“Ethan,” hissed Alice, as her heart hammered against her ribs. She had already been nervous when two near-Immortals had come: now that she knew there was an actual Immortal creeping around the battlefield, she felt like she was suffocating from fear. “There is an actual Immortal among the Society attackers. There are two near-Immortals and an actual Immortal.”

Ethan scanned the area and frowned. “Are you sure?” he asked, as he deflected another wave of missiles from the first near-Immortal.

“I can see the rainbow mana contained inside their body, even though I can’t actually see them,” said Alice. “They have some sort of stealth-related Perk, although it only blocks my physical vision of them and doesn’t cause me to overlook them. But with the amount of rainbow mana in their body, they must be an Immortal.”

Ethan’s frown grew deeper. “A stealth based Immortal. I only recall the Society having one Immortal, and that one definitely isn’t focused on Stealth. Either the Society recently had another person ascend to Immortality, one that I know absolutely nothing about, or…” Ethan trailed off, before he snorted. “It should be Emilia, if my earlier assumption was correct and the Sigmusi are helping with this attack. Emilia is one of the Sigmusi Colonia’s eight Immortals. She’s an [Assassin] and [Blade Dancer] who used to be part of the Sigmusi Colonia’s internal slave hunting team. She also has rather strange Perks, from what I know – they aren’t necessarily optimized for her role as an [Assassin], and her Perks are instead optimized to counter all of my father’s known Perks.” Ethan grimaced. “This is going to be difficult.” Alice felt her heart beating even faster. If even Ethan was starting to feel the strain of keeping Alice safe, the situation must be truly dire.

 “So you can track Emilia?” asked Ethan, after a split second of silence.

Alice nodded.

“Keep an eye on her, and let me know when she gets within about thirty meters of the boat. She’s mostly a melee fighter, so I don’t have to worry about throwing weapons or magic. But keeping her off of me will be important,” said Ethan. “Have you noticed anything else odd about the battlefield with your vision-related Perks and boosts?”

Alice examined the battlefield, trying to look out for any oddities and to get an idea about the general battle situation. Of the original 50 Illvarian [Guards] and 20 combat Mages, along with Cecilia and her five [Enchanters], perhaps 45 [Guards], all of the [Enchanters], and 17 Mages were still alive and in good condition. Cecilia and her five [Enchanters] were huddled near the back of the battle to keep them safe, although they were still hurling enchanted items into the battlefield from the back lines.

Of the 30 regular attackers, perhaps 10 had died already. Ethan was keeping the two near-Immortals distracted, just as he had said he would be able to, and at least for now, the situation seemed to favor Illvaria, despite their lack of bows. But once Emilia attacked, the entire situation could collapse in an instant. Ethan keeping the two enemy near-Immortals busy was the only reason this battle was going well, and the Illvarian side suffered from a major deficit in high-level combatants right now.

Alice didn’t see any other hidden Immortals or other problems. The Immortal sneaking around clearly had some kind of enchanted equipment on, but that was to be expected of an Immortal ambushing another Immortal.

“I don’t see any other abnormalities,” said Alice. “Emilia seems to be wearing armor and daggers with System enchantments attached to them, but I don’t know what they do.”

 “That’s probably her standard armor set. Mostly stat boosts for her Dexterity and Strength, as well as a few stealth-boosting Perks. With an Immortal and two near Immortals, they must have felt that this setup would be enough to beat me and kidnap or kill you, so they might not have prepared any special trump cards beyond that. Keep an eye out and let me know if you spot anything unusual. Your vision and perception related Perks are better than mine, so what you can contribute to this battle is your insight and your eyes. But help out where you can – the portals are easier to manage with your help.”

Alice nodded.

Another portal ripped its way open in the middle of the boat a few moments later, and Alice immediately clamped down on it and started trying to dissolve the portal with her dimensional mana, while simultaneously cleaning up all of the broken mana that it spewed out. Before she could finish closing it, an arrow ripped through the portal and cut into a [Guard’s] brain. The [Guard] fell over, dead on the spot.

Alice fell silent in shock as the [Guard’s] blood sprayed onto her face. She simply stared at the [Guard], hoping that the passive healing effect of {Extended Tissues} would somehow keep the [Guard] alive, but Alice could tell that nothing was happening.

There was nothing left to heal anymore.

Some part of Alice’s brain numbly processed the portal that had opened in front of her finally snapping shut, but the warm blood on her face was too distracting for her to focus entirely on the battlefield around her.

Ethan cursed again, even as his mana tendrils continued to desperately deflect waves of arrows and missiles. “Alice, try to take out the dimensional Mages. There are too many things to keep track of at once. We need to lower the number of variables on their side. I have an idea that might get us out of this, but the dimensional Mages could mess it up. Portals could prove to be troublesome, and I need to get rid of at least one of the three powerful combatants before they finish positioning themselves.” There was a determined light in Ethan’s eyes, and he looked grim and focused in a way Alice had never seen before.

Alice felt a moment of hesitation. Was she really able to take down an unknown number of [Dimensional Mages] hidden among the attackers?

Then, Alice looked at the corpse of the dead [Guard] again.

She didn’t want to die like that. Now wasn’t the time to hesitate. She needed to get things done, or she and the people she cared about would face miserable ends. She had seen death before. She hadn’t died in all of her time in this world.

She wasn’t going to die this time, either.

“I’ll handle it,” said Alice, surprised by the determination and confidence in her own voice when she said that.

She started scanning the attackers, looking for the telltale hint of purple mana unique to [Dimensional Mages]. It was still hard to pick out, but as the enemy grew closer, Alice was able to see things more and more clearly, despite the darkness and the constant movement of people on the battlefield.

Another portal on the boat opened near one of the other Illvarian Mages. This time, Alice did her best to ignore it. She needed to trust that the other Mages and [Guards] could handle some problems on their own, even though she had just seen a [Guard] die.

Instead, she focused her vision on the night, hoping to catch a glimpse of the broken dimensional mana that would leak out of both ends of a portal after it was established.

She caught a small flicker of purple out of the corner of her eye. It was only there for an instant before it disappeared, but it was enough. She whirled towards the source of the purple mana.

There, she saw a mage with a purple magic seed in his mage core hiding behind a tree. Standing right next to him was a pair of people who Alice assumed were [Archers]. They were all hidden behind cover, making it hard for the Illvarian [Guards] and Mages to counterattack them.

She had found her first target. After a few moments, Alice smiled grimly.

She probably wouldn’t have normally thought of the idea, but since the Society Mages were already doing it… perhaps she could take some inspiration from them.

Alice had only used dimensional mana to open a portal once before, and only in very controlled lab conditions. But since the Society Mages were tossing projectiles through portals, Alice could do the same.

She reached for her dimensional mana, and then quietly popped open a portal right next to the Society Mage.

The Mage and the two [Archers] froze in shock.

Alice immediately layered a small amount of No_Magic mana onto all of the beads in her bracelets and fired the beads through the portal.

Every single bracelet took one mana tendril to activate, and had 20 beads on it. Alice had 7 tendrils. Each bead on the bracelet had three enchantments stacked on them: they would fly on their own with little input from Alice, they would actively resist other people trying to manipulate them using magic, and they would create wounds that were hard to heal once they hit their victim. The No_Magic mana Alice had layered onto the beads would make it even harder for them to be manipulated by external mana sources, and {Enchanter’s Armory} would boost the effects of Alice’s enchantments even further.

She hoped it would be enough.

For at least a very brief moment, through the power of her equipment, Alice resembled Immortal Ethan with his temporary Perk active. She sent 140 projectiles towards her enemy in a fraction of a second.

Then, Alice immediately reached into her storage perk and got the next set of bracelets ready. Before the first round of projectiles even hit, she managed to send another wave of beads at the dimensional mage.

One of the three blobs of rainbow mana winked out instantly. However, Alice also saw a Portal pop open in the distance. One end was right in front of the projectiles she had launched, and the other was opened directly in front of her.

Her eyes widened in surprise, but {Adrenaline Rush} didn’t activate for some reason.

Right as Alice started panicking, wondering if her Perks had somehow failed to activate, she saw the portal suddenly disappear, as if it were a pane of glass thrown off a skyscraper.

It took her a moment to realize what had happened.

Alice’s beads were resistant to external magic from other Mages once they were in motion. With her enchantments, No_Magic mana, and {Enchanter’s Armory} layered on top of each other, Alice’s enchanted beads had simply ripped through the hostile portal as if it weren’t even there.

A second later, Alice saw the other two globs of rainbow mana disappear entirely.

The first [Diemsnional Mage], as well as two nearby [Archers], was dead.

“One down,” said Alice.

“Interesting. If you can just toss out a few of those antimagic beads when I say so, that would also work. Can you do that? It’ll shut down the other dimensional Mages the Society might have.”

“Yes,” said Alice.

“I’ll tell you when it’s the right time. Also, clean up the broken mana you made.”

Alice glanced at the space around herself and winced.

After firing her beads through the portal, she had accidentally caused a pretty noticeable amount of broken dimensional mana to build up in her surroundings. Alice immediately purified it, thankful that nobody had gone through a baptism during the time she had been distracted.

As Alice was trying to find the next [Dimensional Mage], she saw the Organic Mage who had nearly reached Immortality start sprinting towards the boat.

Apparently, losing one of the [Dimensional Mages] had convinced him to finally abandon cover and start charging.

Meanwhile, Alice also noticed the ‘stealthy’ Immortal start creeping around the edge of the boat, circling towards the rear of the Illvarian [Guards].

“The hidden Immortal is moving behind us,” said Alice.

“Got it,” said Ethan. “I think she’s moving towards Cecilia and the [Enchanters]. Bring them closer to me – even though it’s a bit more dangerous in the front lines, at least they won’t have to contend with a potential Immortal.” As Ethan spoke, he also reached into the air in front of him, before he pulled out… a sword?

Alice had no idea why Ethan was holding a sword. Wasn’t he a Mage?

The sword was clearly an excellent piece of work. Alice spotted an incredibly dense amount of System mana inside of it. The sword probably had enough mana to give someone +40 in a stat of their choice – although Alice was pretty sure the sword didn’t give people stats. The sword was also enchanted with a regular, traditional enchantment as well – it seemed to be based on kinetic and thermal mana, although Alice couldn’t quite tell what it was supposed to do. A lot of the magic part of the enchantment was simply too unfamiliar to her.

Ethan grinned. “One of Doll’s best works. It was originally my father’s, but he eventually upgraded to an artifact a century ago. He gave it to me for my 200^th birthday as a prank, and in case I ever needed to defend myself close range.” Ethan said.

“Now, when I count to three, shoot a round of antimagic beads in that direction and then go get Cecilia. All right?”

“Got it,” said Alice.

“One, two, three!” said Ethan, before he swung the sword down.

Alice immediately pumped a few bracelets full of No_Magic mana, and then shot them in the direction Ethan had indicated.

A moment later, a giant beam of fire, heat, and light leapt out of the sword, almost as if the sun itself had descended from the sky and become part of Ethan’s sword.

The battlefield lit up for a moment, as if it had returned to being midday instead of nighttime. Alice blinked tears out of her eyes just in time to see two portals open up in front of the flash of light and heat.

Alice’s beads ripped through the portals as if they were made of paper, and the flash of light continued unimpeded until it crashed right into the [Organic Mage] who was desperately trying to get out of the way.

He didn’t dodge fast enough.

The man screamed in agony. Alice could tell that he was somehow still alive, as his Perks struggled to fend off the effects of being transformed into charcoal, but Ethan didn’t let up on the man. Instantly, waves of enchanted items started flying towards the wounded near-Immortal, while the near-Immortal [Kinetic Mage] dashed out of cover to keep his ally alive.

“Go!” said Ethan, as he and the Society [Kinetic Mage] got locked into a war of flying objects.

Alice nodded and dashed towards Cecilia, trying to make it before the Immortal attacker did.

The blob of ‘hidden’ rainbow mana continued making its way towards the back of the boat, looking as if it were speeding up.

Alice looked at Emilia with fear. No matter what she had prepared, no matter how much she had trained, Alice knew she wasn’t ready to fight an Immortal yet. And there weren’t enough [Guards] on the boat to exhaust an Immortal to death in a fight. Immortals might not be invincible on larger battlefields, since they only had so many Perk uses and Mana before they got exhausted – but in a small scale battle like this, Immortals controlled most of the outcome of a fight. She just had to hope that Ethan fought off the Society Mages fast enough to handle Emilia.

“Cecilia, come with me to the front!” said Alice as she got closer to Cecilia. “Bring the [Enchanters] with you.”

The [Enchanters], as well as Cecilia, looked a bit baffled as they heard Alice, but grudgingly nodded and started moving closer to Ethan.

“There might be a few hidden enemies at the back of the boat,” whispered Alice to Cecilia. “Ethan wants you close by, just in case.”

“Got it,” said Cecilia, looking slightly less confused now. Within moments, the group had reached Ethan’s side, where things would hopefully be safer. Alice took another moment to look at the battlefield again.

The [Organic Mage] still wasn’t dead, somehow. Ethan had managed to embed three different consumable enchantments into the man’s skull, and Alice could see rainbow mana coursing through the enchantments as they tried to rip the man apart. Somehow, his own Perks were keeping him alive, but he didn’t look like he would last much longer. Even if Ethan did nothing, Alice wasn’t sure if the man would live anymore.

The [Kinetic Mage] was still desperately trying to keep his companion safe, and he and Ethan had both clearly used some sort of temporary Perk to boost their combat ability. Ethan was wielding 140 different magic tendrils and firing a storm of items at the enemy, and the opposing [Kinetic Mage] had created a wall of crackling rainbow mana that was deflecting objects that Ethan threw, almost like a magic wall. Alice wondered what Perk the man was using. She wanted it for herself.

Alice took in the spectacle of an Immortal and two near-Immortals fighting for a moment, before she saw a bolt of lightning rip through the darkness and towards her.

She blinked in surprise, and tried to deflect it using one of her magic tendrils – only to discover that lightning was not a physical object, and her magic tendrils could not interact with it at all. The magic-based lightning didn’t even seem to have kinetic energy inside of it.

She started to feel shock and panic worm its way into her heart, and she felt {Adrenaline Rush} on the verge of activating. But before the Perk could turn itself on, Ethan flung a rod of enchanted metal right in front of the lightning bolt. The lightning bolt was completely absorbed by the enchanted metal rod, before it started glowing a mixture of rainbow mana and regular bright light.

Ethan caught the metal rod with another magic tendril, before he flung it right at the rainbow wall. The metal rod exploded like a bomb a moment later, unleashing metal fragments and electricity into its surroundings. The rainbow wall didn’t even budge as the explosion crashed into it, and Alice and Cecilia ducked below the ship’s railing as metal fragments zipped through the air. Alice caught a few of the ones that flew over her head before they could kill nearby [Guards] and mages.

“Fuck,” muttered Ethan. “I was hoping that would take out the second one.”

Alice turned around to check on Emilia, and saw that the rainbow-colored patch of mana was getting closer and closer to the boat.

“Emilia is about to board the boat,” said Alice, after a few moments.

Ethan gave the injured near-Immortal look of frustration and disgust, before he whipped another round of consumable enchantments out of his storage Perk and fired them at the man.

The [Kinetic Mage] tried to lift up his friend and pull him away from the line of fire, apparently having given up on deflecting everything with his wall, but the enchanted items started tracking the [Organic Mage], almost like heat-seeking missiles.

The [Kinetic Mage] near-Immortal seemed terrified as he created another shimmering wall of rainbow mana, and all of Ethan’s consumable enchantments were deflected by it.

“That Perk is such a huge pain,” said Ethan, as he grimaced.

Alice, seeing an opportunity, empowered a round of beads with anti-magic again, and then fired them towards the shimmering rainbow wall.

The rainbow wall cracked a little under Alice’s attack, and then parts of it collapsed. It didn’t completely shatter, the way the portal earlier had – but it looked kind of like several vats of acid had been poured onto the rainbow wall. It now resembled Swiss cheese instead of a proper wall.

“Damaged it,” said Alice, as she let loose with another spray of enchanted items. She was almost out of bracelets, so she hoped Ethan closed out the fight soon.

Before Alice could even get her hopes up, the Near-Immortal’s wall repaired itself.

“Nevermind, I accomplished nothing,” said Alice, feeling more than slightly frustrated as she watched the Perk-created wall rebuild itself in real time. The wall of pure magic was starting to feel incredibly frustrating to fight against.

“I don’t have time for this,” said Ethan. He whirled back towards the injured Society [Organic Mage] one last time, and then for a moment, Alice felt a crackle of energy stir in her surroundings.

Rainbow mana exploded out of Ethan’s body like a thick fog, reaching towards absolutely everything in their surroundings. Trees, pieces of metal… for a moment, Alice felt like every physical object within a hundred meters was under Ethan’s control.

Then, like an enraged nest of hornets, almost every physical object in Ethan’s surroundings flung itself towards the injured [Organic Mage] and his [Kinetic Mage] protector. A storm of wood, bones, and metal closed in on the man from a massive variety of angles.

The Society [Kinetic Mage] desperately tried to fend off the wave of items with another rainbow wall, but Ethan’s attack just came from too many directions at once. The [Kinetic Mage]’s shield missed nearly a third of the projectiles.

A second shield of rainbow mana sprung up around the [Kinetic Mage], keeping him safe.

The [Organic Mage], however, was not protected well enough anymore. His brain, heart, and most of his limbs suddenly turned into mush as dozens of items ripped through him, finally killing the resilient Mage once and for all.

And in the time Alice and Ethan were distracted finishing off the [Organic Mage], Emilia leapt over the railing of the boat. Alice still couldn’t see the woman’s face, since her stealth-perk was still on but she and Ethan had spent a few seconds too long handling the [Organic Mage] while trying to conserve Perks.

Alice’s heart clenched.

One of the three major threats the Society had sent their way was finally dead.

And the most dangerous threat was now on the boat.