More,more,more,more,more…. I have been speeding up my thoughts more and more. I have focused all my brain power into thinking really hard and fast.

My entire mana pool is currently powering up only my brain and I am not happy. I need more. I have been at this what seemed like minutes to me. I even interrupted my erase control to have more brain power left. I actually realized how taxing the shit is. I thought it is literally for free but I was wrong. I think it takes about twenty percent of my brain power now that I noticed the great increase in brain power. When I take into comparison that pulling mana from surroundings isn’t even percent of my brain power that’s something. I think the entire atomic blast was like at most half of the cost of maintaining erased presence… which would mean ten percent… yeah note to yourself… when something feels too good… it isn’t. I wouldn’t deny that it is practically my lifeline most of the time but it is certainly not for free. I just didn’t know.

I can gradually feel like the time is stretching out... slowly but surely. At first it felt like she is just going to pass through the portal before I finish but she slowed down more and more. Until she literally stop her movements.

It feels like time stopped and I know I cannot maintain this forever. I myself cannot really move or at least not normally. Heck I even stopped breathing and all the bodily functions like that… I would assume in about half hour I will be completely without mana.

That’s of course relative. We are talking about not even three seconds anymore stretched into half hour inside my brain. Now that should give me all the time I need.

It feels super weird and scary but I have other things to worry about right now.

Besides it is absolutely fucking badass thing to do. I literally stopped time. Well relatively to my senses at least. I need this to think through what to do.

First… I have no idea what to do. I don’t want to just straight up murder her and even if I did that, I have a feeling that I would doom Candace forever.

Second… I need to try to feel the weird whatever it is from her again. Maybe second time I get to realize some things I didn’t and possibly, more used to it I will not miss something important.

Third… I think I want to try speaking to a human. Especially her. It might be stupid but I need to know exactly why they are hunting me and what to expect going into future from them. If I can talk to her peacefully there is a chance I can be friendly towards humans. Granted she has at least a little reason but if she can somewhat accept me because I saved her there is always a chance somewhere down the line for others to do that too.

There is no way I will pass my first chance to talk to a human normally but I even saved her before so she should be a bit more accepting towards me…. Not that it would seem like it that much from the conversation she had before.

She also seems to not have any weapons. Should be quite defenseless if she decided to fight me off barehanded.

Well that can wait for later. Now that I somewhat decided what to do the first point is done.

Lets try to focus on the feeling inside her again. I am a bit further away from her but this time I can offset that with the insane thinking power currently at my disposal.

Going deep inside of that whatever it actually is. I have again felt the same things. This time a bit more possible for me to actually notice what is it. It feels very similar to the time I was death and all the weird stuff was around me.

There has to be a connection somewhere but I have no idea. I swear I got quite deeper this time even and there were even more stuff that I don’t know what it is. I have spend month at least in the weird place before to even comprehend what is around me and now I have only about twenty five minutes left. No way I can actually get any decent info out of that. Instead I try to focus as much to filter out all the bullshit.

The only thing important right now is Candace. Thinking about her trying to find any connection to her in there what would seem like galaxies upon galaxies of information layered with more weird galaxies of information.

It is Endless but somewhat I can maneuver in there and filter out all the other stuff until I found what I wanted. It is there after all.

Candace. I can see her being small and young and hunted by birds and scorpions in places I have not been in. I also see her struggling to survive and find a place where to stay and evolve… then it goes and shifts towards her being big and suddenly without a home and forced her to descend more because of her size. Then struggle against humans and some more of that and then more and more and more and more… it seems really that she had a lot of experience dealing with humans and only barely survived each and every one of those encounters mostly running being barely alive. There was even this human that literally cut off all her legs and gouged her eyes out and some of her exoskeleton and then she was left to die only to be helped by some other spider. It is mixed and hard to properly navigate but I think it is her love? She was smaller then… they enjoyed living together and hunted together for quite a while oh… there is also that memory that the same human killed her love spider and while he sacrificed himself to let Candace run. Oh my god there is just too much of her memories.

I guess thousands years of living can do that. Anyways in a short she hates humans because they killed her love and then she focused on growing stronger to once take revenge on the human that literally farmed her for parts and killed her love. She got so strong she couldn’t even properly navigate through most of the floors. Also her hatred shifted towards entire human race. So instead she became Candace. A queen for her kin to find a descendant strong enough to do her bidding and revenge her or grow army strong enough to wipe humans entirely.

I can tell from all this and the subtle calls for me that it is not exactly Candace. It is more like her essence. It took me a bit to realize but I am almost certain that this is the experience points you get from killing something. Just for whatever reason there is just too damn much. This is not normal. I killed the spider and bear and I didn’t feel like having anything inside of me like this. I even checked right now just to make sure. I can somewhat feel like sliver of it but nowhere near enough to call it an essence of them.

I think humans have something that negates the experience points loss during the death process. I know the elemental gave like no experience just by killing it but when I consumed him whole I got all of the experience he was worth. Possibly his entire life of experience worth.

That was huge by itself… but they were newborn elementals and that by itself was a lot. How much crazy experience did she got by killing Candace? She probably skyrocketed to thousands of levels if not more. Depending on how many levels and evolution Candace had. She never told me that…

That’s insane. She might be strong enough to kill me barehanded. That’s no joke. I don’t know how stats works for humans and logically speaking from what I heard even from mermaids it shouldn’t be THAT MUCH… but it stacks right? If we count ridiculous amounts of levels it should be superior to mine at least ten times if not more.

The only thing I don’t really get is how. I am one hundred percent sure there is no way Candace could be easily eaten. Hell I don’t even think humans can do that and Candace is also not purely mana based creature.

I have went outside of this weird space… not that I would be there I just saw inside and felt what is there…

I tried to notice anything out of ordinary about the human girl. Sadly I couldn’t find anything. No rune. Nothing. But she had weapons before and she doesn’t now. Maybe it broke in the fight?

Maybe…. Yeah. Backtracking in my memories I know that every single person of the party had something on their weapons. I figured it could be a rune to boost their fighting powers and all that but maybe it is something that boost experience gain instead. I didn’t really pay it that much attention so I am left just with my guess.

Alright. I think that second part is off the list too. I understand somewhat the gist of things. Candace is somehow linked to this girl. I don’t think that’s going anywhere in the nearest future. Probably never.

The question is… can I do something about it? My hunches are telling me yes but I wouldn’t even know where to start. Not to mention she would probably have to willingly cooperate or be completely overpowered by me.

I could also try and consume all her mana from the body. But I have a feeling it is not that easy solution. Probably I would lose parts of Candace essence or worse completely ruin it.

Alright. Time for me to be crazy once again and talk to her. Despite all what I found out about I know I am not in hurry about helping Candace and I should somehow experiment about things to find out about what is it exactly I am dealing with. Will probably involve some heavy fusing of elementals. Looking forward to it…

Okay. So the plan is to collapse the portal and in the time it should take them to form a new one I would speak to her.

Hopefully on a friendly note. If I even think I am in danger at all I will immediately erase myself and run for it. I cannot afford to kill her if I want to help Candace at all. Too risky.

Honestly even if she killed her… I don’t think I have any right to revenge Candace. It would feel too much forced. I might be a bit sad but I didn’t really like her THAT MUCH… still… I don’t like it… the whole situation is really complicated for me. I am somewhat thankful to this girl as well. If she didn’t distract the spider I would probably never be this strong and things would go very differently.

Well past is the past. Future and present is way more important.

Here goes nothing…

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

I was just about to step through the portal when it collapsed. I mean it wasn’t me who wanted to be there but why would they do that. What is….

Oh my god. I am super scared right now. Terrified, I can clearly feel a suffocating presence right behind me.

I am surely going to die. This creature is too much for me to handle. Maybe that is the reason the portal collapsed.

Out of nowhere I feel this insane pressure emanating from this creature behind me. I don’t know how it got there so fast but clearly it is about to kill me. I guess it was just a pipe dream to level so fast and got my dream going.

It was probably lured from the depths of the dungeon to consume me while I am defenseless. I was unlucky. Still I wouldn’t go down without a fight. I will fight until the very end. That’s me, that’s Ellie Rose the sword dancer that lived…

I was about to do my quick step skill but I realized I cannot. I don’t think the creature aura is blocking the usage of my skills but I just cannot start moving my body. I am that terrified. The feeling of such inferiority to something is something I never felt before. I know that whoever or whatever this behind me is, it is literally a GOD compared to me. I will be damned if I let myself be consumed by a monster simply because it is stronger. I AM NOT THAT WEAK. I WONT GIVE UP. MOVE MY BODY. MOVE! AT LEAST HIT IT ONCE!!!!!!!!!

I have managed to move my body to just turn around slowly. To my surprise despite taking so much time the creature still didn’t attack.

Once I was enough turned I had been surprised even more.

I can clearly see a golden eyed, white colored rat, size of a smaller bear. It has long tail coiled around the body just barely enough so it can be seen through the fur and ready to use at any moment but I can still see that it is longer than the entire body of the rat. The whiskers are also very impressive. They emanate this calming slight glow and his gaze is fixed on me. I don’t know how I know it’s him but I know.

I don’t know for sure but I think this might be the rat we were looking for. Otherwise why wouldn’t it attack me already?

Don’t tell me it is trying to communicate to me? No way… rats are not able to do that.

¨HELLO¨

Did I hear correctly? Also it didn’t really scream or anything but his words are too damn easy to understand. It feels like he is too dominant. I know he doesn’t scream but it feels that way.

¨CAN YOU HEAR ME? I MEAN I KNOW YOU CAN!¨

What does he expect me to tell him. My head hurts only listening to his speech. What is this…? I cannot make myself to be outdone by STUPID RAT! I literally cannot speak towards him no matter how hard I try…!!! AAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!

¨DID YOU GO DEAF OR SOMETHING? YOU DON’T SEEM HURT TO ME AT ALL!!¨

URGH… this is so hard. I reached for my stupid last resort throwing knife and stabbed myself in the leg. Hopefully the insane pain of that stupid move will be enough to let me at least speak to this creature…

¨I.. I c.. I can hear… you v…ery well… stu..pid rat. I don’t… know… wh…at you are…. Do..ing… but…. please ha…ve mer..c..y and some…how tone it down!!!!¨

Is this the extent that my blood and pain is worth? I can almost not utter anything out of me despite all this. I will kill this rat if I get the chance. I have never felt so humiliated before…

I don’t even know what is happening but I hate it. I hate to even think about the mere implication that this stupid rat can somewhat be superior to me!!! NO WAY!

It does seem that the pressure disappeared however and that’s most likely because the rat did something. I can finally feel relaxed a bit. No longer suffocated by the aura of this beast.

¨TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH! Were you trying to torture me? I should’ve killed you back then!¨

Maybe I am a bit harsh on the rat. Thinking about it he seems too nice to deserve it. Even then he helped me risking his own hide.

¨I am sorry. I don’t know what happened. I am too young to understand this world. Can you please talk with me and look past our racial differences?¨

Wait a second. I just realized he is talking to me with normal human speech. How is he doing that? Anyways beside the point I guess. This is definitely the rat we are hunting right? What should I do? Kill it right now? I never wanted to hunt him. He saved me and I don’t think I could stomach killing it even if it was weaker than me. Not to mention I think I STAND NO CHANCE against this creature. It makes no sense. Right now logically speaking I can feel it even has way lower mana than me. Not to mention our levels should be miles apart. Doesn’t matter what he did. There is no way he could race thousands of years worth of experience from the terror spider.

¨What do you want stupid rat? I don’t have time for you!¨

¨I swear to god… this feels like stupid Aqua all over again. I will fucking murder you… you stupid fucking bitch. If she doesn’t treat me with at least one percent respect or stop constantly bitching about me being a rat and how stupid and not important to her I am I will murder her… play it nice though Felix play it nice… aaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!¨

¨I wanted to talk to you beautiful lady. I saved you before because you seemed about to die… could you please answer few of my simple questions? I would be willing to help you in future as well…¨

You are not fooling anyone you beast. I have heard your inner talk… don’t know how but I was reading his thoughts… pretty badass. I didn’t know I am this good. Anyways with the pressure gone I think I might be able to kill it by surprising it. However… my body did start to shake a little bit.

I think I am afraid again. Despite all my bravado and all that hearing his thoughts made me afraid again. He might be nice but I am truly pushing him I guess.

Might be smart to just talk with him a little bit. Besides the raid might show up at any moment. I should hide that I am a bit shaken.

¨Okay. What do you wanted to talk about?¨

¨When you kill creatures like me and monsters in general do you get a lot of experience?¨

That’s some pretty smart rat? I don’t know why he is asking for this… not really an issue to answer to this no?

¨When we hunt we use runes to increase experience gain so yes we do get a lot of experience¨

Weird question… not that it would matter really he cannot do these runes anyways and I don’t even know how to make them so he cannot get that info out of me regardless.

¨Thank you for telling me that… out of curiosity what is your class?¨

I mean sure… even more weird but again why not…

¨It’s a sword dancer, I can kill many opponents at the same time and overall have a great stats all around¨

Well I am sure I can advance to much greater class right now when I get to a diviner.

¨That’s Is awesome! It sounds really good! So without a sword you are really weak right?¨

Okay that’s rude but I guess he is correct… I mean I might be strong enough to kick his head off cleanly but generally speaking without a sword I am garbage class.

¨Yes that’s the gist of it. Now let me ask something as well in return. It is only fair¨

¨Very well ask me human girl…¨

Eh I get why he was so pissed earlier I think. It is starting to get on my nerves as well.

¨I am Rose. Call me Rose.¨

I think he was a bit surprised that I told him my name but I guess he got the respect he so much wanted…

¨I am Felix… nice to meet you Rose. Your name is beautiful and so are you¨

Well I can admit that I really don’t feel that good being complimented by a rat but it still made me a bit happy and I already knew your name from your leaking thoughts. Wonder why I cannot read them now… anyways.

¨So why you saved me? Also what are you doing there right now? There is no way you would risk talking to me just because you saved me… you are not that stupid right?¨

I can feel the small shifts in the teleportation circle already taking place. Good. Soon I will get reinforcements. I will need them most likely. There is no way this rat just came to me to talk. I feel like we can be friends but that’s only if he is completely honest to me and I feel that I can trust him. That’s CRAZY? Why would I feel like I can be friends to a monster!!! Right now the only thing I feel for sure is I want all the help I can get to deal with him. I don’t care if he survives or not but I don’t want him to somehow enslave me or some crazy shit like that. I was barely able to talk back to him. No way I am taking any risks.

¨You killed my friend. It pulled me towards you¨

What? What is he talking about? I am pretty sure I never killed any of his possible rat friends? Odd.

¨You probably don’t even know what I am talking about. It doesn’t matter. Your friends are coming back for you. I need to run. They will hunt me. We will talk in the near future. I will find you! Do not be afraid of me and if possible please don’t talk to them about me. I know you have no reason to trust me but I can swear to you I don’t want to hurt you. If I know that you didn’t tell them anything I will reward you even. Be strong and survive Rose. See you later¨

With these parting words he disappeared. Completely puff.. what?

I don’t understand how is that even possible. I don’t think that was teleportation and if it was it was on a level not even possible to comprehend for anyone. About second after he disappeared the portal reopened and the people I was in raid with rushed through.

¨Are you okay Ellie?¨ Bent obviously I am… you can see that right? Oh well I stabbed myself.

¨It is fine I fought off a monkey that ran and accidentally stabbed myself in the fight, I just suck without a sword¨

Hopefully that’s enough of a fake to convince them. I would normally tell them all that happened. But somehow the last parting words convinced me to give him a chance. He could’ve killed me from behind and he didn’t. I will give him the chance he so damn wanted to risk his life approaching me. I even think he knows about us hunting him. That’s was incredibly brave and stupid. Reminds me of myself.

¨Can we finally go to get it over with? I am getting sick of this forced delve¨

With these words I move past the portal. I have no doubts they will all follow me because I am basically a prisoner. Oh well.

The view and the barrier is so beautiful.

That giant shadow creeping on top if it not so much….