Zoe landed hard, but she didn’t wait around before struggling back up to her feet. Stumbling around in a full circle, she quickly took stock of the current situation. Given that she could actually breathe again and physics wasn’t hell-bent on crushing her from all directions, she stopped channeling {Kinetic Enhancement}. She continued fueling {Corrupt Wound}, of course. She was still pretty injured. Her ‘respite’ from the disastrous combat hadn’t been very long at all.

The first thing Zoe prioritized was the enormous kraken-thing. Fortunately—or perhaps worryingly—it was now slipping back underwater, leaving nothing but a mirror-smooth, rippling black pool behind them.

Seeing as how she wasn’t in immediate danger of being whipped around again, Zoe moved on to her second priority—the paladin.

Stumbling forward across the smoothly carved, dark stone floor, she staggered towards her target. The other woman had yet to rise to her own feet, though she was obviously still alive. Her armor had now lost almost all of its luster—and it was pretty physically battered as well. Zoe doubted it would give much more protection that sheets of scrap metal.

Well, I mean, that’s still actually a decent amount of protection.

Of course, the paladin wasn’t in such bad shape that she wasn’t aware of Zoe’s approach. Gritting her teeth, the holy warrior rolled fully onto her stomach and slowly heaved herself up, glaring at Zoe.

On one hand, Zoe was tempted to try to flee. After all, in such a condition, her enemy was unlikely to give a serious pursuit—she would probably focus more on her own survival than on still trying to take out Zoe.

But on the other three hands, Zoe decided that it would be better to finish it off now, while the paladin was at what was probably her very weakest. Given how badly Zoe had lost up until the kraken snatched away both of them, it didn’t seem like she’d get a better chance than this.

And I doubt these people will suddenly start leaving me alone. And while killing even more paladins was probably a bad strategy, this particular one was now definitely aware of her existence specifically. Yeah, it’s time to finish this.

Also, I’m glad that I decided not to try to struggle against that thing. It was pretty obvious from the intermittent bursts of underwater magic that the paladin had been continuing to put up a fight—while at the same time, Zoe had instead focused on recovering her own strength. That will be a good lesson to remember.

Staggering close enough to put Zoe’s {Kinetic Dash} into range, she narrowed her eyes as the paladin stretched out one hand. A faint, swirling dance of pale gold and silver particles began to coalesce in her palm. Jesus fucking Christ, she’s still going…

While the gathering magic didn’t give Zoe as an intense feeling as the now-shattered spear, both {Predator’s Eyes} and {Arcane Manipulation} told her that whatever it was, it wasn’t just a flashy bluff. Even with how much she had recovered, it made Zoe nervous.

She hesitated.

The paladin narrowed her eyes.

Zoe quite literally tucked her tail and fled.

Sprinting away from the paladin and the still-rippling pool of inky-black water, Zoe headed deeper into what was clearly an artificial construction. While half of the far more spacious, deep-underground chamber look completely natural, the rest was clearly of intelligent design. While the dark pool covered one entire half of the ground, the other half was a smoothly carved—but not quite polished—plaza of dark stone, engraved with a sparse, minimal geometric pattern.

While stalactites and glowing, drooping moss hung above the water, the wall that Zoe was headed towards ended in a large central fountain flanked by two wide staircases leading up into dark passageways guarded by imposing columns.

Above the fountain was what looked like to be a colorful mosaic or mural—but Zoe didn’t pay any attention to figuring out what it was supposed to depict. Just gotta get away.

While she didn’t actually think that whatever attack the paladin was preparing would be enough to disable her, she didn’t want to risk it. Going back on her prior reasoning, Zoe began re-evaluating her entire strategy of conflict in this world.

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In just four days, she had gone from being summoned to breaking through level thirty-three and awakening a new, powerful path. And then, she came out victorious over someone nearly twice her level. Yeah, I don’t think that’s exactly normal.

While just moments ago, Zoe had been worried about re-encountering the same paladin later, once the other woman had fully recovered, she now realized that a later encounter was likely to go the complete opposite direction. At the rate of growth she was now capable of, it probably wouldn’t even take her that long to reach her current opponent’s league of power. Well, I might be getting a little ahead of myself there—but also, it’s kind of true.

Skipping up the right set of stairs, Zoe darted into the darkness of the columns. Leaning back against one of them, she peeked her head back out and looked back at the pool and the paladin. There was no longer any sign of the kraken. For the paladin’s part, she was now sitting up, seemingly taking deep breaths and doing something to steady herself. After a moment, she opened her eyes, scanning the whole area.

For a precious few seconds, she seemed to stare directly at Zoe. But then she moved on, doing the same to the adjacent passage, and Zoe surmised that she was just looking for any signs of her in the darkness. Looking away, Zoe leaned back on the column again.

To be fair, a big part of the reason I’ve been progressing so quickly is the constant combat and insane situations I kept finding myself in. After all, she had only gained a single level after defeating the astral knight from the airship. This stood in stark contrast to the thirty-four levels she had gained in a roughly equal amount of time before that.

Well yeah, I’ll still need to push myself, but surely there are smarter, more careful ways to go about it. There’s no doubt that I’ll keep fighting, but any time I get more control, I should probably prepare more effectively and ‘pick my targets,’ so to speak. The most reward for the least effort…

Zoe glanced back at the paladin, who had now finally risen to her feet and was now slowly strolling towards her. She seemed to be more interested in the stately architecture and the now-obscured mural than the demon in the shadows, though. Zoe’s eyes widened, and she analyzed the holy warrior again.

{Paladin of Lux (Purity of Grace) - 128}

Wait a minute—she’s the highest level person I’ve ever seen, probably in some stage of the—what was it? Immortal realm? So she’s super powerful, but ALSO, she’s probably—definitely—super weakened right now. By ME.

Zoe sighed. I think I just chickened out of some easy levels. Shaking her head, she quickly darted deeper into the passageway. The floor here was made of large, white and black checkered tiles. there was a high, vaulted ceiling, illuminated by a dim, pale light which Zoe couldn’t identify with any particular origin. Unlike the open cavern behind, it seemed pretty dusty.

Here and there, there were also archways leading between the two adjacent hallways. Zoe checked her mana.

Mana: 149 / 350

Reservoir: 20 / 700

Also, while she still felt like total crap, she wasn’t in such bad shape that she couldn’t exert herself at least a little. Silently groaning, Zoe began attempting to scale one of the mighty columns. Given her new strategy and the almost missed opportunity of the nearby paladin, Zoe figured that a proper ambush was in order.

She slid down the surprisingly slick stone several times. Disproportionately frustrated, Zoe used {Kinetic Dash} to zip straight up, just barely managing to catch onto a thin ledge at the cap of the column with the tips of her claws. Shuddering slightly, she continued to pull herself up until she could sort of roll to the side and push herself against an almost-ledge that ran along the whole bottom of the vaulted ceiling.

And now we wait.

Zoe decided that she wasn’t going to just drop down immediately. Not only did that seem a bit bold—she didn’t even know for sure which hallway her enemy was going to pick. No, she was going to wait until she passed, drop back down, and follow from behind.

I think I like my new reasoning about progression, but I was definitely a little hasty in running away there. Nodding to herself, Zoe contented herself to focus on recovering both her health and her mana.

And so she waited. And waited, and continued to wait. After sometime between five and ten minutes, Zoe decided that something was definitely not going according to plan, and so she begrudgingly slid back down and crept back towards the cavern with the pool.

There was no sign of the paladin. Nor was their any lingering sign of the unknown kraken-thing either. Zoe tilted her head at that, considering the now-still water. Wait, why would a monster grab both of us, not hurt either—even while one was still fighting—then just deposit us here and leave?

It didn’t make sense, and so Zoe didn’t like it. That’s definitely suspicious.

Carefully venturing back down the steps, Zoe scanned the area for any sign of, well, anything. It took her embarrassingly long to turn back towards the cathedral-like edifice. When she did, she glared at the mural. Or rather, the missing piece of it, where stone had slid aside to reveal a third, smaller, but more illuminated passageway. Pale, but multicolored torches silently flickered in regularly placed sconces. Zoe practically fumed. Goddamned secret passageway.

After sending one more glare back at the gleaming black water, she splashed through the shallow fountain and climbed up into the new corridor. There was no apparent end to it in sight, but she couldn’t see any sign of anyone else up ahead, either. Deflating from her momentary rage, Zoe set off while keeping her detection abilities alert.

At least I still ended up following behind her.

Probably.