When Audrey shifted into her rest state in an attempt to lower her mana toxicity, the rest of our team considered following suit, that is, until we saw the results. I’d felt high mana toxicity in my rest state once, and it had been bad. What Audrey is currently going through is worse, though.
Audrey can barely stand, and speaking seems difficult for her. It had been a strange one-eighty in the power she was putting off. One moment, she’s the most powerful sentinel I’d ever seen, standing as a beacon against the darkness; the next, she’s a college-aged girl who has to lean on Lucas for support.
One thing that never changes, though, is the intensity in Audrey’s eyes. Despite being nearly insensate, she has the eyes of someone who has been in this position a thousand times and made it through each and every one. She doesn’t look scared or even the slightest bit doubtful of her own survival.
Perhaps that is what gave us the confidence to keep going after she’d let us know that we would have to be the ones to finish off the mind flayer. I feel like I have whiplash; one moment, I think that Audrey will be there to save the day; the next, I’m right back in the same place. Still, my mentor’s reassurance gives me confidence. If she doesn’t seem worried, then I don’t need to be worried either. Right?
Scene Break [https://i.imgur.com/MninSff.png]
“I think we’re here,” Lucas says, keeping his voice low.
We stand beside the largest building in this fake city, the analog to the GDF Headquarters in real life. Just like in the real world, the building is so incredibly huge that it makes me feel tiny just looking at it. The base of the building takes up an entire city block and is covered in thick support pillars to help hold up its insane weight.
Not that the entire building is standing. Unlike in the outside world, the top of the building seems to have been broken off like a child snapping a toothpick. Remnants of the upper reaches of the building float around in disconnected chunks. Almost as if the building had been interrupted mid-collapse, and the pieces had all been suspended where they were.
As with the rest of the incursion zone, the building is in a sorry shape. The stone support pillars have light cracks, but luckily, nothing too deep. The rest of the façade is in worse shape, though. The formally beautiful stone is cracked, marred, and pitted by the elements of this place. It looks worn, as if it had been here being weathered for years rather than just under a day.
We all stand near the front entrance to the building, keeping one of the massive support pillars between it and us. A good place to discuss our strategy before we go and face the horror within the building.
“You’re sure?” Baylee asks; like Lucas, she is careful to keep her voice down. I have to agree with her; it feels as if the mind flayer had chosen the single most obvious place to set up camp. Also, if it had been roaming the city instead of staying put, we never would have found it in time without Margret.
Lucas nods, “My body is practically screaming at me that going inside that building is a death sentence. The stygis levels here are much higher than anywhere else. I’d be amazed if it isn’t right inside that door.”
Audrey, who’s propped up against Lucas, nods weakly. “Right. Here’s how things are going to go. First off, if you aren’t a sentinel, you aren’t going in that building at all. There’s nothing you can do to hurt a mind flayer, and after we kill it, we’re going to need to have you go in and help anyone passed out from mana toxicity. We’re all going to be too weak after this fight.”
“Second,” Audrey continues, looking to my team and me, “I will be moving in first to engage the mind flayer. I should be able to weaken it significantly, but I highly doubt I can kill it in the time I have left. When I hit 90% mana toxicity, I’m going to have ten seconds to get out the door before I fall unconscious and am forced back into my rest state. When I go out, you go in.”
“Finally, you finish off the mind flayer,” Audrey says, her tone deadly serious. “This is not going to be easy. You are E-Rank sentinels, and it is a peak B-Rank volcora. Even if it’s on death’s door, it’s going to be a near-impossible fight. You will have an initial advantage as it tries to take over your mind and fails due to the clarity pills. It might still be able to influence your mind a little, but not enough to really harm you. Hit it with everything you have right out of the gate. With any luck, you finish it off immediately. Remember, when an anchor is destroyed, it creates a new aperture back to the real world as the incursion zone’s breakdown is accelerated. No volcora will be able to pass through the new aperture, so we’ll be safe on the other side. We all get through and call for medical attention. Got it?”
Baylee nods, “Understood. Any advice for what attacks it might-”
“No,” a masculine voice booms out behind us. It’s loud and resonate, enough to shake the very foundations of the false GDF Headquarters. “This is how things will play out.”
My head starts to pound with pain, and suddenly, my perspective shifts. I see myself and the others from a third-person point of view. I want to yell, to scream, to push out of whatever is happening, but my mind is held captive! So, I’m forced to watch as things play out as the mind flayer had planned.
The mind flayer, a hideous humanoid abomination, floats in the middle of the air. It looks down at us hiding behind the support pillar with contempt, tentacles floating absently around it. Our entire team turns towards it as it speaks, but it’s already too late. The mind flayer raises a grotesque hand, and an avalanche of psychic force slams into my team and me.
I watch, detached from my body, as the force slams our entire team into the wall of the building so hard that the normal human soldiers die instantly, their remains splattered against the wall. Claire dies just as fast as the remnants of the support pillar crash into her, shattering her barrier and crushing her against the wall. The rest of us simply have our barriers nearly break as we hit, Audrey having managed to shift states just in time.
The scene plays out in fast forward, showing the mind flayer easily dispatching all of us weaker sentinels before focusing on Audrey. I see myself die, buried under a pile of rubble. I see Akari scream, trying to dig me out before she, too, is crushed by a simple wave of the mind flayer’s hand. Baylee tries to coordinate against the mind flayer with Haruto, who is able to block its attacks using an ability I can’t see clearly. Still, they die quickly under its overwhelming might.
Audrey fights the mind flayer to a standstill for a time, but she is on a ticking clock and can’t beat it fast enough. Audrey falls unconscious, falling from the sky as her wings vanish, and she splatters against the asphalt road, an angel no more.
The lives of my mentor and my entire team were snuffed out in mere moments — as if we were nothing more than an annoyance to this creature, this alien intelligence. Worse still is that, through the vision, I can feel the mind flayer’s pleasure at its own perceived victory.
The scene fast forwards again, apertures to the outside world beginning to form as the space breaks down. Because the anchor, the mind flayer itself, wasn’t destroyed, the volcora can pass through the apertures and wreak havoc. Finally, I see the mind flayer floating over the corpses of hundreds of civilians as it makes its way through the slums outside the incursion zone.
Except, those aren’t the slums I remember, and Shinara in the distance doesn’t look like it should. It’s as if the mind flayer is filling in the details for the things it doesn’t know. Shinara is by the ocean, not surrounded by mountains. It seems to know that there is a city outside, but not what it looks like. In fact, it all looks far too much like the city in this incursion zone and less like the real thing.
I don’t have time to think about it further as my perspective shifts again. I’m once more standing beside the support pillar with my team, except, this time, a pit of dread wells up within me. I know what happens next. The mind flayer is about to execute on its plan.
I whirl around, looking to where the mind flayer had been in the vision it sent us, but… it isn’t there. Instead, the wall behind us shatters from within the building, sending rubble and pieces of rebar flying towards us at terrifying speeds. I don’t have time to react, somehow, though; Haruto does.
Haruto thrusts his hands forward, and a shimmering green barrier appears between us and the rubble of the exploding wall. The shield cracks and then shatters almost immediately, but the force of the rubble had dissipated enough that no one is seriously hurt by the mind flayer’s opening move. Haruto staggers on his feet, likely having dumped a lot of his remaining mana into that one shield in an attempt to protect us from a single attack.
In a burst of pink, Audrey shifts to her assault state and zips through the newly opened hole in the building faster than I can process. Inside the building, we hear thunderous explosions as the two B-Rankers fight.
“Everyone, form up! Stay together!” Baylee yells, all of us quickly complying, grouping up, and backing away quickly from the building.
It’s a good thing we did, as almost immediately, another wall explodes. The grotesque figure of the mind flayer files out of the building in a blur, moving so fast that it slams through the wall of the building across the street before I can even really see it.
From that moment forward, I don’t have time to think, only react. The mind flayer bursts out of the building it had slammed into, large chunks of rubble orbiting it as if it had its own gravitational pull. Audrey appears from the original hole in the wall, an arrow already drawn and ready to fire. She looses it, but not before the mind flayer gestures in our direction.
Rubble and debris rocket towards us, a shotgun blast where the pellets were the size of boulders! Haruto clearly isn’t up for another shield, so we all dive out of the way in a desperate attempt to dodge the attack. The ground around me explodes in a thunderous detonation that momentarily deafens me.
My barrier flashes, and a cloud of dust is kicked up all around me by the sheer force of the attack. Luckily, though, I must not have been hit by one of those boulders, as my barrier holds true. Panicked, I look around, clutching at my ringing ears and coughing from the dust as I search for my team members in the chaos.
The dust settles quickly, and I’m relieved to see that, pressured as it was by Audrey’s assault, the mind flayer hadn’t had time to aim well. That doesn’t mean that the results weren’t devastating, though. As my ears stop ringing and the dust starts to clear, I see what happened.
Kyle, the soldier whose name I’d only recently learned, was missing the entire top half of his body. I offer a single thought to mourn the man I hadn’t really known before scanning the ground further. Claire lies on the ground nearby, screaming and clutching at the remains of what used to be her right arm. Her arm had likely been clipped by one of the boulders, tearing it from its socket and nearly off of her body.
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I take only a breath to check that Akari, Haruto, and Baylee are okay before sprinting to Claire’s side. If she doesn’t receive healing immediately, she’s going to bleed out! I hear Baylee shouting orders behind me, but I ignore them in favor of trying to save my teammate.
Chaos and explosions rumble around me as I drop to my knees over Claire, and with an effort of will, mist explodes out of me. Hopefully, it will help obscure us from the mind flayer long enough to heal Claire. If I even can heal Claire.
“Hold on!” I shout as I lay both hands on her body. Immediately, she spreads out before me as a network of red lights, except large chunks of her right arm are simply missing. The nodes of light are weak and sputtering, sending out chaotic bursts of power that disrupt her entire system.
Forcing myself to focus, I push my power into her as a blue flood. Instantly, I know that I won’t be able to restore her arm. However, I might just be able to stabilize her enough to not bleed out. It’s difficult to focus with all of the explosions, shouts, and screaming happening around me, but I know I need to do this. I had made a promise, after all.
Just as I feel that I have Claire stabilized, the network of lights disappears from my view, and I find myself suddenly flying through the air. From my perspective, there is no in-between; one moment, I’m healing Claire, and the next, I’m flipping wildly through the air at an insane speed. I don’t have time to scream before I slam into the wall of a nearby building with enough force to punch me straight through it and instantly shatter my barrier.
My scream finally makes it out just as I hit another wall within the building! In that split moment, I’m certain I’m about to die, but just in time, a powerful green barrier springs up around me, cushioning the blow as I hit the next wall.
I fall to the ground, crumpled on the floor, as I groan in pain. My ribs feel bruised, at the very least, from the impacts with the walls, even blocked by the barriers. More than likely, though, I have at least one broken rib. Probably some internal damage, too, from the forces acting on my body. I take a brief moment to lament the downside of my title before trying to process my new surroundings.
What happened? Where am I? Blearily, I look around, finding myself within the wreckage of an office building. To my brief surprise, the green barrier around me hadn’t dissipated, the shield sigil pinned to the outside of my outfit still glowing green. My last resort shield had activated and, more than likely, saved my life.
I don’t have time to really consider that fact, however, as I need to get back into the fight. If another of my teammates ends up critically wounded, I’ll need to get to them as fast as I can. My only goal is to get through this fight with everyone on my team still alive.
Groaning in pain, I stumble to my feet. Momentarily, I survey the destruction to the office building around me. I’m amazed that I’m still alive. Last resort shields are really something special. I had gone through the outer wall of the building, through three cubicles, and ended up hitting the wall on the far side of the large workroom. Once again, I glance down at the small shield-shaped pin. It had been worth every credit.
Now, though, my assault state’s barrier is broken, and my last resort shield is triggered. Once my last resort shield expends the rest of its energy, I’ll have no protections left. In short, I doubt I’ll survive another blow like that. What had even happened? Had the mind flayer thrown me telekinetically?
An explosion rattles the building, jolting me from my thoughts. Right, fight now, think later! Come on, Serena, keep it together!
I awkwardly run to the edge of the hole I’d entered through, clutching at my ribs and groaning with pain. Still, I have to press onward. The fight isn’t over yet. Except, it might be soon if I don’t get out there and help!
Help how though? I hadn’t realized it at first, but at some point, my bow had been knocked from my hands. More than likely, when I’d been thrown by the mind flayer. Right! I had set it down while healing Claire! I’ll bet it’s still out there on the street! Nothing to do about it now, though. I’ll have to try and retrieve it if I can. Without it, I have no way of even trying to hurt the mind flayer.
Arriving in the hole in the wall, I survey the scene before me. Audrey brawls with the mind flayer in the center of the street, their movements far too fast and potent for me to keep up with. Each of their clashes sends shock waves out that rattle the surviving furniture around me.
Baylee and Haruto had evidently moved Claire to a side alley where they defend her from the occasional attack that reaches them from the larger fight. Claire is still down but looks to be moving. Haruto looks bad, though. One arm hangs limply at his side, and he’s moving with a limp. Worse still, he’s stumbling, his movements sluggish. If I had to bet, I’d say Haruto was about ten seconds from passing out from mana toxicity, and Baylee doesn’t seem far behind him.
Akari is on her own and sprinting in my direction. A look of horror is written across her face as she determinedly skirts the fight to make her way toward me. My mind flashes to the day we’d played old games together, what Akari had told me. How she had reacted to my death in the mind flayer's vision. My eyes threaten to tear up at how much she cares. I resolve to be worthy of her however I can.
Looking down, I see that I had ended up on the second floor of the building rather than the first. I hop down to the street below. My legs ache from the jump, but my last resort shield cushions the impact from harming me too badly.
Almost as soon as I land, Akari crashes into me. She wraps her arms tightly around me, and only then do I realize that she’s crying. For the briefest of moments, I simply close my eyes and return her hug. No words need to be said; we understand each other. Then, we break apart, and our minds return to battle.
“How are we doing?” I ask Akari as one of Audrey’s arrows explodes in the mind flayer’s face. The nebula-like dust the arrow leaves behind all swirls towards the mind flayer, pushing into its body and vanishing.
“Audrey is winning, but not for much longer,” Akari reports as Audrey is forced to dodge an invisible wave of psychic force that knocks a ten-meter-wide hole in a nearby building. If it weren’t for the fact that some unnatural force seems to be keeping these buildings up, I guarantee one of them would have collapsed by now.
My heart skips a beat as, across the battlefield, Haruto collapses. A flash of green light proceeds him shifting back to his rest state, unconscious. Baylee drags him back deeper into the alley with Claire, but she looks only seconds from following him.
If Haruto and Baylee are falling to mana toxicity, that means… Audrey misses a step, a thrown boulder shattering against a pink barrier that is much stronger than ours. She'd stopped flying, standing defiantly on the ground, even as the rough-looking mind flayer floats imperiously over her.
I close my eyes; this is it. Audrey will fall unconscious, and the mind flayer will finish us all off. Its vision of the future will come to pass, and everything we did here will have been pointless.
Audrey raises a trembling hand to the mind flayer, already on the edge of consciousness. It does nothing to stop her, gloating in its victory. Instead of some attack, Audrey simply gives the mind flayer the middle finger. For a second, I’m baffled, certain she’d use her last moments to make one final attack. Then, the mind flayer explodes in a rush of purple and violet.
All of the stardust that had been collecting inside the mind flayer over the course of the fight detonates from within the creature. The sheer potency of Audrey’s dominion art causes a near-deafening shockwave as the creature explodes.
In a flash of pink light, Audrey shifts back to her human form and collapses to the ground. She’d done it… we’d won. I stand in shock, waiting for an advancement notification for defeating the mind flayer to appear before me. But it doesn’t.
After the stardust fades, I see what’s left of the mind flayer. No longer does it float imperiously above us; now, its body is ravaged. The entire bottom half of its form is completely gone, and the top half is in bloody ribbons. Somehow, though, it’s still alive.
The mind flayer howls in agony, its scream that same high-pitched inhuman wail the other volcora had made. No matter how human-like this thing is, it is not human.
Akari and I look at each other and nod. Right now, we are the only two sentinels still standing. It is our responsibility to finally end this fight. As one, we sprint toward where Audrey and the mind flayer lay near each other on the asphalt.
Akari runs faster than me, being uninjured, and she sprints straight at the mind flayer, her sword bared. Only, as she nears, the mind flayer finally seems to come back to its senses, and the wailing cuts off abruptly.
My eyes widen in horror as the mind flayer raises the remains of an arm, now ending in a bloody stump, towards Akari. It would attack her, maybe even kill her! I can only hope Akari had kept her assault state’s barrier intact this long. I hadn’t seen her take a hit, so maybe it would protect her.
Evidently, the mind flayer had decided the same thing. Its eyes, strange, inhuman black orbs, flash with malevolence as it shifts its arm toward the unconscious Audrey. I scream, running faster, but I’m too slow! It had decided not to take its chances with Akari, that it was dying anyway. No, it wanted to draw blood one last time before it went out.
A nearby bit of rubble, a fist-sized rock near the creature, levitates into the air and zips toward my unconscious mentor. Normally, such a weak attack would do nothing to Audrey, but outside of her assault state… It would kill her in an instant.
I’m too far away to help, so I’m forced to watch, almost in slow motion, as Akari dives to the side. Rather than go for the kill, she had decided to risk everything by taking the mind flayer's attack herself.
The mind flayer’s attack slams into Akari as she dives to the side. Her barrier flashes violet, then shatters. The piece of rubble hits Akari in her hip hard, sending her spinning to the side. Her sword is knocked to the ground, landing near the mind flayer as Akari goes down. She lays still on the asphalt, unmoving but for the unsteady rise and fall of breath.
I’d never stopped sprinting, and now I’m closing in on the mind flayer. It turns its attention to me; its survival instinct must have finally triggered as it starts sending a barrage of small rocks and bits of rubble my way. Luckily, my last resort shield is still active and still absorbing hits like a champ, although it does dim a little further with every impact.
I grit my teeth, realizing that I can’t just run at the mind flayer. I don’t have anything to hurt it with. Instead, I run to Akari’s fallen sword. It’s possible I could find my bow eventually, but I don’t think I have that kind of time. As I run, I find my steps starting to falter. My eyes go wide as I realize what’s happening. No, no, no! Not now!
Mana Toxicity Level: 90%
My steps start to slow, but I force myself onward. There’s no telling if the mind flayer could recover from that wound. It could still kill everyone! No, I have to end it now! This is my only chance!
I stop only for an instant to scoop up Akari’s sword. It feels odd and unfamiliar in my hands — as if it was built for someone else. I get a strange sensation that, if the sword’s owner didn’t want me to use it, it would be impossible for me to even pick up. Interesting, but not what I need to focus on.
I whirl and start running towards the mind flayer, my steps slowing from a run to a stumbling jog to a fast walk. I can feel my mind being dragged down. Falling into unconscious now would be a death sentence; I can’t stop!
As I approach, the mind flayer batters me with rubble, pieces of rebar, and anything else it can get its telekinetic grip on. It doesn’t seem to be able to move itself at the moment, but it’s doing everything it can to kill me before I arrive.
I scream, pushing myself just a little further as my last resort shield blocks attack after attack. I’m only a few steps away! I can do it!
After blocking a rather large rock, the green barrier of my last resort shield flickers and dies, the shield pin on my chest crumbling to dust. I don’t stop, forcing myself onward until I stand just above the mind flayer.
Something slams into my stomach, and the agony of it makes me scream again in pain. Or maybe I had never stopped screaming. My vision is red at the edges, fading in and out. My body is done, my mind is done, but I refuse to fail now. With one final surge of energy, I plunge Akari’s blade down into the mind flayer’s head. I can feel it squirming and shrieking that horrible wail, but I don’t care anymore. I’m at the end of my rope. It has to be enough.
I look down and, for a moment, I stare in horror at the piece of rebar embedded in my stomach. The pain is unbelievable, more than I can possibly endure. Even as I collapse, even as the pain and exhaustion finally take me, I force myself to stay awake. Long enough to hear the wailing stop. Long enough to receive the notification.
Through training, your soul gem has undergone several minor refinements. You have advanced from Rank E-4 to Rank E-6.
Inventory has been unlocked.
You have gained the ability, Mist Step.