Despite the certainty he’d displayed with his companions, Elijah was anything but confident that his plan would work. For one, it required him to act in an uncharacteristic manner. Most of the time, he preferred to scout things out and choose the time and location of any battle. However, because of the enemy’s nature, that just wasn’t possible in his current situation. So, instead of approaching in the Shape of Venom, protected from detection beneath Guise of the Unseen, he strode down the hall as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

He even whistled a jaunty tune, settling on Manic Monday by the Bangles. It reminded him of his sister in all the best ways.

A few dozen feet behind him, the others followed, each one more than ready to leap into battle and assist him.

Not that they would get there in time. He’d seen the ashassins move, and he knew precisely how quickly they could cover ground. No – if he screwed things up, he would need to confront his foe alone, at least for a few moments. And that would almost assuredly spell his doom.

“Better not screw up, then,” he muttered to himself.

They’d scoured the keep for hours before finding what they thought was the location of the first node. It was behind a heavy door inscribed with all sorts of runes, so there was no way to be sure, but Elijah and Dat felt that it was the likeliest location. Either that, or it was a treasure vault, in which case, they intended to rob the place blind. Elijah wasn’t a particularly materialistic person, but he had expenses.

And he didn’t think building a hot tub in his grove would come cheap.

As a result, he was more than willing to engage in a fair bit of pillage. Besides, the original owners were all dead and turned to ash, so they probably wouldn’t mind.

Whatever the case, Elijah approached the door with no small degree of caution. If an ashassin really was on the other side, it would see him the second he opened the door. He almost wished he hadn’t been the one to volunteer to confront the thing. Surely Sadie would take his place if he asked. She was the sort to engage in noble sacrifice, right? She’d probably thank him for the opportunity.

But no – Elijah was committed. And if he was even slightly honest with himself, he would have to admit that there was absolutely no chance he would have foisted the responsibility on anyone else. Perhaps he and Sadie had more in common than he’d first thought.

Regardless, because Dat and Kurik had already spent half an hour fouling the enchanted lock holding the door closed, Elijah had no excuses for hesitation. So, without further delay, he glanced back at the others to ensure that they were ready, and once he was certain that they were, he reached out, pulled the great door’s handle, then yanked it open.

The second the door moved, Elijah felt that creeping sensation of being watched. But he didn’t dare give the ashassin an opportunity to get moving. Instead, he engaged the first spell on his list – Calamity. The interior of the room – which was about a hundred feet wide and decorated with a circle of carved pillars – erupted into a furious windstorm. Lightning forked down from the ceiling, and the earth rumbled. Wind blades sliced through the atmosphere, turning the room into a massive grinder.

Predictably, the ashassin was caught in the center of that vortex of destruction. And as Elijah had expected, the damage inflicted by Calamity fouled its stealth. It appeared in the center of the room, being whipped to and fro by the sharp gusts of wind that ripped layers of ash from its elongated body. The moment it was visible, Elijah cast Snaring Roots. The spell took hold, and a thousand orange-glowing vines erupted from the floor. They snaked around the creature’s feet, climbing its legs, and encircling its waist. It tried to free itself, but the ashassin was a creature of Dexterity and magic. It simply didn’t have the strength to break the vines.

That’s when the others arrived. Sadie shouldered past, then aimed an instance of Blade of the Avenger at the creature. The enormous sword exploded from beneath the ashassin, sheering one of its legs off. The limb burst into a cloud of ash, but before the substance could reform, the grey particles were swept away by the furious maelstrom.

That’s when Elijah cast Swarm, then Nature’s Rebuke. The latter wasn’t that effective – the creature didn’t qualify as an unnatural entity – but still, it added to the damage piled upon the thing. As Elijah cast his spells, Dat and Kurik laid into the ashassin with their ranged attacks. Particularly effective were the Witch Hunter’s crossbow bolts, each of which glowed with blue power that interrupted any ability to cast spells or use abilities. However, Kurik’s own arrows, which exploded with green power upon impact, were more than useful as well.

Of course, the ashassin wasn’t going to take the onslaught lying down. It struggled against the vines until it realized it couldn’t escape. Then, it employed its ranged abilities, sending a lance of black ash directly at Sadie. It never reached her, as it was stymied by her personal shield. The ability crashed against the bubble of white light, then exploded into a cloud of ash that was subsequently swept away by Elijah’s still-ongoing Calamity.

He added multiple instances of Storm’s Fury, pushing himself to cast the spell as quickly as possible. The recent improvements to his Soul let him push more ethera through his channels than ever before, but he was still limited by the spell’s innate cast time as well as his lagging cultivation. Even as he continued to cast one spell after another, Elijah knew that he would need to work on that sooner rather than later, lest he fall behind.

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His class was strong. His archetype was rare. But at the end of the day, his attributes were lacking compared to some others. His solution to that issue was cultivation, and so far, it had worked well enough. As far as he could tell, in that facet of his development, he was ahead of just about anyone else on Earth. Even the non-natives were incapable of keeping up with him – at least based on what he knew. So, following that, it was necessary that he play to his strengths.

But that wasn’t a problem that could be solved in a day. In more than five years since the world’s transformation, he’d only made a handful of advances in cultivation. And while that pace of improvement set him apart from many others, it was still slow. Going forward, it would only get more difficult. According to some of the guides he’d read – and stories he’d heard from non-natives – the higher stages of cultivation often took millennia to conquer.

If he wanted to maintain his advantage, he couldn’t let up. But he also needed to be patient. In any case, in the middle of a battle against a monster that could easily turn them all to ash probably wasn’t the best time to think about such things. Even when it seemed entirely confined by Elijah’s roots, the creature was incredibly dangerous.

So, he pushed himself to continue casting, adding two more instances of Swarm and Calamity – with dozens of casts of Storm’s Fury in between – before, at last, Dat finished it with a glowing white crossbow bolt to its chest. The thing burst into white flames, and when they winked out a second later, nothing of the monster remained.

“Did you just burn ash?” asked Elijah.

“Called Purifying Shot. Kind of like an execute, you know? It gets close to death, and I can finish something like that thing off,” Dat said. “Doesn’t work against people, though. Or beasts. Just monsters and creatures from other planes. Like that ashassin.”

“Undead, too?”

“Yeah, bro. That’s why I took it as an evolution.”

“Fair enough.”

After that, Elijah and Sadie approached the center of the room where a dais rested. Upon that platform flickered a red flame.

“How do we put it –”

Elijah had already summoned Healing Rain. Initially, the drops of precipitation only sizzled in the fire, but after a few seconds, the deluge managed to douse it. That act elicted a slight rumble, but otherwise, there was no sign that the enchantment had been affected.

“I guess that works,” Sadie said.

“Straightforward seemed the best solution,” Elijah pointed out.

Now that they had proven the viability of their plan, Elijah and his companions set off to find the other nodes. In the end, it wasn’t a difficult task. The keep, while expansive, wasn’t a collection of maze-like halls. Instead, it followed a logical pattern that they had no issues following. Still, it was by far the largest building Elijah had ever seen, and he suspected that it occupied the entire mountain. So, while not terribly difficult, finding the nodes took quite some time.

The second ashassin went down just as easily as the first, but the third location played host to two of the creatures. Still, after the initial surprise of facing a pair of opponents wore off, the fight went much the same as the previous battles. The fourth, though, was much more difficult. Dat claimed it was because the lone ashassin guarding that node was of a much higher level, which tracked with what Elijah felt. It wasn’t confined by Elijah’s Snaring Roots, which meant that their questions about whether they could survive its touch were soon answered.

Fortunately, it went for Sadie. Anyone else would have died. Even Elijah would have succumbed, but due to the Crusader’s high Constitution, she managed to withstand the creature’s touch long enough for Ron and Elijah to hit her with a barrage of healing energy. Still, she almost lost that battle as her hand turned a sickly gray and bits began to flake away. For a long few moments, the two forces – ash and vital energy – warred to a standstill, but then, Elijah’s Nature’s Bloom spell bloomed, tipping the balance against the ash. It faded soon after.

To her credit, Sadie had barely even acknowledged that she was on the verge of, at the very least, losing her arm. Instead, she fought on, which was why the ashassin fell only a few minutes later. Still, it was a close call, and if any of them had needed a reminder of the stakes, that close brush with death definitely served that particular purpose.

After that, the fifth node, which ended up being a battle against four of the monsters, didn’t seem so difficult. Certainly, it was dicey, and there were a couple of close calls, but the near-death experience had left them all uniquely focused, which was all that was necessary to overcome the obstacle.

However, it also marked the point where they needed to make a decision. In the back of his mind, Elijah had hoped that the choice would be taken out of his hands. It was possible that the ashassins would prove so powerful that defeating more than was absolutely necessary would be out of the question. Yet, that was not the case. The group was more than capable of keeping going until all seven nodes were broken.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, bro.”

Elijah was of two minds. Implied in his deal with the giants was that he would free them if he could. But that ignored the danger of doing so, and he found himself agreeing with Dat’s assessment. It wasn’t a good idea.

“If we don’t do this, I think it’ll come back and bite us later,” Elijah said. Then, he spoke over Sadie’s objection, adding, “Not in this challenge. Probably not in the Trial. But I’ve begun to think about things a little differently than before. Earth is isolated right now, but how long is that going to last? Eventually, we’re going to find ourselves dealing with other planets. And maybe, other planes like Ignis. We need to be conscious of the reputation we cultivate with the rest of the multiverse. To that end, I say we destroy the other two nodes.”

“I’m with Elijah,” Kurik said.

“It makes sense to me,” Ron agreed.

Sadie shook her head. “This is too dangerous.”

“I already said what I think.”

“Three against two,” Elijah said. “Assuming we’re approaching this democratically. But here’s the thing – I don’t want to do it like this. So, if you two really don’t want to do this, we won’t. I just think you should rethink your stances.”

Sadie frowned. For a moment, Elijah thought she was going to scream at him. Then, suddenly, her face lost its expression and she muttered, “Why did you have to be reasonable about it? Fine. We destroy the other nodes.”

Dat, of course, followed her lead. And just like that, they were set on finishing the job. Elijah knew he should have been satisfied with that, but he was more confused than anything. Still, he managed to corral his focus so that they could complete the task they’d been given.

The final two nodes proved to be the most difficult so far, with both guarded by a pair of the stronger ashassins. But in the end, Elijah and his companions prevailed. When they finally doused the last flame, the earth gave a slight shake. But otherwise, nothing happened.

Until they reached the cavern containing the crisscrossing bridges. That was when they saw that a war had broken out between the giants.