“Should we continue through the tunnels or go to the surface?” I ask, watching the soldiers marching toward us. Our own warriors stand with a fraction of the confidence and training, and only some few are prepared to kill, the only advantage they’ll find.

“Tunnels,” Adler says. “It’s tight enough that they can’t leverage their numbers as usefully and we have maps, where they might not.”

“Good thinking,” I say. “Vii, we need to get to the southeast, our ship is waiting there for us.”

“Our ship?” she asks, her eyes flicking about on unseen maps as she talks. “Aren’t the ships constantly moving?”

“Not anymore,” I say. “These are prison ships if I’m going to take a guess. They’re already collaring people and loading them on board, but there are so many ‘beasts’ that they have to capture and so few crew it’ll take them some time.”

“Won’t that make it easy for us?” Vii asks, “If there’s only a small crew, and heaps of people we can save and stuff, and the ship is staying for a bit. It’s perfect for us!”

“Sure, except for the army that’s currently surrounding us. I’m not sure they’re going to let us have an easy time with this,” I say watching the corners ahead of us as closely as possible.

That scout will be watching us, marking our location for the rest of their forces. I plan on killing them if I get a chance, but I doubt that’ll be enough. There’ll be other scouts around, ready to take their place and they already know where we are.

We’re already in a tight spot and there’s no getting out of it. Not without some serious killing.

“There!” Vii says, summoning a powerful gust of wind and waving out at a spot just ahead of us. I try to hit the unseen scout with a spell, spreading my magic out as a net to get them wherever they are, but either the threads are too small to do any real damage, or I missed entirely. The shadow is gone when next I look.

“Ria is up ahead!” Vii shouts, leading us along the same tunnel where the scout was hiding. The darkness retreats from us, as we pierce the depths fleeing from the soldiers who scurry about on the streets above us, slowly funnelling down into this dark world.

If the fighters are as powerful as their scouts, then we might be in for a tough fight, and we’re not as well equipped as I’d like for us to be.

“Nearly there,” Vii says, leading us down a tunnel towards a wider room. While this place specifically isn’t familiar, it’s much the same as any of the rooms and halls around us.

A few scattered parts remain of machines that once filled this room. One module that reminds me of Barry tries to speak, but all it can make are meaningless sounds that can’t be interpreted as anything meaningful.

“We’re here to steal a ship?” Ria asks, her crystal wings stretching before folding back in again. “I’ve been interested in that for so long, but I don’t have any experience with this specific thing.”

“We have Vii for the space magic, and we can employ a pilot for the expertise,” I say, looking at the crowd of warriors guarding her. “I wasn’t expecting so much support.”

“Do I need a reason to come visit my dear friends in their time of need?” Red says, leading a small contingent of her favourite soldiers. Each and every one of them is either a student or a freed beast, trained under Red’s guidance and armed with the best gear that we have.

“You just come for the chance to kill some of your old foes,” I say, smiling through clenched teeth. “It’s good to have you with us.”

“I was worried you might be out here on a crusade of vengeance,” Red says wearing an unamused half-smile, “I’m glad to see you’re holding yourself together. Remember what I’ve taught you, you need to kill with focus and intelligence, not because of some wild emotional outburst.”

“You never taught me anything like that,” I reply dryly.

“I didn’t? I meant to.”

“You’re a crappy teacher, Red,” I say, instigating a few chuckles from the warriors around her. They’re armed with machine guns, pistols and a few other choice melee weapons besides, for when the ammunition runs out.

Since Arduelle isn’t kicking up a fuss, I’ll assume we have her blessing to fight with Red and her team.

“Red, you’re running tactical command,” I say. “We have maps and are looking to steal a ship, and you’ve got more experience than the rest of us combined.”

“You were with me for the one time I tried stealing a boat,” Red chuckles, ordering the soldiers around silently, using the power of her brain chip. “With our resources, we should do better this time.”

“If not, the world is filled with opportunities,” I say. “There are ships all over the place, we just have to get through an army to reach them.”

“Can you see our enemies?” Red asks, lifting her daggers and looking through the darkness surrounding us.

“The scouts are too good to find, and the fighters are entering the ruins now,” I say.

“Maps?”

“I’ll send them to you,” Vii says.

“Right, we’ll push through,” Red declares, some of our more powerful warriors leading the charge down one of the dark halls. “Don’t let them slow you down, that’ll be their goal.”

We break through the silence not concerned with masking our presence, there’s no point in hiding now. I can feel the enemy circling us, setting up for their assault, soon violence will be upon us.

In the cities just a few stairs above us, the first civilians are being collared. Silver works into their veins, flooding their bodies and their support devices and stealing their control.

“What’s… what’s happening?” A young woman asks, sitting before the welfare officer and backing away. “What is that? What are you doing?”

The officer ignores her and speaks to the first collared beast.

“Stay silent, don’t move from here until ordered, do no violence to another,” he says, before drawing out another silver collar and standing before the frightened young woman and trying to press it onto her.

She backs away, dodging the silver.

“What are you doing?” she asks, backing away into the group behind her.

“Submit yourself,” he says, waving her closer.

“To what?”

“Soldiers!” The officer calls, waving them forwards.

The girl is too slow to respond, caught by the strong arms of a trained soldier. A lizard woman twice her height and much more powerful drags her out in front of the crowd.

“She is marked for processing,” the officer declares, and the soldier applies a collar on the woman and voices a separate set of orders.

“Submit. Die.” The woman stiffens for a moment before all life leaves her. It isn’t violent, it’s quiet and it’s terribly, terribly peaceful.

Some few realize what’s happening, the students more often than the teachers. Most quiver quietly, unsure of what to do hoping for a miracle, but some few take their fates into their own hands.

“Run! They’re going to kill us all!” A young man screams as he runs full speed for the edge of the field. He doesn’t see the soldier coming.

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A large furry creature lands on him from above, it’s large wings wrap around the boy as it presses a collar on the boy.

“Submit,” the creature says. “Die.”

These students, beasts now, have been selected for ‘processing’ and it seems that they don’t need to be alive for it. Their attempts to escape are considered grave enough sin to justify their killing, at least in the vision of the officers and the Unified States.

I send out messages to all those I can, warning them to stay and obey until I can come to free them. They’re not strong enough to fight against the soldiers, and while as a group they might stand a chance, we aren’t likely to get the rest of the civilians fighting or even running from the officers.

“Argh!” Our vanguard shouts out in pain, drawing my attention. He stumbles about staring at the wet ground and cursing at his feet. The others beside him start screaming as they scrape their boots along the ground and stomp as if trying to clean bubbling oil off of their feet.

“What’s happening!” Red calls.

“My feet are burning!” he grunts through grit teeth, struggling to keep his gun up as the shadows before us move.

“Attack!” Red orders and the soldiers obey, setting aside their pain as they level their guns and fire. Rattling gunfire spreads out from the front lines. Much quieter than proper guns, the screams soon hide the weapon’s sounds.

“Contact!” the brute of a man shouts, spraying bullets down the hall and into the ranks of soldiers that come pouring down toward us. The other soldiers are struggling to keep a straight aim but make up for it by shooting twice as fast.

The bullets hit hard, releasing their load of annihilation magic which carves into the shields and defences of the enemy soldiers. Screams come quick and fast, but we do not stop or even pause. We march right over the bodies of the soldiers as they wheeze out their last desperate breaths.

Bullets are fired dozens a second, days of work spilling into enemy flesh in but a few passing moments. The enemy is capable, but they can’t hold up against this onslaught.

While the front rows collapse, those behind take cover around corners or in the rooms diverging from the hall. While I’m still thinking of how to best approach the problem, Red is directing the soldiers to respond.

Our warriors raise shields and pair up to watch each other’s backs. The first pair reaches a side door, holding his shield up as the enemy dives at the front warrior, only to be impaled on the spear of the man behind. A gunshot takes the wounded soldier, ending him quickly.

While we must slow to deal with the ambushes, our pace is still at a quick walk, each fight lasting but a few moments before the enemy is put down. A few more resilient foes back away and harry us until Red or I cut them down.

It’s… underwhelming.

These are meant to be proper soldiers, but they’re weak, their mana reserves so low that even the students aren’t in much danger. This is what I’d be doing if I didn’t rebel against the Unified States? Working as a disposable minion, hunting people to try and enslave them?

Shouts erupt from the back of our formation as a fight breaks out, but a glance proves that the guns are even more effective when there are no ambushes to consider.

“Are guns really so powerful?” I ask, crawling out of the tunnel and into the sunlight. A large flat-bottomed vessel is parked in the open plains not far from where we battled our teacher, countless students and teachers are gathered before it.

“No,” Red replies with a chuckle. “What’s powerful is burning fistfuls of mana in each attack. These soldiers are trained to be conservative with their resources, and we’re pelting them with more mana than they’ve seen in the last decade.

“This is just like how you burn all your mana in those insane spells, just on a smaller scale.”

What’s left unsaid is the shrinking stacks of ammunition carried between our warriors. I know just how many bullets we’ve made, and we can’t keep this pace forever.

The glass egg still hovers on the horizon near us, but far enough that we should be safe for a time. I can’t see anyone left up there, but I doubt they’d leave it unmanned.

The prison vessel near to us shines brightly from the crystal that constructs it. The forces arrayed around it are not nearly threatening enough to stop us.

“Go!” Red shouts, our group splintering as we take separate orders from the experienced tactical commander.

“Kyra, you’re seizing the ship with Adler, Vii, and our scouts,” Red says, as she charges into the gathered soldiers.

The weaker recruits that have followed us this far disperse among the prisoners, searching for familiar faces and just keeping out of the fight.

Red, along with most of our warriors, is moving quickly to intercept any of the enemies that they can find. There are enough to keep us busy for a while.

Adler, Vii, and I are tasked with taking the ship. That means we have to find the pilot and secure the enchantments that control the vessel, then clear out any soldiers on board.

With these crystal mast vessels, capable of facilitating efficient space transportation, you can always find the enchantments near the trunk of the tree. The controls should be somewhere on the upper decks, and the pilot should be close by.

My expanded sight can’t peer inside, as I’ve got no one’s sight to draw upon. I rely on my team around me as I leap into the air and with Vii’s guidance, land on the top deck.

We don’t split up, our earlier supremacy in combat a limited thing, and our enemies are not the sort to be underestimated. Even so, most of those we pass run from us, more ship’s crew than soldiers.

“Stop and submit yourselves to collaring!” A soldier shouts, a familiar lizardman, but I can’t quite remember where I know him from.

I cast a quick annihilation spell, separating his arms from his body but he pushes through with a loud hiss, landing a headbutt on me. Mana stirs inside my pores, humming with energy as the adaption feeds extra power into the magical shield defending me.

He thinks to touch me?

No.

My eyes turn to Eshya, lying motionless in our bed.

“Get out of our way,” I say, thrusting my hand into his chest and crushing whatever organs are closest to his heart. The man, crumples, not yet dead.

Death is rarely truly swift, but I follow up with the destruction of his head to end his suffering.

“Wasn’t he…?” Vii asks, following me as we leave the corpse behind. “I think he helped us on the first ship, when Red was fighting us.”

“Was that where I remember him from?” I ask, reconciling his face with the warrior that fought outside of our ship back then. Strange how the world works…

Through the bowels of the vessel, we search for the control panels and wade through the soldiers ready to tear us apart.

“Here!” Shy, our scout, shouts from ahead of us, a glowing set of enchantments bright in her eyes.

The pilot jumps in surprise and stares over at her, reaching for a knife and dragging it over the enchantments as she leaps out to stop him.

Claws grasp at her from the shadows. A creature crawls out from the darkness and starts cutting at her throat, the wounds bleeding terribly in the short moment before I can summon my magic.

Adler is moving to catch the pilot with a collar, while I cast my magic on the shadow. It warps itself back into the two-dimensional space as my annihilation webs out to carve it apart.

Threads of ash separate it into parts, but it barely seems affected.

Shy staggers back, holding at her throat. The wound is serious, more so than these soldiers would usually inflict, but the reason becomes clear as she topples over and the bleeding stops.

Some sort of poison, combined with something to clot the wounds? A strange combination of powers. Yet, these soldiers aren’t allowed to kill so it’s not surprising that they’ve come up with techniques that work within those rules.

I can’t see the soldier, I can’t tell it apart from the mundane shadows that fill the room, but when Vii shouts, pointing at the darkness beneath Adler, I don’t hesitate.

I press an angry fire into the raging annihilation and when the shadow bursts out to try and grab Adler, ashen veins burst out into explosive flames, tearing the shadow apart limb from oily limb.

I know for sure that it’s dead as the liquid silver drips from its small body.

“Obey me,” Adler says. “Stop damaging this ship, stop moving, and don’t call for help.”

The pilot stops moving, but the damage is done. Whatever’s special about that knife, it carved through not just the shapes of the enchantments but the magic within them.

“It’s broken,” Vii says standing over the enchantments. “Badly broken.”

“Ria’s coming now,” I say. “We’ll get it fixed. Can it still fly?”

“Pilot, obey orders from Kyra,” Adler says to our new slave.

“The ship can still use space magic to fly but the enchantments guiding realm shifts have been damaged.”

“We’re stuck on this planet?” I ask, barely holding back from swearing as I report to Red. Apparently the fight outside hasn’t been as clean as I’d been hoping for.

“More enemies coming,” I say, looking outside and preparing some spells to help. “Red’s getting everyone on board, then we’re going to get us another ship.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Stats and Skills

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 53,492 / 60,892 units

Current mana volume: 26,592 / 30,271 shards

Mana volume at crystallisation density (Max. mana volume):

Kyra: 30,271 shards

Kyra’s armour: 20,777 shards

Kyra’s throne: 1,109,298 shards

~Forms

Mana Canon

-Annihilation Heart (Adapted)

-Blood Fuel (Adapted)

-Bone Magic Storage (Adapted)

-Nail Shifters (Adapted)

Dancer

-Flash Nerves (Adapted)

-Quick Perception Mind (Adapted)

-Burst Reflex Muscles (Adapted)

-Layered Space Muscles (Adapted)

Turtle

-Rebinding Tissue (Adapted)

-Catalyst Sweat Glands (Adapted)

-Repulsive Skin (Adapted)

-Prehensile hair (Adapted)

-Fatty Tissue Blood Storage (Adapted)

Investigator

-Wide eyes (Adapted)

-Wide ears (Adapted)

-Sharp nose (Adapted)

Misc.

-Clean bowels (Adapted)

-Mana Drive (Adapted)

~Favourited Skills:

Magic:

-Annihilation Magic (Customised)

-Fire Magic (Functional)

-Space magic (Broken)

-Force magic (Functional)

-Ice magic (Broken)

-Wind magic (Broken)

Movement:

-Hand-to-hand casting (Functional)

-Mana surge movement (Functional)

-Stealth (Functional)

Senses:

-Eyes of an Empire (Customised)

-Combat Awareness (Functional)

-Watchmen (Functional)

-Hidden bug (Mastered)

-De-tagging (Mastered)

-Anti-stealth sight (Mastered)

Special:

-Spirit Transformation (Broken)

-Conformity (Broken)

-Training mana form (Functional)