I turned back towards Felix and our parents as they drifted further away. The knowledge that this situation was impossible settled in my bones as I continued to search for a way out.

Anise and Sallia attacked the endless horde of worldstriders, felling them by the dozen. More poured towards us. The interval between each wave grew shorter as they grouped up. Each clump of worldstriders grew more fine-tuned to handle our abilities. It wouldn't be long before they completely mitigated our advantages. Then we would die.

I tried to dig through the depths of my mind, searching for anything we could do to turn the tables.

My alteration essence was gone. My absorption essence was running low. Anise’s manifestation and binding essence were both nearly gone. Sallia’s absorption essence was almost depleted.

The laws of this layer of reality continued to sand away our bodies, ripping at us like a cloud of weak acid. It wasn’t the biggest threat to us. But compounded with the waves of worldstriders, it made a bad situation worse. We couldn’t attack the worldstriders from regular reality, but this layer of reality was weakening us every second.

I watched as Anise unleashed a storm of flames upon one of the nearby groups of worldstriders. They all died, but there were more groups. Always more. It was like trying to put out a wildfire with a cup of water.

A wave of projectiles flew towards Anise and I. I redirected the largest cluster of projectiles, killing a few worldstriders. Moments later, Sallia lowered the platform we were standing on. The rest of the projectiles sailed over our heads. Another chunk of my absorption essence was gone to buy Sallia time to save us.

Moments later, Sallia was upon the group that had attacked us. Four of the six worldstriders had died from my return volley. Sallia diced apart one of the last two in seconds. The other one managed to get an attack on Sallia, and right below her eye, a small cut appeared. Blood welled up and flowed down her cheek as she killed the final surviving worldstrider.

Sallia ignored the wound, as if it wasn’t even there, but I could tell that she was getting tired. There were a dozen such cuts on her body , and they were adding up. Sallia was running out of essence and stamina.

We all were.

I asked, trying not to embed any of the exhaustion I felt into the message.

said Felix.

said Anise.

I shook my head.

Maybe it was irrational. Maybe Anise was right, and we should leave her to die here. The worldstriders might not pursue us afterwards.

But I wasn’t someone that could abandon my friends. And I didn’t want to become that kind of person, either. Even if I knew that Anise would just enter hibernation after she died… I wasn’t willing. Abandoning someone I cared about wasn’t right.

Besides, Anise had a fantastic opportunity to get a manifestation essence keyword. She needed to survive a little longer in this world or it would all come to naught. If she missed this opportunity, it might take several worlds to find another manifestation essence system. For both Anise’s happiness, and the survival of our group, I couldn’t let Anise die here.

So I kept fighting. Even as my absorption essence dipped lower and lower, Sallia and I kept fighting.

Another group replaced the one that Sallia and I had destroyed. Anise destroyed the new group with a wave of flames. Before the last worldstrider finished dying, another group attacked us from above.

No matter how many we killed, the situation didn't improve at all.

Seconds later, a string of darkness whipped out of one of the worldstriders. Sallia tried to deflect it with {Mirror’s Edge}, but her angle was off, and the string of manifestation essence sliced off her pinky and ring finger.

I almost immediately tried to throw a renewal at her to regrow the missing fingers. Instead of the familiar thrum of alteration essence, all I got was a painful headache. My alteration essence was still completely gone. There was nothing to fuel the spell.

yelled Sallia into the bracelet.

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yelled Felix.

Sallia danced backwards, avoiding a string of manifestation essence that would have beheaded her. Another string of essence shot towards Anise,. Sallia fumbled as she tried to swing her sword and knock it out of the way. Her sword nearly slid out of her grasp. Her missing fingers were destroying her grip. As Sallia tried to correct her grip on her sword, the string of black manifestation essence shot past her and towards Anise.

Sallia fumbled with her blade for a moment, before transferring her sword to her left hand.

she yelled into the bracelet, as I jumped into the string of black manifestation essence. My dress absorbed the string of manifestation essence. While I focused on blocking the first attack, I missed a different attack that snuck by me.

A moment later, Anise shrieked into the communication bracelet as one of her arms fell off. Her elbow, which had once connected the two halves of her arm together, was now a stump that bled flames. {Sword of the Lost Pheonix's Embers} sent a wave of flames golden mana into her body, reaching through her whole arm and into her stump. The wound sealed itself off, but Anise continued screaming into the bracelet for several seconds.

I handled another barrage of attacks right before it killed Anise. As I teleported away another attack, I felt my essence reserves disappear.

I was out of absorption essence too now.

asked Felix.

I yelled into the bracelet.

I tried to tap into the strange, dimensional perception I had been getting closer and closer to understanding in my time here. I didn’t know how it could help, I didn't know if I could access it without essence... But I was praying for a miracle at this point. A last minute power up that would save the day. A realization that would get us out of this mess.

Anything.

Nothing came to me. The only thing I felt was the cold, creeping dread of death. There wasn't a miracle that was going to save us here.

said Felix.

Sallia tried to fling herself back towards us. The metal platform she had created to hold Anise and I lurched drunkenly towards the pyramid. Rather than propelling us to safety, it nearly launched us into the horde of worldstriders.

Sallia had messed up?

I blinked in shock and turned towards Sallia, only to see her bleeding much more heavily than before.

At some point, an attack had punched through her stomach. Blood poured out of a fist-sized hole in her intestines.

Another wave of black projectiles drilled into the platform. I managed to soak up the worst of the attacks with my dress, but we almost fell out of the sky. I tried to heal Sallia again, but my headache only grew worse.

I couldn’t heal her without essence.

As I looked back at Sallia, I saw a projectile of black manifestation essence tear into her pelvis. Everything below her stomach disappeared.

Sallia shrieked, a soundless scream that didn’t make a single sound in the void. The metal platform holding Anise and I launched toward the pyramid, heedless of what speed it reached. And also heedless of what speed our bodies could handle.

Out of instinct, I grabbed Anise to keep her from flying away as the metal platform spun out of control.

Whiplash tore at my brain and darkness ate at my vision. This was far beyond what my Grade-6 Fortitude could handle.

But I maintained my consciousness for a few moments.

Just in time to see a projectile slam into Sallia’s head, completely shattering her skull.

A member of your registered group of friends has been detected to be dead.

Before I could process the horrible System message, I felt my mind finally go blank, as the speed of our sudden travel finally caught up to my brain.

While still cradling Anise, for a brief moment I blacked out.

Felix’s screaming into the friendship bracelet woke me up moments later. I realized that the world was spinning sickeningly. I was still holding onto Anise, and there was a big black shadow in the corner of my eye that kept spinning in circles, and it was getting closer, and

Snap.

I blacked out again.

I came to a few seconds later as I bounced off of the side of the pyramid, rolling towards the entrance.

I became aware of a few things.

First, the slowed projectile in this layer of reality had saved us from turning into bloody smears. My Fortitude had also helped, but the only reason we were still alive was because I hadn’t swapped us out of this layer of reality yet.

Second, my ribs felt like someone had stuck them into a blender.

Fiery pain lanced out of my probably-broken ribs, and I passed out again as I fell down a layer of pyramid steps.

Asked Felix, waking me up again.

I said, as a layer of metal drifted towards Anise and I and gently caught us.

Anise was doing better than I was - I suspected I had cushioned her when we hit the side of the pyramid. Her enhanced stats and boosted healing speed also helped. She still had almost one hour before {Pheonix's Last Stand} ended.

The thin layer of metal floated Anise and I through the entrance of the pyramid. Moments later, I saw Felix’s worried face. He, Old Mo, and the parents had already made it through the entrance of the pyramid.

Sallia… had not.

Sallia was dead.

It didn’t seem real to me.

As the horde of worldstriders surged after us, I prayed that our original hope was correct. If the pyramids didn't have a way to hold off the horde, we would join Sallia soon.