"Listen up everybody, the real mission begins here. Somewhere behind those walls, a group of Vampires await us. Breach the walls, kill the targets and recover whatever it is they are guarding. Try not to die, and if you find Kismet, do NOT engage him on your own. Seek either us, or backup before fighting him. Alright then...let's begin."
No sooner had Isabelle finished speaking when Johan and Erich vanished into their shadows. Ruby tapped her foot against the ground, casting her quasi-translucent Mana over herself, Aryll and Himmel. The three slowly faded away, turning invisible and vanishing from Endyr's senses.
'A B-Grade cloaking spell...Indeed, Neural Mana is quite versatile in many fields.'
Victoria pulled a ring out from her clothes and put it on, causing wind drafts to form under her feet. With a gentle push, she floated off the ground and silently began heading for the building roof. Isabelle and Anna sunk into the ground seamlessly, soon leaving Endyr's detection range. Menes and Arnold turned on several more pieces of equipment and, abandoning all stealth, charged straight towards the entrance. Sheva sighed at the sight, but followed after them.
Kulkiri and Endyr were the last two remaining, and the former shot the latter a smirk. "Wanna team up little Miss?" he asked playfully. Endyr snorted and sunk into the shadows, the Hyppiliote-Nyx Bloodline boosting her under the moonlight. Kulkiri watched with a smile as he was left all alone on the streets, before reaching deep into his robe and pulling out an old pocket watch. Glancing at the time, he began whistling softly as he advanced towards the building, where the first sounds of conflict could be heard.
Under the silver moonlight, Kulkiri's figure began to blur and turn incorporeal. Whiffs of grey fog began to seep out from under his cloak, distorting his figure. Within a dozen seconds, the man had vanished, and a cloud of fog streaked through the night towards the building.
...
Gliding through the shadows, Endyr once again observed the strange world presented to her. Muted shades of greys, blacks and whites pulsed and faded into an ever-expanding background. Everything had been broken down to vague chalk-like outlines of its actual self, and direction had been inverted. Yet despite the bizarre nature of this realm, Endyr could feel a deeper and even crazier state hiding just below it.
She instinctively knew that should she stay too long, or explore past the safe boundaries, Endyr would fall into this deeper "layer" of reality. For her current self, this layer posed a great deal of danger. Resisting the subtle call, Endyr focused on entering the warehouse owned by the Vampires-or trying to anyway, since all objects had lost their identifiable characteristics. In the end, she had to rely on instinct and a stretch of the imagination to find the correct building.
Endyr bypassed the walls and outer arrays, but soon came to an obstacle that put up more resistance. Frowning, she tried to push through but failed to do so. Realising that her shadow-travel had reached a dead-end, she pulled out and appear in the material world once again.
Looking around, Endyr saw she was in an unlit corridor but had no sense of where in the complex she was. Cursing softly, she began to walk down the stretch while keeping an eye out for Vampires. According to Isabelle, there was around eighty Cultists in this group. Apart from Bishop Kismet and the seven Grandmaster Vampires under him, the rest were Masters with a dozen younger Vampires in the Mortal Tier. Of course, a Mortal Vampire was still greatly superior to a Mortal Human.
Being greatly outnumbered, being racially inferior and having split up in enemy territory...In retrospective, Endyr realised this entire operation was fucked from the start. "What the hell was the Harvest Church thinking by starting like this?" she muttered to herself.
After walking for several minutes yet finding no end in sight, or any other souls, Endyr decided to change things up. After giving one more furtive glance to ensure her isolation, she took a deep breathe and unleashed a Skill.
[Mana Manipulation]
At once, Endyr's whole world was flipped. Just like when she had entered the Shadow Realm (or whatever that strange place was), all the colours and shapes shifted and contorted into horrendous renditions of themselves. All of reality burgeoned and receded, just like the sea, while Endyr witnessed spectrums of colour even she struggled to comprehend. Everything began to break down, fade away and then reconstruct. Over and over again, Endyr underwent what could only be called the godfather of all psychedelic trips .
After what was simultaneously eternity yet an instant, Endyr felt a cold and dangerous grip lock onto her. Endyr spun around, sensing multiple pairs of eyes watching from somewhere within the sludge of space and time. With what little sense she retained, Endyr hurriedly spread her Mana out and attempted to gleam information from the mess around her.
With a gentle prodding, a rush of information and data filled her mind. The Mana types filling the air, the layout of the complex, all the arrays and what they do...Everything Endyr wanted and more was made available to her at once. The building was actually covered in a large-scale and complex Spatial Spell, distorting the space within the building to far beyond what it should actually hold. Now however, Endyr knew how to manipulate the Spell to instantly bring herself to where she wanted to go. She had also located several Grandmasters and a few of her comrades, but no sign of Kismet.
Before she could attempt to gleam more however, a mortal danger assaulted her. The figures watching from afar had gotten closer, and were now rushing straight for her. Paralysed in place by a tyrannical and great force of pressure, Endyr could only watch in abstract horror as the figures gradually revealed themselves.
A blurry Angel of light with wings of multiple colours, a shadow with silver moons for eyes, a suit of armour that continuously burned with flame, a shifting mound of dirt and grass, a tree that had leaves on top and bottom, a gigantic stag with bells on the antlers, a whirlwind of pages, words, numbers and other symbols...
Just before these figures could get a proper look at Endyr, the sound of a ticking clock made itself apparent. With a gong that reverberated throughout the whole space, everything began to flow backwards. The figures tried to struggle and resist, but failed to advance and were pushed back to their original positions.
Once they were gone, a fog began to seep into the environment around Endyr. Deep within, three figures were standing, there features almost completely obscured. A monocle and ticking watch on one, an expressionless mask and robe on another, and a grinning carnival mask and a pair of dice for the third figure. The fog expanded and enveloped Endyr, gradually pulling her towards the trio.
But she never reached them.
Endyr felt a different suction force than the fog, pulling her away. This one was far stronger than the fog or the force conjured by the other figures, causing her break away. As the trio watched, Endyr vanished from the kaleidoscope that was that world. Once she was gone, the monocle-wearing figure chuckled and turned towards the one with a blank mask. "She got away."
The figure glanced at them and snorted, erasing both them and the fog with a wave of the hand. "That doesn't matter. We have the Abomination's traces, and that's all we need. When the time comes, It will come to us of Its own accord."
...
Endyr gasped and fell to her knees, dry heaving and spluttering for breath. After a minute or two, she got a grip over herself and swallowed loudly. Her head was still spinning and she felt sick to the pits of her stomach. The sudden exit from that weird state, plus the multiple high-level auras she had been subjected to, had disorientated her and left her grappling for stability.
Realising she was not alone, Endyr looked up to be greeted with the grinning mask of Kulkiri Mist. Beside him were the two brothers, Erich and Johan. The trio were silently watching Endyr as she shakily stood to her feet, looking at them with narrowed eyes.
"What are you three doing here?"
When Endyr had received information of the structure of the building from that weird place, she learnt the location of her closest companions. Yet these three were nowhere near her at the time.
Kulkiri raised an eyebrow (or Endyr felt he did; the mask obstructed his face after all) and answered in an exaggeratedly shocked voice. "What's with that tone, little Miss? Why, me and my two buddies here were coming down this corridor when we witness you curled into a ball and frothing at the mouth! Were you having some sort of fit or something?"
His words made Endyr pause. 'So my actual body stayed here, and I just entered that weird place in spirit only? Yes, that makes sense, there is no way a flesh-and-blood body as weak as mine could survive there. That place had a similar aura to the one below the Shadow Realm, but it was also quite a bit stronger. Did I skip a layer and directly enter some sort of God-only area?'
And yes, those figures were likely Gods, or at least Sacreds. "Their" appearances had bore a remarkable resemblance to the symbols the various Churches projected for their Gods. If that was the case, she had just come infinitely close to either dying or suffering a fate worse than death. Her Title as an Abomination clearly stated she was the enemy of all life and authorities in Orvonia, so the Gods would certainly desire her head.
Seeing that Kulkiri was still waiting, and that he had likely just saved her life, Endyr sighed. After organizing her thoughts, she deciding to settle on a partial truth. "I was attempting to Scry into the location of several things, but encounter a powerful deterrent."