Seth’s mental wave rippled, "Got him!".

Elaine and Jack’s eyes lit up. Of course, they knew this meant they had found Uriel.

Sure enough, from the distance Uriel’s frame became visible.

While he looked battered and bruised, crusted blood covering him, his eyes burned with a lively light.

Surely his regeneration had kicked in, and his condition must have improved after whatever crazy battle he fought.

Seeing everyone was almost complete, Seth wanted to smile but he really couldn’t.

So far, so good — but he hadn’t gotten a sign of Brandon. There was no way that guy would fight a wave of the night hoard without drawing his attention.

’i mean the guys gene skill is the flashiest among us all.’ Seth’s expression turned stern. The more he thought about it, the more he felt something was really wrong.

Could it be that he had overestimated himself and wasn’t able to anchor all four of his friends like he thought?

This was where Seth’s train of thought immediately went, because if Brandon was randomly spawned in a place far out of reach from them...

While it would make sense, it wouldn’t be good for them either, as their cohesion as a group would be at stake.

And it wasn’t that Seth was set on anchoring himself to a group — it was that the condition of things practically forced him to.

Reality had changed, and humanity’s problems had followed. Now, stepping into this new wondrous reality of the unknown, humanity would need someone to spearhead them along the way.

Seth wasn’t proud. He wouldn’t want to be this figure for humanity if possible, due to his tendency to make actions based on selfish interests.

But as it stood now, Seth had too many advantages over his already broken race genes.

He was destined to progress faster, and if it went on as such, he would unknowingly become that figure.

Seth didn’t want to be tied by responsibilities. He didn’t have any grand goals of ruling supreme or becoming a god.

His wish was simple: to live a life of endless challenges, and endlessly evolving.

So to ensure this, Seth needed figures that could fill this role, taking these impending responsibilities off his neck.

After all, as much as he wanted to live a life of endless thrill, he also didn’t want humanity to suffer.

Which was why Brandon getting separated wasn’t something that pleased him at all.

Uriel finally arrived before them, relaxing back on a tree nearby, letting out ragged breaths.

"Good thing you guys arrived. I didn’t think I could last much longer. I need to recover my essence."

Seth nodded. Even they were battling the severe fatigue of essence depletion.

"Let’s rest here and recover. If we can be at full health before the timer of the next waves clocks all zero, we can try searching for Brandon. And if not..." Seth used the shake of his head to complete the sentence.

The others understood, and no one objected. They were all dry on essence. If they were to mistakenly enter a battle in their current state, they would be severely disadvantaged.

For their safety, they had to spend some time to recover.

Everyone else, though sparse, definitely had loots. So naturally, they shouldn’t be lacking in essence crystals, and Seth didn’t have to pass them any.

They all found secluded spaces. Seth found himself a nice spot at the top of a tree, a thick branch.

After testing its weight-carrying capacity carefully, he decided to rest on it. Sitting cross-legged, he summoned his first essence crystal.

In an instant, following his instincts and pulling in the ethereal force residing behind the crystalline surface, a cold refreshing rush surged through his body.

The essence revitalized cells on passage, vitality regeneration getting a boost, and Seth could feel his condition improving speedily in real time.

His face suddenly blushed with a ruddy glow, his blood circulation surged as his heart pumped harder, steadier, and more rhythmical.

Seth wasn’t only experiencing a surge physically — his mind was churning with digestion.

Seth had a habit: he liked to digest all the information he had gained for a day, see if he could glean more knowledge which he could bolster to his own.

By reviewing all decisions and actions he made, and recalculating better responses and options.

This was his own way of digesting his combat experience, and improving his combat prowess not only physically but also on a mental level. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Not to add, he had just gained a new set of arms that could prove to be a great boon in battle.

Seth felt he’d be a fool if he didn’t study the Hands of Tides and start shaping his combat skills around them, and also the possibility that he could gain more hands as the Asura King descent.

The more Seth brooded on the countless advantageous possibilities the Hands might provide, the more he couldn’t help but find that this Asura lineage paired too perfectly with his Grand Weapon Maester lineage.

As a regular human with two arms, he was naturally limited to the amount of weapons he could wield. But with the Asura bloodline — what if one day he got eight more arms?

How many weapons could he wield? Paired with the ridiculous amount of buffs his gene skill, Absolute Weapon Resonance, provided, Seth would be utilizing both genes to their peak.

The more he thought about it, the more eager he got. If he could adapt this type of combat, his combat prowess would surely soar.

As of now, he was still a bit clumsy during battle. His mind had yet to adapt to the flow of using four arms to battle, especially when one of the pair wasn’t restrained by range and output in comparison to the other.

But if he could start assimilating this style now, he could build a habit — an instinctive approach that would be especially more beneficial when he got new arms and started training with them.

"Now if only I can find a way to exert the arms ability and effects through weapons that would also boost my lethality." Seth’s eyes flashed contemplatively as he pondered another problem.

He had come to understand that it seemed each arm of the Asura had a specific ability.

The first arm and his gene skill Armageddon layered on his physical arm, providing an annihilative effect.

A wave of dark matter energy that diffused organic cells into a mass of dead smaller particles.

Then there was the Hand of Tides, which was layered outside his physical body, and carried the effect of tides and waves.

And the more arms he got, Seth could only assume the more abilities he got with the Asura arms.

While this was great, it also had an underlying problem — especially since Seth wanted to use them to wield more weapons during battles.

Each effect was distinct and unique, meaning their fighting style had to follow the same principle.

Seth couldn’t wield a blade channeling the effect of annihilation the way he’d wield a saber channeling the effect of tides.

He had to build two separate strings of new combat techniques from scratch, factoring these outliers.

Normally, to accomplish this would take time, severe brainstorming, and grand discoveries.

But Seth wasn’t a normal human anymore. In fact, he had undergone the first Evolution of Life and became an Awakened.

One that had been farming stat points for a while at that. And his current intelligence stat point?

[Intelligence: 481]

These numbers alone were not only significantly higher than the rest of his stats, they were the only stat in his whole attribute list pushing into the range of mid-level Awakened.

Their effects and presence were also more defined on him, since as a human he bore the binding trait of intelligence.

What all this translated to was that Seth could input, process, and solve information faster and so much more fluently.

So naturally, if given enough time, especially with a talent like his, he should be able to have things settled before the next waves arrived.

Well, it was too bad things never went according to plan...

A series of emerald eyes pulsing with threads of power burned through the night, settling on Seth and the others.

A chill coursed through Seth, a wave of goosebumps rising across his skin.