I could only stare as the Nether Vein finally opened. It wasn’t just the massive scale of the thing, which I still hadn’t grown fully accustomed to yet. Opening just the first of its locks unleashed a gale of pure force, one that ripped through the entire, enormous chamber.

  Then there was its construction, the way it was slowly unfolding. Pieces of metal slid smoothly within each other, while others spiralled inwards like strange drills. A huge chunk of the gate on top simply sank into the wall. The lower half of the gate appeared to simply dissolve into nothing. Or rather, into a thin mist of pure black energy.

  And the more it opened, the stronger the pressure I felt emanating from the Nether Vein.

  “This thing… it’s insane!” Khagnio yelled over the storming winds of power blasting out of the yawning darkness.

  The Se-Targa Councillor and her little party, including Master Kostis up ahead, were all shielded by an aura of prismatic feathers. Maybe Khagnio and I should have drawn closer to them. But no, our goal was forming the bridge between the monsters and the gate. Se-Vigilance would be releasing her hold on the Swarm above us any second now.

  Although, for the moment, even she was simply busy weathering the storm of the Nether Vein. The wind was now accompanied by lashing threads of darkness, black mist billowing out to claim everything.

  Our platforms broke, which made both me and my heart plummet, but I saw the reason why a second later. The frothing sea of liquid murk beneath us had sunk away, revealing an enormous field of pure metal.

  I slowed my descent with Gravity so that the metallic thump wasn’t as loud as Khagnio’s landing. We didn’t get the time to grumble about the sudden loss of footing.

  The Nether Vein’s storm was upon us.

  I didn’t let it touch me for more than a few seconds. A wide application of Field Manipulation with Siphon repelled all the storming threads of black, all the little pellets of darkness trying to rain on us. It even pushed off the mist now, once I focused on Massless Interaction.

  “Good clearance, mageling,” Khagnio said.

  I wasn’t paying attention. My eyes were on my apparition of solidified Netherthreads. It was growing stronger. I could sense it. It kept drifting out of the range of my Gravity, even when I widened the field, all so it could stand under the storm of darkness.

  All so it could drink in the energy falling on it. What was up with that thing?

  “Delvers of the Nether Vein,” the Councillor shouted from ahead, only visible thanks to the prismatic field of feathers around her. “Your time has come. Act!”

  She was calling us. Khagnio and me. I took a deep breath. Above us, the prismatic mist broke into shards that started to fade into nothing, releasing the monsters from their holds. They spotted us, but didn’t descend. Not at first. Not when they were caught in the Nether Vein’s blistering storm.

  Well, blistering for us. Enlivening for them, by the looks of things.

  “We’ll need to be fast, mageling,” Khagnio said. “Stick with the Councillor, make our way to this monument, make sure the bugs get to it too, then rush out.”

  Solid plan, except the Nether Vein was having none of it. The Blight Swarm was having none of it. Darkness raged stronger and stronger through the storm the Nether Vein had let loose. Even worse was the fact that the furious gale seemed to be enraging and empowering the Blight Swarm, turning the monsters stronger, more ferocious, more deadly.

  The Se-Targa Councillor’s power was repelling them for the time being. A swirling vortex of prismatic feathers slashed and sliced through the Swarmlords and Blightbringers and their minions, turning them into sparkling mincemeat.

  This freed Khagnio and me to rush over to the gathered party. The atmosphere was a lot different around Se-Vigilance. I could see why the other Se-Targa and even Kostis remained steadfast in the face of the Nether Vein’s growing, unrestrained wrath.

  That was, until the other bugs started coming down. The stronger ones. First came the armour-plated monster that had jumped me and Khagnio way back on Ring Four, its humanoid but segmented body twisting this way and that, its helmeted head screaming as it crashed onto the metal platform.

  Then came the monster I had fought and failed to beat at the wall between Rings Four and Three. It sported the wounds I had managed to leave, as well as several new ones. The monster’s right hand was missing entirely.

  But it was alive, which made my heart stutter. Revayne…

  I figured Councillor Se-Vigilance could still have taken on those monsters if she had wished, but our goal was different. We were the Nether Vein party. Khagnio alone would probably have been enough, but my addition helped too.

  Which probably explained why Councillor Lassikhio rammed in from above. He crashed down with enough force to leave dents on the metal, his impact followed up immediately by a raging blast of fire that scorched everything around him, including the superpowered bugs.

  “Go!” he yelled. “Lead on, into the Nether Vein.”

  “You heard my fellow Scalekin,” Kostis said brightly. “Let us proceed!”

  Councillor Se-Vigilance was already doing so. We didn’t need to worry about Lassikhio. He wasn’t facing an enormous army of monsters all alone. Others landed. I caught Guildmaster Kudva slamming down as well, with the Guard Commander Trikurag not far behind. Wish I could have gotten to see something of their main Aspects, but Nether Vein dragged in my attention. Almost literally.

  “Map,” the Se-Targa Councillor said.

  “Right.” I accepted the old document she had procured and immediately channelled Sacrifice.

  It took a few precious seconds to activate. Probably should have taken the map earlier so that the Weave didn’t have trouble recognizing my ownership of it, but at least the transfer of ownership registered fast enough.

  White mana pulsed out before latching onto the old document. I didn’t even bother trying to decipher what was depicted. It would need training I didn’t possess, and it didn’t matter in the end anyway. Sacrifice took effect, the map disappearing with a burst of white flickers that faded to nothing.

  [ Sacrifice

  You have Sacrificed 1 [Major] Map. Windfall bonus activated.

  Reward: Inherent knowledge of locality depicted on the [Major] map now unerringly guides all navigation for 2 hour and 30 minutes. ]

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  I didn’t know what made this map [Major] compared to the [Minor] one of the undercity. There was no time to figure it out anyway.

  The same mental sting of new knowledge forcefully inserting into my mindscape was soon followed by the also-recognizable tug on my chest. Despite the familiarity, it still felt a little insane how I could just insert new intel inside my head with a simple Sacrifice. Could I substitute reading things in the same way? Or would that information fade too?

  “That way,” I said, pointing at my ten o’clock. The location of the monument was now eerily etched into my brain.

  I followed in the wake of Se-Vigilance. The Nether Vein’s aura pressed down on me, on us all. Just seconds after passing through the gate, we were completely covered by the storm.

  “These walls…” Master Kostis murmured as he looked around everywhere a little wondrously. “They’re embedded with mana…”

  I didn’t catch the last bit, especially since the Councillor spoke louder right afterwards.

  “You truly believed you could have withstood this on your own, Kostis?” Se-Vigilance asked.

  Master Kostis’s expression didn’t waver. He was looking around at everything with no small wonder in his serpentine eyes, the gems embedded in his scales glinting and flashing whenever they caught the Councillor’s light. “I believe so, yes. It wouldn’t have been as easy as you seem to be making it, Councillor, but I’d have managed.”

  “Easy…” Se-Vigilance’s placid face gave way to the tiniest grumble. Then her silvery-ivory face smoothed again. Apparently, it wasn’t actually as easy as she was making it look. “I don’t doubt you, in all honesty.”

  If the Councillor wasn’t finding it easy and if Kostis would only have managed, then what in the Pits would have happened to me if I had come here by myself?

  It was getting annoying just how dependent on the Councillor I was just then. I couldn’t even see where we were going. At least I had the map Sacrifice to guide us forward.

  The ferocity had reached a shrieking pitch. Every single thread scouring against Se-Vigilance’s prismatic aura clashed and scratched against it like metal claws big enough to make dinosaurs jealous. Though wait, didn’t the bipedal ones have the tiniest claws in existence?

  “They’re following,” I said, feeling my heart start to thud loudly. “It’s working.”

  Khagnio hissed. He had kept his wound open all this while, leaving black-flecked drips behind us as we kept going. “It had better be working.”

  “I am standing out as a beacon that draws them in ever closer,” Se-Vigilance said. “As are your remains, no doubt. But if they reach us, our progress will be hemmed in. We will need to separate.”

  Just the thing I was afraid of. Separating might lead us to getting picked off one by one. “Not necessarily,” I said. “Give me a second…”

  I reached forward, stepping up right next to the much taller Councillor. Ignoring how she was actually floating a little above the ground instead of walking like the rest of us, I held out my hand and touched the prismatic energy shielding us. It was cool to my touch but buzzing ever so slightly.

  “There’s an interesting interaction I discovered between my Illumination and the Netherthreads,” I said as I used Imbuement.

  The Councillor’s Aspect accepted my energy rather than rejecting it. I wondered if she was actively helping the process. Whatever the case, the swirling multicoloured barrier with the shimmering feathers took on a whitish-gold cast. When that was done, I focused on Reflection.

  Then the Netherthreads assaulting us bounced back. I heard a different sort of scream from somewhere nearby as reflected spikes speared outwards.

  “Ah, impressive,” Se-Vigilance said. “This should help us propel forward faster.”

  It did. Even the storm’s intensity seemed to fall as we forged onwards, pushing through the murk. I adjusted our direction a little every once in a while. We didn’t meet any landmarks on the way, and we certainly didn’t see any in the murk. But I was sure of my navigation.

  I was pretty sure the Weave couldn’t lie.

  The combination of Reflection and Se-Vigilance’s aural Aspect was working tremendously well. No longer were we hemmed in by the storm’s terrible pressure. No longer were the clawing assaults trying to break through our defence, threatening to stall our progress.

  Instead, the reflected lances of white-edged black mana pierced through the storm and counterattacked everything that tried to murder us.

  “Your navigation doesn’t have a distance marker or anything of the sort, does it?” the Councillor asked.

  “Sadly, no,” I said.

  She didn’t sound worried, but I could see why she had asked. We might be sure of our direction thanks to my map Sacrifice, but the distance to our target… not so much.

  It was hard to tell how long we kept going. We were hurrying as fast as we could, but it felt like not a lot of progress had been made. I was starting to get a little worried. No way was I leading everybody in circles. Right?

  I didn’t know how long everybody back in and around the ruined dungeon could continue fighting the Blight Swarm. With the Nether Vein open, the monsters should be attracted inside like flies to honey, but Se-Vigilance had impressed upon us the necessity of finding the Ascendant’s monument. The one thing that could really arrest the bugs’ attention. It was the only way we could be certain the plan would work.

  “Is it me,” Khagnio hissed quietly. “Or are things getting a little brighter…?”

  He wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t sure if the gale’s effect was decreasing and the monsters attacking us less than before, but I could see more than before. A certain light was pervading everything, poking harshly through the stormy darkness of the cavern.

  “I don’t like this,” Kostis muttered. My skin turned a little cold. I had never heard him so grim before.

  Moments later, the Councillor paused. We all froze behind her.

  “Halt here,” she said. “I suspect we are close to our destination, but…”

  But there was an obstacle before us. A terrifying obstacle. The storm wasn’t really reducing in ferocity. It was being replaced by the monstrosity slowly coming into being before us.

  The lights were emanating from several columnar crystals floating above the ground, each the size of a small apartment building. They sparkled with prismatic light, a harsh reflection of the radiance of the combination of my and Se-Vigilance’s Aspects.

  I forced my eyes to focus on the creature in the centre. It was a tall and strangely slim ivory being, with a head made of gelatinous void, four white eyes burning in the centre.

  To say I was freaked out was a massive understatement.

  “Is that one of the obstacles you mentioned earlier, Councillor?” Kostis asked quietly, like raising his voice too much was going to draw the creature’s ire.

  Se-Vigilance’s words were carefully controlled too. “I suspect it is.”

  One of Kostis’s gem-scales was flashing a warning red. “Yes, well, your mentions failed to include that such obstacles might be Jade-ranked, Councillor.”

  I swallowed. Beside me, Khagnio had stiffened too. Even the other Se-Targa had all turned paler than they already were.

  “I really didn’t sign up for Jade-ranked threats,” Khagnio muttered.

  We obeyed Se-Vigilance’s earlier command as she stepped—or floated rather, I supposed—onwards by herself. Her aura was widening to ensure it kept covering us all despite the growing distance between us.

  I tried to see past the creature in front of us, but the light was too bright. It didn’t look like another monster from the Blight Swarm, at least.

  “Any clue what that is, master?” I asked.

  Kostis wasn’t focusing on the confrontation, looking around us instead. I wondered if it was restlessness. If so, I felt it too. We were this close to reaching our goal, only to be faced with a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. Well, insurmountable for all of us.

  Save the Councillor.

  “The Nether Vein possesses many strange beings, Ross,” Kostis said, still looking around instead of at the battle about to start. Even when the auras from the two beings were starting to make me feel like I was in a nuclear reactor, he just ignored it. “That you should see one of its greater denizens this quickly is indeed blessed.”

  “I don’t think this counts as blessed, master.”

  I was tempted to ask what in the world he’d have done if he had faced such an opponent. Strong as Kostis was, he still wasn’t even Onyx-ranked yet. To fight something well into Jade would be suicidal, even for him. Unless he had ways of countering that, which he might.

  After all, with all my little Sacrifices and Rituals, I had ways of hitting well above what my rank would suggest.

  Any such concerns were wiped out when the monster and the Councillor finally collided.

  I didn’t even see them fight. One second, Se-Vigilance was slowly approaching her opponent, who had elected to remain still. The next, the crystals vibrated with terrific power, light burst everywhere with spiking, painful radiance, and the monster disappeared.

  The crack that followed wiped out all following sound. I couldn’t even hear myself speaking afterwards.

  More worrying was the fact that the impact between the monster and the Councillor shattered her aura entirely. It fractured into a thousand shards of prismatic and white-gold light, falling and fading around us.

  Unveiling us to the fury of the Nether Vein’s storm and the monsters trying to ram into us from all sides.