Chapter 220

Matt looked at the distortion in the fabric of reality with a sense of trepidation, irritation, and hesitation.

He could read Liz and Aster well enough to know they felt the same way.

This was one of their final attempts at beating the pinnacle of challenge Luna had set for them once Liz and Aster had reached Tier 13, and beat a peak Tier 17 rift.

A Tier 18 rift.

For three average mid Tier 13 cultivators, that was an impossible leap even in their dreams, but they were anything but average.

After digesting their gains from Minkalla, the three of them had had a substantial increase in their combat prowess, and with Luna’s direct teachings, they had been forced to push themselves every step of the way.

Matt was 80% sure that if they had been able to enter an old Tier 18 rift with a known layout and with easily available guides, they could have cleared it, but that would have never counted in Luna’s books.

Or even his books, really.

Matt didn’t really expect to ever go into a fight knowing everything about an enemy, and understood how that false security dulled the adaptability of a cultivator. At the same time, it made their few forays at Tier 18 rifts far more difficult. They’d been randomly created right before they went in, and as such, they had no idea what they would face. It made Matt jumpy.

Their most recent attempt at a Tier 18 rift was three weeks ago, when he had his leg twisted into a pretzel, after which they needed to retreat.

Swamp trees were an unfair combination of elements and monster type. Trees should be burnable, everyone agreed on that. However, that particular rift had proven that trees who wielded mud and water were less than susceptible to their ancient foe.

Luna paced in front of the rift while still in her cat form, something none of them had missed. She had implied that she would be fine in just a few years, but it had been almost five years since their manager had been in her human form, showing just how badly she had been hurt from delaying Matt’s inspiration.

She didn’t say anything, but April, standing to the side, did. “Are you three ready? Are your exit plans in place?”

Matt nodded as Liz went over their exit plans for their liaison.

Luna had been pushing her into a mixture of Kurt’s and her own role over the last few years, and this had become routine before all of their delves.

When they were done, Luna jumped into the air to hover behind him out of the way. Matt activated [Cracked Phantom Armor] and all of his channeled physical cultivation buffs, stepping through the distortion in reality with Liz and Aster close on his heels.

Once he was through the distortion, Matt instantly sent [Earth Manipulation], [Air Manipulation], and his spiritual sense outward as far and as fast as he could, taking in all the information at once and letting his AI process everything with the help of his Minkalla reward.

While inside the copper planet, the reward had been magnified as the restrictions placed on the pseudoskill had been largely lifted. But even after leaving, he retained the ability to supercharge the skill for short periods of time.

Alas, his willpower wasn’t quite as Endless as the rest of him, at least when pushing his Concept this far from its basic abilities. If he wanted to stay at full capacity for the rest of the delve, he couldn’t use his AI empowerment for very long, no matter how useful it was.

In less than a tenth of a second, Matt had a complete layout of the surrounding three miles of the rift entrance, with a resolution that would put most Tier 15 scanners to shame.

This rift was odd, to say the least, and the more he saw, the more Matt’s guard went up.

If he didn’t know better, he’d say they were coming in after another team had already cleared the rift. The nearby forest had giant holes in it, with large swaths of the forest toppled as though Aster had fought in it.

Behind him, at the maximum range of his skills, he was detecting a mountain range that seemed peppered with craters, which only became more clear as his AI processed the information.

Even as he took a step forward, Matt looked upward.

The sky of this rift was in a semi twilight, with just the inkling of a sun peeking over what Matt suspected was a false horizon.

A Tier 18 rift was large, massive even. But they had limits, and generally maxed out at one-third the size of a standard habitable planet. The giant moon hovering in the sky, with tentacles of pulsing and twisting flesh that had burrowed through its surface, told Matt that the moon itself was also in play for the rift, meaning this area couldn't be a true planet.

Aster, who had entered and was already looking up, asked, “What the fuck is that, and why is it eating that moon. I know it's not made of cheese, and who wants to eat rocks?”

Liz brandished her spear and settled in behind her shield, looking outward. “I sense something out there. Thousands of signatures.”

Matt glanced over, catching the faint red haze surrounding Liz’s left hand, signifying her use of blood magic to find potential targets.

It was, to date, the only bit of unstructured blood magic she was capable of performing. It was intensely difficult, time-consuming, and took tremendous preparation to pull off. In short, it was nowhere close to combat viable, and was vastly inferior to her [Blood Sense] skill in almost every way, but it represented a massive step in the right direction. Minkalla may have shown her some of the possibilities of blood magic, but all the skills that she’d picked up in its false lives were just wrong enough that she had to functionally start from step one.

Essentially, she needed to establish a connection to other blood around her, either to draw power from it or direct a curse to it. Or, in this case, to detect it. “Camouflaged enemies. Be careful of ambushes.”

With Liz trying to decipher more information from her spell and Aster scanning the air, Matt took the ground and sent out a ripple with [Earth Manipulation], looking for anything which didn’t heed his command.

While he didn’t directly find anything but stone, it did indirectly reveal the rift monsters as they erupted from the ground in a rage.

Masses of tentacles burrowed out of the ground in rapid, but short, jerking movements that made it seem like they could move in any direction, which completely broke his AI’s movement predictions.

A [Bulwark] held back some of the monsters as his AI predicted their attacks with tentacles that grew needle-like protrusions. In response, the monsters whipped their appendages to send the needles as projectiles whistling through the air.

Matt dashed forward, with [Mage’s Retreat] and [Air Slide] combining with Aster’s already-established [Tailwind] to let him cross the distance in the blink of an eye. His [Sword Twin] was already established, and the mage-focused enchantments turned a simple [Bolt] into an arm-thick bar of lightning that arced from the tip of his blade to the closest monster.

It twitched, trying to dodge, but Aster’s [Headwind] fought its progress long enough for the lightning to strike. The first monster hit by his attack exploded in a wash of silver gore, but the second and third monsters his lightning bolt hit went rigid before seemingly turning to stone as they froze.

Liz arrived by his side with fire announcing her presence and blood following in her wake. As she buried the metal portion of her spear inside the creature’s body and began to drink in silver blood, the trails of blood from her [Bloodrush] whipped out to cut through the tentacles of another frozen monster. She then continued to burn and corrode the body of her victim.

[Corrosive Blood] had been one of her tournament rewards, but it had taken her literal years to modify it to the point where it would only function on blood outside of her body. The acidic blood proved quite the potent weapon, and as a burst of willpower and essence signified Liz’s [Hungering Weapon] had finished its first target, she ripped the spear from its tentacled housing, ready for her next victim.

She spun her spear like a staff, gathering a vortex of flame around it to ward off some questing tentacles moving fast enough that Matt could barely keep up with them. She singed then with the maneuver and left dark streaks of ashen blood in her wake. As soon as she was able to see her actual target, blood coalesced around her spear and [Bloody Cleave] took off the remaining threatening appendages. Silver blood flowed through the air from the wounds and into Liz’s body.

While Matt’s attempts at making spatially expanded storage areas for Liz went nowhere, and some minor commissions didn’t hold up well inside her body while also not affecting her health, he had managed to craft a tiny metal insert for the back of her wrist that could either allow blood to pass through or not as she desired.

It had been decades since Liz had needed to cut herself to access her blood, and Matt didn’t want her to be forced to resume the habit. [Hypertension] and [Blood Storage] helped with her volume issues, but only sparingly. The former drastically increased the density of blood in her body, which was most useful for skills which reserved blood, such as [Blood Storage].

[Inventory]’s conversion wasn’t nearly as useful as they’d hoped; instead of spatially storing blood, it allowed Liz to reserve some blood to transform another object into blood. It took up less volume than the original item had, but unfortunately, it didn’t yet work on blood that was already hers. Still, Liz’s Tier 3 Talent allowed her to very rapidly refill on blood during combat, so she was rarely short on her primary element, even if she had to scale back the size of her workings.

Once they were off the Path, they’d figure out some form of solution, but if Liz could figure out a way to properly store her own blood inside itself, she wouldn’t need to worry about it.

Aster arrived borne upon a [Tailwind] elemental steed, flitting around the battlefield at high speeds as [Meadows of Rime] and [Absolute White] slowed the lashing tentacles to a speed that was best described as ‘only very fast’, which they were more than equipped to handle.

Unfortunately, the monsters didn’t seem to be particularly affected by the cold that Aster passively created as a byproduct of her skills, likely indicating a resistance to the element.

It wasn’t a great resistance to encounter, but at least they weren’t immune. Not that there was such a thing as true immunity. If something wouldn’t burn, that just meant your flame wasn’t strong enough. The same applied with cold.

True to form, Aster yipped in triumph as her Concept took hold of the monsters, allowing ice and frost to creep along their tentacles.

The armor and spiritual defense piercing effect she had received from Folded Reflections had been focused and practiced with more than any of the others, at Luna’s insistence. It benefited from a substantial reduction in cost thanks to Mind Over Matter, and prevented Aster from ever being truly deprived of her greatest tool.

Matt finished frying his third monster and switched his sword to its melee form, allowing the wind to catch him and whip him up into the sky and leaving a trail of [Afterimage]s in his wake. The illusions did their job, and several were destroyed as the monster took vengeance for its fallen comrades. At the peak, he reversed direction and sped downwards, draining mana from the mana stones sewn into the inner lining of his sleeve to fuel a rapid succession of [Wind Cutter], [Double Tap], and [Wind Cutter] again, this time further strengthened by [Hypersonic Edge].

The spell combo would be pricey for a normal warrior, but for him, the drained mana stones were refilled in a fraction of a second. [Double Tap] doubled the power of his second [Wind Cutter], and between that and the modifications the skill had undergone in the past years, it was even larger than Susanne’s had been with her greatsword. It was now a massive crescent blade of wind that stretched out to a thirty-foot arc before finally carving a massive furrow in the ground, leaving five dead monsters in its wake. With his boon from Winter, Matt was able to guide the cutting edge somewhat, striking weak points and chasing down any who attempted to dodge, while also fighting off another monster who had gotten close.

From behind, a nearly-invisible projectile slammed into Matt, piercing [Cracked Phantom Armor] and embedding itself in the underside of his arm, only stopping on a [Barbarian’s Hide]-reinforced bone.

He sent a quick message to Liz and Aster warning them to reinforce their defenses, then did so for himself.

The years it had spent in his innate skill slot had been good for Matt’s oldest skill, and it had reached the point where it was impractical to put as much mana as he possibly could into [Cracked Phantom Armor] at all times. His second layer now took enough mana to manifest entire plates of armor over him, and he focused those plates primarily on his head and chest, giving himself a blue breastplate and helmet over his normal armor. He’d already seen that he could take an attack to the arm and be fine, after all.

A [Mage’s Hand] yanked the spine from his limb, and he crashed into the ground at full force, slamming into the monster. It tried to entrap and snare him with its tentacle-like limbs, but Matt unleashed a Concept shockwave and blasted it to pieces from the inside.

As he started to charge the explosion once more, he let the wind catch him, blowing him out of the way of a descending tentacle. A pair of gusts later, Matt had cleaved the offending appendage in half and was unleashing a massive [Flamethrower] to scorch and burn its stoney skin.

Liz grabbed his extraneous flame for one of her own attacks, burning the monsters until they were nothing more than puddles of blood to keep the whirlwind going.

The monsters weren’t especially tough for Tier 18 enemies, clearly not dedicated to defense. While their movements were odd and jerky, they were trivially easy to predict with their respective AIs once they learned the movement style. They barely even cast any spells, which was somewhat unusual for such high-tier monsters, but he wouldn’t complain about good fortune.

A barrage of spines flew at his back, wreathed in silver light, and Matt was forced to take them as he was locked in combat with another three of the creatures. He reinforced the spots where they were going to hit slightly, but didn’t need to bother, as his armor’s second layer blocked the attacks admirably.

Liz bathed in the blood of her enemies, silver glinting in the wake of her passage as she ran laps around the monsters. She managed to make the tentacles, a full five tiers above her, look clumsy as she danced an intricate dance of death. A good deal of it was thanks to Aster’s aid, of course, but it still looked impressive as [Hungering Blood] fed back into her [Bloodrush], making her fast and faster as she picked her foes to pieces.

Aster stood proud atop an icy spire serving as the crowning piece of a garden made of frozen plants. Rift monsters rabidly attacked her, only to be sliced open by [Meadows of Rime], frozen into place, and drained of life by Winter’s Embrace.

Another nigh-invisible spine nearly struck Matt in the leg, but he teleported out of the way, spun, and sent a return [Cracked Mana Spear] in the direction of the offending monster, wherever it was.

A [Bulwark] intercepted another one of the spines, this one aimed at Aster, but between the two spines, Matt was able to figure out where the culprit was, namely half-buried in the rock and taking shots of opportunity. He was able to layer enough [Cracked Mana Trap]s on top of it that the next time the monster tried to emerge, it was instantly reduced to twitching piles of flesh.

They fought for somewhere between five and ten minutes. Liz was able to fuel her spells well enough with [Lesser Blood Sacrifice] and even [Lesser Sacrifice] that she needed only occasional assistance from Matt’s Concept to keep up, but Aster required his Concept’s full focus to keep functional. Fortunately, the single-target championing mode of his Concept was close enough to its base mana-granting ability that he could keep it up for hours before he’d need to take a break.

Aster detonated a portion of her ice garden with [Cracked Shatter], the explosion killing another dozen of the monsters, and Liz slammed into the final morass of monsters with a veritable wall of silver. Her blood turned her shield bash into a wall of destruction, vaporizing the last of their enemies. After, it spiraled into Liz’s spear, with the black steel hungrily drinking gallons of blood until it gleamed like a sunset.

Matt sent out another pulse of [Earth Manipulation] to find more hidden enemies, but saw nothing. Even the fallen bodies in front of him simply didn’t register as existing, or taking up any space.

Liz joined him, bringing with her an unconsumed sphere of blood.

“The only reason it's not turning into stone at the moment is because I’m connected to it with my Talent. This blood—” Matt almost smiled as Liz stressed the word. “Is hardly blood. It’s liquid stone the same way mercury is liquid metal.”

Aster flicked an armored ear in question. “So it’s stone that’s just liquid at room temperature?”

“Basically. There’s some magic involved, but the blood will transform to stone at the slightest opportunity, once it stops moving. I can get it going again afterwards, but I’m pretty sure they’re more elemental or golem-like than their… well, everything else would suggest. If they aren’t moving, I need to actually treat it like it’s stone to control it at all.”

Aster nodded. “So some kind of hibernation?”

Liz nodded. “That’s my guess. They’ve also got really good camouflage of some kind, which is why [Earth Manipulation] isn’t finding them.”

Aster grinned right back at him. “Only one way to tell.”

Matt slipped his arm under Liz and willed them into the air. Liz was technically able to fly with her Concept these days, but it was slow, unwieldy, and was in practice more akin to hovering. So, she and Matt still tended to fly together any time when speed was important or when willpower was in short demand as it was so much cheaper for him to use [Air Manipulation].

His boon from Winter, and the ability to drop the skill into an innate slot for a few weeks at a time, had led Luna to teach him a particular usage of the skill that mimicked the Tier 26 [Windsurfing]. The net effect was that he could treat himself, and any passengers, as though they were weightless, and thus able to be freely blown through the air on even a slight breeze. It was certainly easier than his earlier method of freezing the air around him, faster, and far more agile.

Plus, it was fun, and the novelty hadn’t worn off yet.

Below them, he and Liz each took hold of the ground. It was tricky, interlacing their control of the dirt and stone, as each of their respective magics wanted to take full control of the area, but they’d practiced this, and could manage it just fine.

Once their grips were adequately solid, they both twisted the ground in opposite directions as hard as they could.

There was a distinct lack of a reaction, prompting Matt to worry for a few moments until the essence started rushing up from the ground.

At first, Matt was pleased by the result, but then, on second thought, frowned. Liz voiced his thought an instant before he could.

“Swarm?”

Aster cocked her head, then nodded. “They were too easy. Tier 17 strength at most.”

Even Tier 13 monsters tended to have at least three spells, and the monsters they’d fought so far had one, maybe two, depending on how their camouflage and quills worked. Only extremely physical-focused monsters wouldn’t have something at this point, and the monsters certainly weren’t tough enough to be focused on their bodies.

And of course, a Tier 18 monster shouldn’t be weaker than a Tier 17 monster.

Was it possible? Yes.

Would Luna have kicked them out of the rift the moment she saw the rift wasn’t as strong as a proper Tier 18 rift should be? Also yes.

Which meant there was an issue.

Matt released Liz, allowing her to float to the ground on her own power, and let an updraft carry him further into the sky. He passed a substantial amount of mana to [Ranger’s Sight], allowing the vision enhancement to aid his scan of a massive portion of the rift.

He thought about using his spiritual sense, but that could be felt by monsters, and he didn't think that alerting the real monsters of the rift was a good idea quite yet.

After a few minutes, he had nothing new and landed.

“I’ve got nothing.” Shrugging, Matt looked up to the abused moon hovering over them. “I don't think we should go up there until we understand what is going on down here, though.”

In preparation, they took turns applying their life-support systems to their armor. It was niche enough that most suits of armor didn’t include protection from hazardous environments that wasn’t cold or hot, but when blind delving rifts it was an invaluable investment.

As they carried on and with no reason not to, they advanced through the rift, with Matt and Liz killing off swathes of the horde with carefully-positioned [Earth Manipulation]s.

They had been in the rift for close to an hour when they all saw the light change. They looked up to see the tentacles in the moon glowing and writhing, flicking its tentacles at them in a way uneasily reminiscent of the swarm-monster’s flung projectiles.

With no desire to stick around for whatever moon-scale assault was headed their way, Matt and Liz grabbed the earth around them, digging down as far and as fast as they could, making a bubble of stone for the three of them. As their now-unleashed spiritual perceptions picked up the first incoming projectiles, Matt halted and reinforced the roof above them with [Bulwark], joining Aster’s [Snowpack] in keeping the stone from collapsing.

The earth shook as dozens of skyscraper-sized pillars of stone slammed into the ground and monsters flooded out, veritably blotting out the sky as they flit and jerked through the air like mosquitoes. For each spire, a dozen larger, golden monsters emerged that his spiritual perception tagged as far more of a threat than their lesser brethren. They were likely the next stage of the rift monsters, tougher and more important than the disposable pawns they’d been dealing with.

Matt glanced at Liz. His girlfriend wasn’t acting concerned, and while her helmet was as implacable as ever, with his spiritual sense he could see her wide smile, tongue pressed against a canine in anticipation.

“You know, I was worried there for a moment, that we’d have to deal with the bosses after all my buffs had run out.” She turned to Matt and asked, “Spot me?”

“Always.”

The grin grew wider as she responded, “Love you.”

Liz closed her eyes and began muttering mnemonics under her breath, forming and using potions directly in her bloodstream as Matt moved their earth bubble up and up, flying through the ground as they neared the surface.

They erupted from the ground in an explosion of wind and fire with Liz launching herself up to the closest monster, her spear glowing with an ominous red light as she stabbed it. It tried to fight back, but with Aster’s contributions, it was having a hard enough time simply staying airborne. It was only a matter of time before Liz finished it off, and as the monster plummeted to the ground, [Hungering Blood] drained it dry, and Liz leaped to the next-closest monster.

She couldn’t kill the monsters with a single blow, but she could make them bleed, and that was all she needed. Silver blood streamed from open wounds as Liz ran along lashing tentacles, building up speed from [Bloodrush] and feeding through her weapon into strengthening its attacks and her own cultivation. [Lesser Blood Sacrifice], [Hungering Weapon], and her own Concept all reveled in the bloodbath as wounds refused to close and bled profusely thanks to [Blood Wind], and it all fed into making her an unstoppable gold and silver juggernaut.

Soon, Liz was killing a member of the swarm with every strike, diving through the jerking masses of tentacles and adding their blood to an ever-growing wave following her. It quickly got to the point where she was simply incapable of controlling the sheer volume of semi-earth blood around her, and it erupted in a conflagration so massive, Matt could feel it from where he was.

He wasn’t completely idle, of course. While Liz enjoyed letting loose, he was keeping an eye on anything that could serve as an interruption to her enthusiasm. That necessitated being in the sky, and the monsters weren’t about to let that happen. They’d been attacking him, but he was staying within range of Aster’s [Headwind] and [Tailwind], rendering the monsters slow y enough that he could avoid the swarm without difficulty. He couldn’t afford to get hit, of course, but Aster’s efforts made that a fairly minor concern. Instead, he spent most of his time funneling 5,000 mana each second into [Sheer Cold] and unleashing it periodically.

While 10,000 mana made for a very sizable area of effect, the monsters were resistant enough to ice that it took several seconds of charging between each cast if he didn’t want to just waste his mana. The spell wasn’t that efficient in a purely mana to damage ratio, but with his ability to throw mana at the problem, even the Tier 18, cold resistant monsters were overwhelmed and killed off by the thousands. At least, the lesser variants were. The gold monsters seemed to be able to shake off his quick burst of [Sheer Cold], but it wasn’t his job to kill them.

The other half of his mana, of course, was being spent on all of his buffs, defenses, mobility, and occasional [Arcane Powershot] or burst of [Cracked Mana Spear] intercepting a monster attempting to sneak in an attack on Liz.

Even as he watched, a [Blood Whip] snagged the passing tentacle of one of the golden ‘elite’ monsters, and Liz launched herself into the air above it, kicked off another monster, and dove at the elite. It summoned a stone-gray barrier that shattered like glass under Liz’s attack, and while her attack failed to kill it, it tore off one of the monster’s tentacles and sent the creature into a death spiral. [Headwind] refused to allow the beast to regain its balance and sent it plummeting to the ground below.

Aster finished off the monster with a titanic [Glacial Spear], the mountain of ice only made slightly less impressive by the dozen monstrous spires of black stone dotting the landscape.

An AI message came, and Liz responded by igniting her tide of blood, creating a new sun on the surface of the rift. Red and gold flames washed out as her ammunition ignited, a massive cascade of flames immolating much of the remaining swarm. Matt flew to meet her, catching her by the hand and jetting them to the ground, sheltering behind a [Bulwark] as Aster detonated her [Glacial Spear] with a [Cracked Shatter].

The resulting explosion shook the landscape and sent nearly all the remaining swarm monsters tumbling to the ground, frozen solid. Even some of the elites fell from the sky, either caught in the blast radius or bludgeoned by their slain brethren. Aster was merciless with any of the monsters who stumbled for even a moment, her winds casting them to the ground like oversized pebbles.

Matt gave Liz’s hand a quick squeeze, dropped his [Bulwark], and blasted them back into the sky, some fragments of tentacle monsters caught in the updraft and joining their madcap pursuit of the elites.

Aster joined them en route, perched on a flying cloud and locking down the air around them for any of their enemies. Their first enemy glowed with a reddish-gold light and shot a [Mana Bolt]-like projectile that tracked them even as Matt sought to dodge. The blast broke through his initial [Bulwark] and was only stopped by a combination of [Diffusion Shield] and [Bulwark].

Once they reached it, the first elite barely even slowed them down, between Liz’s still-empowered spear and Matt’s accompanying [Cracked Mana Spear]. It exploded into rubble and essence, instantly filling up Matt’s spirit twice over as he directed most of the incoming essence directly into his core, and the rest into [Lesser Sacrifice]. It had taken lots of practice to properly allocate essence on the fly, but he’d had practice material to spare.

He spun in the air, launching Liz at the next elite like a discus while diving towards a second one in tandem with Aster. [Flamethrower] billowed out, engulfing the both of them in light-blue flames as he allowed Aster to convert the fire to ice-aspect and use it for fuelling her own skills. Wind and snow cracked the golden hide of the monster and ice accumulated on its skin courtesy of [Glacial Strike]. By the time he was within melee range of the monster, teleporting past a bright red shield it tried to raise, the ice was thick enough that he could cast [Cracked Mana Trap] on it.

The detonation blasted a hole in the side of the elite, and Matt finished it off with his sword burying his blade into the beast up to the hilt and channeling a [Bolt] through it, then ripping it to pieces as he centered his Concept’s repulsion on his sword. The fragments of stone fell to the ground far below, and Matt used [Air Body] to quickly reposition himself near a pair of Liz-shaped beings of blood. One vanished and the other manifested itself as his girlfriend bathed in the blood of her former enemy, ending both her [Lesser Blood Clone] and [Blood Body].

[Lesser Mana Clone] was a difficult skill to control, normally requiring full concentration to manage, and [Lesser Blood Clone] was no different. However, Liz had learned that while in [Blood Body] form, she could have her clone either duplicate or mirror her actions with comparative ease. Anything else was still impractical, though they hoped once she got the hang of Concept duplication, she could manage more autonomy for less focus.

Hand in hand, they dove once more into the fray.

It took them nearly a week to clear off all the monsters landside, as the moon had sent out a new wave of enemies in the skyscraper-sized ships once a day. Even approaching immortality, they weren’t quite able to go indefinitely without sleep, particularly with such exhausting combat, but they were able to get some rest between monster waves. It mostly reset Liz’s momentum, her buffs fueled by the deaths of enemies all needing to be constantly fed or wither away, but she also appreciated the amount of practice they provided her. If anything, each day was easier as the rift sent half as many spires with each barrage.

They weren’t quite untouched, of course. Matt had a few minor flesh wounds and a fairly nasty gash across his abdomen that would have needed a professional healer had Liz not been able to tend to it quickly with her [Lifeblood Manipulation]. Aster had a few broken bones that would take a couple weeks to heal without further medical attention, and Liz’s intestines were lightly perforated after she’d taken a barrage of quills to the gut at one point. But her own healing was more than enough to keep her upright and fighting.

Once no more pillars fell from the sky and they had killed all the monsters hidden in the ground, the three of them were forced to look up at the moon.

Flying up thankfully didn’t trigger the monster to throw more pillars of stone at them, but it did start to wave some of the smaller tentacles around the largest crack at them, throwing train car-sized stone pillars at them like the drone monsters did.

Thankfully, they had enough control over their flight to dodge everything, but it still left them with a serious issue.

“How do we kill that thing?” Matt asked through their AI.

He was currently sharing his vision of the boss with his AI, having enhanced his sight with [Telescope] and [Ranger's Sight]. The two of them combined to let the trio see the boss even from their distant perspective.

The boss was thankfully not the entire moon monster but rather seemed to be the exposed heart of the moon, visible and reachable through the crack in the outermost layer of the satellite. It pulsed and wriggled even as the canyon leading down towards it wriggled with the stone tentacles.

Aster ventured her opinion. “Frankly, I don't want to kill it. It can have space, and we can have the ground. It's a victory in my books.”

Her tone said she was only half joking, but Matt considered it even as they floated to the side to dodge an incoming pillar of stone.

Liz shook her head. “I hate to admit it, but you might be right. I don't see how we can fight tentacles that big. Even if the biggest ones that sent the ships out don't swing at us, the smaller ones guarding the canyon are hundreds of feet long and thick as a building. I just don't know if we can blast through that much stone.”

Matt was still thinking things over when both women looked at him.

Offering up his idea, he asked. “Which do we want to try first? [Skewer], or [Arcane Powershot]?”

“[Arcane Powershot],” Liz answered. “I’m not risking my spear against that thing.”

Aster flicked her tail and huffed out a breath of air that vanished into the void. “He’ll need to stand still for so long, and we definitely can’t block any more of those spires if you’re tied up aiming.”

“Well, we’ll have warning,” Matt pointed out. “The minimum charge time isn’t longer than the travel time for the pillars, if we see an attack incoming I can just shoot off a weaker arrow and reposition.”

Liz shrugged, “It’s better than getting closer. Let’s see if we can make this work.”

***

Luna watched as her charges planned how to protect Matt long enough for his [Arcane Powershot] to gather enough mana to do enough damage to deal with the largest tentacles and then slowly move in.

She knew the plan would work because she had already inspected the moon creature when they first entered the rift. It was big and looked scary, but those larger tentacles were mostly mana constructs, and wouldn’t be able to stand up to a single fully charged [Arcane Powershot].

Once they learned that, they would easily be able to clear out the remaining tentacles and then waltz in and kill the writhing mess of stone and silvery blood that was the boss of this rift.

Even though she was separating herself and Kurt from the rift in a bubble, so it didn’t affect their rewards, she still controlled her [Air Manipulation] so only he could hear.

“A Tier 18 rift at Tier 13. Not the hardest Tier 18 rift, but they went in blind and will come out alive.”

Kurt silently sighed before writing. “I’m impressed. Where do we go from here?”

Luna knew what he was asking, and it was only long experience that gave her that answer.

The normal answer for pushing a team was to make them delve higher, or delve with restrictions, but her team was at the point where they constantly ran the risk of being killed by a single blow, and already used their best spells with discretion.

It was only true Ascender teams who pushed a manager this far, and while Kurt was her protege, he had only started working with her after Lila, her last Ascender, so he hadn't learned her methods.

“We’ve forged their blade, Kurt, now we just need to sharpen it.”