They didn't stop flying until the forest thinned and the land dipped into a narrow ravine that had a thin, dark blue river running through it.
Only then did Lucia decide to angle downward.
The three of them landed on a jutting slab of stone that overlooked the water. The moonlight pooled in the ravine, gentler here, broken by the whisper of reeds and the soft churn of current against rock.
For a long moment, none of them spoke.
Kristen started to pace.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
Her talons clicked sharply against the stone in uneven rhythm. "Okay," she started, then stopped. "Okay. That was insane. You were insane. They were insane. Everything about that was insane."
Ever since she started getting used to being around the group she had been a bit more carefree with her words, a sign that their bonds were growing stronger. She had never had such things before back on earth.
Lucia lowered herself carefully, wings slightly spread across the stone as though she didn't entirely trust her own balance. The pearlescent sheen along her feathers had dimmed, but faint threads of gold still ran between like veins of light trapped beneath obsidian.
Olivia watched her closely.
"You're leaking," Olivia said quietly.
Kristen froze mid-step. "She's WHAT?"
'THAT HAPPENS HERE?!?!!!!!'
"Energy," Olivia clarified, stepping closer. "Not blood."
Lucia exhaled through her beak, almost a laugh. "That's reassuring."
But when she folded her wings fully, the gold-white aura flickered again, unstable. It looked wrong.
Kristen stopped pacing and planted herself directly in front of Lucia. "Explain, slowly. And if you say 'I don't know' I will scream."
Lucia hesitated.
"When I started the evolution process my core fractured, but I managed to reform it and then create another one with the sovereigns help." She began.
Olivia narrowed her eyes slightly. "Fractured? That's usually fatal."
"It would have been." Lucia's voice remained steady. "But instead of shattering like usual and causing my mind to split in two, it just fractured into a hundred shards. I was able to smush them all together and then create a new one with it.
Kristen blinked, confused. "You grew a spare?"
"That isn't how cultivation works," Olivia murmured.
Lucia shook her head faintly. "It isn't a spare, its my second core."
"The second core combined with the first allows me to do more powerful feats," Lucia continued. "It amplifies my illusions and makes them feel real to the people affected by it."
"Soooo, torture?" Kristen muttered.
Lucia didn't even deny it.
"The cost," Lucia said, "is that the more I use it, the more unstable both cores become."
Olivia shifted her weight. "So if you overextend—"
"I collapse. Or they detonate each other."
Kristen's shook her head fast. "NOPE. Absolutely not. That is banned. Forbidden. I veto this entire evolution."
Lucia gave her a faint look of amusement again, but it faded quickly. "I didn't choose it."
They fell quiet again, the river filling the space with its calming sound.
After a moment, Olivia spoke. "The cultivator who resisted you, who was that?"
Lucia's gaze sharpened. "He was in the foundational stage, but seemed special somehow. Might be a genius of the generation."
"He was able to recognise it was illusion," Olivia said.
"He didn't recognise," Lucia corrected. "He managed to resist it."
"Wait, whats a genius of a generation?"
Kristen, who didn't know what they were talking about, blurted out what she was thinking.
"It means someone who is the best of their kind," Olivia explained. "Sort've like the best part of the chicken that we eat."
Lucia nodded, continuing the conversation from before. "If a foundation cultivator could partially break through, then a Nascent Soul would shred it instantly."
Kristen resumed pacing, but slower now. "So we can't rely on it as a trump card."
"No," Lucia said. "It's more like a temporary shield."
"And it paints a target on your back," Olivia added. "Five cultivators humiliated, their ego's are damaged so they'll definetly report it to the higher ups of the humans."
Kristen groaned loudly. "Oh great, so now we have a target on our back."
Lucia stared out over the ravine, eyes reflecting the moonlight like molten glass. "They'll investigate the fragment because it wasn't hard to miss the Skybound Sovereign fragment."
Olivia's feathers tightened subtly. "You think they'll connect it to you?"
"Yes."
Kristen started getting worried again.
"…How bad is that?"
Lucia didn't answer.
"Bad," Olivia answered for her. "Ancient inheritance fragments attract sects, clans and old monsters."
Kristen looked between them. "But we don't even have it anymore. It's IN her."
"That makes it worse," Lucia said softly.
The river seemed louder now.
Kristen hopped closer, lowering her voice. "Okay, so what are our options?"
Olivia began listing calmly. "We hide deeper in the wilderness and avoid all human settlements for the rest of our life."
Kristen made a face. "Forever?"
Olivia continued as if she hadn't spoken. "We seek out another non-human faction for protection."
Lucia's gaze flickered over to her. "Risky. We don't know territorial boundaries."
"Or," Olivia finished, "we leave this region entirely."
Lucia ignored that. "The fragment's aura will fade. People might forget me in time.
"That's not comforting," Kristen muttered.
"But," Lucia continued, "the humans here have already seen me."
"And felt you," Olivia added.
Kristen shuddered at the memory of the cultivators writhing.
"We can't undo that," Lucia said. "So staying means escalation."
Olivia nodded once. "Retaliation is definitely going to happen in the fututre."
The word hung between them.
Kristen looked at the river.
At the distant line where forest met horizon.
At the thin, sharp moon surrounding by glowing stars.
"You know," she said slowly, voice losing its usual frantic edge, "we've been thinking small."
Lucia glanced at her.
Kristen's eyes gleamed with possibility.
"We keep talking about regions. Territories. Sects." She lifted her head, wind stirring her feathers. "What if we just… don't play their game?"
Olivia studied her.
Lucia's gold-threaded feathers shimmered faintly.
Kristen inhaled.
"Let's leave the continent."