The greatsword glowed inside, taken straight from the forge—though the veins were hard to decipher. Just like with Abyss Destroyer, the surface of the sword appeared alive by the ether flowing within, though this sword was not the color of a dark void. It was a pale, heavenly white. Parts of it appeared like a rainbow. A wave of ether passed, and a subtle orange glowed within the metal.

  The cross-guard had a gemstone attached. It, too, switched colors with the sword’s flow of ether. Underneath, engravings read, Runeblessed. Vivi snorted, a smile appearing on her lips.

  The real beauty of the hilt came from the grip. Every part of it was filled with runes. Vivi spotted the three power runes, and with some looking, also the three efficacy runes.

  He’d really done it. A six-runed sword.

  Vivi glanced behind. The behemoth still inched toward them. The mouth that had shot the thorn vine was blasted open, and the other mouths pointed in wrong directions. It probably wouldn’t kill them in the next few minutes.

  She reached for the sword, slowly placing her fingers on its grip. A connection was immediately formed. Even without pushing ether inside, the sword became an extension of her limbs. It awaited for more power.

  The feeling inside the sword was quite indescribable—as if a calm disaster brewed inside, waiting to be unleashed. A slow-moving tidal wave of ether. And not just live ether, shaped in by the runes. Vivi felt something else as well. Was that nature’s ether?

  And void ether.

  The void and nature’s wisps clung to each other, as if hugging. Vivi studied the feeling in awe. The void ether wasn’t violent like the one in Vivi’s void core. The two types of foreign wisps worked in tandem, flowing alongside the regular wisps, not to cause havoc, but to strengthen the metal.

  Grandpa… Vivi’s mouth hung open. What have you created?

  This sword was an absolute monster. Vivi hadn’t transferred a single wisp of her own ether, and the connection she felt to the sword was already as smooth and drug-like as with Blossom, and as hungry for power as Abyss Destroyer.

  She felt chills. She could barely move her limbs. The sensations were insane.

  Lucius…? Vivi asked. Do you feel this?

  Her spirit was hidden in the corner of her core, staring at the sword’s presence. Lucius was frozen in place, as if moving an inch would cause him to get cut in half.

  The behemoth inched ever so closer. Its skin shifted, and a new mouth was angled to point toward Vivi. The next thorn vine was about to shoot.

  Vivi took a step forward. The movement happened by instinct, as if commanded by the sword in her hand. Suddenly, the behemoth didn’t appear scary anymore.

  “Vivi…?” Coshi said next to her. “What are you doing?”

  “I’ll kill it,” she said.

  Coshi stared at her. “Be ready to dodge.”

  Upon her words, the thorn vine released. Again, it was aimed directly at Vivi.

  Lucius, ascend me to eight thousand ether, Vivi thought.

  Then she pushed ether through the sword’s runes, filling its veins.

  The calm let loose, a storm breaking in her hand. The tidal wave of ether crashed into the edge of the metal, where it rebounded. Not mindlessly: the ether’s path was calculated and precise, directed by the veins inside.

  “Ether must flow gracefully and without disruptions,” Grandpa had taught her. “Imperfections in vein-shaping will result in a snapped sword.”

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  She now felt the effects of that theory in real time. The shape of the veins didn’t merely decide where ether would be distributed. The veins also curated the flow of ether within the sword, making sure the metal would be strengthened, not snapping in half.

  Vivi went into stance. The exact stance Grandpa had taught her to test swing her swords. She planted her feet firmly in the ground, raised her sword, and a moment before the thorn vine was about to crush her face against the ground, she swung.

  Her hand felt no resistance as the metal collided. Destruction happened like science. The mass and strength runes gave her sword impenetrable toughness. The sharpness rune cut through the thorn vine as if it were parchment. The swiftness rune made it all effortless, as if the sword was weightless, and the flow rune enhanced them all, adding speed to the flow of ether within.

  Then the crush runes took effect.

  A white glow filled the core of the vine. It grew, then shattered, breaking the vine from the inside. Vivi blinked, watching as the vine fell limp, destroyed. Amongst its disintegrating remains, the white of Grandpa’s sword continued to burn.

  Vivi felt calm inside. Despite Lucius burning wisps, ascending to eight thousand, her senses regarded the situation with clarity and simplicity. The protective layer stayed active easily, as if it was also connected to Grandpa’s sword.

  Something odd was happening. When she looked into the behemoth’s mouths, the fear she’d felt had disappeared. Its insane aura was still present and just as tall as it had been before, if not even more clear in Vivi’s senses, but she couldn’t regard it as dangerous anymore.

  She saw it as ether.

  Grandpa? Vivi thought. Something funny came to her. Haven’t you said upgrades after three runes were no longer substantial?

  Vivi dashed forward, sprinting toward the behemoth. She crossed the half-mile between them in thirty seconds. A few hundred feet before, she entered its aura, and the boss clearly became aware of her intent, throwing every attack it had at her.

  The tendrils attacked her first. For fully ethereal weapons, the fluttering whips contained ether with minimal leaks. They were certainly more dangerous than any spirit blades she had heard of.

  They were also easy to map out, and their movements, though quick, were predictable. The first one came from her left and slightly above. Vivi placed her foot on the ground and swung.

  The tendril hit her blade, snapping like a stretch rope pulled too far. A crackle followed as the tendril collided with the ground. The next whip came from the left; Vivi carried the momentum of her swing around, crushing the next tendril just as easily.

  The percentage of ether in a weapon doesn’t matter, Vivi thought. What matters is the concentration of it.

  And Grandpa’s sword certainly contained more. She continued forward, cutting the boss’s tendrils as if they were merely clotheslines.

  The boss had no face to show fear with, but its aura shifted. Hostile ether pushed at Vivi with pressure from all sides. Everything inside the monster seemed to move faster now, as if it had turned awake.

  A mouth opened right ahead, where Vivi was running at the monster. Up close, the mouth was far larger than the Lost Raindrop with sharp teeth. Vivi prepared for another vine thorn to shoot out. That didn’t happen.

  A swarm of monsters rushed out instead, like ants rushing out from a colony. There were scorpions, four-handed mummies, dread ravens—the usual monsters that had attacked the front lines.

  Above, the gaping wound in the boss’s skin began to close. The campfire of wisps slowed, until barely any escaped at all. A pumping could be felt within the ethereal realm, coming from inside the boss. Each thump repaired its wounds.

  Vivi crushed a dread raven with one clean swipe, followed by a scimitar mummy, collecting six thousand ether from their bodies as she glanced up. Lucius? What’s happening?

  “Looks like the boss is healing,” Lucius said.

  She gritted her teeth, killing the next scorpion that tried to attack her. The boss’s aura grew more and more hostile, more tendrils spawning where Vivi had just snapped them. It was as if it only now grew active, realizing its life was in danger.

  The pumping is coming from deep inside it, Vivi thought. Something is inside.

  She looked at the mouth as more monsters escaped to attack her. With most monsters any mouths or eye-holes were totally black, nothing at all visible inside. The behemoth certainly had a shroud blocking her vision into the mouth. But that shroud wasn’t total blackness. It was more like a cloak—the same type of shroud that blocked pathways in Zand’s main dungeon.

  Lucius? Vivi thought. Could this boss be a dungeon?

  “What?” Lucius asked.

  The behemoth is just a front, Vivi thought. Those mouths… I think we can enter.

  Lucius appeared baffled, but he kept burning more wisps to keep Vivi at eight thousand. She killed the next wave of what were now low-level critters against a six-runed sword. Vivi ran forward, slashing any monsters on the way, and faced the mouth.

  The teeth were sharp, though too large to realistically chew something as small as Vivi. It would probably be good to get rid of them regardless. She pushed ether into her legs and jumped, thrusting her sword through the lower tooth as she did.

  The tooth cracked, and the shroud was lifted, revealing a tunnel into the behemoth.

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