Despite what many thought, the System’s arrival did not make fights a simpler matter. While a higher level generally meant more attributes, increasing the chance of winning, it brought along more elements that made fights a complex endeavor.

Team 0 was an example of this. Using their exceptional synergy and having been trained by the best of the best, they could face beings that should have been far above them.

A practical person might say that, despite two beings having differing levels, say one hundred for being A and ninety for being B, it was the one who actually brought to bear the most power in a fight that eventually won.

That was the situation playing out on the Association's rooftop.

Leila and Madam Helper were both S-rank; the old woman had been one for years. Combined, they had enough power to level New York without breaking a sweat. They could easily go toe-to-toe with entire countries.

All of that was useless when they could only use a fraction of their power against the monster that called himself Hephaestus.

If Leila were to attempt to use Black Hole again, the consequences would be catastrophic. She would likely tear half of Manhattan into atoms before gaining control. She could manifest the spell in a controlled environment with minimal side effects, but this was an impossible feat in the heat of battle. The reason she had used it out against the ex-director’s chimera was that they were far above anyone else and thus out of range of the complications that came from the spell.

Madam Helper was even worse off. The old woman's most terrifying skill allowed her to erase things out of existence, but she was notorious for the collateral damage she caused every time.

It made fighting the amalgamation of human, ram, donkey, dog and bird quite difficult. Hephaestus stood ten feet tall, with horns stretching towards the sky for two more. His skin was grey, and his pupils were rectangular. Crane-like wings sprouted from his back, and dog teeth filled his maw.

The difference between him and the other chimeras was evident in his seamless sutures. If the body parts hadn't been so incongruent with each other, one could have thought they belonged together.

"It's useless!" Hephaestus shouted, dodging another lance of darkness and reappearing five feet to the left instead of the right, where Madam Helper awaited him. "Nothing you can do will ever affect me! I have transcended the boundaries of the System!"

There is the fact that he's terribly annoying, too. I understand the grandstanding. Everyone likes that, but openly gloating before you have won is just bad taste.

Unfortunately, he seemed to have the right of it. Leila still hadn't been able to work out what he was doing to avoid their attacks, and anything that could catch him while taking into account the preternatural ability to avoid them would likely be too destructive.

Of course, if the time came for the ritual to be activated, she might still resort to using her full power. A hundred thousand deaths would weigh heavily on her. Still, she'd much prefer it than allowing Hephaestus to turn the entirety of the city population into chimeras or whatever it was he wanted to do.

Hephaestus moved with a disconcerting grace, his form blurring at the edges as he utilized what she suspected was void magic to slip between spaces, evading attacks with a finesse that belied his hulking form. His laughter boomed across the rooftop.

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"You cannot touch me, and if I touch you, you are done!" Hephaestus roared as he launched another series of attacks. Red tendrils of foul flesh magic extended from his limbs, twisting through the air like serpents, each aiming to corrupt and consume whatever they touched.

Undeterred by his taunts, Madam Helper spun in a graceful arc, her arms extending outward as she unleashed a wave of destructive energy. The air around Hephaestus crackled and warped, trying to erase his presence from existence. Yet, he managed to twist away at the last second, the space he was in rippling with his disappearance. This time, Leila was able to observe the threads of mana connected to the ritual, which served as a conduit for the chimera's power. Even with her increased senses, she wouldn't have noticed if she hadn't personally taught someone who paid attention to minuscule changes in mana levels.

"We need to force his hand," Leila murmured, using her shadows to bring the whisper to her ally's ear. If what she suspected was true, then the more they kept him fighting, the longer the ritual would take, and while she could feel immense power building up all around them, it was limited in how rapidly it could move.

The older woman didn't react but increased the rate of her attacks, causing more collateral damage. However, she managed to force him towards one of the corners, away from the injured.

Terrible blasts of white-blue power tore through the floor, causing pieces to fall off the building. Wherever they met with the fleshy tendrils Hephaestus had summoned, Madam Helper's spells won out, though she risked much every time.

Leila followed through, releasing some of her restraints to call upon one of the most dangerous spells in her arsenal. Hellfire answered her call with a roar, blooming into a whip at her request.

She cracked it, testing her range, and grinned when she noticed how the chimera had immediately decided to retreat rather than test himself against it.

Still, Leila knew better than to rush in. She used her increased range to test the waters, shearing through pieces of the reinforced building like a hot knife through butter while Hephaestus seemingly was forced back.

Her restraint was proved right when he stopped abruptly. Power rushed into him from the great ritual around them, and his eyes took on a dark glow.

Thin ripples in the air were their only warning, and both Leila and Madam Helper retreated, barely avoiding certain death. The space where they had stood ceased existing, and the surroundings rushed in to fill the emptiness, tugging them forward.

"You do not understand. That is fine. No one really does until I make them. I do this because you all are allowing humanity to rot, and this is our last chance." Hephaestus said calmly, looking at them through narrowed eyes.

This version of the chimera felt more dangerous. Leila much preferred the roaring, cursing beast to the calm and collected mastermind, but she wasn't afforded a choice.

"If you truly believe that," A deep voice interrupted, and they all turned to where Marcus was forcing himself up. The old man was missing his left arm and had a gut wound that refused to close despite his robust regeneration. Still, he held on. "Why would no one accept it? You could have done trials and shown your results to the world!"

Leila immediately realized that her mentor wasn't particularly interested in the monster's intentions. It was far too late for that. But she couldn't see what letting him have the time he needed to complete the ritual would do. Still, she trusted him, and their tactics weren't working.

"You think I haven't already done that?! I am the one who led the first attempts to surpass humanity's limits. I am the first to gain power beyond what the System deigns to give us!" Hephaestus answered, sharp teeth gritted.

That's the least surprising thing out of this whole clusterfuck. Government involvement is always a certainty with big enough problems.

Just as Leila had expected, more and more power started coalescing around them as he spoke. Hephaestus likely had even less intention of convincing them of his righteousness, but he'd greedily take any time they'd give him to complete his ritual.

Whatever Marcus was plotting, she could only hope would come to fruition quickly because Leila was just about ready to stop caring about collateral damage.

Predictably, that was when something finally happened.

The threads of mana that made up the ritual were something to behold. Thick and highly intricate, they passed through matter and energy without disruption. Many more than necessary had been prepared, and while Leila had noticed a few snapping from the origin here and there, they were insufficient to stall the ritual, much less break it.

Hephaestus had obviously expected them to react violently to his attempt and taken as many precautions as possible. The teams that were no doubt frantically working to destroy as many secondary rituals as possible helped reduce the accumulation speed, but they weren't enough by themselves. Only dealing directly with the source would solve the problem, and Leila was starting to suspect that even if they managed to do so, they'd have an equal problem in finding a way to release billions of mana stones worth of energy into the atmosphere without turning New York into a gigantic dungeon.

What he hadn't prepared for, however, was for a new presence to try and wrest control of the ritual away from him.

Mana threads as thick as a bus broke and reformed, lashing out against buildings and streets alike, while something wormed its way through them until it finally reached the nexus where Hephaestus was operating.

Light flashed, thunder boomed, and Marcus’ laughter was all that Leila could hear.