"Spill it kid. Tell me everything you know about this thing." As the sphere continued increasing its size, reaching the size of a small, hill now, Alya asked Imran while walking towards it.
Imran had already sent out a notice to all the houses in Ogmore to evacuate to the underground base. So the only people that were in the city now, were Alya, Nebula, Aisha and Imran.
"It's a slime – like beast that has the power to change shape, regenerate and deflect attacks." Imran started." Normally, it doesn't look like there's any way to beat it since both physical and energy like attacks don't work—"
"But there is a way, right?" Alya was getting impatient. She wanted to get to the fighting as soon as possible, but the dang slime was awakening slowly. At this point, they might even kill it before it had completely taken form; something Alya wouldn't rather do.
"Yes. Piercing attacks work on it." Imran answered. "So, before it takes it full form..." He flinched as he saw Alya's gaze intensify.
"B– before it takes form, we need a powerful hit at it's center, crushing the core, and then another one, completely obliterating the other pieces of its body." He continued anyway.
Nebula cracked her fists. "Sounds easy enough."
"Yeah, sounds." Aisha added. "Don't forget, we still have to figure out who's going to land a crazy enough attack to shatter that thing and who's going to blast its bits. Alya's the only one with fire abilities that pierce for miles away."
Nebula held her chin. "Dang, that's gonna be a problem, huh?"
"I think you're missing something yourself, Aisha. There is no, 'we' here." Alya suddenly said. "The only reason I let you come was to make sure your wimpy boyfriend gets safely back to the base."
Aisha face burned with anger, "Don't call him that!" It wasn't the fact that they were called a couple that made Alya react though.
"Right~" Alya rolled her eyes. "You should have seen him back at the red-sun. Oh, and, isn't he the one who caused all this in the first place? How?" She stared provokingly at her sister answering her own question. "... He was tricked, like the wussy fool he is."
"You shut the f*ck up!" With her yell, the air around them suddenly turned heavier and hotter. However, this was nothing for the two S-rankers around, her fit only harmed Imran instead.
Seeing as Imran was on his knees as he coughed out blood, Aisha gasped with her hands on her mouth, deactivating her ability.
She ran to his side to lift him up the ground. "I... I'm sorry." Aisha apologized with tearb drops forming in her eyes.
Imran smiled weakly, cleaning his mouth. "Don't worry, I'll be fine."
As he stood up, he gave a bow to Alya. "Then, I'll be going now. If there's anything else you—"
"We won't be needing anything from you, thanks." Alya rejected, as she continued walking, pulling Nebula who was already going to meet the two, along.
Aisha then walked Imran back to the underground base, just like Alya had ordered.
When Alya and Nebula were already at the giant ball, Nebula suddenly asked, "Why are you being so hard on the guy? He's not the only non-superhuman we've met today, is he?"
Imran was a level 0, a non-superhuman, but Nebula thought that it was
strange how Alya reacted around Imran. It was almost like she was disgusted at his weakness, even though she acted so chummy around others like him.
Alya scoffed. "It's 'cause he's stupid." She continued, "The only reason he's still a level 0 is because he's too scared to die. He's wasting so much talent holding himself down."
Nebula tilted her head in confusion. "What do mean?" What talent?
"I've seen it." Alya answered. "In terms of fighting skills and martial arts, that cowardly idiot is second only to the castellan himself. In that game..." She clenched her fists angrily. "Father actually sees him as a rival. But what's it worth when he's too scared of not being able to respawn?! That's what life is about, isn't it?! The burning feeling of adrenalin pumping in your veins, trying to save your life that might be lost in battle. Nothing beats that feeling!
Yet he rejects it when he has a VIP ticket to easy success and a life of adventure."
Hearing her tone and seeing her clench her fist, Nebula scratched her cheek nervously. Her question had undoubtedly just ruined Alya's mood.
Alya, weapon in hand, stared at the giant mass of black and asked, " You can create objects with your ability right?"
"Yeah." Nebula turned her gaze to the ball too.
"Then I'll break that thing to pieces while you deal with the bits. Don't worry about not having good enough piercing attack, just do your best and follow my lead."
Nebula didn't even question her as she started forming white dart like objects in the sky. Those objects were small and jagged, looking like glossy white lightning bolts in the night sky.
Without it being her doing, the white lightning bolts suddenly caught on fire, purple fire. Nebula stared at the floating darts with fire dancing around them. Soon the fire mixed perfectly with the bolts and started to spin.
Nebula turned to Alya with stars in her eyes. "Awesome~"
Avoiding Nebula's innocent, childish gaze, so as not to smile by mistake, Alya rose her weapon to the sky, floating with it.
[Imperial Hell (2nd Phase I)] Activating her special skill, purple tattoos crawled around her neck and left hand, then moved into her weapon. One of the flat tips of the weapon soon turned pointy as the tattoo marks disappeared into it, making the whole thing look like a knife without a sheath.
"Go as far as you can." She said as she held the handle of the weapon with both hands and pointed the sharp part down.
After Nebula was out of the area, she suddenly descended at an incredible speed, towards the ball.
BOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
From afar, Nebula watched as the entire three hundred meters around the black sphere and Alya disintegrated in a haze of purple fire and thought, 'Hasn't she already finished the job?'
When the purple light dimmed and faded, Nebula could now see ahead clearly. Sure enough, that black slime wasn't a critical threat for nothing.
There were still big chunks of it falling from the sky, when Nebula thought it'd be completely disintegrated.
She controlled the purple spinning lightning bolts to strike those chunks. And although, her aiming was somewhat bad, there were a lot of bolts to cover for her unskillful attacks.
With a few hitting the ground, she moved enough back up and continued slashing the black globs in the air till they got completely wiped out.
"Phew." Nebula wiped her forehead from on top the roof of a five storey tall building. She squinted her eyes in the direction the red-sun was before, trying to find Alya. As she turned her head around, she suddenly noticed a shadow behind her.
"What the hoot?!" She took on a fighting stance, only to find out that it was the woman she was looking for that had spooked her.
"Alya!" She growled. "Did you do that on purpose? What are you trying to pull?"
However, Alya just stared ahead without a word.
"What're you looking at?" Nebula turned her head to look in the direction Alya did, but she couldn't see anything.
"That thing isn't dead yet." Alya suddenly said.
As Nebula continued to look forward, she eventually began to notice tiny bits of black rising up to the sky. It didn't take long after to see that they came together to form a spinning circle of the stuff.
The fifty meters in diameter black vortex kept spinning, drawing the wind and even energy residues in the air towards it, like a black hole.
Cursing, Nebula shot one of her white bolts towards it, only for it to turn into dust and get sucked into the spinning hole.
"We can't do anything about it for now but to let it awaken. The endeavours of our last strike will be but a futile effort now that it'll absorb energy no matter what."
"?" Nebula stared at Alya weirdly. 'Why's she talking like the theater?'
As the vortex stopped spinning, it poured to the ground like tea from the small mouth of a teapot.
'I knew it couldn't be disappointing.' The battle hungry Alya thought as she looked at what form the slime would take.
———
"They're lost aren't they?" Ancy slapped her head.
'I suggested we took the Sully province's route because it's closer, but the path doesn't go straight to Neath.' Yenn sighed tiredly.
Muscles – for – brains Buster and the selfish Old Man had gone on the wrong path to Neath, neither one of them knowing how to get there. Knowing the map of the island, Yenn had suggested they took a road through a province in the white ranks division, Sully as it lead straight to Neath, instead of going through their division that would require them to move through two other provinces.
But the path to Neath from Sully wasn't as straight as those two idiots were going.
"Wait, if they're going straight then they'll end up in Llanblethian!" Ancy added.
"Yeah." Yenn answered. "Take care of Asher for me till I come pick him up." Yenn assumed that since Buster also lived in Llanblethian, then he would stop there to put Asher's body to rest.
'Let's hope he even stops at all.' Ancy sighed.
Yenn didn't know Buster like she did.
He was the type of person who didn't like to overcomplicate things. If someone he trusted gave Buster directions to go straight down a road, he would punch man-sized holes in every wall or vehicle that obstructed that straight path he was waking in.
"I'll get going to Llanblethian now to get your brother for you." Good thing Ancy could still call him on their communcators, so it wouldn't be a problem to—
"I'm Valinder, he's a Tuttel." Yenn suddenly said. "We're not siblings.