I had to admit, between the highly cushioned saddles and easy pace, the journey north was a hell of a lot smoother than the ride in from Basecrest.

  Then again, it didn’t take much to beat being dragged into the Sylvanglades bound, gagged, and thrown over a horse like a sack of potatoes as we had been on our first visit.

  Of course, me being me, I only appreciated those saddles for a few minutes before jumping off to walk alongside. With my absurd Vigor, I felt superhuman again in a way I hadn’t in a long time.

  It’s why I was running beside the horses instead of riding them. With how far my stats were lagging behind my ceiling, just moving was a training session in itself. That, and [Spacefold] was getting quite a workout when I occasionally switched into my Grace armor.

  Aerion had laughed at me at first but quickly shut up when she saw my stats climbing. The same, however, couldn’t be said for our elven escorts. Still, they were used to our antics by now and were far too respectful to comment on it.

  Galia, for her part, flew near me, far too excited to stay put with her newfound power. Red-gold plumage had come in all around her, giving her a beautiful, regal air she’d missed before.

  She’d grown quite a bit, too, standing almost three feet tall, with a wingspan easily twice that. Her powers had all leveled several times, thanks to all the [Uncommon] and [Rare] soul crystals she’d been gorging on.

  Though not nearly large enough to ride, she was at least no longer the liability she’d been just days prior.

  It wasn’t long before we reached the northern edge of the forest, and the vast, open plains felt like a breath of fresh air after spending what felt like forever in the forest. Between Sylphara and the Reavers’ den, the Sylvanglades had proven a magical place, but I was ready for what came next.

  Our farewells were brief on account of Syrril and the Sylrithar being too busy to travel with us, but that was fine. We’d said our goodbyes back at the tree, and with luck, we’d be back one day.

  I took one last look at the forest behind us, then swung up onto my horse. It was time to see what awaited beyond.

  We didn’t go very far at all before we ran into the horde that had been plaguing the Sylvanglades. While the Reavers held the line as best they could, they were too few and spread too thin to defend the land properly.

  “Time to see what our new builds can do,” I said, cracking my neck.

  Our first opponent wasn’t some small fry. It was a massive, tusked beast with glowing purple eyes and a trunk lined with jagged barbs instead of skin.

  Aerion frowned. “Are you sure about this?”

  “Only one way to find out how good my new suit is,” I said. “Besides, with this much Vigor, I can tank whatever it throws at me. Probably.”

  After steeling my nerves to do something that would undoubtedly have gotten me killed just yesterday, I rushed the monster.

  The elephant-thing saw me and charged, bellowing like it had taken my existence as a personal offence.

  “Bring it, big guy,” I muttered.

  Truth be told, I had no idea what rank the thing was. If it was Bastion, we were fucked. But my instincts told me it wasn’t. Its aura just wasn’t heavy enough.

  Ever since I started honing my soul powers, I’d developed a sense for that sort of thing. The stronger the aura, the stronger the creature tended to be. Not always, but it seemed to generally be true.

  I planted my tower shield in the dirt and crouched behind it, bracing for impact. Physics said I should’ve been flung halfway across the field by something that weighed several tons, but physics didn’t account for stats.

  The beast’s barbed trunk slammed into me, followed quickly by its enormous body. What happened next shocked us both, because one of us went tumbling, and it wasn’t me.

  With my armor [Reflecting] just 1% of the impact, it was my obscene Vigor that caused the elephant to stop dead in its tracks, its own momentum flinging it like a ragdoll. It crashed hard into the dirt, throwing an explosion of soil.

  As for me? My bones rattled and my teeth ached, but otherwise? I was just fine.

  The armor’s condition dropped a few points, but with 10,000 to spare, it might as well have been a drop in the bucket. Besides, with my portable forge and stockpile of mythril the elves had given us, I could fix that anytime.

  “Alright, big guy,” I muttered. “My turn.”

  People might’ve called me insane for putting Dominion on a tower shield, but I already had all the Vigor I could ever need.

  I charged the creature as it struggled to rise.

  I didn’t let it.

  My Mythril shortsword [Remote Launched] well before I’d even gotten close, and with a single clean slash, the blade took its head clean off.

  Amazingly, it had used its ability, [Blade Projection] of its own volition, without me having to order it to.

  I seriously could not wait to have a dozen of these things flying around, rending my enemies.

  Congratulations! Soulwoven Mythril Shortsword’s ability [Blade Projection] has leveled up from Foundation - 0 to Foundation - 1.

  Congratulations! Soulwoven Elven Mythril Heavy Suit’s ability [Reflect], has leveled up from Foundation - 0 to Foundation - 1.

  Congratulations! Vigor has increased from 82 to 104!

  “Not bad,” I said with a grin. “Not bad at all.”

  Of course, my actual current Vigor was 5058 thanks to the ludicrous benefit the suit gave me and the now 6% boost that [Booyaya], my Silk Undersuit added on top.

  It seemed the System considered those a separate entity from my base stats though. Which made sense, considering one came from the [Legendary] Soul that resided within and the other from a one-time immediate % boost.

  Aerion shook her head, though she couldn’t hide her smirk. “Such a sight should not be possible,” she said.

  “Oh, it’s possible, alright,” I said, still grinning. “Now how about we test your abilities?”

  Her eyes lit up. “Perhaps we can test [Origin Reave]?”

  “You read my mind.”

  It didn’t take long to find our next targets. This time, it wasn’t just one big monster. It was one big monster and a small army of skeleton warriors. Diverse, I’ll give it that.

  Except… as we got closer, I realized those weren’t normal skeletons at all, but skeletons wearing Kevlar body armor and wielding weapons that looked suspiciously like rifles. Modern black automatic rifles.

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  “What the hell?” I muttered. “That’s impossible.”

  Aerion frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Before I could answer, the skeletons raised their weapons and fired at a passing beast. The sharp, echoing crack of gunfire filled the air, dispelling any doubt in my mind.

  “You’ve got to be shitting me,” I said. “Those are weapons from my world. Advanced weapons. They fire metal projectiles faster than you can see them, and they’re devastating.”

  At least, they were to humans back on Earth. I doubted normal bullets could do much to either of us now, but that wasn’t the part that worried me. The fact that they wielded weapons from my world set off all sorts of alarm bells.

  “Aerion? What did that tower look like, exactly? The one from the vision you saw?”

  Aerion frowned. “It was tall. Taller than any I’ve seen, and made of some strange gray material. I remember it was slotted with a checker pattern of some glossy material.”

  “Glass?” I offered, growing more convinced with every word she spoke.

  “Perhaps,” Aerion replied. “Though I’ve never seen glass with such a mirror polish.”

  “Was the building Rectangular or square, by any chance?”

  Aerion nodded. “Yes, it was square.”

  “Well, that sounds like what we call a skyscraper back on my world.”

  “Then, you mean…”

  “Yeah. Between that and these guys, I think it’s pretty clear. This dungeon might very well be set on my world.”

  “This is good news, then,” Aerion said, lighting up. “We will have an advantage.”

  “Maybe.”

  It could mean all sorts of things, to be honest. It made me uneasy, for some reason.

  “Maybe we should pick another target,” I said.

  “No,” Aerion replied firmly. “If we leave them be, we leave the elves to deal with them. And if these weapons are as deadly as you say, we must destroy them.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Give me a sec.”

  We fell back to a safe distance, and I started swapping armor. Thanks to the way the suit rippled open and closed, I could just step out of one suit and into another without requiring an assistant. Even that, though, took a full thirty seconds. An eternity mid-battle.

  “Would be nice to do this on the fly,” I muttered. Then I glanced at Aerion. “Though I guess it's already pretty unfair.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Most Blessed and Boonworthy cannot simply switch their strengths on a whim,” she said. “Every stat I earn is permanent. I don’t get to change that.”

  At least, not until now.

  Soulweaving might not grant the versatility of my own Blessing, but it got Aerion partway there. Swapping builds was the reason I’d picked it in the first place. The thought of being able to swap weapons mid-battle had me almost giddy.

  Stepping into my Grace armor was like trading one aspect of godhood for another. I lost the infinite health only to gain the speed of Hermes.

  Sure, I couldn’t tank hits the way I had before, but now, I wouldn’t need to. I moved so fast that scenery blurred around me, and before I realized it, I was several hundred yards ahead of Aerion. I looked back sheepishly, waiting for her to catch up.

  She did not look pleased.

  “Stop showing off,” she called.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Gonna take a while to get used to this.”

  Aerion just shook her head.

  “You want me to lend a hand?” I asked.

  “Only if I struggle,” she said coolly.

  “All right, but be careful.”

  “I will,” came her cold, dispassionate voice that made me blink.

  “Wait. You can talk?”

  She’d activated [Reave] and I hadn’t even noticed.

  “Yes.”

  She darted ahead before I could respond.

  Well, she might be able to talk, but [Reave] clearly still influenced her thoughts.

  Still, that was a massive upgrade. This changed everything. We could actually coordinate and come up with real tactics like before.

  There was just one crucial thing I wanted to test.

  “Wait!”

  Aerion turned, glaring at me. “Yes?”

  “Can you exit your Reave state without killing everything nearby?”

  She frowned, clearly trying, but after a few moments shook her head.

  “I see,” I said, somewhat disheartened. Still, maybe that wouldn’t matter if she retained her wits.

  “Is that all?” Her tone made it sound like she was one step away from lynching me. It was like I was talking to someone else entirely, and if I was honest, it affected me more than it ought to have. It was easy to partition off the difference when she couldn’t talk, but now? As someone who loved her with every fiber of my being, it hurt more than a little to be talked to like that.

  I shook off the thought. She was someone else in that state. Possessed by whatever soul the Reavers channeled.

  “Yes,” I replied. “I’ll follow you. Galia? No fighting.”

  The phoenix squawked at me, as if to say she’d do whatever she wanted. I shrugged. Sooner or later, she’d have to learn she wasn’t invincible… though with her ability to respawn, I wondered if she’d ever truly learn that lesson.

  Either way, I didn’t have the time to catch the bird and stuff her in my inventory, because Aerion had dashed off in a blur of motion.

  I followed, easily matching her speed. That said, every step felt like a hammer blow against my bones. Moving this fast came with a cost, but I’d thankfully invested enough base stats into Vigor to handle it. Barely.

  The big question now was whether Aerion could handle the enemies ahead.

  Turned out, I didn’t need to worry. Say what you will about [Reave], but it in no way hampered her tactical abilities, so long as they happened to be aggressive tactics.

  Aerion manifested Senara, who bounded by her side as she charged the riflemen.

  The skellies opened fire, of course, but she managed to dodge most of the shots, and the few that landed just pinged harmlessly off her armor. As for Senara, the bullets seemed to pass right through her without effect.

  Between Aerion’s boosted Vigor, the shortsword I’d crafted, and [Reave] and [Fading Fury]’s amplification of her stats, she was damn near untouchable.

  She moved methodically, dismantling them one by one. A single strike per skeleton, sometimes not even that—just a blur of motion, bone shattering, bodies exploding from within.

  It wasn’t the skeletons I was worried about, though. The lone black creature that loomed behind them was what occupied most of my attention. It looked like an octopus made of pitch-black smoke and sported a hundred writhing tentacles.

  The thing just watched on, as though it couldn’t give two shits about seeing its army decimated. That alone made me uneasy. Things that confident were never weak.

  As for me, I was weaving through bullets—dodging most and [Spacefolding] through the ones I couldn’t. I couldn’t actually see most of them, but with my erratic movements, I didn’t need to worry overly much.

  “Faster than a speeding bullet,” I muttered, grinning as adrenaline flooded my veins. The rush was just unreal.

  Within the span of a single minute, Aerion and her spectral Aralez had wiped out the skeletal army, leaving only the main creature.

  She lunged at it—and to my surprise, it actually blocked her attack. An attack infused with the hundreds of stats granted by [Reave], to say nothing of [Fading Fury], which I knew she’d activated.

  One of its countless tendrils parried with unnatural precision, knocking her back.

  I tensed, worried she might’ve been hurt, but she landed perfectly, re-engaging at once. Again and again, her every strike was deflected with ease.

  Then, without the slightest warning, space warped around Aerion.My instincts screamed danger. So did hers, apparently, because she leapt out of the way before I could get a sound out.

  Just as the sphere collapsed in on itself, erasing everything it touched. Shrubs, soil—everything was just gone.

  “Fuck!”

  If that attack hit me, could I even survive it even with my Vigor build? And if these things were spilling out of the dungeon—presumably the weakest of the monsters we’d find within—what hell waited for us inside?

  “Aerion!” I shouted. “Fall back, but stay in Reave!”

  I didn’t know if she even could, but after freezing in place for a moment, she slowly edged away, clearly warring with her instincts.

  Thankfully, the creature didn’t pursue either of us.

  “Why?” she asked flatly when we linked up. “Burning Essence.”

  “We’re cheating,” I said.

  “Explain.”

  “Origin Reave. You’ve got, what, two minutes left to go to reach it?” She nodded. “Then all we need to do is wait this out. When the timer hits five minutes, you’ll enter Origin Reave. Let it happen naturally. No point risking our lives fighting that thing when we’re not at full power.”

  “I see,” she said before sitting down, crossing her legs, and closing her eyes.

  I was more than a little impressed she could meditate in that state, but it was by far the best way to get a handle on the feelings that no doubt urged her to go fight that thing.

  I stood guard, keeping my eyes on the creature as the minutes crawled by. Galia landed nearby, squawking at us in confusion. I idly petted her neck, calming her down, before I stashed her in my inventory. Things were about to heat up, and I didn't want to have to look out for her in addition to everything else going on.

  Finally, Aerion opened her eyes. “Origin Reave is available. Activating.”

  Then she vanished, and this time, I really had to race to keep up. She became a blur of motion I struggled to follow. Not because I was physically incapable of that speed, but because my brain couldn’t track such a fast object.

  When I did finally find her, she was mincing the tentacled monster, her every strike slicing through its limbs like a scalpel through cheese.

  The thing screamed an unholy, alien sound that sent shivers down my spine, but she didn’t relent until every tendril was gone. Then she drove her blade straight through its core.

  For a moment, it looked over.

  “Good—” I started, but then shouted, “Aerion, get back!”

  I knew my words would never reach her in time. The monster pulsed violently and a massive bubble erupted from its body encompassing everything within a fifty foot radius. Far too vast for Aerion to escape.

  But she didn’t have to.

  I folded space, then accelerated to my max speed, barely even slowing as I plowed into Aerion, using my momentum to scoop her into my arms before folding space again.

  Using the ability in such quick succession strained me to my limit.

  I ground to a halt, and when I looked back, the monster was gone.

  And so was everything around it. In its place was a perfectly hemispheric crater.

  “Self-destruct,” I said between panting breaths. “Jesus, that was close.”

  “Too close,” she breathed, staring in terror at the devastation she’d narrowly avoided. “You saved my life.”

  “Hey, what are soulmates for, eh?” I said, glancing at the flood of level-up notifications scrolling across my screen.

  We’d risked our lives, sure, but it was hard not to get excited about the gains we’d reaped.