Back in the real world I immediately tried to activate my comm unit, but a sudden screech of feedback told me everything that I'd need to know. It had been destroyed sometime between Bastard’s attack and now.

But that wasn't the only tool in my arsenal that I could use to make sure the rest of my team was still alive. I activated the team tracker that Rho had installed into my EDGE Command augment. I was still under the ground somewhere, but a cluster of outlines appeared in my view. They were at a higher altitude than me, quite a distance away.

“You have returned,” Mosul said.

I turned my attention toward him and was shocked to see that he appeared to be breaking down like an anima construct. Patches of his skin crumbled and floated off into the air before dissipating into nothingness.

“Where are you going?” I asked him.

“My father is waking up, so there is no need for a watcher. The great nothing is where I came from, and it’s where I shall return. It would be a shame to waste this esenta though. You should harvest me before I completely fade.”

I blinked in surprise at that. “You want me to harvest you?”

Mosul shrugged, which dislodged a section of crumbling skin on the side of his neck. “Better my esenta go to saving my father than going to waste. Please.”

I activated the claws and held them ponderously in front of myself. The green anima claws cast a green glow on the cavern around me, adding to the luminosity coming from the central pentagonal pillar.

“Don’t think of it as death,” Mosul said through crumbling lips. “Through you, I will join the fight to save my father.”

I plunged the claws into Mosul’s chest. His eyes went wide for a second, then he relaxed into a serene smile. As his eyes closed and I sucked the anima out of him he whispered one last thing.

“Thank you,” he said, then crumbled to dust.

Elkskull and Bearskull still waited at the bottom of the stairs. Their empty eye sockets with the tiny glimmers of green light were pointed in my direction. If they mistook my actions for hostility they made no move to intervene.

His anima filled 81 out of 100 points of anima and a brand new message window appeared in front of me.

The anima stored in your tank can be used for a number of different things. Once you harvest powers from an anima-positive entity, you can use it to power your attacks. Harvesting anima from an entity may allow teach you valuable skills and abilities where you can spend that harvested anima.

You can also infuse a teammate with healing energy or to stimulate growth in anything attached to Balaur’s anima network.

Alternatively, can convert this pure anima into the experience points used by your EDGE Force augment.

Anima used in its pure form or converted to experience points cannot be returned to your tank to be used again.

Holy shit. Using the Claws of the Dragon I could suck anima out of a bad guy and directly convert it into experience points? That was a literal game changer. One that I daresay EDGE Command would never have expected.

Would this be permanent, like Miranda’s anima battery supercharge?

The claws would be a crazy party trick, that’s for sure.

I laughed at the thought of flashing them out while I had mates over for beers, but that crossing the threshold analogy rumbled around in my head ominously.

I had a sinking feeling that there would be no coming back from this.

I’d come too far, and things would never go back to the way they were before.

Elkskull and Bearskull watched patiently, glowing with luminous green anima.

I walked down the stone stairs from the dais to Elkskull and Bearskull, and I was surprised at how they both reached out to me. I flinched at first because I thought they might want to hurt me, but Bearskull shook his head at me/ Then, he reached his open palm out to me. Tree root fingers were splayed open, with tiny droplets of green anima floating out of the little root tendrils.

I reached out and put my hand against Bearskull’s hand and drew in the anima that escaped from him. He quivered as my anima tank filled up to capacity, giving me a full tank of 100 anima.

Checking my normal EDGE Force experience total I realised I was only a few hundred experience away from the next level.

“This doesn’t hurt you, does it?” I asked.

Bearskull shook its emotionless head.

“You want to give me more?”

Bearskull nodded.

This was so fucking weird.

I needed to use every advantage I could get to grow stronger, so I invested the 100 anima into my experience level, and my suspicions were confirmed. Using this method I wouldn’t get the 25% anima boost that I got when I normally levelled up. Damn.

It was tedious draining the anima, converting it, investing it, draining more, converting it, investing it… but after three rounds I hit Level 11 and gained another skill point.

I immediately sunk that into Focused Fire, which increased the damage enemies would take from my team while I focused on them by 12%. That was a pretty hefty upgrade, and one we could use to take down massive beasts like the capcaun with much greater efficiency.

It was a couple more thousand experience to the next level, and I wondered if these leshy contained enough anima to boost me all the way up to the next level. Bearskull was looking a little worse for wear already. His vines and roots didn’t hold the rocks and bones in place as well as before, and he’d gone down to one knee.

Yet still he held his hand out to me, urging me to take more.

Maybe that why they were here. This could be Balaur’s way of boosting me up to a point where I could survive what was to come. I certainly wasn’t strong enough yet.

I’d killed a shadow of the dragonslayer, sure, but I’d just used a situation to my advantage. I couldn’t count on a supply drop every time I needed to kill a big bad.

Speaking of supply drops, I still hadn’t gotten the prestige supply drop I’d earned from killing the capcaun. Had it fallen into the valley while I was almost dead? It could be out there somewhere waiting for me.

I activated my team tracking ability to see if it picked up on supply drops, and I breathed a sigh of relief when it did. The supply drop was round about the same altitude as me, but a kilometre between where I was and where my team were at the top of the mountain across the valley. I’d hit that supply drop on my way.

Piece by piece Bearskull withered and crumbled as I drained the anima out of him.

The moment I pulled the last drop of anima out of him, the skull fell from his slumped shoulders and clattered to the ground. That was quickly followed by the vines and roots crumbling to dust and the rocks spilling out into a formless pile.

A notification appeared at the same time.

Anima ability acquired: Forest Strider

Source: Leshy

Cost: 1 anima per 5 seconds

Increases your speed when travelling through forested areas by 200%

Whoa. That was a hell of an upgrade. My anima tank could only hold 100 anima, but that equalled 500 seconds, or just over 8 minutes of uptime for this skill. With a full charge I could double my speed when travelling through forests for a pretty long time.

It would make the trip to the supply drop a hell of a lot faster.

Elkskull held its hand out to me in the same way that Bearskull had and waited for me to draw on it.

I deposited every drop of anima into my experience level, which rocketed me ever closer to Level 12. It was a stark contrast from how Altrighus’s anima worked. Hers brought things forth from inside the imagination of others, but Balaur’s anima was a healing, strengthening source of power.

I drained the last little bit of anima from Elkskull, and a notification appeared just as the second leshy crumbled. My anima tank had reached Rank 2, and it now had a capacity of 150 anima.

Incremental improvement, yes, but improvement nonetheless.

I left the cavern with a full tank of anima and a new mission. Get to the supply drop, then get back to Kaiser. And the rest of my team, I guess.