It turned out that Rex had recovered more than he had initially assumed, the level of control, precision and ease with which he could pull of what he did here all the proof he needed. It was just so easy for him to move the rather enormous construct he had created, providing them with quite the speed and combat capabilities, ensuring their timely and efficient advance deeper inside the sealed realm, inching closer and closer to Emanai's location, or so they assumed, the artifact tracking the elven sister remaining steady with its direction.

  It was halfway up the mountain, still ways away from the stairs that started just below the cloud line however, their compass started to change the direction it's needle pointed towards, halting their advance momentarily, Pyra's locked gaze on the artifact allowing the party to be informed immediately.

  "That would likely imply that your sister is not all the way at the top." Rex immediately concluded "Give me a few minutes to try and figure this out." he added, their 'mechanical' mount coming apart and disappearing in just a few moments. They had apparently crossed the first section that was teeming with monsters, or maybe found one, or possibly the only, safe path towards the top, whatever the case, it did not matter all that much right now with Rex's focus locked on the task at hand.

  A minute or so ter, a powerful mana pulse exploded from his body, not only creating a visible wind around him but also causing the three women to almost jump from the action, as though they had been jumpscared right now, their gazes locking on Rex, all sharing a look of pure shock.

  "How in LORDS name did you...." gasped Pyra, having the most understanding of what they just sensed. Eve and Danica obviously sensed it too, though since they did not come from as rge or history and knowledge rich background did not fully comprehend what Rex had achieved just now.

  "What was that?" shuddered Eve as she and Danica looked towards Pyra who apparently had better understanding, seeing as Rex did not seem too inclined to answer right now.

  "T-that was mana, manifesting in a damn n-near liquid state." Pyra slightly stuttered, still shaken at the fact.

  "That much we understand." Danica scoffed " Why are you so shaken?"

  "T-that.... That is S rank territory. He is a candidate to becoming a LORD." Pyra shuddered and her knees trembled, as if subconsciously feeling the urge to kneel. Little by little her mind was elevating Rex to a higher and higher position, her upbringing both back home and in the sect doing it's job. Though as she was spiraling further and further down the rabbit hole, she was suddenly caught, saved by a rather boisterous ughter of Danica.

  "Ha ha ha ha. Stop trembling you foolish girl. A LORD candidate? How come you realize it just now? Or better yet, how come you haven't expected that to happen eventually?"

  "W-what do you m-mean?" Pyra stuttered, still half shocked at the revetion.

  "The first time I met him he took out four A rankers with a single strike, leaving behind a cleanly cut in half building. Then, vampires came to him and damn near started worshiping him as a superior being. And the things he can do...." Danica trailed off, a dreamy expression on her face, though she quickly shook herself out of it, finishing her though "Emh. As I was saying, it was only a matter of time until he showed power of that level."

  "And to be fair, the construct that I created to get here so fast is much more advanced and complex technique than just drawing in rge amounts of mana and compressing it to achieve much rger scan radius than normally possible." Rex replied, returning the focus of the three girls on himself. "I found the way. Let's move on." he added, the construct from before forming once again. "As your master to pull something like this off and he will most likely tell you that is impossible, or something much more colorfull and obscene." Rex smirked as they were once again hidden within the construct and it began it's advancement.

  Another twenty minutes and few hundred monsters ter, they reached their current target- a rather conspicuous area with neatly carved out ptform that ended with an open entrance inside a cave and a path leading both up and down the mountain at the end of the ptform.

  "She is deeper inside." Rex said, but also quickly caught Pyra with one of his chains as he damn near rushed ahead. "Don't run ahead. Who knows what kind of traps or guards there are. Do you want to end up dead before we reach your sister?" Rex lightly scolder her, sighing as he did so. he could understand Pyra's impatience, though she should be better prepared for such high stress situations.

  As they advanced forward, descending into the cave, they were greeted by precisely cut corridors and some stone sentries every now and then, each and every one instantly destroyed by Rex.

  "The guard dogs don't matter." He said, leading them forward in a rather fast pace, taking down safety measure after safety measure. If one did not have as sharp a vision and senses as Rex, they would assume Emanai did not fight any creatures and was taken out rather early, but Rex could see the faintest of signs of battles having occurred for quite some time, a cut here, a scratch there, each and every one in an unnatural angle or pce for the precisely crafted path.

  "She reached this far on her own." Rex spoke at one moment after he had dispatched almost ten A ranked golems, piles of their bodies all around them "And instead of being killed, she was taken hostage, though I have yet to understand why." Rex frowned, as he gnced around, suddenly increasing his pace, the trio of girls even struggling to keep up. It was a few minutes of such pace and numerous shattered golems ter that Rex busted through another door that had seemed like another wall, bringing them inside a retively small, yet highly glowing room, all manner of runes id out across the floor ahead of them.

  There, in the center of the room, on an elevated ptform, elven girl with facial features and just as blonde hair as Pyra, y unconscious, another set of glowing runes rotating around her.

  "Not happening." Rex spoke in a cold tone. the rune work around Emanai suddenly cracking and disappearing moments ter. And the moment said rune work was shattered, an entity walked out of the far end of the room, previously obscured and out of vision.

  "Who dares?" a grating voice echoed throughout the room as the half stone half bone construct walked in their line of sight. A grotesque combination of someones skeletal remains half repced with stone stood there, a number glowing gems imbedded in the stone parts.

  "Interesting rune work, though shoddy. I have to admit I was expecting better, at least after the golems you had created." Rex critiqued, already standing next to the unconscious elven woman. "It is your bad luck that you chose this girl for the procedure, even if it is heavily fwed and would result in the sme decay that borrowed body of yours is experiencing."

  "How did you? IMPOSSIBLE! WHO ARE YOU? WHAT ARE YOU?" the creature started questioning somewhat worriedly, quickly changing it's grating voice to panicked shout, taking up a defensive posture.

  "You have no doubt had the chance to study liches, or something of the sort, no other creature exists who binds their soul to external objects like that. And clearly you have not uncovered the secret properly as the shoddy imitation on dispy reveals. And because your soul is bleeding, metaphorically speaking, even if you yourself can't see or feel it. Does not happen naturally. And honestly, you are getting dangerously close to a point of no return. Best to end you now, least your soul implodes on itself, unless, of course, that is the whole point, but you would not be trying to usurp Emanai's body in that case." Rex concluded, stretching his shoulders in the process.

  "NOOO! I WILL SUCCEED! JUST NEED MORE TIME AND TEST SUBJECTS!" the creature screamed, the grating sound coming from it becoming more annoying as it moved forward, it's stone hand rising and forming multiple fireballs in mere moments, all flung towards Rex soon after. And yet, much to the creature's surprise, or so the girls believed, the thrown fireballs circled Rex, moments ter flying back towards the creature, exploding upon contact, an angry screech coming from it as fme engulfed it's form.

  "WILL NOT FAIL AGAIN! TOO CLOSE TO SUCCESS!" it seethed as more fireballs formed, unched towards Rex once again, though in much greater numbers this time. And yet, much to everyone's but Rex's surprise, the tter being the culprit, these fireballs too all once again circled Rex and were flung back, resulting in a much rger explosion with the creature at said explosions core.

  "Will not work." Rex sighed, his eyes darting towards the unconscious Emanai at his feet "Can't let you cook Pyra's sister either. Time to go to sleep you old fool." Rex added, his blood chains shooting out and like a merciless monster he used said chains to tear the construct apart, wails of unwillingness and rage escaping its form as it crumbled to dust untill eventually, the room fell silent, only the breaths of Endless journey and elven sisters filling the room. Until Res spoke that is.

  "One elder sister recovered and delivered to the recipient." he looked at Pyra for a moment, his gaze then shifting between Danica and Eve. "What are you waiting for Endless journey? Time to loot this pce!" he grinned and shot ahead, almost diving and going through all the cabinets that filled the rooms further walls. He was quickly followed by Danica and Eve, the two women following his example, collecting the treasures they recognized or asked for Rex input in case they noticed something they did not recognize.

  Pyra meanwhile was next to her sister, checking up on her and when Emanai did not wake up at her ministrations he looked towards Rex, but before she could ask what was pguing her mind Rex responded, as if already expecting her gaze to fall on him.

  "Her soul is exhausted, result of both the attempted ritual and whatever she was fed beforehand. Will take a few days to recover to the point of waking. Her body is in prime condition though, so there is no problem in waiting. Have to worry if she does not wake up by then though. Call for me when something changes or the time passes. We have plenty of stuff to go through here for the time being." Rex expined as he kept on fiddling with some sort of a container in his hands, clearly more focused on whatever mechanism was keeping it locked.

  As it turned out, Rex was slightly off with his calcution. The trio spent mo more than several hours ransacking and looting the chamber they were in, leaving only empty and broken furniture and otherwise pure chaos behind them, though they had also picked the pce clean, leaving only the useless and broken furniture and whatever other worthless junk was present.

  "Let's see what we have here then." Rex spoke as he walked over to the two sisters. one still unconscious, though breathing calmly now and the other with her eyes locked on her sleeping sister. Pyra was much calmer now that the apparent danger had passed, though still worried there could arise some complication with her sisters recovery. From what she understood and knew, based on Rex's words, whatever the creature had tried to do was somehow tryin gto either weaken or outright remove Emanai's soul from her body so it could take over.

  Rex kneeled over Emanai, his hand stretched out and touching her forehead as he closed his eyes. he remained still for a few minutes, humming something as he stood there. Then, almost abruptly he removed his hand, a fsk of water appearing in his hand, clearly pulled out of his space storage ring. He took a rge sip as though nothing had happened, his eyes locked on the fsk for a few moments.

  "Fine. It would be a waste to just sit here while a whole realm is out there to be explored and looted." he grunted, moving over and half lifting Emanai in his hands. Then, slowly and gently he pced the fsk near her lips, pouring small amounts of the water in her mouth, flexing his might to stimute the woman's blood and muscles. resulting in a gulping motion, ensuring the water goes down the right hole as intended. After a few more repeats of the same, he pced Emanai back as she was before, speaking.

  "Give her a few minutes. The effect should start to show."

  And true enough, a few minutes ter, Emanai stirred, groaning as she woke up, moments ter getting embraced by a crying Pyra. The younger of the two elven beauties sobbed and thanked Rex as she hugged her sister, a slightly confused expression on Emanai's fac as she woke up properly- something that took a fair few minutes to happen, though eventually she asked the important question in her mind.

  "Pyra? What is happening. Ouch, my head." she grumbled, the headache killing her. "Where are we? Did I not head out for the exploration of the sealed realm? What of the cave?"

  "You did." Rex spoke, earning Emanai's attention through all pain assaulting her poor head as Pyra was still too busy to answer, hugging her sister and thanking her lucky stars and whatever else might be listening to her at the moment, though quietly enough for the other conversation to be possible. "Both headed out for the exploration and got inside the cave, where you got bonked on the head, or just pin old knocked out and then captured, all in order to expunge your soul from your body and have it taken over by the previous owner of this pce. We saved your pretty ass. All thanks to Pyra's request. You are welcome by the way. I would suggest you calm her down though. If she keeps going like this she might just dry up." Rex joked, earning a double poke in his ribs, though because it did not hurt, it was a gesture to convey the both Danica's and Eve's disapprovement of his words. "And the headache you are feeling is a side effect of the interrupted ritual. Nothing permanent and it will soon start to die down, though some after effects could remain for a couple more days. Mysteries of the soul and all."

  "Urgh. You seem to know an awful lot about the subject though." Emanai grumbled as one of her hands massaged her temples while the other was caressing Pyra's head, calming the younger of the sisters at a visible rate.

  "i would like to move out as soon as possible by the way. This realm is rge enough and no doubt still has plenty of stuff to loot, so if the two of you could collect yourselves, it would be wonderful."

  "What are you, a robber or something?" Emanai asked with another groan, receiving an answer from the blonde wolfkin woman instead.

  "He he. A robber alright. Stealing the hearts of innocent maidens left and right." She suddenly developed a rather sinister grin, adding "Don't know if that is how you should be talking with a LORD candidate though, a bit too informal, no?"

  That seemed to disperse all pain and fogginess from Emanai, her head shooting towards Danica first, and when she saw how Danica herself was looking towards Rex, her head turned with incredible speed once again, wincing at the pain assaulting her, though soldiering through and looking at Rex. It was then that she saw Rex twirling his finger, a liquified mana matter like a small snake chasing his finger, dissipating as the twirling stopped. Emanai was frozen for a few seconds, her mind processing the implications while one of her hands was still caresing Pyra's head, the younger elven woman finally somewhat calmed down.

  "Pyra dear? How did you manage to request the assistance of someone of this caliber?" Emanai half whispered, though her voice was loud enough for Pyra to hear.

  "Met him in a tournament in the outer region. Suggested he visit the floating isles. Met him there after returning and being sent a message by him. Asked for help because your life crystal was fluctuating and noone in the sect was willing to send a rescue party. The ysaid you are strong enough and they had no one better to send either way. The old bat was suppressed by other elders. Sniff." Pyra expined, clearly hurting at the mere memory.

  "I did say I wanted an elven maid and would choose one after we managed to save you." Rex replied, a light smile on his face as the expression changed several times on Emanai's face, clearly guessing the implications of the precise wording. 'Will chose an elven maid once she is saved' were the words spoken, meaning that either she, or her sister would become a maid, did it not? There were no other elven women present after all. Spoken like a true demon, preying on someones weakened state and desperation, though at the same time she could not do anything about it. Elves were particur about sticking to whatever contracts they made, be it on paper or verbal. To break them would be equivalent to shaming and humiliating ones bloodline and family.

  "Pick me then. It was I who was rescued. I should pay the price then." Emanai spoke with conviction, feeling teh headache becoming more bearable. Indeed it was as the man had spoken, the severity lessening with the passage of time.

  "What are you on about sister?" Pyra asked, confused about the ongoing conversation.

  "He said he would pick an elven maid once I was rescued, correct?"

  "Ehm... yes?"

  "I am rescued, am I not?"

  "Yes! You are!" Pyra happily excimed, hugging Emanai tightly.

  "So, by all rights he gets to choose his maid now, does he not? And what choice can he make with only two elven dies present?" Emanai smiled bitterly "It's either me or you Pyra. and I am not going to let you become a maid when there is so much potential in you. It was I who would have died if not for you so I will be the one to pay the price for my own rescue."

  "B-but!" Pyra hugged Emanai, looking towards Rex with once again teary eyes, though since she had spent notably more time with Rex than Emanai, the tter having zero understanding of the man before them, she could see the smirk on his face. It was right there for all to see, but one had to have a friendly retionship with him to recognize it.

  "Bully!" Pyra excimed, jumping on her feet in mere seconds, striding over to Rex and weakly pounding his chest.

  "Sorry. Sorry." Rex smiled, petting her blonde head. "Tears do not suit you. Angry pout is so much better."