“Ugh… Ooof…” I let out, almost limping away from my fight.
I looked back and up at the battlefield. A huge green tornado was raging in the sky, one that just beat my ass. I… wasn’t able to deal with that bitch—Hell, she would've killed me just now, if it wasn’t for my armor, which was almost toast. The only reason I’m alive is because…
A booming explosion of mana shook the tornado, a large metallic robot jumped into it, and a couple of metallic stakes flew through it. The tornado shifted in place, but remained standing. The people that came with us saw what was happening to me and joined the fight, which allowed me to move aside and take a breath. Though, to be fair, they could’ve just joined because this was also close to the base’s entrance, so they might just be trying to get to their target; just like Althea and Nicky.
Speaking of which, I wasn’t too far away from it either, so I was able to find the entrance relatively fast. Still, I couldn’t help but grind my teeth as I looked back at the exploding battlefield… That bitch I was fighting turned out to be much more capable and strong than I could’ve ever imagined. I was still so far away from being the strongest fighter ever, as even right now, I had to rely on the aid of other people.
I wished I could’ve destroyed that tornado myself, but… I’d have to leave it up to them, since I can’t do anything about it right now. There might be more that I could do if I go help Nicky and Althea, ‘cause at least I have experience fighting next to them.
So with a tensed jaw, and the boiling anger from losing, I turned into the entrance of the base.
As I was walking down, I could see markings of fire and magic being used. It seemed like Nicky didn’t hold back at all… There were even a few charred corpses here and there. She had turned ruthless after a few weeks of fighting these Followers of Leyfall, and I wasn’t sure how to feel about it, since I really did like the cheery personality that she usually displayed.
There were more bodies the closer I got to the lower part of the base. I was trying to hurry down as much as I could, especially more after hearing an explosion of rocks being moved. Once I reached the lower part of the stairs, I saw Althea—and her alone. She had a face of desperation, as if she was trying to run somewhere, and she even had a ragged breath as she looked at me.
She opened her mouth to say something once she noticed me, but at that moment, there was the sound of an explosion from one side of this large hall. She snapped her face that way, before breaking into a run.
This couldn’t be good… “Althea! Hey, where is Nicole—Hey!”
She ignored me and kept running. I tried my best to follow her into a hallway at the side of the entrance, and saw her back as she tore down a door. She dashed inside, and then stopped not too far away from the entrance, almost as if she had crashed with something.
I followed as fast as I could, and stopped next to her inside a room full of golden fires burning everywhere… and Nicky on her knees as she looked up at the bitch that we came here to kill.
No! She had to move out of there! But… It was too late for either me, Althea or Nicky to do anything as the bitch moved the arm holding the large machete and cut Nicole's head off.
Blood drained from my body as I saw Nicole’s head fly into the air and land in the ground with a dry thud, with her body tumbling backwards right after.
I lifted my arms and clutched my head.
I couldn’t fucking believe it! There was no fucking way that—that—that Nicole would’ve gotten herself killed like that!
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
I was so fucking weak; so fucking incompetent! Fuck! What was I going to do now!? I—I had to do something—I had to end that fucking bitch that did this to her. It doesn’t matter if I had to turn myself into a ball of nothing, as long as I get to kill that bitch, I’d be more than happy to go to hell with her.
I looked at the expressionless bitch that was looking at Althea, and as I took a step forward, a wave of darkness exploded from Althea, immediately covering the whole room in a pitch black darkness that wouldn’t allow me to even see my hands in front of my face.
Instinctively, I turned to look in Althea’s direction, wondering what that was about, but unable to even open my mouth as an impossible pressure fell upon me from the power she was letting loose.
A moment later, a fiery red tornado surrounded Althea, which then extended through the darkness, allowing me to have a better look of my surroundings. There was someone else—something else—standing in the place where Althea should’ve been.
And in response, not too far away from us, a golden light illuminated the darkness, causing me to look away for a moment from Althea and to the bitch that killed Nicole. She was glowing in a Holy Light, with a fearless expression on her face as she looked down at us. It was as if she knew she was going to win the whole war, and just looking at her made me forget for a moment the thing that was standing next to me.
I gripped my damaged weapon, and readied myself to lunge at the bitch that decapitated Nicole, but I stopped myself when the darkness completely retracted and gathered itself back into the thing that was in Althea’s place. I turned my eyes to see if what was standing there was a friend or a foe, and I felt a sense of awe and fear when I set my eyes on it.
There, I saw a large woman that was about twice or thrice Althea’s size floating in the air, making her much taller than me. She was curvy, similar to Althea in that aspect, but her whole body was made of a jet-black skin that seemed to take in all the light around us. Her legs were long and thick, and at the end of her long feet appeared to be claws where her toes should be.
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From her back, there were three sets of bat-like wings, just as black as the woman’s skin. The one at the top was bigger than the other two, with the lower one being the smaller pair of wings; and right under it all, I could see a thin tail with a pointy end swaying from side to side.
On top of her head, there were three pairs of horns. From the top-back of her head, I could see ones that stretched all the way across the sides to the front, giving her a crown-like appearance; at the sides, a couple of thick horns stretched out and downwards, almost framing her face; at the front, a couple of long horns popped from the side of her forehead and pointed upwards; and under all of that, flowing black hair that stretched down to her hips was swaying in the air, with the tips looking as if that hair was more a mist than actual hair.
The most eye-catching thing on this woman was her face. It was the same kind of delicate and soft face that Althea had… which made me immediately realize that this was still Althea. The only difference was that her face had an ashy black color, and… there was no expression, just like a statue’s, which made it even more terrifying due to her lack of eyes, as it looked as if they had been gouged out.
The holes in her eyes were there for only a moment though, as soon after, a bright red light started filling her eye sockets. Quickly, it completely turned into a red glow, until eventually, it couldn’t be contained anymore. Like red tears, that red glow overflowed down the sides of her cheeks, forming a drop at her chin, from where it fell, landing in the middle of her chest.
I wouldn’t have looked at her large chest more than I should under other circumstances, but there, I saw how that red drop burned her skin, and a large red mark was left.
After blinking a couple of times, I looked back up at her face, and after the third blink, suddenly, she was gone, leaving nothing more than a dark mist of her silhouette in the air. My eyes widened in surprise for a split second, as right after, a loud crashing sound from the place where the elf bitch was supposed to be caused me to snap my head in that direction.
A dark mist was left in the air—a trail of the path that this strange Althea took—which ended in an explosion of darkness and hellfire at the back of the wall. The elf bitch was nowhere to be seen, and I wondered if this transformed Althea had killed her just like that.
It would've been regrettable if I couldn’t cut her down myself, but it also would’ve been great if that was the case, as vengeance had fallen upon that bitch quickly. However, from that mist of darkness, the distinctive golden light of that bitch started glowing brighter and brighter. I could see that her large machete was holding back Althea’s claw-like hand, both of them trembling from one trying to crush the other.
“Gods! Grant me the strength to—”
She tried to shout, but in the middle of her prayer, Althea gripped the weapon and flew up into the ceiling, where they both crashed. An explosion of darkness followed and the roof of the base was torn open. I looked as the rocks that composed the roof of this base flew up into the rainy night sky and spread in every direction, and then how a golden light illuminated the sky right after.
After the sound of them both leaving passed, I heard once more the struggling of the battlefield outside, and my astonishment was cleared. My eyes turned back down to the decapitated Nicole, laying on the ground.
There was nothing I could do to save her, but… maybe if I spend all my magic trying to heal her, I might be able to bring her back. It is magic, after all, and… even if nobody’s been able to do that, I might be able to pull it off—I couldn’t lose everything tonight.
And… and even if I couldn’t save her, I couldn’t just leave her here like that. I had to at least take her with me, so I took a step forward and started rushing over to her.
As I was half-way there, something impossible happened. The fingers of her hands started moving! Could it be some form of remaining nervous impulse? Like—well—a headless chicken?
But it couldn’t be. Not only were her fingers moving, but the rest of her hands started shifting, and then that movement stretched all the way to her arms. It went from small twitching movements, to full-blown swinging her arms in every direction.
I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t sure if I should go over to her, watch, or to stop it.
As I was considering what to do, her swinging arms moved over to where her fallen head was. Once they touched her head, both of her arms gripped the side of her head, and in one quick motion, pulled it back to the body, in the exact same spot where her head had been cut, connecting them both once more.
“What the fu—”
A blinding white fire exploded from her neck, and I covered myself with an arm to block the light, while still trying my best with narrowed eyes to see what the fuck was going on with Nicole.
After a moment, the light subsided, and I saw Nicole holding her neck, the air around her burning hot, but…
But she was alive!
A loud gasp came out of her, and her eyes widened larger than ever. She was now gripping her neck and breathing heavily, just like someone that was saved from drowning in a river; and her legs started kicking, as if she was suffocating or… No. She was going into a panic.
I finally ran over to her and looked down at her as I dropped to my knees. “Hey! Hey, hey, it’s okay, hey—what the fuck—look at me! Look at me! You’re okay! You hear me? You’re okay!”
Her wide eyes turned to look at me, and she desperately moved one of her arms to grip one of mine. She was stronger than before and I could feel how the pressure with which she was holding was making the armor creak under it. But I ignored it and slid my arm on her back to lift her up.
“Calm down,” I said as I looked into her terrified orange irises. “You’re okay. I’ll—I’ll get you out of here, okay?”
Her breath didn’t calm down at all, but after a moment, her eyes went up into her skull, before she closed them, followed by her body sagging on my arms.
“H-hey!” I exclaimed as I widened my eyes, scared that perhaps she really died just now, so I set her back on the ground and thought of what to do.
I didn’t have the Medical Eye that doctors and Althea had, so I couldn’t really know what happened to her. The best thing I could do was to check her vitals. So I reached for her neck, but stopped myself as I saw a thin red line, just like a scar, in the place where her head was cut off. I didn’t want to risk doing something to her, so I withdrew my hand and looked for her vitals around her wrists.
I closed my eyes and focused on the beating under my fingers. It was… somewhat fast, but it was there. Which meant that she really was alive. But just to make sure, I lowered my head and placed it close to her neck with my eyes looking at her chest. I felt her breath hit my hair, and I saw a steady movement of her chest going up and down from the breathing.
Once I made sure that she was still alive, I sighed with relief and looked back down at her, seemingly passed out.
“What the fuck just happened…” I whispered, and an explosion of darkness and golden light caused me to snap my head up to look at the sky.
Althea and that elf-hero bitch were fighting. From the glance I had at Althea, it didn’t seem like she was all there, and it would be risky to leave Nicole like this so close to the fight, especially after what happened.
I picked Nicole up, and despite the wounds I had, I used my remaining magic power to take up to the sky, going through the hole that Althea left in the ceiling, and looked for a way to get away from everything that was going on.
We couldn’t stay here. I couldn’t risk Nicole again.