As Kurushimi’s feet cleanly reached the ground, positioning herself on the forest floor, she heard Atelier mention, “I’ll mark the position of the tether on your map.” A ping followed briefly after with a yellow dot appearing on her minimap.

Looking over the map, Kurushimi noticed it was also updating her own position along with how far away she was from the tether. As Atelier had told her, it was 157 metres away from where she currently stood. “So I need to run from here to there before the vengeful spirit is done with the living armour.”

“Speaking of those two, the lightning stopped, didn't it?” Kurushimi glanced over at the fight scene once more. With the roaring sound of thunder and lightning suddenly coming to a stop, she couldn’t help but worry that the fight had already come to an end. Sneaking past it would be much harder if it was no longer distracted.

“What’s it doing…?” Kurushimi was relieved to see that the living armour was still alive; at least, it sort of looked like it was - if only by a thread. The vengeful spirit just stood over it, menacingly. She wanted to know what it was doing but since both sides were still alive, she decided it would be best to do that while running. With yellow sparks generating at her heels, she activated fleet footwork and broke into a sprint.

Trees and foliage rapidly passed by, the distance from her destination was shortening at a frightening pace. Kurushimi could really appreciate just how fast she had gotten with her 557 agility. ‘To think my agility would be doubled under the kami state… Anyway, what is the vengeful spirit doing now-?’

From its position over the living armour, the ethereal aura of purple electricity gathered at the vengeful spirit’s arm. With that hand, it thrust down and firmly grasped the living armour. This action seemed to faze the living armour considerably more than any of the previous strikes. A look of realization dawned on Kurushimi’s face, “Don’t tell me it’s-?”

“Seems it has finally figured out what it needs to do.” Atelier commented, showing she had also realized what it was most likely doing. Just as it had done to the canisfang Kurushimi was controlling, it had begun to sap out the living armour’s stats. It could regenerate its health, but could it regenerate stats?

Kurushimi sped herself up to reach the tether faster. She most likely still had some time left, but it was quickly running out. The sparks generated from fleet footwork grew as she entered a more speed-prioritizing running form. [Skill, ‘Fleet footwork’ has reached Lvl. 4!] In no time, she reached her destination. Slowing herself down and controlling her breathing, she looked around the area. The terrain had become noticeably different compared to before. In front of her laid a very wide pit where the elevation difference had caused a fair amount of water to collect. There were many little islands surrounded by said shallow water.

“Is it in here?” Kurushimi asked, squinting her eyes and searching the area. The yellow dot Atelier had marked was indeed located in the pit ahead of her, about 20 metres away. Unable to see it through the trees and other obstacles blocking her vision, Kurushimi jumped down into the pit and further approached the marked location.

“Is this tree it?” Kurushimi asked, observing the tree in front of her. It didn’t look different to any of the trees here but this was where the point marked… But that made sense! Of course the tether, which is the vengeful spirit’s lifeline, wouldn’t be obvious. It makes much more sense to disguise it as something unassuming like a tree! Kurushimi remembered the old analogy ‘If you want to hide a tree, do so in a forest’ Too bad for it, there was a god present that could sniff it out. Kurushimi exclaimed, “So, I just need to destroy this then!”

Unexpectedly, her explanation was met with a sigh from Atelier. “The tree isn’t the tether.” She said bluntly.

Following Atelier, Voice-san stated, “It’s behind the tree.”

“O-oh.” Kurushimi scratched her head before wrapping round the tree and finally meeting the acclaimed tether. Now that she had come face to face with it, it was a lot more fitting presence-wise. A stone circle embedded into the ground with a large purple crest and a pillar protruding from the ground in the centre. The pillar was accompanied by the exact same electricity the vengeful spirit had used.

“This pillar is what you need to destroy. A swift strike combining dimensional magic and sword aura should do.” Atelier explained.

“Okay, you got it!” As instructed, Kurushimi unsheathed her katana from her waist and prepared to strike the pillar. Igniting the crimson sword aura and casting dimensional magic, she slashed down vertically. The space ripped, tearing through the pillar before slamming shut to reveal the pillar again but in two pieces. The purple electricity slowly faded until it was completely gone.

“Is that it?” Kurushimi asked, sheathing her katana once again. There seemingly were no complications and the process had been fairly easy after having found the tether itself. However, it took a little longer than she expected for someone to reply. Turning towards Atelier, Kurushimi realized everything had gotten slow and… danger was coming from above!

“Agh-!” Kurushimi hurried to jump out of the way, her perception of time slowly returning to normal. The space where she had just stood had been charred black and the remnants of purple lightning crackled against the ground. She quickly spun around, searching nearby until she met eyes with the vengeful spirit. “Y-!” Kurushimi went to shout but was unexpectedly interrupted before she could.

“You… You…!” A voice full of anger and resentment boomed out from the vengeful spirit, surprising Kurushimi greatly. The last thing she had expected it to do was talk. Not waiting for her to process any more information, the vengeful spirit continued, “You destroy it… Won't forgive you… WON’T FORGIVE YOU! WILL HAVE VENGEANCE!”

After hearing it speak, she had initially thought she could perhaps reason with it. After all, if it was intelligent enough to speak, perhaps it could be reasoned with? She did like to fight but if peace was an option, that was still preferable. She wasn’t a maniac after all. However, it seemed way too late for that. Any chance of negotiation was thrown out of the window after breaking the tether.

Kurushimi banged her fist against her head, ‘If I had known it was intelligent, I wouldn’t have broken it! But how was I supposed to guess that?! The only intelligent monster I’ve met so far was Karshak!’ But in the end, she had broken the tether. So, it should disappear now right?“It’s not disappearing.” Kurushimi stated, nothing visibly happening to it. And the main point in destroying the tether, limiting its interaction with the physical world, wasn’t working either! Kurushimi danced around, dodging the lightning strikes as she shouted, “Hey, Atelier! What’s going on?! Why isn’t it disappearing?!”

“It’s vulnerable now… but it’s not going to disappear on its own.” Atelier calmly stated a fact that did not warrant being stated so calmly. Atelier continued, “You wanted to take its exp and stats anyway didn’t you? Is this not a good thing?” Kurushim clenched her teeth. Although she was right about that, it would have been nice to know sooner! How many times would Atelier put her into these sorts of situations? Was it really a smart move rescuing her? She was beginning to have second thoughts…“Ah whatever! I guess I just have to fight it-!” Kurushimi stowed away her katana, switching it out for the glaive instead. Igniting the blade with sword aura, she swung upwards in a large arc, sending a huge wave in the vengeful spirit’s trajectory. The vengeful spirit quickly batted away the wave, dispersing the energy through the air. However, after clearing its vision, Kurushimi had disappeared from sight.

“Oh, so you dodged that!” Kurushimi shouted, her katana just barely missing the vengeful spirit's waist. A portal that she had opened with dimensional magic was visible just behind her. The vengeful spirit reacted instantly and swung at her. But before contact, the portal dispersed and she seemingly disappeared along with it.

“I have two methods of teleportation!” Having blinked directly above the vengeful spirit, she thrusted her glaive down. However, the vengeful spirit managed to avoid that attack too, stepping out of the way and grabbing the pole with one hand and reeling back with the other. Kurushimi, who was currently suspended in the air with no more ways of teleporting on such short notice, exclaimed, “Sh*t.”

She was sent flying as its fist slammed against her body, hitting her onto the ground where she just barely stopped before falling into the water. Shattered segments of solidified shadow were scattered along the path she had travelled through. Kurushimi propped herself up, speaking whilst coughing, “I managed to make a wall of shadow in time, which absorbed some of the impact… but damn that bloody hurt!”

It was evident that cheap tricks such as that weren’t going to work. She would have to beat it in straightforward combat… Kurushimi looked up at the vengeful spirit, which had begun to speak again, “You pay…!”

Kurushimi noticed something, “On another note, I seem to be understanding this world’s language a bit better - haha.” It was obvious the vengeful spirit wasn’t speaking Japanese, not that she knew what language it was. But she was getting better at understanding it.

[Skill, ‘Language comprehension’ has reached Lvl. 2!] “Oh, a level-up!” Kurushimi said, noticing the system notification.“Kurushimi, there are more important things than studying linguistics at this moment.” Hearing Voice-san caused Kurushimi to notice a sudden change in her environment. At some point, the waters surrounding her had been charged with the purple electricity. If she had been knocked just a little further way - it probably wouldn’t have been good…

“Looks like this location wasn’t picked at random…” Kurushimi commented, realizing she may have fallen into a bit of a trap. The location for the tether’s placement was likely a strategic decision, using the mass of water as a conductor of electricity. Effectively creating a wide field of electricity to fight in. Even someone not very smart could tell the vengeful spirit had a huge advantage in this scenario.

“Only having a few usable locations while simultaneously needing to dodge the lightning strikes and fight the vengeful spirit, this certainly doesn’t look good…”

“Atelier, you really aren’t helping!” Kurushimi shouted, hearing Atelier’s negative outlook on the situation. Wouldn’t you normally try to reassure one in this kind of situation? Keep them calm and help them avoid panicking? ‘Hah… assuming conventional thoughts from these two was my own mistake…’ Kurushimi thought to herself.

Standing up, she cracked her back and snapped the dislocated bones back into position before extending her arm outwards. In her outstretched fingers, she allowed her glaive to manifest once again. From the looks of it, she figured that the vengeful spirit had also fully finished electrifying the water or whatever it was doing.

“Time for round two!” Kurushimi dashed forward, swinging her glaive furiously at the vengeful spirit. The blade barely missed by a few centimetres as it jumped to the side. But before it could have any time to rest, she swung with her katana and managed to snag its belly, ripping through its stomach.

“Tch- too shallow-!” Kurushimi shouted as she continued her pursuit, closing the gap between her and the vengeful spirit again whilst simultaneously dodging its counter-attack. Using her blade to redirect the vengeful spirit’s fist, she got behind it and went to slash at its back. However, as time slowed down and battle instinct warned her of imminent danger from above, she regretfully retreated before being able to do so.

The purple lightning crashed down in between them, scorching the ground with intense heat. “Damn. When it uses the lightning that way, it’s hard to get a good hit in.” Kurushimi commented, finding room to talk after forcefully being made to gain distance. The vengeful spirit had summoned lightning in between itself and her, using it defensively to avoid being struck in the back. It was a perfect showing of the best defense being a good offense.

“It’s a little annoying how it can summon lightning on itself since it doesn’t have to worry about being…–” As Kurushimi voiced her complaints, she abruptly stopped as she trailed off into another thought. “Wait, it stepped back as well didn’t it? When it summoned the lightning, I mean.”

Atelier: “Mhm.”

Voice-san: ”Seems so.”

Hearing the two gods agree, Kurushimi was sure of something, “If it was immune to the lightning, it wouldn’t need to dodge. Does that mean it isn’t immune?” Constantly being wrapped in electricity had led her into the assumption it was immune. Perhaps it was immune to residual electricity; but the lightning held too much destructive power to be fully immune to?

“Hm, I have an idea.” Kurushimi said, preparing herself to run in again.

Voice-san: “Why do I have a bad feeling about this?”