Goal's decided! Safety assured?

"Urgh..." Sera woke up with a grunt. She slowly looked around, finding herself in a weird room. 'My head hurts...what happened?'

She looked at the sleeping Ray, his head laying on top of a stack of papers. 'Oh yeah...wait...SHIT! Where's my sword?!'

Sera made a ton of noise due to her hurried searching. Ray awoke and quickly wiped his drool, "I see you're up. If you open the door, you should find a small spring at the right-most corner of the cave. Feel free to freshen up there."

"What's your game here?" Sera looked at him with suspicion. "Every living thing in this World wants to kill me, why would you be an exception?"

"Hahaha!" Ray started laughing. "Even if I did kill you, I'd get no reward! He hates me too much to give me a moment of peace."

"He? My dad?" Sera looked at the laughing old man. "I don't understand, why would World holders bother with people very obviously weaker than themselves?"

"Humans do a lot of things, some bad, some good. I mean, look at me. I'm helping you, which is good, but I'm also using you, which could be bad." Ray smiled, but he quickly grimaced in pain as he held his head in his hands. He took out a bottle of Pain Enders and took all thousand pills at once. He looked at the empty bottle, still feeling a headache thinking, 'Looks like I'll need to up the dosage again.'

"H-How are you using me?" Sera covered her body with a blush.

Ray raised his eyebrows in realization, then said in an offended and disgusted voice, "Ew, gross!"

"What did you say?" Sera looked at him with rage. 'I am Seraphina Ender, who wouldn't bow before my beauty?!'

"Enough of your nonsense!" Ray sat on the chair, looking at Sera expectantly and happily. He was like a child that knew he was about to get a present. "Quickly, tell me. How are Liam and Salas? Did Liam get married yet? He always had eyes for Mira. Aunty wouldn't be able to rest in her grave if she knew he didn't get her some grandkids!"

Sera was taken aback. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Ray's eyes slowly widened before he looked down with a pained face, "So, Liam's dead? He was supposed to be your Uncle. He probably died young..."

"No, I know Uncle Liam. He's still alive, but the thing that confuses me is, why do you want to know?" Sera looked at him with her caution nowhere in sight. She even folded her arms as she snuggled under the warm blanket.

"So he's alive?!" Ray's face seemingly glowed with happiness. Then he looked at Sera with an annoyed glare, "Don't play with my heart like that."

"Again, why do you want to know?" Sera was very weirded out by this interaction. She had thought that it would be 'kill, kill, kill' for a week straight. But now, she was chatting with an old man that broke her arm and knee about her uncle.

"Oh, I-" Ray was about to speak with a smile before a giant amount of pain assaulted his head. "AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!"

He screamed and cried in pain. He slowly crawled to his table until Sera awoke from her daze and got up to help him. She quickly got him on the chair.

"B-Bott..le..." Ray barely got the word out of his mouth. Sera took another bottle that looked identical to the one he took this morning. She put the bottle to his mouth, letting him swallow it whole, pill after pill. He took deep breathes, "Hah...hah...thanks."

"See? Too soft." a voice appeared out of nowhere as Salas's Avatar descended.

"What the hell do you mean too soft?! You made the whole World go after me!!" Sera looked at her father.

Ray looked down in shame, but he managed to get out a small "Hey."

"Don't speak to me, you filth." Salas coldly replied. He then turned to his daughter. "You are not allowed to stay with him. You will fight your own fights, it's only fair."

"Fair?! The whole World's on my ass and you call it fair?!" Sera looked at her father in disbelief. "It actually might just be easier to send me to my first World, at least there, I won't be hunted by everyone!"

"What if you take the body of a famous criminal? Or an imprisoned army general? What if you took a slave's body?" Salas looked at his daughter coldly as well. He started to shout at his daughter, "In these scenarios, every single person in your immediate vicinity would be your enemy, and not all of them would be on your level like now. So, just shut up and go through with it!"

"You should stop coming here, Salas." Ray looked at Salas with sadness, "It brings out the worst in you."

Salas looked at Ray with anger, but his attention was diverted by his daughter's distraught look. It was the first time he ever shouted at his daughter. When he saw his daughter look at him with fear in her eyes, he grit his teeth so hard they started to bleed.

Whoosh!

Whoosh!

Both Salas and Sera disappeared from Ray's house. Sera found herself in the middle of a wasteland with her father nowhere in sight. She found her sword in a sheath on her hip, a mask on her face, and a piece of paper in her pocket. After a while of absentmindedly looking into the air, Sera thought to herself, 'What was that? Why was Dad so mad...let's leave that aside for now. What's this?'

She pulled out the paper and started to read the back of the folded paper,

'I'm sorry, please don't see this as who I am. I just want to help you. Here's a little gift to make it easier for my princess.' -Salas

Sera slowly started to open the paper...it was a map! A map of the World in its entirety! It even marked out the dangerous areas and cities! Sera slowly started to smile to herself in relief, 'A map is plenty enough for me to get through! But he even marked out the dangers ahead...I guess he just lost his cool for a second there.'

She immediately rushed to the closest city, the distance appeared to be small, but this is a map of the entire World! She tied her hair into a bun then covered it with the hood of her jacket. She was always fond of jackets. She always wore one with a white undershirt. The jacket's color didn't matter because it always complemented the color of her rainbow hair. Her tight jeans weren't very comfortable, but you can't really expect comfort when you're being hunted like some kind of golden goose.

She ran and ran like there was no tomorrow. After a few minutes of running, she started getting tired. She sat down to relax while looking at the map again. Sera looked around her, searching for the landmark of this area, The Serpent God's Cave.

'Nowhere in sight.' Sera sighed. 'I can't be that far away from it right? I also need food and water, I can make do without a house.'

"HISSSSSS!" a loud hissing noise came from behind Sera.

She looked behind her with a bitter face. 'Oh fuck off...'

BOOM!

The giant red snake hit the ground where Sera was just sitting. She immediately rolled to the side. "You wanna play, big boy?"

"Foolish human! You dare intrude on my domain?!" bellowed the giant snake. "Just because our levels are equal does not mean our strengths are!"

Swish!

A tail came flying at Sera, moving at speeds that the unfocused Sera could never hope to match.

Bang!

Crack!

Sera went flying in the direction she wanted to go. Sadly, one of her ribs broke as her eyes went bloodshot.

She immediately took out her sword, holding it in front of her in a defensive position. 'Lila put me against beasts a level lower than me, how can the difference of one level be so huge?!'

"Humph!" the snake rushed again, this time going for a bite. Sera barely dodged to the side as her hood got ripped off. The snake's eyes widened in surprise, "Rainbow hair? You should be Seraphina, no?"

"Wait, wait, wait!" Sera immediately took her mask off. "Look, I might be able to strike a deal with you!"

"Oh, and what do you have that I would want?" the snake said in an interested tone. It would usually not even give a human the time of day, but recently since everyone's levels were capped at the Peak Infant Stage, humans have started to hunt it. Most importantly though, Seraphina was the daughter of Salas Ender, the Lord of this World. Surely, he would've given her some treasure to help her.

"What's your goal? If I know your goal, I'd be able to help you!" Sera was thrilled. It looked like not every beast was as unreasonable as the dragon in the forest.

"I want to spend the rest of my life in comfort as a queen." the snake smirked. "Surely you can help me with that, no?"

"A-Anything else?" Sera remained hopeful. "Any kind of service you need from a human, or some information maybe? I could be your spy!"

"Don't misunderstand me, Seraphina. I don't really need you." the snake spoke in a condescending tone. "But I guess, if you can find out the location of a certain someone, I will let you go."

"Who might that be?" Sera was smiling happily. 'Finally! A way out!'

"Ephilium, a bastard that stole my prey." the snake said in cold voice. Sera felt her throat close as she struggled to breathe. Tears started coming out of her eyes as she dropped to the ground gasping for air. The snake turned to Sera and said, "Oh, I apologize. My killing intent leaked."

Sera took a deep breath as she felt her throat clear up. She thought about what the snake said, then opened her eyes in realization. She took out the map and check it again, her eyes fell on the current area she was in, Shira's Desert of Oblivion. "Are you perhaps Shira?"

"Yes, I am indeed Shira." the snake looked at Sera while smiling. 'If that paper has my name in it, then it might have a few others. Hell, it might even have another Apex Beast.'

"You want to find Ephilium, right?" Sera looked at Shira with caution. Beasts were normally stupid creatures, but the higher their level, the more intelligent they become. Some even advance further and claim World cores! It was very obvious to Sera that the two beasts she encountered, Shira and Ephilium, were not actual Infant Stage beasts. They were a higher level of beasts that had their ability restricted to the Peak Infant Stage for Sera's test.

"You have information?!" Shira rushed in front of Sera. "Give it to me now!"

"Okay, let's calm down a second." Sera smiled as she grabbed the map harshly. "We wouldn't want anything to happen to the map, do we Shira?"

Sera was not afraid to rip up the map. Children of Eternal Existences had unbelievable memories. As long as they're focused when memorizing and recalling, they would be able to remember a map from decades ago like it was right in front of their faces. Sera couldn't possibly memorize the entire map in the few seconds she pulled it out. Put simply, she was bluffing.

"We might be on the same level, but I can rip you to pieces in less than a minutes. Choose your words and actions carefully, girl." Shira coldly threatened.

Although it might be exaggerated, her words held some truth in them. There was a difference between beasts.

Lineage.

A beast's lineage is what determines it's power in the early pre-intelligence stage. The beasts had a lineage system going from the beginning to end as such:

Animal: born with the lowest amount of intelligence possible. They move strictly by instinct. It is the worst kind of lineage to fight, for they never give up, even against an Eternal Existence.

Beast: born with basic survival intelligence. They hiss at you when they're scared, sneak up on you when they want to kill you and even run away when they realize they're outclassed.

Elite: born with the intelligence of a human toddler. They are usually the best kind of beast to have as pet or companion. Their physical strength is vastly different from normal Beast class beasts. It would take around 5 Beasts to kill 1 Elite of the same level.

Lord: born with the intelligence of human teenager. They are the usual commanders of beast tribes. They can gain the ability to speak with age.

Royalty: born with an adult human's intelligence. They are usually the ones to create beast empires or even hold a domain. Their strength is also vastly different from Lord class beasts. It would take 10 Lords to even force a Royal to flee!

Apex: can never be born. They are the final evolution of all beasts. Every beast can evolve after a certain level, with Apex being the final evolution before becoming a World holder! Many Apex class beasts were born as Animal class. They are the most to reach this stage because of their caution, they are not born with the pride or intelligence of Lords or Royals. They have to learn everything the hard way.

Sera gulped before she spoke in a more reserved tone, "I'm sorry. This is a map of the general locations around the World. It has details of Ephilium's location. If you'd be so kind to protect me, I could even help you in the fight. I might be inexperienced but I still am a Peak Infant Stage fighter."

Shira looked at Sera for a few seconds. She then smiled, "Fine. After we fight Ephilium, I will protect you until you leave, Seraphina."

'Yes!' Sera smiled. "Please...call me Sera."