“Spot anything?” Captain Francis asked me as I looked out over the landscape quickly moving underneath us. The light source had come up just as we entered no man’s land. It was timed quite well, with Captain Francis showing his strong understanding of the situation and the airship’s speed.

“Still no people. Nothing that could be that monster either. I have no idea how it can have such a large range,” I replied. It was something that had been bugging me for a while.

“Maybe a skill?” Captain Francis suggested.

“Maybe. But you are talking about territory that would take a full day to cross in an airship,” I replied.

“Well, maybe the monster rotates and people self-destruct,” he offered.

“That doesn’t make sense since they can always follow the roads,” I countered.

“Ah, but there is only one road leaving to another city. The road to Meech. There is no road between the Southern cities and the Empire of the Nile, at least based on the maps we saw. Even then you are talking about over 60 to 80 miles worth of traveling. People would need supplies and they don’t have the points,” Captain Francis offered up.

It was a reasonable explanation. I thought about how I would handle the situation. The first step would be to panic, and then I would probably die. Who would just follow a random road. And even if they got to Meech, they were screwed regardless.

The Indian Sultanate had taken an even more isolationist policy than the Leader. They were content to live in their own little bubble as everything else around them collapsed. It was like an animal sticking their head into the sand hoping the problem would disappear if they weren’t looking at it.

This was stupid and illogical, but that was the problem with people, including myself, not everything was logical. Even if someone made the perfect decisions, they had no chance. The distances were too far on foot without supplies. If they were in the Southern cities they had absolutely no chance. I would say only people arriving in New Mumbai, which we were headed towards, had a chance to get to Meech about 40 miles to the North.

It was interesting that Meech meant sword in Russian and death in Hindi. At least that was what Fiyaz had indicated. The fact that the city had such a name was a big glaring clue that something was rotten at its core, probably a sword.

Well once the monster was dead, I would try and flush the sword out from wherever it was hiding in its chosen city. Perhaps it might fully disappear when the monster it kept trying to kill was wiped out. I didn’t think that would happen, but I could hope.

Personally, I would lock something like that sword up in the deepest darkest basement I could find. Anything that messed with the mind of a person, was a big no from me. I had enough experience with curse damage, tumors, and other horrors to never want to experience such things again.

I scanned the road in front of us again, no one and I saw monsters hanging off in the distance, reorient towards the airship, but then give up. Low level monsters didn’t chase very far. Then I realized a weakness of the super monster.

The energy limit that was imposed on lower-level zones. That was why Michelle couldn’t just keep out level 6 and level 7 monsters all the time in low level zones. Once they hit level 5, they quickly began to get weaker and weaker. If the super monster was above level 5, which it definitely was. Then it would have issues sticking around for a long time in a low-level zone.

If we couldn’t kill it, we had to stop it from escaping. A long drawn-out battle would be in my favor. I wasn’t going to try that, but it was good to know that a long period of time wasn’t my weakness, but the monster’s weakness. The same was probably true for the sword as well, maybe. It was hard to say since high level enchantments didn’t stop working even in low level zones.

Well, the sword would eventually show up in front of me and then I would destroy it. No sense in taking a risk of it coming back and I wanted revenge for what it had done to the previous Crystal Vortex and Doctor Katz.

“City ahead, looks like New Mumbai,” Captain Francis said while he stretched. We were going slow enough to speak even with the air rushing past us.

“Much faster than walking,” I said while looking below and trying to look above. The cloth bag of the airship was in the way. “Spin please?” Captain Francis began to spin and tilt the airship slightly, so I could check above and behind us. There were no flying monsters. I scanned again, and nothing.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“No flying monsters,” I replied, and he rotated the airship to face fully backward and be level again. Another good thing about a smaller airship was that we could tilt it with less hassle than a larger one. Captain Francis began to slow the airship down. We were above the height of the city walls so we wouldn’t crash thankfully. He had more than enough experience and spatial awareness to fly without issues.

“That is good, I tried to keep us low enough,” Captain Francis said with pride in his voice. He really was a master of airship flying. While I had given airships a couple of spins, I was needed to fight off the flying monsters.

“Remember when we tried to go vertical to fight them,” I said, and he shook his head at that with a slightly amused chuckle.

“That was a mistake. Anything more than forty-five degrees is too risky and even thirty degrees should be the limit,” he replied.

“But you can’t deny that it was exciting,” I countered.

“I think we have had a lot of excitement. Unless you are thinking of making a tower run?” he asked me.

“Reading my mind now?” I replied with a smile as we went past the wall of the city.

“Not really. I just know how you think. I notice you have been quite happy ever since you saw that map,” Captain Francis said.

“I was just thinking about how I have won. There is nothing left that can threaten me,” I replied.

“Wouldn’t that be a red flag statement, as you like to point out?” he asked me.

“Maybe, but if something is going to happen, it will happen. Jinxing things like that is just superstition. Magic without rules is just chaos and randomness. Whatever energy magic the Almighty System has, is clearly structured. Saying that humans aren’t a threat anymore is just a factual observation. Even if it does come with a lot of red flags,” I joked.

“Well, we are here. Angling slightly downwards to get better view directly below us and putting us in a slight spin,” he added.

“That will be burning points,” I replied.

“Some, but nothing we can’t handle for at least twenty days while getting to a level 5 zone to refuel. I recommend a ten-day operational timeframe, as I have already suggested.” Food was the biggest concern, since we only had limited room on the Crystal Vortex.

Everyone else began to come out of their respective rooms and we had a meal. It really was cramped up here. Michelle was already at work summoning monsters and sending them off to scout. She had collected a lot of low-level crystals after we had left the Leader in order to deploy a lot of disposable scouts. Something about tying off the tether, or having it loop back in on itself.

Regardless, she didn’t want to use her skills but another kind of summoning to try and flush out the monster. She had ideas on how to stop what was done to her from the previous time. Her knowledge of summoning was quite in depth, far more than mine.

A lot of the work with energy was mental, and done by intuition. There were mental steps people had to take. While many of the basic principles could easily be taught, the more complex one’s had to be learned first hand. This was one major area where book learning, or even a teacher just wouldn’t cut it. A person had to learn on their own.

Stats, made things easier in this regard. Lots of little tricks and not so little tricks became easier with a higher Channel stat. I kept an eye out while eating as did many other people. The tilt was slightly annoying, but nothing that wasn’t hard to handle while the airship was still.

“Over there,” a soldier said and pointed. I went over to take a look. “Behind that building.”

Well time to check things out personally and purchase a Regional Map building. I leapt off the airship, plummeting towards the ground. Air Burst. I used the skill a couple more times to adjust my trajectory and land in front of the building.

“Hello?” I heard a voice call out. I leapt down off the building to the street level.

“Who are you?” I asked back. A haggard looking face came out of the building. I recognized that armor, those clothes. I immediately went on guard.

“Michael?” the man that looked like Doctor Katz asked.

“Yes. Challenge question. What is the eastern most city of the Empire?” I asked.

“East Bastion, but what you really want to hear is Purgatory, since it is the center of everything,” he replied and I nodded slowly at that. “How many thefts are too many?” he asked me back.

“Two too many. But the real answer is anything more than zero,” I replied and the tension began to leave me. “How are you alive?” I asked in shock.

“Somehow, I ended up stuck in a tree in the jungle. Who else survived?” he asked.

“Lost soldiers and most of the team Clarissa sent with us. But Michelle, Captain Francis and Fiyaz are still alive,” I replied.

“I am glad you are here. I didn’t know how much longer I could mentally hold out. There is a monster. I have been keeping ahead of it, but it is wearing me down. Without hiding in a building, there was no way I could get any rest.”

“Come on. Let’s get you back up to the airship. A bit small, but you can have a room. You need a restoration?” I asked.

“Just sleep,” he replied. I nodded at this and held out an arm. I had been inspecting his energy the entire time. It really was Doctor Katz. He was alive. Joy, hope, and other unfamiliar feelings rushed through me. I had been so used to people dying, that I had written him off. Shame hit me, thinking he had died and not looking for him in the jungle.

Mentally I apologized to him. He put an arm around my shoulder, while I did the same. I then kicked off the ground. Air Burst. It took a little bit of work, but I maneuvered us back up to the airship. “Look who I found,” I said after I landed.

There were cheers and smiles at the return of Doctor Katz. The grim mood that had been hanging over the team since the original Crystal Vortex had been taken out dissipated. It was good to have Doctor Katz back, bringing new life and hope to everyone. Including myself as I wiped my eyes.