The Ox's face snapped sideways from the force of impact, spitting out a mix of gritty saliva and chipped stone from its mouth and cracked jaw. Yet most of the blow dispersed across the thick stone plating layered over its hide, dulling the actual damage done to the beast.

And that lack of effect showed immediately. With a furious bellow, the Rock Ox reared up, its massive foreleg lifting high until it matched the Treant's towering ten-meter height—then brought its hoof down on the Treant's chest with a sickening, echoing thomp.

The Treant staggered back several heavy steps, bark shuddering, but it didn't fall. The fractured area across its chest creaked, splintered, then slowly fused back together as the healing skill activated. This time, the Treant was drawing directly from Lily's mana. She'd granted it permission for healing since it consumed far less than its other abilities. She needed to conserve her own reserves—especially when her life literally depended on a mobility skill she had to maintain constantly.

Spirits had their own internal mana, and even though keeping them manifested cost Lily continuously, they normally used their personal mana pools to cast skills. Only when those reserves were depleted would they tap into their master's mana for additional strength.

Regaining its footing, the Treant clasped both hands together, weaving its long fingers into a massive, knotted fist, raising it high above its head as it gathered force.

Across from it, the Rock Ox noticed the motion and lowered its head. Its horns began to glow again—deep, earthen light pulsing like magma through cracks.

The Treant's joined fists came barreling down—just as the Ox unleashed a rapid torrent of stone bullets.

Dum! Dum! Dum! Dum! Dum—!

Like a living rapid-fire machine gun, the stone bullets hammered relentlessly into the descending fists. By the time the blow reached the Ox's head, the Treant's knotted hands were riddled with dents and punctures, weakened to the point that they shattered on impact. The Rock Ox let out a triumphant roar, clearly pleased with itself.

But it forgot one thing.

BAM! CRACK!

Lily flickered into view at its flank, momentum coiled in her legs, and delivered a fierce punch straight into the base of its skull. The strike rattled the Ox's brain and sent a thin crack spidering along the base of its horn. The beast staggered several steps back, dazed.

And while the Treant's hands were broken, its four- to five-meter-long legs remained perfectly intact. One of them swung wide and slammed into the same horn base Lily had just struck, sending a shockwave rolling through the ground and kicking up a cloud of dust.

"Ouu!" Lily winced sharply. The moment the adrenaline dipped, pain surged through her hands.

"Giving that punch on a rock-solid skull… ahh, my knuckles." She shook her hand out, hissing through her teeth, then muttered,

"How does Leo keep punching? Doesn't it hurt…?" She quickly cast a healing skill over her knuckles, trying to numb the throbbing pain.

As the settling dust thinned, her eyes widened. The Treant was pinned beneath the Rock Ox's hooves, its massive body being ruthlessly slammed into the ground again and again.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Each impact cracked its wooden torso further, fissures spreading like lightning veins across its bark. At this rate, the Treant would be forcefully unsummoned from sheer accumulated damage.

Contracted spirit beasts could not truly die—their real consciousness was bound to their masters. But restoring them wasn't easy. The master would have to pour in a tremendous amount of mana, steadily consumed over the course of days, until a suitable spirit vessel reformed to house the spirit beast's consciousness once again. The higher the rank, the more mana is demanded to rebuild that vessel.

"I cannot allow Treant to be unsummoned now!" Lily hissed through clenched teeth. Even as she spoke, her hand shot to the small waist bag, fingers digging past fabric and leather until she felt the familiar shapes of the beast cores inside—those Leo had entrusted to her. High 1-star Cedar Treant cores, along with the many others she'd accumulated throughout the trial.

Since Spirit beasts relied on ambient mana to rank up—with only exception with Leo, who could enhance and rank them up with beast cores through his talent—the cores kept accumulating. Some of which she had given to Miho so that she could experiment with them in a safe place.

But most were still with her: Low 1-star to Peak 1-star cores stacked together, a handful of 2-stars, and only a single High 2-star.

She wasn't sure why, but she still hadn't encountered a Peak 2-star or higher beast in this trial, almost as if she had wandered into a strangely weak region of the forest. Still, her luck hadn't been bad—she'd found a mana-dense valley with white-tier natural treasures (Basically mana-rich tree fruits) that enhanced her physical attributes. She stayed there for more than five days, training relentlessly, hunting anything that wandered too close, and letting both Treant and Lunaria rise in rank.

Now, clutching the bag of cores tightly in front, she focused on her talent and reached out mentally.

She called for as many spirits as she could.

Immediately, cores flared inside the pouch, dissolving into soft motes of colored light—green, brown, blue, amber—each one streaking into the air and forming projections. The process continued until a sharp, stabbing pain shot through Lily's skull, making her flinch. More than half the cores remained untouched. That was her limit… for now.

Within seconds, the clearing was packed with spectral silhouettes, nearly 20 to 30—Cedar Treants of varying heights, hares with shimmering fur, wolves and hounds with translucent fangs, wide-jawed lizards, tusked boars—each one resembling their living counterparts but tinted in the soft glow of spirit projections. None of them turned to greet or acknowledge Lily. They didn't need to. Her thoughts were urgent, and they sensed it instantly.

They all lunged straight at the Rock Ox in a unified burst, unleashing every skill they possessed—compressed wind slashes, sharpened bark claws, spectral charges, elemental snaps—forming a chaotic storm of force that crashed into the Ox from every direction.

The Rock Ox froze, momentarily stunned at the sudden explosion of enemies. Its hooves scraped back through the dirt as it instinctively stepped away from the pinned treant, who was on the verge of breaking apart.

Then its red eyes narrowed.

It noticed something.

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A/N: The only reason the facts and mechanisms related to Leo's and Lily's skills are explained in detail as I won't be doing it in future for other characters. With the given explanations till now(Which are applicable for most skills), readers will get the idea of how their skill works.

So please bear with it for a few chapters.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.