After the meeting, Reidar found Lena and Jake in one of the smaller conference rooms next to the war room. Jake sat on the floor, working on the Storm-Edge Kris Reidar had given him earlier, sharpening the blade with focused, repetitive strokes. Lena stood by the window, staring out at Creamont's darkening skyline.

"How are you feeling?" Reidar asked as he entered.

Lena turned. A wry smile crossed her face. "Like a million needles pierced me from the inside. Other than that, perfectly fine."

"That good?" Reidar matched her tone. "I was expecting at least two million."

"An hour? I'll hold you to that." She pushed off from the window frame. "Your father's handiwork, I take it?"

"Matthias delivered."

"He did more than deliver." Lena's expression softened. "He saved my life. The toxin damage should've been permanent based on what he told me after I woke up. Instead, I'm standing here having a conversation. His skill as a healer is remarkable."

Reidar allowed himself a small smile. "He got a small boost recently. New skills. Better equipment. A few levels."

"A small boost?" Lena's eyebrow rose. "He jumped from level 103 to 118 in less than a day. That's not a boost, Reidar. That's giving him monster steroids."

She paused. "I suppose this is the reason why you said it was possible to level everyone up in such a short amount of time."

"It is… But Dad is also a special case; he has a strong trait, one that makes his mana inexhaustible. You can only imagine how many skills he used on the monsters once he got his mana back and how strong those were. His contribution to the battle just rose like crazy."

He paused. "The others weren't as lucky, but they still got levels up nicely, and the level disparity with the monsters helped."

"Aaron will keep doing the same with his people."

"That's why we are going to strike soon… They do not know we are aware of the situation, so they will avoid provoking us."

"I don't know if I will be able to fight," Lena said. "I'm still not at 100%."

"That's why I asked Seraphine to go with you. This is your best chance for revenge against Aaron. It won't mean the same if I'm the one to kill him."

"You are right…" Lena sighed, wincing slightly because of the residual pain.

"Look at everything this way," Reidar said. "You will have a week to get back on your feet. The level-ups will help you, and you can buy more skills to help you with whatever you want to do. With all the unused survival points you have accumulated from the valley raid, I bet you will find something quite useful. Something that makes you invisible? Or something that makes you faster. The choice is yours."

Lena didn't have the time nor the right mindset to check her status, but she knew that if they were in Creamont, it meant the raid had succeeded. She checked her level and saw it jumped quite a lot, meaning that the reward multiplier or the average gains of the raid must not have been low. That explained the sudden surge in power.

Moreover, she hadn't spent her perk and attribute points yet, so she would improve significantly once she did.

Of course, given her near-death experience, she was going to pump up her S.H.I.E.L.D. attribute quite a bit. It would make her faster and stronger, but most importantly, more resilient. The problem was that she would need to keep her F.L.A.I.R. close to S.H.I.E.L.D., or she would end up not being able to follow her own movements.

Crashing into a tree at high speed was never pleasant, especially considering how sturdy they were. Most of the time, they would also eat you alive, so it was advisable to avoid such situations.

She also needed to change her gear and buy something suitable for her level and also buy something that she would be going to use once Reidar finished powering her up, although she was likely going to be able to take care of some monsters alone.

<I really need to buy some summoning skills for myself.>

Jake looked up from his weapon. "Are you really okay?"

"I'm really okay," Lena said, ruffling his hair. "It takes more than plant venom to keep me down."

Then the levity faded as quickly as it had appeared. Lena's expression turned serious. "What do you really think about the situation, Reidar? Not the version you gave everyone in the war room. The truth."

Reidar had to fake being sure everything was going to go as he planned, but the truth was that there was no certainty at all. The parameters were simply too many. A lot of things could happen before and during the attack.

No one was safe; everything could go bad.

Reidar met her gaze. He'd known this conversation was coming. Lena had a way of cutting through pretense.

"It's difficult," he said. "Aaron is level 297, and I assume his level will keep rising, and while we can narrow it, we won't be able to close it completely before we have to move."

"The main problem is that I also don't know how strong Silas is either. I wasn't able to see his name tag clearly and for sure will need to investigate it. Besides…"

He paused, organizing his thoughts. "There are not enough high-level monsters to hunt."

"What do you mean?" Lena asked. "Literally what I said." He paused. "I went around the city with the Vorathid foragers. I didn't check every single place, but I counted around 500 monsters between level 200 and 300. Few of them will make us level up quite nicely, and more will come from the portals if the Aegis Phalanx does its job properly, but this is the problem: if Silas is stronger than level 350, I will need to leave just for the sake of leveling up. Plus, I have not fought against level 300 monsters. I can't say things will be the same."

He paused. "There's something else. Something that has been circling inside my mind for quite a bit," Reidar said. "If the system grants us perks that align with our skills and fighting style, it's probably not random. It feels more like an unlock, something triggered by reaching a threshold."

Lena frowned. "An unlock for what?"

"Fewer constraints," he said. "Monsters above level 300 won't, most likely, just be stronger versions of the ones we've fought in terms of levels. They'll have evolved. Like us. They'll have something similar to perks we can't even anticipate yet, abilities that redefine how we fight them and how they survive."

He paused.

"I think the perks system is not something inherent to us humans; It is not something the system grants us. I think the monsters have something similar too, of which this system is a copy, or a sort of gate that progressively opens more the greater our level."

He paused, admitting that was difficult. "If we take all this into consideration, You and Jake against Aaron, and me against Silas… It will be a tough fight."

Lena's hands clenched at her sides. "Aaron." The name came out like a curse.

Her voice burned with an anger Reidar knew well. To Lena, Martin had been far more than just Havenwood's leader—he'd been the father she'd lost. Aaron's betrayal, his turn to the Church, had played a significant role in Martin's death and the settlement's collapse.

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