“The forest is ending! I think there’s a problem!” From high above, Astryde who acted as an eye scout shouted this news with her heart.

If Utopia wasn’t there to remind them of how much time has passed, then not even the day-night cycle would have sufficed.

“There’s nothing beyond! What the hell!” This time it was disturbing.

Utopia acted by taking to the air and taking a look, and with his perception sphere, Rune could see the incredulous face he was making.

“Oy Arik, I think we’re in for a surprise so let’s rush! Oh!” Rune immediately started to cut the 2-meter wide trunk separating him from his surprise.

They just finished their last fight and only departed 5 minutes ago, so no monsters would disturb them in the short term.

Arik didn’t let him down as he started to punch every tree, cutting them and pushing them at the same time, becoming a worthy opponent for Rune.

The 3 spellcasters were behind to manage their mess and create a true path but at least the line was defined and they only had to repeat the same sequence of spells. Again and again.

Pushing through the forest, Rune was excited for nothing because the end of the forest was still hundreds of kilometers away.

Before long they entered another part of the flat forest full of monsters.

“Clear the surroundings!” And Utopia stopped the path creation, it was time for another fight.

…

“Ah! I thought of something! Utopia, note the Illusion element too!”

Soon they would arrive where the forest ended, and all ended in fact, they took hours before arriving there, but finally, it was imminent.

“Ok, that’s a fine train of thought, why don’t you add vocational masteries too? Like the Art element or the Entertainment element?” Utopia replied with a simple smile, but it sent a shock through Rune.

“Genius! Add everything Hahaha!” A little more motivated, Rune took a tree in a hug and then uprooted it entirely, but the roots were so long that he only sent it to the side after the act and forgot about it.

In Rune’s perception, something finally changed after walking an additional 5 meters.

The forest ended, and with it, everything else too, there was a “cliff” that cut the forest in a straight line.

“The hell?” Arik also saw what he saw.

There were no monsters to stop them now, only creating a path, so they hurried with their task to see more and more of the cliff.

A steady pace of 5 meters per second now seemed so slow to advance 2 kilometers, only 7 minutes later everyone knew what they were confronted with, but it didn’t change their objective.

For 2 kilometers on each side, the same cliff was there, the same clean-cut, and a bottom that didn’t exist, at least, not when they used their perception sphere.

Rune uprooted another tree and followed quickly with another, they were merely 100 meters away from the cliff.

“We are establishing our camp here, cut everything in a 100 meters radius!” Utopia made a quick plan before getting away from the group and approaching the cliff, Astryde accompanied him.

Before they departed Gar warned them, “Don’t try to fly above, test it before doing it, I read that some places have their gravity increased by hundreds of times or the air restricts some form of flying!”

As the rest of the group set to work, Rune uprooted a tree and did a javelin throw with it, sending it straight beyond the cliff, falling to the abyss.

It was pretty fun and Arik did the same thing, so for 20 minutes lots of trees were sent to fall somewhere unknown, and finally, a flat piece of forest was created.

Rune and Arik then hurriedly approached Utopia and Astryde that were observing what was beyond the cliff, but with their eyes, they could see nothing in the far distance, only a white mist, ether mist.

And now on the edge of the cliff, he could only see an endless white misty abyss waiting as far the eyes could see.

The cliff itself was as his sphere saw it, a perfectly straight wall, straight vertically and straight horizontally, not artificial straight as in “smooth”, but so straight that only something major involving an ether event could have led to this.

After everyone gathered around where Utopia and Astryde were, Arik commented, “We don’t have the necessary equipment to make a descent.”

“Did you see something Utopia? Astryde? No movements in the mist or approximation of the depth?” Nelo asked the two who had 20 minutes to observe.

“Nothing, not even my affinity works, and the mist is simply the long-distance accumulation of volatile ether, you can see the wall of the cliff becoming more and more indistinct as it descends deeper and deeper,” Astryde commented on what she found, Utopia kept silent all along.

Rune wouldn’t force Utopia to talk, it was a very spiritually enriching activity to gaze forward, nothing but mist, nothing at all, no color, only white ether, a glimpse of what the Endless was capable of doing.

The silence stretched for a long time, maybe 10 minutes, as the whole Undecided just gazed at the empty face in front of them.

‘So, for the northwest, it’s a dead-end?’

They could call the IGS for help, but to come here, the nascent society would need to pass through a tier 2 forest filled with monsters that only waited for poor sapients stupid enough to dare walk here.

And that was considering even Utopia didn’t know how long their path was.

Maybe Utopia was keeping silent because he was planning what they should do from now on, their area reclamation mission towards the northwest was over, they couldn’t advance further, but they didn’t quite max out their stats yet…

Maybe the return trip would?

Every duo could now confidently take out a tier 3 as long as they didn’t have any major constraints, so it was obvious that maybe now that they couldn’t just continue advancing, their plan would change.

But Rune wasn’t the leader, and he wasn’t going to tell his thoughts before Utopia told of his plan.

“Let’s sleep,” Utopia finally spoke, but he wasn’t Utopia the leader, he was Utopia the young tired adventurer, and now that he told the group that it was time to sleep, they all dispersed.

There was no wind here, very strange for a cliff with such a dip in altitude.

There also didn’t seem to be any abnormality linked to it after they did a few tests, so anyone could just walk above the abyss if he wanted, and it didn’t displease Rune to do that.

After having a bit of fun, he created a foamy energy mattress, preparing himself to sleep right here, with some additional security, of course, he still wanted to live and there was never too much safety.

Rune just sat down with his legs hanging in the air at the edge of the cliff.

Utopia was lying down not far from where he was, so Rune made some small talk, “What’s the best music for what we’re currently seeing? How to train your dragon is too generic, but I can’t think of anything else, maybe a religious anthem?”

“Don’t know, maybe Xepher by Tatsh? It has a sort of ‘greater than yourself’ vibes to it, like all the music in its genre, but it's maybe a little too fast in its tempo…”

“Really? Xepher? You really want some drama to happen don’t you?”

“I didn’t really think about it grandpa, I’m still…”

The two started to argue about what this scene would look like from a spectator's point of view, but soon, sleep got the better of them, and their discussion ended without a conclusive answer.

Sometimes there just wasn’t a right answer.

…

From his slumber, his spirit felt a slight disturbance.

Something that never happened before, it wasn’t… A monster? Was it?

Rune didn’t know, but something was approaching slowly and made him feel sick, his sphere was being changed, bent against his will.

It was subtle, but an empty space would alert anyone, however having only slept for 1 or 2 hours before being awakened, he felt a little lethargic.

While the disturbance was approaching, nobody else was reacting, like it was only in his mind.

As a safety measure, Rune gathered his awareness and ended his passive awareness training sleep.

He stood up, his friends continued to sleep, they would only see Rune standing up if they were still attentive, which in a sleeping state would only happen once they felt things appearing or change violently in their perception sphere.

The “thing” was approaching slowly, he checked and rechecked but this empty space was still here.

Nothing seemed strange aside from that, no ether or energy fluctuations, but it was now 1 kilometer away, so there was only one possible answer.

Checking his energy armor, it was full, so he bypassed his friends to let them take their time waking up, he prepared a sound bomb but didn’t activate it.

The energy fluctuation from Rune alerted his friends, which in turn started to wake up.

“Something’s approaching, if you can’t feel it then it’s using something like stealth,” he said slowly.

It didn’t take a genius to understand what Rune was trying to say.

But against expectation, the empty space stopped moving, completely stopped, then started to back down, like it felt it was seen through by the preys before his eyes.

“It’s retreating, or not, yes it is, looks like a very cunning one,” Rune didn’t move, he had to wait till it completely departed before going back to sleep.

“What if it’s going to fetch some friends?” Nelo emitted a possible, even extremely plausible theory, as to what the monster was doing, and from their experience with more cunning monsters, it was probably the truth.

“As long as I’m here they will not be able to sneak on us, I hope it brings back a group of 10 tier 3 for us to play with, a little confrontation with death mid-sleep wouldn’t be that bad,” Rune just wanted to sleep.

Once he finally felt the empty spot leave his sphere range, he sat down on the spot and recreated a foamy energy mattress.

If it came back then he would be ready.

…

It happened.

Once again, the sensation of his sphere being bent woke him from his slumber, his dispersed awareness immediately gathered to form a complete ether soul.

His sphere could see 5 spots of “emptiness” approaching, it really was a mid-sleep battle against death.

“5 tier 3 using stealth specialization are approaching, if they were tier 4 I don’t think I would be able to sense them but we still need to account for the possibility,” Rune explained and adopted his defensive posture.

The 6 who were waking up were still emerging, for them, there was nothing in a radius of 2 kilometers around them, but it was the second time, so they prepared adequately.

“Back to the cliff, Rune, Arik, Astryde, form a defensive circle with me around our spellcasters, Nelo you’re the one in charge of choosing the target to kill, Adreana and Gar you follow his choice,” Utopia talked slowly, interrupted sleep probably the cause.

As he didn’t have a better option, he made a quick general battle plan that would assure them victory in normal circumstances.

Stealth was an application of a certain minor perception stat manipulation, which, once specialized with a dedicated mastery, gave birth to a unique specialization branch called “spiritual powers”.

Like all the other specializations, it was only generally available at tier 3, because only tier 3 fundamental masteries allowed you to make basic use of the minor manipulation you wanted without needing years of training, therefore allowing you to form a mastery around it and truly incorporate it into your build.

No one in the Undecided wanted to go on the stealth path, not even the spiritual power path for that matter, but they all read about famous ultra specialists of different domains, and stealth was one of them.

Not only was one’s perception sphere affected, but it was also all their senses that were bent to ignore the being using stealth.

The sound, smell, movement, heat, everything was more hidden the stronger the stealth effect was, Rune was only able to see little spots of emptiness in his sphere being bent against his will, due to his perception specialty.

“200 meters, they are charging forward mindlessly,” Rune spoke.

But for his friends, the situation was the strangest they ever had, there was nothing, the ground didn’t shake, the branches didn’t twist, nothing was indicating that monsters were approaching.

“Rune, if we still can’t see them then you’ll be in charge of leading the attack while we defend, you’ll back down and become a spellcaster in this case,” Utopia saw the problem before it arrived, so he dissociated Rune from the defensive circle.

Stealth shouldn’t be that strong, but if they were facing monsters with a perception stat of 5 000, then it would explain everything, and as they weren’t ready to face them currently, they’d have to cheat a little.

Seeing that Utopia didn’t react, nor was Nelo or anyone, Rune backed down from the defensive circle.

He then simultaneously cast 5 energy lasers and pointed them at the 5 coming monsters.

He continuously infused energy into the spell matrices of those low consumption energy lasers and let them point where the stealthed monsters were.

However, maintaining 5 energy laser spells simultaneously made it so that he couldn't focus on anything else but keeping them on the monsters.

With a lead on the monster's position, Utopia, Astryde, and Arik prepared themselves to receive the tier 3 charge head-on.

Nelo, Adreana, and Gar were already preparing a volley of spells to take out one immediately when they were stopped by the wall.

Without warning, Arik, who was preparing himself to block the charge, saw Rune’s energy laser teleport to before him before dispersing.

A powerful force made his feet slide a little the next moment, the incredulous expression on his face described perfectly what he felt.

Utopia and Astryde had the same expression when they suddenly saw Rune’s energy laser moving to before them and feeling something collide with them.

The worst of it was that 2 monsters just ignored the defensive circle, and Rune had to stop his spellcasting to stop them, but same as the other 3, only one monster confronted him.

In a moment, their whole battle plan failed, and Gar had to go forward to receive the remaining monster, not knowing where it was and having to use his threads to feel around him and be ready for impact.

Now, the unblocking of the situation only had to do with Nelo and Adreana killing one by one the stealthed monsters and freeing manpower.

Rune knew there was a monster in physical contact with him, but he couldn’t see it, only his sphere gave a location and it wasn’t even their form, just a spot of emptiness, so he could only delay as long as he could while waiting for rescue.

It was the same for everyone else, passivity taken to an extreme, not able to take action in any form, only preparing for the next strike.

Against same-tier stealth users, such a situation would have never happened, but the Undecided really pushed it with their expedition.

Tier 3 monsters became more and more common with every hundred kilometers, and this time they hit a steel wall, those were probably advanced, and maybe possibly peak, tier 3 monsters.

Every time Rune received a strike, it shaved 400 armor, the damage shape was in the form of claws-strike, and the only thing he could do was blindly strike, hoping to counter one of the strikes he was going to receive.

As the defensive circle was completely broken, there was an additional move that could be used, chaotically moving without a goal.

That’s what everyone was starting to do, and Rune also started to do it, he jumped backward, then suddenly accelerated forward, then took a turn to the right, then another jump backward.

It was pure delay tactics, but it was the only choice everyone had, there was no way to break a tier 3 specialization with their tier 2 power.

No such shortcut existed, there was nothing like surrounding oneself in energy and acting depending on where there was an intrusion or covering the opponent in dirt.

After one minute and a half, the first stealthed monster died, freeing Gar.

Nonetheless, the situation stayed very difficult as Arik and Astryde were more offensive than defensive, they were already more than half dead and couldn’t wait for one more minute.

Utopia was too focused on his battle so he couldn’t give orders, but the best plans were often the simplest ones, so Rune decided he had to take one more tier 3 to allow Arik and Astryde to occupy one monster only.

He voluntarily jumped towards Arik, making his own stealthed monster follow behind, and once near Arik, he activated a burst sound bomb.

Arik understood the situation and acted like he died by falling on the ground, monsters were mindless, once Arik acted like he died, he would either be eaten for his ether core or if there still were enemies alive, he would be left for later.

Rune kicked Arik in the direction of Astryde, as gently as the situation allowed him to, and then started to tank two monsters at once, it was going to be an ecstatic moment for him.

A minute and a half later, Utopia was freed from his fight after receiving help from the recently freed 3 spellcasters and joined Rune, helping him by distracting the monsters with some scary charges, but it was only a threat, he never really charged in.

Two minutes later, another monster fell, freeing Arik and Astryde and allowing them to come and corner the last 2 monsters, Arik even sometimes punched what he perceived as air but he felt a resistance similar to flesh from it.

Ganging up on the last 2 beasts led to their death 3 minutes later.

It wasn’t an easy battle, but now they could be sure that a tier 3 zone shouldn’t be that far, a squad of tier 3 monsters couldn’t form in a tier 2 zone, they clearly came from a tier 3 zone.

“We go back to sleep, once fully replenished we’ll try to retrace their steps, that’s a good lead for our goals,” Utopia said.

He was going to sleep for the third time, it was already the start of the next day with the sun dawning on them, but sleep couldn’t wait.