Thousands of miles away from Moon’s location, deep within the Second Sanctuary, Selene stood alone atop a mountain peak.

Her breathing was heavy. Each exhale came out ragged, small puffs of cold air escaping her velvet plush lips.

The staff on her right hand was the only thing keeping her upright, the end of it driven into the stone beneath her feet as she leaned her full weight against it.

Around her, in every direction for tens of meters, hundreds of monsters lay dead. Their bodies were piled across the rocky summit, slumped over boulders, draped across ledges, drowning in pools of their own blood.

The stench of death hung thick in the thin mountain air.

"I did it. Finally."

The words left her mouth in a whisper that the wind nearly stole.

Ever since her near-death experience, ever since Julian had pulled her back from the edge of a true death, Selene had not known rest.

She hadn’t taken a day off.

She hadn’t returned to Earth to contact Moon, Yara or anyone else, despite knowing that her silence would worry them.

As much as she wanted to, Selene simply couldn’t.

Not until she was strong enough to ensure that what almost happened would never happen again. She had come within inches of losing everything.

Her life, future, the people she cared about.

All of it had nearly been erased in a single moment because she wasn’t strong enough.

That memory burned hotter than any flame she could conjure.

Selene devoted everything into growing stronger. Every waking hour, ounce of mana, and drop of stamina her body could produce.

Sleep became a luxury she allowed only when her legs physically gave out beneath her.

And that devotion paid off.

Her progression speed was unnatural. She had climbed to the pinnacle of First Star Evolver in a timeframe that would have made seasoned veterans question whether they were wasting their time or not.

Second Star was within reach now, close enough that she could feel the threshold pressing against her from the other side.

A major part of that speed came from a stroke of luck so absurd she still couldn’t fully believe it.

Two powerful beasts had been locked in a fight near a cliffside she was passing through. Both were far above her level at the time. She had watched from a distance as they tore each other apart, neither willing to yield, neither able to land the finishing blow.

Until one of them did.

The victor stood over its fallen opponent, barely alive. It was at death’s door, bleeding from wounds that would have killed it within minutes regardless.

Selene didn’t hesitate to sieze the chance, she conjured her strongest spell, placing most of her mana into it.

The beast withstood the attack for several seconds, but eventually died. And from its body, a beast soul emerged.

A D-Rank beast soul, equivalent to a Second Star Evolver in raw power. The kind of reward that most Evolvers would never see in their entire careers, handed to her through a combination of timing, patience, and the willingness to seize an opportunity that most people would have been too afraid to take.

The odds of gaining a beast soul from a kill were minuscule. The odds of it being D-Rank were even smaller. Selene had defied both.

She tightened her grip on her staff and looked at her first and only beasts soul, the large elemental wolf that stood with its chest puffed a few meters away.

The wind pulled at her hair and dried the blood on her face.

"Moon...Yara, please be safe. I will meet you guys soon."

♢♢♢♢

In another part of the Second Sanctuary, a blue-skinned woman clad in light armor was moving through the canopy like a nimble shadow.

She leapt from branch to branch with a grace that made it look effortless, her body twisting mid-air to redirect momentum before her feet found the next foothold.

Below her, a swarm of beasts charged in pursuit. Dozens of them, snarling and snapping, crashing through bushes and trampling everything in their path. They were fast, driven by the frenzy of the pack, feeding off each other’s aggression.

But they simply weren’t fast enough. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

Yara leapt from a high branch, her body rotating in the air. In the space between one heartbeat and the next, she drew her bowstring and nocked three arrows simultaneously.

Her fingers let loose.

~Whoosh~ ~Whoosh~ ~Whoosh~

Three beasts at the front of the swarm suddenly jerked violently. Each arrow found its mark squarely between their eyes.

The creatures’ legs kept pumping for a few more meters, momentum carrying their dead bodies forward before they tumbled into the dirt.

Yara landed on the next branch without looking back.

She continued the approach for several more rounds. Leap, draw, release. Leap, draw, release. She ran circles through the canopy, never staying in one spot long enough for the swarm to pinpoint her position.

Every time they adjusted their course to follow, she was already somewhere else, raining arrows from a new angle.

Her shots never missed. Every arrow struck true.

Skulls, throats, eyes. She placed each one with the accuracy of a hunter who had fired ten thousand arrows before these and would fire ten thousand more after.

By the time the last beast collapsed, the forest floor was littered with bodies, and Yara stood on a low branch, her breathing barely elevated, surveying the carnage below with calm eyes.

She was no longer the same girl who needed Moon and Selene to watch over her. The one who stayed behind in fights, who hesitated before loosing an arrow, who second-guessed herself in the moments that mattered most.

Life in the jungle of the Second Sanctuary had stripped her down and rebuilt her from the ground up. Out here, there were no allies to fall back on. No one to cover her mistakes, every misstep was punished, and every hesitation was an invitation for something with claws and teeth to end her story.

She learned fast, she had no choice.