Chapter 42: Return To The Thousand Boughs

Frey’s Asterion disappeared around the corner, its midnight-purple body swallowed by the afternoon traffic while Jet remained on the pavement for another moment, watching the last shimmer of its Mana exhaust fade between the cars.

Beside him, Inez had already forgotten the dramatic farewell entirely. She was holding Frey’s bank card between both hands, turning it beneath the light with the solemn concentration of someone examining a national treasure.

Jet looked from the card to the suspicious little smile creeping across her face and immediately imagined the damage a seven-year-old with unrestricted access to Frey’s money could cause.

He sighed, placed a hand on her head, and turned her toward their building. "Let’s go. And don’t start planning how to bankrupt him before we even get upstairs."

Inez hugged the card to her chest and looked offended. "I wasn’t planning anything." Jet narrowed his eyes. "That’s exactly what someone planning something would say." She stuck her tongue out at him, and the two headed inside.

The elevator carried them to their floor, and they had barely stepped into the corridor when the apartment beside theirs opened. A young woman walked out while adjusting the strap of a small handbag over her shoulder.

Nadia Moreau was twenty-three, with long dark-brown hair falling loosely down her back and a naturally striking face that rarely needed much makeup.

A short black dress left most of her long pale thighs exposed beneath a thin cream cardigan that fitted closely across her chest. She was clearly heading somewhere, but the moment Inez saw her, she forgot Jet existed again.

"Sister Nadia!"

Nadia’s face brightened as she crouched just enough to catch the girl rushing toward her, pinching both of Inez’s cheeks before smoothing her platinum hair back into place. "There you are. I was wondering why my favorite little parasite hadn’t knocked on my door today asking what I cooked."

Inez immediately protested through squashed cheeks. "I’m not a parasite! And your food is good."

Nadia released her with a laugh. "That second sentence isn’t helping your case."

Only then did she look past Inez and notice Jet standing several steps away.

Her smile flattened almost immediately.

Nadia straightened, folded her arms and gave Jet a slow look from his boots to his face. "Well, look who finally decided to come back from the dead."

Jet raised one hand in greeting, already recognizing the tone and knowing there was no escaping what was coming. "Good afternoon to you too, Nadia."

Her eyes narrowed. "Don’t ’good afternoon’ me. You said that security certification would keep you busy whenever training ran late. Somehow ’whenever training ran late’ turned into breakfast, school runs, dinner, homework, packing lunches, and listening to this tiny criminal explain for twenty minutes why vegetables are apparently a violation of human rights."

Inez spun toward her in betrayal. "Because they are! Broccoli smells weird."

Nadia pointed down at her without taking her eyes off Jet. "See? This is what I’ve been dealing with."

Jet couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped him, although the humor quickly softened as he looked at the two of them.

Before going to Kuze’s studio, Jet had known there would be days when the long tattoo sessions, fever, exhaustion and recovery would make properly caring for Inez impossible. Nadia had been the obvious person to ask.

She lived one door away, had known the Saint-Clair siblings for years, and Inez already wandered into her apartment often enough that sleeping there wasn’t strange.

Jet hadn’t vanished for thirty straight days either. Whenever his condition allowed it, he returned home, ate with Inez, checked her schoolwork, slept in his own bed and left again when the next session came.

But on the days he couldn’t make it back, Nadia collected Inez from school, fed her, supervised her homework and let her sleep next door.

Jet had left enough money beforehand to cover food, transportation, school expenses and anything else she might need, disguising the entire arrangement behind the temporary security-training job he’d invented to explain his increasingly irregular schedule.

It hadn’t been perfect, but Inez had never spent a night alone wondering whether her brother was coming home.

Jet glanced at Nadia again, and his expression became more sincere. "Seriously, thank you. I know the last month turned into more than what I originally asked you for. I owe you."

Nadia’s irritation eased, though she wasn’t about to surrender completely. "You absolutely do. I’m thinking expensive dinner."

Jet nodded without hesitation. "Send me the bill."

"Oh, I will. I’m ordering dessert too." Inez raised her hand as though they were in class. "Can I come?"

Nadia looked down at her. "Obviously. You’re the reason I’m charging him."

Jet shook his head. "Somehow I’m being robbed in my own hallway."

Nadia smiled, but after another moment her eyes traveled over him again with more curiosity than annoyance.

"Speaking of disappearing, where have you actually been since the Red Moon? I’ve barely seen you properly. And you look... different."

Jet had expected someone to notice eventually. The weight he’d lost during the tattoo sessions had begun returning, but Asura Physique had changed the way he carried himself more than he realized.

His posture was steadier, his movements cleaner, and there was a physical sharpness to him that hadn’t existed a month ago.

He shrugged casually. "I awakened. Since then I’ve been dealing with registration, paperwork and figuring out what comes next."

Nadia’s eyebrows rose. "You awakened?"

Inez immediately puffed out her chest as if the achievement belonged to her. "Big Brother is really strong now."

Jet gently pushed her head down before she could begin advertising him to the entire floor. Nadia laughed and congratulated him, then checked the time on her phone and cursed under her breath.

She was already late. After making Jet promise that his mysterious new career wouldn’t result in Inez moving permanently into her apartment, she waved goodbye.

Inez waved enthusiastically until the elevator doors closed, and Jet unlocked their apartment with a faint smile.

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The following morning, Jet waited until Inez had eaten breakfast, packed her schoolbag and disappeared through the apartment door after warning him twice not to touch the snacks she had hidden in the refrigerator.

Once he received confirmation that she’d reached school, he changed and checked his equipment carefully. This time there were no ordinary sneakers, casual clothes and improvised wooden stakes.

A fitted black long-sleeved combat shirt sat beneath a lightweight dark tactical jacket, while reinforced black combat trousers protected his knees without restricting movement.

Dark combat boots covered his feet, fingerless gloves protected his palms, and a compact utility belt carried a harvesting knife, several small pouches, basic first-aid supplies and the tools he’d desperately wished for during his first trip.

His familiar bandana remained around his neck, his baseball cap was turned backward, and the Vorpal Blade rested horizontally behind his waist inside a matte-black sheath.

He still wasn’t wearing expensive enchanted armor, but compared with his first Descent, he finally looked like someone who planned on returning alive.

Jet tightened the final strap, opened the familiar System interface and selected Descent. A crimson notification appeared before his eyes.

[Beyond Descent Initiated.]

[Personal Beyond Anchor Detected.]

[Anchor Location: Sector 4-092 — The Thousand Boughs.]

[Return to Personal Beyond Anchor? YES/NO.]

His gaze settled on YES. Somewhere far beyond Earth, beneath the enormous trees of the Thousand Boughs, the patch of ground where he had completed his Anchor suddenly came alive.

Dark-red lines spread through the soil, five concentric runic circles rose into the air and began rotating in opposing directions as the space enclosed within them folded inward.

Jet felt the familiar sensation of his body being pulled through something impossibly narrow. His apartment vanished.

Cold forest air struck his face a heartbeat later, and his boots landed firmly inside the glowing formation as the circles slowed, sank into the earth and disappeared.

Jet remained still for several seconds, listening. Leaves shifted overhead. Something distant screeched between the trees, followed by another cry much farther away.

The Thousand Boughs hadn’t become safer simply because he’d survived it once, but the fear and confusion of his first arrival were gone. He checked the Vorpal Blade, adjusted the small pack against his back and took a deep breath.

"Let’s hurry up and make it to Zenith Citadel."

Then he chose his direction and started walking, moving carefully between the massive trunks while keeping his senses trained on the forest around him.

The difference became obvious within the first hour. A Black-Fang Hyena burst from a thicket almost exactly as one had during his first Descent, jaws opening wide enough to expose rows of dark teeth, but Jet didn’t stumble backward or scramble for an improvised weapon.

His hand reached behind his waist, the Vorpal Blade left its sheath with a clean metallic whisper, and one sidestep carried him outside the creature’s charge.

He watched the shoulder dip, recognized the shift in its weight and cut through the exposed side of its neck as it passed.

The beast crashed into the undergrowth, twitched twice and went still. Its Lesser Monster Core materialized above the corpse moments later.

Jet stored the Core, harvested only the portable pieces he knew had resale value, wiped his blade and continued without wasting another minute.

More encounters followed as the hours passed. Two smaller Lesser Monsters tried to ambush him near a shallow stream; one died before it completed its leap, while the second fled after Jet opened its flank.

Later, a Spine-Backed Myriapod Caterpillar crawled down an ironwood trunk and fired a spread of paralytic needles from above. The first time Jet had fought one, breaking through its exoskeleton had taken nearly fifteen exhausting minutes and cost him a weapon.

This time he had the Vorpal Blade, previous knowledge of its joints and the movement refinement provided by Asura Physique. He avoided the needles, stepped inside the sweep of its mandibles and cut directly through the vulnerable joint behind its head. It lasted less than three minutes.

Jet watched its Core materialize and couldn’t help smiling. Experience really did make an absurd difference.

He collected every Core and selected only materials worth something.

By afternoon, however, one thing had become irritatingly clear: not a single Relic had appeared.

Jet found himself glancing at each collapsing monster for an extra light that never came.

Apparently having the Vorpal Bunny drop a weapon during his first Descent had damaged his expectations.

He could almost hear Frey’s voice if the bastard were beside him, rolling his eyes before saying, "What do you think Relics are? Garbage people leave lying on the road?"

Jet snorted at the imaginary insult as he slid the Vorpal Blade back into its sheath. "Yeah, yeah. I get it."

The forest gradually changed as he continued. The oppressive density of the enormous trees weakened, gaps appeared between their trunks, and sunlight began reaching the ground in broader patches.

Jet noticed old footprints, cut branches and eventually the unmistakable marks of repeated human passage.

He increased his pace, following the signs until the distant cries of monsters became less frequent. Several minutes later, the final wall of trees broke apart ahead of him.

Jet pushed through the remaining brush, stepped into open daylight and stopped on the crest of a small rocky hill.

Across the vast valley below, something gigantic loomed in the distance.

Zenith Citadel.

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