CH465 Elven Space Mage?

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After the expedition party finished stripping the Dune Croc of what they needed, Alex gestured for the elves to step forward and claim their right to the remainder of the corpse.

Yerion hesitated for a brief moment, uncertainty flashing across his face.

Before he could speak, Naena subtly shook her head at him—wordless, but firm.

She stepped forward on her own.

That simple act drew confused looks and faint frowns from the expedition party.

Naena's footsteps made no sound at all.

Just as Zora had observed earlier, her body felt like a point where sound itself vanished.

She stopped before the massive corpse and closed her eyes, her expression calm as she roused her mana with precise, almost reverent concentration.

Then—

The fabric of space rippled.

A spatial gate opened, revealing another location beyond—one marked by unmistakable elven architecture.

Before Alex and his party could make sense of what they were seeing, the Dune Croc's enormous corpse was pulled into the gate and vanished.

The space sealed itself as if it had never been disturbed.

Silence descended.

'A space mage?'

That was the immediate thought that crossed the minds of most of the expedition party.

But Alex—and those with deeper understanding like Zora, Eleanor, and Sugud—knew better.

Space mages could open gates to shorten travel, yes.

But there were limits.

Distance, mass, spatial interference and resistance...

According to the maps Alex possessed, elven territory lay thousands of kilometres away. Not to mention, a Dune Croc was anything but light. But most importantly, they were inside a Berserk Beast Nest—a significant spatial anomaly.

Stacking these conditions together made opening a spatial gate prohibitively difficult, perhaps even outright impossible for an Elite-ranked space mage.

Or it should have been.

But that wasn't what truly unsettled Alex.

There was something else he sensed from Naena the moment the gate formed which pupils constricted.

'Spatial Energy…?'

The thought sent a jolt of shock through his body.

Cultivation academia on Pangea had long reached a consensus that it was nigh impossible for humanoid—non-beast—races to innately gather and store Spatial Energy.

Their bodies simply weren't built for it.

Worse still, their spiritual force—fuelled by a complex, unstable blend of emotional energies—was considered far too chaotic to control something as xenophobic and volatile as Spatial Energy.

'Does this mean Pangea's academia is wrong?' Alex questioned inwardly.

'I tried to absorb Spatial Energy myself, but it passed straight through my body as if I wasn't even there.'

'Is there a specialised method in Verdantis that Pangea's academia hasn't discovered yet?'

'Fascinating.'

Alex's eyes glowed faintly.

A smile crept onto his face.

The realisation hit him so hard that he forgot to rein in his expression. His emotions leaked out plainly—clear enough for Yerion to notice.

Yerion stiffened.

'As I thought. Humans are greedy after all,' he thought grimly.

But then he looked closer.

Alex's gaze wasn't locked onto Naena.

It was fixed on the space where the gate had been.

'Wait… is that really greed?' Yerion hesitated. 'If it is, it isn't directed at Naena. It's directed at the gate itself.'

Then he noticed Alex's smile.

'No. This isn't greed. This is… curiosity, excitement or is it motivation?'

Yerion frowned.

'What exactly is going through this human's mind?'

He shifted his gaze toward the rest of the expedition party.

They were clearly surprised by Naena's ability. But they weren't shocked by the existence of the gate itself.

'It's almost… almost as if they've seen something like this before. And it isn't even special to them.'

That unsettled Yerion far more than outright greed ever could.

Almost every time humans witnessed Naena's ability—whether directly or through deduction—their reactions were the same.

They all showed covetous eyes and thinly veiled greed, with schemes following soon after.

They had been ambushed before by adventurers who wanted to capture Naena outright.

They've also had a noble plot to seize her under false pretence as well.

If not for Naena's own insistence and reassurance, Yerion would never have agreed to perform the transfer in front of another party.

When the spatial transfer ended, Naena swayed slightly before turning toward him.

She offered a weak smile.

One that seemed to say—

'I told you so.'

Yerion quickly stepped forward to support her.

Outwardly, he appeared calm. Inwardly, however, his vigilance doubled—particularly toward the sorcerer leading the group.

His fingers brushed the vambrace on his arm.

Hidden within it was his final reassurance.

A last resort –one he never wanted to use.

'As long as I can return Naena home,' Yerion thought, 'any cost is worth paying.'

With the corpse gone, Alex, his party, and the elven group continued their journey along the periphery of the Red Rock nest.

Whenever they reached what should have been the boundary of the nest, a mysterious force subtly guided their path back inward, preventing them from leaving the affected area.

'This feels less like a nest,' Alex mused, 'and more like a cage meant to keep the beasts inside.'

'Until it overflows and explodes, that is.'

After circling the outer regions for a while, the group began to notice something off.

"It looks like the beasts along the periphery have already been wiped out by the adventurers," Alex said, turning to voice what everyone had realised.

His gaze shifted deeper into the nest.

"So… what do you all think?" he asked. "Should we head inward and see what the core has to offer?"

"Of course, boss. My babies still haven't eaten," Kavakan said immediately, grinning as he hefted his axes.

One by one, the other members of the expedition voiced their agreement.

Alex turned to Zora.

She rolled her eyes at him in exasperation.

He chuckled softly, then shifted his attention to the elven party.

"And what about you?" he asked. "What do you intend to do?"

This was the perfect opportunity to part ways, and Yerion knew it.

His first instinct was to take it.

Alex had shown no hostility—no attempts to probe, threaten, or even isolate Naena.

Yet, paradoxically, that only made Yerion more uneasy. He couldn't reconcile such restraint with everything he knew about humans.

No plotting, overt greed nor coercion… It doesn't make sense to him.

But before he could speak, he noticed Aylora and Darias looking at him with clear anticipation.

Naena met his gaze and gave a small, firm nod.

She wanted to continue.

Yerion groaned inwardly.

"We will continue to accompany you," he said at last.

Alex raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure? I didn't think your party planned to go that deep."

"If we were on our own, we wouldn't," Yerion admitted. "But if it's to support your party, then the risk becomes worth taking."

'Heading inward means stronger beasts… and better resources,' he reasoned in a bid to convince himself. 'With this group, we should be able to handle most threats—as long as we don't run into one of the nest's true rulers.'

"We'll pull our weight," Yerion added firmly.

"I don't doubt that," Alex replied calmly.

The four elves were all Gold-rankers. Moreover, Yerion himself was a peak Gold rank.

Considering his apparent age, that might make him the least talented member of his group—but whatever he lacked in raw talent, he more than made up for with experience.

With that settled, the combined group headed deeper toward the core of the nest.

As expected, they soon came across scattered corpses—both humanoid and beast.

The adventurers' bodies had been looted clean.

Undoubtedly the work of other adventurers.

Such was the way of the world here.

They pushed inward for nearly an hour without encountering a single living beast, let alone engaging in battle. Alex almost began to believe they would reach the nest's core without resistance.

As usual, that illusion didn't last.

Rumble~

The ground trembled faintly.

About a hundred metres ahead, the group spotted another cluster of beasts blocking their chosen path.

This time, it was a mixed group of Desert Crabs and Armoured Scorpions.

Each creature possessed a thick carapace or reinforced exoskeleton capable of shrugging off most physical attacks.

And at the centre of it all—

A massive scorpion stood out, its body covered in a glossy, crystal-like carapace.

A Crystal Scorpion.

Not only was the beast nearly impervious to physical attacks below Class 4, it also possessed a far more dangerous trait.

Sizzle~~!

Thick droplets of viscous liquid fell from the scorpion's raised stinger. Wherever the venom touched the stone, it hissed violently, liquefying the ground on contact.

"A Crystal Scorpion with corrosive venom…" Alex muttered dryly. "Wonderful."

His brows furrowed as he assessed the battlefield.

Then he turned to Kavakan, a teasing smile tugging at his lips as he tried to lighten the tension.

"So, big guy," Alex said, "are your babies still hungry?"

Kavakan gave a wry smile at first.

Then, slowly, he turned toward Alex—battle lust igniting in his eyes despite the clearly unfavourable matchup.

"Boss," the weretiger grinned, lifting his axes, "my babies are always hungry."

***

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