“Abyss damnit…!” Leora cursed as she leaped backwards, blade severing the water tentacle before it could reach her. Her mind was racing, trying to piece together where this monster had so suddenly come from while keeping up with its attacks.

“No, you don’t!” Mirabelle exclaimed, shield slamming against a wave of tendrils bearing down on them from the side. They splashed against the bulwark, pushing her away with another wave following right after. Before they could overwhelm her, however, the leopard from the intruders scattered them apart with a blast of charged wires. They quickly returned back to his side and he gave them a quick nod before flitting past.

“Burns to have them help us…” Mirabelle hissed under her breath, panting more heavily after all the exertion.

The water rushed back to the monster, Amber crystals ripped out of the ground along with the stream of its tentacles and quickly dissolved into power that surged through its now more pinkish form.

“Better than the alternative.” Leora shot back, narrowing her eyes at the wraith. As powerful as its attacks were, she could see that they could have been much more deadly. The water was strong enough to rip rock and crystals out of the ground with ease but against them it only pushed away. But even as Lagua and Kai kept their distance to cover the arrival of Herald and Selene, the water wraith continued to attack them as well.

She shook her head. Right now they didn’t have enough info, maybe it saw the whole cavern as its territory or maybe not. They just had to find a way to deal with it and the intruders afterwards. Leora’s ears twitched and she froze.

It was silent. The absence of splashing water, surging streams and cracking stone was more clearly heard than the noise that had ruled the cavern just moments before.

“Wha…? What’s it doing now?” Mirabelle asked confused, staring at the now calm form of the creature. It was like a mountain of water, the surface rippling similar to a still lake that had been stretched over a melted mannequin akin to a blanket. Light red whirled through the water, dissolving and deepening the pinkish colouration of its roiling waters beneath the calm surface. All of its tendrils had turned to gaze into a single direction, one in particular was larger than the others, extending from the top most centre.

The silence was broken by a sharp whistling sound as one of the intruder’s blast plowed through the wraith’s water only for all of it quickly regenerate again. The deafening screech of the blast cutting into the stone ceiling was painful, however, making Mirabelle and Leora wince harsh as the sound pierced their ears. It was especially painful for the avian cat.

“No idea, but it’s starting to feel like retreat will be our only option.” Leora cursed, they just didn’t have the right equipment to deal with this!

Glancing back over to Lagua and Kai she saw them signal the that Selene and Herald were already on their way, hurrying to catch up.

Just as she was about to fall back to them, her attention was forced back towards where the creature had been looking at. Whatever she had expected, an expanding sphere of blue and gold hadn’t been it.

“Look out!” And variations thereof rippled through the air as the sphere dissolved and everyone had to rush out of the way, dodging the sudden deluge of rocks, stone, metal, steam and water that suddenly broke out of the sphere. One particularly large fragment of stone and earth crashed hard into the ground and revealed the arrival of even more people.

Leora’s mind, already scrambling to resolve the problem of even more intruders appearing, came to a screeching halt as the dust settled and she recognised two of the supposed new intruders.

“V-Vee?!!” Leora’s voice echoed loudly through the air before she could stop herself, her eyes wide with shock. And why was Rehn laying unconscious besides her?!

Instinctively she rushed forwards, ignoring the startled cry from Mirabelle and everything else to reach her niece and pull her away from any danger possible. Her eyes narrowed at the two older women who looked just as startled but far more alert than most civilians would’ve been.

“A-aunt Leora?!” Vee exclaimed dumbfounded, her head whipping in the direction of the familiar voice as she scrambled back to her feet. Cuts and bruises covered her arms and legs after the sudden fall, everything had felt so overwhelmingly disorienting. But as soon as she stumbled upwards, she pulled her attention back to Rehn. Her best friend still laid unconscious on the ground, no blood at least, and while her face looked pained she didn’t seem to be in constant agony anymore. Vee clenched her fist in helpless anger, a shimmering glow of gold flickering around them before dimming again unbeknownst to her.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Ruth and Saia had seen it, however, and shared a barely noticeable glance with each other. Arc. No question. This was turning out to be an absolute mess. Especially when they realised that neither Jak nor Myra were still at their side.

———

“W-what the Abyss…?!” Jak shouted wide eyed, stumbling backwards after he had been assaulted by a barrage of visions. Falling through reality. The space around them a shattered prism refracting the world countless times, all of these different worlds overlapping and burning into his mind the vision he had seen before. Myriads of versions, all different yet the same. A moon sickle above an ocean of blackened crystals. A sickly green star shining above a rotting landscape. An empty hole staring down upon a dead wasteland. Together they became one, the eye of demonic god that gazed down at him. His scars burned hotly and for a moment he believed he could hear them sizzle and steam.

And then his gaze had fallen upon the roiling mountain of water, the calm from before quickly bleeding away as it began to move once more. The smooth surface turning into stormy wave. But more than that, reality seemed to shatter and glitch around its form. There were random holes in reality, gates between locations all around the city and strange distortions in space that appeared as if reality was trying to catch up with itself.

Without much thought he matched his gaze with the wraith’s primarily tendril and Jak felt his mind blank. And for some reason, he felt as if they shared something in common.

Myra stood wide eyed behind him, gazing up at the creature in terrified awe. And then she noticed the flood of portals rippling around its body.

“Look out!” Her shout to warn Jak never even echoed through the cavern.

———

Leora had barely managed to leap atop the unstable piece of one of Dampfstadt’s side alleys when Lyca, Crya and Kass welcomed these unexpected additions to this chaos as well. The Leading General narrowed her eyes at them and then felt a painfully helpless sting as Ruth and Saia greeted them with familiarity, clearly apart of the same group.

“Crashed the party. Sorry about that.” Ruth shrugged dispassionate, already moving to pick up Rehn.

“You’re not taking them without me.” Leora immediately interrupted, glaring lightly as she didn’t wait for her answer to carry Rehn on her back.

“Vee, with me.” She barked.

Startled, Vee felt cowed by the steel in her voice and nodded awkwardly in agreement, rushing to her side.

Even they had wanted to, they didn’t have the luxury fo further talk this out as the water wraith began to move again. Its massive warped and pulsed, rapidly shift between shrinking into a more compact shape and erupting back to full size with bizarrely distorted proportions even for a creature like itself. Twisting and rippling, it rushed forwards. Forwards towards the Crystal Well.

Believing a massive creature to move slowly was the fallacy of the small but right now, the speed of the wraith was simply terrifying. And even more so as took the portals flickering around it in consideration, they interspersed its already rapid movement with sudden flashes that had it simply skip parts of the cavern in a single instance.

“Damnit! It’s after the Glyph!” Lyca cursed as she shot right after it, her sister Crya right by her side as they quickly cast off their already sparse swimsuits to go fully nude. Their halos spun actively around their waists and gleamed with crimson energy, side by side like this bond allowed them to overcharge their Arc’s capabilities.

At high speeds they rushed forwards, crimson bodies slender and agile. Muscles coiled with incredible, surging power. But even with their enhanced speed they were barely able to keep up with water wraith.

With the wraith on the move, the fivesome of Vee, Rehn, Kass, Leora and Ruth, with Rehn now carried between the latter two women, rushed towards where Lagua and Kai were waiting. However the maze of small lakes dotting the landscape made running rather slow, hindered as they were.

“W-what the Abyss is going on here…?!” Vee exclaimed as she kept right behind her aunt in run. Her question went nearly forgotten as she barely managed to dodge a gateway that had suddenly flicked open in her way and closed only moments later. Vee’s startled cry echoed through the cavern.

Reality appeared to crumble away more and more as ever more portals began to flicker open and close randomly all around the cavern. They were too short-lived for much of anything to fall through, only allowing for short glimpses to myriads of locations all over Dampfstadt. Panic and fear echoed through the previously cheerful atmosphere of the Lebensfest, the way the screams just cut off, suddenly echoed from somewhere different or changed in resonance made it even more disturbing.

“That thing was something the Demon Witch brought here.” Kass surprised her from the side, the squirrel jerboa skating besides them on her spheres. She looked exhausted but determined. “You can bet that she had all of this planned out! Disrupt our plans, make us clash with the City Guard. All just to torment us and keep the Glyph out of our reach. Here, quick. Take these, speed’s key right now!”

Startled, Vee suddenly found a pair of spheres attached to her feet with Leora grudgingly accepting a pair as well alongside Ruth. The extra quickly melted the distance to reach Lagua and Kai.

“W-wait! Where’s Myra and Jak?!” Vee exclaimed finally in realisation, her eyes wide as she wildly looked around. Neither Myra nor Jak were anywhere to be seen.

———

Jak had no idea how or why, but at one point or another he had been pulled into the water wraith’s rush towards the Crystal Well. The portals seemed to be drawn towards him, moving and appearing in his way. Inevitably they made him fall, stumble and run through them to land always near the rolling mass of water. Was it that strange kinship he had felt for that short, fleeting moment that now bound him to the wraith? Or was it something else? Honestly, he didn’t really care because just didn’t want to fall onto his face after every freaking gate.

Stumbling he landed on his feet and hurried onwards before another portal could swallow his success.

“What the Abyss are you?!” He shouted angrily towards the creature and naturally didn’t receive an answer.

The utter chaos of his current situation and the need to keep running pushed away the terror that would have otherwise paralysed him in this moment.