Timeless Prominence

Rein was currently feeling extremely conflicted with his actions. For quite some time, he had been beating upon Suey’s willowy waist, his two hands clenched together as he hammered onto her flesh.

His kitten, back laid across his knees, writhed in pain as his fists struck her soft abdomen. It was not just pain-- Rein could see in her eyes, pleasure within as well.

Still, though Rein did not wish to perform such action, he had to! He had to accelerate Suey’s mastery of the ‘Boundless Dissipation Tempering’ Art!

He finally understood why most women avoided tempering arts. Even those that adopted them would usually only dabble somewhat in it. After all, most tempering arts required torturous training of the body!

The ‘Boundless Dissipation Tempering’ Art is a water-based skill that integrates qualities of water into the flesh, designed to allow its user to gain a body that could dissipate even the most powerful of strikes to the body. A vital part of the art involved putting the body under forces to train the dissipation skill.

Suey’s body was red from his strikes, and the sight filled Rein with guilt. However, his kitten had begged him to use his physical strength to accelerate her training in the art. Luckily, this did not cause any permanent damage to her body. Due to the tempering art being water-based, her flesh would maintain its softness and even become more springy after mastery.

The process, however…

Rein sighed again. He once thought it ridiculous that many fathers did not pressure their daughters to master tempering arts. He had thought it a no brainer with the dangers of the advancer world. Now, he finally understood.

Rein then placed a hand around Suey’s neck, and his other on her hips. Applying force through both arms, he used his knee to bend Suey’s body to a painful limit. This was another aspect of the art-- stretching the body to increase flexibility, thereby allowing odd postures to dissipate incoming attacks to the body.

Examining Suey’s enticing outstretched body, Rein found his manhood rising past the encroaching sky. In fact, this was the actual reason why he felt guilt. During the initial beginnings of the training of this art, this had not happened. Yet, increasingly, he found himself unable to control his reaction as he punished Suey’s body.

He partly blamed the masochistic woman for writhing and moaning erotically under his hands despite the pain. Suey stuck out her tongue in a cheeky satisfaction when faced with this accusation, before completely absolving herself of responsibility. She blamed her pleasure on the increased sensitivity art now integrated into her body-- thus, to her, the fault laid with Rein!

In order to feel better about himself, Rein had to go through a mental process. He was quite aware that some women found beat-up men, and scars on a man to be attractive, as it demonstrated their toughness to bear through the very worst.

This was how he explained the reaction of the dragon between his legs. He simply found it incredibly attractive that this woman could bear through this punishment and even derive pleasure from it, partly for herself but also for him.

After all, he knew that partly, Suey wanted to master this art so that she could avoid being injured in her nightly battles against his own tempered body. That, and her form was simply too erotic as she arched and writhed on top of his knees…

Rein had been assisting Suey the past few days with practicing this art while they cooperated to lead the horses pulling the caravan towards the central outpost.

Rein soon leaped onto the lead horse. Suey wrapped her arms around his neck and connected her crotch to his as she relied on the trotting of the horse to pleasure their bodies.

Both began circulating the ‘Sole Cauldron’ Art. Rein had learnt a few tricks from the booklet on the paired healing arts given to him by Aihr.

Rein had long gained a good experience in the ‘Sole Cauldron’ Art over the past few days.

It was certainly a dastardly advancer art. As he was the ‘key’, he could completely plunder all of Suey’s gathered aurae, her power, with zero resistance. Normally, a person being plundered would be able to put up some resistance, but the art essentially placed Suey in a position of zero defense against him. Against others, however, she would have a perfect defense.

While connected, they gathered aurae into their bodies at a significantly increased pace. Currently, this mostly benefited Rein, because Suey was already at the peak of the inner realm. Aside from using some aurae to activate a paired healing art, most of the aurae ended up going into Rein’s body. He had a feeling that very soon, he would reach the peak of the inner realm himself.

Every trot of the horse elicited a whimper from Suey.

“Take it… take it all, my celest~” the woman nonsensically moaned.

Rein had been dealing with this crazy ‘slave’ kitten of his for the past few days. She would often beg him to take and absorb all her strength.

He naturally did no such thing, but her repeated utterance of this request finally aroused his sadistic desires. He circulated his art and began withdrawing Suey’s powers.

The kitten’s eyes widened in fear but also desire. She stared into Rein’s dark eyes as she felt her powers leaving her… her mind became a mess as she felt herself dropping to the upper inner realm!

Rein gripped her hips, and with a single ultimate thrust, returned all of her energies back into her body.

A tear of relief leaked down her cheek as both of them reached a climax sharing in each other’s flesh.

“Why didn’t you… You could have done it and I would not have blamed you~ Are you so soft…?” she playfully muttered after some time of recovery.

“Hmph,” Rein scoffed with false arrogance. “I simply wished to plunder your body after you become a top goddess of the realms. That would be far more attractive. I would be a fool to absorb your strength right now!”

The truth was, of course, that he had the belief that unless he behaved like a reckless fool, he already had the tools to ascend to a greater realm, without needing to plunder the heart of a woman. That was his confidence. Devils, however, might view that as arrogance.

The two soon redressed themselves after their session.

“Why haven’t you reached the shell realm yet?” Rein wondered. After practicing the ‘Sole Cauldron’ Art, Rein could sense that Suey was filled to the brim and effectively stuck at the very top of the inner realm.

As for psychedelics-- Master Yirn had ordered him to avoid using psychedelics, and he very much wished to better understand the proper process. He especially preferred sticking to Master Yirn’s orders, after coming upon the knowledge that those who avoided psychedelics generally gained the benefit of a better understanding of the advancer realms, and thus a higher level of strength on breakthroughs.

“Unless one relies on psychedelics… it is incredibly… difficult to undo the mortal shackles and enter… the first of the demigod realms,” Suey replied, still somewhat out of breath from her hard work.

“To reach the shell realm without psychedelics… one must be able to overcome a mental block that limits one’s mind of the mortal world. Only then, can us mortals fully understand oneself and form the creed of the shell realm!”

“The creed is the start of one’s path in the advancer world. It defines the form of one’s advancer arts. The closer it is to the true heart of said advancer, the brighter and more golden the creed will shine!”

“Then… your mental block? What is it?” Rein wasn’t asking just because of curiosity. He simply thought that it would be very helpful to their team if they had a shell advancer. If he could give her a hand…

“You know it already, my celest…” Suey whispered. “It is because I saw and experienced all those horrific futures. Unless I overcome the mental block formed, I can only rely on a psychedelic to form an incomplete creed. As for whether I can mend the malformed half-path later if I choose to employ psychedelics-- that is uncertain.”

Her words sent Rein into contemplation. What was his mental block? Unlike Suey, he had no knowledge of what his very own mental block might even be!

It was then that howling sounded in the distance, and when Rein squinted his eyes and peered into the far horizon, he discovered a sea of shadowy shapes to the front of their caravan approaching!

He immediately rapped his knuckles against the caravan.

“A group of demon beasts should be approaching,” he informed the team.

“What?! I’ve been meticulously maintaining this camouflage and sensory obscuring inscription!” Chirh had been placed in charge of operating the caravan’s defenses. The team assessed that this scaredy cat was most likely to execute this task well due to his fears.

Chirh had operated the Halls’ many defensive inscriptions on the caravan masterfully. “Something must be off!” He immediately declared, having full knowledge that he was and still is a most vigilant controller.

Rein normally would have rolled his eyes at what he perceived to be Chirh’s maddening suspicions, but he lacked experience of the western wilderness. Was it normal to run into swarms of demons in this entry zone into the western wilderness? How was he to know?

The team began making preparations for their defenses. They all hoped that the swarm in the distance might not have them as the target, but it soon became apparent that the swarm was coming directly towards them.

Soon, the team could clearly see their enemies.

“By the fallen gods,” Xeeseir exclaimed, “It’s a pack of long-eared wind wolves! Some of their attacks have elements of wind interwoven within, and their long ears allow them to also have a far keener sense of sound along with their keen sense of smell!” Xeeseir had been to the western wilderness before. This was something that the members had discovered after the man told stories about some parts of the western wilderness during their mind-numbing ride within the caravan.

“Found it!” Chirh yelled. Rein widened his eyes as he observed Chirh hanging upside down, staring at the underside of the caravan. He brought the horses to a stop, and Chirh crawled underneath the caravan.

Chirh climbed back out with a weed in his hands. Rein instantly recognized this as the demon luring weed! He recalled this herb thanks to the thousands upon thousands of vegetation recorded within the vision egg provided by his alchemist instructor.

Chirh activated the most basic of flames to burn away the demon luring weed, but it was already too late. By now, the group was surrounded by a pack of a thousand long-eared wind wolves! The demon wolves circled around the caravan, biding their time against their prey with eerie howls.

The Iron Ant Team immediately leaped into their defensive position.

Chirh sat atop the caravan, once again functioning as bait. He continued to activate the defensive inscriptions of the caravan with a hand upon the roof while defended by Dahk. The man quivered in fear, but with the inscriptions activated, the caravan was impenetrable. Thus, any demon wolves that wished to attack him needed to launch themselves to the top of the caravan, a small area defended by Dahk’s swift spear!

Meanwhile, both Xeeseir and Wilo stayed inside the caravan. The caravan had many narrow slits that could be opened to allow one from within to fire arrows against enemies, and this was perfect for the two.

The caravan had been pulled along by two horses through their journey-- it would be silly to simply abandon these horses. As such, they disconnected the two and Rein himself leaped upon one, while Suey and Jory rode on the other.

These horses were trained by the Halls to stay calm under such situations, and had a heightened intelligence. These two, for example, nervously swayed their ears back and forth, but remained calm in their Halls leather armor, fully aware that any attempt to race through the pack of wolves would be even worse.

A larger-sized wolf, the leader of the pack, soon howled and initiated the attack.

A first ring of long-eared wind wolves tentatively scooched closer to surround the caravan, but the first strike did not come from the. Instead, it was Wilo who sent a huge crescent wave of poisoned wooden needles into the pack of demon wolves.

Many of the wolves’ pelts defended against these needles, but some were struck in their sensitive noses and defenseless eyes, and others entered howling wolves’ mouths. A few corpses slumped to the ground with Wilo’s deadly poison.

How did Wilo angle and fire those wooden needles in such an elegant wave from that narrow slit on the side of the caravan? Rein himself had been practicing certain techniques from the manuals on hidden weapons. He could tell Wilo’s mastery over needles was high.

As for the strength of these long-eared wind wolves? Demon beasts are ranked differently than human advancers due to their different ascension path. They have a starting beast form, beginning of metamorphosis, mid-metamorphosis, end-metamorphosis, then humanoid form. As for intelligence, that was far harder to access due to the different base intelligence of various species.

Wolves, for example, have a higher intelligence to begin with. As such, despite their coherent coordination as a pack, the fact that they remained in full beast forms indicated that these long-eared wind wolves were properly only rank one demon beasts.

The pack leader, however, must be a rank two demon beast because of its heightened intelligence. If that pack leader showed signs of transforming and occasionally fought on two legs, he would then be considered a lycan, a rank three demon beast.

Despite their low ranking of the demon wolves, the Iron Ant Team was at a severe disadvantage due to numbers. Another arc of wooden needles curled through the air, while an arrow fired by Xeeseir exploded on impact, frying a good five wolves in its vicinity.

Seeing this, the larger wolf howled in rage! Rein discovered that the demon wolves originally warily eyeing him and the twin ladies on their staunch horses now temporarily backed off. Then, ten wolves, shoulder-to-shoulder charged at the left side of the caravan with reckless abandon for their own lives!

Both him and the twin ladies attempted to engage the wolves in combat, yet the wolves only ran and corralled them, having no intention of engaging in combat. The demon wolves would back off whenever he urged his steed forward, making it impossible for him to attack. If he dared to chase, he would end up stranded far from the caravan!

Wilo, who was guarding that left side of the caravan, was still recharging her needles. Frankly, Rein was surprised she still had any needles left, judging by the number already fired from the two waves. Well, he himself had gotten a spatial pouch-- Wilo must have one as well!

Regardless, those ten wolves side-to-side, charged forth and threw their bodies against the left side of the caravan!

Rein now knew what the wolf pack leader wished to do-- topple their caravan! Doing so would indeed end the danger of Wilo’s and Xeeseir’s projectiles from the inscription-reinforced caravan.

The left wheels of this box lifted off the ground dangerously-- Chirh nearly slid off in shock! However, Dahk was quick to react and stomped down both feet and placed his weight onto the left side of the caravan, preventing the team’s safety box from flipping onto its side.

The pack leader growled in frustration-- it would be difficult to send more demon wolves to simultaneously bash into the caravan with their combined weight, due to the limit of bodies it could send side-by-side.

A howl, and the pack of wolves shifted under a new order. Two waves of demon wolves charged forth, one on each side of the caravan, and they simply plastered their bodies against the identified slits of the caravan where arrows and needles could be shot out, effectively sacrificing themselves to completely remove the threat of WIlo and Xeeseir’s projectiles!

Then, the rest of the remaining nine hundred demon wolves turned their hungry gazes onto Rein, the twin ladies, Chirh and Dahk!