In a panic, Vivi threw all of her skills active. in front of her, while Momentum Leap still continued flinging her toward the goat.

  The four attacking blades crushed down with heavy overhead swings. The four blades collided at the point of impact, and their tips combined into a humongous greatsword of void ether. Vivi’s shield was slashed into pieces as if it was paper.

  Luckily, she still had Dawnpour in her hands. She didn’t block as much as she just had the sword accidentally in the right position. The blow crushed her momentum in an instant, slamming her down with the force of thousands of concentrated void wisps.

  Her vision flickered as she submerged into the sand. Pain flared, not from an overt ascension, but from the shock of an actual blow. A cloud of sand blew around her.

  The fifth sword that had defended the goat now thrust at her like a spear. Vivi rolled to the side, and with the help of her ascension skill, flicked her body upright. She was in stance just in time as another heavy blow of the four void swords hit Dawnpour.

  Knockback sent her fifty feet across the desert, but she landed on her feet, now a good distance away from the goat. She took a breath to assess the situation.

  Dusk turned crimson around the goat’s awful aura of void wisps. It wasn’t fast, nor did it look like it wanted to chase after Vivi. Its red eyes stared at her as it trod ever so slowly in her direction.

  How much ether does it have? Vivi asked.

  “Looks like at least a million,” Lucius said. “And a lot of that is void ether. It looks like a mage class monster. It’s most likely immobile, but watch out for any hidden spells it might suddenly cast.”

  Vivi didn’t like the hesitation in his voice. Seven and a half thousand wisps of her own clearly weren’t enough to overpower this monster, even with an ascension skill active. Vivi could have forced an ascension and forced through, most likely, but was it really worth it to kill her own body just to defeat some stupid goat?

  Attempting to kill it with seven and a half thousand ether didn’t seem smart either. A single bad move would still be enough to cost her life. She wouldn’t harm her own body, but what use was fighting safely if she’d get cut down due to the lack of strength.

  Really, there was no need to fight it with swords, when Vivi could blast it down with slingshot launchers instead.

  Let’s call for backup, she thought. If it’s immobile, we can probably assemble the second iteration slingshot launcher a good distance from it.

  She turned to leave, when the goat opened its mouth. Vivi furrowed her brow, feeling something odd in her sixth sense. A red string, like a seamstress’s thread, came out. It rose into the air, and it didn’t seem to stop. It reached halfway to the sky, continuing still.

  “Watch out if that whips down on you,” Lucius said.

  It didn’t whip down, but reached all the way to the sky, where it touched the dim facets.

  Upon contact, the world turned pitch black as the facets lost their light. The mountainscape turned entirely black. Every bit of light was pulled out from her surroundings. The glow of her dress lit an umbrella’s width of sand underneath, less than what a candle would have. All she could see was the goat’s red eyes and its white bones.

  Oh, hell, Vivi thought. Fantastic.

  Another calamity.

  A ray of crimson light blasted down from the sky. Vivi grimaced and lifted her sword to block, having sensed it coming barely half a second before it collided. Downpour redirected it sideways, where the sound of exploding rocks stopped the ray’s path.

  Vivi activated Shield Of Nature and filled it with as much ether as it could fit. Hopefully it could block at least one attack before cracking. She then moved the shield above her, where it would be kept fully charged without being in her way.

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  The crimson rays rained like hail all around her position. Her shield blinked with each impact, but it seemed strong enough to block them. After the fifth impact, the rays stopped coming. The goat must have noticed its attacks weren’t doing damage, as the rays stopped.

  Intelligent, huh? Vivi thought. She found it alarming that monsters like these were still roaming the desert. But then again, it was her job to deal with them.

  I already can’t see anything, Vivi thought, deciding that not channeling void ether would be stupid. She opened for what she hoped would be a fraction of a second. The void ether, of course, flooded in against her wishes. She grimaced and forced it shut.

  A hundred or so void wisps invaded her. Enough to bring her into death sense, but not so much that her thoughts were at risk.

  In the void realm, the goat had the oddest aura of any monster Vivi had seen. Its oppressive presence clouded the dark arena in its entirety. The largest concentration of void wisps gathered around the goat itself, but it expanded to the air, where the same feeling of void ether cloaked the sky and the facets. The goat could freely control them, casting rays.

  The goat could easily murder an entire village with the rays, especially with its nightmare-inducing darkness effect, which would block people from seeing cover. Against Vivi, neither power was much of a danger. Her shield could block the rays, and darkness meant nothing against void ether.

  While studying her surroundings in the void realm, Vivi sensed something in the distance. Not a monster, but a lighter, more concerned ethereal aura. It was familiar. In fact, Vivi was fairly certain the aura belonged to Coshi.

  Backup had arrived. Good. Vivi turned around and jogged toward Coshi’s aura.

  She activated Momentum Leap.

  The skill sped up her approach considerably. Instead of having to walk all the way, Vivi was flung to her target. With her senses in the death realm, controlling the flight felt much easier. She wasn’t flinging her arms in a panic, but was actually gliding through the air, as if flying.

  Coshi understandably unsheathed her sword and took a defensive stance. Vivi held up her arms and placed Dawnpour into spatial storage.

  She then pushed void ether aside as best she could, which in practicality meant she asked Lucius to channel more ether to fight the void ether aside. She needed to talk.

  “It’s me,” she said, eyesight returning. The landscape beneath them was dark, though light returned a hundred more feet in the distance as the goat’s spell lost range. “Did you bring any slingshot launchers?”

  Vivi’s eyesight fully returned, she saw the Luminary carrying one—not a mass-produced launcher, but a new one that Vivi had only seen in a blueprint. The improved handheld launcher had been completed.

  The design wasn’t all too different from the previous ones. It just looked better all around. The enhancement string was not attached directly to the weapon. The small root pieces were parallel to the barrel on both sides and protected by a tube of white obsidian. The stretch ropes and the launch mechanism looked less like a junkyard contraption and more like an actual weapon. Most importantly, the barrel was inside-carved with rifling to make the missile spin.

  Coshi slid a missile in with a wide grin on her face. “An arch goat, huh? Another calamity level boss.”

  “Is it a mythic boss?” Vivi asked.

  “Not quite, but close,” Coshi said. “Do you think it’ll survive these new weapons of yours?”

  “It won’t survive the second iteration, at least,” Vivi said.

  “Oh don’t worry, that one is being assembled on a mountain,” Coshi said, glancing in the distance behind her. Vivi could vaguely make out demons on a hill if she squinted. One of them seemed to have binoculars, looking at Coshi.

  Coshi waved at them. She raised a hand. The man with the binoculars raised a hand as well.

  Coshi then thrust her hand at the arch goat.

  Upon command, the second iteration slingshot launcher released its missiles. Vivi felt a flash in her ethereal senses as the missile flew past, followed by an explosion in the arch goat’s location.

  The goat stood. It defended with its swords, slashing the missile in half before it could collide, and the two halves fell astray.

  Coshi then pointed her own missile at the goat. She pressed the trigger, and a shockwave erupted, flaring Vivi’s hair. The impact was remarkably smooth, and somehow, the stretch ropes didn’t snap.

  She missed. The missile flew perfectly straight; Coshi herself just missed. “Well, crap,” she said.

  “Were those mass-produced missiles?” Vivi asked.

  “Yes,” Coshi said. “We’re saving the good missiles. Want me to order a good missile to be launched?”

  “It won’t survive inside-carving,” Vivi said.

  Coshi nodded, then turned to the man with the binoculars. She gave a signal with her fingers. The men began reloading the slingshot launcher.

  “Shall we head closer?” Coshi asked, grinning.

  Vivi glanced at the goat. It was still mostly standing on its spot, very slowly trotting closer. They could probably get closer. Vivi enhanced the shield in size so that Coshi would also be protected from the crimson rays.

  As if sharing an umbrella, they headed closer. The goat tried to throw rays at them, but they rebounded from the shield. Vivi and Coshi walked up close, around a hundred feet away, where its swords wouldn’t kill them.

  There, Coshi sat down on a piece of rock. “Well, then, let’s see how this thing really operates.”

  She loaded the launcher with an inside-carved missile, filled it with ether, and with a huge grin on her face, fired.

  The shockwave released and the sound barrier was broken, the air itself rippling, when five consecutive signals blinked in rapid succession.

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