When Alice heard that Immortals or near-Immortals from the Society had possibly come for her, she felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water on her.

The Society had already attacked her last month, when they had thrown several agents at Ethan’s manor. However, Alice had hoped that the Society would back off after that. They had stolen several notes from various researchers in Illvaria, and if they acted again, it would only make it easier for the Illvarian government to track the Society down and purge them from the country. Taking overt action would only increase the risks for the Society as a whole.

However, the Society clearly disagreed with Alice’s hopes for a more peaceful time. It only took Alice a few seconds to figure out why.

Alice’s actions in the last month had been very eye-catching. She had found a way to control the collapse of the System through enchantments, identified several of the root problems people were facing after the collapse of the System, had used the Church of the System to spread that information, and with the help of the church, had even set up willpower training programs to help people stave off the effects of the collapse of the System.

None of these actions had been private, so tracing everything back to Alice wouldn’t be very difficult. There simply wasn’t enough time to fully disguise her actions, with every second potentially costing people’s lives or sanity. The Society had obviously figured out that Alice knew a lot more about the current crisis than they did.

But she hadn’t expected the Society to throw caution to the wind and launch an attack of this magnitude against her. Even if it was increasingly obvious to the world that Alice’s research was very important, Alice was also protected by an Immortal, and thanks to the training Ethan insisted she undergo, Alice wasn’t a slouch in combat either, even if she wasn’t spectacular.

Instead, the Society had invested near-Immortals into this attack.

Her heart thudded in her chest like it wanted to leap out of her body, and her palms felt cold and sweaty.

“How many people do you think have come? Are there only Immortals and near-Immortals coming for me, or are there regular people too?” asked Alice, hoping that Ethan could dispel some of her mounting nerves.

“Thirty people or so,” said Ethan. “Two near Immortals, I think. At this range, my perception Perks are a little bit iffy, but I think there are two. I don’t think either of them are full Immortals – they’re probably right on the cusp of Immortality, but they haven’t taken that final step yet,” said Ethan.

Alice’s heart started beating even more furiously. Two near-Immortal level enemies.

“Can you fight them?” asked Alice.

“I should be able to, at least in theory,” said Ethan, although he sounded less certain than usual. “If they don’t have a build specialized in countering mine, I can definitely fight off two near-Immortals as long as I have some time. But the other people that came with them will definitely be pressuring the [Guards] during that time… and if they have specialized builds, it might be much harder. It’s hard to say with certainty what might happen on a battlefield,” said Ethan.

Alice gritted her teeth, scanning over every single Perk she could find in her status screen that might be useful in a fight.

{Adrenaline Rush}. {Enhanced Senses}. {Extended Tissues}. {Combat Seed}, which Alice hadn’t needed to make use of outside of training sessions for a while. {No Mana}. {Reflection}. And various sight and senses-related Perks from [Kinetic Manabinder] that let her track objects moving near her, and {Enchanter’s Armory} to enhance her enchanted items.

It seemed like a lot of Perks. Alice had accumulated a wide variety of useful abilities since coming to this world, and had also acquired quite a few levels in [Survivor] and [Kinetic Manabinder] to make sure she could defend herself in exactly this kind of situation.

However, it also seemed pitifully inadequate when potentially facing a near-immortal.

When fighting alongside Ethan, Alice had seen Ethan use forty magic tendrils comfortably. With a few of his temporary buff abilities, he could increase that number by one hundred mana tendrils, for a total of one hundred and forty.

Alice had a measly seven mana tendrils. While under the effects of {Adrenaline Rush}, she could make those seven mana tendrils as good as a few dozen from a normal mage- but there was a very, very obvious upper limit to what she could do. Ethan had rather easily crushed her in every single training session the two of them had had. If a near-immortal was only half as strong as Ethan, Alice would still be utterly dominated during a fight, and would find it hard to keep herself safe. And in higher level combat, Alice was still very dependent on Perks like {Adrenaline Rush} to level the playing field – and those Perks wore off rather quickly.

“How many soldiers are with us?” she asked.

“About 50 [Guards], including your [Hidden Guard]. Cecilia’s five Mages, although they’re more geared towards enchanting than actual fighting, and if they die it would be a huge loss to Illvaria right now. We might still need them to join us, though,” said Ethan, wincing. “We need every bit of help we can get. There are also twenty combat Mages on our side.” Ethan frowned. “At least in theory, we might have a slight advantage in strength. I don’t know if they have some sort of trump card to even the fight though, and our advantage isn’t that spectacular.”

“How long do we have until they reach us?”

Ethan laughed bitterly. “Maybe ten minutes? Not that long.”

Alice resisted the urge to curse. She started digging her enchanted items out of her storage Perk, making sure they were as easy to use as humanly possible. Opening her storage Perk and pulling things out usually wasn’t very hard, but in a dangerous and difficult fight even that might be the difference between surviving and dying here today.

She hadn’t felt this scared in a long time. The attack on Ethan’s manor had felt frightening, but at the same time, Alice had known that Ethan would probably be able to control the situation if enough time passed. The attack on the Society base hadn’t felt very dangerous to Alice at all – although she knew that it was a dangerous conflict, Ethan had been there to keep her from dying the whole time.

Now, it felt like a fight where she was in genuine danger. Ethan had stated he probably had an advantage against the two Society Immortals – but that was only if they didn’t have builds to counter his, or any trump card to level the playing field a bit. Those weren’t odds Alice liked to hear when her life was on the line.

Ethan seemed to see Alice’s trembling, so he gave her a comforting pat on the shoulder.

“Look – the situation isn’t desperate yet, just dangerous. I’m still here, and I can probably handle one of the two near-Immortals easily. Since both of them will be fighting me, they probably won’t focus so much on you. And once I handle one of the two near-Immortals, the situation should be easily manageable from there. Just keep yourself safe, and I’ll manage everything else. All right?”

Alice nodded, trying to comfort herself with Ethan’s words.

It was hard.

“Do you want to join the fight, or hide in your room?” asked Ethan, after a few moments.

Alice almost immediately stated that she wanted to hide, before she paused.

The situation was already dangerous for Ethan and the other soldiers. Alice was afraid. She didn’t want to fight at all.

But a moment later, Alice hesitated. Was hiding… really the correct answer?

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Realistically, Alice wasn’t a weak combatant anymore. She could be considered somewhere between above average and decent. She was never going to have the combat potential of someone who had five Classes devoted to fighting, but at the very least, Alice could handle combat for a bit before her Perks ran out and her fighting ability collapsed. And the minute during which she had a variety of limited-use Perks to rely on to fight could make the difference between the group winning the fight or losing the fight. If the group lost the fight, Alice’s outcome would be miserable – she would either be killed or used as some sort of enslaved tool for the messed up experiments of the Society of Starry Eyes, which might be even worse than just dying on the spot.

Not to mention, Cecilia was on this boat too. Alice didn’t want to see her best friend get hurt, and that was a very realistic possibility if the Society successfully attacked this boat.

Even though Alice wanted nothing more than to bury her head in her cabin and wait for the danger to pass, she didn’t think it was a good solution to the current situation. Even if it would be more dangerous for her, she was going to fight.

“I’ll fight with the troops,” said Alice.

Ethan’s eyes shone a bit, and he nodded. “Good choice. I would have done the same, although I think that this situation isn’t one where there’s a clearly defined right answer. Some people are more afraid… and that’s okay too.” He nodded at Alice. “Just make sure to stay as safe as you can during the fight. Remember, you should prioritize your safety over everything else. On this boat, you are the most valuable person – perhaps even more important than me, in a strange way,” he said. “Which is not something I usually think about when talking to someone who hasn’t even reached Immortality yet.”

Alice nodded, and the two quickly headed towards some of the other rooms on the boat. Alice woke up Cecilia, who had been asleep, while many of the actual [Guards] were already stirring and strapping on their armor. Alice didn’t know whether some Perk had alerted them to the potential danger in their surroundings, or whether some other [Guard] or Ethan had woken them up. But most of the [Guards] had grim, determined expressions on their faces.

Several people quickly ran to the deck of the ship, where they could get the clearest view of their surroundings.

Alice scanned the area, relying on her unusually high [Perception] to try to make out the approaching enemies in the darkness surrounding the boat. However, her vision simply wasn’t good enough to handle the darkness of the night, and there was no moon that day.

The [Scouts] of the group did not share Alice’s limitation.

“I can see several people in the darkness over there,” said the [Scout], pointing in another direction. “They’re trying to hide behind the trees, but I can still see a few of them using {Naturesight}. Does anyone have better Perks for scouting, such as {Far Sight}?”

“I do,” said another man, standing a bit further away. “I think I can see a few people that have mana on them, although I only have a pretty basic {Mana Sense} Perk to identify Mages with, and they’re pretty far away. It’s hard to make out a lot of detail. But I don’t think all of them are Mages.”

Alice frowned.

Not all of them were Mages?

All members of the Society of Starry Eyes that she knew of were Mages. If there were non-Mages mixed in, it either meant they had hired mercenaries of some sort who were willing to attack an Immortal, or that someone else was helping the Society attack the boat. Perhaps another nation was helping the Society? In that case, the situation would be even messier than it already was.

Though, Alice was also relieved to know that all of the people attacking them wouldn’t be Mages. Mages were usually stronger than other combat Classes at the same level, so facing less of them was a good thing. However, the inclusion of non-Mages might also make the Society more dangerous as a whole. After all, when Alice and joined the attack on the Society base, she had been able to tell that the Society really lacked an effective system of command. The [Kinetic Mages] of the Society had been placed too far away from the [Organic Mages] to defend them against missiles, and while there seemed to be some level of coherent battle strategy, the Society Mages had also broken and started trying to flee once things looked bad enough. Alice was pretty sure the Society’s [Generals] were either bad at their job or completely nonexistent.

If the Society was working with another organization, it might make their organization worse or better, depending on whether the Society had organized the attack, or the other party had organized the attack. If the Society had a coherent command structure, they would be far more dangerous in battle.

“If not all of them are Mages, they might have hired mercenaries,” said Ethan, as he strode onto the deck of the ship with the other [Guards] he had assembled. Then, Ethan stared more closely at the Society Mages that had come for her.

“The non-mages who came with the Society have a certain level of organization that I would expect from the military. They don’t look like [Mercenaries]. I wonder who is helping the Society out…” Ethan trailed off as his frown grew deeper. “It’s probably the Sigmusi. I can’t think of anyone else who would willingly work with the Society, except for a country that has equally disgusting practices.”

Ethan turned towards the [Guards] who had been assembled on the deck of the ship, as well as the Mages who were now assembling themselves behind the [Guards].

“All right, I want the [Kinetic Mages] to start spacing themselves out between the [Guards] to act as walls against missiles. We need to handle a few barrages of missiles. I plan to clear out the trees they’re using for cover, to make things a bit easier. Also – ah, they’re attacking,” said Ethan.

All forty of his mana tendrils suddenly sprang out of his body, before a large number of small rocks appeared in front of him.

Every single one of the rocks was enchanted. Alice blinked in surprise as she realized that every single enchantment had five enchantment instructions layered into them. For a consumable missile to have five enchantments in it was a completely absurd display of wealth – five-instruction enchanting materials were already in the upper grade of enchanting materials. To use them as consumables was just extravagant.

Ethan didn’t seem to care at all. He launched the first wave of rocks towards the Society and the Sigmusi, ripping apart trees and shattering several missiles that had been heading towards the Illvarian troops.

“Don’t engage yet, unless you have good Perks for long-range attacks,” said Ethan, his previously concerned tone starting to evaporate. Instead of concern, his voice started to take on a different quality.

Icy determination.

Alice saw that Ethan hadn’t cleared out every missile that was heading towards the Illvarians. She spotted a few arrows, filled with rainbow mana as they flew towards the boat. The Illvarian [Kinetic Mages] responded when the missiles grew close enough, and blocked the wave of arrows with their mana tendrils – but a few of the arrows suddenly slipped out of the way, before continuing onwards. Two Illlvarian [Guards] died as arrows sank into their brains.

Ethan grimaced, but Alice also noticed a lot of the trees that the Society had been using for cover had been destroyed by Ethan’s rocks.

“Shots are much clearer now. Shoot,” said Ethan.

Then, the Illvarian [Guards] who had bows and useful Perks immediately started releasing arrows at the enemy. Many of them were deflected by the Society’s magic tendrils – but Alice heard a distant scream, and one of the distant blobs of rainbow mana fizzled out of existence.

Then, some of the distant patches of rainbow mana flickered, and Alice saw four different patches of dimensional mana start to fizzle into existence on the boat.

Alice and the other Illvarian mages started hurriedly purifying the dimensional broken mana, and at the same time, Alice used her own dimensional seed to desperately try to ‘plug up’ the portals that had just been opened. She had never tried closing a portal before – but luckily, it seemed to work.

At least, until she ran out of mana, only a few seconds later. Her dimensional seed just wasn’t efficient enough or big enough to handle closing down four portals at once and then keeping them closed.

A few knives and arrows shot out of the portals, but Alice had bought the Illvarians enough time to respond. Several [Archers] shot right back at the Society Mages who were attacking through the portals, and Alice joined in by spraying several of her consumable bracelet beads into the portals. She wasn’t sure how successful her attack was, but a few moments later, the Society Mages closed the portals they had opened.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the boat, the waves of missiles and arrows continued to fly back and forth between the Illvarians and the Society. Ethan and the two Immortals seemed locked into a desperate game of pong, except that there were hundreds of balls flying around every second, and every failure meant a soldier or Mage died.

Meanwhile, the Society attackers started to creep closer to the Illvarian boat, using the few remaining trees for cover. Alice distinctly noticed that the [Archers] and non-Mages of the Society were actually covered by their [Kinetic Mages] this time. Clearly, the Society attack wasn’t an uncoordinated mess, unlike the time they had attacked a Society base.

A few moments later, Alice identified two people who had incredibly dense mana in their body step forward. One of them had a kinetic and a dimensional magic seed, while the other was a pure [Organic Mage]. Alice frowned.

The two people attacking them weren’t Immortals, but they were very close. Alice could only see a little bit of non-mana flesh left on their body. It wouldn’t be surprising if they became fully fledged Immortals in a decade or two, even if they didn’t work particularly hard.

The first near-Immortal was already locked into a projectile battle with Ethan, and was just barely managing to hold off the Illvarian Immortal’s storm of dangerous missiles and enchanted objects. Meanwhile, the Society [Organic Mage] seemed far more reluctant to engage, and was instead looking for an opportunity.

Alice aimed another bracelet of enchanted beads, and prepared to start peppering the Society lines with her own missiles, when she froze.

Just out of sight, Alice could see a new person appear. And unlike the two near-Immortals that were attacking the boat already, this person looked just like Ethan. They were a walking cloud of solidified mana. They weren’t a Mage, but that didn’t console Alice very much at this point.

The Society hadn’t just brought two near-immortals to attack her.

They had brought two near-Immortals and an actual Immortal.