Chapter 231: Havoc
As the ships droned and the Hybrids stomped, we skulked beneath them in the sewers. We passed several of the checkpoints, dispatching several groups of Hybrid sentries sent to find us. Once up close to the first point for our illusions, I stepped up the wall of stone. As if covered in black water, my skin shifted like living blades. I cut through the rock with ease, pulling myself forward with gravity.
I rose through the dirt and stone, passing up into the first building. I walked up to the top floor, the windows blown out from the chaos below. Beneath , Hybrids haunted the streets like steel titans. They stood over the doorways and cars, their monstrous fras crushing the city with ease.
Several of the Hybrids carried carcasses of espens, chewing on the opened entrails. They dug their tal wires into the corpses. It mirrored the mandibles of a mantis munching through a cicada. Several of the espens were alive, screaming for help.
I crushed the urge to help them as I planted the quintessence stone. I ripped my gaze from the horrors, pacing back down into the depths. We raced through the hidden hallways of the city. Once through to the next point, I walked into a woodshop that survived the last incursion. I planted the illusion and passed the corpses of a family of espens. Soone devoured only their eyes and the contents of their skulls.
Throughout the entirety of placing these illusions, the city showed signs of devastation. The totalitarian rebels took a zero-tolerance policy for those that didn’t join them. Though it might not have started that way, over ti, these people devolved as the conflict continued. From what I imagined, the rebels committed acts of evil after joining. Once done, they either rationalized what they did or went insane.
This devolvent of the city’s people made Polydra’s destruction less of an issue for . This place died a while back, and now it was a shambling corpse instead of a living tropolis. Either way, I planted the final illusion near the entrance of a tro.
With that finished, I turned towards the final group remaining with . The others split from us as we planted the decoys. Now Kessiah and Krog braced themselves for what was to co. I raised a hand,
“For the guild. Let’s show them what we can do.”
They gave a curt nod before racing off to their positions. I did the sa seconds after, burrowing until I reached a tall skyscraper. After passing a beautiful but downtrodden reception area, pounding footsteps echoed above . I sprinted towards an elevator shaft, not wanting to walk up hundreds of staircases. Avoiding prying eyes played to my advantage as well.
I wiggled into the elevator sideways, struggling to fit. Seconds later, I lted through the top of the tal box. I tid the roof’s destruction with a giant explosion in the distance. After rippling of the wire ebbed in my ears, I shot up with gravity guiding . Hundreds of floors passed before I reached the top level.
Far above the destruction below, I gained a view of the entire city. I walked up to a wall of glass, Polydra’s ruin spreading out beneath . After rolling my shoulders, I pressed my hands together. A dozen different objects lifted from around . I pulled my arms in, the furniture racing forward.
With office chairs keeping hidden, I sat down in a fort of printers, water coolers, and office furniture more akin to cardboard than wood. From the cracks in my guise, I reached out a hand, mana saturating my blood like liquid energy. It built in my hands as I stared at the dreadnought. A few seconds later, and my hand trembled with palpating power.
I braced a hand while sending a ssage to the others,
The Living Multiverse(lvl 10,000) – Go
– Kessiah –
I turned my gaze up as a flash of light erupted over the city. Above, cataclysmic detonation echoed across the city. Plugging my ears, I braced myself as a shockwave dispersed throughout Polydra. A sound loud enough to shatter teeth and crack stone followed.
Krog raised a wing, protecting from being launched like a styrofoam cup caught up in a gust of wind. The source of the carnage, the enormous vessel’s forcefield billowed out. My breath seized in my chest at the sight of the damn thing. It was just so fucking big. Ah fuck, why was I here again?
I shook my head as glass pelted from above. I was tough enough for this shit at least. I turned down as Krog ripped a Hybrid from one of the gialgathens. Yeah. That was why I was here. To help this asshole. Great.
I hyperventilated as my eyebrows singed off my face from Krog’s heated breath. That was about the only thing that matched the guy’s fiery temper. Once the Hybrid disintegrated, I leaped down onto the broken pavent. Stumbling over to the gialgathen, I opened my ring’s storage.
“Fuck, ah fuck.”
I pulled out a bag of blood before ripping it open. A car beside Krog exploded, another shockwave making stumble to my side. I lost focus for a mont, the blood falling down in a torrent of red. I reached out a hand, my eyes widening,
“Ah, hell no. No, no, no.”
If I had to fucking use my own blood again, I’d fall out right here.
Another deafening boom shot out from above, the dreadnought unleashing arcane bolts at one of the illusions near us. I attempted ignoring the insanity all around as I healed this gialgathen that got caught up in this shitstorm.
I stuck to the wounds that usually resulted in death. Pretty much, they were always blood loss, cardiac arrest, or organ failure. The other stuff was beyond , so, I prioritized the major arteries first to stabilize their blood pressure and lower blood loss. After that, the guys needed an injection of fluids to help the heart with the whole pumping to live thing.
Once I got them stable, I slapped the shit out of them to wake them up. Worked like a charm.
With that in mind, I unleashed a furious flurry of slaps onto this random dude. The gialgathens eyes twitched, so I set his head down. Tossing it onto rock wasn’t a good idea. Done it once and the gialgathen died. Talk about a lot of wasted effort.
A bit of Hybrid mush beneath twitched, so I jumped up and scread,
“Oh shit.”
Krog obliterated it with a tail whip, dirt spraying over my face. I spit out so mud, my hair blown back. I turned to the asshole,
“Thanks for the help.”
The damn gialgathen smirked at ,
“No need for thanks. I would do it anyti.”
He pulled the gialgathen up onto his back with a wing. After he adjusted it, I jumped on top of the pile of bodies. We leaped back up to the chaos, the wind off his wings, sending cars flying. I stared at the dreadnought, the ship casting entire city blocks in the shade. It looked like shit.
Daniel already blew up vast portions of it. Large hunks of the ship were just missing. It looked like a void shark just took a massive bite out of the damn thing. No void sharks here though. Only Daniel and his good ole singularity thingamajig.
As we crossed portions of the ruins, one of the spires reared back to swipe at us. It was like staring at a giant dick of death. Well, maybe the fact I thought of it like that said more about than the damn spire. Eh, whatever.
As it whipped towards us, I swore to Baldowah that if I lived through this shit, I was never going back to a warzone. Leave this hell for fighters like Daniel. I preferred putting the ss back together afterward. Yenno, in a safe ass hospital. This shit, this shit right here sucked.
As the tal tendril of doom slamd towards us, I covered my ears. Krog unleashed a devastating roar towards the tallic tendril, the sonic boom sending the tentacle sideways from the impact. The wily old general aid his attack to send the spire at one of Daniel’s illusions. As it landed beside the mana crystal. Krog sent out a telepathic roar. Once his mind touched the gem, the white stone detonated. An elental blast bood from the tiny bomb. It unleashed blue fire, orange ice, and multi-colored crabs from the point impact. I shook my head, utterly flabbergasted at the sheer amount of crabs here. I an, what the fuck was going on?
There were so many crabs. Why were there so many crabs?
Wait a minute. They were elental crabs. The elental crabs latched onto the frozen tendril, crawling across its surface. As they pooled near the base of the massive pillar of tal, they used their claws to snip the damn thing to death. I started rooting for the little guys.
I waved my fist. Go crabs. Go get that bastard. Fuck him up.
Another calamity discharged behind us, the behemoth of a ship quaking under the might of another gravitational implosion. We rode the shockwave, Krog smoothly adjusting to the shift in his flight path. I stared down, several other spires stuck in giant blocks of burning ice. The frozen fires allowed more crabs to destroy more spires.
At this point, the entire battlefield descended to utter madness. Hybrids attacked crabs. Crabs attacked Hybrids. Gialgathens burned. Gialgathens got burned. I’ll be honest, I kept my head down as Krog took the brunt of the battle on. This shit was way beyond at this point.
The battle continued even if I didn’t look at it though. We landed at the base of one of the pillars. It slled like a jug of milk left in a hot car for months, the Hybrids repulsive as can be. I gagged as Krog ran up to save other gialgathens.
From this stinking, orange, and sloppy pit, Krog roared once more. The apricot-colored liquid sprayed out at us, but Krog waved his wings, sending it flying everywhere else but here. Thank Baldowah. I did not want that shit on .
Krog reached into the pit of tamorphizing gialgathens. Pulling them out one by one, his eyes widened as a thousand-yard stare covered his face. It was too much for the old guy, and I couldn’t bla him. A lot of these poor bastards didn’t have skin, the orange slop replacing it with tal wires and corded steel.
It gave flashbacks to the endless flesh that used my body like a puppet. The violation. The helplessness. My breath quickened as I cald myself, using so ntal tactics I developed to deal with it.
Count to a hundred by 7’s. I didn’t understand how Daniel pushed through all this. He just did. I wasn’t like that. It hit hard, and I couldn’t just keep standing up after every knockout blow like Daniel could.
Hell, it took all I had just to stand back up.
I shook out that mory, getting back in the mont. I slapped my cheeks as Krog sorted the gialgathens. One pile was for those beyond saving. The others had a chance. Once completed, I jumped down, my feet cracking stone under . I frowned at the rock. I wasn’t fat, alright? The pavent was just weak.
Anyways, I ran up to one of the tangerine-colored bodies. This one retained skin for the most part. I grabbed the sides of my head, panicking for a second. I couldn’t do a damn thing due to the nature of the wounds. These guys were in the middle of a reformation. All my skills oriented around healing injuries, so what good was I here?
From behind , another enormous detonation echoed out. As it rippled past , I stumbled forward. A good portion of the orange gunk sprayed off the corpses, stopping their reformation. That was it. I raised my hands while turning to Krog,
“I think I have an idea for how to get rid of this…Krog?”
I turned around, unable to find the fiery gialgathen. I walked back and forth, my gaze wide. Hybrids sprinted off in the distance. They burrowed through the ground and grabbed running espens and gialgathens alike. For a mont, I wondered if the old bastard left . If he did, I was dead. I couldn’t even fight one of the Hybrids here. They’d reach their hands through my skin, eating alive from the inside.
A primal, dark fear manifested in my chest. mories of that day versus Dahkma ran through my mind. My breathing quickened. My pulse pounded in my ears and chest, almost painful as adrenaline flooded my system. A second later, Krog let out a roar of agony.
I sprinted towards the source. I wish I could say it was to save a friend. It wasn’t. It was to save . As I neared the gialgathen, I found three Hybrids pinning Krog down as one pried his mouth open. One of them was trying to crawl inside him, his skin too hard for them.
My heart seized while my stomach sank. My vision narrowed as fear overca . My knees wobbled. My hands trembled. I blinked back tears as they crawled towards Krog, making progress in their infestation.
I willed myself forward, desperate to help him, to help . I didn’t budge. I stayed in place. A wave of guilt and self-loathing washed over . Why was I so weak? Why was I so pathetic? I could do this. It was better to die saving Krog than trying to run away.
But no matter how hard I tried running forward, fear paralyzed . It whispered in my ear about my failures. It spoke about all the tis I failed not only myself but other people. It reminded that when everyone needed most, I failed.
My vision blurred as tears of frustration built in my eyes. I fell down to my knees as nausea passed into my chest. I watched as the Hybrids edged closer and closer, Krog struggling to stop them. I looked down, grabbing fist fulls of dirt.
Why was this all so hard? Why did fear stop ?
I didn’t find an answer.
I glanced back up, the horror of the situation overwhelming . For a mont, it was like I was looking at myself from a distance. A realization sparked in my head. What would happen if I just kept laying here?
I would die.
I was letting the fear of what may happen stop . Well, if I did nothing, the outco was about as bad as it could be. I pushed my knees, wobbling as I stood up. I gripped my hands into fists. It was about damn ti I put my fear behind instead of letting it stop .
Still shaking, I opened my dinsional storage. I pulled out dozens of blood packs, tearing them open as the blood siphoned around . It pooled, purifying in a sanguine sphere. I siphoned streams of my blood into my eyes, ears, and skin. As the sensation of power flooded my fra, mories of killing my family with my blood arts rushed into my head.
I shook them off. Black veins spread over my skin as the urge to kill and crush rushed over like endless rain. Even with fear still coursing through , I dashed towards the Hybrids over Krog. My feet turned pavent to dust as I tackled one of three Hybrids holding Krog down. The tal crumpled under my touch, but my own skin and bones ripped as well. The Hybrid tumbled across the ground before colliding with a building beside us. Concrete powder billowed out from the Hybrid’s impact with the building as I let out a grunt. Staring at my wounds, I diagnosed myself.
I wiggled an arm. Pain radiated upward. Yup, I dislocated it while covering it with a few nasty gashes. Pulling the blood from the wound, I healed the external wounds before taking a deep breath. I bit into my sleeve as I shoved my arm back into the socket. I let out a scream muffled by the jacket as I turned forward.
The other Hybrids turned to , their insectoid mouths squirming. Their twitching, deford features sent another wave of terror up my spine. I lifted my shivering arms and said in a ek voice,
“Get off him.”
Krog took a breath, this one mont enough. He opened his massive mouth, the Hybrid falling into his maw. Before it infested him, he roared out. The other Hybrid flew off from the shockwave. Even I dragged back several feet; his roar was simply that strong.
Krog stood up as another Hybrid jumped behind him. The old general whipped his tail, annihilating the Hybrid into a fine mist with an explosive impact. He stomped another into nothingness, killing it under his thick heels. He turned to ,
“That was brave, little one. Thank you for saving .”
I won’t lie, I blushed a bit. I don’t know why exactly, but I did.
“Uh, no problem.”
Krog pulled the gialgathen onto his back before gesturing to ,
“Co. There’s still much to do and little ti to do it.”
I took a few more deep breaths. He was right.
“Yeah. I’m coming.”
As I ran over, I peered down. Oddly enough, there was a grin on my face. I lifted my hands in fists. I did it. This ti was different because I was different. I was a new .
Another ungodly explosion radiated out from above, and I howled while raising my hands over my face. The mont passed as I lowered my hands.
Ok, maybe not an entirely new , but it was a start.
– Daniel –
Ascendant mana coursed into my blood before dispersing through my palm. My hand glowed from the flow of energy, lighting the cluster of shitty office furniture covering . In my view, another singularity obliterated the side of the dreadnought through its forcefield. After twenty minutes of bombardnt, the spacial field protecting the dreadnought fizzled out.
I reached out my hands, the furniture crashing outwards along with the glass wall lining this portion of the skyscraper. I sprinted forward before lunging out over the battlefield. Firing over the expanse, I shot forward with a gravitational well. A shockwave ebbed under my heels as I shifted my body into a sharpened blade.
Piercing into the ship’s hull, I sprinted through several walls before reaching the factory line for the gialgathens. I grimaced as I stepped out onto a tal walkway. Soone in a gas mask glanced at , stunned before I stared down at him.
I backhanded his face into a pulped mush against a nearby wall. His remains splattered onto the floor beneath . One of the workers gasped as blood covered him. I stepped forward while cracking my knuckles. With Event Horizon, I jumped down as the bodies near evaporated into the abyss.
I silenced every voice, a symphony of screams then silence passing over the line as I salvaged the gialgathens here. Once culled, I sprinted back out towards the hull. I gripped the steel wall before shearing it in my palms. Like wrapping paper, it tore with utter ease, the splintering steel rippling out with an ear-piercing squeal. Gravity contorted the walls further, letting pull the gialgathens from this hell.
Working with Krog, I threw the ball of gialgathens out into the sky. A legion of gialgathens raced passed, collecting their fallen brethren. The most contorted mbers stayed suspended within my dinsional warp, keeping them from infecting others. The others were carried to relative safety.
With the gialgathens out, I turned back to the tal structure that held them. I leaned down, planting my feet. With telekinetic augnts, I shot upward. The walls of tal bellied outwards, stretching and leaving the surface heated. I crushed through walls and expunged the people here. Within minutes, I killed most of the crew.
As I lifted out of the dreadnought, I left a void in the hull beneath . The torn upper portion of the ship sheened in the sun as fires and explosions rippled out beneath along the surface of the vessel. I glanced up at my allies as the dreadnought collapsed onto Polydra.
A blinding light flashed behind as I stared at a golden line grafting into the sky over the other side of the city. Lehesion’s aura leaked out, but the colossus himself didn’t pour out of the portal. Ships and other resources flooded from the rippling void, along with an army of Hybrids, however.
Around , my guildsn and the injured regrouped onto the other side of the city. As they flew beneath , another entity ca from the portal. It was a different mber of the Hybrids, its bulk far larger and its form more humanoid. It mimicked the energy aura of Lehesion, a palpable, golden atmosphere encompassing it.
It showed the sa sleeker, more shaped body of the Hybrid in the nautical base. It carried the sa variety of faces, mouths and electronic eyes scattered over its upper body. Unlike Version 2.0, it glared across the battlefield, its eyes analyzing with a cold, calculating gaze.
In a way, it was like staring at a crowd glaring in the sa direction. Within seconds, it locked its many eyes on , a shiver racing down my spine. I analyzed the creature. As I did, I grimaced. This was worse than I thought.
Version 2.2(lvl: 19,429~ | Status: Unknown | Bounty: S-) – This unholy amalgam of eldritch and silver has developed baseline levels of intelligence and autonomy. This in conjunction with an imnse, natural tenacity given its form, and the monster is enough to be considered a planetary threat all on its own.
This is due partly to its insatiable nature, but it also persists from a presence in its mind. Due to so psionic influence, this beast is far more stable and intelligent than it would otherwise be. Combine this with the apparent feeding from Lehesion’s own reserves of energy, and this Hybrid is an utter and complete monstrosity.
Good luck should you be forced to face its wrath. It’s recomnded you run and plan against it, however.
I took a deep breath before charging energy into my blood. Defeating sothing like this on my own was beyond . I understood that in an instant. However, holding it at bay was within my grasp. Until my forces retreated, I’d fight this behemoth on my own.
You’d think fear would be racing up my spine, but no, an excitent grew in my chest. I glared at it as it glared at . It gave a nacing, broken grin. From one monster to another, I grinned back. And so, I dashed forward, into the swarm of tal.
This was going to be fun.
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