“Sir, the descent is trembling,” Ornwell said.

“Trembling?” Iszul asked.

The surge forecaster’s pupils were dilated. His feet were frozen in place, arms shaking. Ornwell was an older man who had limped along from zone to zone, refusing the assistance of even a walking stick. Red eyes, rough hair, and a scorchless smooth face with short horns; he was a purebred runt from the gutters of the eight level, but he made up for his poor lineage with exceptional insight to the patterns of ether.

An expression like that on a man as knowledgeable as Ornwell was never a good sign.

“The descent is full of ether to all fuck,” Ornwell said. He pressed his palm against the hard levelstone of the descended sky. “There is so much ether. Insurmountable amounts. Enough for levelstone to tremble. And the buildup is still ongoing.”

Iszul pressed his palm against the descent. He couldn’t sense anything. A far stronger presence was the boss monster buzzing on the opposite end of this descent.

The wastes of the fourth level were rather boring. There wasn’t much ether, and even fewer skills. The vegetation consisted of stubborn vines growing out of the abundant nature’s ether in the levelstone below. The air tasted off, and the daylight gems were dim even during the brightest days.

Moving all the way to the destination had taken a considerable amount of time, mostly because King Ingfried ordered a forecaster to be brought along the trip. “This storm season is different,” the King had said. “The prophets see ruins, fallen cities, destroyed landscapes. These storms cannot be left unwatched.”

Iszul didn’t understand the need for examining the fourth level, considering that anything storms could destroy was wasteland. Most of the fourth level was made of levelstone, which surges could never reanimate. Destroy, sometimes, but never reanimate.

“Another storm is building here as well, then,” Iszul said. “The fourth level is as good as ruined. How many storms have we forecasted now?”

“Thirteen storms,” Ornwell said. “And this… thing.”

“Thing?”

“It…” Ornwell licked his lips. “If this is a storm, it is building in an awful

location. Descents, geographically speaking, are hollow cavities within the levels themselves, surrounded entirely by levelstone. If a storm builds up inside a descent, the storm is trapped.”

“That is good,” Iszul said. “The storm will reanimate the dungeon of this descent far faster than idle surges would have.”

Ornwell’s eyes were still wide. “Sir, I do not believe this descent can contain a surge of such caliber. The levelstone is already trembling. Cracks might form. Depending on the size of the cracks… a tsunami might build.”

A tsunami of ether, huh? Iszul thought. Tsunamis hadn’t been seen in centuries. Probably longer than that. Tsunamis and typhoons had destroyed the world once during the Age of Typhoons roughly five thousand years ago. Ever since then, storms and surges had been the gods’ preferred method of bringing skills to the world.

The possibility of another tsunami randomly spawning now was laughably low. “The fourth level has made you skittish, forecaster.”

“You must believe me!” Ornwell blurted out. “This is a catastrophe! The fourth level is not the only level that will be affected. This descent falls deep. The fifth and sixth levels might break as well. We are all in danger!”

Iszul sighed.“You may relay your report to the scribes. If officials deem this a problem, further investigations will be conducted.”

Ornwell’s expression was of pure astonishment, as if the mere possibility that this tsunami would not be investigated was ludicrous. Either way, this forecasting wasn’t Iszul’s problem. He raised a hand, ordering his Knight to the scene.

Sanfin, his knight, rushed to the scene and bowed. Iszul was technically a knight as well, just a higher rank—for when in service of Ingfried, the knights themselves also had knights.

“Take the forecaster’s final report,” Iszul ordered. “Ornwell, do not exaggerate your findings.”

“And the boss, Exalted One?” Sanfin asked.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Nothing I can’t deal with,” Iszul said. “I will rescue whoever is alive. Prepare the wagons for departure.”

“You will clear the facility? On your own?”

“Assistance from weak fighters will increase the chance of casualties,” Iszul said. “Defend the wagons.”

Sanfin appeared disappointed, hearing he wouldn’t be a part of the raid, but he saluted nonetheless. “Yes, sir.”

Iszul left Ornwell with Sanfin. More important than the potential disaster, to Iszul, at least, was the boss monster he’d been ordered to deal with. Iszul filled himself with ether, prepared his legs, then threw himself into a run. A sprint at full speed worked as a fantastic warmup.

He ran parallel to the descent. Ever so slowly, the descent circled inward. To the naked eye, the descent appeared like a solid wall. In reality, most descents were ovals, like anomalies in the levelstone. If Iszul walked around for long enough, he’d eventually reach the opposite end, so long as nothing else blocked the path.

After three minutes of running, the abandoned walls of Zand’s ether facility loomed tall. The assortment of ethereal spikes jutted out from ground level, though a lot of spikes had been snapped. Ethereal auras of monsters wandered around the outer walls like a mindless defense force. Surgehounds, death rabbits, a few limping ether sticks. The usual weak monsters of the fourth level.

Monsters were alerted to Iszul's aura, turning to him like slum rats smelling food.

He unsheathed his sword, but didn’t pause his run. The runes intook his ether, the veins of Black Rose lighting up. The ancient masterpiece of runesmithing, crafted by Wranh Vanhammer himself four hundred years ago, was still as swift as the day Iszul touched it. Three runes, swiftness, mass, sharpness, for a combo that no monster of the fourth level could match.

He cut a surgehound, then activated Warp of Night. A rare skill.

His vision shifted. The skill took control of his body for a fraction of a second, shifting his space in reality to his next target fifteen feet away. He slashed, cutting the rabbit.

Warp of Night was a light teleportation skill, one that pulled its wielder to the next ethereal aura like a strong magnet. Iszul didn’t literally teleport, but to unsuspecting enemies, his movements were as swift as instant. The skill was expensive and quick to exhaust ether. Not that Iszul had ever had problems with his wisps running dim.

He activated the skill eighteen more times within the next three seconds, slashing open every monster outside Zand’s walls.

Bits of Zand’s portcullis lay broken outside its walls. The gates had been blasted open. Green tendril-like wisps of the boss’s aura fluttered within like calm strands of smoky hair. Iszul felt the same way he did when standing outside a boss’s arena. Zand’s Twilight Shaman had likely deemed the facility as its home. The longer it was left to brew, the stronger it would grow.

The boss had been alone for a few weeks prior to destroying Zand, and another two weeks after that. It should have grown to respectable levels.

Iszul activated his remaining two skills, and stepped through the gates.

His senses stormed into life, a gush of intense feelings exploding within him. Ascension of Abysswas his first exalted skill. His skin turned from dark brown to pitch black. Fires of dark blazing ether rose from his shoulders. His eyes glowed ethereal white; the range of colors in his eyesight dwindled, but his perception of depth improved to perfection.

Black Rose enveloped itself in an aura of pure ether from the effects of his second exalted skill. Impurity of Light. The weapon enhancement skill ate the metal of his runesword. Iszul’s hand burned as tens of thousands of wisps poured rapidly into his weapon, all of which concentrated into a white rift in reality.

Thousands of ether escaped from him every second as Iszul stepped into the foggy arena. The Twilight Shaman loomed over him, facing him with deep ethereal eyes of its own.

Iszul lifted his blade, activated Warp of Night, and swung.

He closed the gap in an instant, his sword slashing down with the force of a natural disaster.

The fog was split and pushed to the sides. Suddenly, the arena became clear. The Twilight Shaman froze in place. A slash appeared through its skull.

The boss collapsed into two. A beacon of ether rose from its body. Minions across the arena fell, disintegrating to ether.

Iszul nodded. He deactivated his skills, though kept his body filled with ether to avoid whiplash. He collected ether across the room, his reserves rising to 32,488,376 wisps.

He spotted movement at the back of the facility, at the dungeon entrance. His overhead slash had left a glowing white line from across the levelstone of the descent. The slash had hit the dungeon entrance, cutting open the fortifications that blocked the Twilight Shaman from entering the dungeon.

A demon stepped out. A muscular man wearing the uniform of a Zand’s official. Not a total weakling; he was maxed out with five thousand ether—which didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, but he wasn’t an insect. He appeared shaken by the destruction left behind by Iszul’s swing. Nervously, he stepped out of the dungeon.

“Exalted One? Iszul, the Fourth Knight?”

Iszul nodded. “You might be?”

The man flinched, quickly bowing. “Wheryn Hallman. A Steward of this facility.”

Ah, the man who called us, Iszul thought. They just let anyone run facilities these days?

“The remaining nimrods are in the dungeon,” Wheryn explained. “Around half have died through battles amongst themselves. Food has been scarce. We have ensured to enforce the rule of three hundred ether throughout the catastrophe, though outliers do exist.”

“Each nimrod will be scanned, identified, and examined,” Iszul said. “Slave wagons and Ingfried’s scribes are waiting outside. Hold the nimrods inside for a few hours longer. And take this skill.”

Wheryn glanced at the Twilight Shaman’s corpse. “You have no need for it?”

“It is temporarily yours,” Iszul said. “I have no room for it.”

Nervously, Wheryn collected it. “A rare skill. Summon Knot-Claw.”

“Trash,” Iszul said. “Zand’s nimrods will be transferred to the sixth level and distributed to new facilities. Let’s get this done quickly. Storm season is coming.”

And apparently, an abyss damned tsunami is going to destroy this wasteland of a level.