Jonathan left Eliza, emerging from the grass near the side of the highway. There was a patch of short cropped grass on each side of the road, about half a mile in length. As soon as he exited the field, the nearest Umber Trolls locked their gazes on him.

  “A monster!” one of them shouted, lifting his hammer. A wave of flame washed over the weapon, turning the metal a bright red. Droplets of molten metal dripped from it, although the actual size of the hammer didn’t change.

  The guards gathered around him, while the merchants in their wagons burst into frantic motion, speeding away from Jonathan. The reptilian beasts pulling them panted and slavered as they tore gouges into the stone of the highway.

  “I’m not a monster,” Jonathan replied. “I am a traveler from another realm.”

  The guard with the hammer ignored his words, leaping up into the air. He soared hundreds of feet upwards, before reversing course, his hammer falling with him like a meteor. Jets of flame erupted from the soles of his boots, accelerating him towards Jonathan.

  Jonathan sighed and raised his palm, not bothering to use his element. Instead he drew upon his Divinity, using Wrath of the Void. His physical strength and durability shot up towards the stratosphere. In the moment before impact, he set his feet.

  The hammer struck his palm with a dull thud, all of its momentum ceasing. The weapon broke in half near the center of its haft, one half spinning off into the grasslands while the other snapped up and slammed into the Umber Troll’s face, breaking his nose.

  “I don’t want to fight,” Jonathan said calmly. “My allies and I came here to fight monsters and level up. We haven’t seen any, though.”

  “What are you?” the stunned Umber Troll asked, taking a few steps backwards. His compatriots flocked around him, holding their weapons uneasily.

  “My name is Jonathan. I’m a human, though you’ve probably never seen one before.”

  “What is a human?” the troll responded, his hands shifting up and down the length of his broken hammer. “I have never heard of such a creature.”

  “Yes,” Jonathan said impatiently. “That’s what I just said. Now, will you put your weapons down and listen to me, or do I need to beat some sense into you?”

  Incensed by his words, the contingent of guards charged in unison, about five hundred of them in total. Back on the highway, a cordon of guards were forming up at the edge, shielding the wagons with their bodies.

  “Seriously?” Jonathan asked. “I’m just one guy. Do I really warrant all of this caution?”

  As the Umber Trolls neared, he realized that he wasn’t going to get anything more out of them without defusing their aggression.

  Instead of injuring them, Jonathan reached out with his element, purple tentacles of energy reaching out of the ground and snatching hold of the Trolls’ ankles. Rather than trying to erase the matter that made up their bodies, Jonathan instead erased their momentum. As long as the Void tentacles touched them, they were stuck in place.

  “I could have killed you a dozen times over by now,” Jonathan warned. “Why are you all so stubborn?”

  “There are no other sapient beings in this realm,” the original guard said fearfully. “The Uthraki are long gone, and all that remains are the monsters of the rim.”

  Jonathan perked up. “So there are monsters. I’m assuming the rim means the edge of this world?”

  “It does,” the Umber Troll said cautiously. “Why haven’t you killed us yet? All of the monsters that live out there are bloodthirsty beasts incapable of reason.”

  “For the last time,” Jonathan said, “I’m not a monster. Look, if I were a monster, would I do this?” He waved his hand, removing the Void tendrils binding the Trolls in place. “See? Nothing to worry about.”

  For the first time in the battle, if it could even be called that, the Umber Trolls backed down, lowering their weapons.

  “If you truly want to reach the rim, you can’t do that right now,” the hammer wielding Troll said, letting the remnants of his weapon clatter to the ground. “You will have to gain permission from the Council.”

  “Where can I find this council?” Jonathan asked. “In the city at the end of this highway?”

  The Troll laughed. “Ekbis? No. You need to go to the capital. Valryis is many times larger than this city. It is like an entire mountain range of buildings and towers. The walls stretch to the heavens themselves.”

  “I thought there weren’t any monsters around here. Why are there so many defenses?”

  As Jonathan spoke, more of the Umber Trolls broke away from the highway, coming his way with threatening expressions on their faces.

  “It’s not a hostile!” the Troll Jonathan was talking to said. “Go back to your duties.”

  “Are you sure, Brandis? Our duties are to protect the caravan. That’s what we’re doing.”

  “You wouldn’t make much of a difference if this man wanted to attack the wagons,” Brandis said. “He’s far too powerful for any of us to face, even with more numbers on our side.”

  A bit surprised at how well things were going, and a bit relieved that he wouldn’t have to go on a killing spree, Jonathan whistled sharply, signaling for Eliza to come out.

  When she strode out of the embrace of the long grass she had a frown on her face. “I’m not your dog,” she said, a little annoyed. “I don’t want to be summoned by your whistling.”

  Jonathan winced. “Sorry. It just seemed like a good way to get your attention.”

  “I could hear the whole conversation anyway,” Eliza replied, shaking her head. “I was about to come out before you did that.”

  “Sorry,” Jonathan repeated. “I won’t do it again.”

  “You let your woman speak to you like that?” one of the Umber Trolls said. He opened his mouth to keep speaking, but Eliza was already in the air in front of him, a fist buried in his gut. He flew backwards across the highway, landing in a heap on the other side.

  A few of the other Trolls looked his way with worried expressions on their faces, but didn’t say anything.

  Eliza landed softly on the ground, and walked back to Jonathan’s side. “I’m not his woman,” she spat. “We’re partners in this whole thing. He might be a lot stronger than I am, but it doesn’t mean we aren’t equal in the ways that count.”

  Jonathan wisely didn’t say anything, instead bringing the conversation back to where it had been before.

  “Anyway, Brandis, you were saying there are some monsters that can be found at the edge of the realm? Why aren’t there any in the interior, but there’s still so many guards?”

  “That is because this realm is not under a single ruler,” Brandis explained. “It is divided up into many different countries and city states. Pragunvale and Ekbis are two allied cities, but they aren’t in the same nation. Valryis, which I mentioned earlier, is the capital city of the Jakanis Collective, which Ekbis and seven other cities are part of.”

  Jonathan realized what the problem was. He was used to all of the realms of Tartarus being under a single hegemonic leadership, but that appeared to be more a hallmark of the Uthraki as a species rather than the realm as a whole. They were an extremely martial people that respected strength over all else. It was natural that a single leader or nation would rise to rule over everything. The Umber Trolls were different.

  “Huh. That wasn’t the case in any of the other layers of Tartarus I’ve visited,” Jonathan said.

  Brandis looked at him, startled. “Other layers of Tartarus? What do you mean? Is that where you came from?”

  “I’m not going to go into a whole cosmology lecture here,” Jonathan said. “It’s not that important. I’ll just say that in all of the other realms of Tartarus, the Uthraki were still in charge.”

  A hiss rose up from the circle of Umber Trolls.

  “The Uthraki? They still live?” Brandis said. “My people swore long ago that if those demons ever returned, they would be eradicated to the very last of them.”

  Jonathan sighed, realizing that Arkanon and the other Uthraki were going to be a problem. There was no way he could introduce them without causing an incident, or more likely, a war. While Jonathan knew that he and his party had what it took to defeat the Umber Trolls eventually, what with the levels they would gain from the war, he didn’t want to wipe out an entire species over something that seemed perfectly justified.

  “They can’t get here,” Jonathan assured Brandis. “I only got here through the use of a special artifact that nobody else can acquire. The Uthraki will never darken this realm again.”

  Eliza gave him a look. Perhaps he was laying it on a bit thick, but given the circumstances, it was warranted.

  Brandis let out a sigh of relief. “That is just as well. Their return might not pose a threat to us, but it would to our way of life. Wars would break out and tyrants would rise and fall in response. Our entire society is based around their absence, and their complete eradication. The fact that there are more out there is troubling…”

  “Anyway,” Jonathan continued, “we’ll be on our way. I assume if we just keep going in one direction, we’ll find the edge of the realm?”

  Brandis shook his head. “No. It’s not that simple. The center of this world is spatially separated from the rim. The monsters there are so dangerous that we can never allow them to reach our settlements.”

  “What do you mean?” Jonathan asked. “Aren’t they also limited by the mana concentration?”

  Brandis shook his head. “It isn’t that simple. There are only a few thousand beasts living in the outer wastes of the rim, but each of them are far more powerful than they should be for their level.”

  “In what way? Is there a reason for that?” Jonathan asked.

  Brandis shrugged. “In the same way you are much stronger than your level indicates. They have evolved through constant fighting, honing their strength. Some of them approach sapience, though they are still ruled by their brutish instincts. Every time one dies, the System resurrects them to continue the cycle anew.”

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  “I guess the Umber Trolls overthrowing the Uthraki interfered with the way Tartarus is supposed to work,” Eliza said to Jonathan. “Though if these monsters really are that powerful, we should be able to level up a lot.”

  “How can we go there?” Jonathan asked. “Is there a portal? Some artifact you need to pass through?”

  “You’ll need to head to Valryis and petition the Council,” Brandis answered.

  “Oh,” Jonathan said. “So when you said we’d need to visit there earlier, you meant that the only way to the rim is in the capital. How do we get there?”

  “Follow the highway to Ekbis and then hop on the under-rail. It will take you there. Though if you’re up for a challenge, you can try to cross the Pyrochasms on foot.”

  “The Pyrochasms? I assume that’s exactly what it sounds like?”

  “If it sounds like countless miles of gorges filled with lava imbued with the very concept of heat, then yes. Nobody goes that way though, not even the strongest among us. The only being to have ever crossed it was the Magma Titan, one of the most infamous of the rim dwellers. It only managed because it is made of the same material that makes the Pyrochasms so dangerous.”

  “Can you not fly over them?” Jonathan asked.

  Brandis shook his head. “The lava stops at ground level, but the heat extends all the way up. Or at least, nobody has ever found where it ends.”

  “Right,” Jonathan said, sharing a glance with Eliza. “I think we’ll be taking the under-rail.”

  A current of wind carried a whisper from Eliza straight to Jonathan’s ear. “What about the others? We can’t let the Umber Trolls see Arkanon and the rest of the Uthraki.”

  “Tell them to follow the highway,” Jonathan whispered back, going so low that even he could barely hear it. “We can meet up at Ekbis.”

  “How about you come with my convoy?” Brandis asked. “I’m sure some of the drivers would love to hear tales from another world. I myself wouldn’t be against a bit of entertainment.”

  Not really able to disagree without seeming suspicious, Jonathan and Eliza agreed.

  A few minutes later they were sitting up on one of the massive wagons, sandwiched in between barrels of various goods. The wagon creaked into motion, and they were off.

  Heading down the highway took far more time than it would have on foot, and they spent that time conversing amiably with Brandis and some of the other guards about Telvaria and the Infinite Hells.

  Jonathan dropped a few hints about his defeat of the Circle Lords, but none of the Umber Trolls seemed to know anything about them, which was strange, given their location in Tartarus.

  He ended up changing the subject to a topic that the Umber Trolls were very interested in. His own adventures through the previous layers of Tartarus. Jonathan could tell that this was because they found great pleasure in his stories about wiping out entire armies of Uthraki. He omitted a lot of details, mostly pertaining to his friendship with Hushar, Tukar and the other Uthraki in his party.

  Jonathan had never considered himself a storyteller, but he quickly found that his high Intelligence stat coupled with the perfect memory that it gave him let him spin captivating tales that kept the Umber Trolls entertained for the rest of the journey to Ekbis.

  By the time the towering walls were looming over the caravan, two hours had passed.

  “I wish we could talk for longer,” Brandis said as Jonathan and Eliza got to their feet. “I have to be on my way now. Good luck with your journey to the rim. I hope you don’t die.”

  “It was nice talking to you as well,” Jonathan replied. “Goodbye.” He leaped off the side of the wagon, landing on the road beside it. He and Eliza headed off to the side of the highway, pretending to have a conversation.

  Instead, as soon as they were out of sight of Brandis, Jonathan shielded them with the Void, rendering them invisible. It was time to meet up with the rest of the party.

  While Edgar and the others were nowhere to be seen, Jonathan had other means of detecting them. He knew that they had reached the city long before him, meaning that they would have had to find a hiding place. As there were no terrain features near the wall, the only place to hide was either within the wall itself, or in the ground. As his party had many members with powers over the element of Earth, Jonathan suspected that they were taking advantage of the ground to hide.

  He swept out his elemental senses, scanning the ground for miles in every direction, including straight down. There wasn’t anything that immediately caught his interest, so he kept going.

  Eliza joined in, working on surveying the ground beneath the wall. The stone making up the titanic edifice extended down for nearly five miles and was heavily reinforced with girdings of elemental energy. It then flattened out, covering the entire base of the city. After a few minutes of futile searching, Eliza concluded that it was nearly impossible to get through without the city defenders noticing.

  Jonathan eventually found a trace of his allies’ passage through the ground, a trail of obsidian left behind in the shape of a tunnel. It was no doubt the work of one of the Uthraki.

  “I think this is it,” Jonathan informed Eliza. He then coated himself in a layer of Negation attuned Void energy, falling into the ground as it melted through the rock beneath his feet. Jonathan banished it as soon as he penetrated the obsidian tunnel, landing with a sharp clink on the glassy rock.

  The tunnel stretched out into the darkness, though with Jonathan’s enhanced senses, he was able to see enough to move around. He moved out of the way as Eliza dropped down, landing next to him.

  “Where do you think they are?” Eliza asked. “Can you tell?”

  Jonathan shrugged. “Let’s both take one side. From what I could see earlier, the tunnel curls around itself quite a few times. I couldn’t tell which way went towards the wall and which way came from outside.”

  “I’ll take the right,” Eliza said.

  “Alright.”

  They headed in opposite directions, their footsteps clinking on the obsidian beneath their feet.

  Jonathan walked for about a minute before hearing something. Footsteps coming his way. As Eliza was behind him, it meant that someone else was in the tunnel.

  “Who’s there?” Jonathan called out. “Edgar? Arkanon? It’s Jonathan.”

  There were a few muffled whispers, then Edgar called out in response. “There you are! We were waiting hours for you to get here. Arkanon got bored and started digging under the walls. He found out how futile that was pretty quickly, though.”

  Jonathan laughed. “I can imagine that.”

  Arkanon scoffed in the distance. “I did not “get bored”! I am used to a life of battle, not hiding underneath the ground like a mole.”

  “Whatever you say,” Edgar replied.

  Jonathan rounded the corner and saw the rest of his party waiting there, sitting on crudely shaped stone seats.

  “So, what did you find out up there?” Edgar asked. “How are we going to level up? Did you get to the bottom of why there aren’t any monsters?”

  Jonathan nodded. “I did. Let me tell Eliza I found you first, though.” He turned and shouted down the tunnel. “Eliza! They’re over here.”

  The sound echoed down the tunnel for a few seconds before reaching Eliza. “Coming!” she shouted back.

  Jonathan turned back to Edgar. “I talked to one of the locals for a few hours. All of the monsters are hidden away at the outskirts of the realm, and because they’re so powerful, the various countries of this realm banded together to spatially separate the rim from the rest of this layer.”

  “Different countries?” Arkanon asked, frowning. “Not only did these Umber Trolls destroy my people, but they are so weak in the mind and body that they cannot even unite under a single leader?”

  Jonathan sighed. “This world isn’t like the layers of Tartarus you know, Arkanon. The Umber Trolls do things differently. I won’t comment on which method is better, but difference alone does not automatically mean inferiority.”

  “I will take you word for it,” Arkanon said in a tone indicating that he would not in fact take Jonathan’s word for it.

  “More importantly,” Jonathan continued, “we’re going to have to be extremely careful about traveling across the realm. The Umber Trolls absolutely despise the Uthraki. If any of them saw that we have five Uthraki in our party, the whole realm would come down on us in an instant.”

  “I don’t see what the problem is,” Hushar said. “It isn’t like anyone spotted us on the way here.”

  “Apparently, to get to the rim, we need to visit Valryis, the capital city of this nation. The only problem is that the land between here and there is completely impassable.”

  Arkanon laughed. “Impassable to the weaklings who make this world home, I’m sure. Not to us, right?”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Jonathan said. “The Umber Trolls aren’t so much weaker than us that a deathtrap for them is a mere inconvenience to us. Nobody has made the overland trip for as long as the Umber Trolls ruled this realm, save for an incredibly powerful monster that was uniquely suited for the task.”

  The sound of hurried footsteps interrupted Jonathan as Eliza came around the corner. “Anything I missed?” she asked.

  “No. I was just explaining the situation to them. How we need to get to Valryis in order to fight the monsters at the edge of the realm.”

  “Right. Let me guess, someone wants to try crossing the Pyrochasms on foot?”

  “I haven’t explained what they are yet, but yes,” Jonathan answered, laughing. “Arkanon was very eager to prove how much stronger he was than the Umber Trolls.”

  Rather than reply indignantly, Arkanon merely shrugged. “How could I see myself as anything other than superior after hearing about their governing system?”

  “I don’t think what I heard described as “heat on a conceptual level” is going to care about your political stances,” Jonathan retorted. “Unless you’re completely immune to every form of fire out there, I don’t think we can get through the Pyrochasms. Even a True Affinity probably wouldn’t help.”

  “Wouldn’t it?” Eliza said, frowning. “I thought that made you immune to a specific element?”

  “I assume some of the Umber Trolls have a True Affinity for fire,” Jonathan replied. “Also, nobody here uses exclusively Fire. The Uthraki would be the most likely to have a True Affinity for that element, but they all use a mixture of Fire and Earth as far as I know. Right?”

  Arkanon nodded. “All of my people follow the path of Lava. Fire alone is more suited to mages, and most Uthraki are warriors, and the few mages like Maranta prefer to use Lava as well, because it has much more utility than Fire.”

  “Besides,” Edgar chimed in, “a True Affinity only shields against the pure element itself. It doesn’t protect against the secondary effects. For example, my True Affinity to Air only makes me immune to pure elemental Air. If somebody used the element to remove all of the oxygen around me, I would still suffocate.”

  “Doesn’t sound all that useful, does it?” Hushar said, smiling a little. “Dual elemental cultivation is the way to go.”

  Edgar sighed. “Elemental immunity is only the beginning of what a True Affinity offers. It’s just that most people only associate it with that. Most of the benefit comes from allowing the user to establish a far greater connection with their element than anyone without that True Affinity.”

  “We’re getting sidetracked,” Jonathan said. “Now that we’ve established that getting through the Pyrochasms is a no-go, how are we going to sneak into the city and onto the train to Valryis?”

  “A train?” Edgar asked. “I’m not familiar with that word.”

  “Neither am I,” Arkanon added. “Perhaps there’s an issue with your System translator?”

  “The Umber Trolls called it an under-rail,” Jonathan explained, “but it sounds a lot like a machine we have back on Earth called a train. All that really matters is that it’s a sort of carriage that runs on rails rather than roads.”

  “I know what you’re talking about now,” Edgar said. “Some of the larger empires of Telvaria use a similar mechanism. They called it an Iron Horse. It’s a strange name, but it does match the function of the machine.”

  “People used that name on Earth as well,” Jonathan said. “And I know it isn’t because of the translator. Both those words mean the same thing here and on Earth.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to get distracted?” Eliza said playfully. “You always nerd out over the strangest things. It’s kind of endearing, honestly...”

  Jonathan coughed. “Right. If we’re going to get into Ekbis and onto the under-rail, we can’t afford anyone of the locals seeing the Uthraki. I’m sure the Umber Trolls we met have been spreading all sorts of rumors about Eliza and I, probably not maliciously, but considering how out of place we look, people are going to recognize us. We need to make sure that they only see the two of us who are supposed to be here.”

  “Just use your Void cloak,” Edgar suggested. “It’s almost undetectable unless people are specifically looking for it. Using it on us but not on you and Eliza should divert most of the attention away.”

  “I’m just concerned about getting on the under-rail itself,” Jonathan admitted. “There’s bound to be some sort of security, and even if there isn’t, my technique doesn’t do anything about touch. If an Umber Troll bumps into you, we’ll have a problem.”

  “I think you’re being too paranoid,” Arkanon said. “What does it matter if they find us?”

  Jonathan frowned. “I know you don’t have any problem with massacring the Umber Trolls, but I actually talked to some of them, and as far as I can tell, they don’t deserve it. Besides, what if the under-rail won’t work without an operator? Then we’ll be stuck.”

  “The fact that it is called an under-rail means that it likely travels underground, or bypasses the Pyrochasms somehow,” Edgar reasoned. “We don’t necessarily have to board it. We can simply ride on top.”

  Jonathan blinked. “That’s a good point. I guess I’m starting to fall victim to my own intelligence stat. It lets you plan ahead more efficiently, but it also increases paranoia.”

  “It also depends on the person,” Edgar chimed in. “You lived most of your life without enhancement. You are still adjusting to it, but your high rate of growth means it’ll take a while to catch up.”

  “Fine. Let’s go for it. It can’t be that difficult to sneak through the city and board a glorified train.”