Desperation

Lexa felt her breath get caught in her throat as she looked into the dull eyes of Andria, her previous fight driven out of her as she laid frozen in the arms of the leader of this group of thugs. Amidst the turmoil inside her, more prominent was the boiling feeling of anger that began to consume her.

'How dare he hurt her!!' Lexa's sharp teeth clenched and the whites of her eyes became bloodshot as an animalistic look overtook her usually cute features.

"Gahahaha, such a little brat. Is this all it takes to break you down?!" The Beast-Eyed Killer laughed viciously, his menacing eyes inches from Andria's violet ones. His eyes looked into those dull eyes and saw them begin to well up with tears and a look of fear overtook her. The reaction pleased him and fed his desire for more.

Drop.

"Gaah!" Andria yelped as she suddenly felt herself being let go, gravity slamming her into the hard ground below. The pain only caused more tears to flow.

She felt a bundle of her hair on the floor and her little hands clenched around it.

"I've had my fun for now. You want a shot, Savre?" The Beast-Eyed Killer turned to the person in question as he asked this, a playful and sinister grin adorning his face.

"Gladly, boss!" Savre didn't waste time as he sauntered forward, his larger form coming to shadow over the little girl as she looked on, frightened to the core as she shook her head more and started mouthing the same word repeatedly. But no sound escaped her lips, not because of the Ghost Walker Medallion but due to her own throat squeezing up in her panic.

While danger was looming over Andria, a sudden and explosive surge of aura drew the attention away from the girl and towards the source. Everyone looked on in shock to find that this large source of aura was originating from the small, beaten up kitten!

Most shocked was the thug that had been carrying her, not because of her exploding aura. No, it was because seconds before she entered that state, the kitten had sprung to life in his hands and had struck him with her claws, cleaving a large chunk from his jaw to his right eye, sending him into a fate of pain so powerful he was left rolling on the floor while crying bloody murder.

"T-this can't be!" Savre's eyes were wide open as he witnessed the scene in front of him.

"She's trying to force a breakthrough?" The Beast-Eyed Killer quirked an eyebrow, a seemingly amused smile graced his lips. Compared to everyone else's shocked reaction, his reaction seemed rather unperturbed by the situation.

Currently, in Lexa's body, a great surge of aura was erupting from her Inner Haven as it was being forcefully sucked out at its quickest pace and rapidly absorbed by her soul which was pulsing from the strain as it rapidly got smaller and smaller the closer the kitten breached her breakthrough. Lexa's sharp and bloody claws dug into the earth and her lithe muscles pulsed with every fit of pain brought by practicing such a method to forcefully evolve her soul.

"Should I stop her?" Savre asked, a malicious glint to his eyes. He had calmed from his initial shock when he realized that even if this kitten broke through to the next level, in the end, she would only be at the Early Stage of Major Rank while he was at the Early Stage of Inner Haven Rank, not to mention his boss, who was at the Late Stage of Spirit Rank.

This kitten was no threat and her show of fighting back simply irritated him, making him want to deal her some punishment. What better method than to interrupt her during a breakthrough!

"Don't bother, she'd lose all her worth if something bad happened. And I'm quite interested to see what this breakthrough brings. There are many beast's who go through quite the transformation between certain ranks. Perhaps she is the same?" The Beast-Eyed Killer pondered with a relaxed grin. "That's if she doesn't die during the process."

They didn't have to wait long before a blinding azure light shone brightly around the kitten, signaling the evolution of her soul!

"How could it happen so smoothly?!" One of the Beast-Eyed Killer's follower's exclaimed.

"She actually succeeded... And her aura is fluctuating as smoothly as if she hasn't been injured at all!" Savre gulped. He had never heard of a person or beast who had forced a breakthrough like this and hadn't experienced some sort of backlash.

"Seems there is more than meets the eye with this thing. Her soul has to be quite robust to do this" The Beast-Eyed Killer's easy attitude faltered. Internally, his brain got to work, crafting various theories on this mysterious beast before him that had just broken his initial impression of her as something that while unique was not worth much. Through his feelings of surprise, surged a powerful greed. "This b*tch may just be worth more than a little bit of coin after all!"

As the blinding azure light dissipated, the sight that befell everyone was that of a slightly changed Lexa. Instead of her small size that made her look like a 5-month-old kitten, now was what looked like a lithe adult cat, and her already shimmering silver fur seemed to glow in a metallic gleam, like a beautiful piece of silver which reflected the sun, and her green and red eyes took on a stronger glow.

Lexa studied her body for a few seconds with her Unconscious Eye and couldn't help but marvel at the great leap in improvement breaking through a rank had heightened her strength. She felt aura pulse through her like never before and she can feel the strength of her muscles with every clench of them. Most noticeably, she noticed that her claws could extend to a particularly large length and seemed to also hold a metallic quality to them as well.

It was then that suddenly, Lexa felt a massive surge of information attack her mind, filling her up with a knowledge of various origins. This knowledge was impossible to quantify and make heads and tails of in this impromptu moment. When it was finally all absorbed, Lexa found that this broad information had to be sifted through to sort out each piece of information. This would take a little bit of time. Time she didn't have at this moment.

This was no time to be inspecting herself.

Quickly shaking off any external thoughts, Lexa didn't waste time as she charged forth towards the Beast-Eyed Killer, eyes cloudy with anger. With a quick chant, a silver metallic form coalesced around her grown-up body. With her upgrade into the Early Stage of Major Rank, 90% of the Ravager Armour was now made of pure metal, leaving only a measly sum left made up of the element of earth.

Her defence had seen an incredible improvement, but that wasn't all.

Unleashing a chant-less Celestial Claw spell, the four white lines of magic that extended from her swinging claw was noticeably denser and visibly longer.

The Beast-Eyed Killer was rather surprised by the cat's speed as in a matter of a few seconds, he was already being threatened by a rather impressive attack that exceeded the boundaries of her Stage.

But in the end, this was still an attacked that could not measure up to someone of his level.

Encasing the back of his left fist with a dense azure aura, the Beast-Eyed Killer struck the incoming claw attack with the back of his fist. On contact, the four white claw lines seemed to crack and dissipate rapidly. He had disarmed the spell through a simple show of brute force.

Lexa expected as much and when she was getting rather close to this foe of hers, went to strike with another attack of the same like. The Beast-Eyed Killer went to block this spell as well, only to find it was a faint as suddenly a spark of fire lit up right before his eyes, blinding him temporarily. While it would not blind him for long, it was good enough for Lexa's true mission which was getting to Andria. She could not feel safe until she had her partner by her side and out of the hands of these heinous villains!

'I'll have to thank Seph Farhawk for that blinding technique.' Lexa pondered internally.

But on her way towards Andria, Lexa's path was interrupted when pitch black spikes erupted from the earth, descending towards her. Thankfully, with nimble steps, Lexa outmaneuvered those spikes and lept back several feet to find that the source of this spell was the man she assumed to be only second to the big boss, the man they had called Savre.

"Hah, you ain't going nowhere!" Savre grinned maliciously before chanting a spell. Seconds later, he stretched out his two hands in front of himself and made it so that it looked like his fingers were gripping a long pole that wasn't there. Only, when his chant finished, a metallic dark material formed at the center of his two palms and stretched out to form a long, dark black spear with blades on each of its end.

'He seems to have some sort of insight into some sort of darkness element, maybe?' Lexa could only guess as she watched in frustration as Savre sauntered over until he was directly in her path, blocking her path to Andria.

"You want a try at her, Savre?" The Beast-Eyed Killer's voice sounded from behind her and she turned to find the man with an unperturbed expression. It would seem being duped had not angered him much, as the end result seemed inevitable to him anyway. There was no way that the cat could successfully escape, so why get so worked up about a small blunder?

"Leave it to me, she's pissing me off!" Savre growled at her and the Beast-Eyed Killer gave his agreement.

"Just don't mess with her too much. There are debts to be settled with her and me." The Beast-Eyed Killer chuckled before taking a step back.

Lexa looked away from him reluctantly, not truly trusting his words before turning to face her apparent opponent. But she was not interested in dueling it out. All she wanted was to get passed this b*stard and get to Andria!

Plus, she highly doubted she could defeat this man. Not only was he a whole Rank ahead of her, but he also used magic she was completely unfamiliar with. When She was at the Late Stage of Minor Rank, she had defeated the Steel-Shelled Turtle which was either a Mid Stage or Late Stage beast and had just barely beaten it. So she knew her natural talent in terms of her apprehension and ability was enough to defeat wild Magical Beast's of higher levels. But those were wild beast's which relied on their natural knowledge and abilities and didn't have the advantage of learning, inheriting and acquiring various goods like the opponent in front of her. Needless to say, her chances of succeeding were slim. What made everything worse, was that Lexa could feel something made of aura encapsulating the area, which was most likely some sort of a barrier that encapsulated the entire area. This really made things seem hopeless.

With a deep defeated sigh, Lexa's eyes flared open as she prepared to charge ahead. Even in the face of a seemingly hopeless situation, her stubbornness to prevail over any obstacle pushed her to fight. She still had so many things to do, and she wanted Andria right next to her as her partner when she achieved them!

Lexa let out a loud, bestial roar that would have echoed to great lengths if it weren't blocked by the barrier. But that didn't matter, as the target of this magically enforced roar was only the target in front of her, whose eager legs suddenly found themselves frozen under that fearsome roar.

This was the power all Magical Beast's gained at the Major Rank, an ability called 'Bestial Fury'!

Choosing this perfect moment, Lexa leaped forth!