Interlude 1 - Storm Forecast

Intended to be read after chapter 58

The surge was supposed to hit on the sixteenth hour. Three minutes ago. As usual, the forecast was slightly off.

Scanners had sensed ether welling within the area three days prior. From there, the news of an oncoming surge spread, and defense duty was placed into auction. The hunting company that paid the most gained the rights to deal with the surge as they wished.

Any minute now… Essi thought. She stood on the front lines of the Sylva Bloods’ secondary hunting group. Repeated deep breaths kept her calm. This was her first time on a real surge job on the third level. Five other hunters—far more competent hunters than Essi—surrounded her.

The area in front of her was cleared of all life. Dirt and all vegetation was excavated all the way to the stone beneath stone, turning the surge-zone into a crater-like ditch. Even dirt sometimes offered respawning monsters unwanted attributes. Levelstone—the layer of ground that separated levels—was far more stubborn, never reanimating into monsters. With the area cleared, the Sylva Bloods had an easier time manipulating the surge into spawning the desired monsters. Doll-like ether sticks were tossed into the hole, spread all across.

Essi would be fighting ether sticks. Easy monsters, but when powered with the ether of a full surge, even ether sticks were terrifying. Her superiors would have liked to craft a boss monster—to purposefully reanimate a surge hazard for a small chance of earning a skill wisp. Crafting bosses so near civil life, however, was illegal.

Behind her, the brick walls of Frievania loomed all the way to the sky. Frievania was the second largest fortress on the third level, inhabited by thirty thousand humans and home to sixteen ether hunters. Essi wasn’t one of them. She was teleported here yesterday to prepare for her first surge job.

Fighting near fortresses also meant a lot of hobbyists were watching from afar with binoculars. Essi was told to wear her swordmaiden’s dress. Her expensive clothes. Her job today was not only to defeat a surge, but also to show off the Sylva Bloods’ power. All the while hopefully not staining her battle dress beyond repair.

So close to a fortress, the Sylva Bloods had bought the surge for a cheap price. Most hunting companies valued skills above all else. To defeat surges near cities, where skills couldn’t be earned, was a liability more than anything.

For Essi, however, her first surge job meant more than anything. If she screwed up, she would be sent back to the second level, back to her useless jobs. If she succeeded, she had a chance of becoming a regular in real hunts.

“You can do it, Essi,” Willum, her spirit, said. “You’ve studied, and we’ve practiced. Show them you belong on the main team.”

It’s good if I belong to the second team… she thought. Essi wasn’t a genius who danced with her spirit blade immediately upon forming a tie. She had taken the long route into becoming a hunter. She studied for five years in Sierra’s academy on the second level. She knew exactly how a surge job was supposed to go, and she knew what her job in the team was.

Still, seeing a surge-zone up close was creepy. Real.

“Keep your senses open,” Willum said. “You’ll know when it’s coming.”

Yes… Essi said. She directed her focus underground. Her sixth sense would feel the surge coming.

Suddenly, the hunters around Essi flinched. A strong presence was approaching. Except, Essi didn’t feel the ether surging from below. The presence approached from behind.

A glowing woman in a black dress stepped onto the site along with two men, one pulling a handcart. Essi recognized the woman instantly. Veronica lifeweaver.

“Hello, Sylva Bloods,” Veronica said with a smug smile. She walked past Essi and faced the surge-zone.

“Magistrate?” Melloris asked, eyes open wide. He was the leader of the Sylva Bloods’ secondary hunting group. “It’s, uh, nice to see you. Do you have business with us?”

“Your hunters may step back,” Veronica said. “The Lifeweavers have purchased this surge. I will be taking care of monsters. Mico, if you please.”

Melloris stood in confusion for a second before making space for Veronica. The rest of the Sylva Bloods stepped back with him. Melloris didn’t ask any more questions. If someone of Veronica’s caliber gave orders, nobody could speak or argue.

Mico, the bald-headed hunter from Veronica’s group, pulled forth his handcart. On it were bones and sharp objects. The dangerous types of bones. The five-foot tall rib cage, colored blue, must have belonged to an ice bear. The skull looked like an elder gnoll’s hound-like face. Both were seriously dangerous surge hazards.

Mico’s eyes lit up in pitch black. He held out his hands, and wisps flowed into the ether sticks below. A levitation skill. He pulled out each and every ether stick, tossing them to the side.

Then he levitated in the rib cage and the elder gnoll’s skull, balancing them neatly on top of each other. The blades—razor blades, daggers, swords—were tossed alongside and inside the ribcage.

Dear Ythar… Essi thought, watching as the host for a boss monster was crafted. Veronica had crafted a catastrophe level surge hazard right next to Frievania. Was the Magistrate trying to destroy the fortress? No hunter could defeat the monster they were spawning!

Below the earth, a concentration of ether shot upward. Essi sensed the surge hitting three seconds before impact. Wisps of ether exploded from the ground, cloaking the pit in active ether.

The surge hit directly on the hazard. Tens of thousands of ether shot forth from the ground. Veronica watched, letting the boss fully form.

Hostile ether filled with murderous intent cloaked the air. Essi froze on the spot.

The monster that formed was the most terrifying thing Essi had ever seen. The elder gnoll and ice bear combined together, creating an amalgamation of boss monsters. It had the face of a hyena with the impossibly tough fur of an ice bear.

Then the blades formed.

The ice bear’s skin was slashed open, revealing gaping holes. Ethereal sawblades formed within, spinning faster than Essi’s ether-enhanced eyes could see. Blades pierced through the ice bear’s torso, making the boss look like a walking undead.

The elder gnoll’s head roared. The boss’s aura was unbearable—so deafening that Essi fell on her back, unable to move. The whole world was collapsing around her. She sensed nothing but ether; the hostile, terrifying ether of a surge hazard reanimated.

A sawblade launched from the boss’s insides, shooting directly at Veronica. The man named Mico blocked it with a spirit-blade. The sawblade redirected back to the boss monster like a boomerang. The blade pierced into the gaping holes of the ice bear’s torso. Essi couldn’t imagine how many more were spinning within.

Veronica smiled as if nothing bad was going on. She stepped forward with a smile. Another sawblade shot toward her.

Veronica activated her skills.

A deep abyssal presence extended from Veronica’s core. Her skin turned to pure black ether. Her eyes became purple. Entirely purple. Her dress fluttered as if caught by wind. The black dress ascended. Purple patternous streaks lit up the dress, ether flowing within.

An ascension skill. The rarest and most powerful type of skill. Ascension skills rose the wielder’s maximum ether limit for a short period of time. While the skill was active, Veronica was free to wield as much ether as she could. Her aura rivaled the boss monster’s.

The halo of blades appeared around Veronica’s head. Her signature skill. The blades, too, were ascended. There were ten, all glowing with far more ether than Essi’s spirit blade ever could.

The exchange of ranged attacks began. The boss shot forth its sawblades, nails, all of the sharp objects its had eaten, having now turned to ethereal weapons. Veronica’s daggers matched each attack, hitting the nails, thrusting through sawblades.

Essi’s eyes couldn’t keep up. She saw sparks and wisps of ether. She was laying on the ground, unmoving. One of the Sylva Bloods pulled her back.

Veronica stood perfectly still. Her eyes didn’t move, staring emotionlessly at the boss monster. Her daggers blocked every attack the boss had to throw, and four daggers were not even being used.

The elder gnoll screamed in rage. The crater of its spawning area was totally filled with hostile wisps of ether. Simply stepping near the boss would have caused grazes to Essi’s skin.

The rage-fueled boss launched itself at Veronica with a jump.

That was when the four remaining daggers shot forth. Two pierced the boss’s chest, flying straight through. Veronica redirected them, pulling the daggers back. They pierced through again. Two of her daggers flew straight into the elder gnoll’s deep eye-holes.

The boss’s head exploded.

The boss stood for a moment longer, sawblades spinning inside the ice bear’s body. Quickly, however, the boss fell limp. It began disintegrating into ether.

Essi watched in utter shock. Just like that, Veronica Lifeweaver defeated the boss that could have ended a city.

Veronica’s body returned to normal. She called off her skills. Ascension skills were said to be extremely taxing on the body, sometimes requiring days to recover from. Veronica had dimmed out tens of thousands of ether just for that short fight.

With millions of ether to spend, however, Veronica was barely phased. She stood and calmly regarded her kill. She collected all of the ether.

“Good,” Veronica said. “We earned a skill. Mico, the honor is yours.”

Mico held out his palm and wordlessly extracted the powerful wisp of ether from the boss’s corpse. He stood still for a moment, then said, “It’s a rare skill. ‘Bladestorm.’”

“A decent find,” Veronica said. “But not what we were looking for.”

A rare skill! Essi gushed in her head. She’d never seen a common skill drop, let alone a rare one. ‘Bladestorm’ was one of the most powerful offensive skills to exist.

Veronica’s men calmly picked up the boss’s remains. The host bones had returned to normal, now that the reanimated monsters were killed. Some scratches were left on the bones, but the hosts could be reused. Mico levitated the bones back on the handcart.

“The rod,” Veronica said.

Mico nodded. He picked up a device from inside his coat. The tool had a pointy tip and a long shaft with an orb at the top, covered with runic patterns. A surge detector.

Mico pierced the detector, tip first, into the ground where the boss had just died. Upon piercing the ground, wisps of ether began moving in the orb. It detected activity underground.

“As suspected,” Veronica said. “Council believes that a storm is brewing underneath.”

“A storm?” Melloris asked in utter disbelief. “Seriously?”

“Frievania will require evacuation,” Veronica said. “The fortress might be a ruin. It has been a while since a storm spawned in such a dangerous location. Luckily, we have plenty of time. It will take months before the storm grows to dangerous levels.”

The entirety of the Sylva Bloods stood or sat still without knowing what to say. They’d all witnessed something insane. What was there to do in this situation?

A storm was different from a simple ether surge. Surges formed over days or weeks before ether shot out from the ground all at once. Storms, however, sometimes took months if not years to prepare. Ether welled up in the area, until eventually, a hurricane of ether enveloped the whole area in deadly ether.

“Ah, and I didn’t buy this surge from anyone,” Veronica said. “That part was a lie. However, I intend to compensate you fairly. Sylva Bloods, how much did you pay for this surge?”

Nobody answered. Essi figured nobody knew how much the higher ups had paid. They were simply called into the fight.

Essi, however, had been there with her superiors when the deal was made. “They paid six thousand ether,” she said.

“In that case, fifty thousand should be a sufficient payment,” Veronica said. She initiated transfer, offering wisps directly to Essi. Insane amounts of wisps flowed into Essi’s core. More wisps than she had ever held at once.

“Tell Umbra I passed by,” Veronica said with a satisfied smile. “Thanks for the skill. Frievania, may Ythar bless your ruins.”