As he flew down the tunnel, the air began to get warmer and it smelled of ozone. At the same time, he began to feel a strange sense of disorientation, almost like his vision was wavering. The further he traveled, the worse it seemed to get. Just to be on the safe side, he used a quick burst of Life Magic to ensure that he hadn't been poisoned or drugged.
While his mana did manage to cure a minor headache, which he hadn't noticed until then, it did nothing to correct the abnormalities in his surroundings.
[The air doesn't appear to be causing this. Hell, it's almost like the world itself is warping…]
With a sense of foreboding, Mike channeled some mana in his Space Magic and expanded his awareness. Instantly, he understood the cause. It appeared that the very fabric of existence was bending and twisting. He could even detect a few fraying tears, which were too small to be visible, but were quickly growing in size.
"Shit." He muttered.
It was clear that he'd stumbled on a potential world-ending threat…again.
After about a kilometer, the tunnel opened up into a vast chamber. It was unnaturally smooth and spherical in shape, extending several hundred meters across, and was centered around the long crystal spike, which Mike realized must pass all the way through the island. Built at the exact epicenter of the room was a platform that circled the spike. There, he got his first look at the Asani, as well as the creature they were fighting.
Winged humanoids that would have resembled angelic beings, if not for their distinctly avian head and arms, were frantically trying to protect themselves from a monster straight out of nightmare, which his senses told him was the cause of this disturbance.
It was a misshapen and strangely transparent mass of a rubbery material that reminded Mike of gelatin...or at least would have if said gelatin had been left out for far too long, exposed to some kind of mutating radiation, and evolved into a cosmic horror bent on devouring the world. As if to prove that point, its body began to change, forming a seemingly random collection of fanged maws, writhing tendrils, and glassy, staring eyes all over.
While horrific to look upon, the beast was far from the worst thing he'd seen since reincarnating. Yet, for some reason, merely glancing in its direction was enough to make him feel queasy. Something about it was so wrong, so immiscible to this world, that its very presence seemed to distort his perception of reality.
Hoping to get a better idea of what he was dealing with, Mike tried to Appraise it.
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[That's different…] He thought initially, before remembering that he'd seen the System behave this way on one other occasion. Specifically, in his own class description, when listing the name of the Ancient One who'd sent him to this world.
[Whatever this means, I doubt it's good.]
The Asani, for their part, appeared to be engaged in a series of hit and run attacks. The fast-moving warriors would swoop in low, stab at the squishy mass a few times, and then escape before the grasping tentacles could reach them. They didn't appear to be having much effect, and Mike was a bit confused as to what their strategy might be.
Suddenly, one of the bird people on the platform issued a shrill cry. The flying Asani began putting as much distance as possible between them and the creature. Almost simultaneously, a cylindrical device on the platform around the crystal started to glow with an angry, red light. After a few seconds of charging, a beam of intense crimson energy exploded forth from the weapon in a shriek of tortured air and slammed into the strange creature. It silently recoiled from the blow, as some of its component mass began to disintegrate.
For a brief moment, Mike thought the Asani had won. Every second the weapon remained operational, more of the creature was dissolved, but that changed when it counter attacked.
It spawned a particularly large tentacle, which it whipped at the platform with blinding speed. Rather than the terrific impact he'd expected though, the limb seemed to simply pass through the weapon and a few of its surrounding defenders, leaving nothing but empty space in its wake.
As Mike watched the severed arm of one of the Asani warriors fall towards the distant floor, he realized that this is what must have happened to the other bodies above ground.
[So, it can dissolve things on contact…or perhaps erase them from existence is a better explanation.] He thought while examining the resulting spatial disturbances caused by the creature's act of destruction. [However, based on the way it seems to still be affected by the Asani's more mundane attacks, it isn't constantly active. In which case…]
With a few plans in mind, he began chanting.
---------------------------------
Sahel dodged to his right at the last second, but couldn't get fully away from the Invader's attack. A searing bolt of pain shot through his body as his left wing was caught in the blow.
"Grrrrgh." He grunted, slamming into the plating of the Command Platform. He felt the Sky Steel structure creak ominously, and a distant part of his mind realized that the lower supports must have been hit.
Struggling to his taloned feet, he briefly glanced back at his wing and immediately regretted it. The appendage had been sheared off a little after the middle joint. Thankfully, it had apparently been cauterized in the process, so he needn't fear bleeding to death, but it would require several weeks' worth of visits to the Medical Corps to regenerate. Of course, that was assuming he survived the next few minutes.
The Invader chose that moment to become agitated, swiftly recovering its lost mass in a flurry of growth and change which had the other warriors scattering to avoid being caught by one of its flailing limbs.
"Sahel!" Tuli called as she landed nearby. "Are you alright?"
With an effort, he managed to steady himself and answer in a manner that would not alarm her. "I'll live. Where are the other weapons platforms? We cannot hope to hold the Invader with strength of arms alone."
"Most were damaged in the crash, and the few that weren't have to be recalibrated, lest they self-destruct when activated. The engineers are working, but it will be several minutes, at least, before they can get here."
Sahel stared up at the Invader, who seemed to have overcome its momentary outburst, and was now menacingly drifting closer to the Command Platform, no doubt intending on destroying the flight matrix which its fellows had damaged. "We do not have that long."
With a growing sense of helplessness, he realized he had neither the tools nor the manpower to throw back the enemy in front of him. His hands clenched and unclenched impotently at his side as he came up with plan after plan, only to discard them as unusable.
"Then our only hope is that the Creators have mercy upon us." Turi added morosely, her wings flattening against her back in her despair.
He was about to growl a response about the uselessness of relying on uncaring deities, when something miraculous actually occurred.
Dozens of projectiles, almost moving too quickly to be seen, suddenly impacted the Invader, punching holes in its body. Sahel could tell that the blow was far from lethal, but it had nevertheless hurt the monster greatly, forcing it to retract in upon itself to recover.
"Where did that come from? Are one of the Homeguard units still alive?" Turi asked in amazement.
"No bolt thrower in our arsenal could do something like that." He shot back gruffly as he scanned the chamber for the source of the attack. He did not have to look long, as a small humanoid figure landed lightly on the plating nearby, moving quickly enough that Sahel was barely able to track his arrival.
It was a young human, by all appearances, wearing a crimson cloak, but carrying no obvious weapons. The Asani veteran assumed that due to his arrival and lack of armaments, the stranger must have been some kind of mage. That being said, he doubted that anyone so young would be capable of magical flight.
[Perhaps he is one of the Immortals, or is wearing some form of disguise. I can only hope he does not belong to the ranks of the undead. If those monsters got a hold of our technology…]
Almost as if he was intentionally ignoring the two Asani, the youth kept his attention on the Invader, muttering quietly under his breath as he did so. Although Sahel's Pyrathien was rusty, he could make no sense of the words, leading him to believe that it was a chant.
Turi moved to step forward, evidently seeking to question the newcomer, but Sahel held her back. Whatever the mage was intending to do, it would be best to not interrupt him.
The youth finished his chant, and the air around him erupted in an intense heat. Crackles of lightning ran through the deck plating, causing the two Asani to jump back to a safe distance. The human raised one arm above his head, fingers splayed, and a ball of angry blinding light formed in the palm of his hand. He held it there for a moment, as the air began to swirl around him.
The orb started to grow larger, and Sahel had to step back even further as the heat grew to match. He could only imagine what it must feel like to be caught in the center of that inferno. That a human could remain there without issue was almost as unbelievable as him creating the dangerous energy ball in the first place.
[The deck plating is beginning to melt...A Tier 3...no, he must be a Tier 4. No other mortal beings have such presence. But what is he doing here? Could word of our plight already reached the surface?]
Before he had a chance to contemplate the oddity of the situation, the human thrust his arm forward and hurled the ball at the Invader. It careened through the air, accompanied by a shriek of superheated wind. The extra-dimensional being attempted to avoid the attack, but the laws of this world kept it from making full use of its mobility. As a result, it could only partially escape the orb.
The energy did not hit it, so much as devour its way through the creature's mass. Roughly three quarters of the Invader's form was dissolved in the angry light, the remainder existing only because of its last minute avoidance. The ball continued, largely unaffected by the encounter, and slammed into the far wall of the Control Chamber, melting a hole that seemed to continue for some time before the temperature abated. He hoped it would not create a tunnel to the outside and compromise the structural integrity of the Asan. Of course, that was a distant concern at the moment.
Sahel clenched his talons in regret. The human had been so close to dealing the creature a finishing blow, driving it from this realm. Now they would need to strike again, before it had a chance to escape and reform. Suspecting that the mage likely had no idea what he was facing, he stepped forward to speak, using what little he remembered of his Pyrathien.
He could only hope that his meaning got across.
--------------------------------
[Welp, that should do it.] Mike thought as he watched the strange creature begin to dissolve into particles. He'd been concerned that he might have to do something else to deal with the monster, but evidently throwing a wad of plasma at it had done the trick.
"Much more, for to make death. Trap can hull, save all!"
Mike glanced over at the injured bird man, completely confused. "...What?"
The Asani shook his head, and spoke again. "Make death, must trap can!"
This time he tried to illustrate what he was talking about with his taloned hands, making a sort of crushing gesture, then acting like he was throwing something.
"Can you just speak normally, like in a language that you know?" He shot back, concentrating on using his Communication Magic.
The bird man blinked, momentarily taken aback, before yelling, "The Invader is escaping! You have to trap it now, before it has a chance to regroup and reform!"
Mike looked back at the weird gelatin monster, which was still dissolving. As far as he could tell it was no longer alive, but then again he was probably speaking to the closest thing to an expert on gelatin monsters he was likely to find around here.
[I'm not sure how effective a physical restraint would be, and I don't want to try to maintain some kind of energy cage for any length of time, so I guess that leaves me with Space Magic.]
He went over a mental list of the chants he'd memorized, finally selecting one he'd had some luck with during practice.
"Twist and twirl at the heart of creation. Bend that which cannot be broken. Tie that which cannot be unwoven. Seal that which has no opening. [Spatial Prison]"
Warping space itself around the creature, he created something along the lines of a miniature pocket dimension that remained coterminous with reality, but had no traversable connection with it. By all appearances, it simply vanished from existence, however, Mike could still feel the creature just barely outside the realm of reality.
Normally, such an effect was temporary, locking the target in an inescapable prison for as long as the caster channeled mana into it, but he decided to add in his combo finisher which he'd developed with a fair amount of trial and error over the last few days.
While maintaining his concentration on the original spell, he channeled some additional mana and formed a dimensional blade at the exact point in space that maintained the connection between the Spatial Prison and the rest of the world. The result was the creation of a minor rift in the fabric of reality, which expelled the creature into inter-dimensional space.
[Whew, that was exhausting.] He thought to himself as he examined his mana reserves and determined that this method had taken nearly half of his supply.
He'd come up with this particular strategy as a means of disposing of troublesome opponents that refused to die. It was still in development, mainly because he'd yet to really determine where his targets ended up once they'd been ejected from the world. It was something he hadn't quite worked up the courage to explore just yet. Nevertheless, he was fairly confident that the creature would have trouble coming back.
Turning back towards the two Asani, Mike gave them a grin. "Now that's taken care of, how about we do some introductions?"