The moment she entered the tunnel within the behemoth, tendrils with sharp tips lashed out at her like a wall of spears.

  She turned sideways, giving the spears less points to pierce her, and held Grandpa’s greatsword as a shield. The move felt silly, but natural at the same time; one spear collided with the sword, the rest thrusting past her. They whipped around in an attempt to strangle her.

  Vivi slashed wide overhead, cutting down two, but one tendril grazed her back. It burned against her coating of ether. Her dress blinked, its fabric struggling to protect her. Gritting her teeth, she cut down the last tendril as well.

  I have power, but I’ll still die from one mistake, Vivi reminded herself.

  The walls spasmed, buckling in and back. The behemoth really didn’t want her here. Her footing was coated in hot ether, requiring her to coat her feet with protective ether. Beneath the hot ether, the ground was solid, though it wobbled alongside the behemoth’s movement toward the city. Her view deeper was obstructed by insane amounts of ether clouding the way. And inside a behemoth, the only light she had came from her sword and dress.

  More monsters rushed for her from ahead. She crushed the golems, snapped the mummies’ scimitars as well as the ravens’ beaks, one-shotting the small critters that mindlessly charged her. She collected another thirty thousand ether.

  Then she ran forward, deeper toward the feeling within the ethereal realm—the pumping that kept repairing the behemoth’s body.

  Another ethereal feeling came from her left, inside the wall. A moment later, the wall deformed, turning to spikes. They thrust at Vivi like an overgrown burdock. She had a fraction of a second to react.

  She didn’t think; she slammed down her sword at the wall and its spikes.

  Grandpa’s sword crushed right through, cutting spikes and hitting the wall behind them. The wall immediately retracted like a hand touching a fire. Its ethereal presence went crazy, and the pumping fought back against the wound Vivi had created.

  Within two pumps, the wound was repaired, and a new attack brewed in the wall behind her.

  If that’s how you want to do this! Vivi thought through a grimace, slashing at the wall before the attack could come. Her sword slashed right through the black material, the heavenly white forming cracks within.

  Her footing shook, the tunnel feeling like it would collapse. The behemoth really didn’t like that. Still, the pumping repaired the damages in under five seconds, and the tunnel returned to normal.

  “Vivi, I don’t think this is a dungeon,” Lucius said. “We’re just inside its mouth.”

  Regardless, we need to get to the source of that pumping, Vivi thought. Its aura has only grown after receiving missiles. I don’t think it’ll die if we keep slashing.

  She continued upward in the dark tunnel, toward the behemoth’s core, cutting down the few weak critters that tried to attack her, until a larger presence defended the doorway above.

  Its head was a barrel. The type used for food and transport. The lid was open, purple liquid sloshing inside. The lower body was humanoid and made of wood, and its hand was a metallic handle from a handcart.

  The barrel had a little pointy mouth. Purple liquid dripped, and ether welled. It shot like a poisonous blowdart down at Vivi.

  She lifted her sword and blocked the first. The purple liquid simmered against the metal. She gritted her teeth, thinking of any way she could defeat the monster.

  A single clean hit from the purple liquid on her skin would probably leave a lifelong scar, if whatever poison it included didn’t kill her straight away. If she charged up, there was a good chance she’d get hit. Vivi didn’t have any skills to creatively clear the monster. All she really had was a big sword and a lot of ether in her body.

  Let’s use another path, then! Vivi thought as she slashed her sword down at the wall to her right.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Her sword crushed right through, and the ground shook. Vivi didn’t stop there; she ran into the hole she’d created and slashed again, deeper, and then again. She slashed a new pathway open with her sword like a miner hacking through a mountain.

  The behemoth really didn’t like that. Ether concentrated all around her as the pumping directed all of the behemoth’s power to her location. The walls she’d just destroyed grew spikes and closed in on her, rapidly repairing.

  She yelled out, pushed ten thousand ether to Lucius’s core to ascend, grabbed her sword with two hands as ether glowed in her eyes, and swung.

  The protective layer was swept aside, and the sheer amount of ether in her body started to cause harm. But with ether came power. Her sword cut into the walls around her; she slashed and swiped with all of her strength.

  The confining walls turned to disintegrating ether, exploding in white by the crush runes. The behemoth’s spikes blew to bits, and no attempt of its pumping could crush Vivi. She slashed deeper, carving a path up and ahead, toward the pulsing.

  After the fourteenth heavy swing, the wall opened up, revealing a larger hall, or cavern. Everything inside was black and gooey, deformed blobs pulsing like screwed-up organs. Columns of stretched out web covered in spikes spanned from the ground to the ceiling.

  The heavy ascension calmed, and Vivi was back to eight thousand ether. She threw forth a claw-swipe, hoping to clear the area. The claws collided against the first web-column. It blinked, a small gush of ether leaking out as if she’d poked a mushroom full of puffballs.

  Something moved within and between the columns. Vivi’s eyes saw a dark flash. Her ethereal senses felt movement as something inconceivably fast slithered around the room. She focused, and—

  Something exploded against her shoulders as the presence arrived right in front of her. Vivi fell to the ground, back crashing against the burning floor of the behemoth’s tunnel. She growled, pushing back, but lacked the strength.

  The monster’s thick hairy front legs pinned her sword hand against the ground. A giant spider. Its fangs were the size of saber-teeth, preparing a strike as it pressed Vivi down.

  Vivi pushed twenty thousand ether into Lucius’s core. She pushed with her left hand and threw a punch straight at the spider’s face.

  It was knocked a foot back into the air, losing its hold on Vivi. She slashed, killing it in one blow. She collected twenty-five thousand ether from it.

  Her insides protested the heavy ascension, screaming in pain, but her ethereal sense improved, enough so that she could keep up with the spiders. There were three more.

  One tried to ambush; Vivi slashed it prematurely, killing it. The next two regarded her warily, attacking from both sides.

  She killed on easily, ducking as the second threw its fangs at her. The fangs missed, but the spider crashed on top of her. With the remaining strength of her ascension, she threw a fist, followed by her sword, killing both.

  Her legs wavered as she stood, returning back to eight thousand ether. The whiplash was already severe. She felt as if her arms weighed a ton, despite the eight thousand ether in her body. If she cut off the ether in her body now, she’d collapse.

  But the pumping was close. Really close.

  Vivi ascended up the next tunnel. She kept a sharp eye on her sixth sense, watching for the slightest movement ahead, behind, or inside the walls. The pulsing continued, though ether didn’t concentrate around her.

  The ascent was calm. Suspiciously so. But Vivi trusted in her ethereal senses. If something attacked her, she would know.

  Could the boss have a concealer? Vivi asked.

  Lucius took his time responding. “Maybe it could. Focus, Vivi. It might drop an exalted skill.”

  It seemed Lucius had never dealt with anything of this size either. Vivi kept ascending. The pulsing was really close now. She could feel the end of the tunnel not twenty paces away. Carefully, she stepped in, crossing the door.

  She paused, requiring a moment to take in everything she was looking at.

  An ethereal heart pumped in the middle of the giant tower-like room. Well, calling it a room didn’t give it justice. The ceiling extended hundreds of feet into the air, probably close to the sky outside, and the floor continued down. This area alone must have made up over half of the behemoth’s insides. Vivi stood atop a platform that circled the wall. A bridge led closer to the heart, though it was cut off before it could connect.

  A spire grew up from the middle of the room, piercing the heart like a spike, where it continued to the ceiling. Smaller thorns, or perhaps pipes, pierced the heart in multiple angles, connecting to the walls. Each time the heart pumped, a wave of ether flowed through the spike and thorns, casting a flash of bright ether across the otherwise ominous space.

  Our target, Vivi thought, taking a step closer to the heart.

  “Wait,” Lucius said, concerned. “Look at the end of the bridge, Vivi.”

  She paused, spotting what Lucius was looking at. Something small and dark sat there. Darker than black—like a total void in reality. Vivi’s void core fluttered, somehow excited by its presence.

  The black figure stood. Its form was similar to Iszul’s or Veronica’s with their exalted skills active—its shape was covered entirely by ether—though this figure was much darker, almost invisible, as if it ate all light that touched it.

  The figure turned, facing Vivi. She felt a chill. It held out a hand, and a bright white sword spawned on its hand. Looking into the sixth realm, the sensations were comparable to staring at the sun. The sword alone was concentrated with so much ether, it could have snapped a hundred spirit blades in one clean slash.

  “Oh, no,” Lucius said. “No, no, no! Vivi, run! It’s a godslayer!”

  The monster opened its eyes, a white void, as its figure disappeared, and its sword appeared between Vivi’s eyes, ready to cut her down.

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