Ethereal Ascendance: A Journey of Transformation

The only thing I could do now was to return to the hill where Adrian and I first landed, and wait to regroup with them.

I was still a bit worried about the Fire Flame God Michelle that Borg said was in Val City. Because according to him, she was a goddess that had descended in bodily form, and existed in Val City, so close to me - that made me unable to ignore her.

But she probably wasn't as powerful as he made her out to be. If she was that formidable, we wouldn't have been able to hide out in the city for so long. And when we escaped, she didn't show up in person either, just sending two silly skeletal dragons to chase me that I managed to escape from in the end.

If Borg hadn't told me, I would have had no idea such a powerful goddess was hidden in this city.

Hold on! What if he was lying to me? What if that Fire Flame God Michelle wasn't even in the city at all? Maybe he just wanted to scare me into letting him go when he said all that.

I felt like that was very likely.

Although I still didn't get to ask where the teleportation point had moved to now, my mood was a bit more relaxed than before.

Because from what Borg said, he had let slip a lot of useful information. That included the fact that the Val City side didn't know Alfreed's squad existed - if Blanche hadn't sold us out, then the rest should be able to get out soon.

Those cavemen until now still thought that I either killed the others, or some enemy dark creature faction did it.

To have five big live humans sneak in without detecting anything, they still dared say their goddess was personally guarding the place? I couldn't help but snort in contempt when I thought of this.

As I was flying through the sky towards the gathering point Adrian and I had agreed on, I seemed to see a black dot moving swiftly in my direction from the ground below.

That black dot was moving extremely quickly in a series of jumps and bounds, very suited to the mountainous terrain in this area.

Could it be...

I stared intently, flying a bit lower, and discovered what looked like a human figure. I immediately lost my cool - how could there be a human in a place like this?

The only humans that would be around here were probably Alfreed's group, could it be that someone else got caught up in the earlier teleportation exchange as well? But judging by how skilled that person's movements were, it probably wasn't an ordinary human. Or could it really be one of Alfreed's group who also escaped alone?

Guessing blindly wouldn't do any good. When I dropped down directly in front of that person, I got a huge shock when I saw who it was.

"Blanche?" I exclaimed in surprise.

How could it be her? Based on my and Adrian's guesses, either she was now trapped with Alfreed's group in that little house in the city, or she might have sold us out already and was waiting for the monsters to send her back, although that was on the condition that the monsters kept their promise.

But now she appeared alone on this barren mountain outside the city - what was going on? Although from her direction, she seemed to be heading precisely towards that volcano I had come from.

"It's you, Feliciana!"

Blanche was also shocked to see me, immediately saying:

"Hurry and go help the captain and the others! The city gates just opened and when we tried to slip out from there we were discovered. They're fighting intensely right now."

City gates? Why would the city gates be open?

My first thought was that the gates should be closed tight during the day. But I immediately recalled what Adrian said about the two skeletal dragons crashing onto the city walls - if they wanted to dispose of them separately the gates would have to be opened manually.

Of course! Adrian could take this chance to slip in, while the people inside could slip out. Although with so many people they would stand out too obviously and easily get exposed, it was still a viable method.

But doing this was far too risky. I didn't know why the usually cautious Alfreed would choose this approach.

"What about you then? Why are you at this place instead of with the rest?"

I asked doubtfully. Blanche appearing alone here was too suspicious. And coupled with Adrian's earlier doubts about her, I definitely had to get to the bottom of this.

"The captain told me to escape first on my own to check out that mountain you mentioned. Because if the whole group moved together we would be too slow. In case that wasn't the right teleportation point and everyone made a wasted trip, it wouldn't be worth it."

Looking at how anxious she seemed, if Adrian hadn't warned me beforehand, her acting probably could have fooled me.

But there were far too many holes in what she said, it was practically insulting my intelligence.

No matter how powerful the Level 6 Alfreed was, he wouldn't be so arrogant to think he could take on the entire Val City's monsters while protecting everyone. Even if they did manage to temporarily escape and even make it to the volcano range like she said, what if they had gotten it wrong? Where would everyone go while escaping their pursuers' attacks? Would they just wander around aimlessly looking for the right place?

But even though I saw through her lies, I didn't dare expose her immediately. I was very curious how she had managed to escape alone, but I didn't dare ask either!

I certainly hadn't forgotten Blanche was Level 5. If she noticed anything off about me, a fight would break out and I would definitely lose miserably, maybe even die.

"I see, you go check it out then! They are now at the gate, right?"

I pretended to believe her as I replied. The best thing to do now was probably to just go along with her. If she wanted to go to that mountain, then let her. It was empty over there now anyway, and she probably wouldn't discover anything even if she searched there for a whole day.

"Yes, so hurry up and go help them! What about Adrian?"

"Adrian went to check out that mountain too. You might run into each other, when you see him ask him to hurry back to help."

Since she hadn't met Adrian yet, I made up something on the spot before quickly flying away.

I had thought Blanche was lying completely, and originally just wanted to make a show of flying in the direction of the city gates before doubling back to secretly keep watch on her.

But as I approached Val City, I discovered there seemed to be a lot of gathered monsters near the city gates. Flying even closer, I saw to my shock that Alfreed's group was right there in the middle of the monster horde, fighting bitterly!

What on earth was going on here? Weren't we supposed to sneak quietly into the city? How did they end up fighting their way out of the gates?

I saw that Adrian was there amongst them too. I was completely stunned. This didn't make any sense at all!

In actuality, although there were a lot of monsters surrounding them from outside, with Alfreed the Level 6 expert there, plus several other Level 4 comrades, they were somehow still able to defend themselves.

And they had even fought from the inside of the gates to the outside.

But this was probably just a temporary situation. The monsters around now were all low-level grunts. Higher-leveled monsters would soon be alerted by the commotion and arrive. Things would get difficult then.

The weaker ones like Selene and Eleanora were already struggling to cope. As magic-users not suited for close combat, being surrounded and attacked by so many monsters was already extremely difficult for them to endure until escaping the city.

Seeing this situation, I should have rushed down immediately to help. But seeing how many gathered monsters were down there, still encircling and attacking them, my heart was filled with extreme unease and nervousness. I hovered in midair, not daring to make a move.

After all, I had never experienced such a scene before. Going down now would practically be throwing myself into deadly peril. I clenched my fist tightly as my heart wrestled intensely with itself.

All of them were comrades who I had been living together with these past few days. If I watched idly from above because of my fear for my own life, how was that any different from the detestable betraying behavior I so hated?

But I was only Level 3! Even weaker than the weakest Selene down there. Rushing down, what help could I even provide? I would probably just cause more trouble for them and become a laughingstock.

No, wait! Adrian told me that I was no longer so weak. I had reached Level 4 already. He had said so himself, told me to have more confidence and believe in myself...

I looked at my own two hands, then looked again at the fiercely battling people below.

"Screw it!"

I shouted loudly, drawing the longsword at my waist and charging towards the monster horde, slashing into the head of the werewolf that was attacking Selene.

This werewolf was probably only Level 2 or 3. Descending from the sky, my sword empowered by the momentum cleaved straight into its head. It immediately exploded into a bloody mess, splattering me in the face with blood.

"Bleargh! So disgusting!"

I wiped the blood stains from my face, spitting out repeatedly until I nearly vomited.

Forcibly suppressing the nausea, I yanked out my sword from where it was deeply embedded in its head. Speaking of which, without my wings spread out for balance, I wouldn't have been able to pull it free at all.

"Feliciana, why are you here?"

Seeing what was happening, Selene rushed to stand guard in front of me, using her magic staff to block the scimitar of the lizardman who wanted to take advantage of the chance to attack me.

"Didn't Adrian say you went to scout out that volcano? What's the situation over there?"

"I finished scouting it already! Long emptied out, they've relocated!"

I shouted loudly in reply, then went over to aid Eleanora on the other side. Although she looked delicate and frail, she was utterly ruthless when it came to killing enemies. She was currently fiercely bashing away at a hellhound with her magic staff.

Strangely, despite her staff being a blunt weapon, every strike seemed to draw blood. I saw a faint blue glow flickering at its tip - this was probably a combat method of imbuing magic into the weapon.

So this was what a close-combat magic user was like!

But Eleanora was bashing with too much absorption, to the point that a goblin on her other side was thrusting a spear at her and she didn't even make any move to defend herself.

"Watch out!"

I shrieked in alarm, rushing over to slice apart the spear. But suddenly a blade glinted at the edge of my vision - but by this time I was in no position to defend myself!

With a loud clang, the blade was blocked by a weapon stretched over from the side.

It was Adrian! Since ranged combat with his usual bow was unsuitable in these close quarters, he was using a longsword like me.

At this moment he was powerfully slashing the enemy who had just tried to ambush me. He seemed to be handling it with ease, even having the leisure to ask me:

"What do you think you're doing here?"

Leaping to my side, standing back to back with me, Adrian said harshly:

"This isn't a place you should have come to!"

He sounded very angry, and I shrank back my head guiltily. Had I gotten rescued by him again and was now dragging him down?

"I'm sorry!"

I put all my might into slashing out at the monsters in front of me, hurriedly apologizing and explaining:

"It's because you said before that I was Level 4 already, so I thought..."

"Oh, uh..."

Adrian seemed to hesitate for a bit after hearing my words.

"You've misunderstood. I'm not saying your strength isn't enough, just that I've told you already - even if that volcano location turned out wrong, you should still have returned to wait for me on that previous mountain. So why did you run here instead?"