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<01/27/1972 – 22:46 | The Outback {Alpha Zero}, Junon Region, Sprawn Valley>

It was still so hard to believe that everything in the sky was colored a deep and dark velvet red. That light from no specific source casted down into the earth below, showing Jane the ground's details with a tint. Some sort of same colored fog blocked out her field of view slightly, only allowing Jane to see no more than almost two miles ahead of her, but the path she stepped on was still clear as it had been. The only thing to distinguish the difference was the color in the dirt.

To her left and to her right, the earth remained scorched, grazed down to burnt patches of bush shrubs and dead grass, but this dirt path below her feet seemed a different shade, like it had been dirt before and was still dirt now. Perhaps that is because the path itself wasn't entirely natural. It used to be paved gravel chunks placed by Leray agents in the past to help wanderers not get lost out here. The point is that the shade of the path was brighter than the rest of the floor, and Jane used that to stay on course. Outside of her current destination, nothing in the distance stood out or moved, except for the slight gusts of dusty hot air.

The place felt like a hot summer day, probably about one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. The sweat on the back of her neck was already beginning to drip down under her suit due to gravity, and the stench of burnt trees hung heavy no matter how far she walked in. Jane still marched on. The Den of Purity is at the northwest most section of this terrible place. Professor Brightworth is the only man in the world with the power and knowledge about removing permanent spells, and removing symbols. Whether or not he is willing to help won't have any bearing on how Jane will get her way.

The idea about her last battle bothered Jane's conscious more than she wanted it to. The fact is; damage taken here is partially turned into real time damage. Real time damage cannot easily be recovered, which makes that damage very dangerous for the person taking it. Without the Leray veil of protection able to reach this section of Sprawn Valley, anybody who passes out in Alpha Zero due to taking real time dame will be killed. Nobody can wake up from that, it's just immediate and instant death. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.

It makes sense as to why the General Army is staying back and keeping their distance, more so why they are restricting access inside. Somehow Claudia knows a lot about their operations. Then again, they don't have a lot of secrets anyway. But if scouting and attack units died here even in groups, it can say a lot about the power of the creatures here. That last monster was scarier than anything she had ever encountered before. If she used the same sort of magical attacks on a Cran, it would have been a one hit knockout in her favor. But no... Even the creatures here that die fade into light or burst out from auras in such mysterious ways. What could be the possible purpose or reason for transforming the Outback into this hell zone?

Finally, Jane was coming up to the stone arch. It was much bigger this close than it seemed from far away, towering hundreds of meters high. The path leads right under the arch too, forcing Jane to take that route ahead, but the moment she prepared to walk closer to the stone, something interesting happened.

Just out of nowhere, something bumped into Jane, knocking her down on her back after making a strange pulsing sound. It was like walking into an invisible wall. Jane perked her head up after rubbing it from the sudden force. Just where she planned to walk through, a massive array of red half-phased hexagons blocked that path right in front of her, taking the form of an energy dome if viewed in all directions. Jane's jaw hinged as her teeth stood open, suddenly realizing that some sort of energy shield was in her way, but the size was the gawking factor impressing her now. Each hexagon that made up the shield was about the size of her entire body, but the size of the entire dome circled a field so large, it had its own sky, visible now due to her recent physical contact with the shield. The hexes formed their own dome, which resembled a Siriean dome about fifty times bigger in every dimension. From where Jane bumped into to the other side of the barely visible edge of the same dome, there had to be at least four to five hundred meters of distance in diameter to the opposite end. The shield even covered the whole cliff side on her left after turning around, reaching really high into the sky. What's worse, is that Jane managed to learn quickly that she was on the inside of this energy dome, not on the outside!

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Chapter Theme Shift: Aetersyl [Custom Edit] ~ Resonance of Fate / End of Eternity OST

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This can't be right. Siriean domes can't be created in the dark zone, and they don't come this big and in this color either. Who made this? Why isn't anyone here?

Some sort of noise, the sound of sudden steam depressurizing only for a second answered her question. Jane noticed some sort of movement on the top of the cliff above her. She could see most of the top from where she stood, but something seemed to be rising up from the ground, after which another alarm sounded. It was like a digital alert tone, only dinging once while the metal continued rising above the ground, just at the top of the cliff. Jane had to check her surroundings again to make sure she wasn't being tricked or surrounded. Someone has just encased her in a specialized shield dome, and now, something was rising from the top of the cliff in her field of view.

The metal sounds became a bit louder, and finally the separated figures took more of a form as they continued rising upwards. There was more than one structure rising from some special small elevation system built in the rocks, all utilizing mechanical equipment. This couldn't be the work of some automatic summon. As each structure elevated upwards further, she could begin to make out the formation of each design. Even at this distance, Jane didn't fail to recognize the resemblance to some sort of turret. It looked more like a sophisticated defense sentry gun, chained up in golden metal shrouded in reinforced titanium and steel. Something under each turret was making it rise from the ground and form the metals that surrounded it, metals that were their own separate attachments of armaments and separate weapon systems. Jane could now tell that there were three of them, all in the same design with two barrels at their tips. They were machine gun turrets or sentry guns of some sort. But then it begs the question: What are manmade machines doing in the Dark Zone? Even before the transformation of the Outback, this was all just miles of nature and forest. Sentry guns don't belong here under any circumstances. What was controlling them? They can't just be pulling above the ground for no reason.

"Uh oh," Jane whispered. What if this is all automated somehow, not the appearance of the guns, but the defensive nature of a manmade defense grid? What if someone built a defense system with this dome shield in the Alpha Zero? It could be the work of Brightworth himself. Jane still didn't have any answers, but the turrets then finished rising up on their small elevation systems, well hidden inside of the rock of that cliff. Jane checked her surroundings again, realizing that the massive red shield was in constant power around her. It is a defense system! The dome surrounding her must be designed to trap her in. How else would she have entered if it was there before without her noticing? It's a trap! Something must be able to detect her very presence here, but who the hell would design a killing machine for live humans?

Just as the turrets were finished climbing, they continued their activation sequence, initiating lights on the top of their hull, while bringing up some more metallic armor of protection around their shape and design. There wasn't another person in sight, it was just Jane and the three sentry guns. Jane reacted quickly, using her hand and some magic to try and pull up their stats. Normally, inanimate objects don't have any energy scopes, but under the random circumstances, Jane's trick actually made it happen. Three separate text boxes appeared above each sentry gun, showing Jane their HP levels respectively. Their MP however didn't seem to be capable of displaying, probably because they don't run on magical energy. Inanimate objects shouldn't have energy scopes, but perhaps if they were running some sort of artificial intelligence program, the HP could be represented based on total structural integrity. Jane didn't expect to make the holographic displays appear like that successfully, but it happened all the same. Things got even stranger when another smaller holographic text box appeared each above all three of the turrets. In the unusual and randomly displayed text, the material read, Acquiring new target! Scanning individual humanoid!

Whatever Jane had done with their energy scopes was allowing her to read what their process was. It's the action display center! Jane recalled how action display centers can sometimes appear just above the energy scopes belonging to otherworldly creatures, giving that challenging human a hint of an oncoming attack. So they work on turrets too? The action display center can read the processor actions of all three defense guns! She was currently being scanned so it seemed. This might just be a mistake, a misunderstanding, but Jane couldn't be sure. She enabled her own energy scope after reading the turrets actions once more, and prepared herself for anything. Was the defense system built to be used against her, or for other types of intruders? And how can metal objects without any magic - battle against a Leray wielder? This doesn't make any sense!

image [https://i.postimg.cc/c1cZxpG4/S2-Turrert-A-000.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/bYLcc11Z/S2-Turrert-B-000.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/prc69YBk/S2-Turrert-C-000.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/BbzqBFgQ/S2-Jane-AV-008.png]

It was already strange enough that Jane might have to fight a machine, but now there are three of them working together at the same time? Jane had no experience with teamed battles, and was fairly certain that this would not officially count as one even with the appearance of a dome shield, but her nerves were causing her to shiver despite all of the heat in the air. Just as the text above the action display disappeared, another box of the same type and design appeared with more text inside of the display, updating the ADC.

Jane actually retained a faint memory about this stuff before. It was similar to that moment when she had to fight against creatures known as Cran. They were not harmful, but as they were beings not human or very sentient, the Cran were able to attack and use magic at the same time during Leray battles. Jane had to defeat one for training purposes, but this action box of display had the similar concept attached to it. A dark grey box appears above the creature, just like an energy scope, only it has much less transparency despite also being holographic. Some people prefer to shorten the terminology to ADC, which stands for the Action Display Center, where text appears in the holographic box depending on what the creature is planning to do. Cran are able to shoot Fire Balls with Leray magic and glyphrings, but as a result of being unable to talk, they were forced in battle to display their pending action through that text in the action display center. Meaning, a Cran about to use Fire Ball would show Fire Ball in that text within the ADC, just before launching the actual magic.

The deal with the turrets seemed to be the same, but Jane wasn't sure just yet. Is someone here trying to communicate with her? Just then, another text appeared in all three action display boxes for each turret. Despite the distance and height advantage, Jane could easily read that text from here, but all of the boxes had the same text for each turret, as if they were somehow synchronized together internally. It read, Bullet Barrage! Bullet Barrage? That sounds like an attack! The turrets suddenly shifted in their place. Without changing position, the sentry guns were highly capable of moving their barrels and aiming crosshairs on some internal tread, allowing all three of the turrets to take aim at her. The turret designated as Turret C was on Jane's left on top of the cliff, while Turret A was on the right. Despite sharing the same cliff, each of the sentry guns were not tightly compacted together, but still close enough for something like an area attack to affect all of them at once. For now, the turrets were aiming at Jane just after displaying the name of some function or command into the action display center.

Jane still wasn't fully certain if this was a real attack, but she wasn't taking any chances. If she gets shot will bullets in the dark zone, no med kit orb or healing device in world will help her. As a reaction to the taunting metal guns, Jane invoked her power shield, lifting her arms while sending MP energy through her open hands. The result created another shielding aura around her body. Her personal shield seemed like it had a similar design pattern for the red shield surrounding a much wider area, but her aura was only big enough and formed in such a way where it expands only a foot away from her skin, taking the same exact shape as her. Just as Jane covered herself in the shield for insurance, the turrets began firing. The barrels were spinning at alarming rates, flashing multiple times while shooting out at a hundred bullets per second.

Jane gasped in surprise at how close she was to getting mowed down by bullets. Even now, all three turrets were still firing their barrels, and bullets were literally bouncing and ricocheting off of Jane's power shield. Small hexagons formed and disappeared in multiple places for a long time, showing Jane that the turrets were indeed firing at her on purpose, despite their somewhat lame accuracy. While her aura was mostly sound proof, Jane could hear the constant ringing and bashing sound of the reflective pulses for each bullet that bounced off her shield.

Jane knew her aura was strong enough for mere bullets, but all of the turrets had been firing for over seven seconds now. It was almost the longest time she had her aura up so far, and now it was beginning to fail. Despite sending her MP energy out from her open hands, and her capacity for Leray energy draining quickly, Jane was losing her concentration on the field quickly now. It wouldn't be long before—

Finally, the bullets stopped hitting the shield, and the muzzle flashes from the sentry guns disappeared. It was either time for the mechanized machines to reload or change strategy altogether. Jane lowered her arms, discharging the shield that was prone to failure a moment later. Every time Jane invokes her power shield, it's always at its strongest in the early invocation stages, but the concentration gets more difficult with a lot of damage or elapsed time on that same aura. This was something Jane already got used to from her training with Claudia, but she still has to figure out a way to attack three targets at once. The difference is the fact that all targets are automatic learning robotic turrets on defense mode set to kill her.

Now that her shield was down and the bullets have stopped firing, it allowed Jane to realize that the turrets now must wait to come up with another sort of action, which would eventually display itself in the holographic text box above their respective energy scopes. Of course, now it was her turn to attack. The automated defense system likely does not care for taking turns, but the loading time to decide another attack must not have been immediate, because Jane managed to come up with an idea first. Respond with a weak attack to see how they respond to damage, that was always the best first strategy Jane learned by herself. Using powerful spells to start will backfire if the enemy or opponent has hidden resistances.

With her thoughts and fighting strategy returning to mind, Jane was able to temporarily ignore the frightening fact that there were sentry turrets trying to kill her, and instead pretended as if she were up against three distant opponents wearing metal suits of armor. It should still be likely that pure magical damage should pierce right through the armor. She pulled out her daggers, infusing some energy into each of them, thus preparing them to fire. "Mako Beam!" Jane shouted the skill aloud, ensuring that her invocation was successful. Then she aimed her dagger blades towards the turrets sitting at the top of the large steep incline. There wasn't any human way to climb the vertical rock, but there was more walk room at the very top, which would explain how someone was able to install systems up there. Jane fired her Mako Beam through each dagger tip, striking once on the right turret, then again on the far left turret. Jane infused more magic into her right dagger blade, firing a third Mako Beam to strike the central turret as well. Managing to successfully hit all three of them without missing with the distance of ninety meters, their stats on the energy scopes did happen to decline, which proves they can be destroyed and damaged. The HP registers here as armor integrity and structural endurance.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/rFFTKfqG/S2-Turrert-A-001.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/pXTN2yBq/S2-Turrert-B-001.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/nV35wpt7/S2-Turrert-C-001.png]

Jane knew Mako Beam would not do a lot of harm, but at least this way her MP energy was saved, and she learned how vulnerable the turrets were. Just after gloating her short lived victory, more white text appeared in the holographic action display center. This time it read, Fire Strike!

Once again, the aiming sections of each turret allowed their hulls to rotate in a three dimensional free form, as now all of them were aiming at Jane. At the same time, small red glyphrings began to form right in front of each turret's barrel. Jane couldn't believe it! Even without the use of MP energy, the turrets can invoke magical powers somehow. The glyphrings became more solid, now rotating in midair while the devices prepared to shoot something else at her. This time, Jane was ready for it, and prepared her power shield just in case. After her energy had been charged into her hands, Jane lifted her arms and opened them, dispersing her energy into an aura surrounding her entire body. Just like every other time before, Jane created another magical shielding aura, protecting her from all types of damage.

That's when the turrets fired their magic. Through all three individual glyphrings that were designed exactly the same, magical bolts of fire plunged through the dimension, flying through the center of the glyphring into physical space. Jane was already protected, but through the transparency of her shielding aura, she got to see the Fire Bolts hurling through the air. All three of the turrets used the same exact magical invocation, allowing three individual Fire Bolts to track Jane and smash into her. As she waited patiently, the fiery spheres all collided into her shield instead, reflecting the damage off of her physical body with ease while the bolts themselves melted into the hexagons. After the small explosions of fire outside faded, so did the sudden appearance of hexagons at each impact site. Jane realized quickly how repetitive her shielding aura was becoming. There didn't seem to be anything new about it that she needed to learn. After all three fire balls failed to penetrate the aura, Jane still didn't feel as drained as she did last time. For a Triple Fire attack, the turrets sure did not throw a ton of fire power into their magic. For Jane, that was about to change.

After lowering her shield again, Jane pulled out her daggers, taking aim again while coming up with a way in her mind to attack all three turrets at the same time. Just as she began infusing magical energy into her weapons, Jane knew what to do. "Flying Guillotine!" Jane threw her daggers in a crisscross formation, aiming only for the turret on the left at first, but just after the spinning blades left her hands, Jane copied more energy into her hands, and concentrated on her own flying blades. At the same time the red circle of damage formed between them, Jane suddenly exerted an extra amount of magic, allowing her to control the very direction and course of her own attack through a telekinetic nature. This time, Jane's idea was raw, unaffected by any of Claudia's teachings. As Jane took control of her Flying Guillotine mid-flight, she began to steer the spinning red wheel bound between each blade, drilling the flat attack right through the turret on the far left side. The daggers and the magical damage drilled through the armor like a ghostly figure as she expected it to, which was exactly the moment when Jane steered her Flying Guillotine for the turret at the center.

The flying dagger attack managed to drill its way through the central turret as well, as Jane took control again to drill through the turret on the far right. The turrets were not close enough together for Flying Guillotine to affect more than one piece of hardware in one swoop. Jane knew this ahead of time, and took control of her own spell to force all of the turrets to take damage anyway, but in the process of controlling her daggers mid-attack, her MP was draining much more quickly than she wanted it to. "Come on..." she encouraged. Jane finally attacked the turret on the right, now waiting for her daggers to spin their way back into her hands on their own. She didn't need any more control at this point, but while waiting for the blades to return, Jane took peeks at each energy scope of her enemies. Despite hitting all three of them with a well-coordinated and powerful attack, the damage level was something Jane had not hoped for.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/L6Cpfjsc/S2-Turrert-A-002.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/pX1wyxGx/S2-Turrert-B-002.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/154dk29d/S2-Turrert-C-002.png]

Jane caught her daggers as they returned to her without running the red circular arch of damage in between the blades. Jane then placed the daggers back into her pockets, taking into mind why the damage dealt to the machines was minimal. Perhaps because they are armored targets, slashing type damage has no effect on them, but she couldn't be sure just yet. Just as Jane was feeling recovered enough for another attack, the enemy ADC lit up again, and the three turrets were once again synchronizing to perform the same trick. This time the text read, Voltage! in the display. Common sense was well enough in her to guess the damage type of the turret attack to be something electrical. Jane shuttered at the very thought. Electrical damage is already bad enough in the Leray zone. I'd rather not fare to feel its effects in the dark zone. "Power shield," she chanted. Jane lifted her arms again, creating a shielding aura before her arms even got parallel with her shoulders this time. She was able to bend her elbows now while opening her hands to create the aura around her. Just as long as her hands were emitting her MP energy outward, and as long as Jane was thinking about the shield in the aura it was supposed to be, protecting herself became easier of a task each and every time using this spell.

This time, a glyphring formed for each turret with a darker shade color of red, already rotating and aiming at the only humanoid in sight. Just as the glyphrings were fully formed and charged, the turrets all fired their cannons at the same time. Instead of firing bullets or projectiles, red lightning shot from the end of the barrel tips from the turrets, directing their current straight into Jane's shield, but the lightning bolts that followed were not evanescent, they just continued to zap towards Jane on a connective current. Just where Jane stood, three different red bolts of constant electricity threatened to consume her through the shield aura that she established. It was like a Lightning Strike attack set to last for triple the duration, and the color of the electricity was red instead of the deep blue it usually is. On the inside of her power shield, Jane noticed millions of tiny little hexagons, forming almost everywhere in the front while the electrical discharge areas changed quite frequently. The bolts just stayed on her, draining her concentration with such a high damage dealing potential and a lengthy discharge attack.

The voltage had only been zapping at her shield for just three solid seconds. It was then that Jane's power shield suddenly failed despite her efforts to keep it up and running. The very moment the shield disintegrated allowed all three streams of voltage to zap into Jane's skin. With no protection left and no possible way to avoid the damage, Jane was suddenly forced into electrocution by all three turrets at the same time. The physical heat in her entire body rose in an instant, and the inability to move or think while the electricity twitched with all of her nerves made it much worse. The voltage lasted for an additional two second after her shield failed, burning her skin and forcing her heart rate into tachycardia ranges. As soon as it finally let go, Jane let her body drop to the floor. She suddenly felt incredibly drained of her energy, and at the same time, she was tingling in a painful sensation all over. Her nerves were shot; her breathing became deep and heavy. The combination of damage and painful electricity also hurt the inside of her head, creating a full blown migraine as she struggled to recover from her hands and knees.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/P5Yt1P8T/S2-Jane-AV-010.png]

This is an electrical attack without veil protection? To hell with that ever again! All of the previous pains failed to leave her body after recovering. Jane had to also consider based on her energy scope report that she only repelled half of the voltage attack used against her. Yet it still drilled a hole straight through her defenses. This could be the other thing Claudia was talking about, how her shield would work the same, but only become half as effective inside of the dark zone because it relies on Leray magic. Inside of a dark zone, Leray type magic has half the normal effectiveness it has otherwise.

But now she has another chance. Jane already confirmed her suspicions about the processing speed of all three turrets. Because they were synchronized together to increase their damage and power, their processing time for attacking over and over wasn't what it could have been. So now it was her turn to try something. Slashing damage does nothing, but maybe magical damage will. Jane couldn't think of any good area attack using magic, not one she wanted to pull out so soon. So instead, she chose to go with something simpler, targeting Turret A, which was the one sitting on her far right on top of the cliff.

After charging more MP energy straight into her hands, Jane placed her open hand through the center of the jade color glyphring that she immediately created, the invocation reaction instant. "Lightning Strike!" Carefully aiming for the turret on the right side, Jane managed to fire her own electrical bolt of energy at the turret. The bolt of electricity was blue in color compared to that last voltage attack, but she focused more on the damage and concentration in her magic. The bolt of electricity began shocking the turret in place, hopefully messing with the wiring and digital circuitry inside of the mechanical device. As expected, her lightning bolt only lasted for about 2.6 seconds, but once it was over, the health report on the right turret's energy scope declined a lot more than it had with any other of Jane's previous attacks. As soon as her glyphring faded at the end of its sequence, Jane checked that scope more closely.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/9QDjBzRr/S2-Turrert-A-003.png]

Despite her efforts to single out her enemies, the action display center above each turret was already active again, now with an attack name Jane had not yet recognized. Elemental, it read. All of the turrets were steering again as well, proving they were going to attack with some unusual form of magic. Jane prepared herself and her MP energy for another power shield, but waited patiently for the right moment. This shield has to last as long as it possibly can!

Just as the text in the ADC faded again, the central turret began to spin both of its two barrels, already aimed at Jane. As a quick reaction, Jane activated her power shield again with her hands already in position to make it happen. The blue transparent aura around her body formed around her quicker than ever before. Her own shielding power was improving bit by bit with each use. As a result, Jane was in deep thought about how crazy she was for forgetting one of the important Leray tips. Abilities cast over and over gradually improve over time, with regards to faster invocation times, better offensive and defensive capabilities, and even better special effects depending on what the spell is. Her shielding powers are getting faster with each use; Jane can already tell the difference.

Just as Jane shielded herself, the central turret fired its full payload, barraging her aura with bullets for as long as possible. It was the same attack as bullet barrage used against her in their first wave, but only the central turret was firing at her with bullets. The turret on the far left, Turret C had already created a red glyphring around its barrels, after which shooting out a bright bolt of fire hurling through the air. Through her peripheral vision through the shield, Turret A on the right was also using another glyphring. Shortly before the Fire Bolt from the left was about to slam into the shielding aura, a bright red bolt of electricity stung the shield from the right side. Jane was now being simultaneously attacked with Bullet Barrage, Fire Bolt, and Voltage from all three turrets, splitting their duties to provide a variety of different damage types and solutions. The fact that they are trying to adapt to the difficult situation in front of them says a lot about their database knowledge on Leray fighting, but there still wasn't a clue in the world to who built these things.

Inside of the blue power shield aura, Jane could see hexagons forming from all sides. The Fire Bolt hitting the shield from the left made a loud pulsing reflection noise from inside of the shield, but still caused the least amount of damage based on how large the hexes there were. Smaller hexagons from the right riddled her aura while the constant chain of non-stopped bullets from the center randomly impacted everywhere in front of Jane. Though the damage being done was not that high, her aura has already taken a lot of damage in the total time she had it up. The focus and concentration she held with her shield was quickly dwindling, she could feel it failing already.

Lucky for her, the central turret had finished firing its guns, now in need of reloading its massive chain of bullets, while the turret on the right ran out of electricity to shoot towards Jane. Every one of her enemies needed more time to attack again, and she could now use that moment to drop her shield intentionally and come up with a better plan of her own. But thanks to the constant attacks a second ago, the upkeep on her energy had her feeling drained rapidly, and the migraine lingering from before was not helping. Jane already designed another good idea, an attack that she might be able to modify. She readied her hands and concentrated on how to invoke this next spell thoroughly.

"Magical Blitz!" Despite this spell making her temporarily defenseless, Jane gave it her best shot, throwing a lot of MP energy into her magical blitz balls this time. Instead of forming the energy balls into her hands, she created her own glyphring for them to fly through, turning them into slow moving projectiles. For each of the three energy balls she formed, one of them headed for a different turret. After they formed, Jane then spent some more MP energy, locking on to all of her projectiles and creating another glyphring around the energy spheres as they began soaring through the air towards the top of the cliff. The glyphrings all followed their own blitz spheres, and Jane's magic eventually sped up each projectile, turning it from the speed of a slow Fire Ball to a sudden speeding bullet. The Magical Blitz balls gained instant speed, slamming into each turret with enough force to drill right through the armor of each device. All three turrets suddenly took a heavy hit from her specially transformed attack, but the turret on the right suddenly blew off a large chunk of armor on its side. Turret A was already more damaged to begin with, so that reaction made some sense, but Jane didn't expect any of these machines to be this vulnerable to high magical damage. Anything armor piercing or destructive to metal seems to work better on these things. Now she has the advantage of knowledge.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/wjnY4HLF/S2-Turrert-A-004.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/Vkr3CTpt/S2-Turrert-B-003.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/QxPzhmCd/S2-Turrert-C-003.png]

Even the turret's energy scope turned red, which must mean something had been internally damaged. Of course, there is only one function that needs to work in order to shoot and kill Jane. Better to be careful than dead, thus underestimating any one of these machines could be her last mistake. Jane prepared herself for another power shield, just as more text appeared into the ADC for all three sentry guns again. Upgrade!

This time it was a command that Jane believed not to be some kind of direct attack. Instead of the turrets steering their gyro balls to aim at the ground where she stood, the turrets were straightening out again, and that's when she suddenly noticed something new coming up from the ground. Much like how the turrets acquired all of their armor and bulk as they ascended from below the base of the cliff, some new equipment was now attaching itself to each side of all sentry weapons. From here, Jane couldn't see what the equipment was, but it almost looked sort of like a bulky belt, clutching on to the left and right hull of each gun. The sound of metal clanking echoed all the way down to her, but Jane soon realized that she was not even being attacked just yet. Now would be a great time to hit the guns while they are too distracted to act.

"Meteor Strike!" Jane charged up a lot of energy into her right hand, enough to make it glow blue as she prepared to drop her magical payload. Jane lifted her hand high up, and then dropped it down low as to direct the invocation and directional force of the falling meteorites. The spell cast was almost instant, as meteor fragments were suddenly dropping out of the sky like she directed. Jane also made the area attack specific to the top of the cliff, leaving the falling fragments further away from her own self. As the meteors struck the ground in various places on top of the cliff, each turret was suddenly being caught in the randomized blasts and hits from above, unable to protect themselves or dodge the falling rocks of doom. Jane could already see the health declining from all three of their energy scopes, and a few more explosions in the distance caused by more armor being blown off of each turret. Chunks of metal went flying everywhere from all of the armor damage she was scoring, but the guns were not out of commission just yet. Their ability to continue fighting became apparent as soon as the meteors stopped falling towards the ground and spawning. In their wave of destruction, all of the sentry turrets were still stable standing, ready to attack in synchronization again.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/QM5GRPqD/S2-Turrert-A-005.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/BnrRcpfV/S2-Turrert-B-004.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/SxMvs9Y7/S2-Turrert-C-004.png]

At least Jane could safely assume that progress was being made with the lowering health. Unfortunately, all three guns were still ready to attack Jane, all of them displaying similar messages into their individual ADC boxes. Rocket Mess! Whatever it was didn't sound so fun to mess around with. Jane was still aware of the fact that all of her enemies got an upgrade of some sort. It had to be something important, perhaps even a weapons attachment to increase the damage somehow. Whatever was coming her way, Jane prepared by charging a small proportion of MP energy into her hands, holding them out in preparation to throw the aura shield around her body again like she did hundreds of times by now.

Just then, the sound of multiple blasts and small explosions echoed over the hills, and Jane activated her power shield despite not understanding which type of attack was heading her way. After shielding herself was when she noticed rockets and missiles firing from the side components of the turrets. It wasn't just one turret either. All three sentry weapons were shooting rockets from their upgraded attachment slots, again and again until there were dozens of missiles flying up into the air. It's an explosive missile barrage! That was their upgrade; the ability to fire a dozen missiles each!

Jane held her breath. Her shield was holding up fine for now, but all of the missiles added up to be 36 total airborne warheads. They propelled themselves into the air, then quickly changed course to fall down towards the ground, all where Jane was currently standing. As the first wave of a dozen missiles prepared to smash into here shield, Jane closed her eyes and braced herself. She wouldn't be able to see anything but bright flashes on the outside, providing her shield doesn't fail from all of the damage heading her way. In a moment's notice, the blasts began booming on and around her feet. Jane didn't want to open her eyes, but even through the soundproof shield, the blasts for each explosion were like massive booms of bass in her ears. There were too many explosions to be counted, and Jane was already quickly losing her focus and concentration.

Explosive hits would not do her well in this battle; explosive type damage is the highest in power level rating for physical damage, and because of this gigantic red dome shield around the area, she wouldn't be capable of running away or giving up. It's like a Doom Shield was forced to be cast around her. Jane fell right into a dangerous trap, and this was the price. The explosions just kept coming. Jane could imagine herself right now, being blown up with 36 separate rockets all hitting her consecutively. With each second passing, Jane felt weaker as some sort of exhaustion began to weigh her down and make the shield harder to keep up. Finally, the rockets were done exploding outside. Jane could tell by the sudden absence in sound around her. After opening her eyes, it was thus confirmed. Though she meant to drop the shield afterwards, it simply failed on her instead, collapsing around her body. The reaction of shield failure always weakened Jane and her stamina, but this time, she was suddenly sweating drops down her face, and her heart was racing again while she struggled to control her breathing. Even though Jane didn't take any damage, it sort of felt like she did with all of the life being drained from her. The green energy scope above her suddenly turned red with warning, perhaps to show Jane how much this battle was taking out of her.

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image [https://i.postimg.cc/pdvPCRD8/S2-Jane-AV-011.png]

Jane pulled herself together, but her breathing remained rapid the entire time. Now she needed to attack again, or face another one of those rocket blasts. Jane knew she would not be able to shield herself from such a powerful attack twice, but simply attacking at random wasn't enough either. She needed a better strategy. There has to be something that can turn the tables in desperate times. Come on girl! Think! You're life literally depends on... "That's it!" Jane alerted. With the ability to turn invisible, and hope that those turrets don't have thermal vision, they won't be able to see me moving around. But I need moonlight!

Jane put her hands together, charging some MP energy into them, and then lifting up her arms, releasing that energy upwards into the sky. "Moonglow!" Jane's ability should affect the weather here itself, no matter how gloomy it currently was. Maybe it would even remove the redness from the sky and clouds above her, giving the land some more natural lighting, but her ability to call out the moonlight took way more time than she wanted it to. Suddenly, the ADC above the left turret acquired some more text again. They were going to strike her before the moonlight gets anywhere near here.

Something else was off. There is usually some initial wind changes and temperature variations involved with the ability, initially before it begins to work. Jane felt none of that. It's as if Moonglow didn't even affect anything at all. That means... No! Dark Zone climates can't be changed?

As Jane pondered her own error, the text above the right turret began to fade, triggering a new bit of text above the central turret in its action display center. Synchronization error. Now the central turret read something different. Laser Swipe! Instead of reporting an error, Laser Swipe was the name of some sort of attack, and the turret was able to shift its gear and direction much quicker than Jane was led on to believe. At the same time, she was still a bit distracted by the fact that her Moonglow spell failed to work, unable to react in time to throw up a power shield for the next unusual sort of attack wave. Oddly enough, only the center turret was initiating the attack this time, while turret A and C were just sitting back doing nothing. Suddenly, a narrow red laser beam fired and held its intensity from the turret, though aimed far to the left from where Jane was standing. In the next moment, the turret shifted its aim all the way to the right in just less than a second of time, taking its high intensity heat laser with it. The laser was aimed in such a way where it literally swept through Jane's thighs to follow the turret's aim.

Suddenly, a stabbing, piercing, burning centralized pain took over just where the laser struck Jane, even though it hit her for just a small moment. Without the ability to control it, Jane started screaming bloody murder at the top of her lungs as the pain got to its worst. Jane suddenly fell on her legs, holding her lower stomach and tensing her muscles to try and stop the intense sensation. Nothing was relieving the hellish impossible pain. Her insides were inflamed, the sudden scar of a straight line had burned outward on Jane's skin, and the migraine in her head intensified. Nothing could properly sum up or describe what the immense damage infliction did to her, and Jane was lucky that her body was not severed in two, but there wasn't anything else she was able to think about at the moment. She was still stuck to the ground, shouting out and yelling at the top of her voice with inappropriate language.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/DzcnYHgN/S2-Jane-AV-012.png]

It didn't matter to Jane what her stats were telling her. All she could think about was how badly this was hurting her. Several more moments passed since that laser swiped through her body, and still the pain was only barely letting up. As Jane's headache got even stronger, she was able to care less about her lower pains. Despite having a laser go through her entire body, cutting her open in the front and in the back, her wound was immediately sealed by all of the heat involved, leaving behind a bloody scar through her waist. Even dark zones provide partial protection from real time damage. Jane wanted to get back up - get back into the fight, but it wasn't working. Nothing could coax her to stand straight up now. The pain was so intense that even though she managed to stop screaming, Jane's legs were just frozen, unable to move. Of all times, her hindrance gave the three sentry guns more than enough time to come up with another synchronized attack.

Fire Strike! It read in the action display center above all three of them, proving that turret A was not all that damaged after all, only malfunctioning rarely. Three glyphrings were already forming. Jane recognized this skill from before. This is a strange version of Triple Fire, but each turret only shoots one Fire Bolt at a time. Still, with three coming at her all at once, she would hardly survive this. Too late to shield too, as the glyphrings were now solidified into their full functioning forms. Through all three glyphrings, a single bolt of fire projected itself outward, trailing into the air using magic and locking on to Jane as their intended target. Jane knew that shielding would not be the best tactic anymore, as it would simply fail with all of these scrapes and wounds distracting her focus. So instead, just as all three bolts were about to slam into her at the same time, Jane managed to unlock her knees and push off them. It allowed her to jump far off to her right side, leaping out of the way of the Fire Bolts in midair.

Much to her surprise, the Fire Bolt attack totally missed her during her fall back towards the earth. They were prone to strike her at the same time and all in the same exact location, so it wasn't that difficult to dodge them after all. But when Jane hit the ground again, even from her small jump, the pain in her thighs flooded back again, forcing her to cringe and tense the muscles in her legs. There was no way she can move around the battle field anymore, even for a dodge. Shielding will just have to do for now.

"Guess it's my turn," she announced. After struggling to remain straight while crouching, Jane expended some more MP, only small proportions this time. Her reaction created a small yellow generation glyphring hovering above her, dropping a bow and arrow into her hands. The bow's design and the arrow's solid sharpened tip was the same trick as Crystal Arrow. Jane didn't chant any spell just yet. She had another modification to make this time. As she took aim at the right turret again, Jane began charging a little more energy into her crystalized tip arrow, finally chanting the magical words just before releasing the projectile away. "Crystal Arrow!"

Jane let the arrow go aiming slightly above the turret since it was high up on a cliff. The opposing air friction and gravity effect over that distance and elevation would cause that arrow to sink down slightly in its flight since it isn't effected by Leray magic during that flight. Because of her knowledge of the fact, Jane's arrow still managed to strike the machine from her distance and angle. The arrow stuck deep into the metallic hull platting of the turret, while it simply began to steer itself in an uncaring manor. Sure, the arrow did no damage at all, but the attack was not finished yet. Jane's idea was not exactly original. One of her opponents she fought with on Route 96 attempted to do to Jane what she is about to repeat to her enemy. The crystal arrow, after sticking to the turret for just one second randomly exploded with the fire power of a grenade. The blast blew the metal armor right off the turret, sending their chunks flying in many different directions. Somehow that turret managed to survive the blast, even enough to steer its motor around and continue its gyro-motions, but much of its armor has now been lost, and attacks that normally deal little damage to these turrets should be even more effective against Turret A from here on. It wouldn't solve anything too soon though. Just after checking the energy scopes, Jane noticed that a new type of attack was going on in the action display center.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/RFB59RPH/S2-Turrert-A-006.png]

Damn machine still has so much in it. The next attack read as follows: Railgun! Jane had not seen this skill yet, and would much prefer not to feel any more harm if it could be helped. So she immediately prepared her power shield, carefully watching the aim of each machine to determine exactly when the latest possible time acceptable would be. Her entire body was already aching everywhere, but her waist and her head were hurting the worst. There was no way she was about to let another devastating attack kill her like that.

It was true that Turret A had taken significant damages compared to the other two turrets. All of them were steering their motors to aim at Jane with whatever synchronized attack they were planning, but the turret on the far right was steering at a much slower rate. It was so slow, that Turret B and C began firing their cannons before Turret A was even ready. Two narrow blue beams of light, as quick to appear as to disappear flew just past Jane's face, barely missing her ear. It was then that she threw up her power shield, denying her enemy the access to hit her with any more lethal attacks. With her shield up, Jane was able to better study the so called Railgun lasers. They were a bit more like photons pulses, shooting a straight narrow beam no more than one foot wide by radial dispersion in a singular direction. The beams that were prone to strike Jane afterwards had their energy absorbed by the shielding aura instead, creating somewhat small hexagons at each area they hit her aura, but Jane could see several more beams fly past her aura, in that they would have missed her with or without her shield. Come to think of it over another two seconds of consecutive rail gun firing, it didn't seem like the turrets had that much accuracy with their current attack. After squinting her eyes through the translucent shield in the distance of the cliff, Jane could finally see why. With every single shot the turrets took to fire their Railgun, the force of their beam leaving the barrel had enough recoil to push their entire movable armor upwards and back a bit. It was a challenge just for those mechanical machines to correctly aim at Jane anymore. Was this from the damage she did to them earlier, or was it simply the recoil of this specific attack sequence?

Much of the same scene continued to last on and on. Jane has been keeping her shield up for a full nine seconds now, which was her new set record. She could already feel her focus draining out again, but at last the Railgun firing was over with. The turrets needed to cool down the barrel tips after firing such high temperature energy beams, and Jane got the chance to lower her shield before it failed on her. So far her energy was holding on well, with her MP level still at 55% capacity.

As soon as Jane was capable of thinking more on what decisions to make, a thought occurred. Even though a single turret can be dangerous with that laser swipe thing they have going, three of them will eventually wear her down if they decide to try their missile barrage again. She couldn't have that, not again, but if one turret goes out, then this entire battle will be that much easier. Turret A is already heavily damaged, so it would make a lot of sense to focus all attacks on that turret for now. Jane already had a good spell in mind too, one that was made up of pure magical damage she picked up from Claudia. She had never got to use it well in a battle, but now would be the exception.

Jane concentrated into charging up her MP into her newest attack. It's an aura type of attack, so she concentrated everywhere inside and outside of her body until a faint blue glow was surrounding her. Now it was almost time to release that energy into a full force beam. "Taste Quantum Beam!" Jane already began to release some more of her energy, causing her new aura to glow brilliantly in the shape of herself. Just before releasing her magic into a powerful beam, Jane clapped her hands with her arms stretching far out in front of her, directing her flow of magic. At the invocation of her magic, Jane's entire aura transformed into a very wide beam of energy, already reaching out and slamming into the target of her choice. The diameter of her specific Quantum Beam was about as large as 2.5 feet, which did sort of make it hard for Jane to see what it looked like for the turret to eat up that magical damage, but as soon as the three-second attack ended, the turret on the right was still standing. Somehow, despite losing a lot more of its own armor on the top and central hull panels, its attachments for rockets on each side were still fully functional and firmly attached. Of all things, their rocket attachments are built more durable than the turrets themselves, but at least her attack was worth something.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/bJ9XvtMF/S2-Turrert-A-007.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/bJNpXgVw/S2-Jane-AV-013.png]

Now Jane got ready, since the next attack will be foreseeable any second now in the action display center. Rocket Mess! ... Rocket Mess! Rocket Mess! All three of them were showing the same exact thing. It was Jane's worst fear already coming back to life. Turret A was still functioning! This wasn't part of her plan!

Crackling sounds followed by the distant noise of turning motors gave Jane plenty of warning to prepare another power shield, but she just knew her defense would not be as powerful with her current level of dexterity and MP reserves... Here they come. The thunderous booms of missile launching high into the air, leaving echoes and smoke trails of their current flight. Every single rocket began speeding upwards from each turret, soon to change course and slam right into Jane. There was going to be a total of thirty-six of them, just like before. Jane knew it was almost pointless to try and shield herself, but it was better to try and fail than to just give up her life. "Power Shield!" Jane exerted her energy through her hands again, bending her elbows this time to keep her arms closer to her body. Then she stood there in wait, waiting for the incredible barrage of explosions that would eat away at her shield's power piece by piece.

Just as her power shield activated, the missile volley slammed their warheads into the ground beneath Jane, creating explosion after explosion until it was impossible for Jane to see anything else outside of her translucent shield. The blasts kept on coming relentlessly, and the small hexagons formed in every possible location in Jane's shield aura. The damage was intense, and the area of effect was much too large to handle. Jane wasn't counting how many rocket explosions were left, but it wouldn't matter anyway. She felt her concentration on the aura quickly failing, her heart racing in response to how difficult it became to keep her shield aura up and running. It was just a micro-second later when the shield suddenly collapsed, disintegrating downwards in front of her. Jane lost her shield, and just before she could consciously realize what was happening, a few more explosions desecrated the field where she stood. The blasts sent Jane off of her feet, flying away from the force of the blast. Several pieces of shrapnel cut and dug into Jane's skin, while her chest suddenly tightened with pressure. Jane then landed on her stomach after unwillingly back flipping over and out of control, scraping her skin through the mercenary training outfit.

As it was the last of the rockets to plunge into the ground, Jane barely managed to look up at the cliff without tilting the rest of her body. The turret's attack run was over, but Jane had now been riddled with more cuts and scrapes than before. It was amazing to see much of her health survive the hit so well.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/mDXRT9KN/S2-Jane-AV-014.png]

It wasn't over yet. Jane felt like laying down in the dirt and giving up already. She was fatigued in every possible way she could imagine, and the migraine though settling down was only making her concentration more difficult than she wanted it to, but now could be her chance, her only chance to throw Turret A out of commission once and for all. Dying here means dying forever. Jane wouldn't be able to live with that. Pushing herself back up with her arms, she steadily balanced her knees without shifting her legs too much. The pain from the laser swipe was still there and dominant over everything else. Despite her slow healing, Jane was still unable to jump, run, or walk without her hips burning with the inflammatory shoot of torn muscle.

There in front of her, the three turrets reset their gyroscopic positions and prepared to determine another mode of attacking. Without any MP to require, the machines could literally keep this up all day long. It's a now-or-never strategy then. Jane needs to kill that weakened turret without delay, and what better way than with a smart area attack?

"Photon Burst!" Jane infused a lot of MP energy into her right hand again, creating the same motions as before. She lifted her hand high into the air, only to smite it downward with a lot of spirit. The reaction mixed with the released energy created the same awesome result when Jane used the spell previously. In no time flat, the sky was suddenly raining down dozens of photons ever second, the aerial version of photon blast which Jane refined all on her own before coming here. The photons were concentrating on the top of the cliff, raining down pieces of pure energy bolts like steel rain. Despite having the damage conditions of magical energy, each bolt that hit a turret from above was strong enough to smash through its solid armor due to containing a high power level, breaking off chunks and plates of armor for all three turrets. As for Turret A which was already severely damaged, it only took three photon bolts to smash off its rocket attachments while simultaneously blowing up the internal components. By the time the magic rain had ended, all of the turrets were smoking from overheated components and damages, while the sentry gun on the far right was sparking at the base. Somehow it was still standing, but something told Jane that Turret A will no longer be a problem anymore. She checked all of their energy scopes, including her own to count how many points of MP she had remaining.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/L59cgsF4/S2-Turrert-A-008.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/mr7Jd9b2/S2-Turrert-B-005.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/jj636rXD/S2-Turrert-C-005.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/fyVsyLN4/S2-Jane-AV-015.png]

Now everybody's energy scope was flashing with red colors instead of green. Irrecoverable damage is usually the meaning of the color shifts, and Jane knew just as well that she was still not out of the woods yet. Just as Jane's attack wave finished scoring a lot of damage, she realized that the ADC systems for her enemies were already lighting up. But Turret A was having another malfunction. Target Malfunction. It was clearly evident, as it was unable to properly steer its barrel directions to properly aim at her. Its own motor was damaged in the sense that it wasn't going to be able to steer or aim anymore. It was comforting enough, but the other two turrets were able to adapt to the situation. Laser Strife! Both Turret C and B displayed the text in their action displays.

Jane had not seen or heard of the skill before, but it was very closely similar sounding to Laser Swipe. It was bad enough getting hit by one of those things, but with her MP energy running low, Jane would not be able to shield herself again in any case. Dodging was going to be her only way out of this mess for now. Just as the text faded again, the central and left turret began steering their aim in strange directions, with turret C far off to the left of Jane, and turret B far off to the right. Oh no! It is another laser swipe, but from two turrets this time! That would immediately be enough to slay her right here and now. The red beams were already visible, and as the turrets steered quickly, so did the lasers begin swiping towards her. Thinking quickly, Jane tried to jump over the laser coming from her left. It was just a low enough sweep for her jump to actually mean something. But just as she landed, the laser coming from the other side swiped just below her breasts, creating the same exact sense of pain it did last time.

Just like that, the laser swept right through Jane's chest, sending her straight to the ground crying out in screams of unbearable pain. It felt like a flaming sword had cut right through Jane's chest, stabbing her with the sense of a burn and a bruise all at the same time. She was suddenly stuck on her hands and knees again, out of breath to scream some more. All of her other senses began to darken with nothing else she could focus on. All of her thoughts turned to this one damaged location again, the heat in her upper body stinging much worse than it had in her waist. Jane can't fight in this state.

That's it! It's over. The heat, headache, and the previous fatigue would normally have combined into a fainting spell strong enough to knock Jane out by now, but after a few more seconds, something else happened instead. Without any of the pain fading away, Jane suddenly stopped caring about it, clenching her fists and tightening her muscles. It was as if something gave her an extra chance to get back up and continue fighting, her energy and strength returning to her. It was more of an aggressive tense feeling that forced her to feel this way. Adrenaline maybe?

image [https://i.postimg.cc/4yjg9gfY/S2-Jane-AV-016.png]

She couldn't quite explain it. The damage done to Jane basically made her ability to walk impossible, but she was still capable of standing up. Instead of yelling and screaming out in the pain that was still in her chest at the same intensity, Jane's eyes widened, she was suddenly forced into thinking strategically. The next attack - something that would take out turret A for good while dealing damage to other turrets and conserving MP energy... "Magical Blitz!" Jane formed two energy balls in her right hand, and a third one in her left. Carefully aiming for all three of them, she threw each energy ball with as much force as she had without shifting her legs muscles. The three energy balls were as accurate as they would have been as homing bolt attacks. Jane managed to make all of the magic projectiles smash through each turret, breaking off a little more of their armor. As the turret on the far right side of the cliff took a hit, the metal exploded into a blast so wide and bright that it left nothing behind after flying chunks of hot metal burst in all directions. Turret A was completely destroyed; nothing else remained beyond the dissipating mist.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/Y0dJ6wt6/S2-Turrert-A-009.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/rmcb7pmG/S2-Turrert-B-006.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/NMgJpPJp/S2-Turrert-C-006.png]

Despite using magic, Jane's MP levels were rising passively and slowly as they should. Her choice to not use a power shield last round was allowing her energy to recover quickly, but this time, she was going to need a power shield. Voltage! That was the message for the last remaining two turrets. Even with one of them out, Turret C and B were able to synchronize their actions with each other, preparing for a double electrical attack with a lot of power and energy. Jane however stayed focus, unable to think about anything else, unable to have any doubts. Her mind went fully automatic while she ignored the incredible pain in her body.

Just as both turrets took aim at Jane and fired their red lightning bolts of energy, Jane had her power shield up again. Only this time, she held her hands high in the air above her, coaxing the electricity to zap those specific spots despite her shielding aura in full effect. Jane didn't realize this or why it happened, but as the red electricity ran its course failing to penetrate through her personal aura, she felt stronger and stronger. At top of her energy scope, the MP level was rising at a very rapid pace, likely charging from the energy absorption field created by her own shield. The lightning attack lasted for seven seconds long, but it wasn't enough time or damage to break her aura. Jane disabled her shield on her own terms this time, waiting for the right moment. After the turret's failed attack was over, she noticed how high her MP energy climbed so suddenly.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/bY58MQxq/S2-Jane-AV-017.png]

What was happening to her? It's like the pain is suddenly obsolete now. Jane couldn't give a care in the world about any sort of discomfort. The heat around her, the pain in every section of her body, the drain in her stamina from fighting a long time, it all meant nothing to her now. It's like she wasn't even herself, but she could still think about it somehow. Jane felt a buzzing sensation at the top of her right hand, despite not seeing the holographic symbol there. Still, her right hand had a slight aura of magic and light built around there, passively remaining. Is her symbol activating, the view of it obstructed by this glove? She couldn't be certain, but another idea clicked in her mind, and fighting for her life was all Jane could think about. It seems to be more effective to deal with less turrets, destroying them one at a time instead of all together, but there are not a lot of armor piercing magical tricks that also conserve MP energy in the process. There is another ability for which Jane had never even used yet. Claudia specifically taught it to her earlier, but Jane never deemed it so important until right now.

She pulled out her daggers, and began infusing them with magical energy in her hands. "Armor Breaker." She didn't have to yell the chant of the ability, it served no special purpose, but as she began to infuse the daggers, they began glowing red with a specific kind of aura. Jane then threw the daggers, taking precise aim at the central turret and throwing her small blades. The blades spun in the air, but they traveled in a vertical spinning motion this time, leaving behind a faint red trail of light from their auras. Her thrown daggers acted as a projectile of a straight arrow, suddenly crunching into the centralized turret's metal armor, and slicing through it without any hindrance. The daggers then fell to the ground with chunks of the metal, and then disappeared only to reappear back into Jane's two hands.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/qRLYrdhP/S2-Turrert-B-007.png]

It was amazing that she pulled it off so well. Armor Breaker is a special free-form ability that infuses magic into any weapon of choice. Then user either uses that weapon to melee or throw it like a projectile at the target. The modification of magical damage adds an armor piercing effect into the weapon's damage for that single use, allowing the object to pierce through solid metal and even break that metal into smaller pieces if the metal is unprotected by the Leray veil. In her case, Jane's dagger throw ended up rendering the central turret completely vulnerable. Its health dropped a lot, and its metal hull was now in total jeopardy.

Sonic Blast! Both turrets were still functioning, still planning attacks against Jane, but she reacted quickly, holding her hands outward in position to project another power shield. Sonic Blast is another unfamiliar turret skill, but Jane was ready for it. Just as both turrets shot some white blinding light from their barrels indicating usage of magical energy, Jane exerted energy of her own too, creating a powerful force field around herself. Then, the white lights became just slightly dimmer, revealing themselves in the form of pure white colored spheres. Then those spheres exploded, creating an interesting high pitch sound that Jane could hear through her own aura. It was kind of annoying, but it was then that Jane realized that her power shield is about eighty percent sound proof, meaning that attack was actually designed to overload her ears with that noise on full volume blast, but the shield was protecting her even from a sound-based attack. It reminded her of the human version of the same skill, known as Harmonics, though this was different. Jane could deal with this no problem. The blast of sound barely lasted for a few seconds, and without feeling any damage, Jane did not waste any energy at all on her shield.

It was then however when she noticed how statistically her disadvantage was regarding her current level of HP reserves. She needed to heal, and she needed time to try and heal. Using a healing orb will take too long, and Jane was running out of MP reserves to try and make use of more power shields. Better to attack while drawing more time. The turrets both operate their aim and steering on some sort of gyro-mechanism, meaning something short of an earthquake would totally mess those machines up for a good long while. She already knows a spell that does this with much conservation of MP energy, thanks to Claudia. "Gyrobreak!" Jane's hands were glowing only slightly orange for a moment, and then upon releasing her energy, the ground beneath her suddenly shifted on the left, and then the right. Gyrobreak isn't exactly like an earthquake. It shifts the ground and gravity in ways that make it feel and seem like the very orientation of the earth is shifting sideways on fulcrum. It's a mixture of a ground based orientation disruption field with a mild quake, and it totally changes the gyro-based field at which it activates for a rather long time. Thus its own name - Gyrobreak.

Jane was having some trouble standing straight too, since the disruption can affect her as well, but nothing would be more disabled for now than those two stupid machines on the top of the cliff. In Jane's eyes, it looked like the entire world had been turned into a room, tilting side to side as if it were just a fake section tilting around for fun. Now she would have the time try standby healing. Claudia tried to teach her the skill to Jane's wishes, but for some reason, Claudia didn't want her to rely on this ability. There had to be a catch. Only few abilities allow one to heal their HP stats in the middle of a battle, but all of them have some sort of catch or conversion attached to the status.

Just as Jane was readying her never attempted before ability, a sudden barrage of blue beams fired right by her, and then more of them just shot in the direction of everywhere. It was the turret's ability of Railgun! They were trying to hit Jane in this crazy distortion field. Luckily, their aim was currently terrible. Jane was literally just standing still, but blue beams were shooting into the sky, and far away from her current position. There was no way those things were going to be able to aim and hit her with the ground shifting so much like this. Ignoring the stupidity of their programming, Jane tried to initiate her standby healing ability, which already began when a faint blue circle surrounded her legs on the ground. Just as the circle appeared, Jane could already feel a little bit better as the circle began to slowly regenerate her health below her, but then it faded rather quickly. Over the course of seven long seconds, her health had only gone up by 5%, and as she tried to make it appear again, nothing else happened...

That's it?! Standby Healing is supposed to allow the user to regenerate lost health, so long as they stand still and do not attack, but the way it stopped working like that... It must be a one-time ability, meaning it can only be invoked once every hour or so. Somehow, despite this being an unofficial battle, and despite certain Leray rules not taking effect because the location here is the dark zone, other odd things were in effect. One was the fact that Jane cannot leave the confines of the red shield dome around the battlefield. It most likely has something to do with the trap she triggered, but then what about that lame ability? Recovering five percent of health at the cost of MP was surely not anything to gloat about. Nothing about this is right or balanced either. It hardly seemed fair that her targets were outnumbering her and were not even sentient. This defense trap had to be for somebody specific, not meant for her, but now there is no choice but to destroy everything in order to survive.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/7YTDyf90/S2-Jane-AV-018.png]

The health meter barely changed one bit, but Jane's MP levels were lasting a lot longer than she let it before. Still, all of her pain from before just seemed so distant. Jane could feel all of it, but it just didn't bother her right now. Her stamina seemed to be much higher than it should be given her current stats, and thus compared to the fact that all of this damage is real time damage on top of it all. It's totally not right! As Jane examined herself, the result of her mysterious improvement was shining on the top of her right hand. Her black and blue mercenary outfit was hiding her hand through the glove, but the holographic symbol on the top of her hand was finally visible now. That has to be the culprit.

When did her symbol suddenly show up? The brightness intensity of this crest can vary at times, but Jane rarely recalled moments in which her symbol managed to project itself through her own clothing and gloves in previous heated moments. Sometimes, her symbol can show itself through fabric material and project with a more radiant light before everyone, the result of having partial control of her special power. Right now, it was strong enough for her to slightly make out through the glove of her own suit. The symbol marked on Jane's hand, pulsing holographically with its own deviant beat. It must be the thing keeping her going right now, the very reason she was able to stand back up after taking that second laser swipe attack, and the reason she didn't feel like passing out just yet. Through the activation of her symbol, Jane always gets a special buzz of extra energy, but apparently there are even more side effects given the current situation. The pain in her thighs and her chest previously there by the laser swipes was somewhat feeling less intense, as if she was somehow healing. To think that one single spell bomb contains this much power...

Bullet Barrage! Both turrets were not ready to give up yet, and Jane had to suddenly realize that the ground was not turning and shifting anymore. Her Gyrobreak effect wore off while she got lost in her thoughts only for a moment, and now the turrets were aiming for her, planning to barrage her with bullets. Jane invoked another power shield around her, but diffused her worries quickly. The turrets were already firing, bullets bouncing off of her shield and creating repulsion noises on the inside over and over. There were only two working turrets now. A simple barrage of bullets would not be enough to stop her. Thanks to the messed up gyroscopic setting on the turrets and the previous damage inflicted to them, Jane could literally see how their aim was totally messed up now. Only about half of those bullets managed to bounce off her shield. The rest zipped past her, missing even the aura itself.

The barrage of bullets only lasted for eight seconds, dealing little damage, but because of the time she needed to have it up, Jane almost lost her shield again, draining her stamina and forcing her to try harder to keep on fighting. It was a quick matter of recovery and retaliation for Jane. She readied her energy, taking aim at the central turret which had already been heavily damaged. "Median Flare!" Jane cuffed her hands together, opening them up with her palms reflecting each other aiming at the central turret. Upon releasing her MP energy, her Median Flare blasted light in a directional wave, spreading out the more distance it covered. The blast went just far enough to reach her target, widening enough to deal some magical damage to the other machine as well, but as an instant reaction to the damage inflicted by Jane's attack, Turret B made a loud boom and exploded into a fiery burst of airborne metal fragments.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/QCdzxncH/S2-Turrert-B-008.png]image [https://i.postimg.cc/k4fjZFL9/S2-Turrert-C-007.png]

Finally! It's just one damaged turret against Jane now; a fair fight indeed. The odds were suddenly turning in her favor. Even as the lone turret on the left continued preparing to attack, Jane was more than capable of defending herself now. Fire Bolt! With only one Fire Bolt, there was no way a shielding aura could possibly fail to uphold its strength. Jane created another shielding aura around herself, just as the glyphring appeared and fired a projectile of magical fire through its center. Homing in on Jane, the bolt of fire exploded against her shield, creating large sized hexagons on the inside where it hit her. The large sizes indicated that the damage in general was really low, laughable even by Jane's standards. She quickly shut down her shield, wasting no time at all. Then she prepared for another effective counterattack.

"Charge Attack!" she yelled. Jane knew that her movement was hindered, so she just stood still instead. Now that she could focus on one target, there was a better variety of physical skills she could use. She spawned two machine guns into her hands using yellow glyphrings, then pulled the triggers, firing a barrage of bullets into the sentry gun. Then, as she ran dry on ammunition, Jane tossed the guns, switching to her daggers instead. Jane then threw her daggers, but without infusing magic into them this time. It was indeed a weaker form of attack, but Jane didn't want to waste too much MP energy on a lone gun.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/6qqHN4NZ/S2-Turrert-C-008.png]

This turned out to be a very poor choice. Metal bullets and steel dagger blades basically have no effect on the turret. Its armor was still in the way, blocking out many types of damages. For the first time so far, Jane was letting her guard down too soon. The fight could still end in her death if she gets too careless.

Rocket Mess! "Great!" she choked. Now the gun was going with one of its most powerful attacks yet. At least now it would only be able to fire a maximum amount of twelve missiles instead of 36 of them. Jane responded to the logic and created another shielding aura. Just as she did, the symbol on the top of her hand faded away again, or at least the light coming from it did. Jane couldn't tell if the symbol had just dimmed out while active under the cover of her dark glove, or if the crest faded away completely. Just as it happened, she began to feel much weaker already, as if some sort of super awesome energy rush had just worn off on the spot, but she struggled to keep her shield up, as the rockets were already shooting form the turret's extra attachments, firing into the sky and changing course towards the ground again. As the missiles all slammed into her shield, Jane's focus and energy was being drained so rapidly, and the hexagons formed everywhere again. Luckily for her, after the explosions ended earlier than she expected them to, her shield was still functioning, and Jane disabled it on herself to conserve what energy she had left.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/YCK72MDV/S2-Jane-AV-019.png]

It no longer mattered to her how she ends this fight, just as long as she wins it soon. With her weakness now returning to her, likely from the drop in her symbol given a random interval of time, she would be too drained to move if this doesn't end fast enough. "Return Fire!" There had to be some easy way to destroy this crazy machine. Jane's conditional magical ability formed a small glyphring, shooting out two Magical Blitz type energy balls at the turret. Jane exerted even more energy in that moment, forming another temporary glyphring to surround each projectile and speed them up by a factor of one hundred. It was the same skill she performed earlier with three Magical Blitz balls, shooting them instead of throwing them. Then taking those projectiles midair and speeding them up before colliding into the target. Her plan seemed to work pretty well considering all of the armor the damage blew off, but it still was not enough.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/zvQxDDJc/S2-Turrert-C-009.png]

Now it was the stupid sentry gun's turn to strike, and it didn't seem to have any motorized dysfunction either. So Jane was going to have to try another power shield again. Laser Swipe! Of all things, it had the be the most devastating ability in the world, an attack that deals high damage and searing pain, not to mention all of the real time wounding damage left behind in its wake. Jane reacted quickly, creating a shielded aura around herself. Both times she was hit from the laser swipes, she never successfully managed to get her shield up in time, but maybe her aura was just strong enough to block out the damage.

The left turret changed its aim, steering its hot destructive laser to swipe past Jane's body, effectively prone to pierce her skin and go through the other side. Despite having her shield up, the turret attacked her anyway, the laser swiping into the aura very quickly and effectively. Jane didn't even have time to figure out how effective her shield was. The very moment that laser passed her by, striking the aura only for a split second, the field collapsed on her, and the sudden sensation of passing out intensified for Jane. She dropped to the ground unharmed in any physical way, but it suddenly felt like she had just ran ten miles on without stopping, while her sweat was soaking her own outfit. She became tried so quickly and suddenly, meaning the damage was enough to cancel out her shield completely. Jane was lucky to not have been harmed that time. But now that she was getting so lightheaded...

image [https://i.postimg.cc/3xXTdVPw/S2-Jane-AV-020.png]

Jane was just sitting there, panting from how long and hard she was keeping this up. Keeping herself alive in this place was downright impossible. Nobody said anything about secret anti-personnel defense systems and booby traps. Just as she hunched her neck over to check on the turret, another piece of white text formed in the ADC above it. Bullet Barrage! Was she this tired, that she just lost her opportunity to attack the enemy again? Or was the machine getting faster and more desperate to win? Jane nodded her head in doubt, standing back up and extending out her arms. She once again emitted her MP energy, creating the familiar force field, but her concentration was already cut short with how quickly she was breathing and how much she was sweating. It didn't matter how long and hard she fought, this place is like a furnace of heat, forever burning the ground with humidity.

Bullets suddenly erupted from the sentry's barrels, striking into her shield aura with some more accuracy than it had before. Jane wanted to keep the shield going, but as the bullets continued bouncing off the aura and draining its power, Jane felt weaker and weaker. She was trying to run a power shield with only 13% MP remaining, which alone was already difficult. Her shield couldn't hold out anymore, and it finally collapsed again in front of her. The chain of bullets did not care to stop shooting at her. Jane was without warning being shot again and again with dozens of rounds. Yet somehow, she was taking the damage the same way it would happen in a Leray fight. If the protection zone here is really disabled, the given logic shows that Jane would have been dead already. Something must still be protecting her from certain death in some way.

Finally, the bullets stopped firing, but Jane was about ready to give up now. The sensation felt like having metal pellets drill into her skin while creating real bruises hundreds of times over, all in randomized locations as Jane was shot up by several bullets. The pain from all of it was bad enough, but the drop in all her stats was making the situation grave. Jane had never been so exhausted before in her life. This was much worse than fighting Patrissa earlier. Her MP was now low, her HP was low, and in the combination of that, the wounding damage, the heat, the fatigue... Jane wanted nothing more than to just collapse and accept her fate, but the turret was in bad shape too. Its armor has been blown clean off, shifting and sparking embers off the turning chain, clashing metal grinding noises from the cliff. I can still win this for crying out loud. Against her body's will, Jane stood back up.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/tg9HPDjN/S2-Jane-AV-021.png]

Jane has one more chance at this. If she fails, she'll never become a Leray master, never see Danny and Taylor again, and she'll never have kept her promise to Claudia and Alyssa and the others. "No. I'm not going out that way. Armor Breaker!" Jane immediately had the energy infused into both of her blades, draining the rest of her MP energy as she threw them in a vertical style. It was a repeated move, but well worth the shot. The daggers flew through the air with intense speed as they dug their way into the last remaining turret, immediately forcing the machine to explode like a bomb on the top of the cliff. It was as quick as that. The energy scope of the last turret as well as any other remaining holographic display faded immediately. Jane had done it in one more action, destroying all three turrets and saving her own life.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/WpYWw8Mw/S2-Turrert-C-010.png]

All the sudden, some alarm sounded just for a second, and all around where Jane was standing, the massive red shield of energy began to fade away on its own. Does this mean... Does this mean Jane is free to move on? The defense system - it was entirely comprised of three turrets! Now that those machines were destroyed, the shield surrounding her and trapping her into this section of the dark zone was now deemed inoperable. "I did it! Nagh!" Jane held her shoulder after trying to lift it in a victory pose. Right. First thing's first.

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Chapter Theme Shift: Kamihama Polyphonic ~ Magia Record OST

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After pulling two healing orbs from her supply sphere, Jane concentrated on the orbs, forcing them to try and heal herself again. It was crazy that the orbs were working to restore any lost HP already. Most of the wounds Jane was stuck with didn't heal with the healing orbs at all, and it did very little to try and mask the pain from those wounds. It was real time damage alright. The orbs only did what little they were able to, healing Jane's stats to their maximum potential, which now has been severely lowered after such a difficult fight.

image [https://i.postimg.cc/W4Sc7rpL/S2-Jane-AV-022.png]

After the orbs did their best, Jane was surprised that she recovered even half of her health at all, but she did it, survived probably the most difficult fight of them all. She also diffused the stupid alarm on her energy scope, reporting of an unknown recovery error. It was a no brainer that her energy scope can detect whenever Jane is outside of an accepted Leray zone or not, and she no longer needed that warning.

Jane defiantly needed a moment to try and recover her physical stamina back again. The healing orbs sure didn't help her unwind, even though the restored health allowed some of her wounds to stop hurting slightly. That battle really took a lot out of her, and the Den of Purity still was not very close by. Jane wasn't giving up yet. There was defiantly a way to reach the Den of Purity. It sucks that she planned on getting rid of the same symbol that was protecting her from dying this whole time. When it's over with, she'll need a different plan to make it back to Lennith City. Even so, it wasn't right to just keep it on her and continue Leray training. Besides, I came here for a reason. I'm not about to turn around and make it all for nothing. But I'll sit for a minute before marching again.