“Conqueror,” Seraph commented during the initial discussion of his counteroffensive, “once the Sungrazers catches wind of the Superweapon, Echo Team will come under heavy fire. I would even say there’s a high possibility that either Ikeya or Kreutz will intercept the transit.”

Alexander thought about this dilemma for a few moments—she was right, there was a high likelihood of this happening—so verbalized his thinking, “Which means Echo Team needs a detachment strong enough to split from the group and hold the Comet while the other half speeds towards the designated point.”

“That means there’ll be a big fight,” Gul pointed out. “I think we should split Devoy into five parts, not four, giving one to Echo. Using his Void powers, I’d wager he can clear roadblocks in a blink of an eye. It'll automatically solve any fear of obstacles blocking our way.”

“But the real problem is…” Alexander exhausted a long breath, troubled at the possibility. “How should we divide our heavy hitters when there’s more than one Sungrazer at play? And how the hell do we kill them?”

~~~

Ikeya might be more terrifying than Tewfik and Pereyra, Hei-ran thought. Tewfik had a conceptual offensive ability that ended hundreds of lives, from the attacks themselves and the second-order wind pressure following after; then there was Pereyra who used lasers. Their whistles had stolen a place inside her sanity.

The Lesser Forger had the ability to naturally create portals without the need of the signature universe splitter found with the previous two. Supportively, these could be used to summon monsters.

Offensively…

[Skill Activation: Shinsoo]

She felt like a low-ranker again when Hei-ran yelped and shrieked as she held a tidal wave of fae-enchanted water against the great force, levitating using her own magick, hearing the billowing flames on the other side where Ikeya was. It'd summoned the flames through a spatial rift in reality. Hot steam crackled and boomed violently, increasing the temperature to a blazing summer's day.

Hei-ran turned over her shoulder so fast that her neck might snap. From the SMV that she had been riding on moments prior, Initiate—who had Devoy wrapped around her wrist—jumped down and landed on the remodeled truck. The convoy was moving again; they had to. Bronzehall Avenue was going to be unrecognizable after this.

But they weren’t moving fast enough.

Hei-ran clenched her teeth and clamped her hands together, knuckles turning snow-white, and converted the fear she had into willpower. She pushed her [Shinsoo] to consume the fires hungrily and extinguish them completely. A second wave was sent after to combat the steam and put pressure on the Forger.

She couldn't see a thing, though, and got startled when an airy explosion cracked throughout the streets. A hole was punctured into a wave in the shape of a perfect circle. Glittery water sprayed everywhere like a strong typhoon, sharp and turbulent. Instinctively a bubble shield was formed around herself as she met exactly what'd destroyed her wave.

Wind, and the shield wasn’t enough to mitigate the force.

Hei-ran shrieked, bubble broken, limbs uncontrollably flailing, turning over and over as devastated buildings and stars and smoke flashed before her eyes. She was blasted into a random office, rolled through the interior breaking every piece of furniture in her path, bounced and broke through the corner wall and scraped herself against the façade of the next building over, tumbling down until meeting pavement.

If she wasn’t an S-Rank, she’d be dead.

Even as an S-Rank, that fall hurt.

She blinked rapidly to get the dust out of her eyes. She found herself laying beside an armored SMV whose crew was staring at her wide-eyed. At this rate, they couldn’t go more than a block without being torn apart. Hei-ran sucked in a breath and found Ikeya again, standing in the direct path of the convoy, above where it’d scarred Dawns.

Ikeya differed from its late comrade, Tewfik, who relied too much on its unique ability to stand a proper chance against the finer swordsmen. It had a skilled control over its portals and knew what to bring and when to bring it—and how. Because if it could demolish a mile of Dawns as if an F5 tornado had passed through, then it was capable of almost anything. Whatever natural phenomena existed in other worlds, it could introduce them to this world's humanity.

“Begone,” said the Forger as it ripped open reality yet again.

A portal as wide as the street they were on, so there would be no room for error this time.

Hei-ran heard groaning tempests and whimpered out a breath.

[Skill Activation: Records of the Righteous Cultivator - Galeforce Obliteration Strike]

A fearsome cultivator came gracefully, placing himself at the front of the convoy and becoming the first barrier to the universe's might.

From his palm, Hei-ran could make out a distinct shape of a wind-outlined hand as powerful as the Buddha’s, colliding directly into the concentrated storm sent by Ikeya. The collision was just as deadly as the attacks themselves. A wall of shearing wind ruptured glass and asphalt and concrete, ripped open the street beneath them in a nasty scar. But that wasn’t enough to win this clinch, so the Perfected Cultivator performed the same technique using his other hand just as powerful as the first.

The combined power of two [Galeforce Obliteration Strike] was more than enough to overpower Ikeya and reversed the course. Just like the scar that Ikeya had driven, Jin Tiehan absolutely obliterated the rest of the avenue ahead of him, air cluttered from debris and wreckage. While in its 'mortal shell', Ikeya was helpless to the forces at play and was launched deep into the devastation, becoming less than a dot in the distance, buried underneath destruction.

Jin Tiehan panted, sweat running down his forehead.

Hei-ran quickly regrouped with him, standing side-by-side as they watched the avenue. They knew that wasn't enough to kill a Comet. Ikeya hadn't even abandoned this form yet, they still had a second phase left. “How’s Bravo Team?”

“I’ve already sent them to the Pillar with the escort as planned and Blackviper will make sure the Superweapon’s protected,” he explained. “We simply have to entertain Ikeya until reinforcements arrive.”

Simply. “Right.” Coincidentally enough, as she turned her head to reassure herself of the Superweapon's state, an entire building blinked out of existence leaving only the sturdy ground floor. One second, it was there. The next, gone.

Same thing happened to the building behind that one.

A line of vehicles and SMVs shifted courses and hurried through the gaps, and the Superweapon followed. The Journeys on top were red with sweat and frustration, their shouts loud and delayed. Some of the convoy, however, were staying here as planned. Taking up positions. A couple dozen Slayers met up with the two high-rankers standing at the front-lines, and a couple dozen more closely behind.

There’ll be more here, soon.

Jin Tiehan glazed over the ad hoc motley having a puzzling expression on his face. Hei-ran had no idea what the Perfected Cultivator was thinking. She couldn't anyway. This man was as human as a demon, no insult to Damien.

“You know our objectives!” cried the Vice Guild Master of Martials. “Occupy Ikeya as long as possible, and a window of opportunity will reveal itself to us!”

Movement was seen straight ahead, in the rubble.

“Let’s not give Ikeya a second more! Come!”

~~~

“Master Jin Junjie’s going to lend a hand to Echo,” said the unreasonably pretty dark-skinned man, his long crystal earrings swinging as he addressed Alpha Team one-by-one with his lavender eyes. He read off a blue screen detailing the latest updates. “Oh dear, I can’t say I’m not surprised but this is quickly turning into a battle on multiple fronts. We ought to count our stars that Wonder hasn’t waken up yet.”

“What do you think’s the reason…” Leona began as she was rocked inside the cradle with the rest of the team, “...Rector?”

The No.9 Slayer in Ordo, Rector, shrugged his shoulders which was a shocker; usually he had answers for many things. He had a worldly knowledge about him like Problem, but even the cursed child was a step below the Vice Guild Master. While not as powerful as his long-time friends, Kosmos and Seraph, he had the intellect and wisdom to balance the pair out. He was the "sensible one" of the three, as he often joked.

Rector was a practitioner of general mysticism, specializing in summons that brought forth contracted spirits.

Such as the spirit whose stomach they were riding in: [High Golem], a hulking creation of copper-colored enchanted rock. Could reportedly survive “a nuclear explosion” according to Rector himself but he often exaggerated.

“Leona, I can’t give you a straight answer in confidence,” he told her, frowning. “I could go on and on about how oh-so-scary the multiverse is and prattle nihilistic garbage like Master Alzahrani, but I’m a firm believer in optimism and human ability.”

“Okay,” Victor said completely unconvinced, “y’think we can win this?”

“No, we’ll all die horrible deaths—of course we’ll win this!” Rector scoffed and looked ahead. He'd altered [High Golem] a tad to create a windshield of transparent rock for their convenience. The [High Golem] was in a sprint, unfazed by middling arrows and magic that would occasionally strike its shell; it powered through a roadblock composed of stripped cars, turning at the intersection after and causing its passengers to jostle around.

Leona checked the [Map]. They were five miles away from Pillar Flares; they were almost there.

“Hey…” Votary muttered frightfully, pointing a finger to something ahead. “What’s that?”

Rector glanced up from his screen. “What’s what—oh my goodness. What the hell is that?”

The [High Golem] halted. There were sparkling threads in the air from no obvious source, swaying like long vines hanging off walls of an abandoned manor. They were the color of sun-gold and had bright sparks of reds and purples and blues. Then the threads came together, woven through an invisible loom, twisting and twirling together by the invisible hands of its maker. The creature roared to life in a haunting, empty soprano.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

A blob half-ethereal, shifting states between tangibility and intangibility, as big as a city block. It was floating in the air like a jellyfish drifting in the ocean. Within its dark body was shining motes of stardust like the universe’s reflection upon a lake during a cool night. It did not have a constant shape nor form. It was more like a slime than anything. But that thing had the power of the cosmos.

A…

[Enemy]

Diminutive Cosmic Beast

??? Entity

“Is it looking for us?” Leona asked in a low voice. She was paralyzed.

The Diminutive Cosmic Beast’s high-pitched wail rang, shattered windows and Echo Team clapped their hands over their ears.

“Get us out of here, [Golem]!” Rector cried and immediately the [High Golem] leapt high and onto a rooftop as the Cosmic Beast spewed out a coruscant river onto the road. It was something like acid as it melted cars to a black slop.

Moving faster than before, the [High Golem] utilized the rooftops and jumped between them like an obstacle course. Inside, Alpha Team painfully slammed against its inner walls and each other, unable to catch a breath nor could even think as the world spun. Rector, somehow, managed to stay upright by holding onto a jagged piece of rock, yelling into the System: “Conqueror, there’s a Cosmic Beast in Flares!”

“There’s a fucking what?!” Alexander was about to follow up before pausing for a few moments. “Shit, Charlie Team’s reporting the same thing! I—” He paused again, “—and there’s a third one in Vesper too! Alright, Kreutz knows what we’re up to!”

“Will you—?!” Rector was interrupted when the [High Golem] jumped again, but this time it was caught in the back of the legs by an outstretched tentacle from the Diminutive Cosmic Beast. Leona couldn’t count how many times it flipped over—and everyone too. All she could do was protect her head as the [Golem] crashed into a building some seconds after.

Then as if nothing had happened at all, it continued sprinting, breaking through the wall and coming back down onto the street. Too bad for the passengers inside though. Everybody was on their backs.

Everything hurt.

“Alpha Team—?!”

“We’re peachy!” Rector responded as he stood, groaning. “Arrange transport for yourself, Conqueror! If the Cosmic Beast is searching for you, you can’t put the Encampment in danger!”

“I know! Focus on yourself, Rector—!”

Another high-pitched squeal clawed at everyone’s eardrums. Votary yelled something but Leona couldn’t tell what, not until she saw what was in the sky: tiny balls of light emitting luminous trails like flares. Coming down. Explosions replaced the Cosmic Beast’s squeal. The earth spasmed and the [High Golem] was agile enough to keep its balance during the onslaught. Distantly there were counterfire: magick and ballistics curved overhead to wound the Beast, each major blow causing a horrible hiss to echo out for miles.

It wouldn’t be enough to slay it, let alone distracting the Beast from chasing after its true prey: the Baptists, trying to tear down Wonder’s demesne.

The [High Golem] was durable, yes, so it’d be reasonable to assume that it was able to carry Alpha Team to the Pillar. But that meant dragging the Cosmic Beast there with it. Alternatively there was the more worrying option: that the [Golem] could not withstand the Beast’s attack for long, and Alpha would be wiped out as a result.

Leona turned to Rector as the [Golem] made its way through this spontaneous hell.

“Dammit!” Rector growled just as another explosion hit, struck the street to the right. “I’m making an executive decision!” His arms flourished, revealing a thick tome, the pages by themselves were flipping and flipping.

[Skill Activation: Voces Magicae - King Aquila]

“Get these Baptists out of sight, [King Aquila]!” From the pages a white glow blinded the Baptists of Alpha Team. Then before anyone could react, they were dragged through the [High Golem], phasing through its rocky shell as though they were ghosts, and taken high into the air with wind screaming at their ears.

Leona let out a scream herself seeing Ordo was very far below her feet, the articles growing smaller and smaller. She looked back and saw the large and prideful eagle, the details indescribable from the gusting wind. Herself, Votary, and Victor were locked like prisoners in its talons. Secure, definitely, but safe was another question.

In the distance was Pillar Flares, its golden trail bright. [King Aquila] was flying there, making death-defying dives and climbs to avoid the Cosmic Beast’s hand.

Rector climbed onto the shoulder of [High Golem] and watched the Baptists swoop away whining about safety or whatever. They were the lucky ones. They had it relatively easy compared to everyone else. Him, on the other hand? He had the displeasure of fighting an interdimensional being or however you classified this thing.

“Alright!” he exclaimed, psyching himself up and gazing above where the cloud-like Diminutive Cosmic Beast casted a shadow over the borough. He just had to distract it. Just. “Come here, you ugly mutt!"

~~~

His ears were ringing. Neck was in shambles. Hurt to move it. But if there was pain then it wasn’t broken. He wiggled his legs and felt them obeying his command, albeit limited, but then again, the entire compartment limited him. There was barely room to move. Last time he recalled, everything and everyone was bumping into each other.

Explosions rang against his head, gave him a pounding headache.

Vernon’s eyes snapped open and his mouth followed, and just like after getting shot down in that SMV the day before, he realized where he was at.

“...Operator!” someone called him and for a moment he didn’t know who that was. Until he remembered that stranger was him, Operator, that guy. Alexander’s request (Conqueror’s). He wanted everyone to embrace their otherselves, of at least steal their names.

Vernon wanted to curse his commander as he pushed and nudged at everything around him, found a seatbelt tight across his chest, dug for the [Steel Dagger] at his belt and began cutting away at it. “Yeah?!” he shouted back at the voice, turned to his right and saw his brother there.

“The driver’s dead!” Fusil alerted him. Looking at the front, a thick clump of rebar had penetrated the ballistic windshield from above and impaled him through the seat. He wasn’t moving. Yup, he was dead. A transport without a transporter was kinda bad but the bigger one was beyond the windshield: somehow, they drove straight into a building, the engine block cracked against a large pillar.

The transport was totaled.

“Come on!” Fusil urged him after tearing his seatbelt with brute strength, and using his Power as a high-ranker, he was able to push against all obstructions to free himself, then kicked his door wide open. Off the hinges, sliding across broken glass and ceramic.

Vernon squeezed himself there, grabbing his brother’s hand when he neared the open door, got pulled out. He dusted himself off and retrieved his [Modified Energy Rifle]. His body hurt, but the pain just made him sort of angry.

“We gotta finish our journey by foot!” said Fusil before dashing to the hole that they made. Vernon followed after but as an E-Rank, he was awfully slow with his Agility being so low—before he left, though, he muttered a prayer to the driver before entering the open air.

This was a scene straight out of an action movie. As soon as Vernon felt wind, helicopters rushed above him, heavy machine-guns clattering. Slayers were in the air as well, either using a flight ability or SMVs. Powerful magic reverberated, causing the pebbles on the sidewalk to stutter-hop. Vernon’s jaw went weak as his neck painfully turned upwards to find a shadow encroaching over him: a gargantuan cosmic blob.

The Diminutive Cosmic Beast. It was hunting the Baptists. Probably. Maybe.

He managed to spot his brother’s silver hair in the sea of disorder, his signature, [Cloudstrider], comfortable in his hands. The ethersand rifle rattled sharp, whistling bullets fruitlessly into the Cosmic Beast above but it didn’t seem to do any real damage.

“Shit!” Fusil cursed and found his little brother staring slack-jawed, rushed over and took him by the shoulders, shaking him viciously where brain damage was possible. “Focus! We need to find Uprise!”

Vernon had to nod a few times to process the details and chased after his brother again, having to yell at him to slow down so he wouldn’t be left behind. Fusil shouted a frustrated curse over the noise and paced himself, physically grabbing Vernon by the collar and helping him run faster.

Holes peeked from the Cosmic Beast and from the cavities, letting loose intense beams of cosmic energy like God’s wrath. There were screams and sounds of destruction, the closest one just the avenue away. The brothers pushed on and continued, increasing their pace. Vernon was barely able to place his feet, halfway between walking and being carried.

When they were meters away from the next intersection, Uprise pushed through the traffic, frantically waving her hands. “Over here!” she yelled.

They regrouped at the corner. Fusil let go of his brother.

“You alright?” Vernon asked, eyeing the white bracelet around her wrist. “Where’s Levin—?”

[Honor Exhibition: Celestial Lightning]

Vernon heard the loudest thunder in his life. Instinctively he flinched and turned to the darkened skies, seeing Levin in the air with [Beryl-Blitz] raised and channeled with potent lightning, effortlessly dragging the hot blade through the Cosmic Beast’s ‘belly’. The Beast’s voice turned higher in pitch.

Red glittery blood oozed from the wound.

Right, Problem had told everyone this once: the Cosmic Beasts were mixed with ‘earthen’ flesh to hide itself from the Earthwill like how the Sungrazers took on tamer forms.

Which made the experience more horrifying when a storm of multi-colored projectiles rained upwards and struck the Beast, hunks of cosmic-earthen flesh falling from the sky as a result.

“Let’s go!” Fusil urged after making sure the two Baptists were okay, leading the team.

They ran as Windvent engaged in a war with the Diminutive Cosmic Beast. Vernon refused to look at the creature, instead keeping his head low, seeing only an army’s worth of legs run by him and enough wheels to fill up a junkyard. He didn’t know how far they were to Pillar Windvent but it wasn’t close enough.

There were thunder and explosions and artillery and that screeching, everything was happening and Vernon gave up on understanding any of it.

Only a singular thought was left in his head: Please don’t hit us! Please don’t hit us!

~~~

“What’s your status, Prominence—?”

Alexander’s question was interrupted by the Diminutive Cosmic Beast in Vesper. Through the live footage taken by drones, he and his team saw the Beast suddenly clumping together into an oblong sphere, crinkles boiling on the surface. This change didn’t deter the ground forces there from firing whatever they had, unloading everything they got. The heavy rounds of magick and ballistics and energy caused the ugly piece of shit to scream and wail in its high-pitched voice, like a dying angel crying out in pain.

In response small dazzling dots appeared across the surface in the thousands, firing tiny cosmic bolts that tracked and collided with the Ordoians’ combined fire, creating one twisted fireworks display.

A handful of bolts leaked through. Since it was in the thousands, a ‘handful’ essentially meant ‘at least a hundred’.

Prominence was heard growling.

[Skill Activation: Prominence Sunfire]

From his knuckles he blasted large sweeping shockwave-like conjurations, like casting a large net to catch schools of fish. They caught the Beast’s attacks by evaporating them completely, the rest either being blocked by shielders or hitting the environment. Only a few leaked by.

“My status?!” Prominence finally answered as the Cosmic Beast changed shape again. “I’ll tell you the truth, Conqueror, if this Cosmic Beast really is searching for you, I don’t know how we’ll distract it! It’s eating everything we throw at it!”

Alexander couldn’t get a follow-up before the Bastard entered combat again, seemingly out of spite—asshole, even in this situation, he was being a prick.

“He’s right,” said Sage, looking at the command center map. “We got five battles across the city, one in each borough: Flares, Vesper, and Windvent have Diminutive Cosmic Beasts; the Miracle is in Creekwood and the Forger’s in Dawns. The Beast over here is twenty kilometers west of us. And that’s not even accountin’ for the Caller when it joins the show.”

“I know,” Alexander replied, trying to hide the frustration inside. “And we only got the one Superweapon with three shots. As much as we can rely on our high-rankers, these conflicts will stretch us thin. We need more aces like Devoy, else there won’t be much of a defense force after this.”

“Aces…” Sage muttered, her expression going dark. “Aces,” she said again, swallowing whatever emotion she was feeling.

She turned to him.