With this creature now in the picture, Henry was seeing the System’s enigmatic warnings and Maurice’s vision in a whole new light. He had been expecting some sort of threat out there. He knew that as peaceful and idyllic some of his travels had seemed, there was still something out there. Something that explained his arrival to this world. Something that explained the dead, world-traveling turtles.

  Now he very much knew there was something brewing beyond his reach, but he hadn’t imagined something as alien and as… disturbing as the dark-shelled entity he was looking at.

  How many more of its kind were out there? How powerful could they get? How close were these things from breaching through?

  Henry swallowed and glanced to the side. Just like him, Velistraine’s features had lost her habitual bravado and instead, her eyes scanned the creature slowly, carefully walking around the massive ice block. There wasn’t even a hint of a smile on her expression, and Henry found his eyes drifting back to the creature, and a tremor went down his limbs.

  It wasn’t just the fact that its mental scream nearly took over one of his limbs. That in and of itself was dangerous enough. No, it was that it had done so as a simple B-rank, through only a telepathic connection, while being frozen in ice, decapitated, with its lower half-missing, and all the defensive magic around them. Though he couldn’t blame the protective circles, not really. If he was guessing right, the surrounding set up was more about restricting it than preventing him from studying it. Or at least, he hoped that was the case.

  “Did you try killing it?” Henry asked after a second, though he already had an idea of the response he was going to get and true to his assumption, Attal confirmed his thoughts.

  “No. I want to learn more about it,” the man answered, and Velistraine slowly turned to look at her fellow A-rank, brows knitting, but before she could jump at his throat, Attal raised a hand. “I would have. And at first, I had gone for the kill, but it has some powerful regenerating skills, and it’s easy enough to reduce to a pulp. After it healed itself, I did that and contained it down here. There’s at least ten defensive measures in place so that thing never makes it outside of this place, but as the sole representative of whatever it is, I had to keep it alive. We have to know more about its kind and how to best fight against them.”

  Velistraine bit back whatever she had been going to say, and nodded, eyes flitting back to the creature. “The psychic attack… it’s not doing it consciously.”

  “No, it’s not,” Attal confirmed, hands clasped behind his back. “Its secondary nervous system is powerful enough to allow quite a few reflexes to carry through. Aside from the psychic waves, it can still sense living creatures in its surroundings, coordinates its limbs to attack, and actively work on repairing its head. It’s much more annoying once it has its head back, so I keep it severed. In its full-form, it’s a close-range fighter that mixes toxic and corrupting agents in its claws, mandibles, and maw, coupled with a constant psychic barrage. Pretty lethal if one isn’t ready for it.”

  “And how long did it take for this thing to slip through the gateway you opened?” Henry asked.

  Attal’s eyes flicked to him, and he gave him a little nod. “That’s the part I wanted to get to. This thing showed up within five seconds of the gateway opening. And I bet if the System hadn’t been so quick to shut me off, more would have come through.”

  Velistraine let out a string of colorful curses, and Henry felt the sense of dread in his guts swell. That wasn’t what he had wanted to hear. But Attal wasn’t done. Pacing around the ice-imprisoned entity, he spoke as he studied the rings of scribbled runes and glyphs, keeping well away from any of them.

  “Before now, I had a couple of theories on why this thing’s reaction had been so fast, and why the System had intervened, and with what you’ve told me, one particular hypothesis is gaining more weight. I think it might also connect to why we can’t ascend past A-rank without the System whisking us away.”

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  Attal paused for a moment, and both Henry and Velistraine were staring at him. Waiting. Already in Henry’s mind, an answer began taking shape as more pieces of the puzzle began falling into place.

  “The System is hiding us,” Attal simply said. “My current theory is that it’s doing all it can to keep us hidden away from the swarm of whatever it is that surrounds us. It is… isolating those who try to ascend past A-rank, because maybe, maybe, they are too difficult to hide. Or it’s scurrying them away to keep the monsters out of this world. The Rainbow Turtle are bypassing this restraint, somehow, but then again, that might be the nature of the defensive measure the System had implemented. While I do think those things are capable of subtle magics,” he explained, nodding toward the Void Lord, “I don’t believe they’re as capable as the turtles to navigate between dimensions and slip through the cracks.”

  The room was quiet for a few moments, and only the soft, barely audible whisper of magic pierced through the frigid air of the room, until Velistraine nodded. “While I’m maybe not the person to ask about this sort of thing, I can’t think of anything to call your theory out. We might be missing plenty of details, and it might be completely off, but I got nothing to say you’re wrong.”

  “The System did call the turtle that brought me through ‘annoying’. I still remember that.”

  Attal frowned. “You’ve talked to it? That early?”

  Henry nodded and recounted his first couple of meetings with the System, which had Attal hum and take notes. This wasn’t anything new to Velistraine, but she listened, her gaze peering past them thoughtfully.

  Tapping his pen against his notebook, Attal nodded. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll tell you both what I’ve managed to find out about this thing, which—unfortunately—isn’t that much. But we don’t need to stay here for the rest. And we’re going to need to plan the next part.”

  Henry didn’t have any objections to that, and both he and Velistraine gave the creature one last look before the door hissed shut behind them, flaring with arcane lights as soon as it shut the room off.

  Somehow, Henry could almost still feel the raving madness seeping through the restrictive magic and as their steps quietly echoed in the corridor, his thoughts drifted.

  I’m gonna have to spend some time down here to work some sort of resistance to it, Henry wondered, and giving Attal a sidelong glance, he asked. “How often do you thaw that thing out? I might need a sample or two.”

  Attal raised a brow at that, and he seemed to mull over his response for a few seconds before he gave him a nod. “I can arrange that. But the flesh does have some corrupting influence, so you’ll have to be careful.”

  That didn’t surprise Henry at this point, but he believed firmly that he’d be able to handle it. And he had to. Because with how effective the hostile abilities of the creature were, preparing for them was non-negotiable. If something with that Skillset was at A-rank, he’d be in some serious danger.

  And there might be something even beyond that, he thought to himself. And while that psychic, corrupting monstrosities of that rank were scary, that also meant he could raise to that level as well.

  That was a more exciting prospect.

  Once they were back upstairs, Velistraine’s foul mood was completely gone, and all three of them got some chairs and got to chatting. First, the orbs would be collected, so that they’d have some answers. The System had said they were the key, so before they got to playing with forces they didn’t understand, they’ll knock on the door and get some much-needed context first. Some confirmations, as well, as they had plenty of theories but not as many proofs. For that, two more orbs had to be found. One was in the Reach, and the second in the middle of the ocean, and as the three continued chatting, Henry couldn’t help but peer through his clones’ eyes on the surface. At the unaware citizens of the isles, and at the laughing Maurice and Fabian while the duo harassed Ash to get her out of her funk. Then his thoughts drifted to the creature and he wondered: what would come after them breaking through the blockade?

  Would the way back home be open? It wasn’t that he was itching to go back, but he wondered if it’d ever be on the table.