The sword crushed the sand golem to bits. One slash—one effortless little swing across its chest—and the blade ate its skin like cutting through yoghurt.

  Nevermind the fact that the sword extruded no aura and only had two runes with no veins lining its surface, having been delivered to him less than two days after Fang placed his order. And nevermind the fact that golems were the toughest tank monsters of the desert, with skin so tough that Fang’s last sword lost its edge when he tried to kill one.

  Now, the golem just fucking died.

  And it wasn’t a slow death either. The sword ate right through, crush runes coming into effect, making a total joke of the golem’s identity as a tank monster. Swords from the Lost Raindrop didn’t just kill things—they straight-up deleted monsters from existence.

  This sword didn’t even have a name. Fang was allowed to come up with one himself. He had yet to decide. It had an adamantite blade with strength and crush runes. He hadn’t thought the sword was beautiful at first glance, but the more he used it, the more he grew to appreciate the flow of ether inside its veins. He actually had a real inside-carved runesword.

  “I think,” Fang said with a grin, turning his head to his companion behind, “it was definitely worth it to pay four million ether for this thing.”

  Sara watched as the golem disintegrated. “That’s insane,” she said calmly. “But we’re still selling it. It’ll go for at least five million in Zhelendor. Don’t get it roughed up.”

  Sara had her hands on her handcart, standing inside the handle part. She wore a light rogue’s vest and boots. Definitely an adventurer’s outfit, but it still looked odd to have a woman as pretty as her in charge of moving their goofy, child-like cart. On it was a single barrel with water, a chest for their clothes and belongings, as well as some food for the trip.

  But with storm season ongoing, exiting the city with carriages has been prohibited. Fang needed a more clever solution to escape, so he carried the cart above the city walls and jumped off, ignoring the orders of the soldiers up top, and climbed down with Sara. Not exactly a brilliant solution, but after reaching the third elevation, the guards couldn’t tell him what to do anymore.

  The journey across the Shivel mountains to Zhelendor—Shivenar’s neighboring city on the fifth level, with rich nobles of their own, and around three hundred miles away—continued. Sara pulled the cart, mostly without complaints, while Fang killed any monsters storm season had to offer.

  The air gradually grew foggier with ether the deeper they ventured, until eleven hours into their journey, Fang noted that the facets were barely visible through the red mist of ambient ether in the air.

  “Sara?” Fang asked. “Doesn’t something feel a bit fucked with this storm season?”

  “They did tell us this was the worst one in centuries,” she said, rolling her eyes, her horns angled cutely as she subtly tilted her head at him. “And you said something along the lines of, ‘Yeah sure, whatever,’ deciding you had a big sword now, and that you didn’t care.”

  Fang grinned. “Sounds about right. I don’t think there’s a single monster I can’t defeat with this thing.”

  “Sleeping might be a problem, though,” Sara said. “I’d say we’re a hundred miles out now.”

  “I’ll crash out under the cart, and you’ll defend me with the sword,” Fang said. “Doesn’t matter that your technique is subpar. Literally, the blade just has to touch a monster and it’ll die.”

  “In that case, get to sleep,” Sara said. “I can’t stand this mist for much longer. I’m about to collapse. I can defend you for three hours.”

  “You can sleep first,” Fang said. “We’ll need to take turns anyway.”

  Sara looked like she agreed. She placed down the cart handle, and sat inside like some goblin. She opened the lid of their food storage and was stuck in decision paralysis for multiple minutes, until she picked a jerky snack bar, eating.

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  As always, Sara was in no rush, nibbling on the jerky at the pace of a rat. Everything always took its time with this woman.

  But it sure felt good to kill another sand scorpion that tried to approach their cart, while Sara watched calmly, fully trusting that Fang would defeat anything that came their way.

  Eventually, she did fall asleep, cuddled up in their cart. Fang stayed sharp, killing any wandering monsters that storm season had spawned. He tried to be as quiet as possible to not wake her up.

  If there were calm moments, he stood with his ethereal senses open, though his eyes kept glancing at Sara. She was a second elevation hunter, definitely strong, but more than that, she was just so insanely cute. With her head sideways on her pillow, drooling a little, stomach moving back and forth as she breathed, she reminded him of his old house cat. Just like his cat, Sara didn’t care much about anything. She and Fang traveled where they pleased, whenever they pleased, exploring the world in all of its beauty.

  One day, I will marry this woman, Fang decided—had decided a long time ago. Perhaps he’d do it after selling the sword. Five million ether was more than enough to raise a whole town of kids.

  But for now, he had monsters to kill. As the hours passed, the monsters grew more concentrated with ether, and their forms grew more hideous. It wasn’t just desert monsters and ether sticks anymore; he was attacked by a lone amalgamation, and even a large ghost blade with an aura of over six thousand ether.

  The last two weren’t a good sign. Amalgamations and ghost blades typically spawned when surges had nothing else to reanimate. The ghost blade had been made almost entirely of ether, its host bones being merely a few grains of sand. Either a surge had hit an area where all live things were excavated, leaving nothing but levelstone.

  In the worst case, a storm had been so violent that it had reanimated everything, only for it to still have more ether to share. Ghost blades and other mostly fully ethereal monsters could have spawned with the storm’s remaining ether.

  No true surge hazards had attacked him yet. But if the desert continued with monsters like those, advancing to Zhelendor could actually prove dangerous.

  Fang killed another ghost blade, when his ethereal senses picked up on something. A large, moving, cloud-like presence in the distance behind the mountains. He furrowed his brows, trying to make sense of what he felt.

  It almost felt like an avalanche of ether. Except, the avalanche wasn’t falling down a mountain. It just existed, violently brimming with thousands upon thousands of wisps.

  What the fuck? Fang asked himself. Were his senses wrong. What was that thing?

  It was getting closer. Ever so slowly, the presence in the distance moved toward him. The way it moved vaguely reminded him of a reanimated mound of dirt. Had a storm spawned a really large, concentrated dirt mound?

  The monster—whatever it was—got closer, and the feeling of ether only got worse, more violent, stronger. Fang had a sick feeling in his stomach. That wasn’t a normal amount of ether. The aura wasn’t of a normal monster either. Something was terribly wrong.

  I need to wake her up, Fang thought. And we need to run straight past, or—

  His ethereal senses suddenly flared a warning. The most insane sensation he had ever felt. Chills ran through his entire being, from his skin to his spine and core. Something was coming. A projectile.

  The sword fell from his hands in a desperate panic as he ran to the wagon. He grabbed Sara and continued running.

  A second later, an explosion of ether blew up behind, where Sara had just slept. A quake and a shockwave followed; Fang fell to his face, Sara tightly in his arms as he pushed back to his feet and continued to run, managing one quick glimpse behind.

  The projectile was a gigantic thorn vine, the size of a small hut. It crashed down on their handcart, where it pierced through, destroying the sandstone and colliding against levelstone.

  The vine began retracting back toward the direction it came—from the gigantic ethereal presence. A mountain still separated the monster and Fang. The vine had pierced right through the tip of the mountain.

  Ether welled up inside the mountain, as if a surge had erupted inside the mountain. The large amount grew into a dangerous amount, until Fang felt that an explosion was about to blow.

  “What’s that!?” Sara shouted.

  The explosion went off, and the mountain was destroyed into bits. Chunks of stone flung into the air, crashing into the facets and rebounding down. Fang dove forward just as a piece of rock crashed behind him.

  The ground quaked so hard he struggled to stand. Even with ether, it took him multiple seconds. He lifted Sara up alongside him.

  Behind the destroyed mountain awaited the most hideous thing Fang had even imagined could exist.

  A reanimated mound, though not made of dirt, but of some black impenetrable surface. The shape was filled with gaping mouths with sharp teeth, void-like ether oozing out of each and every one of them.

  Another vine ejected from one of the mouths, shooting at Fang and Sara with the force of a million wisps.

  They ran, barely managing to dodge, and they continued running, screaming for their lives. The ground quaked as the monster crossed the mountain, its void-like body devouring the mountain itself, eating the rocks.

  Fang and Sara never stopped running. The thought of heading back to fetch the sword worth four million ether didn’t once cross their minds.

  The fifth level, Fang’s home and every city within were gone. Everything would be destroyed.

  A behemoth had spawned.

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