Orange haired monkeys and the small, rat-like brown furried creatures ascended the wide stem of the large tree.

Their claws and fingers dug into the thick bark, reinforced and layered with augmented sharp rock claws.

The sunlight broke through specific parts of the branches and leaves, looking like golden pillars.

Gentle wind caused the leaves to bristle and the smell of greenery filled Hadrian's noses.

In the distance, there were caw-caws and screeches.

The main and Alia vessels were nearby. If he could, he would have left them on the ground, however, the tree was far taller than his range of vessel control.

As he got closer, there was a strong smell in the air, and an aura making him want to stay away. Still, he willed himself on.

Crunching and wet slushing sounds came from the wide branch now above him as it shook.

Here, one of the small furried Hadrian vessels moved further up, in hopes he was too small that he would be ignored.

With his spatial sense, he could tell which direction the creature faced, and he came up behind it.

His eyes lay on the massive form of the creature that dwarfed that small vessel.

He saw as muscle moved around under its dark grey skin.

Its massive wings that fell down on the branch like curtains, were made up of skin.

The smell made Hadrian gag.

Focusing, the small Hadrian peered into the creature's essence sea, where he saw three spheres of fog spinning.

Hadrian let out a sigh.

A fiend.

From what he'd learned, rank one corrupted creatures were spawns, rank two beasts, and rank three Fiends.

Hadrian wasn't particularly surprised, nor did this make him turn back.

With the qualitative change from rank two to three as he'd seen, he would love to avoid the fiend, however, a flying creature like this was just what he needed to fly out of this place.

That meant he had to turn it into his vessel and not kill it.

It's not a human mage, but a mindless creature, I might have a chance.

Thinking back to that cohort, the small brown furried Hadrian flicked its paws and rock spears appeared one by one until they were six.

Formed from rank two manipulation, these were already rank two items, and on top of that, he augmented them with the force path essence.

Of course, their rank two state only lasted as long as rank two essence was being channeled through them.

Swapping the space path essence with elemental essence, the small Hadrian raised his paws and the augmented rock spears rose, aligning themselves to the back of the fiend and its wings.

His tactic was to immobilize it and bring it down from this great height, and down to the ground where his elemental path would have greater advantage with the earth beneath his feet.

Even though he had two rank one cores of the space path and could "carry" some rock, he felt it would not be enough, especially not yet knowing the magic path of the fiend.

Now in range for the call, the black eyes of the small furried Hadrian narrowed in on the Fiend's centre, and staring at its cores, he hesitated for a moment.

Willing himself, he called at the essence.

Just like with Bagdona, even before grasping the essence, he could already feel its effects.

His stomach sank with a hollow feeling as bone chilling cold travelled through his body.

He felt his vitality being sapped and a feeling of hopelessness embrace him.

Hadrian's heart beat faster as fear clutched at him, a primordial fear he'd recently started forgetting, the fear of death.

A fiend of death!

Hadrian made his guess as the skin head of the fiend rose and its neck twisted so that its grey deathly eyes locked onto the Hadrian vessel.

Blood dripped from its chipped beak.

If he wasn't "hidden" behind several vessels, Hadrian felt he would have given up his attempt and stood there accepting his fate under that gaze.

When its head next moved, Hadrian's paws shot forward and the augmented rock spears descended on the Fiend's back and wings, passing through the flesh and thin wings.

Before Hadrian could rejoice at his first attack landing, the beaks of the fiend parted and its head rose, letting out a grating, high pitched whistle.

Gritting his teeth, Hadrian's face twisted and he brought his hands to his ears, though it didn't help as the grating whistle seemed to pass through to his soul, inducing an irrational fear within him.

Immediately, apart from his main vessel, all his other vessels' control turned to mechanical, and the effect of the death whistle subsided.

Opening his eyes once more, black gas spread from the position where the fiend was, which was now lost in it, accompanied with a pungent stinging smell.

Hadrian gagged and vomited.

Though mechanical control on that many vessels was hard, he'd been practicing, and he could only rely on it then.

His vessels that came into contact with the gas felt its cold.

If they weren't in mechanical control, Hadrian imagined the cold would have been paralyzing.

Not knowing how else it would affect him, one of his orange haired monkeys channeled the rank two elemental essence, letting out a heat wave and the hot stinging mist.

He needed to preserve essence facing the higher ranked creature.

His spatial sense and heat vision sense were being interfered with by the black gas, so he didn't notice the bloody beak of the fiend descending on his vessel that was calling at its essence, completely obliterating it.

As intense pain travelled through him, his connection to that vessel was lost even before he cut it, because of its instant death.

Since one vessel, the vessel chosen to be the main vessel, couldn't go into mechanical control, Hadrian descended as much as he could to create distance between him and the spreading black gas without losing control of his other vessels.

The tree branch the fiend was on, and where the black gas was most dense, groaned and Hadrian looked up to decaying barks raining down.

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