God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.-Chapter 1152: Reach for the Stars (1).

Hunter looked like he wanted to argue further, but he couldn’t deny the logic.

Finally, he sighed. "Fine. But you’re taking someone. I’m not letting you fly into that deathtrap alone."

"I’ll go!" Steve practically bounced out of his chair.

"This is an incredible research opportunity! The chance to study this strange world and the concentration of the strange forces at those altitudes. Oh, how wonderful that would be!"

"Steve," Hunter said slowly, "you understand this is extremely dangerous, right?"

"Naive Hunter! Danger is inevitable in the life of one who practices the arts! It is as constant as the waking and the setting sun..." Steve raised and waves his fists around.

Hunter pursed his lips and turned to Cain,

"You sure you want him to tag along?"

Cain scratched his head,

"I’m not sure..."

Steve turned to him with tears at the corners of his eyes.

Cain and Hunter exchanged looks.

"You know what?" Cain said with a sigh.

"Fine. Sure. Why not? At least if something kills us, you’ll die happy."

"Wonderful!" Steve guffawed with a wide grin on his face.

Hunter pinched the bridge of his nose. "I’m surrounded by idiots."

"Idiots, or men with ambition?" Cain corrected. "There’s a difference."

"Not from where I’m standing."

Cain grinned as he walked out of the tent. Steve and Hunter followed right behind him.

They continued walking until they were a little further away from camp.

Then, Cain pulled his consciousness inward and reached for the {Beastmaster’s Subspace}.

A moment later, the space beside him rippled and Lyos materialized.

The Argent Amphithere had been constantly growing and evolving with every battle Cain put it through.

It was now a beautifully majestic creature...

It’s serpentine body was now roughly sixty feet long with the same silver scales that caught the twisting light like mirrors.

The wings sprouted from its back were glorious and beautiful, but also scaly and powerful enough to inflict a sense of dread in whoever caught sight of the beast.

Blue flames flickered around its nostrils as it huffed, staring at Cain dead in the eyes.

Cain clicked his tongue,

"What? Don’t look at me like that."

Unlike Pudding and Ruby, Lyos was not the most expressive or emotional of his beasts, usually giving him the cold shoulder too. It was simply too proud and haughty of a beast thanks to its draconic lineage.

Despite that, Cain could feel the damned snake had warmed up to him quite a bit.

Lyos regarded Cain with its intelligent eyes again, then turned its gaze upward. The serpent’s body language shifted subtly, a mixture of curiosity and wariness.

"Yeah," Cain said, running a hand along Lyos’s scales. "I know it looks bad. But I need you, buddy. You’re the only one fast and agile enough to get me up there."

Lyos hissed softly, the sound somewhere between an annoyed grumble and hesitant agreement.

"I’ll take that as a yes." Cain looked at Steve. "You ready?"

"Absolutely!" Steve had somehow completely suited up in just thirty seconds.

He was now dressed in strange white overalls not befitting a powerful mage at all. Combined with his goggles and the safety helmet on his head, he looked more like a lab worker than anything else.

"Try not to die, the both of you." Hunter said dryly as he bade them farewell and turned around.

Cain chuckled as he muttered under his breath,

"I’ll do my best."

They went soaring into the strange perpetual twilight of the Graveyard of Stars as Lyos let out a high pitched screech with a powerful flap of its wings. Some people within the camp watched in amazement as an enormous bolt of silver shot into the sky.

Cain took the forward position, hands gripping the ridge of scales that ran along Lyos’s spine while he constructed multiple barriers to help protect his frail body against the drsg as they cut through the static air and the other rampant forces. Steve sat behind him, already fiddling with some strange magical item.

"Alright," Cain muttered. "Let’s see how bad this really is."

Lyos’s wings spread wide, muscles coiling beneath silver scales. Then, with a powerful downstroke, the Amphithere launched even further into the air.

Thus, the climb began...

The first hundred feet were easy. Lyos climbed smoothly, wings beating in steady rhythm, the ground falling away beneath them.

Despite the barriers he created, Cain felt the familiar rush of flight, air whipping through his hair despite the lack of atmosphere movement.

Then they hit the first energy current.

It felt like flying into a wall of needles. His barriers were immediately riddle with holes. The Chaos Ether stream caught them broadside, invisible but viciously tangible. Lyos shrieked and banked hard, scales rippling as the foreign energy washed over them.

The {Argent Amphithere} had lost control for some reason.

Cain gritted his teeth, fighting to maintain his grip. Behind him, Steve let out a yelp that was equal parts terror and excitement.

"That was incredible!" He shouted over the wind.

"The energy density is at least three times what we experience on the ground!"

"Fantastic," Cain growled. "Hold on!"

Another current, this one coming from above. Lyos saw it coming and dove, wings tucking close to streamline the descent. They dropped fifty feet in seconds, the current passing harmlessly overhead.

But that put them directly in the path of a third stream, this one moving horizontally at tremendous speed.

There was no time to dodge.

Lyos spread his wings wide, angling his body to cut through the current at the most favorable angle.

The Chaos Ether screamed as they punched through, and Cain felt his skin prickle with the chaotic discharge.

Then they were through, climbing again into relatively calmer air.

"This is insane," Cain muttered. Even fighting against a god had not been this nerve wracking.

"This is amazing!" Steve countered.

The floating rocks were closer now, massive chunks of stone drifting in those arching lazy circles like a staircase leading to infinite darkness and nothing.

Some were small, barely considered to be boulders.

Some were barely larger than a house. Others were enormous, island-sized masses that defied all logic by staying airborne.

And between them, in the spaces where the rocks passed closest together, the energy currents intensified into visible streams of purple and black.