No sooner than Tess removed the bracelet restricting her core, did she feel a surge of power. Tess stumbled a bit as she ran from the surge, but regained her footing and kept running.

"So this is the power of a dark silver core, my power," Tess thought to herself.

Despite how powerful she felt, she knew it wasn't enough, and activated her beast will.

—————————————————————

"NO!" Arthur thought as he felt Tess' power surge.

In this moments distraction the beast swatted him with one of its paws, knocking him to the ground.

"This isn't good, she still has two more stages to go through, she's not ready for this." Arthur got back up and dodged another swing of the beast's paw. "She's not ready for her beast will yet. What if it goes wild and hurts the others." Arthur slashed his blade up the length of the beast's leg. "This is my fault, if only I turned us around sooner, if only I was stronger. If I had finished this beast already she wouldn't have felt so desperate." Arthur needed to finish this now, and sliced open the beast's throat, but it still didn't let up on its assault. Arthur glanced back to see an emerald green light, and knew now that Tess' beast will was active. "It's not too late yet, I can still save everyone, I can still save Tess."

The beast swung its paw again, but Arthur was done dodging, as it was wasting time. Arthur focused wind mana into his left arm, to block the beast's strike as he remembered what Pasta told him about his fight with the Wykes family, how he used sound magic.

Arthur swung his left arm at the beast's paw. The two collided, but Arthur didn't move. Instead the beast's paw was knocked back, looking disfigured.

"Did I just unlock sound magic?" Arthur questioned, but shook the thought from his head, knowing he had more important things to think about.

Using piston stamp Arthur shot himself up into the air towards the beast as he focused mana of all four attributes. Targeting where he had already sliced the beast's throat, he swung his blade, and sliced the beast's head clean off.

Not wasting time, he spun around to go help the others, but stopped as his eyes widened and a smirk formed on his face.

—————————————————————

As Tess activated her beast will she found herself floating in an endless expanse of black while within a silver glow, and in front of her was the elderwood guardian. Within seconds it's vine tendrils shot forth, as Tess' own vines shot out to meet them. The vines wrapped around one another, neither willing to let the other go.

"I'll keep this brief," Tess started with a commanding voice. "This is my body, not yours. So if you're going to stay here, it's time you started to pay rent."

The elderwood guardian roared and shot even more vines. This time they made it through and wrapped around her and began to pull her closer to it. It's red eyes glaring menisally as its mouth opened showing it's two sets of monstrous teeth. This was a sight that could give anyone nightmares as it pulled Tess closer to its mouth. Despite the fear she felt, Tess pushed in down, she needed to focus.

"Go ahead, take over and go crazy again. Then we'll both be dead."

The elderwood guardian stopped and stared at Tess, now looking curious.

"So you don't know what's going on out there? We're fighting an S ranked beast, three actually. And unless you give me your power, it's going to kill us all."

The elderwood guardian closed its mouth, and a single vine came forth, then touched Tess' head. Immediately Tess felt as though the elderwood guardian was pulling up all of her memories since entering the dungeon. At first it looked deep in thought, but soon became enraged as it came to the memories of the three beasts. She wasn't sure why the elderwood guardian became so enraged, but she hoped this was a good sign.

"So what do you say? Can we work as one?"

The elderwood guardian released Tess and her vines as it retracted its own. It then became translucent as it glowed emerald green, and began floating to Tess, until she was within it.

—————————————————————

The monstrous beast raised its paw to crush Lilia and Kathyln again. They were both on the ground not moving, the little ice falcon screeching as it pecked at Kathyln's head.

"Kathyln, Lilia, Run!" Curtis yelled as he struggled to push his barely breathing bond off of him.

The cavern suddenly began to shake, as rocks began falling into the beast. It started to bring its paw down when dozens of emerald green roots burst out of the ceiling and wrapped around the beast's paw and every other limb. Seeing as this was clearly plant magic the others looked to Tess as she walked forward, as grass sprang from her very footsteps, while her body was enveloped in an emerald green second skin.

The roots began to lift the beast off the ground as they weaved into its hyde as they began ripping it apart, exposing its flesh. Helen looked over at Tess and could see her breathing heavily as sweat poured down her face, and knew Tess wouldn't be able to last much longer.

"Don't just stand there, kill it!" Helen yelled as she began releasing arrow after arrow at the beast's head.

Elijah began firing off black metal spikes as Feyrith fired small blasts of water at incredible speed that began blasting away at the exposed flesh. Durden was firing sharp rocks as Angela was sending off wind blades.

Jasmine arrived at Curtis as she held her left side which had several broken ribs, and with her free hand helped pull Curtis out.

"Can you still fight?" Jasmine asked.

Curtis lifted one of his swords and ignited it in an orange flame, then looked to Kathyln and Lilia. "Oh yeah, I can fight."

With that Jasmine and Curtis ran towards the beast. Jasmine grabbed Curtis and pulled him in close as she cast a wind spell to propel them up. As they landed on the head Curtis nearly fell backwards, but a root wrapped around his waist and pulled him back up. They both then plunged their blades into the top of the beast's head, and released as much fire and wind mana as they could. Within seconds wind and fire burst out of the beast's eyes, ears, and every other opening in its head.

The roots began to retract as the one wrapped around Curtis lowered him down as another did the same for Jasmine. The beast fell to the ground, as Tess' body returned to normal and she began to fall backwards to the ground, but was caught by Arthur. A smile formed on her face as her eyes closed and she lost consciousness.

"Arthur?! When did you get here?" Helen asked in shock as she saw him come out of nowhere, then looked down to where he and Sylvie were battling their beasts to only see two lifeless lumps.

"Just now," Arthur replied as he lifted Tess up into his arms, and Sylvie landed beside him.

"Are you two alright? And what about Tess?" Feyrith asked as he saw multiple cuts on his head and blood on his clothes.

"I'm fine, a little winded," Arthur replied casually.

"Those things tasted yucky, I need to eat some real meat to get that taste out of my mouth," Sylvie replied.

"As for Tess, just a case of backlash from overdoing it," Arthur added, and began to walk to Theo and Claire to check on them, this Sylvie right behind him.

Meanwhile Curtis was running back to Kathyln and Lilia, where he saw Lilia was already moving and checking on Kathyln.

"Lilia, Kathyln, are you two alright?" Curtis asked urgently.

"I'll be fine, but Kathyln," Lilia started as she looked down at Kathyln and the two gashes on her back that Kathyln froze to stop the bleeding. "Why did you do that? Why did you come back for me?"

"That," Kathyln said as she took a breath, feeling weak from the blood loss. "Is a stupid, question. Not only, are you my, brother's girlfriend, but, at some, point, you became, my best, friend. So I couldn't, let you die."

Tears were streaming down Lilia's face, afraid now that Kathyln wasn't going to make it.

"Wait!" Lilia said as she remembered something important, and pulled out her necklace. "These crystals each have a small healing spell, we can fix you right up," Lilia said excitedly.

"Where did you get those?" Curtis asked in shock, as healing crystals were rare, and expensive.

"Arthur's mom. She's an emitter and made them," Lilia said as she removed the necklace, and broke the first crystal.

The ice in one of the gashes melted immediately as the wound started to close.

"It's working!" Curtis replied excitedly.

Just then the baby ice falcon jumped onto Kathyln's back. "Curtis can you move him?"

As Curtis reached for the little blue puff ball, it tilted its head, and began dripping tears into the wound.

"Wait!" Lilia practically shouted in shock, as the wound steamed, and began closing.

"What the? Healing tears?" Curtis questioned as he tried to wrap his head around what he was seeing.

"I guess so," Lilia replied in amazement as the little bird moved to the other gash.

Just like before, the little bird tilted its head, and more tears dripped out. The ice melted away, and the wound steamed as it closed up right before their eyes.

"Amazing," Lilia and Curtis said together, both in complete aww as to what they were witnessing.

Kathyln started to push herself back up to her feet, as the bird jumped off her, and waited as it looked up at her. Unfortunately the healing did not fix the blood loss, completely. Leaving Kathyln still very weak.

"Come on, let's go and rest with the others," Lilia said as she held her hand out to Kathyln as she stood in front of her.

With some help from Curtis, Kathyln was back up on her feet, and was being helped back to the others.

—————————————————————

Hours passed, as everyone recovered. Camp was set up by Claire, as Arthur felt moving her could make her condition worse. Overall the injuries weren't too bad, and with the help of the healing crystals Alice provided, the worst injuries were taken care of easily. Adam and Claire had the worst, and required the most crystals. Theo's shoulders were forced back into place, but he didn't want a crystal to help deal with the pain. Instead he wanted the crystals used on Claire. Being slammed against the chamber wall resulted in a skull fracture, and Arthur suspected her back and neck may have been injured as well. Three healing crystals were used on Claire, but since she still hadn't regained consciousness they were ready with more.

Arthur was sitting beside Tess as she laid on the ground using Arthur's cloak as a pillow. Since laying her down both Arthur and Sylvie hadn't left her side as they waited for her to wake up. Sylvie was sitting on the other side of Tess eating meat, while also watching another bear-like mana beast.

Shortly after everyone was gathered and for the most part healed, it was decided to make some food while they waited on Claire to wake up. As the mouth watering smell of the cooking food filled air a muffled whine was heard. Everyone became silent as they tried to locate the source, which was found to be coming from underground by the cavern wall beside Arthur. As they watched closely it appeared something was trying to dig its way out, but appeared to be so small that it wasn't seen as a major threat.

After a minute or two a small bear-like mana beast dug its way out. It was dark brown with two darker spots over its eyes, making it look like it was scowling, and a patch of dirty white fur on its chest. Upon pulling itself out of the hole it collapsed to the ground breathing heavily. Arthur pulled a piece of dried meat from his dimensional ring and held it out to the little beast. It immediately regained some strength and stumbled to Arthur's hand and ferociously began eating the meat. Everyone immediately agreed that this must have been a newborn of one of the beast's they had just killed. Just remembering the beast made everyone nervous, and wanted to just leave it there to fend for itself. However Arthur already suspected that what they faced wasn't normal, and that this little infant bear, so small it could sit in the palm of his hand, was most likely not going to turn into one of those. Knowing that it would most likely not survive without someone caring for it, Arthur decided to adopt the little bear. After all, when this beast grew up, it would no doubt be a good protector for his family when he wasn't around.

"Ughh," Tess groaned as she stirred awake.

"So sleeping beauty has finally woken up," Arthur commented as he looked down at Tess with a smile.

"Hey," Tess replied with a small smile. "What happened? Is everyone ok?"

"All things considered, everyone's ok. Claire is still unconscious, but she'll probably be ok too," Arthur replied optimistically as he pointed to Claire.

"That's a relief," Tess said, as she forced herself to a seated position, leaning her back against the cavern wall, a guilty expression on her face.

"Tess, this wasn't your fault," Arthur told her.

"How could it not be? I should have removed my restriction sooner!" Tess spat as she allowed her guilt to over take her.

"It's not your fault, it's mine," Arthur replied.

"What? How?" Tess questioned.

"I knew something felt wrong here, but I still agreed with coming in, and I didn't voice my concern soon enough. If I did we might have escaped before they attacked," Arthur then sighed. "And I was wrong about you."

"Me?" Tess asked, not understanding.

"Clearly you were more capable of handling your core and beast will than I thought," Arthur explained, as he allowed himself to look as guilty as he felt.

"You were just looking out for me like you always do. Besides, who would have guessed we would have run into trouble like this?" Tess replied, trying to comfort him.

"That's an excuse. I was worried that something bad might happen again, like when you almost died. And I was selfish. I was enjoying that time we spent together helping you gain control of your beast will. I didn't want that time to end," Arthur admitted.

Tess leaned her head on his shoulder. "I guess there's enough blame to go around. Also, you know, that time doesn't have to end. We are dating now, so we can spend lots of time together now."

Arthur then took her hand in his. "Yeah, you're right."

"You know I just realized something, despite the pain I felt when I passed out from backlash, I'm feeling pretty good right now," Tess commented.

"That's because of the healing crystal. I broke one of mine to make sure you were ok. It must have helped your core," Arthur replied.

"Why didn't you use mine?"

"Umm," Arthur said nervously as he scratched his cheek which was blushing slightly. "I couldn't reach the chain, and they were down your top." Tess' eyes widened a little as she blushed. "Since your life didn't seem in danger, and I had other options, I decided I wasn't going to reach my hand down there."

"Thank you," Tess replied. She knew if her life was in danger there would have been nothing to forgive, and if Arthur had reached for her crystals she would have forgiven him.

As their blushes subsided and food was handed over for Tess, voices could be heard on the other side of the massive metal door.

—————————————————————

Aya, Kaspian, and the recovery team ran the entire way through the tunnels, some members struggling to keep up more than others, until they came upon the large metal doors. After slowing to a walk, the first thing they saw were the five dead bodies, Kaspian and Aya quickly moved in to investigate.

"Shit," the recovery team leader said as he too saw the bodies. "Kaspian I'm..."

"They're not with the party," Kaspian stated.

"Are you sure?" The team leader asked.

"Positive, I saw them before they left. I don't recognize either of these," Kaspian replied, as he gestured to the bodies.

Aya remained completely silent as she appeared to be examining one of the bodies. "Let's go inside then. Hopefully some of them survived."

They all entered the chamber, off to the left and not too far away, was the body of the defeated beast.

"They defeated an S rank? They must have a strong party just to take one down," one of the recovery team members commented, as they all scanned the areas for additional beasts or bodies.

"There!" Another member shouted as he saw the others against the cavern wall and a small fire burning.

"Claire!" Kaspian shouted as he took off running to the fire, the rest of the team behind him.

Aya however was still with the defeated beast, taking note of its wounds and horn. "Did Arthur manage this?" Aya thought to herself.

Everyone heard Kaspian yell and looked to see him and the others running in. Without saying a word Kaspian was pointed in the direction of Claire, and was followed by one of the emitters.

"Claire!" Kaspian said with urgency as he arrived and fell to his knees beside her. "What happened? What's wrong with her?"

"She got sent flying about a hundred feet by that beast after she dealt it a pretty serious attack," Theo replied from beside her, concern obvious in his voice. "She then hit this wall and crashed here."

The emitter got on his knees beside Theo and held his hands above Claire's head and mana core, then green glow came from his hands.

"She has minor injuries to her spine and head. Do you all have an emitter?" The emitter asked.

"No why?" Theo asked.

"I can feel from the mana at her head that a healing spell was used."

"We used a few crystals containing healing spells," Arthur told him.

"That probably saved her life. Her injuries aren't nearly as bad as they probably were, it will only take me a few minutes to finish up, then it's just a matter of her waking up," the emitter replied and got to work.

"Well since we're going to be here a while, where are the other beasts? We were told there were three S ranks," the team leader asked.

"Arthur," Helen called out as she gestured to the man.

"They're a little further that way," Arthur said pointing deeper into the cavern. "I'd say they were a high S or SS."

"Were?"

"My bond and I killed those two," Arthur clarified.

"Stop joking kid, it's not funny," the recovery team leader said in a scolding tone.

"I wouldn't look down on him," Aya said, notifying everyone of her presence. "I've heard great things of that boy and his bond. Keep it up and you might be the one needing an emitter." Aya then looked from Arthur to Helen. "If you would all please recount the events that happened here, starting when you arrived at the doors. Don't hold back anything, tell me every detail."

One by one everyone explained everything to the lance, repeating themselves when she would ask for more details, specifically about the dead bodies and behaviors of the mana beasts.

"Thank you all. And seeing as my services will not be needed, I will take my leave now," Lance Aya stated and turned around.

Arthur waited until the lance was almost to the door. "Tess I'll be right back, I need to speak with Lance Aya about something," Arthur said, before kissing her head and taking off after the lance.

She had passed the large metal doors and was about to fly out, when she felt Arthur's presence.

"Is there something you would like to add?" She asked.

"No, but I was hoping you did," Arthur replied plainly.

"I don't know what you are talking about," she replied.

"Please don't treat me like a child, I'm well aware something is going on here that you aren't telling us. So tell me, why is there a lance at this remote outpost?" Arthur asked in a serious tone.

"What makes you think anything is going on? I am simply checking on the prince and princesses at their parents request," Aya replied, trying to see what Arthur actually knew.

"Those men were not adventurers. There are far too many similarities to all of their equipment. That screams military issued to me."

Aya raised an eyebrow while looking more interested as she gestured for Arthur to continue, curious to see what else he knew.

"Then there's those beasts. This is the second time this year I've encountered beasts behaving like that, and third I've heard of beasts with an unusual black horn."

"Third?" Aya repeated, wanting to know more. "Who else have you heard about these beasts from?"

A solome expression came upon Arthur's face. "Lance Alea."

Aya's eyes widened. "When?"

"After facing those, mutated beasts in widow's crypt, one of them exploded and I fell down this casume. At the bottom I found Lance Alea, barely alive and her men slaughtered."

"Why didn't you report this?" Anger beginning to show in Aya's voice, as she seemed to be struggling to keep the pressure of her core in check.

"I did. I told director Goodsky. I told her everything and even gave her the chip of that demons horn Alea gave to me," Arthur replied in his defense. He could tell that if not for having a light silver core now, he would be struggling just to keep standing.

"You were the one who buried Alea?" Aya asked, not only to confirm it was him, but also as a test.

"And her men. It didn't feel right to leave them all there to rot," Arthur replied.

Aya closed her eyes and bowed slightly. "Thank you." She then took a deep breath to get her core back under control. "Did Alea tell you everything that happened down there?"

"She did, and I told the director this."

"Hmm," Aya looked deep in thought. "The director told the council that a student discovered Alea's body, and the council wanted to meet with you. However she recommended against it."

"Why?"

"She said that the student might not give us accurate information in an effort to please the council."

"You've got to be kidding me," Arthur replied under his breath as she tilted his head up.

"I'm not. However from what I've learned of you from Elder Virion, you don't seem like the type who would embellish something like this."

"And with all my dealings with her, she should know that too."

"I must leave now. All of this, not just your most recent encounter, must be reported to the council," with that Aya turned around and began to walk away.

"Wait, you never answered my question. What's going on here? Are they from the other continent?" Arthur asked again, just a hair away from sounding demanding.

"I can't answer those questions," Aya replied, then turned around. "However I can tell you this. The lances are brought to the white core stage with an artifact, and are then bonded to the artifact until they die or after a certain amount of time has passed. This guarantees that only six white core mages can exist at any given time. Upon Alea's death her artifact became available again."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"With everything that is happening, both what you know and don't, one would think they would want to pick another lance quickly."

Arthur was focused, unsure what point she was trying to make.

"King Alduin gave the artifact to Elder Virion to find a new lance, but there has been no attempt to find a replacement for her."

"What are you getting at?"

"I recently asked our former king why he was not trying to find a suitable replacement for Alea. Do you know what his response to me was?"

Arthur's eyes were focused on Aya, his expression clearly displayed his curiosity. His mind had already pieced together what point he thought she was getting to, but he dismissed the theory as it didn't entirely make sense to him.

"He said he already picked a replacement. And that now he was just waiting for the, brat, to get strong enough."

Arthur's eyes were so wide he thought they were about to pop out of his head. "He wants me to become a lance?"

"So it would seem. He had already asked me to work with you when I came to Xyrus, to help get you as far into the silver stage as I could quickly, so you would be ready when we needed you to take on the artifact." A small smile formed on the Lance's face. "However it would seem that that will be unnecessary now."

"Well I wouldn't turn down a chance to spare with a lance, after I've recovered that is," Arthur replied with a light chuckle.

"Perhaps that can be arranged, even though there is still a large gap between our levels in regards to power, I am curious to see what you can do." The smile on her face now disappeared and she again bowed slightly. "But for now I must leave. Elder Virion will no doubt be pleased to hear of your progress."