A/N: Quick note.

Lily's spirit beast shares 150% intelligence stat in total [Innate(100%) + beast's share(50%)]

Leo's Half-spirit shares 116.33% intelligence stat in total [Innate(66.33%) + beast's share(50%)] for now. (At the soul stage, it's gonna increase(๑ↀᆺↀ๑)✧)

Amen( ಠ‿ಠ )

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Miho had tried to describe everything in a quiet, trembling voice. She nearly cried—eyes reddening, breath hitching—but she swallowed it back each time, as though she'd been trained to never show weakness.

Lily's jaw clenched. She knew servants in her paternal household had harsh lives; it was the very reason her father refused to send her there. But she hadn't known it was this bad.

The memory of her father flashed through her mind—his tired expression and refusal to bow. Pressure was placed upon him, and the chain reaction that followed. If those people hadn't threatened him… he would never have gone to the baron to get a property permit signed in order to seek protection. And Zerek would never have laid his filthy eyes on her mother.

Her father might still be alive.

Lily exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing with a growing, simmering resolve.

She would pay them a visit when time allowed. Not just for Miho, but for everything they had set in motion.

She was about to lay Miho down when a thunderous beastly bellow ripped through the air.

MOOOOOO!

Her head snapped toward the sound. A massive ox-like creature now stood where the sludge bear had fallen—now squashed under the weight of ox—as if it had simply materialized out of the shadows. Nearly seven meters tall—eight if she counted the jagged stone hump on its back—it looked like a walking fortress. Its entire body was coated in layered, rock-like plates that formed natural armor; long, sweeping horns stretched two to three meters outward, each thicker than Lily's forearm, easily thirty centimetres at the base. Its hooves glinted like polished metal, striking the ground with a weighty echo. And its eyes—bloodshot and burning—looking around for a presence that he seemed to have sensed.

Lily barely had time to register what she was seeing when the rock ox jerked its head sharply in her direction.

A prickle crawled up the back of her neck—instinct screaming at her. Without hesitation, she twisted her body, wind surging beneath her feet. Still cradling Miho tightly in her arms, she launched herself off the branch. The instant she landed on a new perch, a barrage of cracking booms erupted behind her. Stone projectiles slammed into her previous spot, pulverizing the branch into raining splinters before the entire thing tore loose and plummeted to the forest floor with a heavy thud.

The ox snorted viciously. When its first ambush failed, it pawed the ground with its thick back leg, sending up a gritty spray of dust and pebbles—coiling to charge.

And then it did.

Mooooooo!

The roar warped into something mad, like a bull driven past its breaking point. The creature lunged forward with shocking acceleration. Within seconds, it crossed the 50–70 meters between them as it gained momentum, its massive frame tearing through the underbrush as if the forest itself were made of paper. For something that large, that speed should've been impossible—but she was watching it happen.

Lily swept her gaze for another tree sturdy enough to take her weight while carrying Miho, but the nearest branches were thin, brittle, or angled wrong. Nothing she could trust.

With no other option, she vaulted toward the direction the ox had originally come from, boots snapping leaves as she touched down.

BOOM! TRRRrrrr—clap—thum!

The ox obliterated the tree she'd just abandoned. Wood exploded into chunks as it barreled straight through, momentum unbroken, skidding wide in a brutal arc before redirecting itself back toward her.

"Treant!" she shouted, breath sharp, calling forth the Cedar Treant.

A dense wooden projection burst into existence, towering past ten meters tall. The moment its form solidified, it slammed both massive fists into the earth. Two enormous brown root-like vines erupted from the ground, thick as logs, whipping forward with violent force straight at the charging ox.

But the beast cut through the attack as if wrapped in a sheath of compressed air. The moment the roots made contact, they cracked, splintered, and were blasted apart into hundreds of sharp fragments that scattered in every direction. The Treant didn't relent—the vines kept surging outward as it consumed more mana, slamming forward again and again.

The ox didn't slow.

But the Treant was no less relentless. It amplified its mana output with a low, resonating groan, and thicker, denser vines began erupting from the ground like rising serpents. This time, the effect showed—each impact made the charging ox's momentum stutter, its hooves grinding deeper into the earth as it slowed.

"Lunaria!" Lily called.

A dense, bluish silhouette flickered into existence before solidifying into the form of a five-meter wolf. Pale mist curled around its legs as Lunaria lowered itself, ears flattening in readiness.

Lily knew Lunaria couldn't even scratch that multilayered stone-plated hide, which obviously was higher than Pseudo 3-star. So she quickly instructed, "Take Miho. Get her far from here."

The wolf obeyed without hesitation. Lunaria swept Miho onto its back with practised care and darted away, its paws thudding softly but rapidly against the forest floor until both figures slipped beyond the immediate chaos.

Only after confirming their distance did Lily unsheathe her sword. The worn metal flashed dully—tired, cracked, and chipped from days of nonstop combat. She exhaled through her nose, running a thumb along one of the battered notches.

"Looks like this might be your last battle," she murmured,

At some point, the weapon simply couldn't keep up with her growth. Instead of accelerating her movements, it dragged, weighed her down. Still… having a blade was better than meeting a stone ox with bare fists.

"I don't want to rough my hands up like Leo's," she muttered under her breath, an involuntary warmth rising to her cheeks. "Even though I do like his rough hands running over my body…"

Her mind wandered—dangerously so. She recalled the moments when Leo would lie with his head on her lap and belly, urging her to stroke his cheeks and neck, calling her hands the softest he'd ever felt. And how she'd sometimes take advantage of the moment to mischievously tease his mem—

Lily jolted out of her thoughts, shaking her head so hard her pink hair whipped against her shoulders. Heat shot downward through her body in a way entirely unhelpful for combat.

"Yeah, the days are definitely catching up to me," she muttered, cheeks still warm. "Ten more days and I swear I'm not letting him go for at least two."

With a steadying breath, she channelled her mana. The air around her sword shimmered as she activated [Windblade], threads of sharp-cutting wind coiling tightly around the battered metal. Its edge brightened—bluish, sharper and reinforced with a faint humming of wind—boosting both its durability and lethal potential.

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A/N: Bond so strong, they get the same idea at the same time(⌐■_■)

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