A whirling disk of sand sawed through one of the trees in the clearing and headed right for Daniela's fight. It was the size of a large SUV, and it moved as fast as one. That the Implant had identified the whole thing as a humanoid and not just a central mass was a giant problem. It meant it wasn't just an Aberrant's Appendage, but also a Partial. The last thing I saw before Fievil made contact with the Corpus was the blade of sand shrinking and doubling in speed.

Pain washed all my other worries to the side as my body ricocheted off the Corpus. The brief exposure still left me aflame, but I had enough momentum that the creature couldn't ignore me or the five foot furrow I'd carved down to its good eye with my axe hammer. Blood sizzled as Fievil's blade glowed with the heat of the impact. Had I not been using my Slurry Ichor to lock my fingers firmly around my weapon and shield I was sure they would have been gone in my ragdoll landing.

Energy entered me and escaped the next roll, buffeting me across the ground in a chaotic pattern as my Traits all worked in chaotic concert to keep me alive. Striated Dermis kept me from having limbs torn off by the centrifugal forces, my Quake Osseum kept the breaks and fractures to a minimum and my Harmonic Sinews kept every joint I had from snapping like cheap rubber bands. Despite all of that, my Health flashed dozens of warnings, and Afflictions piled up on my Status. By the time the world stopped spinning, little remained of my and had my Geocardium not kept my Ichor from flying away I would have been little more than a splat of muddy blood.

Health: 31% (Hemorrhaging, Internal Bleeding (Multiple), Hairline Fractures (Multiple), Spinal Fracture, Transverse Fracture (Multiple))

I took a strangled breath, feeling bone grinding against bone somewhere in my body. My jaw wasn't working quite right, and the wooden container with the Health Shot nearly fell out of my mouth, much less getting crushed as I hoped. Fear gripped my heart as I watched my Health tick lower into the crippling range Samuel had described what felt like an eternity ago. Thankfully, I wasn't alone. Fievil dug into his own reserves to manifest a clawed paw the size of my head. With a swift clack of two phalanges, the wood gave out and the Health Shot trickled down my throat.

Once again thankful for the fact I didn't need to swallow for the magic to take effect, I endured the gritty flavor in my mouth. Since I still wasn't in a coherent state, Fievil worked the arm he'd manifested to align my body more or less in the right orientation. The sensation of bones mending, and some not what I would call correctly, had me letting out a groan deep in my chest despite the sharpening pain it brought. Over the course of thirty seconds, I was brought from the brink of oblivion to barely functional in every definition of the word. My limbs felt feeble, and breathing was a struggle that had nothing to do with the pain of the ribs I could feel had healed. Sam's estimate was exactly right; two of his Health Shots was pushing it.

Fievil used a blunted to help me to my feet. I took in the battlefield. One minute out of commission might as well have been decades with the speed at which fights moved. To my utter surprise, it looked like things had turned in our favor. The whirling blade of sand had engaged the Kissing Bug, perfectly halting it in its tracks despite the barrage of blood it was using to attack the Appendage. I could vaguely pick out a humanoid shape doing their best rendition of the Vitruvian man while making their sandy blade dance to the beat of a Mobius Strip. I watched, somewhat mesmerized and unable to look away at the sheer mastery of the Earth element on display until a conflagration knocked the creature right into the path of the Sand Appendage.

When I tracked the source of the fire, I spotted half of Daniela extracting her Wolf Fang daggers from the chest of Jefferson. Her lower body rippled as the Fishscale Boot Item, her , and twisted the air to her whim. Two of her wisps were missing and she was more bruise than tanned skin, but the predatory grin on her face was visible even from my part of the battlefield. With an almost dainty wave, the brunette sent Amelia back on her way to my side before focusing on the things that still needed killing.

Opposite them, Filomena and Joe were tag teaming the Wildfire Hogs in a brutal combination of volcanic glass and dragon scale while Devon and Dai whittled down the Fire Appendage that had been leading the beast Tendrils. The elf and lizardman were making a concerted dance with the mist that Dai generated, taking advantage of every iota of humidity in the atmosphere plus all the scattered water the magical attacks had generated. Anthony was munching on the Fire Ant he'd proven himself superior to while blasting Joe with magic to keep him topped up. With Clayton out of the equation, the Wild Fists were dogpiling the Compaction Armadillo that had finally made its way around the Aberrant. Samuel had made his way to the front of the defenders along with Clara's New Hopers, cutting a swath to the Acidic Earwig a Wild Guard squad had been keeping at bay since the start of the fight.

It was a startling shift that I almost didn't know how to handle until I sensed a hill start to make its way towards the Aberrant. The Corpus Chimera! Despite being blind and crippled, the abomination still dragged itself in the direction of my friends. Billy was doing all he could to keep Clayton from killing him and Jolene while the merwoman was fistfuls into the Purger. The concentric rings had spread along the surface of the Aberrant, but the blue was dimming by the second as the inner fire of the crystal creature battled for supremacy of its stolen vessel.

Before my brain caught up to what I was doing, I was hobbling. My breath came in unsteady pants that sent shocks of pain and compounding weariness through my body. It didn't matter. I was a caterpillar racing another, larger and much deadlier than me. The only advantage at my disposal was that I could see, and the Chimera was making as much progress away as towards my friends. It was clear it had some way of sensing mana types, but the disruption of other Water Attuned was distracting the heavily injured creature. When I noticed that, I relayed as much to Sarah without delaying my steps.

Messages passed through the Raid Party, and the scattered Water Attuned with the mana to spare started to draw the Chimera's attention. Any delay was worth its weight in Pith, and the fact that it was giving Dai more ammunition against his own Appendage didn't hurt.

When I got to Jolene's side, I could practically feel the waves of desperation oozing out of her. Blobby was using a Blobite to shuttle the Infusions gathered in the battlefield to the larger Blobite feeding them to the merwoman as fast as she could them. A third Blobite had half submerged Clayton even at the cost of slushy chunks of green slime in order for Billy to conserve his mana. The elf was already panting in his efforts to keep the physically strong non-Fallen Tendril. Frost was crawling up his arms whenever he was forced to manually shatter one of the ice spear attacks the Appendage could manifest.

"You can't do this!" The Appendage spat when he noticed me approach.

"Master..." Billy gasped, aloud. He was looking positively blue. When he didn't use the comm-plant, which didn't directly require breathing even if it often matched what your physical body felt, to speak I knew the young elf was reaching his limits.

"The end of your inferior iteration of humanity is--" I punched the man across the face. When that didn't seem to do the trick, I followed it up with two more that left him bleeding and dazed. Each strike sent jagged blades of pain up my arm and all the way down my spine, but it was par for the course the fight had taken. Death and pain was looming closer by the second.

"I don't have time for your shit," I said. It was such a stark inversion of my fight against Galloway I almost wanted to laugh. Instead, I turned to Jolene who was herself starting to frost as her mana pool was eaten up by the Infusions. "Are you okay?"

"I-I've g-g-got a few m-more in me," the merwoman stuttered. Her hands were shaking even as Blobby passed along another trio of Infusions she mechanically started to deconstruct.

I gave the surface of the Aberrant a defeated look. Easily a third of the crystal's surface had been covered by the circular and branching patterns coming from the Purger. However, even running some quick numbers to the ascending conversion of Infusions, I didn't think we would have enough juice to turn the battle against the Aberrant. Even the higher density of Clayton's Q7 Pith might not be enough to turn the side of the fight ongoing in the Purger.

If we retreated now, the Corpus would still be a threat. The Aberrant would recover and made approaching it a futile endeavor even for someone with my advantages. Turtling was the alien creature's best option, especially when one considered how many people in the city might still be under its control that could throw all their efforts out of the window. Their armies would be eliminated, but the knife would still hang over Ocala. I punched the Aberrant, shouting in frustration even as my armored fist flaked some of the crystal.

A sound reverberated through the clearing, halting the fight for a breath. It took me a moment to realize it was rumbling laughter, practically oozing out of the earth. The inner light of the Aberrant seemed to gather, forming an orange and black pit that loomed just over my head but inside the crystal. The living flame stared at me through the weakening circuitry the Purger was trying to establish. A prisoner looking at its jailor with hungry eyes because the bars were rusting and there was nothing I could do.

> YOU ARE SPECS AMIDST THE COSMOS <

With its rumbling proclamation, I ground my teeth against the sonic attack. I was more than a little thankful for the muting effect my armor Freeform afforded me. However, it also afforded me a perfect view of the disaster the Aberrant had put in motion. The fiery influence that had been surrounding us since the start of the fight disappeared almost instantly. In its place, a streamer of energy linked the Aberrant to its defender in a way my struggled to comprehend despite all my recent experience with ethereal creatures. The only way I could describe it was...

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Possessed," I mumbled, clenching my hands as I mustered the last third of my mana. It wouldn't be much, but I wasn't ready to fold. The half dead Chimera lumbered to its feet, flames bursting from its wounds and cauterizing them shut even as smoke curled off its body angrily. Where flesh and bone had failed, living flame filled the gaps. The 'elemental' bit of the Primal Elemental species the Implant had identified it as was starting to make a scary amount of sense.

What do I even have that can counter this? I thought, frantically running through all my normal Amplified Skills before running through the options my Hummingbird Charm and Sturgeon Talisman offered. It wouldn't be enough. Even if I could muster whatever Fievil and Amelia had left to give to try to eat their way through the magical bits of the Chimera...

"Destroy its unconverted body!" A voice shouted, instants before blades of sand turned to glass on contact with the Chimera that had been getting its feet under it. As if they were more a modern drone than a person, the Appendage used the buzzing rotation of its limbs to course correct in the air to come in for another impact. A strangled cry filled the air as more of the Earth Attuned turned to glass upon contact. "Hurry!"

Beggars couldn't be choosers. If the options were a worthless attack against a possessed Q8 or a desperate gambit against the Aberrant directly... the choice was simple. My body wasn't in any condition to deal largescale destruction sufficient enough to tip the scales. Billy and Jolene were running on fumes, and even if I had a third of my mana left I didn't think it would make a difference. However, while staring at my Status in desperation... the answer stared me right in the face.

"I'm going to do something," I said, turning to Jolene.

"C-Clearly," the merwoman mumbled. She shook, ice falling with the motion.

"Give me a minute, then I want you to kill Cla-- the Water Appendage." He doesn't deserve his name. I could see the hardening in Jolene's eyes and she gave me a firm nod between shivers. The Aberrant must have sensed me gathering mana, or had overheard my vaguest of plans with Jolene, because its voice filled the battlefield again. I felt my Ichor dribble down my ears despite the defenses of my armor and Traits.

> WE ARE THE ETERNAL DARKNESS <

"You are in my turf. I don't care!" I roared, punching my fists against the Aberrant. Every bit of sonic damage its last two sentences had caused I funneled right back into them with my Traits as I purposefully activated the Skill I feared the most. "!"

The world swirled down the toilet, but I already braced myself for what was coming. Hellfire scalded my skin as I looked on the red and black space that the Aberrant occupied. At the center of the nightmare world was a pure bead of white light encased in a dirty orange flame. The boundaries of its influence clashed against the domain of my soul, swirling into a bloody pink where the victor was dubious at best. Lightning bolts of blue crashed down upon the barren volcano that represented the Aberrant's soul, a manifestation of our assault on its physical body.

"Now you are in trouble. My body may be a pile of broken sticks, but I've got friends in my soul!" I shouted, latching on to my connections to my Totems. Fievil and Amelia manifested in their full forms. My mole Totem didn't take the somewhat cartoonish form it usually manifested within my whitespace. Instead, it was a hulking tank of mammalian rage. Claws the size of my body ground the volcanic influence to silt under their mere presence, even as its star-shaped nose feelers wrinkled in disgust at the pyroclastic atmosphere. Amelia, for her part, spread wings as wide as Fievil was long. Her upper pair of hawk wings let out a refreshing breeze that perfectly countered the acrid touch of the Aberrant, while the hummingbird pair sent out probing blades of wind to clear the way forward.

A rumbling grunt and an ear splitting screech marked the start of the Totem's assault on the Aberrant's soul.

Amelia struck in the wake of the blue lightning, carving silver furrows in the Aberrant's influence. Fievil sunk beneath the earth with each stroke of his massive claws, carving a path forward to the heart of the corruption. With every foot they cleared, I stepped forward and lent every ounce of weight I had to the effort. Each step, much like when we'd tried to approach the Aberrant in the physical world, weighed heavily on my soul. It brought pain I couldn't describe, but pushed through nonetheless. It wouldn't compare to the pain of losing someone just because I flinched in the face of suffering. The Corpus was still coming.

Time in the space between souls stretched and sweat poured down my face in rivers until the heavens answered. A roiling cloud of blue started to form along the dome that represented the Aberrant. She's pulled the trigger. I clenched in anticipation, the connection between Amelia, Fievil and I allowing us to coordinate perfectly. When the bolt of lightning, thick as a building, struck down we didn't hesitate to rush forward. Fievil and Amelia quickly lost physicality and magical weight in exchange for progress. Thirty feet. Twenty feet. Ten feet. Amelia vanished in a puff of glittering silver and I felt like someone had scooped out my lungs. Fievil wasn't far behind, but the mole pivoted and wrapped his claws around me. With a visual of a catapult-launched coyote faceplanting a boulder, the Totem lobbed me right at the Aberrant's heart.

I screamed. The Aberrant screamed. Fievil cackled. The moment I wrapped my arms around the pure burning light, the world exploded.

In a blink, snow cascaded through the sky in every conceivable direction. The sun was shaded as perfectly powdery ice coated the battlefield almost all the way to the treeline. The pristine peace lasted only a moment before the dominos started to fall. The first was the surface of the Aberrant. The swooping curves and jagged points smoothed as the crystal reshaped itself at visible speeds. Along with that sensation, the oppressive heat the Aberrant had been outputting to defend itself and fuel its Corpus Chimera flickered, replaced with a cool and refreshing breeze that acted like a balm on my wounded soul. Curling wisps of mana manifested as a Blessing of Magic took its rightful place on the surface. A Metier Crystal had been purged, and an Entity freed.

Along with the Entity's freedom came a ripple of liberation. Dozens of humanoid Tendrils that had been fighting single-mindedly against our fighters immediately dropped their weapons or dismissed spells. They looked more shell shocked than anything, but at least they weren't attacking. A few of them looked to have been too far gone, their selves too embedded with the Aberrant's suggestions, and they continued the attack despite the absence of their oppressor. These were taken out quickly and brutally, while the former were bound in myriad ways.

If the leaders of the monstrous forces had been the only ones affected things would have been secured for our attack. However, the beast Tendrils lost any semblance of cohesion without the voice whispering in their minds. This, of course, meant that several grew rabid and lost any ounce of self preservation. Others turned to flee, like the Wildfire Hog I'd trapped at the very beginning of the fight, while taking several of the lower Quotient creatures in tow.

In moments, the fever pitch of the fight that had been swinging slowly in our favor had just ended. It was jarring.

The only creature that still fought as it had been doing since the start was the Corpus Chimera. The bloodied, battered, shredded creature had the constitution of immortals as it continued to fight despite missing the strength of its legs, the sight of its eyes and several claws the Sand Appendage had severed at the cost of much of its mass. Without the assistance of its master, however, the flame mane it had used to deter most attacks became little more than an inconvenience for a certain pair of draconians.

"!"

A voice rippled in the silence following the fight, forcing a pyroclastic boom to knock the Chimera's head up. Filomena followed up Joe's attack with a manifested blade made entirely of scales that sheared a huge swath of the tough fur along the creature's neck. With the main defense against their attacks gone, the Sand Appendage gathered their sand close. Without the haze of battle, I was able to tell each of their limbs were much like Billy's--entirely sand. My eyes narrowed as I noticed the long dark hair and sharp edge of his jaw that seemed oddly familiar. The words that spilled out of his mouth dealt a blow stronger than any of the ones the Corpus Chimera had dealt.

"Metier's Execution!"

Goosebumps rippled up and down my arms as the cadence of their voice, the strength of their tone and the power they displayed resonated deep within me. The Appendage turned into a life sized version of the that Billy had created all without a wisp of mana involved. When it struck, sparks flew for a brief instant before the Chimera lost its head. It seemed to fly through the air in slow motion, spraying sizzling blood all the while.

When it landed with a ground shaking thud, my eyes snapped back to the one who'd dealt the blow. They were gone. The only trace of their presence was a mound of tan sand interlaced with veins of bleached marble.

I wasn't sure how long I stared at that sand, slowly being blown by the wind. Despite the strange sense of loss I felt, the cheers that exploded through the clearing snapped me out of my thoughts. Now that beasts were defeated, draconians unleashed flames into the sky, elves clapped thunder, healing music surged through the ranks courtesy of the fae and satyr while the lizardfolk and merfolk misted people while they danced arm in arm through the clearing. Even the usually broody demons and demonesses clapped their taloned hands or slammed weapons together to join in on the merry making.

My friends were standouts, as Daniela sent high along with Joe's chugging Smokestack Horns. Filomena was driving her knuckles into the younger draconian while laughing freely. Ponzio blipped around the clearing, checking in with a very tired looking Sarah before disappearing in a bolt of lightning to the northeast. The Wild Fists had cracked a casket the Merc Corp had been lugging around and suspiciously foamy brews were making their way around as Life Attuned supplemented the lacking supply of mugs. Of course, to the relief of my conscience, Samuel was leading several healers in treating the worst wounded and administering Health Potions to those who'd saved them for some unknowable reason. Probably too-good-to-use syndrome. Glad I got over that while we still lived in the Bunker.

When I was sure that the fight was in Sarah's very capable hands and none of my attention was needed to put out any fires, I focused on the person standing close beside me. I hadn't even noticed her holding me up so I didn't collapse in the foot of snow that covered the space around the once-Aberrant.

My eyes locked with Jolene. She was bloody, half drowned in mud, her hair was scorched in some places and sticking up at random angles in others, but her smile was radiant enough to banish any of the shadows of doubt that had been lingering in my mind. Without hesitation, I used the last bit of my mana to boost myself up and towards the woman. She yelped in surprise as I wrapped my arms around her and our lips met. The kiss lasted only moments, but it was a sweet eternity.

"We did it!" Billy cheered, the elf having been forgotten the moment the merwoman and I got lost in each other. "We won!"

William cheered, bobbing up and down while trying to shake me and Jolene by the shoulders, the youth completely oblivious to the moment he'd shattered like fine glass. Despite that, I couldn't be mad at him. Joy bubbled within me and I laughed along with him, even if I kept my movement to a slight bobbing of the arm to match his jittery energy. Blobby rolled up on the scene, hoisting each of us on its powerful humanoid slime form, wobbling in place as the slime let out squelching pops of excitement. Jolly's delighted laugh brought a wider smile to my face as I took in the battlefield.

It hadn't been easy, and I doubted it would get any simpler, but I knew better things were yet to come.