Audrey fought viciously; her mind solely focused on the utter destruction of her foes. Every movement of her body throws off the pitifully weak volcora that tried to rush her. Her bow whirls around her like a staff made of blades, the curved side of either end of her legendary-grade weapon having shifted into gleaming edges.

Spinning, Audrey cuts two of the wolf volcora her little apprentice had been struggling with in half. The volcora are practically blasted apart by the force of her blow. Twin sprays of black blood fountaining out of their bodies and coating Audrey in yet more gore. She didn’t care, only feeling an unceasing, unnatural rage.

A group of ten C Rank volcora start closing in on her from the left, each highlighted by her soul gem as she senses the stygian mana within them. She spins towards her new opponents, reaching for the spot in her bow where a string should technically be. As soon as she reaches for it, the glowing pink string appears, an incandescent arrow already nocked and ready to fire. Audrey draws and fires in a motion that would seem casual to any outside observer, a lazy shot without much intent behind it, which, of course, is far from the case.

The glowing pink arrow streaks away, moving at unbelievable speeds that no bullet could ever hope to match. Audrey had looked away before the arrow even hit the ground, already moving on to the next threat in the endless swarm assaulting her. The group of volcora she’d fired at, however, are not so lucky as to just get to move on from the brief moment of the sentinel’s attention. Even being driven by the mind flayer riding in the back of their minds, they have enough wits about them to see the incredible power in the arrow before it strikes the ground and detonates.

As the arrow hits, it explodes in a flash of bright pink. The power of the explosion is enough to send the gorilla-like volcora flying away at hundreds of miles per hour, their bodies mostly torn apart by the sheer force. After slamming through multiple walls of dilapidated slum housing, they finally come to a stop as smoking corpses.

Even still, Audrey’s casual attack was not done. The aftermath of the explosion had left an almost beautiful dust cloud behind, floating in the air. To the eye, it looked like a swirling nebula cloud in space, twisting with ethereal colors of predominately pink but also containing deep blues, bright reds, and shimmering violets. The swirling colors act as a mask for the roiling, volatile mana still within the dust.

While beautiful, the cloud is perhaps the deadliest part of Audrey’s attack, especially for groups. Any volcora that comes near the cloud, and there are many in the endless stream, find bits of the stardust floating away from the cloud to cling, seemingly harmlessly, to their skin. The dust does not stay harmless for long; however, it quickly seeps inside the volcoras’ bodies before collecting near their hearts. As soon as a critical mass of dust is accumulated by a volcora, that volcora would find out why walking through the dust was not a wise move. The core of stardust in the center of the volcora detonates in an explosion lesser than that of the initial arrow yet still enough to rip the body of the afflicted volcora apart.

It was for this ability — and her shining wings — that Audrey had gotten her name as a sentinel, Stardust Angel. For so many over the years, she had been a shining beacon of light, an angel of mercy to beat back the darkness and protect the innocent. Today, however, she is an angel of only wrath. Mercilessly turning the slum streets into her personal killing field.

The relentless rain of the incursion zone simply cannot keep up with the amount of unnatural black blood coating the streets. Nor can it do anything to affect the dozens of nebula clouds that swirl elegantly around the craters left behind by Audrey’s arrows. To an outside observer, this slaughter could seemingly go on forever, a never-ending stream of volcora running into a meat grinder. Yet, even Stardust Angel has her limits, and she is approaching them far faster than anyone could have expected.

It’s only when Audrey realizes that she can’t hear the ever-present voice of her familiar, Astra, that she begins to consider the fact that something might just be influencing her mind. She had a purpose in coming here, had she not? Yes, it was to let Serena grow; she was supposed to fight these weak little volcora so she could grow strong as well. Where was Serena? Audrey was meant to be looking after her, right?

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Audrey growls, shaking her head even as she kills dozens more of this hoard. She’s fighting so wastefully, burning her resources far too fast! She had never fought by just standing in the center of a hoard and taking on all comers; she was tactical. She should be… she should be what? She couldn’t think; all she could think about was hate. Hate for these creatures and what they had done, hate for the fact that they had taken Jessie from her, hate for the world for allowing it to happen, and most importantly, hate for herself for not protecting her friend as she had promised.

Audrey’s mind felt so clouded, she could hardly chain together coherent thoughts. Finally, Audrey blinks, surprised as an idea strikes her. Unsure of why she hadn’t thought of it before, Audrey, with a flex of will, reaches into her inventory, and a small blue pill appears in her blood-soaked hand.

The pill is one of those items that she always keeps with her, just in case. She had almost died far too many times not to have dozens or even hundreds of lifesaving measures for different situations. This pill, in particular, is a pill of clarity. An expensive item only available in the medical shop she’d taken Serena to. The pill is one Audrey had used on multiple occasions when she knew she would have to fight enemies that utilized strong mental attacks. As such, she always kept a stock of them just in case. It would forcibly clear her mind and drastically increase her resistance to mental based attacks for the next twelve hours. While she wasn’t sure anything in this incursion zone used mental attacks, she definitely felt as if she needed the clarity.

It takes only an instant for Audrey to think of the pill, produce it, and take it. Her need to do so quickly spurred on by the ever-increasing tide of monsters rushing her. This turns out to be a very good thing as, in the very next instant, she felt confused as to why she had thought she even needed the pill. Those were good credits down the drain because she already knew what she was doing, killing everything.

[Audrey!? Can you hear me!?] A voice suddenly rings out clearly in Audrey’s mind, a voice as familiar to her as her own. Astra.

Audrey blinked rapidly, realizing that she’d let enemies close in on her. Her mind flashes through a dozen ways to kill them but stops. Why is she fighting here? There’s no reason to waste her power on these weak volcora. She should be using it to take out the anchor.

Instead of continuing to fight, Audrey allows her brilliant pink wings to flare out behind her and leaps into the sky.

Of course, that doesn’t stop the volcora from following her, as a good few of them can fly. Still, flight is rare at low ranks for volcora, so the vast majority by far are left below her. As she begins dealing with the fliers, Audrey tries to make sense of the situation.

“Astra, what’s been happening? What was I doing?” Audrey asks her ever-reliable familiar.

[You’ve been influenced by a mind flayer; it cut you off from me and has been trying to kill you!] Astra reports, sounding desperate. [The other mentors have been affected as well. The mind flayer has been swarming you to wear you down!]

How can a mind flayer be here?! Okay, right. That’s bad. I need a plan. Audrey thinks, instantly moving past the fact that, once again, she’d almost died. She knew that none of the other experienced sentinels in Shinara had nearly as many safety measures as she did; it’s part of how she’d survived so long after wading through spaces like this for a large chunk of her life. Luckily, she has no shortage of clarity pills. Generally, Audrey found that if one person needs one, everyone is going to need one. If she could just get to the other mentors, she could force them to take a pill and get them back on her side.

“What about Serena, the soldiers, and the other newbies?” Audrey questions.

[Linn killed a good number of the soldiers as soon as she was influenced,] Astra says sadly, knowing the other woman would be torn up about it after this. [I don’t know about Serena and her team. I would guess they’ve gone to ground somewhere. They should know they’re out of their league here. The best thing for them is to hide.]

Audrey nods, even as she de-wings an annoying wasp-like volcora variant, leaving it to plunge to the rooftops below with a splat. “We’ll focus on bringing the other mentors back first. Then we group back up with Team Picnic and go after the mind flayer.”

[You don’t want to evacuate them and deal with the mind flayer ourselves?] Astra asks.

“I’m not sure that we can,” Audrey says, ducking under slashing talons. “I’m going to be spending everything I have to save the other mentors. I’ll be so built up with mana toxicity by the time I’m done that I won’t be at my full power. We’ll need their help.”

[Understood,] Astra says.

They both pause their conversation as Audrey sees a streaking silver blur down in the slum streets below her. The blur moves from volcora to volcora, dispatching them instantly in sprays of black blood before zipping over to the next one.

“That’s Linn,” Audrey says. “We’ll start with her.”

As Audrey begins her descent, she can only hope her little student will stay put and not try to do anything stupid.