Lucian felt his consciousness being sucked into another dimension. The spirit beast's hand snaked around Lucian immediately after feeling his touch; its hand divided into different thin long lines that first of all roped themselves around Lucian's neck, his arm, his legs, and then the rest of his body.

Fear gathered in Luna's gaze as she watched Lucian's body fall to the ground. The loud impact of Lucian's body hitting the ground gained everyone's attention. Luna looked at the spirit beast, who remained in place without moving.

"What did you do to him?" She asks and checks on Lucian; his breathing is faint. "He's dying." Her grave words quickly set Marta in motion.

Without thinking, Marta activated her power, pulled out a huge piece of rock from the ground, and smashed it against the spirit beast. Angry tears filled her eyes as she shouted, "Let go of Lucian!"

"I was right; a beast can never be trusted." Reed said. He didn't feel particularly sad to know that Lucian was dying, but as he stared at Lucian's body, he noticed that the beast wasn't choking Lucian to death when it could easily do that. Marta's reckless attacks were making pieces of rock fall around Lucian because the beast was close to him. If she doesn't stop, her attack might kill Lucian and Luna, who was still checking on him.

Conflicted on if to stop Marta, Reed thought of if to say anything or not.

Soren left Reed and rushed over to Marta, seizing her arm from behind, making her stop using her magic. "Control yourself; remember what the captain said: we shouldn't use our magic."

"But… the beast," Marta's voice was cracked and unsteady. "We have to kill it before it hurts Lucian."

"It's not hurting Lucian." Luna said at the same time Reed decided to open his mouth and was about to speak, but she was faster than him.

Luna kept her ears on Lucian's heart; it was beating abnormally fast even though his breathing was faint. If the beast betrayed them and wanted Lucian dead, Lucian would have been dead by now, which means that the spirit beast was doing something else. "I don't know what is happening, but let's just wait for Lucian to come back to us."

"Are you sure that he's going to come back?" Reed asked in a dark tone.

"I don't know." Luna's voice was uncertain. She grips Lucian's shirt and whispers to him to beat the beast and wake up. She didn't want him to die.

Marta wipes away the tears in her eyes. She gently rubbed her left eye from the slight itch she was beginning to feel.

In front of Lucian was the spirit beast; it didn't look like its pure white form anymore. It looks like a celestial being that was built entirely on dark stars with little lights around it.

"Where am I?" Lucian asks. He examined the dimensions his soul was pulled into.

The dimensions were a space filled with dark stars and dim light like the spirit beast. Each time Lucian walked, his step created a soft ripple on the ground, as though his steps were like a soft drizzle of rain hitting the calmed sea.

"Am I dead?" Lucian asks; he didn't feel dead as he stretched out his limbs.

"You are alive." The spirit beast said and then paused when Lucian looked at him. "You still can't understand me? You are supposed to be able to understand in this dimension, although I'm not very sure." It said in a worried tone.

"What is this place?" Lucian asked, wondering if he was still in Hlasked.

"It's a split domain between Hlasked and the heaven realm. I was able to bring you here because you were interested in communicating with me; humans aren't usually interested in communicating with me." Sadness fills the beast's voice. "And it goes against my nature to force other creatures to do what they don't want to do."

'Please don't tell me I'm here for another beast sob story. I'm not an emotional counselor. Give me a break.' Lucian frowned at the beast.

"You brought me here because you have something important to say." Lucian sat on the ground and folded his legs. "Get to the point."

"I want your help!" The spirit beast said, "My brothers and I have been trapped by that horrible beast for 100 years, and we can't escape. Please help us."

Lucian raises a questioning brow and then remembers when his system had detected the presence of an SS+ rank beast, but then it quickly glitched away.

"What sort of beast are we talking about?"

The spirit beast gave Lucian a bewildered look, unable to understand why Lucian and the other humans haven't noticed yet. "The tree beast. It corrupts one's mana core; it doesn't matter if it's a human or an evolved beast. Once anyone starts using its mana, they will fall in love with their own power and then become obsessed with the mana provided by the tree beast without knowing that through its mana flow, it's able to devour others' blood, letting its stems grow in their body until it transforms them into a tree monster, eating up their flesh. The amount of mana the tree beast has isn't only corrupt, but it has been gathered from every opponent it has killed, eating their mana core, sucking them dry of mana until there's nothing left of them."

Lucian thought back to the beast tree the Achiloq brothers had used to capture him before in the past. He had a feeling that the current tree beast, the spirit beast spoke of, wasn't going to easily die like the last one.

"This thing sounds like an annoying problem." Lucian mumbles out and then snaps his eyes to the spirit beast before him. "Look, I don't know if I look like a nice guy to you, because I'm not. I can't use magic unless I want to fall victim to that damned beast's ability. You can use magic, so why don't you save yourself and your brothers? Don't wait for a hero to come around before you get yourself out of a shitty situation. Learn to be your own hero."

The hopeful expression on the spirit beast fell. "I can't. I would like to fight; I and my brothers would all like to fight, but no matter how much we try, we can't break out of the rules that control the magic of this world. We are magic beings, and we were created to be harmless; we can't go against that. Please help us, human!" The creature begged.

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