Farsight is a finicky technique to use, Alexandria idly thought. But it was a good thing that it was folded into her Truth. It was an integral part of her Martial Path after all. However, Farsight wasn't just the ability to look at things far away, which would have made it little better than a telescope or binoculars. Not only did she need to see from longstrides away, she also needed the capability to see beneath the surface of things, and to determine what was hidden.

As such, when she looked at the centre of the caldera, more than a league away, she saw the Biome Guardian hidden within the spatial folds.

She hummed as her fingers caressed the feathers of her arrows secured on the quiver at her hip. Her other hand held the warbow in a relaxed grip. Which arrow to use? Or should she spend her resources to conjure one out of reality's dross? The sound of shuffling boots behind her made her roll her eyes, and she didn't need to glance back to know her twin brother, Alexandros, pacing impatiently.

Yes, their parents had awful naming senses, and she had considered changing her given name more than once. She didn't, of course, since it hardly mattered now. The two of them were in the midst of their wanderlust, something every member of their clan experienced. It was a rite of passage, really, for everyone to eventually leave the nest and wander wherever their feet take them. Across the Great Continent, into the Tower of Eternity, and through the floors into other Realms.

"You sure about this, Dria?" Xandy asked. "Wouldn't it be simpler to just walk?"

"Yeah, but I don't want to waste time," she muttered. If they walked down the pathway, there was no doubt that they'd be accosted by monsters at every step. That was just how Shangria was. If this place weren't the easiest way to access many different Realms, then they wouldn't have bothered. Here, a year's effort would bring them to places that would have taken decades or more to get to conventionally. Provided they knew the way…

Well, it wasn't as if the two of them had any set destination in mind. If not for the Sigil, the family would have broken into hundreds of disparate branches over the millennia, rather than remain an interconnected, Realm-spanning clan.

Shangria was a well-known hub, however, and sometimes, the portals opened to random Realms, too. If she liked the place she ended up in, she might mark the path down so she could return to it when she settled down. Unlikely to happen anytime soon, though.

"But I wanna fight," Xandy whined, and Alexandria sighed, relieved that they hadn't hired a group or joined one, in their preliminary delve. The portals to other Realms or planes only appeared past the third layer, but the deeper layers often led to the most unique and interesting places. But getting there required preparation and practice, which was the point of this foray.

"You want to fight weaklings?" She grumbled.

She knew Xandy rolled his eyes as he said, "Yes, actually, since it rounds out my Truth."

"So you finally see the light, huh?"

"So says Miss Shoot over the Horizon."

"And don't you forget it!" Dria grinned. Yes, she was specialised, and that could be a weakness. But if she built that tower high enough, with an appropriately supported base, she should be capable of overcoming inherent weakness. For her particular predilection, she wouldn't be swamped if she killed them from far enough away. "Now shush, I'm busy."

"Fine, fine."

All the while, her focus was on the spatial folds hiding the guardian. Her arrows could slip through such folds easily enough, but only if they were simple. Shangria was anything but that, though it offered progressive levels of challenge. They were at the tag end of the first layer, so the challenge wasn't too difficult, but her target was the layer guardian, which elevated the difficulty appropriately.

"Single fold," she muttered, "but twist locked." Her arrow would slip through a single fold as if it didn't exist, but the twisting would mean she wouldn't hit what was hiding beneath. Not unless she deciphered the twist anyway. The one at the center of the caldera looked complex, but was made easier to parse due to the fact that it was enormous. As if the ropes that made the knot were several paces thick.

"Got you." She grinned. It took only a couple of minutes to decipher, and that allowed her to see through the folding as well.

"So what's there?" Xandy asked eagerly.

"A giant beaver-bear-thing?" The way Shangria made monsters was perplexing, come to think of it. It mixes features from many common beasts…so chimeras, she supposed. "Made of vines, I think."

"Meh, pass," Xandy waved it off casually. "I'm not interested in dueling a tree monster." But then, he perked up. "How big, though?"

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"Can't tell. Distortions." Dria answered, "But I'm guessing at least ten paces at the shoulder." She noted with more than a little amusement at how her younger twin nibbled on his lower lip while thinking furiously, but she expected that he wouldn't be that interested. It was a weak challenge for his Truth anyway, and a credible one for hers. After all, she expected the guardian to emerge out of its hidey-hole once they approached, while her Truth was all about striking from a distance, against hardened defenses.

"Well, you have it." He answered as she expected.

She nodded and caressed her arrows again. Should she use a single one, imbued with as much Intent and Will as she could to carry her Truth, or shoot two? One to negate the spatial fold and the other to actually destroy the guardian? Speaking of that…

She focused her Sight on the giant beaver-bear…bearver? Magnified and filtered for Truths and other esoteric energies showed her that the musculature, the fur, and the bony protrusions around its eyes were more like wood than anything else. Petrified wood for bones? Living vines for the muscles and probably freshly dead wood for the fur and skin was how she'd metaphorically compare it. Monsters like that always had a weak point, though.

That was always the case with monsters spawned in Shangria. A weak point always existed, even if it wasn't obvious. It wouldn't kill the monster outright, though a powerful hit at the precise point with the correct enhancements might. The regular monsters were painfully weak, but this was the first layer, and perhaps the place had been overhyped by the family's records.

Anyway, regular monsters don't even warrant one of her special arrows. There were a dozen in her quiver, each one shaped from Reality by her Truth. Each one was unique, and once expended, took some time to reform. A day or so, really. On the other hand, she could forge an arrow from the very air around her. It took some focus, but not much else. All that meant that she wasn't well-suited to fighting a horde, but then, her brother wasn't, either. Both of them focused on taking on one strong foe… he, by an inexorable assault, while she deciphered an enemy's weakness, and charged her arrow to slay it. Preferably from over the horizon.

It took about a minute to find out that the bearver's weak point was a bulb at the base of its skull. It was protected by thick layers of neck muscle and a bony frill. The bulb wasn't that soft a target either, and she pursed her lip in thought as she returned her focus on the knotted space fold.

It would be easy to use the thick cables to enter the fold, and just as easy to slip between them instead. The first took more time but was more accurate, while the second was faster and more powerful. Did she need overwhelming power? Probably.

She also needed speed. The knot would unravel once something came close, and investing stealth into her arrow was an added effect that would take more out of her than otherwise. Or she could use her forged arrow. Spatial shifter? Dimension piercer?

The piercer was more straightforward. Her fingers found the correct one by the difference in fletching. She unfolded her warbow and nocked the arrow. She drew it and held it. She couldn't imbue it properly if it wasn't ready to be loosed, and her style revolved around this; hence, the years she spent in training such a thing.

She absently noted Xandy's snicker, and she resolved to kick his bottom later. So she was conscious of the fact that her arms were too well-endowed compared to the rest of her! Her back, too, but that was actually aesthetically pleasing. Her twin had equally toned arms. Actually, her shoulders were broader than his, and sometimes, if she dressed right, she'd be the one mistaken for a man. Hmm, good thing she didn't have the same weak point he did. She smirked, and by the way he blanched, he realised his doom.

Intent and Will, along with Ennoia energies, converged on the arrow. They merged seamlessly, and soon enough, she was ready.

"Swift death on the winds. Farewell," she murmured. The mnemonic helped her get into the proper mindset. She loosed the string, and her heart flew with the arrow.

How could one strike over the horizon, many leagues away, if one couldn't see the target? How could one strike through when the winds turned against her? She rode the arrow in flight and turned everything around it into the perfect environment for it to fly.

The rising hot air and the colder winds above created turbulent gusts that shifted unexpectedly. It was easy to bend them to her needs, but it was just as easy, and more efficient, to adjust the arrow's flight. A nudge here, a rise there, and a little adjustment to the left, and the force of the winds added to her flight.

The slayer slipped through the knotted spatial fold, in the creases between. It emerged within the pocket space and drove directly into the bearver's throat. The broadhead parted the vines, though it wasn't by cutting or piercing through. Instead, the arrow slipped through the gaps between the threads, slipped through the tiny gaps in the fabric of reality, and hit the bulb. The broadhead pierced through the surface layer and dug into the core. The point stopped at the precise centre. The moment it did, the arrow dissolved. Strands of midnight black thread followed every vine and pierced every little particle that made up the monster's flesh. It spread from the heart, invaded the rest of its torso, and wove its way towards its head, then to its limbs and extremities.

After a long moment, the guardian stumbled out of the spatial fold and began to disintegrate. At the same time, various spatial pockets disgorged hundreds…no, thousands of monsters along the spiralling path that led to the centre. Dria hummed as a thrill of pleasure washed over her body at managing a one-hit-kill, even if her foe wasn't really anything special.

"So, we just fly over?"

Dria rolled her eyes, "Unless you want to walk while protecting your defenseless sister."

Xandy snorted in derision, even as he retrieved his flying conveyance, a pie slice-shaped metal that unfolded into a circle, from his backpack. He tossed it at his feet, and it hovered a couple of inches off the bare rock. Dria retracted her warbow into her left arm bracer before she did the same. As soon as the lifter unfolded, she stepped on it. The metal locked her boots in place while the control stick unfolded from her right arm. A minute later, the two of them zoomed across the distance, headed straight to the portal.

It had taken all of the day to cross the hundred biomes in the first layer, and by all rights, they shouldn't have been able to do that, much less breach the restrictions of a layer crossing. But nothing impeded the Wanderlust.

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