She’s alive. The oncoming undead army and mysterious swordswoman didn’t exist. The loosely formed slime woman on the ground was all I could register in my mind.

“How?” I asked as I held out a hand to her.

Killa’s body surged upwards and grabbed me in a hug. “I’m so glad to see you again.”

I hugged her back, her body barely holding its definition and sliding over me slowly. “Why didn’t you follow me immediately? Why did it take so long to catch up with me?”

Killa’s eyes went wide. “The thing hunting you...” She turned and pointed at the swordswoman, whose spine straightened with another gross snap. “It’s that person. I’ve been trying to keep that thing away from you.”

I looked at the pale woman.

She was short with her long hair flowing down her back. It was black, but I could see the tiniest blue hue to it. Her angular face, with its sharp features, was twisted into a scowl. Her twin pools of crimson blood eyes locked with mine.

Her tight-fitting, rust-colored leather armor was scratched and more covered in blood than not. But it was her weapon that truly caught my attention. Gripped tightly in her hand, the sword seemed to thrum with a life of its own, its blade gleaming with its dark runes etched into its surface, pulsing with a faint red glow.

“This isn’t over,” she hissed.

As she talked, I noticed that her teeth were slightly off. Her front teeth all looked longer and sharper than a normal human’s. I pushed Killa away and drew my gun.

Before I could shoot her, she took off running. She’s faster than Shadara, but still not fast enough. Or maybe it’s just that I’m a little unbalanced with my speed at five hundred.

I very quickly overtook her and spun around, kicking her in the gut before she could get a hundred feet away. She tumbled backwards and slid to a stop, her sword clattering away from her. The woman clawed her way towards her weapon.

If she already healed from getting her spine broken in half pretty quickly, she must have some way of regenerating. That’ll make capturing her a bit more annoying, but it will make this next part much less problematic.

I stepped over and kicked her sword away. The woman groaned as she clutched her stomach.

She raised herself to her knees. “If you’re going to kill me, get it over with.”

I crossed my arms. “Nope. I’m going to keep you alive.”

“Huh?” Killa’s eyes doubled in size.

The pale woman also looked extremely baffled. “What? Why are you letting me go?”

I shook my head. “Who said I was letting you go either? No. You will stay with us because I’m not letting you steal another person’s soul.”

I pulled my gun out and shot her in the leg. She screamed as the bullet shattered both her femur and tibia on the way through. She clenched her jaw as she stared up at me. “You can regenerate; I’ve already seen it. So, this will only be as painful as you make it. We’ve already proven I’m faster than you by a lot.”

The pale woman released her hands from her leg, showing it was well on its way to being healed. “So I’m your prisoner. To what end?”

“So I can find a way to kill you permanently or convince you to leave me alone,” I answered flatly.

Shadara came running up. Her footsteps were perfectly silent. “Sorry to cut this reunion short, but we’ve got to go. A lich is leading the undead army, and it’s headed this way from the north. Oh, and they have mummies and death knights too.”

I turned to Killa. “You good to run?” She nodded. I then turned to the panther beastwoman and pointed at our prisoner. “Grab her and follow us. Careful; she looks like she’ll do anything to escape.”

The moment Shadara went to pick up the woman, she exploded in a cloud of blood. She reappeared a dozen feet behind my friend, scooping up her sword.

She hunched forward, wincing in pain. “I was going to leave you for after I dealt with the Soul Nexus. But if you’re that eager to die, then so be it.” Then she sprinted towards the undead army. “This isn’t over, Rina Lone.”

I went to take off after her, but Shadara raised a hand. “Don’t. She’s not worth it. I doubt the undead will be very merciful to her.”

Killa waved towards the south. “It would’ve fought us every inch of the way. Wouldn’t it be better for us to figure out how to kill it first and then find it after?”

I scowled as I watched the strange woman half limp while running towards the encroaching army. “Yeah, let’s go. Shar, I’m going to suggest you enhance your speed as much as you can. Killa, is there a way you can hang on to me or something?”

She pointed at the bag of holding with all her clothes. “You still have that? Whatever. I’ll hop in there, and you can just take me out when we get to safety.”

I scrunched up my face. Killa knows what she’s doing.

The slime woman doesn’t require air. She’ll be fine in the bag.

Thanks, Orange.

Killa flowed into the bag after I held it open for her. I closed it up and tied it back to my belt. It’s still weird doing this after Orange told me that there’s no air inside the bag. Does that mean Killa can survive in the vacuum of space? I shook my head. Not the time Rina.

Shadara and I took off to the south gate. Shadara was using her magic to enhance her speed, but she still wasn’t as fast as me. My status had only just changed slightly over the last few days.

Name:

Rina Lone

Augments:

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Level:

32

Cellular Regeneration

Agility:

310

Synthetic eyes: lvl. 2

Arcane:

245

HUD

Power:

100

Epidermal plating (arms) lvl. 2

Quickness:

500

Epidermal plating (hands) lvl. 2

Resilience:

240

Arm blade (right), Retractable

Toughness:

240

Synthetic tendons (legs) lvl. 1

Unassigned Points:

0

Synthetic muscle (legs) lvl. 1

Shards:

337027

Synthetic tendons (arms) lvl. 1

Synthetic muscle (arms) lvl. 1

Shadow Powers:

Mana battery (shadow) integration

Manifestation lvl 4

Synthetic bones (arms) lvl. 1

Shaping lvl. 4

Sub-dermal plating (torso) lvl. 2

Distance lvl. 1

I’ve been saving my shards for another augment shopping spree. Shadara’s not going to enjoy it, but increasing my stats doesn’t seem to be enough. It leaves me wanting more progression.

But even with the following army, we made it out quickly. A few of the undead beasts were starting to catch up with Shadara once her magic couldn’t keep her hasted. But by that point, we were too close to the edge of the zone. We had overtaken several soldiers.

A few shots from my gun scared them off. I didn’t get any kills, but their aversion to being destroyed took me by surprise.

They hadn’t shown that before. They haven’t been concerned with self-preservation before.

The three of us left the zone with the last few soldiers and civilians. We found ourselves quickly transported to a fort on the side of a mountain. The three-tiered fort loaded with catapults in the numerous towers was majestic. A huge, unorganized swarm of civilians and soldiers migrated to the two gates.

As Killa flowed out of the bag, she took on a humanoid form, her gelatinous body shifting and molding into the shape of a woman. Her familiar curvy green body was much more solidified than when I first saw her.

Her translucent body held smatters of her little pockets of mana that I remember. There was a serene calmness to her beautiful face. She smiled as she winked. “I’m glad you kept it.”

She wore a simple, dark gray robe dress, the fabric clinging to her form. It flowed and covered her arms and legs while leaving a shallow v-cut.

Shadara chuckled. “She wouldn’t get rid of it for anything. She protected that thing more than herself.”

I blushed as I turned away from her. “For the longest time, that’s all I thought remained of you. Letting go of it felt like I would let go of you.” I unhooked it and held it out to her. “It’s yours; you can take it back.”

Killa grabbed it and hung it on her back. “I’ll hang onto it. But if you ever need it, it’ll be available for you.” She then pointed to my sapphire-scaled overcoat. “That is a good look for you. The blue goes well with your black hair and glowing green eyes.” She then tilted her head. “Can you explain that?”

I ran my fingers through my hair. “Well, on the fourth floor, the sphinx was attacked by this werewolf lady who was completely insane. We killed her.”

I continued the story as we walked into the fort, explaining that the werewolf had bitten me. Killa nearly fainted when I told her how I used my nanites to make a mana battery and ignite my mana to purge my DNA of the werewolf while dealing with the cursed shadow magic the werewolf used.

When I showed her my shadow magic by creating a small fairy that looked exactly like Chad floating a foot in front of me.

Killa poked a finger through it. “Wow. But there’s no substance to it. It’s all just for show. Is that the only magic you can do?”

I pulled the mana back into me and stored it back in my mana battery. “With the mana battery I now have, yes. It made it so that I can only use shadow magic from now on.” I bit my lip. “Here I was impressed that I figured out how to move it up to a couple of feet away from me before it dissipated. I’ve only had the magic for a few days.”

Killa covered her mouth. “Oh, well, yeah. I guess that makes sense. It took me a couple of years before I figured out how to cast a meaningful spell.”

I let my shadow mana envelope me and cover my entire body. I could see out of it just fine when I shifted my vision into terahertz radiation mode. Killa’s jump earned a giggle from me. “It still has its uses. It’s great to hide like this at night. Nobody can see me. Yes, they can touch me, but at that point, I’ve got the chance to stab them with this.”

I reabsorbed my mana back into my body and battery, making sure to keep my body’s mana levels lower than full so that I could keep feeding more mana into my battery and build up its reserves. With a tiny nudge of the muscles in my right forearm, I extended the blade that was safely tucked under the metal plates that were the skin on my arms.

Killa ogled the blade before I put it back. “Oh, ho, ho. That’s a cool trick. What else have your nanites given you?”

I tapped my breastplate armor. “Well, I told you I have a mana battery now. So, I’ve got this, and a layer of metal plates below the skin to make sure it doesn’t explode. Because, right now, it’s sitting at about twice the mana of the mana battery that I exploded on Tasha.”

A whopping thirty times my maximum mana capacity. And it’s still going up.

I continued explaining how I could use my mana to create bullets for my handgun. Then I finished telling her how I replaced the muscles in my arms and legs.

We entered the city, but Killa didn’t bother looking around as she kept her eyes on me. “You’ve really leaned into the speed-style fighter, haven’t you?”

I shrugged. “Yeah. Watching everyone move as if they were in slow motion takes some getting used to. My patience is nonexistent, according to some people.” I nudged Shadara with an elbow, who stayed quiet this entire time, letting me talk with my friend, whom I thought I had lost. “But what they don’t realize is that I’ve been waiting, usually three or four times longer than them. I experience the world faster.”

I told her my stats, and she told me she was almost at three hundred and twenty in all her stats. She was level thirty-eight, Shadara was thirty-four, and I was a lowly thirty-two.

Killa frowned. “That’s a really low strength stat.”

It was Shadara’s turn to nudge me in the side with her elbow. “Someone just needs to learn how to use their magic to augment their strength. If you can hide yourself, you should be able to make yourself stronger.”

I rolled my eyes. That’s only the seventh time she’s brought that up in the days we’ve been here. “Easy for you to say. But I don’t see you making anything visible with your magic.”

Killa tapped her chin. “No, she’s right. Rina, your magic is extremely vague. With the right mindset, you could do anything with it.”

I scratched the back of my head. “Yeah, I know. My system already showed me that I can purchase other abilities for my magic or I can learn them naturally, like I did with the distance. Before, my mana had to be touching some part of me at all times.”

Shadara wrapped her arms around me and lifted me into a hug. “Visualization is key. All you have to do is see something strong in your mind’s eye, typically the strongest thing you’ve seen, and believe you can do it too.”

I squirmed in her grip. “Shadara, you’re squeezing me a little tightly there.”

I wasn’t in any danger of being unable to breathe, and frankly, she wasn’t as strong as I remember her.

Eventually, she put me down and giggled. “I just wanted you to have an example of strength. But enough of that. What did you girls want to do? I could use some food, and I’m sure you two want to spend the next several days talking.”

Before either of us could answer, four beastman soldiers flanked a tall female wolf beastman with a long mane of white fur. She was covered in a lot of plate armor, with only her hands and feet exposed, and a massive slab of steel that I could only assume was an attempt at a sword strapped to her back.

She pointed to me. “Are you Rina?” I nodded. “Then you’re coming with me.”