasn't the only concern. As he took pictures and collected information, he saw the teleportation gate near the mouth of a tremendously larger cave at the end of the canyon, where he felt an equally large amount of aether from.

"How is it that we didn't see this earlier?" Helen asked as she looked at a picture of at least a dozen of the beasts.

"It's my fault," Tess admitted disappointedly. "I don't know how I missed it, but it was in my search area, so it's my fault."

"No, when I checked it out I nearly missed it myself. It seems that if the Dijin made their den area, they made it so it couldn't be seen from overhead," Arthur stated. "If it wasn't for Regis who knows how long we would have been searching."

"That's right," Regis said proudly as he puffed out his chest. "Send all of your gratitude this way."

"Umm, thank you," Kaspian replied, still not used to the talking wolf.

Regis smiled proudly.

"What makes you so certain that the Dijin made this?" Lunaris asked while examining a picture.

"Honestly it's just wishful thinking," Arthur replied. "Because if these beasts made it then they are a lot more intelligent than we thought, and a lot more dangerous."

"Based on these pictures, it's probably safe to assume that there's at least one of these predators in each cave," Elijah observed as there appeared to be a beast in almost all of the caves.

"Are we planning to just try and rush our way through to the gate?" Tess asked.

"No. If it wasn't for this camp we would, it would be a lot faster and more efficient," Arthur replied as he formulated a plan. "But these beasts are a clear threat, and with these numbers they could eventually overrun our defenses if they came all at once. Our best option here would be to completely exterminate them."

"And how do you plan to do that?" Helen asked. "They outnumber us by a significant margin, and aren't exactly weak."

"We'll lay a trap," Arthur replied.

"Where?" Kaspian asked.

"The canyon." Arthur smirked. "We'll turn their own den into a death trap."

—————————————————————-

Arthur hovered up in the sky above the canyon, while enhancing his vision to watch the rest of the teams below as they got into position. On both sides both combat mages and mage miners were lining up to put Arthur's plan into action.

"So are you ready to make our badass entrance?" Regis asked.

Arthur chuckled breifly as a storm cloud formed overhead. The sky rumbled as rain began to fall and flash's of lightning lit up the sky as Arthur flexed his mana.

"Oh yeah," Regis said with an approving nod from within Arthur's core. "Just a couple of badasses ready to make a scene. One more badass than the other."

"Well thank you."

"Who's talking about you? I'm a magestic badass, making me atleast twice as badass as you."

Arthur laughed and activated the communication artifact he had secured to his chest. "Is everyone in position?"

"Team one ready," Kaspian came through.

"Team two ready," Helen replied.

"Team three ready," Elijah stated.

"Team four ready. Good luck Art," Tess concluded.

"Just wait for my signal, and everyone be careful," Arthur stated as he activated his armor. "Let's do this."

Then with a bolt of lightning that went down and struck the bottom of the canyon, Arthur went into a free fall. Arthur plummeted head first towards the rocky surface as he built of his mana for a spell. He shot passed the teams, only appearing as a blur as he flipped around in the air. He landed feet first and took a knee as the ground cracked and splintered around him, bolts of black lightning went out in every direction, and Regis jumped up and out of his body and landed right behind him as rain continued to fall around them.

The lightning struck and killed a few beasts, but not many. This of course didn't matter, as the whole point of him using mana was solely to draw the attention of all of the beasts, and it worked. As he stood back up he formed an aether sword as Regis took on his werewolf-like form, and the hordes of beasts charged in from all around them.

Regis' destruction covered claws effortlessly ripped through beast after beast. Arthur's sword made a wide swing, cutting down several beasts at a time. A beast that was just barely out of range of his blade came in to strike, but Arthur grabbed it by the snout and forced in to the ground before stomping down on its head crushing it.

They continued striking down beast after beast for about a minute, the beasts corpses pileing up around them.

"Are you getting tired yet?" Regis asked with an amused tone.

"Are you kidding?" Arthur replied, then sent out a wave of destruction from his sword to give a little breathing room. "I could do this all day."

"General, are you ok down there?" Kaspian asked through the communication artifact, breaking Arthur and Regis from their battle highs.

"Fuck, I forgot about them," Regis commented.

"Yeah, get ready for phase two."

Arthur then took a check, and didn't feel any aether in any of the caves, except the large one by the gate. He then raised his left arm and fired a sphere of aether into the air. It exited through the top on the canyon and exploded like a firework.

Upon seeing the signal the other teams put the plan into action. Earth mages, both miners and battle mages began breaking the canyon ceiling from their end. Due to both Elijah and Tess being capable of using earth magic and being on the white core level, they carried more of the

weight than anyone alone. Elijah was covering half of his side, while Tess only handled a third due to her lack of experience performing earth magic.

The ground splintered and cracked as sections began to fall and crush the beasts. As the largest and closest portion to Arthur began to fall, he cast a wind spell, sending hurricane force winds out in every direction, ensuring the beasts were under the ceiling as it collapsed. In a matter of seconds a little over a hundred beasts were crushed under hundreds of tons of stone and earth.

The canyon was hidden by a thick cloud of dust, so before anyone could go down to survey the destruction and check on Arthur, a series of wind spells were cast to clear the air to see and breath.

"Art! Can you hear me? Are you ok?" Tess called out from over the communication artifact. There was no answer. "Art! Please answer!." Still no response. Seeing how powerful he was, no one was worried that he could have been killed, but the concern that he could have become buried and hurt was a real possibility. "Art!"

"Cough cough. I hear you Tess, and I'm ok. I was just a little buried. Hang on."

A few seconds later the wind picked up, and soon was swirling into a mighty cyclone as it pulled in all of the dust as well as any smaller stones, loose dirt, and dead beasts. Enhancing her vision Tess searched for Arthur from the ledge where she stood, but couldn't find him. The twister began moving along what remained of the canyon floor, collecting more debris as it went. Tess' eyes followed it, and in doing so she found Arthur and Regis by the teleportation gate and the large tunnel beside it. The twister proceeded further down into the parts of the canyon that were untouched by their battle, and eventually collapsed and released the debris.

With the twister and dust gone it was now safe, and everyone began coming down and heading towards Arthur. Seeing as she could fly, Tess took to the air so she could get to him first.

Everyone including the miners were running over, but as the miners were running one of the leads stopped and checked the ground underneath him. He focused for a few seconds then his eyes widened and he ran a few feet down and did it again.

"Art," Tess cried as she flew into him, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him passionately. "I'm so glad you're safe."

"Did you actually think something like this would hurt me?"

"No, but you were taking a while longer than you told us to expect."

Arthur leaned in and kissed her quickly. "Sorry, Regis and I got a little too much into our fight."

"That could have been the making of an epic story," Regis mused in his wolf form. "Two badass warriors battling hordes of beasts from atop a mountain of beasts corpses. Ahhh." Regis smiled as he nodded his head. "That's the kind of story that gets you laid."

"And in my case, I still get laid," Arthur teased, causing Regis to glare at him.

"General," Kaspian called out as he and the others began to arrive. "Congratulations, it appears your plan worked."

"That it did, but we can't let our guard down. These were just the first predators we encountered, there's probably more out there."

"Hopefully not as dangerous," Kaspian added.

"Hopefully." Arthur then surveyed the area. "We should set up a perimeter around the gate. Walls, and perhaps keep it manned just in case. Nothing bigger than the camp."

"I'll have to disagree with you there general," the senior dwarf miner stated while smoking a pipe.

"And why's that?" Arthur asked as everyone else looked at the dwarf.

"Since we got down here I've taken the liberty of checking the ground beneath us," a smile could be seen through his beard. "I think we just found our mining site."

"There's that much?"

"Because of all the debris from the attack I can't check as far down as normal, but I am seeing a significantly larger concentration here, and it's been getting stronger the closer I got to that cave," he said pointing behind Arthur. "If that cave goes down, then it may be the perfect start for a proper mine."

Boom. The ground shook. Boom. The ground shook again. Arthur spun around and looked into the cave, something was coming, something big.

"Get ready everyone, looks like this fight isn't over yet!" Golden runes on Arthur body lit up, and he created a portal between him and the others. "Miners get back to camp now!"

Immediately miners did as they were told, and ran into the portal. Helping spring a trap from a safe location was one thing, actually fighting a beast however completely out of the question for them.

A deep growl was heard from within the cave. The battle mages spread out into teams incase of an area of effect attack, as to reduce casualties. Elijah joined Arthur, Regis, and Tess in the

front. Arthur took a battle stance with an aetheric sword, as Tess did the same with her bladed staff, Regis lowered himself to a prone position with flames of destruction flaring on his claws as he prepared to charge in, and sharpened stones emerged from the ground and began orbiting around Elijah.

The beast began emerging as it released a pressure. This pressure was not that of mana, but aether, and even though none but Arthur could actually feel it's aether, everyone could feel this insurmountable pressure emanating from the beast. Even Kaspian's team, who had even faced off against many S ranked mana beast in the past shook in fear of this pressure none of them had ever felt before. Only Arthur, Elijah and Tess were not visably phased by this pressure. Elijah, because of Nico who had been in the presence of Vritia, causing his own instincts to be more relaxed. Tess because of her training with Alder and Arthur, who were both stronger. And Arthur, because this beast still wasn't as strong as the Vritia he killed before he turned back time.

Instinctively everyone stepped back as the beast exited its cave, which looked like a tight fit as it's body rubbed against the opening. The beast held a resemblance to the smaller beasts as it looked reptilian, and had a series of eyes on either side of its lower jaw, but instead of splitting in the middle of its bottom jaw, it's scales appeared folded together at its chin as if it was hiding something. Its head emerged first which was attached to a long neck, which turned out to be a third of its length. Once out of the cave it spread seven sets of wings as if stretching them, giving it more of a dragon-like appearance while it stood on four legs. The beast was much larger than the smaller ones they had faced earlier. It wasn't as large as an elderwood guardian, but gauged it as being twice as large as Sylvie in her dragon form.

After pulling back its wings it began turning its head as it surveyed the area.

"General," Kaspian said as his voice shook. "What is that thing?"

"Just because I seem to know everything doesn't mean that I do. But if I had to guess, I'd say that's a queen," Arthur replied without looking back.

"And we just killed all her babies," Elijah added.

The beast stood taller as it spread its wings again and glared down at everyone in a threatening manner. Arthur took note of its eyes, that not only stared at them intelligently, but with rage. The beast let out a deafening screech as the scales at its chin opened, revealing a hole with a purple glow.

"SCATTER!" Arthur yelled.

Quickly everyone scrambled out of the way, as a beam of pure aether shot out from the hole. Almost everyone was able to dodge it, but one member from Kaspian's team wasn't so lucky and her arm was vaporized. Starting from the beast a straight line roughly four feet wide was burned into the ground, gouging out a trail in the rock and dirt one foot at its deepest.

Seeing the full threat the beast posed, Arthur god stepped into the air right above its neck as he created a flaming aether sword of destruction. He swung down, chopping into its neck, the flames spread a little, but died out in a purple glow. Arthur could see he had done some damage, but he could also see the wound healing, as even his own sword wouldn't penetrate. The beast whipped lits neck, sending Arthur flying back as it raised its wings and took to the air. Arthur landed on his feet, and looked up at the beast in horror.

"Fuck!" Arthur shouted, then immediately created another portal back to camp. "Everyone back to camp and prepare to defend it!"

"Everyone through now!" Kaspian shouted, as everyone moved even faster. "General, are you certain it'll head to camp?"

"Those eyes were intelligent. I bet it already knew about us and the camp, and now it's going there for revenge," Arthur replied.

"I'll have all ranged dealers on the wall and have tanks create barriers," Kaspian informed him before running through.

"That won't be enough," Arthur said to himself as he gazed upon the damage its attack caused.

"Arthur," Tess said, getting his attention.

Arthur looked and saw her and Elijah looking to him. "Get back to camp, they'll need all the help they can get."

"Maybe so, but our best chance is to beat it before it can get there," Elijah stated.

Arthur looked up at the beast in the air. It wasn't very fast, they could easily outrun it.

"Arthur," Regis said, causing him to look back down. "They're right, and aerial battles aren't exactly your thing."

"You're right," Arthur said through his teeth. Not out of anger, but frustration that destruction didn't work. "Let's go!"

Regis lept into Arthur as he took to the air, Tess and Elijah right behind him as they raced after the queen beast.

Arthur," Tess called out, her voice sounding nervous. "That sword you used, Regis showed me something similar from his memories. Was that a sword made from destruction?"

"Yes."

"How was it able to withstand such a powerful spell?"

"I'm not certain, but I did see it using the life branch of vivum to heal itself. My guess is that its insight into vivum is on par or higher than mine so it canceled out the effects of destruction."

"How in the hell are we supposed to beat a beast so powerful that it can cancel out such a powerful spell?" Elijah asked.

"We hit it even harder."

"Hit it even harder?" Elijah repeated. "Are you insane?"

"I've noticed that its strength has been seriously diminished just from its initial attack and healing, but it doesn't look like its strength is returning nearly as fast as mine can," Arthur explained. "I'd wager that we could wear it down to a point that it can't heal itself anymore."

"So what's the plan?" Tess asked as the beast was coming into range.

"Force it down. Tess, use your mana vines to grab and hold its wings on its left side, Elijah you send some spears through its right. Once on the ground, Elijah we're going to need some of black metal to hold it down as we proceed to beat it till it's dead."

"No," Elijah said with fear. "I can't use metal magic, that's Nico's. If I use it he might be able to come out."

"Stone won't cut it! We need your metal to hold it down!"

Tess looked at Elijah sadly. She could relate a little bit. In the beginning, shortly after gaining her beast will and realizing the dangers in posed since she couldn't control it, she was scared of it too, scared of what it would make her do.

"I'll hold it down," Tess announced. "My plants might not be as strong as metal, but I can always make more as it breaks them."

"Fine."

Tess looked over and gave Elijah a sad smile. He just looked away in shame.

"And what will you be doing?" Tess asked.

"I'll be pissing it off to keep it distracted until you two start."