Doom.
That was the only word to describe it.
Genevieve’s return changed nothing.
It may have given the team of pro players a ntal boost but nothing tangible ca from it, nothing changed.
Not the sheer disparity in power.
Not the hopelessness that threatened to crush them.
Not the fact that Kali and Beezebub were unbeatable together.
Her revival only adjusted the death count, from four targets to kill... back to five. At least, to Kali.
And their deaths was still an inevitability.
The air grew colder.
Kali stood poised, her lethal daggers gleaming with the absence of light itself. The Lord of Flies, her puppet, lood beside her, his rotten wings pulsing with cursed energy.
It was over.
Aria knew it; Caleb knew it; Benjamin knew it.
And yet, Noah didn’t move.
He stood there, calm.
Unshaken.
He exhaled, and then sothing changed.
The flow state..., what was it?
Flow in positive psychology, also known colloquially as being in the zone or locked in, is the ntal state in which a person performing so activity is fully imrsed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvent, and enjoynt in the process of the activity.
In essence, flow is characterized by the complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting transformation in one’s sense of ti.
Flow is the lting together of action and consciousness; the state of finding a balance between a skill and how challenging that task it.
In essence, a state of ultra-instinct.
...a state where impossibilities are made possible.
And yet it wasn’t sothing that could be forced.
Not sothing that could be trained.
It was a phenonon, sothing that happened only in the rarest monts.
Precedents?
When pressure reached its peak.
When failure was certain.
When the brain had no choice but to abandon hesitation and beco one with action..., the lting together of action and consciousness.
It happened in sports.
It also happened in eSports.
And right now, Noah entered the flow state.
Bzzz!
His world slowed to a crawl.
Every movent, every breath, every flicker of motion, every shift of weight, everything beca a calculation.
There was no fear, no doubt, no hesitation. Only clarity.
Not everyone noticed the sudden state that Noah entered, only 2 noticed. Afterall, having played with him for over a decade, in a way, the way he felt inside the ga during tough battles was infectious.
Aria’s breathing steadied; Benjamin’s hands stopped shaking.
They followed him.
Their minds entering a state of hyper focus, their bodies instinctively sharper.
"...!" Kali’s eyes narrowed; she noticed it.
Beelzebub’s wings flared; he also sensed it.
And then... they moved.
Whoosh!
Noah vanished.
Not literally but in terms of perception, he might as well have.
One second he stood still, and the next, he was behind Beelzebub.
His Spellforged Battle Lance ignited, pulsing with pure, volatile energy.
BAM!
In one smooth motion, he thrust, straight for the base of Beelzebub’s skull even as he activated a skill to accompany it.
The Lord of Flies jerked back, but too late!
A golden blast of impact magic detonated at point-blank range.
Beelzebub reeled, shrieking. His form staggered, but Kali was already retaliating.
Her dagger flashed straight for Noah’s heart but then, Aria was there.
Her blade t Kali’s strike mid-motion!
Precision at 1 million percentage!
The shockwave rippled outward.
Blademaster vs Assassin!
Speed for speed; lethality for lethality.
Kali’s silver eyes flickered. Aria’s counter wasn’t just fast, the precision was borderline diabolical.
She was... keeping up.
No.
She was surpassing the Demoness.
Kali hissed; for the first ti, her expression twisting into sothing other than amusent in this battle.
And then, Benjamin struck.
There was a fine line between luck and brilliance, and in this mont, Benjamin blurred it effortlessly.
While Noah and Aria handled the demons, he did what he did best, he calculated from the shadows, looking for loopholes to exploit.
In the original team Cyber Squad, Benjamin was not part of the starting V in team battles, he was a reserve player. And as a reserve player, he learned the art of being an impact sub, observing battles long enough to find loopholes where they don’t exist to others.
Kali was an Assassin and a Necromancer; Beelzebub was a Summoner and a Gunner. Which ant they were incredibly lethal, but...
They had a fatal weakness.
Both classes were glass cannons, paper classes.
Kali and Beelzebub had high burst damage, but their stamina and sustain? High due to Hell Mode but still it was a resource ga.
And Benjamin knew how to starve them.
While Kali and Beelzebub pressed the offense, Benjamin set the battlefield.
{Cryo Collapse=}
A high level Elentalist skill, an area-wide frost magic field that siphons stamina from movent.
Every dodge, every step, every shift, Kali and Beelzebub would start bleeding resources with every move.
Beelzebub visibly slowed; Kali’s movents dulled.
And then, Genevieve struck.
Genevieve’s reaction wasn’t anything fancy. She wasn’t as fast as Noah, nor was she was fast as Aria, neither was she as precise as Benjamin.
But she was the backbone of this raid party.
With her returned presence, the team had a chance even if it was impossibly small.
She healed, she shielded, she kept them on their feet.
And slowly, ever so painfully slowly, the tides began to turn.
They had no business surviving for this long but sohow, fueled by a sheer defiant will not to lose, the tides began to turn.
BOOM!
After another terrifying explosion in this world of rotting flesh, Beelzebub staggered, his necrotic resurrection faltering.
One more push!
"Benjamin, detonate!" Noah’s voice rang out.
Benjamin’s hands imdiately moved in a blur, a chain of ice runes igniting at once as he activated another high level Elentalist skill.
{Cyro Explosion=}
KABOOM!
The battlefield shattered, the frost magic erupting even as Beelzebub’s form cracked, split, and tore apart.
And finally, he fell.
Dead.
For the second and final ti. Now, only Kali remained, and she was alone.
She breathed sharply, her stamina flickering as she stared daggers at them.
No more necromancy, no more back-up, no more tricks; just her.
She laughed. Softly at first, then louder.
"Oh," she murmured. "That was unexpected".
She rolled her shoulders, flipping her daggers.
Then, she grinned. "Very well," she said softly. "Let’s see if you can do it again".
And with that, she vanished.
BZZZ!
Beelzebub was dead, the second ti, incredulously.
Noah and his teammates had no business surviving this long not to talk about killing the Lord of the Flies a second ti, and yet, here they were, in an ultimate showdown to the death against the Demoness of Silence.
There was no hesitation..., it started.
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