Everyone managed to stay on their feet despite the explosion. Their hair billowed behind them as they held their arms in front of their eyes to prevent themselves from being blinded with the dust and dirt that was sent flying.

  When the dust settled, Arden was the first thing they saw. His armor was fusing to his flesh again, as it had when he fought Yaan. Half of it was destroyed outright, revealing heavily burnt flesh. The smell of burning hair wafted through the open field, causing everyone to wrinkle their noses.

  Arden slumped to the ground and landed on a single knee, taking in heavy, raspy breaths as he did so. The blast used up most of the oxygen in the air as fuel, so Arden was feeling lightheaded. So lightheaded in fact, that it took him several moments to realize his left arm was gone, blown off in the explosion.

  He summoned his armor and looked back at the worried group with unfocused eyes. It took a moment for him to realize that he was swooped into Vera's arms and quickly carried to behind the group as the rest began to engage with the blast bull for real. It was the safest place he could be, but it still wasn't very safe.

  As soon as she placed him on the ground, Arden began to circulate his biomass. He was right to be worried about being set on fire. It had happened a few times already, and he was tired of it.

  He watched Vera and the rest begin to take the fight to the monster, playing much more passively than he did. Understandably so. The chances of them killing it were slim. That was why they were just planning to hold out until Savish returned.

  Globs of devoured biomass layered itself across the worst of his injuries. He was not looking forward to having to regrow a full arm. He just knew that it was going to be the most expensive injury to heal. That was until he realized that his arm was sitting on the ground next to him.

  ‘So that’s why she brought me here.’

  Arden held his severed arm up to his shoulder and commanded the biomass to reconnect it through the visceral tentacles that were now his trademark. He anxiously tapped his foot against the dirt as he looked between the fight and his arm being reattached with an agonizingly leisurely pace.

  “Come on, come on, come on,” he said with a dry, hoarse voice.

  He was upset at how long it was taking, but it was much more economical with his biomass than it would have been if he just remade it. He felt how much biomass reconnecting and healing his arm took up, and was pleased to find that it only used about ten percent of his current reserves. Instinct told him that it would have been closer to 50 percent if he remade it. That gave him a surplus of high-rank biomass to use on healing his body.

  He stood back up as the tendrils continued to repair his body. He wasn’t perfect, but there wasn’t a point to being perfectly restored if all he was going to do was get set on fire again.

  At least this time the pain was brief. Yaan wasn’t here trying to inflict as much pain as possible like the night that the prince of Miasma became a Starborn. There was no hellfire stigmata setting his soul on fire. There was no Maverick trying to convert him into an undead to force Arden into an unwitting heresy that he didn’t care about.

  Here, it was just an animal that wanted him dead. Arden could relate. He wanted to feast on the bull all the more.

  He summoned a single Bone Talon over his right hand and headed for his sister. He replaced his armor with the set of mundane clothes he wore before the hunting began and charged back into the fray with a shout.

  “I’m gonna grill the shit out of you!”

  Torvis heard his war cry and laughed, cheering with his hammer above his head, dismissing it.

  “He's still in the fight!”

  The bull was currently engaged in a one vs four. Its fuse tail had reset, and with the realization that it would explode when fuse reached its body, everyone would be ready for it again.

  Torvis’ feet dug into the ground, trying to use his bulky form to hold the blast bull down. It was futile, given that he, like the rest, was only a protostar, and the bull was a supergiant. A typical Celestial was stronger than a Starborn of the same rank, and this thing was two ranks above everyone here.

  Still, Torvis tried his best to hold the blast bull. His large bulky armor made him look like the dark fantasy equivalent of a space marine. With his hands free, he was gritting his teeth and holding the bull by the horns, but it was an unsustainable venture. He was being pushed back and he could feel his armor covering his hands warping from both the heat and the might of his foe.

  He could hear the sound of his armor being torn through and he felt his hands blister from the molten steel horns of the blast bull, but he refused to yield. He was his party’s tank, and while the Celestial may have nullified his defensive abilities, his physical might would remain. If the no-named Starborn could take an explosion directly and bounce back into the fight, then so would Torvis.

  Volis, Vera, and Sya circled the blast bull trying to give it any kind of injury. The problem they currently faced was that after its explosion, the bull had cleansed itself of Sya’s poisons, so they worked desperately to reapply it.

  Volis, with his blink ability made him a slippery opponent for the bull, but he was only able to actually harm the bull on maybe 40 percent of his attacks. Vera’s attacks never failed to cut the bull’s body thanks to her Cutting Edge ability. She wasn’t cutting through it like butter, but she was drawing blood, which was enough for the poison that coated her blade to once again inflict suffering on the blast bull that blew her boyfriend up.

  Sya tried her best to be important to the fight, but with the blast bull’s power being considerably higher than hers, and her own lacking compared to the rest of the group, she was relegated to support. Every time she circled the bull she would reapply her blood to the open wounds of the bull as well as offer more of her own blood to the various weapons and armor that were being subjected to the monster.

  “Sya!” she heard her brother call for her.

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  Backing off slightly from the fight, they met up and she saw that Arden was looking much better than before. Most of his hair was still gone, but he no longer looked like an overdone steak. Now he looked like an overdone human as he was covered in first and second degree burns. He held the Codex Momenti Proximi under his arm and held his claw forward.

  Without hesitation, she smeared her blood all over his claw and his empty hand. She hoped his devour ability could also proc her poison. With eyes hovering over the book that seemed a bit too strong for a red-tier, she popped a question.

  “What’s with the book?”

  “We don’t appear in it, so it's useless if I try to use it to see what happens to me,” Arden said, pointing to Torvis. “It’s attention is focused mostly on him because he won't let it go. His future is written in here, and it's not looking great for him. It’s concerningly short. I’ll support him. It’d be best if you join me.”

  She didn’t need any further explanation and followed her brother to Torvis’s side. The blast bull was already heavily poisoned and it didn’t seem to slow it down much. Trying to keep Torvis from succumbing to his original fate was a better use of her efforts now.

  “Are you strong enough for this?” Torvis asked Arden.

  “I blew up already and am still fighting,” he answered.

  “Fair enough.”

  “Besides, I don’t have to be strong enough. We need to be strong enough.”

  Torvis could feel the skin on his hands being burnt away more than he heard it, but he was acutely aware of the sound of hissing and popping coming from them. He groaned as he maintained hold of the horns, sparing a quick glance to Arden and Sya.

  “Are we strong enough?”

  Arden shrugged.

  “I don’t know. Hopefully.”

  Arden leapt atop the bull, wrapping his arms around the beast’s throat. He had no misconception that he would be able to choke out the bull. When it came to weight class and musculature, he was so far beneath the blast bull that it was laughable. He only wanted to further restrain its movements to make it easier for the rest.

  Sya’s contributions helped further. She changed the shape of Rogier’s Tree to that of a pike, perfect for quick stabbing motions. Her goal was more to annoy and distract the bull rather than deliver more poison to it, but she achieved both with her frenzied stabbings.

  Vera called out from behind the bull.

  “Maybe thirty seconds until the next explosion!”

  “Pour in everything you’ve got!” Arden yelled.

  The bull continued to thrash around, trying to free itself from Arden’s and Torvis’ hold. It tried to wave its head around, it tried to buck its entire body. It even began to show the telltale signs of an incoming charge, but that was the one time Torvis let go.

  They all saw what happened when it charged before. Explosions and fire would ensue, so Arden, Sya, and Torvis all fell away. Or at least, Sya and Torvis did. When Arden tried to dismount from the bull, it managed to whip its head around to sink its teeth into his uncovered hand and refused to let go.

  “Shit!” he swore, more in surprise and incredulity that he was about to be bombed a second time rather than fear.

  He smashed his gauntlet against the beast’s forehead, but it did nothing but make it bite down harder. A quick glance showed him that Volis and Vera also disengaged. Nervous sweat rolled down his face.

  Last time, he was near the edge of the blast radius and he was reduced to human charcoal. Now, he was forced to remain at ground zero for the next one. With a mental command, he initiated devour. He would need as much biomass as he could get if he wanted to stay alive.

  He had less than 10 seconds before the bull would explode again. Probably closer to five. Another second ticked by as Arden continued bashing the bull over the head and devouring the bull from the inside out, but nothing changed.

  As another possible death approached him, Arden heard his sister's voice.

  “Clench your teeth, Arden!”

  He saw his sister wielding her weapon like a gaundao again a moment before it cut through his hand and he fell to the ground with a grunt. Knowing that they couldn't stay, Sya pulled Arden to his feet as they began their mad dash out of the blast zone.

  ‘We’re not going to make it out of the way in time,’ Arden thought.

  He saw the panicked faces of Vera, Volis, and Torvis. Volis lowered himself into a crouch to blink again, but panicked realization crossed his face. Arden figured that he was out of stellar essence.

  “Why won’t things stop setting me on fire!?” Arden raged.

  Two seconds left.

  Neither he nor Sya would escape the blast in the few seconds they had. They both knew it. The familial altruism that had been ingrained into Arden’s core since his parents were slaughtered by a Celestial took over. With the last of their time, Arden pulled Sya down under him as he held her in a hug.

  “This is gonna suck,” Arden said.

  Then the bull exploded again.

  The fireball expanded a bit further than it did last time, indicating that it was stronger. Arden tried to cover as much of Sya’s body with his own as he could to prevent any of the destructive flame from injuring her.

  He was once again ignited in the blast bull’s fire. He felt it everywhere. He yelled in pain as the fire engulfed him. Focusing to the utmost, Arden circulated as much of his biomass around his body as fast as he could, trying to outlast the powerful fire.

  For several seconds, all Arden perceived was blinding hot pain focused everywhere on his body. His constant healing of wounds that were still literally on fire just made it so the regenerated tissue was also set ablaze.

  Eventually, the burning stopped. It was only a few seconds, but for Arden who lived in a cycle of being healed and burnt alive, it felt like an eternity.

  He breathed heavily as he rolled himself off of Sya who only had a few minor burns from the ordeal. He sighed in relief seeing that she was mostly unharmed.

  “I’m out again,” he muttered breathlessly.

  He looked much better than the first time, thanks to him constantly healing himself as it went on, but he still looked like the victim of a horrific burn. Now, it looked like an injury that someone could survive, despite the fact that he hadn’t been wearing armor for this one..

  Assuming the blast bull let him survive, of course.

  Sya was quick to get on her feet and put herself between Arden and the blast bull. Fury was etched onto her face as she pointed Rogier’s Tree towards the blast bull.

  She was quickly joined by Vera, Volis, and Torvis.

  “I’m not letting anyone else get hurt,” Volis said.

  Arden pushed himself up to a sitting position.

  “A few seconds earlier would have been expedient,” he croaked.

  His words went unheard, or were just ignored. Arden figured the former. After all, who would ignore the wails of a twice blown up Starborn?