The Nautilus cut a silent, swift path through the deep ocean, its destination a remote continent on the far side of the world. The journey took five days, a period of tense, quiet preparation. Anya worked relentlessly, fine-tuning the ship's sensors and weapon systems, her laboratory now a spartan but ruthlessly efficient command center. Ren spent the time in deep cultivation, solidifying his foundation at Rank 25, his Aether humming with a power that felt both ancient and eagerly new.
He practiced his arts in the ship's empty cargo bay. He could now chain three Raijin's Flashes together before his channels felt the strain. His Thunder's Needle could be formed almost instantly. And the Aegis of the Storm, the art he had learned from the Heart of the Tempest, he could now sustain for several minutes, its azure lattice a perfect, humming cage of lightning.
Their destination was the Cinderwood, a vast, petrified forest in the empire's untamed western territories. When the Nautilus surfaced in a desolate, black-sand cove, the sight that greeted them was one of bleak, haunting beauty.
An entire forest, stretching for hundreds of miles, had been turned to black, glassy stone. Towering, petrified trees, some hundreds of feet tall, stood like silent, skeletal sentinels against a grey sky. The ground was a carpet of brittle, obsidian-like grass that crunched underfoot.
"According to the archives," Anya said, her environmental sensors already analyzing the air, "this entire region was consumed by a fire-aspected Grand Rift Break during the Age of Harmony. The resulting inferno was so hot it vitrified the entire forest in a matter of hours. The ambient Aether here is thin, but tinged with the faint, residual echo of that ancient fire."
"A perfect nesting ground for a creature of wind and storm," Ren noted. A place of high peaks and open skies, with no other predators powerful enough to challenge it.
Their hunt began immediately. They were a strange, two-person team. Anya, from the safety of the Nautilus, would use her long-range sensors to scan the vast forest, narrowing down the Griffin's probable territory. Ren, clad in his Aegis of the Sky-Lord, would be the ground team, the scout, his own Raijin senses the only tool sharp enough to pick up the beast's specific Aetheric trail.
For two days, he explored the silent, petrified forest. It was an eerie, unnerving landscape, a graveyard of a forgotten age. He moved with a speed and confidence that would have been impossible just weeks ago, using Raijin's Flash to cross treacherous, shattered landscapes and his powerful senses to navigate the maze of stone trees.
"The beast is clever," Zephyrion noted as Ren examined a set of tracks that had been deliberately obscured. "A Tempest-Winged Griffin is a creature of high intelligence and immense pride. It knows we are in its territory. It is watching us. Testing us."
On the third day, they found their first definitive sign. A massive, petrified redwood, its trunk thicker than the Nautilus itself, had been shattered from the top down, as if struck by a colossal bolt of lightning. But it wasn't lightning. The deep gouges in the stone were the marks of immense talons, and the radiating fracture lines spoke of a powerful, sonic cry.
"The Griffin's roost must be near," Ren reported into his comm-bead.
"I'm reading a high concentration of storm Aether on the central peak, five kilometers north of your position," Anya's voice crackled back. "It's the highest point in the forest. A perfect vantage point. Be careful, Ren. The Pagoda data mentions that the alpha's sonic cry can shatter stone and disrupt a Spirit Master's Aetheric circulation from miles away."
Ren acknowledged the warning and began his ascent, his movements now more cautious, more predatory. He was no longer just a scout. He was entering the beast's lair.
As he climbed the winding, treacherous path of the central mountain, the air grew thick with the scent of ozone and the palpable pressure of a dominant, territorial predator. He reached a high plateau just below the summit and froze.
The plateau was a charnel house. It was littered with the shattered, petrified remains of lesser beasts—Cave Bears, Rock Golems, even a young Land Wyrm—all of them torn apart with savage, overwhelming force. This was the Griffin's larder.
And sitting on a massive, nest-like collection of shattered trees at the far end of the plateau, was the king of this dead forest.
It was a magnificent and terrifying creature. Larger than any beast he had ever seen, its body was a sleek, powerful fusion of a lion and a great eagle. Its hindquarters were covered in a coat of shimmering, silver fur, while its eagle head and massive wings were formed not from feathers, but from living, shifting, crackling storm clouds. Its eyes were two brilliant, intelligent sapphires that burned with an ancient, untamable pride.
This was the Rank 28 Tempest-Winged Griffin. And it was staring directly at him.
It let out a piercing cry, a sound that was not just a challenge, but a declaration of absolute dominion. It was not a simple roar. It was a focused, Aether-infused sonic blast that shook the very air, a wave of pure force designed to cripple any challenger before the fight even began.
The king of the storm had just announced its presence. And it did not suffer trespassers in its kingdom.