I staggered back a few steps as the deluge of burning light ended. My hands were scorched and bleeding. At least I had managed to protect my face and eyes. The sudden pain and the burst of power had combined to freeze me in place as I tried to regain my bearings. My shock at the sudden end wasn’t abating so easily.

  With a huge effort of will, I did my best to focus on the present. Zoltan’s panicked cries helped root me.

  “No! Not yet.” He was struggling futilely as his body seemed to be dissolving. Netherthreads seeped out of him, deconstructing him piece by piece, escaping before the Illumination I had Imbued burst free with Entropy. “I won’t die like this.”

  I stepped up. The mad light in his eyes hadn’t dimmed. If anything, they had grown even more insane. “I don’t know if you’re really dying or not. I don’t know if you were even alive to begin with, after…” After how he had emerged from within me, but I wasn’t sure how to put it into words. I just shook my head. “But you’ve done enough, Zoltan. Stop.”

  He yelled. He raged. Reduced to nothing but a head that was being pulled apart as well, his only recourse was to curse me. But as I raised my foot, the glimmer in his eyes changed. For just a second, his madness was replaced with… sorrow? A fearful kind of grief.

  “My—” He gasped, his mouth dissolving now too. “My family…”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ve got another son to look after them.”

  I stomped down on the remains of his face. Some of the Netherthreads still managed to escape, taking with them a pulsing orb of compressed mana. Right. The mana core I had seen materializing.

  A harsh exhale escaped me as I tried my best to reorient myself to what I needed to do next. I had to get a move on, had to help the others.

  My new Aspect. That was what I needed to rely on to take care of the Nether Vein’s storm of Netherthreads. Much of it had diminished thanks to finally stopping Zoltan and my dark echo, but it wasn’t completely gone yet. So, Manifestation and Illumination allowed me to imbue the threads with light, with energy, which was then dissipated rapidly to nothing with Entropy.

  I was maintaining a far more measured control this time. With Zoltan, I had basically blasted it out in desperation, which had sort of made it backfire. Now, I was keeping a tight rein on it.

  Slowly, the storm of dark threads disappeared. Strand after strand glowed golden-white instead of black, before dissolving into motes of light that fizzled out to nothing.

  As I worked, the atmosphere within the Nether Vein underwent drastic changes.

  Glowing lights turned incandescent all around the Nether Vein. The ever-present gloom started disappearing. As the darkness receded, the mana cores embedded into the metallic walls took on an even brighter cast.

  With the storm the Nether Vein had unleashed on us starting to abate, and with the lights popping up, I could finally see what was going on.

  Killing Zoltan and my Heart Demon wasn’t just affecting the dark storm. The elements of the Blight Swarm that had followed us into the Nether Vein were suffering too.

  I saw Khagnio growl triumphantly as he slashed through several monsters. It wasn’t just his knives that were edged with the razoring red threads. His wings had attained the same threads via whatever that Aspect was. I really needed to ask.

  Far to my right, Se-Vigilance was finally having better luck against the monster that was guarding the way forward to our target location. I still couldn’t make out enough details of their battle. But every instance where they physically met, where the Councillor’s swordlike feathers clashed against the monster’s swiping arms physically, showed me how it was losing ground.

  And then, above us, the storm of smoke was growing. Kostis was widening his cyclone into a veritable hurricane. The ripping trails of smoke were nearly on me too. But the important part was that it was keeping the Blight Swarm at bay.

  We were winning. I wasn’t so egotistic as to think taking care of Zoltan and my Heart Demon had turned the tides, but I was still euphoric. We were just a step away from victory.

  With a flap of his new wings, Khagnio shot over to me. His landing wasn’t smooth, and he sailed past me as his feet scrabbled against the ground, yelling out, “Are you ranking up your Path now, mageling?”

  Thankfully, his Agility meant he was right next to me in seconds.

  “Yes,” I said. My voice sounded a little strange to my ears too, a little more jittery than I’d have preferred. “Actually, my Path Evolution is basically complete.”

  Khagnio whistled, his grin sharper than his daggers. “Good work on clearing up the storm.”

  I wanted to ask if he really believed a mageling could do what I just did. Instead, I focused on our actual goal up ahead. “It’s not just stopping us by attacking. It’s been physically blocking our way forward all this time.”

  My head had been nudging at what lay behind the spot where the Councillor and the monster were fighting furiously against one another. A wall of ivory crystal blocked off the rest of the Nether Vein in that direction. My map Sacrifice’s navigation reward was pointing unerringly towards it.

  “Then we have to bring that down,” Khagnio said. For an adventurer who was always going on about not taking up the wrong job, he was clearly starting to get into this whole business. There was no reluctance now. He was probably buoyed up by the exhilaration of earning his Racial Aspect. “And we’ve got the opportunity to do so.”

  As if the Councillor heard our conversation, she said, “Go. Now! Destroy the barrier and find the target.”

  I hefted the mace. “You heard the lady. Let’s go!”

  “Want a lift?” Khagnio asked, unfurling his wings to their full extent. Which… wasn’t a lot. Unlike Councillor Lassikhio’s huge wingspan that could dwarf smaller jetliners, Khagnio’s was about the size of that of an albatross. Yet, the Scalekin bastard was already cocky.

  I grinned. “I could fly before you grew your pint-sized flappers, Khagnio.”

  He cussed me out as I took to the air with Gravity’s Siphon lowering my weight, bursts of Flare—Manifestation made it really fast now—sending me shooting ahead of my companion.

  We had to be careful not to engage with the ongoing battles. Obviously not the one where Kostis was storming his primary Aspect against the hordes of the Blight Swarm. We just made extra sure that we didn’t accidentally interfere with the Councillor’s battle against the monster with the void-head.

  “What in the…?” Khagnio’s wondering faded into curses.

  I was tempted to join in on the cursing. The crystals we were standing before were less that and more like… icy prisons. I wasn’t sure how else to think of them. The large, crystalline growths had creatures trapped within like it was sparkly, whitish amber.

  They were unrecognizable. Monsters I didn’t have the faintest clue about, races I had never seen on Zairgon. How old was the thing fighting against the Councillor?

  Now I was wondering how old the Councillor was.

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  At least they weren’t difficult to break. Khagnio stabbed in with his dagger and easily left cracks. I joined him with my mace, smashing through the crystal chunks with blow after blow.

  Even better was the fact that destroying the crystalline growths obviously wasn’t drawing the void-headed monster’s attention. Or, if it was, then it didn’t have the space to do anything about it. The battle against Se-Vigilance was proving far too powerful, too concentration-consuming, especially now that I had destroyed the Nether Vein’s storm of Netherthreads.

  The corpses caught within the crystal thankfully didn’t come to life. I had received no indication that they would, but considering all the crazy magic I had seen so far, I wouldn’t have been surprised at all if that had been the case.

  “And we’re through,” Khagnio said with a triumphant hiss.

  I stopped my swings. We had carved out a small tunnel within the barrier of crystals. I was a little surprised. It hadn’t fallen on us, and though I had held Gravity ready in case it had, it hadn’t been necessary. The crystalline structure was rather solid.

  “Let’s go!” I said, leading the way.

  Pressed for time as I was, I managed to haul along a piece of the crystal and one of the trapped bodies within the giant ivory wall. This was the worst time to be Sacrificing anything in an experimental fashion, but after my last fight, I knew I couldn’t ignore any source of power.

  [ Sacrifice

  You have Sacrificed 1 [Major] Remnant of a Jade-ranked Bonestrider [1] / 1 [Moderate] Ivory Victim [2]. Windfall bonus activated.

  Reward [1]: Essence of a Jade-ranked Bonestrider now manifests around your body with tangible prowess for 3 hours and 15 minutes. All Iron-ranked Attributes raised by 30 Ranks, all Silver-ranked Attributes raised by 25 Ranks, and all Gold-ranked Attributes raised by 20 ranks for every battle encountered for the next 3 hours and 15 minutes.

  Reward [2]: Essence of Ivory Victim imparts a Soulshard acclimatized to Bonestrider’s Essence. Overwhelming power of Bonestrider’s Remnant. ]

  I had no idea the two Sacrifice rewards were going to interact like that so beneficially. Because, as soon as the so-called Bonestrider’s little ivory piece had been burned away by my white Sacrifice mana, my heart had spasmed in panic.

  What if this was the exact same situation as Sacrificing the hair of the Paragon that Professor Izithy had gifted me? This was the absolute last time I wanted to lose consciousness. It reminded me very acutely of the danger presented by my Path Interactions. The sudden blistering avalanche of magical energy sizzling through every cell in my body was about to obliterate me.

  Until the second reward manifested. A strange, almost comforting cloak settled on me. A mantle that helped me bear the Bonestrider’s incredible power.

  I could do this.

  My map Sacrifice reward was pointing the way unerringly ahead. With a pounding heart, I really, really hoped we wouldn’t meet any further obstacles. Sure, my Path might have finished evolving, leaving me feeling a lot more potent than before, but that didn’t mean I was ready to face down the kind of threat Se-Vigilance was dealing with.

  Thankfully, nothing of the sort happened. The huge hallway was lit up with the mana cores embedded into the walls. Khagnio and I were both too tense to talk, too busy keeping an eye out and ready to spring into action at the slightest sight of danger.

  This Nether Vein was no joke.

  “You see that?” Khagnio asked, pointing up ahead. “And what in the Pits happened to you?”

  “That’s the target,” I said loudly, so that the wind of our flight didn’t steal away my words too quickly. “Looks… just like what I saw. As for me, I just used Sacrifice.”

  I had no trouble recognizing it, even if we were a football field’s length away still. The tree appearing in the distance was the size of a small skyscraper. At this point, I wasn’t at all surprised the cavernous hallways of the Nether Vein were more than tall enough to accommodate something so huge.

  Khagnio just shook his head at me before returning to looking in front of him. “What is that, mageling?” For once, even he sounded awestruck.

  “The remnant of an Ascendant,” I said. “As far as I know.”

  “Wait, so that’s a former Ascendant?”

  I shrugged, though again, that was a motion he wasn’t going to see in our current circumstance. “I don’t know if said Ascendant is actually dead or not. All I know is that it’s not really a tree we’re heading towards…”

  Said tree turned a lot less treelike as we got close. I remembered the Ascendant in my vision, and they hadn’t been anywhere near this size then. But I supposed trees were capable of growth. Not that it was a tree. Those branches were really just several multi-jointed arms raised skywards with the four-fingered hands splayed out. What covered the structure was a golden-white glassy material, not wood at all.

  The body was slim and twisting and tremendously tall. I could barely manage to crane my neck up to stare at the head when we reached the base.

  Strangely, the head was familiar. At least in its shape and general structure. Thin, angular face with high cheekbones and knifelike ears that tapered to points. Combined with the sleek, shining hair and all, I was reminded a great deal about classical elves.

  The only difference was the strange, insectoid compound eyes the figure sported instead of regular eyeballs.

  “I’ll spill the blood,” Khagnio said. “Keep an eye out for when they start coming, mageling.”

  I nodded. It would be difficult to coordinate this part, but we had left the black-flecked blood trail that theoretically ought to attract the Blight Swarm, assuming Kostis let them go in time. “I can’t anymore. My… Path Evolution took care of it.”

  Khagnio shook his head in mock disappointment. “You’ll need to tell me what else that Path Evolution has done for you one of these days. Especially now that it’s been interacting with the Netherthreads.”

  I’d love to know that myself. My Path Evolution had seemingly completed, leaving me with a sensation of overflowing energy I didn’t know where to direct. I didn’t even know if I could control it properly, or if it even was controllable energy.

  If we hadn’t been in the middle of stopping the Blight Swarm and navigating the Nether Vein, I might have taken the time to consider new Aspects.

  We waited. And waited some more. Despite the odd peace, I couldn’t relax. The bugs were being held up for now, but soon enough, they’d start appearing. We needed to make sure we were ready for it.

  I could tell Khagnio was getting antsy. Scaly bastard didn’t have Aspects like mine that I could use to prep beforehand. Setting up the heat traps with Flare’s Concentration and Capacitor, putting out tons and tons of threads for Gravity that I could activate instantly later on, and so on. I considered using a short Ritual to buff us up, maybe even start exploring potential new Aspects with my newly evolved Path, but our preparations—well, my prep—were cut short.

  “Finally!” Khagnio said, leaning forward.

  His eyesight had to be a lot better than mine because he spotted the first bug coming in. I tensed as I noticed which one it was. The monster that had attacked me at the gate.

  No problem. With Sacrifice, with all my other buffs, I might just be able to take it now.

  I was focusing on the Aspects I had primed, but there was no need for it. The bug wasn’t interested in me, which I could have attributed to the fact that completing my Path Evolution had purged me of the Netherthreads. Except, it didn’t pay attention to Khagnio either.

  Its entire focus was fixed on the strange tree statue.

  I slowly retreated, urging Khagnio to follow. “Figure we should give it some space.”

  The Scalekin agreed by following close behind.

  For all that the monster was wounded and bleeding, for all that it appeared ready to kill anything it saw, it was still awestruck by the statue.

  It was almost a spellbinding sight for me too. Here I had been ready to fight off yet another confrontation with the Blight Swarm, with all my Aspects cocked and loaded. And yet, I was now being completely ignored. All of Khagnio’s blood dotted with the writhing Netherthreads was being ignored.

  The plan was working.

  “How do we call in the rest?” Khagnio hissed.

  “No clue,” I said. “We’ll just have to hope they all come in time.”

  My hope started to become a reality less than a minute later. More of the Blight Swarm appeared, more bugs flying in, creatures of all sizes and power. Just like the first, they were all entranced by the statue. They were all trying to get close, to press up against those at the front so that they could stand or float right up against the statue.

  “We can leave them here, right?” Khagnio asked, already starting to look for a way out that wouldn’t have us interrupting the bugs’ strange reverie.

  I nodded. That was the plan. I had been hoping for some kind of reaction, and this sufficed. “Now we just need to get in as many of them as we can.”

  “Easier said than done.”

  He had a point there.

  First though, we had to—

  A new pressure began groaning through the gargantuan tunnel.

  “Wh-what i-is th-this?” Khagnio asked. His words were broken because we were all forced to tremble, to constantly shiver in place. It wasn’t the strong but jerky tremors of an earthquake. Instead, it felt like we were standing on the world’s largest jackhammer.

  I didn’t even bother replying as the pressure grew stronger. Grew worse. Something alarmingly powerful was headed our way. Something worse than anything we had faced yet.

  Which was a frighteningly high bar to cross.

  Even the bugs were seemingly daunted, going by the way they had all frozen in place too.

  “Wh-what—”

  My question never got to come out because the source of the new pressure finally appeared. A man was slowly walking in towards us. A man I recognized with growing horror after a few seconds of observation. A man I had seen in my visions.

  “Mageling,” Khagnio said. “You know who that is. Don’t—don’t tell me that’s an Ascendant.”

  That wasn’t a question. I nodded still. “That’s not an Ascendant. But he’s probably the next worst possibility.”