The Northern Mountaintops

"Is he alright?" Lycaon asked.

"He's doing fine but he's likely gonna remain in this critical condition for a while. I don't how but he nearly used up all of his lifeforce." Jason revealed.

After the battle with ants ended, Sebastian had collapsed on the ground. His once vigorous body turned into a weak, frail body. This was the result of using Bellerion's weapon.

If using Bellerion's armor at a fraction of its true power took a quarter of Sebastian's lifeforce, then using his powerful weapon would need half of his original lifeforce capacity.

"That's fine but do you know who he looks like? I can't tell since his face looks lifeless right now." Lycaon said.

"Honestly… I don't know. Your suspicions about him being Sebastian might be wrong. When feeling his body, I felt the presence of a lingering mana." 

Bang!

"Dammit!" Lycaon slammed his fist into a cave wall.

Storming outside the cave, he watched as everyone was preparing to leave for a hunt. It had been a week since the fight and nearly everyone was back to normal except one person.

"Lexi! You don't need to push yourself this hard!" A boy shouted.

"I'm going whether you like it or not. I won't allow this disability to weigh me down." Lexi responded back.

Signing, Lycaon walked over to the commotion. Ever since the incident, Lexi wasn't able to grow her arm back. Jason, the healer of the group, couldn't do much to help since it was out of his expertise. 

"I think it's best that you sit this one out. You've been pushing yourself too hard as of lately and you need to rest." Lycaon said, putting his hand on Lexi's shoulder.

"Not you too! Ever since I lost my arm, it feels like everyone has been taking it easier just for me." Lexi complained.

What she said was true. Everyone agreed to take on easier beasts while they hunted with Lexi. For an adventurer, losing an arm greatly impacted their lives and normally couldn't return to their profession. Healers could regrow the adventurer's limbs back but it had to be within a certain time frame after losing the arm.

Depending on your race, you could just regrow a limb back like it was nothing but it required a lot of energy to do so. Being a werewolf allowed them to do it but Lexi didn't have the energy to do it nor did she know how.

Grunting, Lexi walked away in anger while the others stared at each other and shrugged before leaving for their hunt. Lycaon sighed again and walked over to the temporary forgery.

Upon arrival, he met with Carlos and Baron. After a while of hunting with each other, Baron finally proposed the idea of turning Carlos into a blacksmith like him. He happily agreed to offer as he was always interested in learning about smithing.

"I have a request." Lycaon said to the duo.

"A request? When have you ever used that word? I can assume this has to do with Lexi?" Baron asked.

"I want you to build her a prosthetic and not any ordinary prosthetic. I want you to build a blade attached onto the arm that's capable of containing her magic." Lycaon explained.

Inspecting their current resources, Baron was trying to find a specific metal but he realized they didn't have it.

"If you want me to create it, you'll need to gather the materials. The metal resides in the north while the fabric can come from any beasts."

Sighing, he left the cave and looked north. The north part of dimension was the hardest area as it contained many powerful beasts, including humanoid beasts.

Gathering the strongest of them, Lycaon was preparing to leave for the north. He, as the leader, needed to ensure his teammates were doing fine and if they weren't, he needed to fix it otherwise the rest would fall.

"Sophie, Lendell, and Katlynn! We're gonna head north to grab a few materials for the creation of Lexi's prosthetic. While on the way there, kill as many beasts as possible but do not overdo it." Lycaon announced.

As they were about to leave, Baron came walking toward them. He then explained that he needed to come with since none of them knew what the metal looked like and that he wanted to gather some other materials.

"It should at most take a week before we arrive at the Northern Mountaintops." Baron explained.

"Alright! Let's head out!" Lycaon shouted, smiling.

_____

Four Days Later…

In the middle of a frozen forest, the group had run into a problem. When they used to explore, they had Antares to lookout for powerful beasts in their path. Compared to him, they could sense mana that was a few meters ahead of them.

"Kill it! Kill it now!" Lycaon shouted.

Right now, they had encountered an adolescent yeti. A species that normally resides in the Northern Mountaintops. Though the most dominant species was the frost giants, they were deeper within the Northern Mountaintops.

Stab!

The sounds of multiple blades stabbing was heard as Katlynn, the Sword Magic user, summoned multiple swords and commanded them to pierce the yeti from multiple different directions.

Thud!

Finally, they had defeated the yeti. Though they knew this wasn't gonna be the last one they would run into. The closer one is to the Northern Mountaintops, the more dangerous it would be. 

"Would this material be good enough?" Lycaon asked Baron.

"Its durability is decent and would be a good substitute for now. When we return back to the real world, I want us to go on a beast hunt for a Toxic Tortoise's soft carapace." Baron replied.

"That would help boost Lexi's magical power… I suppose we'll do just that."

As they were talking, Sophie had the initiative to go ahead and scout. Since she was the fastest among them, Lycaon had designated her as the scout.

'I wonder if what we're doing is right… We could've waited for Antares to recover and help us out but who knows when he'll be awakened.' Sophie thought.

Out of them all, she was confident that Antares would be able to subdue and kill anything in their path. But she also knew that Lycaon didn't like Antares all that much since he knew about his past.

Roar!!!

'Hmmm…' 

Heading toward the noise, she arrived at a scene that surprised her. In front of her, she saw two adolescent yetis fighting against a gray yeti. From the looks of it, she figured they were siblings but that thought was shut down as she saw the gray yeti pull out an ice spear and pierce one of the younger yetis.

'I thought all the yetis were friendly with each other… guess not. Best we avoid this yeti for now.' 

Heading back toward the group, she told them of her finding and went around the yetis. They could fight them but after seeing the gray yeti take on two adolescent yetis, it was probably stronger than all of them combined.

"I'll go on ahead. I'm sensing some powerful beasts ahead." Lendell said.

Flash-stepping away from the group, Lendell approached the group of beasts he spoke of. Upon arrival, he noticed a group of blue wolf-like beasts feasting on a corpse of a yeti.

'It is about time I put these weapons to use.' Lendell thought as he pulled two black greatswords with engraved runes from his back.

Dark purple electrical arcs buzzed off his greatsword as he activated his magical power. The gravity around him changed as it felt heavier and denser.

"Awhoooo!" The beasts howled in sync.

Stomping on the ground, he shouted to the sky and activated one of his skills.

"Rahhh!" 

The surrounding wolf-like beasts were pulled toward him and his blades began to charge up. He then slammed the blades on the ground and killed two out of five beasts and increased the gravity on the last three remaining beasts.

"Haha! These weapons are perfect! I can reduce and increase the weight of these weapons, and release different attacks." Lendell came to admire his weapons made by Baron. 

Stabbing his weapons into the ground, the surrounding gravity increased and as he pulled his blades out, they were covered in ice. With a swing, the ice from his blades had flown through the air and cut through one of the beasts.

"I wonder if I can stop the stars with my magic." Lendell started to speculate the power of his gravity magic.

The last two remaining beasts ran away as loud thumping could be heard coming his way. A large grin appeared on his face as he knew that it was the mother of beasts he had killed.

Roar!

"Goddamn it, Lendell!" Lycaon's voice could be heard echoing through the forest.

Grasping his hands together, Lendell formed a dark purple before releasing it and floating it into the sky. Once it was a certain distance in the sky, small parts of the ground flew to the orb and soon a large blue wolf-like beast flew into the sky.

"Meteor Creation." He spoke as blood leaked out of his nose.

The dark orb then floated higher into the sky for later use for him. Unlike other skills, this skill temporarily sealed away a chunk of his mana until he used the meteor.

Rustling could be heard as Lycaon and the rest of the group came out from the forest. Once Lycaon was face to face with Lendell, his hand moved quickly and slapped him across the face.

"I did my job and got rid of the beasts. I didn't do anything other than do my job!" Lendell shouted at Lycaon.

As much as he wanted to hit Lycaon back, he couldn't. His attacks wouldn't even reach him before being slowed by the field around him.

"Sophie, go on ahead and scout again. Lendell, focus on recovering your mana." Lycaon instructed.

______

Three Days Later…

"So these are the so-called Northern Mountaintops." Lycaon said.

Arriving at the Northern Mountaintops, they were hidden in the nearby forest. The moment they stepped into Mountaintops, they saw a party of yetis killing a giant spider. 

"Let's sneak on by. If I can guess, we're probably in their domain." He explained

"Agreed." Sophie said, slightly scratching her arms.

As they sneaked on by the yetis, the noticed that they deeper they got, the more yetis they saw. It wasn't all that strange or surprising to see beasts with territories but the amount of beasts left them confused. The sheer amount of them, made the group question whether they should engage in combat with them or not.

"Do you see that cave up there? If we go up there and go inside, we should be able to find the necessary material to make her blade." Baron whispered and pointed up.

"Do you think a yeti's hide would be durable enough for her prosthetic?" Lycaon asked.

"It will do but I don't think she'll find it comfortable."

"She would rather deal with an itchy feeling than being crippled."

Slowly, they were making their way to the cave. As they neared the cave, they saw a yeti playing a melody with a horn. If it wasn't a yeti, they would have gladly listened to it till the end of the melody but something strange happened. 

A red hue appeared on their bodies and lit up to the sky, revealing their position. Looking at Lycaon, the group stared at him before he gestured to attack.

Silver swords appeared in the sky and flew toward the nearby party of yetis. The earth beneath began to change as spikes rose up from the ground and grazed the yetis.

Before they could continue with their attacks, a blizzard appeared between them and the yetis. The winter, created by the blizzard, separated both Lycaon and Baron from the rest of the group.

"We need to find the others!" Lycaon shouted at Baron as he struggled to see through the blizzard.

As they were trying to navigate the fog, they failed to notice the ground beneath had come to a stop. 

"Ly-" Baron tried to speak before falling.

"Baron? Where did yo- Ahh!" Lycaon tried to ask before falling.