It all happened so suddenly. The air pressure around us began to increase rapidly, and the boat started to shake. Kline yowled, trying to avoid the water splashing over the bow. It was all happening so fast.

  I turned and found that Dranta had woken up, and he was on his knees, trying to use magic. The chains behind him were rattling. They were about to break, and then it’d be bye-bye boat.

  I wanted to scream and wake him up, but it was already too late. Reta picked him up and threw him into the river, far away from us.

  A gust of wind then erupted underwater, breaking his chains. Reta cast a barrier that also stabilized the boat, and then we watched as water splashed over the spherical structure encasing us.

  Then the area fell silent.

  I looked over the water and saw that Dranda was swimming toward shore.

  I sighed. “Let’s go pick him up.”

  “Does your soul pact require it?” Reta asked. “He didn’t tell you he was resistant. That’s the same thing as endangering others.”

  “This isn’t about him. I want to show the other leaders the consequences of Misty Row, and I need your help in learning how to identify those that can be saved and those that can’t. One day, we might need to cross the row, and I don’t want people to start murdering each other. So let’s get him. If he’s savable, he’s savable. If he’s not, Kline’s going to kill him without trial or mercy.”

  Reta considered that cool logic and nodded. “I see. Then let’s do it.”

  2.

  Dranta barely escaped Mira’s pursuit and swam across to the other shore. Now, he was running through the woods. The entire area was murky, and there was a peculiar phenomenon where plants grew underground, so when they were squished, they appeared.

  Mira suddenly teleported to Dranta’s side on Kline’s back, so he veered off course. Suddenly, vines wrapped around his arm. They had strong barbs that tried to pierce his skin, but they couldn’t break his tempered hide. So he yanked free and kept running, weaving between trees and brush.

  He was running fast—but Mira was faster.

  That fucking cat! Dranta silently screamed as Kline teleported again. The duo was impossibly fast, and Mira was trying to aim her golden bow at him.

  He dodged again and ran in another direction. Throughout it all, he started to experience a lingering feeling of dread.

  Why isn’t she shooting?

  It didn’t make sense. Kline was incomparably faster than him—and stronger. He now knew that if Kline wanted to, he could vanish, and then Dranta would fall when he lost his leg.

  I should be dead, he thought. We’re in the row…

  Illusions.

  Mira had explained how Misty Row was a labyrinth of cruel illusions. Now he knew that—but what good could that do? Oh, he could cut it!

  Fear had gripped Dranta so completely that he was just running. He hadn’t tried to cut the mist, as Mira had instructed them.

  As he was running, primal signals sheathed his body in gooseflesh. Not knowing what it was, he desperately cut the mist, shooting a wind blade at “Mira” in the process. The world was split into a twisted landscape. Everything’s an illusion, he thought in horror. Then what I’m feeling is—

  Real.

  He tried to run, but his leg was stuck in the ground and sinking. Once it was locked in, he felt a spiraling explosion of pain, as if he were being eaten alive by bugs. He screamed and began blasting the ground with wind magic in an attempt to release it. Each blade cut through his legs as well as the ground. He was just about to cut his leg off when a blunt object crashed into his head, and he blacked out.

  He woke to the sound of a crackling fire and blinding pain.

  Someone was touching his leg. He tried to grab them by the throat, but a massive panther slammed him in the chest, pinning him down with such force that resistance was futile. It was Kline, and up close, seeing Kline’s massive canines, Dranta realized how helpless he was.

  He screamed again from the pain. He glanced down and saw Mira applying something to his legs.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Are you stupid?” Mira asked chillingly.

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  He grinned and let himself drop. “So that was The Row, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you… leave me there? I guess not if you’re here, huh… What happened?”

  “Well, we’ll start by you hiding the extent of your resistance. The others will be out for another day, but you woke up in six hours. We had to force more down your throat periodically and had to waste more. It’s to the point that we’ll have to knock you out or make some on the fly before we return. That’s a good place to start.”

  He winced.

  “Then you woke up twelve hours in, and almost destroyed the boat and killed everyone before swimming to the shore. Thankfully, you’re dead slow compared to Kline. Otherwise, you’d have enjoyed your first and last experience with a trap plant.”

  “Trap plant…” He chuckled darkly. “What was it?”

  “It was a mutualistic endosymbiote. It sticks to targets and the bugs that live inside it eat the prey and provide the leftovers for the plant to obtain nutrients. It was extremely cool. Gruesome. And terrifying. If Kline didn’t have an ethereal body, you would have died. So if you want to thank someone, thank Kline.”

  Kline released Dranta. Dranta then sat up to examine his leg, only to realize the cat was letting him feel misery by allowing him to look. So many cuts and bites had been taken out of his leg that it was a topographical map of exposed muscle. He had never been so devastated.

  “Your tempering’s going to be messed up,” Mira said. “But you’ll keep your leg. You’d be healed if Sika was awake, but you’ll have to wait. She’s still asleep like a normal person.”

  “Then what are you doing?”

  “Trying out different elixirs to remove the poisons from your legs. You’re so used to walking around barefoot that you didn’t consider that it wouldn’t work in the next domain? It’s appalling.” Mira stood up. “Now shut up. My disappointment in you has reached impossible levels.”

  The word disappointment pierced Dranta. He wanted to justify himself, but he couldn’t. He was thoroughly destroyed. He just had one question: “Before you avoid me… how long did I make it? In Misty Row?”

  “Ten minutes,” Mira said. “And you didn’t even hit a rough spot. Welcome to Areswood.”

  Dranta chuckled darkly. He had survived months in Gheena without any aid or assistance. Then, he comes to Areswood proper, and he couldn’t survive ten minutes. He then said, “Well… I didn’t think I’d ever say this, but… I respect ya.” He closed his eyes. “Didn’t think I’d have a reason to—but I respect ya.”

  Mira looked at him strangely, and then back. “Get some rest. The numbing agent I just gave you won’t last forever, and if you move around, it could permanently destroy your leg.”

  Dranta chuckled, then sighed, wondering why she saved him. He wondered if she knew that he was already so messed up in the head after Gheena that he’d be about to just accept what happened and move on. Or maybe she was just a good leader. Who could tell? He couldn’t. What he did know was that he came to Areswood in hopes of rekindling the thrill and challenge of Gheena, only to spend a year killing weak beasts and meeting no one strong but Mira. He was bitter that he chained himself to this place—for life—only for it to be lackluster. Now he realized that it was the real deal. That made him excited. He felt that this forest had unlimited challenges—especially in higher rings.

  This is what Dranta wanted. He got it. Now, he needed to stop being such an asshole. If he didn’t, Mira wouldn’t bring him to the upper rings—and he needed her help. Because there was no way in hell he’d return to Misty Row.

  3.

  I thought that Dranta would start being a dick the moment he was healed, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t even pumped up and crazy-eyed after the others awoke, and he was more on guard after we went through the forest. I warned everyone that Dranta had gone through Misty Row when they woke up. Two hours later, Yaksa said, “I thought you said Misty Row was a bad thing. Seems to have done wonders for him.”

  Dranta glanced at her but didn’t want a fight; he kept vigilant, stepping over rotting logs and skillfully avoiding poisonous plants, proving that he always had that ability.

  The Fifth Ring was my paradise. For the first time, I was looking at plants with no highlighting—plants that could have harbored anything.

  That was amazing since Areswood was an artificial garden—a forest filled with plants from different planets. That’s why so many were lit up despite being in a territory that the Oracle hadn’t seen before. Yet it also existed for two hundred thousand years—or longer—and it had spawned its own plants. Evolution had also affected its original plants, causing mutations and improvements that enhanced their biological purposes. So there were so many unknown plants and partial matches. Most were poisonous, but through my mana and aura sights, I was able to collect dozens of different plants that were clearly, clearly valuable. I loaded them up on Kline and Sina. That’s how many I was collecting.

  “There aren’t many beasts here, are there?” Yaksa commented.

  “There’s plenty of third evs; I’m just avoiding them.”

  “Is this a hunting trip or a foraging trip?” she muttered.

  “Both,” Weaden said.

  “Obviously both. I was being sarcastic.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “Clearly.”

  It was amusing to know that Yaksa was the abrasive one. As for the others, they seemed relatively content to look at the trees that grew fifty feet apart—a clear evolutionary advantage. It was calm—but that peace suddenly disappeared when a fourth evolution beast entered the Wood Wide Web. It was five miles away—which meant not far for a fourth ev.

  It was big—and fast.

  “Kline, take the ingredients to camp,” I said. “Then come back.”

  He complied without question and blinked away, leaving the group to get together.

  “I can’t even hear nothin’,” Dranta said, grinning nervously.

  “That’s the problem,” I said.

  “How far away is it?” Weaden asked. “Because I can see two mi—”

  His eyes widened, and he yelled, “Spread!”

  Aiden and the other four fanned out at rapid speed as a creature reminiscent of a Minotaur appeared. It ran on four legs, but it was fully capable of using only two legs like a torok.

  This thing was on another level compared to what I had been fighting.

  “I would get ready, too,” Reta said. “This isn’t a mountain cull—it’s a real beast.”

  It was. Oh, yes, it was.