A misty aura coated the guards' swords. Their demonic eyes were filled with ether. As Lucius had said, they must have reached at least the first elevation. Vivi had just enough time to summon Abyss Destroyer to block the initial attack.

Behind her, the innkeeper held a crossbow. A wooden arrow with a steel tip was released at Vivi. Customers grabbed their weapons as well, wielding anything from knives to clubs.

Vivi reached into her void core.

The void wisps were already awake, eager to invade her veins. Around twenty had recharged from the hundred she'd dimmed out against Uundref. She tried to grab only a few. Instead, all twenty became active all at once. The dark wisps powered her muscles, her head, her senses.

Vivi was back in the weird void state. The world fell dark, and her eyes became as good as useless. Her senses were replaced by the map in her head. The death sense. Vivi didn't need to identify what was around her anymore. She just knew where threats were.

The strongest presence Vivi felt was, unsurprisingly, herself. Abyss Destroyer glowed in the darkness with an ominous presence that overwhelmed everything else. The next strongest presence came from the two guards and their runeswords. Vivi felt them glowing with hostile ether, their attacks intending to kill her.

Death sense also mapped out every lesser threat coming her way. Every arrow, every flimsy club, every wisp of ether attempting to harm her. Her awareness was scarily sharp. She could map out every customer in the tavern and their weapons. Ordinarily, she would only have a vague idea that something was attacking her from all directions. In the void realm, she felt every attack. It felt as if the world moved slower.

She flicked a finger at the arrows behind her, cutting them with Lucius's claws. The arrows had a weak presence, and they moved slowly. Vivi doubted they would even kill her if they landed. But she liked to avoid needless damage.

Runeswords attacked her from ahead. This threat was real; Vivi would die if she didn't react. She counter-attacked with Abyss Destroyer.

Her sword made contact with the first guard's runesword. In the void realm, Vivi didn't hear a snap, but she knew in an instant that her sword had cut right through her opponent's. The presence of the guard's runesword wavered, and it no longer posed a threat. The hostile ether of the sword's wielder turned surprised, then panicked.

Vivi attacked, cutting the first guard down. The second let out a sound of panic. Vivi's twenty void wisps were running out already, she realized. Her eyesight slowly returned, and she could hear sounds again. A headache replaced the powerful feeling of the void realm.

Gritting her teeth, Vivi slashed her sword in the guard's direction. His runesword snapped cleanly in half. The guard fumbled backward, falling on his back. So much for a first elevation demon…

Vivi held a hand over her face. Her eyes hurt. She didn't pass out like she had after exhausting her reserves against Uundref, but returning from the void state still gave her slight whiplash.

The guard was pleading for his life, while Vivi fought the headache. Killing him was probably a good idea. He was Zand's staff that tried to kill her. He was evil enough.

Whatever, Vivi thought. He can live.

She turned and walked away, leaving the guard pleading on the ground.

"The guard will reveal your whereabouts to more dangerous fighters," Lucius said. "More rumors will spread about your runesword."

Doesn't matter, Vivi thought. I'm not about to massacre a village just to avoid some rumors.

"You'll be known as a monster," Lucius said. "The void ether… It makes you look like, uh…"

Like what?

"It makes your eyes pitch-black," Lucius said. "And it cloaks you in white ethereal wisps. Exactly the type of aura that monsters have."

Vivi shrugged. A few days ago, Lucius's description would have perhaps made her hesitate about using the power. Monsters used mainly void ether, and void ether was exactly what made them act the way they were. If Vivi used the same power, it would make sense that she looked much like a monster. Her mind felt fuzzy.

I'm more annoyed about this headache… Vivi thought. We have our map. Let's get out of here.

The paths and houses around her were silent. Vivi's arrival had spread quickly, and everyone hid inside, as if a reaper had visited. Vivi was too tired to care about what the demons thought of her. She walked straight through, toward the fields.

Lucius looked at her from within her core with his worried expression. "Yeah, let's get out of here. We need to get out quickly before any Exalted Knights come after us. Even void ether and your best runeswords won't help us defeat one. We'll need an exalted skill of our own."

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Are they really that powerful? Vivi asked.

"Ven said that your swords bring you up by roughly two elevations," Lucius said. "I think that's accurate. Abyss Destroyer might do even more than that. With that same scale, exalted skills will bring you up by three or four elevations. On top of that, the Exalted Knights have already reached the fourth elevation."

So we can think of them as eighth elevation hunters? Vivi thought.

Lucius thought for a moment. "Not quite. The gap between the fourth and fifth elevation is far larger than anything prior. There's a reason why almost nobody reaches the fifth elevation. A fourth elevation hunter with an exalted skill will be a match for a fifth elevation hunter without, I'd say."

I see, Vivi thought. She would need to continue channeling ether soon, wouldn't she? Lucius would nudge her to, at least. Vivi wasn't happy thinking about it. She'd need to enter Paradise and risk meeting more hunters. Channeling ether seemed like such a tedious process.

Vivi glanced behind herself to see if she was being followed. Nobody was there, and she didn't feel any ethereal auras on her tail. She continued walking past wheat fields and barns. The farmland extended for miles. Vivi sped up her pace.

Eventually, the fertile dirt turned back to stone, marking the end of the demons' village. The area was protected by a flimsy fence, though the fence was far from sturdy enough to repel monsters. Vivi guessed it was there just to be broken to give clues on which types of monsters had entered and where.

The dead forest welcomed her back, not with kindness or comfort, but with the security of loneliness and seclusion. The lifeless trees and hard vines weren't pretty to look at, but at least the monsters inside didn't scream and run away when Vivi entered.

Vivi walked further until the fields were no longer in sight. She sat on a rock and summoned the map she'd bought. There was a good chance she'd bought something totally useless. A map of the fourth level wouldn't tell her anything except that she was in the middle of nowhere. But she opened the scroll. Lucius floated next to her, observing curiously.

The map was long and wide, requiring Vivi to spread her arms to hold it properly. Despite its size, the markings were tiny. The scale of the map was enormous, as Vivi had hoped, though she didn't understand most of what she was looking at, and she had no idea where she was on the map.

The colors on the map seemed to match reality with surprisingly accurate colors. The gray area that took up most of the map was the exact same color as the ground Vivi currently trotted. The coarse red and black near the eastern edge, Vivi guessed, was the blight.

"Oh, this is a good map," Lucius said. "We're lucky to have bought this for the amount we did. I've seen maps like these sold for hundreds of ether."

"The innkeeper said it's broken," Vivi asked. "Do you know how to read this?"

"Uh," Lucius said. He stared at the map intently. Vivi guessed right away that Lucius didn't know either. "We'll have to study this. We know we're near the blight. Let's see how well the map works. Try rotating the knob-thing at the end of the scroll's rod."

"The knob?" Vivi asked. The scroll's rod was made of stone with a square poking out at the end. There was no knob, but Vivi tried twisting the square. It turned by forty-five degrees with a satisfying click.

At first, nothing happened. Vivi tried turning again. Nothing.

"Ah, so that's what's broken," Lucius said. "These kinds of maps usually show multiple levels. It's locked to the fourth level. I guess it's better than nothing."

Vivi squinted her eyes at the square. Something was drawn into it. It looked like vague smudges of a rune. It looked like an everything rune, though it was broken, as if someone had sanded it off.

Vivi summoned her carving knife. She pushed a slight amount of ether into her eyes to see better, then started fixing the broken rune. A single everything rune was easy to carve, and her obsidian knife cut into the stone easily.

With the rune repaired, Vivi pushed a slight amount of ether into it. Then she turned the knob again.

Suddenly, the details on the map changed into something entirely different. The gray wastelands that took up most of the map were replaced by all sorts of colors and biomes.

"Oooh, you fixed it!" Lucius said in excitement. "That's the fifth level!"

Vivi watched the map in surprise. The fifth level was… vibrant. Just by looking at the different areas, the map was detailed enough for her to intuitively guess what the biomes were like. She saw green forests, ice mountains, red lakes that must have been lava. The fifth level was incredibly complex. Cities were also marked with text, though Lucius wasn't yet translating them to words she could read.

"Most of this land belongs to Ingfried," Lucius said. "The Empire is vast. Even smaller countries obey Ingfried's laws and pay tributes."

Vivi studied the map aimlessly like a child watching the wonders of the world. There was so much to explore. Too much to explore… There was no way Vivi was going to wander around all these lands, especially considering she was a fugitive on the run. Still, the world and its biomes were impressive.

She switched back to the map of the fourth level. The fourth level, compared to the fifth, was dull. Over eighty percent of the map was just grey. There were a few cities to the west, but for the most part, the area consisted of a bunch of nothing. The most interesting biome was the red blight, which was apparently just another wasteland filled with monsters.

"You said that we're close to the blight, correct?" Vivi asked.

"Yes," Lucius said. He was translating text on the map for Vivi to read. Slowly, the eastern side of the map started to become more readable. "Zand is right there. The village we just visited must be this one. Shanmoor."

Shanmoor village was practically next to the blight. Zand, too, was almost at the eastern edge of the map. The blight was probably around ten to twenty miles more to the east. Besides the blight, Vivi was surrounded by wastelands.

"Is that map leveled properly?" Vivi asked. "Does it show what's underneath us?"

She flicked back to the fifth level. The eastern side of the fifth level was a vast mountainscape, colored a dark-ish yellow. There wasn't much grass or greenery. At the very edge of the eastern side of the fifth level was a city.

"What the map shows underneath is what we'll find if we move down," Lucius said. "Finding a path down will be the more difficult part."

"What's this city under the blight?"

Lucius focused and translated the area. The mountainscape was called Shivell Mountains. The area was surrounded by all sorts of markings of danger. The city in the middle read, "Shivenar; Ancient City Of Runesmithing."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.