The beast dipped, rolling into unnecessary aerial maneuvers. The bird kept craning its head back, one amber eye locking onto Dane. Each time it saw him still clinging on, its gaze grew more irritated. Dane's arms were wrapped tight around the Dragonkin's waist, her sharper scales cutting into his forearms until he felt warm blood tracing his skin. It was a fair trade, he decided; the alternative was walking back to the tower through the horde of monsters that churned below like a living tide.

  The world itself was breathtaking. Morning was cresting over the horizon, the twin suns bleeding their light into the desert sky. One was the soft yellow he knew from Earth; the other was a shimmering violet. The dunes below blazed orange and red, and the world opened up, revealing the desert sand.

  A wide river cut the desert in half, its banks lush with emerald trees that shouldn't be in a desert. Beneath the canopy, monstrous shapes moved. They reminded Dane of Dinosaurs, but they didn't look quite right, almost as if they had evolved from something other than birds.

  Draka banked downward toward a camp marked by massive stone pillars. In the center stood a towering post carved with dozens of faces, ranging from bestial to humanoid and everything in between. An elf, a dwarf, a chronite. And one that made Dane's stomach tighten was his father's face, staring blankly into the sky.

  "What is that pole?" Dane asked Draka.

  "It is the spirit pole. Everyone sees it differently, but it is how we send our wishes to those who have helped us on our journey." She said.

  Dane stared for a moment longer and noticed that he could change what faces were on the pole by thinking of who he wished to speak to. He thought about Rebecca, but she didn't appear. He wondered if they had to be dead, and if so, whether it was tapping into the astral to contact spirits or some illusion.

  When they landed, Dane released his death grip and muttered a quiet thanks for the solid feel of the Earth beneath his toes.

  A notification blinked before his eyes.

  Fangor, the God of Beasts, has accepted your thanks.

  "I can't even get a week without some all-powerful cosmic busybody sticking their nose in," Dane muttered under his breath.

  "We have much to do, Dane," Draka snapped, already striding toward the camp.

  He shook himself out of his thoughts and followed the fiery Dragonkin into the shadow of the pillars.

  They stepped inside a tent, and six elders sat on the ground, muttering incoherently. Dane felt wrong, like he wasn't meant to be there, but Draka motioned for him to follow her through the ceremony.

  "You need to be quiet. This is how the oracles commune with the strings of fate." Draka said in a hushed whisper.

  The elders began to move rhythmically to music that wasn't there. They were sitting on the ground, leaning forward, then backward, and side to side, and repeating it over and over until Dane was in a trance. He tried to hold on, but for some reason, he was dissociating from his body. He tried to get up. To leave. Something was wrong, and then he felt his power get sealed.

  His connection to Mana was blocked; he could still pull it for his passive skills, but he couldn't summon jetting geyser or blink.

  All six of the elders opened their eyes at once and stared at Dane Eerilee. They spoke with one voice. "You are Archon Tekton. You are outside the stream of fate as you belong to the flow of time. Why have you come to Beast tide?"

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  Dane thought for a long moment. He thought about lying, but with his magic sealed and the level of power that Draka had, he thought better of it. "I follow my instincts. Something felt right about coming here."

  "A beast follows its gut, but what makes you think that you can be its master?"

  "I don't want to be a master."

  They all smiled at him, and Draka stood and pulled him out of the tent.

  A long moment passed before she spoke. "They have accepted your answer and have permitted me to administer the rite. You must go; we will pack up the village and move. We have to make it to our other camp before the suns set."

  The camp buzzed like a hive that was stirred up. Dane tried to be helpful but realized that without speaking the language, he was mainly in the way. He wondered why the council could communicate with him. During the trial, everyone spoke in imperial common.

  The hisses and grunts that made up the Beast Tides tongue reminded him that almost all of them were probably some monster that evolved into sentience.

  By midday, they were marching, and those with mounts walked next to them. The only one that was riding was Draka. Her tribe had a special word for the woman, even though he didn't understand it; it was something like 'queen,' the children looked at her the way Earth kids looked at superheroes in costumes at birthday parties. It was a reverence reserved only for deities.

  With two suns beating down on the sand, it made it too hot to keep his feet down for long. His legs moved as fast as he could, but he was still falling behind. Even the elephant Beastmen passed him.

  [System Notification]

  Minor heat resistance unlocked

  "Thanks, Daedala." Two men with the heads of eagles looked at Dane, speaking to himself. They both shook their heads and quickened their pace.

  Dane sucked air like he owed it money. Even with his boosted stats, the pace the Beast Tide kept was punishing. He flicked open mana sight and noticed the faint glow threading through every warrior's limbs; they were mana cycling.

  If they could do it, so could he.

  He forced his unused Mana into his muscles. The burn was instant, but then came the rush, like liquid fire surging through every fiber. The ache faded. His stride lengthened. He surged from the rear of the line to the front in minutes, grinning despite the sweat in his eyes.

  Then his body began to change. His teeth lengthened, and his nails started to grow longer.

  The flow didn't stay balanced. It bled upward, crawling into his neck and skull like hot tar. Pressure built behind his eyes. The world took on a sharp, metallic taste, and his hearing filled with a low, rising hum.

  [System Notification]

  Mana poisoned

  The hum became a roar. Flickers of tentacles and shadow monsters pushed into his vision. They were the same things that had watched him when he was torn into the Contested Zone, like they still watched him.

  He tried to push them down, to focus on the desert, on the suns, on anything that wasn't them. But the sand tilted sideways, and then there was no desert at all.

  Draka's shadow swept over him as the cinderhawk landed hard. She knelt, slapped him once, twice, harder. No response. His mana signature was erratic, leaking in sharp bursts.

  "You foolish boy," she hissed, winding up for another strike...

  His eyes snapped open, but they weren't his anymore. A sharp line split the opal eyes down the middle. The megalodon tooth was in his fist before she could blink. He moved without hesitation, driving it for the gap under her ribs with the precision of a born killer.

  She twisted, catching the blade shallow enough to feel the tip pierce where her heart was. Her grip clamped on his wrist, and she tried to use level suppression to make him submit, but the way he looked at her wasn't how a C rank looked at an A rank. It was the way a predetor looked at prey. And then he went slack, collapsing back into the sand, the moment swallowed by the quiet hiss of wind over dunes.