“Bobo! You’re so fast!”

“Faster than Sissy?”

“Mmh… I don’t know!”

Zeke chuckled, carrying the giggling Clara on his back. He was currently giving her a piggyback ride while running through the barren biodome land with his Dexterity buff on full blast.

He dashed through the fortress, or rather the clearly expanded and giant area surrounding the fortress. Despite his perception skills being at a decent level, he was still amazed at the immensity of the fortress’ land.

If he was to estimate it, he could guess that an army of over a hundred thousand could rest here. While that may be an extreme number, he can’t really guess otherwise how this entire place can be this big.

It was a wonder that he didn’t spot any more bastion soldiers, though he was thankful. In the end, he wasn’t really okay with showing Clara so much death and violence, even though this was considered normal in this world. It’s not like the children can be stopped from watching something that’s out of their control, especially when dealing in a world where people have superpowers while they aren’t old enough to be initialized in the system yet.

He jumped from small structure to structure, landing on the stone pillars and rocky terrain with the help of his barriers from time to time. He was ensuring that he was keeping up with the mana expenditure while still having plenty to spare if a fight broke out.

“Bobo! Monster!”

Zeke already noticed it before Clara pointed it out. A huge crystal like golem was hiding behind a corner of a stone wall, its gargantuan fingers digging into the stone and showing its eight feet tall self to the two.

It had that strange coat-like appearance with its head beneath a cowl, but every part of the design was crystalline, so rather than wearing a cowl, it was carved that way. it had a stocky chest, a small waist, with giant legs that could substitute as stone pillars when it stepped forward. It looked rather ancient, almost created for the sake of the fortress itself.

Wait, is the fortress designed for the golems?

He put that idea to the side as he figured how to best deal with it. He was approaching it soon, thanks to his speed, and he figured he could just kick it. But with Clara by his back, he feared that he might make a mistake. He could just run past it, but–

A spiked black tail rushed out from behind his back, obviously from Clara’s own back as Brucey’s tail stabbed into the golem’s chest. It pierced right through the stony surface, causing the golem to wail before it seized up, then it fell over to the ground, completely limp.

“What?”

Zeke stopped right there, with Clara looking over with a gleam in her eyes.

“Wow! Brucey! You’re so fast and strong!” Clara said. While Zeke had a harder time looking from behind him even with his skills, he could hear Brucey making a sharp but cuddly chirp before snoozing away at her back again.

What trumped Zeke the most however was that the golem wasn’t supposed to be paralyzed. It was made entirely of stone, at least that’s what Zeke could see. His skills could see that the golem was made entirely with mana, no life or stamina that belonged to a living creature. However, he could also sense that a foreign energy was interfering with the mana within, causing it to stifle and stutter at some places, particularly at around the limbs and chest of the golem.

“Brucey’s tail can interfere with the channels themselves, not just the physical body?” Zeke muttered. “No, wait, the paralyzation seemed almost alive, as if it knew where to hit the central nervous system or something…”

Was this the true power of Brucey? Was he (Zeke already found out by Clara’s rude study that Brucey was a boy) somehow capable of paralyzing even inanimate hostiles by targeting what makes them tick rather than just physically? Is that the reason why Zoan figured it was worth coming here to Brucey for Clara?

“Brucey really is incredible,” Zeke said, getting Clara to nod in agreement. He also had no reason to hold back as he charged his body with the Strength buff, crushing the golem’s head without hesitation. A kill notification filled his vision as he continued onwards.

It went on like that for three more monsters, each golem having a different shape and even displaying prowess of different elements. He wasn’t quite sure about the first one–its death came too quickly, but the rest showed some semblance of elements according to the biodome. One tried to fling a fireball at them which was easily blocked by his barrier. Another tried to stop Zeke’s progress by transforming the ground into spikes to pierce at him which he managed to evade with ease by walking on his barriers. Finally, a water based golem tried to drown him in water, but Zeke managed to protect themselves by surrounding himself in a dome like barrier.

That one was left alone as Zeke didn’t want to harm Brucey’s tail, or whatever it used to paralyze creatures, as he noticed some limits to it. While it could paralyze all the golems except for the water one so far, each one had a certain time limit that seemed to shorten after each golem. He figured Brucey had a sort of energy resource used for the paralyzing, and he needed to recover in order to bring it up to its maximum duration again, at least that’s what Zeke surmised.

He wondered whether Brucey can become stronger and add more potency to the paralyzation, or perhaps increase the duration.

Can he even gain levels? Or do familiars follow their own way of progress?

Questions kept filling his mind. But right now, he was trying desperately to sense his comrades, either his party or the retinue, to no avail. He was getting closer to the rendezvous point but spotted no one so far. He wanted to at least bring Clara to someone that could take care of them as he knew Zeke had to go back into the middle of the fray for the most danger, and bringing her there was the least that he wanted.

He hated the idea of dumping Clara to someone because he didn’t want her around during the fight, but he knew that even with his barriers, there’s a slim chance that she could get hurt, or worse.

But no matter how much he covered the distance, probably around several miles away from his original position, he wasn’t able to find anyone other than hostiles. It was starting to grate at him.

“Bobo?” Clara suddenly spoke after Zeke decided to ease his Mana expenditure and walked ahead. “Is Sissy okay?”

“Of course she is,” Zeke unhesitatingly said. “While you were out, I talked with Sissy through our little phone thing. She’s with Myra and Piker–the, uhh, the fire lady and the ice guy.”

“I know who they are,” Clara harrumphed, pouting as though she was offended by the implied bad memory. Zeke chuckled, figuring that she hadn’t spent that much time with them, so he totally understood if she did forget.

Still, she quickly frowned as she continued. “I don’t like this place, Bobo.”

“I know,” Zeke nodded. “It’s super dangerous.”

“No, I mean…” Clara paused, taking a moment. “Something feels… bad here. I don’t know what it is.”

Zeke paused himself, taking in her words. Whether that might be due to the angel possessing her, or perhaps it was her own senses due to her being an otherworlder as well.

“How does it feel?” Zeke asked. He figured he could continue this while they were currently lost at the moment, and he wanted to help Clara explore her senses more. They tend to be right, after all.

“Like… something was here, but it’s gone, but it left a bad smell. Like… like that bad place when we got here.”

“The tower?” Zeke asked, getting Clara to nod in approval.

“Yeah! That!”

“Oh…” Zeke paused again before he answered her. “Clara, we already took care of it.”

“Huh? You did? But that’s dangerous!”

Clara declared, and actually patted Zeke’s shoulder hard.

“You shouldn’t go there, dingus! You could get hurt again!”

Zeke chuckled, and that only got Clara more angry. She slapped him on the shoulder, but she didn’t want to hurt him so he only hit the clothed part. It didn’t hurt at all, but he pretended to wince.

“We had to go there. Zoan told us to head there to get stronger.”

“Zoan?” Clara asked. “But she’s nice. Why would she put you somewhere dangerous?”

Zeke frowned. “Because she isn’t nice, Clara. She’s part of the people that sent us here.”

He knew doing this now might be bad, or perhaps dangerous for later, but Clara had to know. He didn’t know why Clara insisted that Zoan was a friend, but there was no way that Zeke could trust that angel with the way things were going. There were too many things that they didn’t know that could put them in danger.

“Someone that sent us to this world without our permission,” Zeke continued, leaving Clara to stay silent. “We can’t trust someone like that, especially when she’s possessing your body without your permission.”

The hurt look on Clara’s face stung him, but he had to say it. He worried whether Clara might trust what Zoan said, and end up getting hurt. Hell, she put Clara here in this dangerous location in the first place, and now she left her behind rather than flying up to the safety of the town.

Even if she ran out of energy and can’t do it somehow, he still fumed at the idea. Clara took another moment longer, then she spoke again.

“But… but if she hadn’t, then Sissy and I wouldn’t have met you.”

Zeke quirked his lips at that statement. His face turned blank as he realized what she was implying.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“So… isn’t Zoan really a good person?” Clara asked again, realizing Zeke’s hesitation and looked like she won an argument. “Also, it’s thanks to her that Brucey’s with us! She’s actually super cool!”

“That’s… a completely subjective and based argument,” Zeke eventually said.

“Hey, that’s not fair! You can’t say something difficult and ignore me!”

“I’m not ignoring you, I just think that there’s more to it than meets the eye,” Zeke said shamelessly.

“No fair! You’re being unfair!”

“Let’s put that aside for now, we need to find Sissy and the others.”

Clara groaned before huffing. Now she wouldn’t speak to him again, but he was fine with that for now.

That conversation headed down to a topic that was a little too time-sensitive right now. They really needed to focus, but at the same time, he wondered whether Clara had a good reason for trusting Zoan.

Still, he rushed ahead. His comrades might be in trouble, and he didn’t want to find out what might happen if he was too late.

…..

A pounce that had no right to be that fast and strong slammed her to the ground, causing the ground to nearly explode in dirt and debris.

Mikella groaned, her Pain Resistance not working as it should. Though a small part of her was glad that fighting Journeymen wasn’t a joke as she expected.

This felt like facing Val, but completely different. No matter how strong Mikella was, it felt like fighting against a wall of a man that kept moving apace.

Still, she forced herself up, driving her sword blade down to support herself. She looked up to see Myra and Piker facing side by side against a man covered in fur and bloodlust.

The man, Zyler as he called himself, apparently had the ability to transform into a literal werewolf. She could only guess that it came from either his Class or one of his high-rarity skills. She could also assume that his attunement had something to do with something feral or beast-like, or perhaps one of those fancy concept types of attunements representing the wolf or something.

She couldn’t give less of a shit about that. That’s up to Zeke’s repertoire–all she needed to do is to kick his ass and find Clara.

Myra roared and blazed in hot fire as she slashed at the man with full force. Her flaming mantle on display, she swung with vicious ferocity, blazing fire exploding out from her and straight to the wolfman. He easily side-stepped the flames, but Piker came up with a bull-headed rush, his sword covered in frost along with his kinetic energy to bash right into him.

Zyler took it up front with both his clawed hands, and roared before pushing forward and literally launching Piker off the ground and into the nearby stone wall, cratering it. Myra went after him, but once again she missed by a mile as Zyler jumped up.

He swung his claws in midair, and three crescent-like waves launched out, looking bloody red as it headed towards Myra. She managed to back away, but one of the crescent slashes cut through her leg, and blood spurted out into an explosion of red. She screamed in agony, landing to her knees and holding onto her damaged leg while gritting her teeth.

“Hahaha!” Zyler laughed, landing on the ground in a crouched position. “Gotta say, you all are impressive! Way more than the chumps at our place. It’s a shame–My dad would’ve loved you all to join, but we got bigger fish to catch. Sorry to say–you guys just aren’t worth my time.”

He growled, being able to speak animatedly despite having the face of a wolf with a long snout and sharp fangs. Mikella growled herself as she launched herself straight at Zyler.

The wolf man noticed her coming and hunched his back, ready to strike. But Mikella intervened. Her buffs flared, all her Class Skills and internal energy ramping up to full force. She launched herself straight at the wolfman, her sword glowing with bright lightning coursing along the blade.

She can do those fancy swings herself as she swung her sword sideways, unleashing an arc of sparking electricity with the mass of a dump truck straight at the man. Zyler, however, dodged it with ease by jumping away, missing the entire attack and letting it hit a nearby wall of broken stone, becoming even more broken in the process, practically turned to dust from the explosion.

Zyler grinned and charged a fist at her. She blocked the fist with the sword blade and felt her entire body nearly give in from the impact. The ground around her feet cracked and deepened. She gritted her teeth as she already felt her hands and wrists stinging in pain.

“Ooh, now you’re someone pretty interesting,” Zyler approached her face, his wolf head staring at her like she was delicious prey. “No one was able to take my full on punch like that for a while, and you’re even just an Expert. A girl too, as far as I know. How about it? Wanna be my girl? I promise I’ll treat you nice and oh-so right…”

Mikella scoffed. “Thanks for the offer, but you’re not my type. I’m not into mutts!”

She managed to push off the wolf man just enough to give her ground, then jumped back with the aid of her Dragon Descent. Her Dexterity ramped up even further, getting more distance. She had no other choice–being too close to the man was considered a death-sentence for her glass-cannon build.

She had to be smart with this, and she knew she could only really go in when she had support. But she watched as Piker was slowly picking himself up while Myra recovered enough to drink a potion. That didn’t slow Zyler down as he pounced at her again, raising his claws high and slamming it against Mikella.

She groaned, her hands protesting at the incoming attack. She blocked again, the pain returning as she focused inwards. She’s gonna have to get tricky, so she pulled multiple weapons out from her storage pack, surprising Zyler as she called out another sword, a spear, an axe, and a hammer all at once.

“What the hell?”

Before Zyler could say anything else, Mikella’s Dragon Eyes flashed. Her Lightning Mastery took over as lightning stormed around her, causing Zyler to jump away, but widened when he saw that the lightning wasn’t going after him, but at the weapons.

She felt her mana draining from the intensity of the control as she demanded her lightning to carry the weapons for her. She focused her single Class Skill, Heavenly Strike, to their main damaging aspect, the tips for the blades and the flat surface for the hammer.

All of her weapons, her main sword in hand, went after the beast. She never expected that this sort of attack would actually damage the Journeyman hard enough to defeat him, but it was a good enough surprise to make Zyler pause as she indirectly swung her hammer and axe and indirectly stabbed at him with her sword and spear at the same time.

“Whoa!” Zyler exclaimed, somehow still avoiding each strike. “I take back what I said. You’re way better than any woman I know! Wanna join our forces? I’ll give you my word that my father will treat you right!”

“Shove your word up your ass!”

Mikella had enough of his candid attitude, mostly because she was furious that he wasn’t even taking this seriously.

She fought enough to realize that this dude knew his shit. He was fast and strong. He was also bulky enough to take a few strong hits. He also kept running around in ways that made traversing the stone-filled battlefield difficult. He used small, precise movements to allow longer reaches and shorter reactions. In other words, he was adept at battling.

But if there’s one thing she learned in this world–everyone has a limit. Her thoughts whirled as she noticed Myra pointing her hand straight at Zyler.

Small embers suddenly combusted on top of Zyler’s furred body, causing him to growl and snuff them out, but that wasn’t enough. He seemed to breathe rampantly, his long tongue furled out of his mouth as Myra’s spell went into overdrive.

Her Incendiary Grasp had advanced to the point where she could make the skill work like a hard timer on a person’s body. It ramped up their temperature as though her spell was going off inside of them. With her Fire attunement–at a higher tier at that–as her base, it only made her skill easier to control, giving it that potency that even affected a true Journeyman body.

Mikella swung with all her willpower, demanding her weapons to slam, pierce, and stab at the now weakened wolfman. However, he kept moving deftly around her weapons, each one just casually grazing him or just outright missing him.

This was something she failed to realize. During her fight with Zeke, all she did was pour all of her rampage into her attacks, which became too much for the recently-physical Zeke. To an outright warrior, she was just wildly moving her weapons like a crazed gorilla.

Her attacks were too predictable, and even a blind man could predict her strikes. She gritted her teeth in frustration, only just realizing her weak style against an opponent that could kill her with ease.

But her eyes picked up when Piker ran at Zyler right after he dodged an axe strike, tackling and embracing the beast.

“What?” Zyler growled. “I ain’t into this!”

The wolfman tried to rip Piker apart with his clawed hands, and while his claws dug and scraped against Piker’s bare skin from the face to his forearms, leaving heavy gashes on them, Piker roared in defiance as he stabbed his bastard sword straight into the wolfman’s waist. Piker took advantage of his high Endurance along with Myra’s support from behind to finally strike the Journeyman.

Blood flowed from Zyler’s elongated mouth. The blade was piercing straight into his abdomen, and Mikella noticed something going on with her Mana Perception.

The blade itself had something of a frost that seemed to glow with bright green in Mikella’s eyes. Piker had infused his sword art with the frost attunement, but rather than trying to freeze the wolfman in place, the ice magic was actively improving the piercing effect of his sword, giving it a good chunk of damage to the wounded Journeyman.

Even then, that wasn’t enough.

“You little shit…” Zyler groaned, blood still pouring out from the corner of his lip, but he grinned with a feral growl. “That hurt!”

Mikella dashed before Zyler could do anything else, his arm swinging high and heading straight to the immobile Piker. She swung with all her might, unleashing a barrage of weapon attacks straight at Zyler. He growled in frustration and jumped away, leaving Piker enough room to get away before the electrified weapons could hit.

Each weapon collided against the ground and caused an earthy explosion, creating a plume of dirt and crystal that surrounded the battlefield. Mikella ran forward, getting to Piker while Myra ran to their side as well.

They stood guard together, but she could already see the injuries piling up. While they managed to get a good blow in, Myra was already tuckered out, her tanned face starting to pale from mana over usage. Piker looked even worse, his eyes looking half-glazed from the wounds and the intense energy control he had to use.

It was becoming too much for them. The fact that they even managed to deliver a blow to a Journeymen was already a damn miracle to begin with. But as the plume of dust dissipated, they saw the creature standing upright, the wound appearing over the abdomen.

It was closing up already, his regeneration taking effect. It looked surreal, to see a wound closing up so fast like that, and it only made Mikella’s chest churn with dread and worry.

“You fuckers…” Zyler growled. “You’re really starting to piss me off. I just wanted to have some fun, but no… you just had to be so damn competent.”

His muscles turned taut, lowering his knees as his claws flashed. The atmosphere around him changed, only proving that Zyler was really just messing around. But now, he was turning serious.

“Piker, I’m betting you can’t do that again?” Mikella asked, still looking directly at Zyler.

Piker didn’t answer, and she didn’t need to turn to find him grimacing. There was no way he could take another blow like that without risking his head being torn off. That was already impossible considering Myra doesn’t have enough juice in her system to pull off the super concentrated Incendiary Grasp again.

Just as when things looked bleak for her, her ears perked at the sudden noise. It wasn’t just her–everyone, including Zyler, raised their heads. Something was shifting about in the atmosphere, and whatever it was… it was big.

Stone clattered and broke apart as tremors began around them. It was enough to be considered an earthquake, but Mikella knew by heart that normal earthquakes in this world don't exist anymore. She looked away, only to see something massive that, quite frankly, she had enough of seeing after the tower.

“Gods… what is that?” Piker asked, ignoring Zyler as the bigger threat literally showed up.

It was big, but was hidden within the fortress’ buildings. But she could tell that whatever it was, it could only be the main boss of the biodome. It had finally showed up, or rather, was roused by the people within.

They had no more time. If they don’t settle this quick, they’re going to lose the biodome and–

“Ah shit, time’s up,” Zyler groaned, more disappointed than angry. “Knowing daddy dearest, he’s gonna go crazy over it.”

Zyler turned to the Experts. “Well, it’s been fun. You, lightning girl–it was a blast, but we gotta part ways. If we ever meet again. I’ll show you a grand old time.”

Zyler grinned maliciously, and somehow Mikella could tell that there was no hint of lust there. It was a feral grin of a battle-junkie, something that she herself might be. Zyler lowered his knees, and with a jump, he escaped into the air, using the nearby towers to travel across the entire area with ease.

Mikella didn’t know whether they were lucky or not. One thing is that they managed to survive. Another thing is that the boss showed up far away from them, probably surrounded by Bastion forces.

“...Let’s go,” Piker added. “We need to find the others–quick.”

The two girls nodded, and they headed off to find their comrades before things got even worse.