The flying beast was nearing the camp, it could now be seen from the air, making things that much more dangerous, as they had no idea of this beast's attack range. Arthur, Tess, and Elijah were in position to attack, and Arthur made the first move. The sky's began filling with black clouds as thunder rumbled, Arthur was flexing his mana considerably, but the beast didn't seem to care.

"It has to be intelligent to use aether like it did, it probably knows what you're trying," Regis commented.

"That's fine, it just means I need to take a more direct approach."

A bolt of black lightning came down and struck the beast in the back. It cried out in pain and glared at Arthur, but didn't take the bait.

"Stubborn one aren't you," Arthur thought out loud.

Multiple bolts of black lightning began raining down on the beast, causing it to go into a nose dive as it tried to start dodging the attacks, but was still clearly maintaining its course.

"Persistent bitch isn't it," Regis commented as Arthur stopped the lightning.

Taking advantage of the dive Tess activated her second stage as Elijah withdrew large amounts of soil from his dimensional ring. The soil collected and formed into sharpened stones that flew alongside him. Tess made the first move and landed on its back, thrusting her bladed staff into its flesh to give herself something to hold onto. The beast bucked and shook as it tried to throw her off, but she didn't go. Emerald green mana vines emerged from Tess and began grabbing hold of the beasts wings on her side, as Elijah's stones began firing on his, ripping holes through the wings membrane. Unable to stay in the air the beast began plummeting down. The wounds Elijah inflicted were healing, but not fast enough to keep up with his assault. Tess continued to hang on as to ensure it wouldn't be able to save itself at the last second. Arthur flew ahead of it as he turned the ground where he expected it to land into molten lava.

Just seconds before the beast crashed Tess pulled out her blade and jumped off. The beast splashed into the magma and Tess landed on solid ground, tumbling a bit before jumping back up to her feet. The beast splashed around as it tried to climb out, it's body glowing purple as it worked to heal itself. Quickly Tess tossed several seeds out as she began shooting roots from the native plants from all around out, acting as a net to hold it down. Sadly nearly all of the roots were from the grass, so they weren't very thick or strong, but after a few seconds her seeds sprouted and thorny vines started replacing them that were cutting into its flesh. The lava was burning through the net, but she kept sending more and more roots and vines.

"Elijah, let's kill this thing!" Arthur called out.

Elijah nodded, and began conjuring fresh stone spears from the surface and firing them. Regis leapt from Arthur's body in his werewolf form and landed on the beasts back as he began ripping through its flesh with his aetheric claws, while Arthur began slashing at its head with his sword.

Long ago Arthur learned to abandon normal logic when it came to the relic tombs, but something about this beast was bothering him. Just a little bit ago this beast couldn't heal itself fast enough from Elijah's attacks on its wings, but now it was rapidly healing from all four of them attacking.

"Umm, Arthur...I'm not feeling so good," Regis stated weakly.

"Wh-what's wrong," Arthur asked as he was starting to feel worn out himself.

"I'm feeling really weak all of a sudden."

"Yeah, me too."

Arthur look over at Elijah, then Tess. They both were still giving the beast hell and didn't look like they were wearing themselves out yet. He then looked at the beast, its eyes focused completely on him as it laid there taking the punishment they were giving.

"Fuck," Arthur said in realization. "REGIS GET OFF IT NOW! ITS ABSORBING OUR AETHER!"

Regis quickly leaped back into Arthur's body as he dissipated his aether sword, and pulled dawns ballad from his storage rune.

"Nice try, but the buffet is closed," Arthur said to the beast as he swung his sword across several of its eyes.

The beast screeched as it suddenly began flailing again with renewed strength, starting to break free of Tess' net.

"I don't think so," Arthur shouted as he jumped up, and swung down at its neck.

The beast moved, avoiding being decapitated, but still took a deep gash to his neck. In the same movement it broke free from the net, and with its wings was able to get out of the magma. As it came back down it swung its tail and knocked everyone back. It was about to try and fly away, but Arthur held his arm out and was able to use downforce. The sudden change in gravity immediately forced the beast back down with a crash. Seeing Arthur as the greater threat, the beast focused on him as it opened the hole in its chin again as it prepared to fire its aether beam.

If not for Tess and Elijah being too close and not up so they could avoid the attack, he may have chosen to dodge it himself, but with that not being the case he instead charged at the beast. He grabbed at the scales and tried to force them shut, but he immediately felt his aether being drained from him as he saw the beam preparing to fire. It was a painful feeling to have his aether core being forcibly drained quicker than before, reminding him of the obolisc he dealt with in the Alacryan relic tomb.

"The obolisc," Arthur breathed out, as his plan formed, and he began absorbing aether from the beast. "Let's see who can absorb aether faster," Arthur said taunting the beast.

"Ahhhhhh," Arthur yelled, much to the horror of Tess and Elijah.

"Art!" Tess screamed.

"Kill this thing!"

The beast had fired its aether beam at point blank range at Arthur. However instead of being vaporized, he was absorbing the aether. His body felt as though it was on fire as he absorbed every last drop of aether at a faster rate than his body could normally handle.

Tess and Elijah quickly leapt back into action. A variety of wind and earth spells flew at the beast, ripping it apart faster than it could heal with Arthur taking all of its aether. Realizing it could die there, the beast tried to close the opening and get away.

"I don't think so!" Arthur shouted through gritted teeth, and used downforce to its maximum to keep it in place. "You started this, now I'm taking back what's mine!"

The beast tried to struggle against Arthur and his gravity magic, but it was no use; it was stuck, nor could it stop its blast. The beast's Aether beam varied in strength, as it would expel every last bit of aether from its body as long as it's scale lids were opened, so now it was loosing every last drop of its aether for its body. After a minute the beam dissipated, and both Arthur and the beast were panting from exhaustion. The beast just laid there in a pool of its own blood as the others approached.

"Arthur, are you ok?" Tess asked as she ran to him, taking him in her arms to try and support him as she arrived.

"Im fine," He replied panting. He then picked his sword back up. "I just need to finish this."

He raised his blade over his head as he concentrated all of his affinities except for aether into it. "Try and absorb this." He then brought it down and sent a vertical wave of elemental mana at the beast. It was immediately ripped to pieces as the wave touched it, and carved out a deep gash in the ground as it turned the soil to glass.

—————————————————————

Claire and a hastily put together team were making their way through the queen beast's cave. Alongside her was Standard, Thomas, Jerry, Theo, Noah, and Regis.

After defeating the queen beast it was decided to wait a day to give the stronger mages a chance to rest, in case there was another major threat when they returned to the gate. Mostly though this was for Arthur. After seeing Arthur was in pain from absorbing so much aether Kaspian decided they should wait till their strongest was back at his best. Of course Arthur was fine relatively quickly, he decided to work with Kaspian on their plan of the mine and gate site.

They submitted their plan to the council, and before the day was even done, it had been approved. The plan was to develop the mining site and place a village nearby so the miners wouldn't have to be shuttled back and forth to the camp. Then a short railroad would be established between the camp and village to cut down on time transporting the ore. Establishing a town in the relic tomb was always Arthur's long term plan, but he didn't expect it to start this fast, or to not be with the camp. The future of the camp was decided to essentially become a military outpost to ensure the security of the gate back to Dicathen, as well as track the coming and going of goods and personnel. This was of course going to require a lot of resources to put into effect, both materials and personnel.

The materials were probably going to be the easiest despite the war. Personnel however was a different case, as people for defense were not only needed on the frontlines, but would also need to be trained. Thankfully fifty soldiers were entering into the training for the relic tomb the day they left.

Keeping her head on a swivel Claire led her team. The passage was dark, but not so much that they couldn't see, as purple glowing crystals lined the walls.

"Do you think these would be valuable?" Thomas asked as he picked a crystal from the ground.

"Those are aether crystals," Regis answered. "For those who use aether like Arthur and I, a crystal that size is barely a morsel."

"So in other words it's worthless to everyone else but you two," Jerry concluded.

"Pretty much, and these aren't even worth our time to absorb from," Regis replied. His head perked as he received a message. "Oh, Arthur says they may be useful one day for artifacting, but just leave them for now. These are more useful for lighting our path."

They continued to walk for a few more minutes and saw a faint purple glow ahead. But before they could get close enough to identify the glow....

SCREEEECH

"Get ready!" Claire yelled as her body swirled with wind and fire mana.

Everyone took a fighting stance as they awaited an attack. Soon the scratching of claws against the stone could be heard echoing, before more of the predatory beasts appeared running towards them.

"Alright some action!" Regis cried out in excitement.

"Regis hold back and leave this to us!" Claire ordered.

Regis groaned in disappointment but everyone ignored him. He had only been sent with them to provide support if needed in an effort to give them a real taste of the threats in the relic tomb.

Stannard took aim with his crossbow and fired a C ranked beast core, which exploded on contact with the beast targeted. The beast cried out as it was immediately engulfed in flames, which knocked a few nearby off balance, but didn't take them out of the fight.

"Damn," Stannard breathed out, as he saw his target didn't die like he expected, meaning higher ranked cores would be needed. The beast was badly burned, its chest badly charred leaving it black with patches of green from its blood. It was crippled and struggling to keep moving forward, but there was no way it could survive this fight.

Theo placed a hand on Claire's back as he cast a gravity spell on her. Through a deeper study of gravity magic he learned he could cast lasting gravity spells on individuals. In this case, he lowered the gravity on Claire.

Claire was the first to engage the beasts at close range. She charged in so rapidly it was as if Theo had given her wings as she swung her sword, her blade leaving orange streaks of fire as it rapidly slashed at the beast while moving to the side to avoid a frontal assault.

Noah's fists turned into spike covered ice gauntlets as he threw a fast right jab at a beast's snout. The beast opened its mouth with the intention of ripping off Noah's fist, but as his fist entered the beast's mouth all of the spikes rapidly grew about a foot long, piercing through the beasts head and killing it. He then pulled his fist back out, breaking the spikes off as new ones formed.

Jerry charged at one of the beasts, only to drop and slide underneath it as he sliced through the tendons in its legs, causing it to crash to the ground. Experience forged from hundreds of battles in the dungeons of Dicathen kicked in as Thomas charged in. As the beast crashed into the ground he jumped into the air and brought his war hammer down and crushed the beast's skull into the ground as a burst of orange flames shot out in every direction. Another beast redirected to come for him, but he wasn't concerned. One of Jerry's daggers flew past the beast then back around as pulled a thin metal wire behind it, and wrapped it around the beast's neck. The wire then hummed and the beast's head was severed from its body. The two mages locked eyes and gave a respectful nod. Despite Jerry's jokester behavior in the heat of battle he was deadly serious, allowing for the two of them to establish a high level of teamwork and trust needed for situations like this.

"Seriously? Only five?" Theo commented. "I didn't even get to fight one."

"You and me both brother," Regis commented as he sat down beside him.

"I wonder why they were even down here, and didn't come out earlier?" Thomas asked no one in particular.

"Let's keep going, maybe the answer is further down," Claire stated, and the group continued.

Focusing in on the purple glow they continued forward, keeping their guard up incase they ran into more beasts. After a few more minutes the cave opened up into a large chamber that was completely lit up by the purple glow of a large nest of aether crystals.

"Oh yeah, that's what I'm talking about," Regis exclaimed and his mouth practically watered at the sight of the crystals.

"I don't know what you're talking about, but we're talking about those eggs," Claire stated as she and the others gazed upon at least a hundred eggs surrounding the nest.

"Those beasts were probably here protecting those eggs," Theo commented.

"Oh yeah, those," Regis commented with disinterest. "So how do you like your eggs? Scrambled, poached, hard boiled? Princess likes his over easy."

"Could we even eat those things?" Stannard asked with a look of curiosity.

"Why not?" Regis replied, as he shrugged his front shoulders. "Princess ate a giant bird one before."

"No, it would take weeks to eat all those. They could start hatching by then," Claire said.

"Not to mention we have no way to know if they were poisonous," Noah added.

"Stannard, do you have any large area of effect spells to roast all of those?" Claire asked.

"Yeah, I've got one," he replied as he started digging through his satchel of cores.

He loaded an A ranked core, took aim, then fired. The core hit close to the edge of the nest of aether, and a fiery hellstorm erupted, engulfing half of the eggs, the other half being protected by the aether crystals which blocked the spell. He then took a B ranked core and did the same, but this time a few further away survived.

"Good work. The rest of you search the area and make sure every egg has been destroyed," Claire ordered.

"Lonely boy, you just stay with me," Regis said to Theo.

"Lonely boy?" Theo questioned as the others walked away.

"Yup. You just keep pinning for the girl, but you can't seem to seal the deal, so your bed is still empty," Regis replied as he started walking to the nest.

"You don't know what you're talking about," Theo replied defensively as he blushed slightly.

"Sure I don't. I just notice how you're always glued to Red's side supporting her." He then stopped and quickly turned back. "Wait, you're not her GBF are you? No judgment if you are."

"GBF?"

"Gay best friend," Regis explained. "I mean it would explain a few things. I mean she's clearly a tsundere, but you're too dense or stupid to act."

Theo increased the gravity around them by ten.

"Ha, please. This is like a nice morning workout," Regis taunted as he continued walking uneffected. They then arrived at the nest. "I need you to remove one of these bigger ones so we can bring it back for Arthur. He wants to try an experiment."

"What kind of shit are you talking about?" Arthur commented as he had been keeping an eye on him.

"This one good enough?" Theo asked grumpily as he patted the largest one.

"Ohhh yeah," Regis said excitedly. "That'll do nicely."

—————————————————————-

About two hours after entering the cave, Claire and her team were now exiting. Outside was a flurry of activity as the miners worked in the canyon clearing the debris and moving it to one of the two opposite ends to act as a wall to keep any other beasts out. Arthur and Elijah were on the end closest to the gate, using earth magic to move the debris in large amounts and to make the wall more solid. Above the canyon one of the senior miners was working with Kaspian on establishing the towns initial size as well as deciding on appropriate numbers for the towns defense.

Seeing as Arthur was closest they headed towards him. Due to the hard work he had removed his shirt and began using it as a towel to wipe the sweat from his brow. A couple feet away Tess was sitting on a boulder gazing upon her husband hungrily, as the combination of his sweat and the light from the fake sun made his body glisten.

"General," Claire called out as she and her team approached. "The cave's been cleared. It ends at a chamber a good ways back where the queen established a nest out of a ton of aether crystals."

Arthur looked at the huge one Theo was carrying on his shoulder. "I can see that. Honestly I was fully aware, Regis was keeping me filled in."

"Great, so where do you want this?" Theo asked as he gestured to the crystal with his head.

"Drop it on Regis for all I care. He wanted it, not me," Arthur replied.

Theo looked down and glared at the wolf.

"What? I haven't had that much aether in such a small place since those bricks Windsom gave us," Regis replied.

"What bricks?" Claire asked as Theo tried to drop the crystal on Regis, but missed.

"Nothing, don't worry about it," Arthur said dismissively, trying to avoid talking about the previous timeline. "Anyway, good work. Go report that to Kaspian then head back to camp and rest."

"Why?" Theo asked.

"Because we're diving deeper in the morning."