The ugly shark swam at a sedate pace, looking halfway to corpse status already. Hector expected Zara to put the beast out of its misery, but the moment she began to form cables something unexpected happened. The shark's domain warped into existence, sending out a vicious concussive wave. There was no chance to avoid the attack before Hector found himself pushed back like a bus had struck him.

Zara finished off the shark before Hector managed to rejoin his group after being blasted away by the shark's domain. He'd taken no real damage from the experience, other than the bruise given to his ego. No one else was displaced by the sudden attack.

With the beast of the sea slain, Zara was dismembering it with her cables and scattering the flesh across a wide area. She retained only the core. The corpse appeared to be lure for other creatures. The outlines of the plan his comrades followed began to come clear. Their hunting expedition was more accurately a fishing trip. They were casting bait to draw in other creatures.

As the hours passed, it became clear that they were not directly chasing the kraken that was their goal. Other beasts entered the area to feed. Fish, sharks, stingrays, and even a whale appeared. Their group ignored anything below level seven to watch in every direction with unceasing caution. Any beast at level eight or above would be identified to Zara, then she would kill it.

The fights were illustrative of proper underwater combat. Cables didn't whip properly in the dense water, but they did amazing work when it came to tearing apart gills, gouging out eyes, and forcing mouths shut. None of that killed beasts with strong body enhancement, of course. Zara had to rip them apart until she did critical damage to the organs.

Predictably, given she was the one doing all the fighting, Zara kept every core for herself. A pouch she wore close held her gains. The ocean around them retained the other remains of their deceased victims, drawing ever more attention from their fellow predators.

Until Mei let out a wordless shriek of warning on the mental band.

Everyone in the group immediately began to surface. Hector lagged behind, ignorant of the call's significance. His attention was focused upwards as he began accelerating and thus had a perfect view when a killer whale rammed Yan. From the whale's open mouth protruded a lance-like tusk vibrating with intense energy. It was an item type externality. Only instead of a sword or a spear to be wielded, it was attached as an additional tooth.

Blood dispersed through the water like it had been spread by a bomb. Even from a hundred meters away, Hector tasted the metallic tang on his tongue. Yan drove her own spear externality towards the whale. The attack of the level six woman did no good.

The other two Azure Spear Maidens were on the orca in a moment, stabbing with their greater strength. Dorian turned to assist and a cable from Zara yanked him back into flight. Hector followed the example of the two Amaratti. The fact that he couldn't detect any more than the outline of the whale with his mental sense made Hector extremely concerned. Almost as much as the fact that a Lord was running from the beast for all she was worth.

Tingling pain littered his body as he rose through the water, pockets forming within his blood. Hector shoved additional cosmic energy into his flesh to combat the decompression sickness and continued his ascent. They shot free of the water and aimed for the clouds. Hector was only a few seconds behind Zara and Dorian. Mei and Isabel emerged a quarter of a minute after him. They inhaled air to shriek their rage to the sky.

The orca shot free as if it were leaping between waves, then abruptly rotated and followed them through the air. Its movements appeared odd to Hector, but it moved so rapidly he put any analysis aside for later. Assuming he had a later.

The other humans scattered in random directions across the sky. Though Hector wished he had been given a detailed briefing on their tactics for handling the orca, he understood well enough what his move was in this situation. He would flee in a different direction than everyone else and try to lose his pursuer.

Following the path of one of his fellows would only ensure the orca chose them to chase, given that there would be twice the victims along their heading. So every man for himself. Hector chose a clear patch of sky and raced in that direction faster than he'd ever gone before. His aura flared to keep the wind of his passage from blinding his eyes. Cosmic energy flowed to every cell of his body to compensate for the fact that the air at his speed was too compressed for him to properly breathe it.

His touch sense reported phenomenal news. The beast chose someone else to chase.

But then everything was thrown into question.

As the orca shot after Isabel, the rest of the humans curved their own paths. Hector paused his imitation of a bat out of hell to study the new pattern. Dorian, Zara, and Mei were positioning themselves in an odd way instead of fleeing. Then, suddenly, Isabel dove and sliced to one side.

The orca predictably cut an angle to close some of the distance.

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And all three of the waiting humans blindsided the orca. Cables whipped, a spear was thrown, and the purple line of a chaos bolt connected Dorian to the whale. The beast was cast down from the sky, spiraling from the impact, to crash in a spray of water.

The humans darted straight upward once more, racing to gain height. Hector joined them.

Their escape truly commenced then. They burned energy like it didn't matter. And it really didn't. Hector knew that if the beast caught up, another of them would likely perish. Energy cost nothing but time.

A few hundred miles disappeared quick before they switched directions to enter a cloud bank. Obscured inside it, they hovered together. Mei was cursing steadily in the Zing language and didn't stop even when Zara had to speak over her.

"That was it for today. I have two level eight cores. Whose turn is it?"

Isabel held out her hand for one. Then there was an awkward silence as his peers realized who was supposed to be next in line. Even without knowing what the order of their rotation was for dispersing shares of their spoils, Hector understood from the reaction that Yan should be next. After a moment, Zara held out the second core to Dorian.

Zara tucked away her leather pouch which still held several level nine cores. "Return to camp. I will return by transit sphere in a few hours."

For a moment it looked like Mei would argue. Then Dorian took her hand and the tension melted. They flew at the same altitude for a time before dropping straight down onto their atoll. Dorian took a walk with Mei while Isabel stared at the waves.

"Bad luck for your first day with us," she said.

Hector dug his toes into the sand as he pondered the events of the day. Zara had obviously taken her level nine cores to feed to the Mother. Meanwhile their team had lost a life. "The orca's veil was better than any of ours."

"The kraken should have been in the area. Bad luck it didn't come before the orca." Isabel gave the impression of being small as she watched the horizon. "We intended to return to our sect with strength they could not ignore. I do not know if such a thing is possible. We may be throwing our lives away in service of an Amaratti Lord."

He grimaced. "Zara wouldn't force you to stay against your will."

"Due to her exile, she grants us the liberty to act casually around her. Do not mistake that for softness. A kind woman she may be, but Zara is still an Amaratti Lord. We consented to become her assets in exchange for cores. It is too late to renegotiate."

While he didn't think Zara would be so harsh, Hector decided it wise not to encourage the maidens to quit their cooperation. Since he had Isabel talking, though…. "Amaratti Lords have quite a reputation. Are level tens from other nations any different?"

"Immortals hold immense power everywhere, but only in Amarat does surviving a Tribulation grant one the right to rule. Zing has the Emperor to keep Immortals in line. There is the level eleven Ancestor in Bentley who limits war on the dark continent. Most places… well, they end up like Stein sooner or later. Someone seizes power."

Hector chose his words carefully. "Tian is a touch dystopic."

"Would you claim the other worlds are any different? The strong rule the weak. That is how societies function. Maybe the Arahants use mind control instead of violence. And the Jinn rely on strength of machine instead of strength of body. It's all the same, though."

"Tell me, Isabel. Have you ever left Tian?"

The woman bristled. "You think me ignorant?"

"Of worlds you have never seen with your own eyes? Yes."

"I refuse to believe the world of my kind to be uniquely evil, dreamer."

A bitter laugh bubbled up and had to be vomited out. "In my experience, every world has its own particular flavor of evil, Isabel. Here it takes the form of violent competition for resources. Union Central is ruled by money. Eden is horrifically xenophobic. Aes is choked in miasma and hopelessness. I've passed through unempowered worlds gripped by fascism and willful ignorance. Maya is said to be flirting with isolationism at a time when the entire multiverse is on the verge of dying."

The red in Isabel's face faded as he spoke, casting stones at the reputations of worlds she'd only ever heard of. As he finished, her brow drew down. "Surely you exaggerate the threat of the monsters. The miasma eruption that struck the capital of Amarat some decades past was repelled in under a single day."

Having such a clear opening, Hector could not hold back. "The world of Aes is dying, Isabel. If too many more humans leave, it will be absorbed into the primordial. The echoes of that will destroy the entire multiverse given enough time. Even if that doesn't happen, the soul of the world is being corrupted by miasma. The monster attacks on the unempowered worlds are just as large of a threat. Everything is falling apart and only a tiny sliver of humanity is willing to fight."

Isabel stewed on his words for a few moments before offering her opinion. "If you believe so strongly in the threat of the monsters, I wonder why you are here."

That caused him to flinch. Why was he here? Because he'd been unintentionally responsible for the harm that befell Zara. And also the Lord General had shanghaied Hector into a quest to reach his daughter. He liked Zara, it was true. But how could that justify walking away from the obligation he had to defend the existence of the species across the entire multiverse?

On the other hand, his comrades here in Oceania had just lost one of their number. They desperately needed any help they could get. Abandoning friends in such circumstances felt wrong. There was no choice he could make that didn't do wrong. Making a callous decision based on consequential logic didn't sit right with him either. That wasn't the path he chose when he began his moral journey. He didn't try to guess which actions would cause the best outcome for the most people. He acted with virtue. The ultimate goal was being a good man. More and more, he felt a psychic pain when he failed to live up to that goal.

What could he do here? The obvious solution, the one he wanted, seemed impossible. Aes needed powerful warriors. There was a Lord and her retinue throwing away their lives in Oceania. Clearly everyone would be better served if his comrades in the hunt for cores switched over to the fight against monsters.

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