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In reality only three of those creatures flew after him.

The rest went after the most obvious target, the hook of darkness that anchored him to the plane, which helped him resist against the inclement wind and the pressure of being so many hundreds of miles up in the air.

Normal human beings would risk their lives simply by climbing a particularly high mountain.

If Sylvester were a normal human being, he would have lost consciousness by now, left at the mercy of the creatures, gravity and the environment. The only question would be what would finish him off first.

The first of them to reach him, only slightly faster than the rest of those sons of bitches, threw a punch. They didn't need anything else. The creatures' bodies were a weapon in themselves. They possessed enough strength to tear chunks of flesh off a normal human being with a single punch.

Of course, Sylvester had very little normal about him and could take it. But it didn't matter. Those creatures could also get inside animals and humans. He didn't want to share the same fate as the co"pilot.

If he was hit, the creature might manage to get inside him and then he would be doomed.

After all, how could he fight an enemy that was inside him?

He didn't just have to worry about the punch. He also had to worry about the tentacles, albeit relatively short, that were reaching out towards him.

So Sylvester flapped his wings, propelling himself forward and upward, leaping over the creature's head.

And then he decapitated it.

With a single smooth motion, as natural as breathing, he severed its head from its shoulders. Lifeless, it fell far beyond the layer of what looked like storm clouds, which was just what he needed now. The monster's head was a little farther ahead than the body.

The two remaining creatures near him didn't hesitate after seeing how unlucky their companion had been.

All humans and animals felt fear, but after all they were neither. They were simply abominations that had no place in this world. He would certainly exterminate them. Someday he would put an end to this, he had sworn.

It was his mission and his responsibility. Who else would do it?

The two creatures reached him as he tried to keep moving along the rope before it was ripped from the plane. If they hadn't done it already it was because the remaining creatures seemed to be fighting to be the one to finish the job. They might not have human emotions like fear, but they knew the pleasure of the hunt, of playing with their food.

They pounced on him.

Sylvester swung his katana at the creature coming from the left, but the right one caught it in mid-motion with its tentacles, forcing him to stop.

He wondered if he would have to do without his katana.

Drop it before the creature got inside or use it as a grappling point to close in and pierce him with all its tentacles.

He understood that he had no choice, that he couldn't risk ending up like the co"pilot, and that anyway, even if he didn't drop it, that thing would probably tear it apart now that it had a good grip on it.

But then he had a better idea. Risky, but already things could hardly get any worse. He was already one step away from death, so.... He could only move forward!

Sylvester violently pulled the anchor of darkness to the left.

Towards the plane, against which he crashed, dragging the creatures with him. The one that had a grip on his sword, because it refused to let go, and also the other one. He didn't hit it on the way or anything, but it wasn't going to stop chasing him now.

The impact against the plane made him feel like a red-hot iron had been shoved against his side.

It could have been a lot worse, evidently.

For example...

The anchor finally came undone. Whether it was because of the creatures, or because of the risky maneuver he had just performed, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. In any case, Sylvester fell to one of the wings of the plane.

He scrambled around, struggling to find something to hold on to....

And found nothing, of course. A flat surface. The engine was too far away. Soon he would find himself in free fall, again. He wasn't helpless. He could fly, but the wind and pressure were simply too much. At the very least he would lose the plane.

He wasn't going to let his partner die.

He had accepted the deaths of many other partners. That was how this job worked, and it wasn't as if he couldn't accept Cynthia's death as well.

But that it would be his fault?

The burden of having failed her? Never.

Now most of the creatures were focused on destroying the plane, of course. But the two from before were still after his ass.

One tried to smash his head in, but it only punched a hole in the plane's wing.

It would be too much to say he had dodged. He had simply kept sliding along the wing, and the creature had missed.

More importantly, it had come within reach. He'd found his foothold. He grabbed its arm, pulling it down so it couldn't move it from the spot. Shortly afterward he managed to brace his feet and also half rise.

One of the tentacles pierced his chest, low, closer to his stomach than his heart.

Sylvester took a deep breath, stifling a grunt of pain, and wondered if it was all over now. Maybe, maybe not, but that didn't give him the right to stop fighting.

As long as he was still breathing, no, as long as he was conscious even if he couldn't even breathe anymore, he would keep going.

He stretched his arms out to his sides. From both palms he fired anchors of darkness, but not to attack. He hooked one into the wing before it was too late and the other into the top of the plane.

Now it would not be so easy to get him out of here, to shoot him down.

Sylvester could take no more. He screamed, the thing's tentacles were digging inside him. Was it trying to get inside him, or was it just hurting him?

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Either way, it looked like he still had a chance.

He cut the creature's tentacles.

The thing recoiled back in agony, and its scream reminded him more of an anti"aircraft siren than anything human or animal. A throat shouldn't be able to make such a sound.

Then, quickly, he used the katana to defend himself against the other.

Or rather, he tried to, but only received a punch directly in the face. Painful, but that was all. He didn't want to or couldn't get inside him? And if it was the latter, why?

His mind was going a mile a minute.

Figuring out the rules by which they operated was almost as important as defending himself properly. He didn't have too many clues, though.

Sylvester clicked his tongue and spit out some blood.

He extracted the anchor from the wing to drive it in again, this time into the side of the plane. He had to hurry. Not to get back inside, to kill those on top of the aircraft, tearing off chunks, messing up wires and other sensitive things. Resembling hyenas preying on a corpse.

Sylvester moved up, over the anchors of darkness, and the two flew after him. He wanted to take care of the others first, but it looked like they wouldn't let him. His side ached as if his insides were going to leak out of his body through the wound.

He had no time to waste in more ways than one.

His magic points, the fuel for his skills, were running low.

He didn't have an exact percentage, but a blue bar that was going down. If the interface of his powers had to be in the style of a roleplaying game, it could have been a better designed one.

"Okay, enough!" His shout contained more frustration than anger, as if this disaster of epic proportions was nothing more than a mere inconvenience.

The reality was that the wind had robbed him of the ability to shout louder.

Sylvester killed one by slicing it in half before it collided with him.

He took care of the next one by reeling it in with one of the anchors of darkness, spinning it like a frisbee and tossing it away. It was probably fast enough to follow the plane anyway, but he didn't care.

All he needed was a little time. If it had bought him a few seconds to push away the creatures that were destroying the plane, that was enough for him.

Sylvester jumped into their midst, wielding his katana fearlessly. He had already been hit. What good had it done him to be cautious?

That wasn't his style, anyway.

There were too many of them, and the surroundings weren't right, but at least they were going down fast. One hit, one enemy down. He could still fix this shit. They hadn't touched him again yet. After all, the best defense was a good offense, eh?

He skewered one with his sword like a spike, picked it up and slammed it to the ground. Before the creature's back hit the ground he already had more than half a dozen of those bastards on top of him. With their dark wings fluttering, pushing the wind at him from various directions. Wind that hit him like a rain of steel. An added obstacle when he didn't need any more, not a drop more, he was like a glass about to overflow.

They descended upon him. Sylvester repelled some with kicks and punches and cut others, albeit in the shoulders or chest, perhaps near the neck, but in no case did he succeed in inflicting a mortal wound. So they quickly overwhelmed him, throwing themselves upon him and crushing him to the ground.

Even though his face was smashed against the metal, he could still clearly see the PM bar.

It was almost exhausted now.

He needed those points for the rest of his skills, so.... Yes. It was time to let go.

In more ways than one. Losing his grip on the anchors of darkness, he immediately flew backwards. The winged creatures scattered like bowling pins hit by the ball. Strike, haha.

Sylvester caught one of those bastards in midair, spinning it around. He kicked him with both boots, sending it towards.... Well, actually he had no idea what it was called, he was no pilot and had no particular interest in airplanes. He'd say the wing at the back. The creature was skewered there by the force of the blow and it didn't take long for it to disappear.

He himself crashed into it shortly thereafter, intending to break his fall.

He landed on all fours, wings outstretched behind him.

Sylvester jumped immediately after landing, to go after the winged creatures that were falling towards him still. He had fallen a little faster.

Now he would be faster than them too.

His senses were heightened. The sword felt like a part of his body again, and he wielded it as naturally as he breathed.

It was as if he had put the world in slow motion, but of course he couldn't manipulate fundamental forces like time. It wasn't that the creatures were slow, but that he had become too fast.

The tentacles, which had been quick as whips before, now came trembling through the air millimeter by millimeter. Futile and powerless. He had the feeling that nothing and no one could reach him.

He broke them. Still in the air, as he passed, delivering dozens of slashes in less than a second. Without even breathing. He destroyed them all beyond repair. The pieces flew.

Sylvester landed, safe, on the plane again.

Okay, safe was saying too much. He noticed that the plane was already billowing thick smoke. The surprising thing was that it was still in the air.

"Great."

The plane began to fall. Of course, he had tempted fate and that evil bitch was always listening.

Sylvester continued to struggle with the surviving creatures as the plane fell through the night sky, spitting out an equally black smoke. He wondered where the real creature was, the one that projected all these or spawned them, the easiest and quickest solution was always to root out the problem. It couldn't be miles away from here, surely, could it?

There were too many creatures surrounding him. Even though he had wiped out almost all of them, more had just appeared to replace them. His efforts so far had been nothing more than a big waste of time, as he suspected. But still it wasn't as if he could afford to just stop.

Things went from bad to worse.

The plane began not only to smoke, not only to crash, but to burn.

The plane was covered by a layer of flames, transforming into a meteorite that was going to hit the impenetrable, bottomless sea below them, which was like a mirror of the endless night sky.

"Okay, I've had enough."

Sylvester turned his back on them and started running toward the front of the plane. When he reached the edge, he jumped. He turned around in midair, flying, and flew through the glass with his arms crossed to protect his head.

Fortunately, Cynthia hadn't moved far.

He grabbed her by one wrist and lifted her up.

"Boss? Good, I thought..."

"No time to talk."

Sylvester made a move to get out through the broken windows, but Ryan, of course, wasn't too happy about the idea of being left here. He understood the situation very well from the first second, so he wasted no time in asking questions or other nonsense, jumped after them without a second thought. And he managed to grab Cynthia's legs.

"You wanted to get rid of me, huh?" Ryan said. "I thought we were starting to understand each other."

"Cut the bullshit jokes and let go," Cynthia said, practically spitting. "You're heavy, motherfucker."

Sylvester kept silent.

This was neither the time nor the place for this nonsense. Even with the added weight, they were out of the plane before it crashed into the sea. He wasn't going to get very far with them latched on, not like this, so he was forced to land on the ruins of the plane, its metallic carcass. The winged creatures kept appearing out of nowhere, more and more, and going after them. Tireless, seemingly endless in number.

Cynthia looked at him.

It was clear she had many questions, for example, about his wings. But she focused on what mattered.

"By the look on your face, I think there's not only more than what I saw. More than when you started fighting, right?"

"Yes."

"They're all the same, they have to be the same Lunar Remnant, or part of it. Besides, it's impossible that so many of them have come after us. As if they were organized. But if there is a source, where is it?"

Thinking out loud.

Nothing Sylvester didn't already know, but it wasn't too bad to give things a refresher. Plus, he liked seeing that she had been able to connect the dots without him having to tell her anything. She was definitely the best partner he'd had so far.

Besides, maybe she could offer him a different perspective. Details he had missed.

At the very least, she had indeed been inside the plane. If there was something to see in there, then she could tell him. But if so she would have already done so, on second thought.

So he could rule out the inside of the plane?

And the outside too, he hadn't seen anything, after all, and his efforts had been fruitless.

But then what?

The Lunar Remnant couldn't be sending these copies from miles away, absolutely safe, could it?

So what, where?

"The island is there!" Ray said.

Sylvester turned his head back to glance over his shoulder. It was true, they had been just about there, well, surely they had already landed as best they could. So that didn't change much, in the end.

He had to pull Cynthia back, restraining her.

"Don't even think about it. They'll slaughter us if they catch us defenseless in the water." Since he was at it, Sylvester made the wings disappear, right now they were nothing more than an unnecessary waste of PM, he didn't need them anymore.

Or not so much?

There were two possibilities. What he was looking for could be in the water or on the island.

"Try to swim to the island."

"What are you going to do?" Cynthia asked.

"My job."

Nothing more, nothing less. He fought to live and lived to fight.

As the two of them headed for shore, Sylvester leapt forward, plunging into the black sea.

Each and every one of those creatures went after him. Not a single one tried to catch the escaping ones.

He thought he had found the answer.