{Ding! You level up! You are now level 525.}

  {You gain 15 DEX, 15 STR, 19 VIT, 15 MAG, 8 PSY, 10 DEF}

  {Reaching level 525 has granted advancement. Choose one of your progression paths other than [Spellcasting].}

  This system text flashed before her eyes, but Ashtoreth barely had time to register it. She was still fighting.

  Ahead of her, her final remaining enemy drew itself into a vaguely humanoid form, albeit one that was made of crackling energy so bright that it was almost blinding.

  {Mana Elemental — Level 788}

  It raised one of its arm-like appendages, and a sizzling bolt of pure energy suddenly filled the space between them.

  Ashtoreth spun Wanderstein in the air before her, conjuring a concentrated flare of hellfire that scattered the bolt of energy so that it was mostly dispersed into the air around her. A few tendrils of light made their way past her makeshift defense, transmuting a dozen coin-sized segments of her wings, arms, and legs into a glassy dust.

  Then she beat her wings, throwing herself backwards as she brought the weapon up, took aim, and then launched a draining round into the elemental, tearing away its [Magic] stat to be added to her own.

  The elemental crackled, seemed to disperse into several interconnected stars of glowing energy, tried to re-coalesce into its earlier form… and then exploded, creating a small nova that transmute the smooth obsidian ground beneath it into a small crater filled with glass.

  Ashtoreth let out a little laugh, reaching out with her senses to make sure that was the last of them.

  It turned out the tier 4 monsters were much, much more fun than the tier 3 ones. In a number of ways, the mana elementals were conventionally indestructible. Once their [Magic] stat was low enough, however, they literally couldn’t hold themselves together.

  “Ding, by the way,” she said, projecting her voice into their telepathy.

  Grats, said Kylie. The true sight is kind of useless right now, but whatever.

  “True, but who knows? Maybe I’ll get offered something even better!”

  Her next two advancements had essentially been planned out already. She’d take the [True Sight II] upgrade now, then another [Spell Slot] for the last of the spells she’d planned out with Dazel, the stealth spell that Kylie had already taken and cast on Hunter while he was exploring the giant hole in the ground.

  Her level 475 advancement had essentially picked itself. It was the [Aura: Diabolical Interdictor] advancement that she’d only passed up to become a [Pinnacle Curator].

  [Aura: Diabolical Interdictor]

  Enemies seeking to teleport into or out of your aura will have the efficacy of their teleportation abilities halved.

  This aura has reduced effectiveness on enemies who are much more powerful than you.

  She’d been hoping for another super-special human-only advancement, of course. But the third option had been a useless reanimation ability that had no doubt been offered to her on account of her vampirism.

  [Aura: Diabolical Interdictor], though, was obviously superb. If she’d managed to get it a single advancement sooner, she’d have had it against Apollo and Haddad, where it would have made the fight substantially easier.

  Her aura was hundreds of meters in range, after all. Once she reached tier 4, she’d eventually get another upgrade on [Aura: Aura Magnitude] to make it reach even farther. Teleportation was strong enough that it was worth building against, especially for so low a cost.

  In general, defensive measures and counters were what she felt she ought to focus on. Her ability to kill large groups of enemies was astoundingly powerful. For single combat, she’d built more than enough ways to punch well above her very high baseline stats with high-cost, focused attacks like her cannon shots or her [Mighty Strike].

  What she needed was utility. She needed tricks, and the way to keep herself safe from everyone else’s tricks. Hence her fifth spell, [Ashtoreth’s Lidless Eye].

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  [Ashtoreth’s Lidless Eye]

  Casting this spell will grant you a boon which will allow you to spend time and focus to either extend the normal range of your magical senses or to enhance the sensitivity of those senses within their normal range. You may only do one of these things at once.

  You may also expend this boon to glean information about a target that is being affected by your hellfire, determining their class, race, resources, abilities, equipment, or ongoing magical effects.

  It was more Dazel bullshit, and it was sorely needed. Her seconds-long encounter with Massemeliact had done a lot to hammer home the wisdom that fighting tier 4’s and above often involved handling ability interactions that made them seemingly unbeatable.

  Ashtoreth’s army-devouring, city-destroying, absurdly-statted Swiss army knife of a build wouldn’t stand out nearly as much against higher levels as it did the lower ones. After all, many of them would have gotten to their positions by being as overpowered as she was.

  It was a depressing thought.

  The [Ashtoreth’s Lidless Eye] boon, along with all her other spell-buffs, was currently affecting her, and she used it to check the world around her for more of the strange mana elementals before deciding she was safe enough to pick her advancement.

  “I’ll take [Vampiric Archfiend of Humanity] for 200, please!”

  {Advance [Vampiric Archfiend of Humanity]}

  {Choose an advancement to gain, then choose to retain or replace all other options}

  Upgrade [True Sight] with [True Sight II]:

  Increases the efficacy of your [True Sight] by 50%.

  Gain the [Aura: Hellfire Tyrant] ability:

  Enemies within your aura have their fire and profane resistances each decreased by your level. This can result in their having negative resistances.

  Gain the [Demonic Summoning] ability:

  Spend a long casting time and very high amount of [Bloodfire] to summon a semi-randomly determined demon or group of demons from the Circles of Hell.

  Which demons answer your summons is determined by both your highest stat and your [Magic].

  Ashtoreth read the abilities, then scowled. “Um, excuse me please. But I was born with that last one?”

  There was no answer.

  She crossed her arms. “Well now I’m really mad at you, Dazel. Personally betraying me and Earth was one thing, but now you’ve gone and messed with my progression.”

  At least the aura was worth keeping. But the pick was obvious—her plans hadn’t changed. “I’ll take the [True Sight] upgrade, please.”

  {Gained [True Sight II] upgrade for your [True Sight] ability}

  The ability to pierce through stealth magic was obviously necessary… especially considering how many people were now motivated to assassinate her.

  Beyond that, she hoped she could get something that protect all of the buffs she was wearing around. It seemed to Ashtoreth that just about everyone could access dispel effects, and her build essentially turned her into a magical Christmas tree hung with all manner of powerups and expendables.

  Her next advancement was already reserved for [Ashtoreth’s Cloak of Less Visibility], though—another expendable boon spell. And after that, it would only be another 100 levels to get to tier 4.

  Right now, her plan was to take advancements in all the aspects she hadn’t recently touched: [Armament], [Drain], and [Hellfire]. Not because she needed them, but because she wanted to clear all the retained abilities before hitting the new tier and populate her selection list with exclusively tier 4 abilities.

  You get anything nice? Kylie asked.

  “Eh. Kind of. Decent aura upgrade, but the system offered me the [Demonic Summoning] ability that I started with.”

  Oh. That sucks. Would it be any good, though?

  “Nah. Great to build around, but [Hellfire Elemental] is the only minion I really need.”

  Makes sense. Break time?

  “Nah. I can go a few more hours.”

  If you say so. You know your limits better than the rest of us… and it’s not like I can’t say you’re getting some serious results.

  She wasn’t lying. It had been only a week since they’d all essentially started living in Core and Orchard. Ashtoreth hadn’t let up, and she’d been levelling at a pace that faster than even that which they’d reached while repeating scenarios after the tutorial.

  But now she was fighting monsters that were hundreds of levels above her, an easier feat given that the Orchard monsters seemed to have been selected for their easiness. And just as importantly, she was fighting alone.

  She needed to reach level 650 and tier 4. The description of [Pinnacle Curator] told her that she’d receive privileges commensurate with her tier, and Ashtoreth suspected that levelling would help her unlock the secrets of this new realm. At the very least, it would be nice to rule the possibility out as they searched for other options.

  The others were farming in lower-level zones. Kylie was still searching Core with her minions, having brought a hard drive full of shows to watch along with a generator from Earth. The rest of them were farming cores for her.

  “You betcha!” she said. “I’ll be tier 4 in no time—even if I have to genocide everything on this planet that’s above level 600!”

  What a necessary second half of a sentence, Kylie said.

  “Sorry,” Ashtoreth said. “It’s just hard not to think in those kind of terms when so much of my farming is done with, you know, a fancy nuke.”