It had been a while since Vivi ascended by burning wisps. The thousands of ether rushed through her at once uncontrollably. It felt as if she'd activated a powerful ascension skill, one that temporarily removed her limit of ether entirely.

Ascended wisps already leaked out to the air around her. The moonweaver's silk of her dress breathed it in, ascending alongside Vivi. The black of her dress stopped looking like fabric, and more like a void in reality—a protective layer of ether. The purple hemline was tinted a bright scarlet from Lucius's wisps.

Channeling or controlling the ascended wisps was close to impossible. She couldn't contain it all; wisps rapidly leaked from her body. Her ascension wouldn't last.

Vivi slashed, releasing five thousand ether through her claws.

The force of the explosive attack pushed her back a step. The claws crashed into the horde of ether sticks like an explosive missile. Dozens were slashed in half immediately. Others crashed into each other, losing their footing.

Vivi charged in, Moonlight drawn, and collected their ether. Each ether stick dropped upwards of five hundred ether.

She killed the rest with her sword, slashing open anything that tried to kill her. Moonlight's crush runes made short work of anything it touched, causing wounds to spread deep.

I can fight! Vivi thought. With Lucius's ascension active, her sixth sense felt clear, and she could sense monsters coming, though the scarlet powers weren't quite as omnipotent as void ether. Vivi still felt like a human. She had to be careful, wary of mistakes. Her body wouldn't turn to a monster, but she also wouldn't have the benefits of the void realm.

Nonetheless, the horde of ether sticks died. Vivi lifted her head to see the battlefield finally stabilizing. Lesser monsters were being eradicated all around. The vampyrs withered, and the remaining ether sticks were running into their deaths, alone and without support. Deeper in the battlefield, Darkness Slasher was doing its job; dozens of monsters were still falling to its shockwaves.

Forty million ether worth of monsters remained—the two humongous golems still stood, each brimming with twenty million wisps. Their thick black stone skin hadn't even been scratched as they stomped ever closer to the battalions, having passed five hundred feet from their spawning position.

"Tank monsters again," Lucius noted. "They'll kill you in one hit, but their attacks should be easy to avoid. We need to cause enough damage to kill them."

If they make it to the city, the walls will fall, Vivi thought. They'll stomp right through.

She glanced behind herself, seeing that the ballistas were now free of monster attacks, though operators were shaken and some wounded. Most seemed okay.

In fact, the demons' awe-struck eyes pointed at Vivi. Even Iszul was glaring at her, studying her intensely.

Gods, Vivi thought. This dress makes me look like some deity!

Lucius laughed in her head, but then said, "Focus. Maybe we can kill a golem and steal a skill."

Vivi ignored his last remark. She did, however, believe she could help with the giants.

She raised her sword to the air, exactly as Coshi had done, and called, "Ballistas, aim!"

After a moment of shock, men scrambled to follow orders. Javelin-like missiles were carried in and armed. Everyone instinctively aimed at the closest golem. Vivi felt a slight wave of embarrassment in her position, wondering if she was doing anything right, but she also felt powerful.

"Fire!" Vivi shouted, pointing her sword at the golem.

The ballistas fired. With that, Vivi, too, ran forth. Moonlight was one of the strongest swords in the battlefield, and Vivi knew she was good at fighting bulky monsters, slashing through tough defences with her greatsword. She could help.

The missiles landed. Their tips grazed the golem's surface. They merely left light scratches before bouncing off weakly.

Well, the ballistas are useless… Vivi thought. Outside-carving won't do a thing. It's up to my swords now.

Ahead, Coshi was attacking the golem. She slashed at it with Darkness Slasher. The shockwave grazed its foot, leaving a sizable scratch, but the golem wasn't even faced.

Coshi sheathed Darkness Slasher, picking up Blossom with two hands. She weaved underneath the golem, slashing at the golem's foot. Sparks flew, and Blossom cut right through.

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But the attack did no damage. The golem's foot was too large for Blossom's short blade to cut deep enough into. Despite Blossom's sharpness runes letting it cut through just about anything, without a crush rune, Blossom wouldn't cause enough damage. The sword was more suited against agility-based monsters.

The slash did agitate the golem, though. It lifted its foot, repeatedly stomping it underneath itself, aimlessly trying to hit Coshi. She jumped back and reassessed the situation. The golem continued stomping. Each stomp sent sand flying and left cracks on the stone beneath. Its footprints sank deep into the ground, as if the stone ground was merely snow.

One of the remaining miniature golems attacked Coshi. Blossom slashed through, killing it. The miniature golems were small enough for Blossom to slice deep enough into.

Anthony and Coshi grouped up, watching the golem, probably discussing how they'd kill the giants.

The closest one was four hundred feet away from the battalion. If it continued on its path, it would eventually find Shivenar's walls. The people could probably evacuate, running from its slow gigantic steps, but buildings would be crushed, and the city would be destroyed.

It needed to die now. They needed enough firepower to kill it.

I'll kill it, Vivi thought.

Vivi pushed another ten thousand ether into Lucius's core, refueling the scarlet powers. Lucius flinched from the influx of ether before quickly burning them.

"Burning too much ether will leave withdrawals, Vivi," Lucius warned.

Vivi ignored it. With her body full of ether, she rushed to the colossal golem from its side. She timed a jump just as the golem stomped its foot on the ground.

Her jump reached thirty feet in the air. She summoned her backup sword, and just as her momentum slowed, she drove it into the golem's upper leg. The sword pierced through, leaving cracks around the wound.

More importantly, the sword was snugly placed deep in its skin. Vivi climbed atop the sword, then used it to jump further. Lucius, grab that back to spatial storage.

Lucius grimaced. "I can't! It's surrounded by too much ether!"

That would be a problem. Vivi drove Moonlight into the golem's lower rig cage at the apex of her second jump. She hung on from Moonlight's hilt. This sword she couldn't just leave.

She pulled the sword free, added a thousand ether into the claws on her left hand, and drove her hand into the golem's skin. The claws barely did any damage, but they pierced through, giving Vivi a place to hold on to.

From there, she tossed herself upward, toward the golem's neck. She repeated this three more times, tossing herself up and grabbing onto the golem with Lucius's claws.

That was until an explosive boulder of ether appeared within her sixth sense, aimed directly at her back. Vivi glanced behind her to see the golem swinging at her with its right boulder-like hand.

The sheer size of the hand made Vivi pause. It moved as fast as a mage's fireball. She wouldn't have time to toss herself up. Even falling down would take too much time. Lucius froze.

Climbing had been a stupid idea. A direct blow of the golem's hand was about to hit her with no time to avoid it. She had half a second to prepare.

Vivi pushed another ten thousand ether into Lucius's core. He received them with a grimace, struggling to handle it all, but he burned them, pushing them all into Vivi's body. A small flurry of void wisps came with it.

A flame ignited within—the brightest, most powerful, yet dangerous flame Vivi had felt since the monster transformation. Her body was filled with utter violence as the scarlet wisps strengthened her with far more power than human bodies were intended to handle. For a few seconds, nearly twenty thousand wisps strengthened her all at once.

Vivi readied her sword, directing the power of each and every wisp into her attack, and swung Moonlight just as the golem's boulder was about to crush her.

Her sword collided with stone, and the world Vivi sensed seemed to shatter in half.

A flash of dark scarlet light lit the sky as something inside the golem cracked. The hand's insides burst in all directions, shattering into bits, crush runes reaping the thick stone from existence. The hand turned into a gaping wound; surging ether bleeding like a waterfall of wisps being let loose.

Vivi was now at a freefall next to the golem. She growled and transferred another five thousand ether for Lucius to burn. She readied her sword and cast it down at the Golem's torso.

This time, Vivi had a more clear view of the utter destruction her sword caused.

Moonlight pierced the golem's stone skin with explosive force. The crush runes invaded the wound, and cracks spread as if glass had shattered. Violent pressurized wisps burst out from the wound in an instant as if a cannonball had been released from inside the golem.

The flood of wisps hit Vivi and knocked her back like a powerful water hose, sending her flying hundreds of feet into the distance and toward the ground. She fell.

She collided against the ground, tumbling across sand over fifty feet from where she first landed. Moonlight flew from her hands, and Lucius quickly collected it to spatial storage.

Pain flared. The whiplash from her reckless ascensions was already hitting. Her body felt beaten, as if she'd received a hundred punches in every part of her body. Her dress and the coating of ether around her body protected her from death. Every part of her body hurt. Thankfully, her void core wasn't open anymore, overpowered by the scarlet ascension.

She pushed herself up, now with only the power of Lucius's regular ether reserves—five thousand wisps. She channeled more ether into her dress. Sand particles fell off, and scratches in the moonweaver's silk closed, repairing itself.

I don't need to abuse the void realm, Vivi thought. I can still be powerful without.

The golem's steps were frail now, like a dying man walking with a knife in the heart. A white bonfire of wisps burned in its dark torso and arm, millions of ether escaping into the air.

Each step was more unstable than the last, until the colossal golem lost its balance, slowly tipping over. The foggy air cleared around it as it fell with tremendous weight. It crashed with an ear-piercing thump, the ground below trembling. A cloud of sand dust and ether enveloped it, and a beacon of ether rose to the air.

More ethereal presences were running to her. Vivi glanced in the direction and saw demons.

"Vivi?" Coshi asked in utter astonishment. Her mouth was wide open. "W… What was that? You have an ascension skill? An exalted one?"

Imagine if I actually did, Vivi thought.

She ignored Coshi, summoned her sword, and pointed it at the second golem. "One more."

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