CHAPTER 98.

Over a month has passed since my attempted exile in the Capital of Cytel…

And a month passed since I learned the way to get to Ill’hine…

Amber closed her eyes remembering the conversation.

* * *

“We are here to tell you how to get to Ill’hine,” Sid’fril said with a scowl.

“Oh.”

That’s all Amber could say at the purple Primordial Spirit that had taught her Essence ⁠— albeit lazily ⁠— having just met him somewhat recently, he still liked her but for an odd reason. And that was because she stood up to him when he captured her in his ploy to get back the Cube of Stars. He had also imprisoned Asil, the elf who had mentored her thoroughly in the forms of Essence. He also happened to hate her other two Primordial Spirit friends.

Amber blinked for a moment, not expecting the information.

“Right, what is this about the Gate of Stars? And do you guys have to cross it too?”

“Of course not,” Val’leri laughed.

She was the red Primordial Spirit that Amber had met when ascending the tower near the capital, and she was Ax’thra’s friend. She was also the Primordial Spirit that had gotten her in trouble with the knights and led to eventually discovering Oracle’s and the other demon worshippers’ plan to summon a demon into the capital to destroy it.

And from stopping that, she had gotten the Cursewelder ⁠— a sword made by Val’leri and also made for curse bearers.

“Once you reach apotheosis it’s not too difficult to cross between realms, exhausting for a new god perhaps,” Sid’fril mused. “However, we won’t tell you about the process to become god at all.”

Amber raised her brow. “Why not?”

“Aside from the fact that we are not here to talk about that, there is also another fact.” Val’leri smiled. “That’d be boring.”

That was the same kind of reply her first friend, Ax’thra, would have given her, which made Amber sigh.

“So, where can I find this gate?”

Sid’fril turned and grinned at her before dropping a very unexpected answer.

“At the end of the world, of course.”

* * *

Far to the north, far beyond Sarliane and far beyond the main continent there is a land, or rather a lack thereof. For it is where the world ends.

There, a wide chasm that is thousands of kilometers wide resides, a black abyss that swallows light itself. Known as the End, it is the land farthest from the stars and the Land of Demons. A land that has been further destroyed and shattered with time, but also a land that has been victim to the cruel changes that Vir has undergone. And it is where the strongest monsters in all of Vir thrive.

Long before the Era of Daybreak, the lands were plagued by creatures of the night, but that was until one god descended and began to cull these monsters. And soon other gods followed, bringing forth the Era of Daybreak and a long period of prosperity where the people of the world turned to the divine beings for help.

And to honor the first god a tower was built in the place he manifested. The tower went on to touch the stars themselves for it was meant to represent the first god’s greatness and magnificent beauty, and following its completion, the land was declared to be holy and pure. And with it came the Era of Gods, being heralded by the implementation of the System itself in Vir.

And for a millennia everything was peaceful, but eventually the Holy Land was attacked. The first god had a mortal enemy who held a grudge over a time long past. The First Demon. Full of rage and resentment for the world and creation of the first god, the being of red skin and horns made its attack and with it the Holy Land was destroyed⁠— the world itself was cracked and broken creating a great chasm and turning it into a Land of Demons. Drawing the strongest monsters in the world to it, it became a no man’s land.

In due time the demon was repelled, and unable to bear their failures the first god left, marking the end of the Era of Gods. Yet, he still left a gate for humanity’s champions to go through, all to assist him in the felling of the First Demon and help him take revenge for the cruel fate Vir had suffered.

But even with the Holy Land having been destroyed, and with the passage of time bringing further ruination to the once great land, the Ebony Tower still stood. Even after being consumed by monsters, even after witnessing many battles between gods, it remained standing because it was a divine structure. The tallest man-made structure in all of Vir, and the first Great Dungeon.

Even with it being submerged deep into the abyss, it was tall enough to reach the gods and their land. And there, at the top of that grand tower the Gate of Stars lays, dormant for the next mortal to go to the world of gods, where the First will welcome them with open arms for their achievements, receiving them personally and granting them a blessing as well as the secret to god-hood.

In the history of Vir, the Gate of Stars has been opened five times. Each individual that crossed it was as stellar and strong as the last, each of their names infamous or famous throughout history, lauded as the humans to have touched the gods. And yet, the champions of humanity had yet to slay the First Demon, the Great Demon God, and the one that brought the Era of Gods to an end.

And I was supposed to be the sixth champion of humanity, or something…

A sigh left Amber. In the end, the Land of Demons, the End, the end of the world was the most dangerous land in all of Vir, and to go there she had to be strong. Truly strong. That place was where the highest leveled humans in the world dwelled, where heroes were made and where legends went to die.

Turns out going to Ill’hine wasn’t all that difficult, you just had to use Essence on the Gate of Stars, the problem was going through the Ebony Tower, and even reaching it in the first place. For even old primordials resided there, testing those that wished to reach the heights of power and ascend beyond that.

Of course there was also another option for her.

“And is that truly the only way to reach Ill’hine?” Amber asked, frowning. “It sounds like something that will take me years to do even when I reach the Ebony Tower.”

“You can always beg me to take you there,” Sid’fril jokingly suggested.

Amber turned to Val’leri only for her to shake her head.

“Even if you beg me I wouldn’t take you, at most I’d consider keeping you company during your travels inside the tower. Not like my presence there would make a difference.”

All things considered, her only apprehension in regards to going to Ill’hine was how time consuming it would be for her to reach the top of the aforementioned tower, but maybe she was greatly exaggerating how dull it would be. There were other primordial spirits there after all and legends of humanity there.

Perhaps Ishtar is there… No, he was way too old for that⁠— but he most definitely had traveled through there.

A sigh left her. A lot had happened since she left the Val’leri’s tower a few months ago. First came being interrogated by a lot of knights wondering who she even was and other things, which ended up with her revealing about what had happened with Liz’s sister, Velda ⁠— who was kidnapped by demon worshippers to sacrifice her ⁠— which led to her being interrogated about this specific subject.

Following that, the king, Octavius III, offered her Cursewelder as a reward to help capture these people. Cursewelder being a sword made by the Primordial Spirit herself, Val’leri, and made for curse bearers specifically.

After fighting the Server of Chaos a second time, killing demons, and being declared the hero of the capital, she ended up sparring with the knights and losing against Princess Aurelia’s personal knight ⁠— Charles ⁠— which was mainly due to the fact she was holding back.

Then I met Liz and Velda again. Amber smiled. And got summoned by its lord because of a monster I adopted on the way to Laria…

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Amber remembered Deer, how cute she had been when she was low level; how she fed it and how she picked her up and took her along to level, meeting Cecile the merchant in the process.

Who was now traveling with her.

For a moment she was happy, but then remembered what happened on the trip with Cecile to the Great Desert. It was a fucking mess.

Not only was there a plague going around; it had been created by a warmonger nation and a poor necromancer ⁠— Ian ⁠— who had just wanted to revive his wife got caught in the conflict. Amber had helped him to subjugate the source of the plague, which turned out to be his wife, and immediately after the members of the Arcane Council showed up looking for the Cube of Stars.

And Ian gave his life to let me escape…

After, she met Sid’fril, the Primordial Spirit only for him to throw her into the Grand Dungeon of Torl ⁠— which was also his tower ⁠— after befriending him. Before that he just planned to kill her and it was only through a very frustrating conversation that he became her friend.

Amber looked over at Asil, who was sleeping on the horse-pulled cart they were on. He had white long hair, and even though he had regained a lot of muscle, he still looked emaciated.

He was an elf⁠— the first one she had ever seen⁠— and he was ancient. Not only that but he was privy to the secrets of Ill’hine, because he had once been a powerful Essence user. And he was her mentor, or had been her mentor.

All in all, she quite liked him even if he suffered trauma for what Sid’fril had done to him; namely destroying his Essence core and imprisoning him for over two centuries. And that part, she didn’t quite know how she felt about it after all this time.

After learning Essence from him, she defeated an incredibly strong Abyssal Monster, where she ignited her core, advanced it, and advanced her class and Legacy Branch ⁠— and that’s where she learned of Ishtar’s existence. An exiled emperor, and more importantly a Cursed Berserker just like her.

Following that, she left the Grand Dungeon only to find a literal war inside the Great Desert, one she couldn’t exactly stop. So she fought the members of the Arcane Council, won and left the Great Desert with Cecile, Asil and a bunch of refugees, whom they took to Cytel.

Then, after settling them and meeting with Velda ⁠in the wilderness — Liz’s sister ⁠— and having fun with Deer, she returned only to find something unexpected.

I had pissed off the nobles and they tried to exile me… Amber still frowned at that thought to this day.

A whole assembly was called because of that and Val’leri and Sid’fril ended up interfering, mainly because she had decided to self-exile due to not wanting to cause King Octavius III any more trouble.

And right after that an assassin showed up to kill her only to… ultimately recruit her into his organization, and naturally she accepted. Well, not without reason, she was prejudiced against the idea, but accepted due to the resources and information that were offered.

It was great information.

From it she learned quite a lot. She learned that Dargon was in some base in the south of Cytel near the sea⁠— so it wasn’t an issue for now. She also learned that the average level of the Sacred Forest was three hundred. Although, it wasn’t because of monsters, it was due to the elves there. As for leveling…? That was going to be a bit troublesome in the Sacred Forest, but Amber figured it would still be useful to learn magic to expand on her Essence use.

Besides, she was mostly interested in learning of the Exiled Emperor of Arcase, Ishtar. A man who had lived well over twenty thousand years ago. According to Remmel ⁠— the assassin that had turned into her boss ⁠— she could find some information about him in the Sacred Forest and in Lathyzia, the elven continent.

So for now, she would get better with Essence, maybe train her skills and find out more about the Cursed Berserkers of the past.

As for who had requested to kill her? Well, it was one of the nobles that had pushed by her exile and that had been beaten up by her ⁠— in all honesty she didn’t care too much about the kill request. But there was one thing that bothered her among the information she had received, and it was the organization that Remmel had hinted at wanting her head during their meeting.

The Saints of Truth.

Apparently, it was a whole organization dedicated to hunting down Cursebearers, and they would probably come after her soon enough. They didn’t have any particular way to dress, just a tattoo of two wings on their chests; as far as identification went; according to Remmel anyway.

Or maybe they were already hunting me down.

Amber let out a breath and looked at the vast bright azure welkin above, the sparse clouds decorating it to create a peaceful and perfect day. Their travels had been calm so farm, aside from dealing with some monsters here and there ⁠— that basically instantly died ⁠— nothing much had happened.

Turns out, a level 30 monster didn’t stand a chance against a level 160 and a level 140, go figure, but even more surprisingly they still occasionally picked fights over their food, choosing food over survival. Sometimes she did feed them given they approached carefully, other times they attacked and ended up dead.

Finally, she turned to Cecile ⁠— given Asil was asleep ⁠— and spoke.

“Say, Cecile, this is a bit of a weird time to ask, but how is the Sacred Forest?”

Cecile, the purple haired merchant glanced back. “Well, it is a secluded nation I suppose, and with the war it might be even harder to access.” She turned to the road. “We did hear about something happening in the Republic of Mercenaries too.”

“We did,” Amber agreed.

“Has the Obsidian Rose not told you anything yet?” Cecile asked. “Here I thought the infamous organization would be more helpful given how hard that man tried to recruit you.”

Amber had filled in Cecile and Asil on her encounter with the assassin, she had also filled them in a bit on what happened during the exile meeting, but omitted some core details. She didn’t really want everyone to know that information; for now Liz and the king were the only ones. Maybe Asil too, given he knew of Ill’hine.

“I haven’t gotten anything.” Amber took out the ring from her storage and looked at it. “And to think he made such a show when giving me this.”

Cecile chuckled. “I still find it hard to believe an elite assassin did that, but I suppose that high level people are eccentric by nature. Or maybe he is just that eccentric.”

“Is that so?” Amber raised her brow.

“Well, you are high level and are eccentric.” She glanced back with a grin before pondering. “Though aren’t you like thirty?”

“Twenty-one.”

She blinked. “Huh… I guess I misremembered, but you did tell me before⁠— wait have you been killing things since you were ten or something?”

Amber frowned. “No, I’ve only been doing this for one year.”

“Huh, what?!”

“You didn’t know?”

“No?” Cecile asked incredulously. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

Amber looked at her confused. “Didn’t I tell you a lot about my adventures when we traveled to the Great Desert?”

“Yeah but I assumed it was over years, not over a single damn year.” She sighed. “Or maybe it was so obvious that it was over a year that I didn’t even register it and just lied to myself.”

Her shoulders slumped and Amber smiled.

“You’ll level up in no time.”

She snorted. “Unlike you, no amount of monster kills level me up so it’s pointless.”

[Distinguished Merchant. Lvl. 85]

Oh. She levels up from trades, and Appraisal now shows her as a merchant, interesting.

“Well, I’m assuming you make experience proportional to how hard and how high the value of the trade was, so maybe I can offer you to meet some primordial spirits so you can meet up with them.”

“Asil did tell me you were friends with them…” For some reason she seemed even more down. “It’s fine, I shall appreciate your greatness from afar, Amber.”

“Uh… sure?”

Cecile shook her head and paused looking ahead.

“Oh, we’ve arrived.”

Amber glanced over, and a large sprawling city lay before them. It had quite a few merchant carts on it, and it was just as big as Laria. The sight made Amber was slightly excited⁠— she hadn’t been in a town or city for two weeks now after all.

She turned and with a gust of wind woke Asil up.

“What is…” And he paused seeing the city. “Ah, we are here.”

“Indeed, now get covered,” Cecile said, throwing over a cloak at the elf.

“Still, why are we taking this detour again?” Asil asked.

“I have to buy some essential stuff to make our journey smoother,” Cecile said. “And by that I mean make the journey smoother for me and get new rings of protection because they all got destroyed in the Great Desert.”

“Sure,” Amber agreed simply.

* * *

And with that, they went into the city. Cecile went off to buy her stuff after they rented a room inside the inn. And Amber didn’t do much aside from mess around with Essence, all while Asil took a look at her stuff. Both of them stayed inside the room.

“You are very bad with lightning. Didn’t you fight that Arcane Council guy?”

“Yeah and he would’ve killed me,” Amber agreed. “But even then I still find it hard.”

I think his name was… Zodos? Amber scrunched her brows trying to remember.

“Do you need me to show you again?” he asked, his ears twitching with some anticipation.

Amber nodded slowly, moving her hand. “You really like using my Essence don’t you?”

He smiled, grabbing it. “Your Essence is… pure. A lot more refined than what your core advancement level suggests.”

“What does that mean?”

A sigh left Asil. “It means it’s more efficient and can get more done with less.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, I’ll take some now⁠—”

And then, Amber felt the Ring of the Obsidian Rose vibrate.

“Wait.”

Asil paused as a piece of paper appeared on top of her held hand, landing on Asil’s backhand. It was a communication from the Obsidian Rose. News about the Republic of Mercenaries probably. She grabbed the paper.

“What is it?” he asked, raising his brows. “Something important from the assassin?”

“Probably just some news,” Amber said, holding up the paper to look at it.

There is a member of the Arcane Council in the City of Vaurel, it’s on the east side of Cytel on the way to the Sacred Forest, he is above level 300, avoid this city.

⁠— Your beloved, Remmel.

She paused, looking up from the paper. “Asil, what city is this?”

He tilted his head, confused. “I believe Cecile called it Vaurel, why?”

Oh. And a heavy sigh left her.

“A member of the Arcane Council is here.”

Asil in response, froze.