<Ashbound found the ravine empty.> Alice sounded delighted. <The cuck is yelling at the tallest bitch with big tits.>
<Which one is that again...?> Kaiden asked dryly. To him, Ash’s women looked pretty much identical. Though, to be fair, he did not get a good look at them.
<I don’t know!>
Alice was the same.
Like brother, like sister.
The third engagement put them against a creature none of them had seen before. A Mirecrawler. It looked like someone had crossed a centipede with a komodo dragon and then scaled the result up to the size of a school bus, its segmented body dragging through the loose shale as it emerged from a crack in the mountainside. Two more followed it.
The Mirecrawlers moved with a low, grinding urgency, their many legs finding purchase on the steep terrain with disturbing ease. Acidic mucus dripped from their mandibles and sizzled where it hit stone.
Calypso’s grin widened. "Ooh, ugly ones."
They engaged.
This time, despite their best efforts, the fight took longer than expected. The Mirecrawlers were tough, their segmented carapaces deflecting glancing blows and their acid spit forcing constant repositioning. The creatures were worth more than the Boulderjaws; that much was obvious from their durability alone.
Then a blade of energy tore through the flank of the largest Mirecrawler, stealing the kill mid-collapse.
Ash landed at the edge of the engagement with his weapon still glowing. Brittany, Stacy, and Trisha fanned out behind him, already moving on the two remaining creatures that Kaiden’s group had softened.
"Thanks for finding these!" Ash called out, waving. His grin was back in full, camera-ready and wide. "We were looking everywhere for new species!"
Both streams caught it.
Kaiden watched him for a moment, then turned and walked.
The girls followed without a word.
They left two Mirecrawlers behind. Two kills they’d softened, set up, and earned through coordination and blood. Ash’s team would finish them off in seconds and collect the points for a fraction of the effort.
The obvious question was: why?
Why not stay and fight for the kills? Why not ignore Ashbound and finish what they started?
The answer was simple, and it had nothing to do with weakness.
In the mountain range, fights between awakened were forbidden.
But accidents happened.
S-tier combatants swung weapons that could cleave giant rocks. Their attacks carried area-of-effect damage that didn’t discriminate between monster flesh and human flesh. If two groups were fighting the same cluster in close proximity, and an S-tier’s strike happened to catch a nearby combatant from another guild...
Kaiden didn’t know if Ash was a man who’d go this far, but...
If he injured one of the Sinners on stream, the drama would be nuclear. Viewership would explode. The manufactured rivalry would become the only story anyone talked about for weeks.
And if someone died...
Kaiden’s jaw tightened.
There was also the inverse. If Kaiden or his girls accidentally hurt one of Ash’s people while fighting in close quarters, the narrative flipped. Suddenly, Valhalla’s Sinners were the aggressors, and potentially their image in the public eye would suffer.
Ash wanted chaos. Kaiden wanted progress.
The math was clear.
Ash was a loser in his eyes. A nobody. Risking the safety of his girls, risking jail time, risking everything they’d built over a handful of stolen points?
That wasn’t a trade Kaiden would ever make.
So he walked.
"We’re pushing harder," he decreed.
The girls fell into step beside him. No one looked back.
Crevice Borers, burrowing predators that erupted from the ground in ambush patterns. Nasty, disorienting, good points.
Ashbound arrived before the last one was dead.
They rushed again. A mixed pack of Glasswing Darters and Venomfang Stalkers, two species that had no business coexisting. The Darters’ crystalline wings refracted light into blinding patterns while the Stalkers used the visual chaos as cover for their paralytic strikes.
Ashbound arrived before the last one was dead.
Again. A lone Pyrawalker, massive and wreathed in volcanic heat. A spectacular kill. Great content.


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