Alice felt her heartbeat accelerate again as she stared at the rainbow colored blob of mana that stood upon the ship.

Emilia.

The woman who had come to kidnap or kill her, and hurt the people she cared about.

Alice felt the knot in her stomach tighten as she thought of the fact an Immortal had come for her.

And not just an Immortal.

 She glanced at the rest of the battlefield again, hoping against hope that the near-Immortal had somehow dropped dead, just like his companion that Ethan had turned into mush.

To Alice’s despair, the [Kinetic Mage] was still fine. He was in shock, and his friend was dead, but he was nowhere near removed from the fight.

Perhaps half of the ordinary attackers had dropped, while most of the Illvarian [Guards] were still alive. But an Immortal and near Immortal were still prepared to fight against Ethan, Alice, and the remaining Illvarian [Guards]. And those were terrible odds.

As Alice felt the anxiety grip her thoughts more and more tightly, the rainbow colored mana was on the other side of the boat started to move again. With the crushing inevitability of a meteor falling to the earth, the rainbow-colored blob of mana rushed towards Alice at a speed that beggared the imagination.

Emilia wasn’t prioritizing stealth anymore.

Alice felt her heart leap into her throat – but at the same time, a flash of steely determination settled into her heart.

If she wanted to keep her freedom, and keep her friends safe, she needed to do something. Ethan still couldn’t see Emilia – and that problem fundamentally negated a lot of his advantages in this fight. Ethan’s greatest strength was his magic, but if he couldn’t see the target, fighting would be hard.

Alice’s mind spun with anxiety as she searched for a solution. After a moment, a desperate idea emerged from her thoughts.

Alice pushed her magic tendrils towards Emilia, and felt her magic tendrils strain as they exited the area immediately around her body. There were probably thirty meters left between her and the hostile Immortal, and Alice’s magic tendrils could only reach five feet away from her if she strained herself.

Alice’s eyes widened in a moment of realization, and she opened up a small portal right in front of her. The portal was only the size of her arm – it didn’t need to be big for her purposes. The other end of the portal opened up a few meters in front of Emilia. Alice hoped that her idea work.

Alice focused on {Extended Organics}, the Perk that let her treat any nearby air as part of her body for the purpose of forming magic tendrils or resisting external magic.

And then, she focused on other side of the portal, and hoped that still counted as ‘nearby’ for the Perk.

She felt one of her magic tendrils easily form on the other side of the portal, and grinned.

It worked. Alice could extend the range of her magic tendrils in basically any direction if she had enough mana.

She could feel the portal she had opened straining a bit, as it tried to make sense of what Alice was doing. But even though the portal was straining and eating far more mana than usual, it was still hundreds of times more efficient than just extending a magic tendril dozens of meters away.

Alice only realized it now, but dimensional mana opened up a whole new layer of efficiency in combat. A dimension of combat abilities that she had never explored until now, because she had never had a reason to think about it until now. Most Mages could only influence objects directly next to them in a fight, and interacting with objects too far away was impossible without a highly specialized build. Portals and {Extended Organics} could totally change that dynamic, if she got creative with it.

And right now, Alice desperately needed to get creative with her magic.

Alice immediately formed a magic tendril a mere millimeter away from the rainbow blob of mana, and stuck a bracelet at the end of it. If she could send a wave of magic beads through Emilia’s brain, she could end the fight before it started.

Alice activated the bracelet. The beads tore through the air, whistling towards Emilia’s brain.

And Emilia easily dodged out of the way, so fluidly that Alice wondered if she had somehow mistaken where Emilia was standing. She had missed, and Emilia knew Alice could track her now.

Emilia continued sprinting towards Alice, although the woman started dodging and weaving as she approached, making hitting her even harder.

Alice watched the distance between the two of them shrink rapidly.

Alice’s snapped her portal shut, and immediately opened another one, right in front of Emilia. The other end of the portal was right in the middle of the woods, well away from the boat. If Alice could teleport Emilia away, she and Ethan would have more time to finish tidying up the rest of the battlefield. With Emilia this close, Alice was starting to panic, and she wanted the threat gone.

Emilia barreled right through the portal. For a brief moment, Emilia slowed down, almost as if she had run into a lake of quicksand. And then, the portal collapsed like a house of cards, and Emilia continued on, nearly unhindered by Alice’s desperate attempt to remove Emilia from the boat.

“Ethan!” yelled Alice, hoping that Ethan would figure out where Emilia was and help her. She also started desperately tossing out the beads from her other bracelet, quickly emptying most of her storage Perk as she threw absolutely everything she had at Emilia.

Ethan still seemed confused about Emilia’s exact location, but since Alice kept firing objects at a certain area, Ethan seemed to realize Emilia was somewhere in the mess. However, even though Ethan joined Alice’s attacks, he somehow seemed to keep missing the patch of air Emilia was in – it was almost like he couldn’t perceive it.

Alice finally realized what was wrong with Ethan’s perception. While Alice didn’t know exactly how Emilia’s Perk worked, it seemed almost like it was targeting Ethan’s vision and messing with his eyesight. Perhaps the invisibility was just a minor effect, and its ability to screw with a target’s perception was its main focus.

Alice needed to get Emilia’s Perk deactivated somehow.

In a burst of creativity, Alice opened another portal, right on top of Emilia, and then immediately materialized a small mana tendril right in front of the woman.

Then, Alice dumped a huge amount of No_Mana into the region. She kept some in reserve, but she spent over half of it all in one big burst.

The moment Emilia stepped into the area, it was as if Ethan finally noticed the spot Alice kept trying to attack. In a flash, dozens of enchanted items flew towards the area, cutting of almost any path of retreat Emilia could take. Ethan had also realized Emilia was messing with his eyesight, and he was determined to kill her before Alice’s last strands of No_Magic mana ran out.

Arrows made of crystal and enchanted with things Alice didn’t understand flew through the air, along with other, stranger things. Glass vials filled with orange liquid. Giant crystals. Monster cores. The collection of things Ethan had thrown at Emilia looked bizarre, to say the least. Almost like giant pile of debris, all enchanted heavily enough to bankrupt a barony.

At the same time, Alice felt something latch on to her clothes and fling her away.

Alice screamed as she flew into the air like a confused bird, before she realized that Ethan had picked her up by her clothes using kinetic mana, and dragged her further away from the fight. A moment later, Alice found herself still on her feet, with an extra twenty meters between her and Emilia.

Meanwhile, Emilia desperately tried to weave through Ethan’s storm of attacks, like a raindrop dancing in a hurricane. Nothing could touch her, and it was like she could see attacks before they even got close to landing on her.

And that didn’t help her escape everything. Several of the flasks of orange liquid shattered in midair, splattering some sort of sizzling, hissing liquid onto the ship. The liquid burned like napalms the moment it made contact with air, and Emilia actually shrieked as drops of flaming liquid landed on her body. The strange crystals exploded, almost like miniature bombs, and Emilia couldn’t completely dodge the effects. The crystal arrows proved notably less effective, as Emilia managed to swat those away with her daggers, and the monster cores didn’t seem to do much either. But Ethan had finally managed to hurt the unstoppable charge of the [Assassin] Immortal.

And then, the No_Magic mana in the area ran out. Ethan’s attacks grew erratic again, and while Emilia had been hurt, she definitely wasn’t fatally injured yet.

Emilia retreated a few steps, before she started charging towards Alice again.

Alice felt the despair in her heart grow heavier.

How was she supposed to fight something like this?

Emilia was just too fast. And too good at perceiving the world around her. She could bend and move, not like a gymnast, but like there were no bones in her body at all.

And without Alice’s help, Ethan was still struggling to locate the woman. Her vision-altering Perk made fighting her a massive pain, especially since Ethan was fighting mostly as a ranged combatant. [Kinetic Mages] relied on their perception more than any other kind of mage, because they needed to create a wall of accurate attacks at a moment’s notice. Altering their perception of the world was a massive problem, and not one Alice had ever seen employed in lower-level combat.

Immortals had strange and terrifying tricks, and Alice was definitely discovering just how annoying Emilia’s Perk was for some Classes.

Alice cursed, and flung a final round of beads at Emilia. The woman simply dodged around them, and started sprinting towards Alice again. Ethan started attacking the spot where Alice had attacked – but Emilia had already moved slightly past that position.

Ethan’s attacks were starting to prove ineffective again, and Emilia was rapidly closing in on Alice.

Once Emilia got within five meters of Alice, Alice decided on a last, desperate plan. She strained her magic tendrils to go as far as she could push them, trying to reach inside of Emilia’s body. {Extended Organics} helped her push her mana tendrils further – but Alice still felt like she was pushing her mana through a dense filter, instead of simply pushing her mana outwards.

Normally, all life had resistance against external mana, and the more dense the mana inside of the body, the stronger the resistance. But it was still possible to overcome it – on the first day of Alice’s monster biology class, the teacher had reached inside of a spidercrab and ripped it in half. Alice just hoped that she could buy a couple seconds.

Alice pushed a mana tendril into Emilia, and then shoved every single Marium of No_Magic mana that she could muster directly into Emilia’s body.

Alice felt something crack, as if she had just tried to stuff a glass beaker into a hydraulic press.

The rainbow-colored blob of mana a few meters away suddenly fizzled and sparked, as if something had gone horribly wrong inside of it.

Alice hoped, for a brief moment, that perhaps No_Magic mana had some sort of lethal effect on Immortals. They were made of mana, so it might make sense for No_Magic mana to hurt them or kill them. She had thought that with Emilia’s resistance to external mana, she would probably only buy Ethan a few seconds of visibility. But perhaps she was about to get lucky and end the fight?

This hope was quickly dashed as Emilia staggered out of thin air, looking very pissed off, but very much alive. And Alice got her first good look at the Immortal that had come for her.

Emilia had short, neatly trimmed black hair. She wore bright red armor, which was so colorful that Alice could scarcely believe she had been unable to see the woman moments ago. Alice could barely see an inch of her skin. Only the eyeholes in the armor let Alice see the woman’s cold, piercing eyes as she gazed at Alice like a hunter eyeing prey. She held two shortswords in her hands – they were longer than a proper dagger, but nowhere near long enough to be considered real swords. The weapons were packed with mana that sent danger signals through Alice’s mind, and she knew for sure that she did not want to get cut by those weapons.

There were also a few char marks in the armor, and a few holes in it as well. Alice could see that Ethan’s first barrage of attacks had left a mark on the woman.

No longer unable to see Emilia, Ethan finally started throwing items directly at the woman again, and Alice saw exactly how agile the woman’s movements were. She was like a leaf spinning in the wind.

Her [Dexterity] stat must be utterly ridiculous for her to pull this off. Emilia also tried to activate a few Perks as she danced out of the way of Ethan’s storm of attacks – but the rainbow mana in her looked almost like it was asleep. Whatever Perks Emilia was trying to activate, it wasn’t able to push through the No_Magic mana Alice had injected into her body, although the mana Alice had shoved into the woman was rapidly disappearing.

Through one of the holes in the woman’s armor, Alice saw the woman frown as she glared at Alice.

Ethan, please kill her faster, thought Alice, as she stared into the eyes of Emilia the Immortal.

The woman’s body flickered rainbow again, and this time, the No_Magic mana in her body wasn’t quite enough to completely cancel the Perk out. The last little bit of Alice’s No_Magic mana tried to eat away the Perk, but simply didn’t have enough mana density to succeed.

Emilia smiled viciously, and took a simple step forward. For a moment, her form flickered, bending out of the way of Ethan’s barrage of items – and then the woman stumbled. The Perk had failed to fully activate.

Ethan didn’t miss that opportunity.

He pulled the sword out of his storage again, and slashed at the air. The rest of the mana in the sword drained away, and Ethan stuffed it back into his storage Perk, before rainbow mana cascaded through his body.

Alice saw the world dim, as if someone had turned off the moon. She felt a flash of heat, raising the temperature to a nearly unbearable level even through {Extremophile}.

The air around Ethan, Emilia, and Alice crackled with energy, and then Alice saw a miniature implosion of heat and electricity suddenly appear, right in front of Emilia. Like a supernova exploding inwards, with Emilia at its core. Right on its heels was the second burst of light and heat that had come from the Sun Knight’s old sword.

Emilia’s body flashed rainbow, and Alice saw Emilia throw one of her daggers at her. Alice felt {Adrenaline Rush} finally activate as the dagger spun towards her, twinkling with rainbow mana.

Alice tried to reach out and teleport the dagger away, but came up empty. She was out of dimensional mana. She had apparently burned through the rest of what she had when she tried to teleport Emilia away.

Instead, Alice tried to shove the dagger away using kinetic magic – but she found that the dagger was resilient against her manipulation. Trying to push it felt like trying to push a mountain.

Alice reached for one of her Perks, and activated {Reflection}.

To her complete shock, the Perk activated just fine, and the rainbow mana – covered Perk instantly reversed directions, heading right back towards the woman who had thrown the dagger.

The woman’s eyes widened in surprise, right as a storm of fire and electricity ripped into her body.

And then, the dagger flashed rainbow, and the woman appeared right where the dagger had been. Her skin smelled slightly burnt, and some of her armor had been turned into charcoal. But the woman was very much alive and well.

Somehow, she had swapped places with her dagger.

“Annoying bitch, aren’t you?” she said, glaring at Alice.

Ethan snorted. He didn’t say a word as organic mana started to course through his body. A moment later, Ethan started moving nearly as fast as the woman. He flung himself towards her, his body blurring as his muscles reached even further into the superhuman realm. Emilia smiled at Ethan, and her body flickered with rainbow mana again .She took one perfect step, like a dancer in a ballroom, and somehow, she was right in front of Alice, while Ethan missed the woman completely.

Emilia smiled at Alice, and swung her fist directly towards Alice’s eyes.

Alice felt {Enhanced Senses} activate on top of {Adrenaline Rush}, and all of the people who had been moving in fast forward finally slowed down enough for her to see her own impending death or serious injury. Emilia’s fist approached her face.

Alice desperately tried to figure out a way out of this mess, as her thinking tore through every single avenue of escape or fighting she could think of.

She couldn’t move her body anywhere near fast enough to escape.

She couldn’t fling herself away using her kinetic magic.

None of her Perks would let her dodge Emilia. The woman was so much faster than Alice that it would be like trying to outrun a plane.

She didn’t have enough dimensional mana left to teleport herself away.

As Alice started to despair, a portal ripped itself open in midair, and Ethan sprung up right in front of Alice again. Emilia’s eyes widened… and then she grinned. Her body flickered again, and suddenly there were a pair of daggers in Ethan’s chest.

And then her grin turned into an expression of shock, as Ethan completely ignored the daggers in his chest and gave Emilia a bone-crushing hug. Organic Mana swarmed towards the two daggers planted into his intestines, and Alice could see that the organic mana there was fighting with something. It was almost like Emilia’s daggers has some sort of incredibly virulent magic poison inside of them – but Ethan’s organic mana was more than capable of fighting it off.

Ethan started to squeeze, and Emilia desperately whipped another dagger out of her storage and tried to stab Ethan with it. But she didn’t have very good leverage anymore, and Emilia was struggling to find a good angle to stab Ethan.

Then, Alice became aware a great deal of motion in her surroundings. She looked back at Society Mages who had been creeping towards the boat, and saw a virtual tempest of items soaring through the air towards her and Ethan.

The near-Immortal [Kinetic Mage] was finally back on the battlefield, and was buying time for Emilia to free herself. Alice felt the urge to scream, either in fear or frustration, well up in her mind.

Right as it looked like things were turning in their favor, the society Mage had finally rejoined the fight. She looked at Ethan and Emilia, who were still struggling to get rid of the other, and then gritted her teeth as she turned towards the storm of items flying towards them.

She needed to buy Ethan some time again.

Right as {Adrenaline Rush} was about to end, she saw an opportunity.

A pair of vials that were packed to the brim with enchantments flew towards the fight.

Alice still had two more uses left of {Reflect}, and the vials liked kind of similar to the acid Ethan had thrown into the fight earlier.

Alice hit both of the heavily enchanted vials of liquid with {Reflect} – and then immediately activated {Combat Seed}, to ensure the daggers would shred other mana they came in contact with. It wasn’t quite as effective as No_Magic mana, but it would have to be good enough. Alice just hoped that whatever enchantments were attached to the daggers, they were potent enough to work.

Then, Alice used {Extended Organics} and used the last dribbles of {Adrenaline Rush} and {Enhanced Senses} to fend off as much of the wave of attacks from the near-Immortal as she could manage. She didn’t manage to block anywhere near all of the attacks – but she did manage to deflect a lot of them. A moment later, the vials were caught by the near-Immortal and sent right back towards them – but Alice had at least fended them off for a while.

And that bought just enough time.

Alice heard a wet cracking sound as Emilia’s spine broke like a twig. A moment later, rainbow mana surged through the area, and Emilia’s nearly decimated body spun unnaturally in midair, like a ballerina animated by a puppeteer. In a way Alice’s brain somehow failed to comprehend at all, she slipped out of Ethan’s grasp and reached the railing of the ship.

She shot Alice a glare that contained absolutely hatred, as another round of rainbow mana surged through her body – and in moments, her shattered spine rebuilt itself. Then, the woman vanished from Alice’s view, leaving behind only a rainbow-colored patch of air.

The woman turned around and leapt off the railing. Ethan tried to hit her with several more rounds of projectiles as the woman fled towards the Society Mage that had attacked with her, but Ethan seemed to have a hard time pinpointing the woman’s exact location again.

Ethan continued to throw enchanted missiles at Emilia, but he failed to hit her as she fled. The Near-Immortal Society mage, seeming to realize that the plan had failed, started fleeing as well. Ethan turned his attention towards the [Kinetic Mage], but there was just too much distance for Ethan to kill him using only projectiles before the man got away – and Ethan seemed reluctant to leave Alice’s side.

A few moments later, the two Immortals escaped the battlefield.

Ethan coughed wetly a few times, before, to Alice’s shock, he took the Sun Knight’s old sword back out of his storage Perk, and then behead himself. His old body, no longer supplied with Ethan’s conscious control of his organic mana, started to succumb to whatever poison had been in Emilia’s daggers.

In about four seconds, the poison started to the turn the body of an immortal into a green and black pus-filled abomination, before the body started to break down.

Meanwhile, a new body sprouted from Ethan’s head, taking only a few moments to reconstruct itself. Ethan grimaced.

“That… was very dangerous,” he said. “I managed to force her to use her second life, but I was also on my last legs. I had to burn through a lot of my better Perks. And if I hadn’t had my second life from my Immortality Achievement active, I don’t know if my temporary Perks could have fought off the poison and kept me alive. That stuff was… something.”

“Is there any chance we can pursue them?” asked Alice.

Ethan sighed, and seemed to think about it for a moment. “Normally, I might have tried. But both Emilia and I were forced to use our second lives, and I’m honestly not sure who would kill who if I chased them down. It’s not worth the risk right now. She fled because she’s unwilling to risk her life on this endeavor – and similarly, I’m not willing to truly risk my life and your safety to hunt her down.” Ethan grinned, although it turned into a grimace as he looked at his own body. “I wish I had a few more levels on her, so that I could have killed her, along with the near-Immortal from the Society.”

Alice sighed, but nodded. Letting Emilia go after she had nearly kidnapped or killed her felt bad. But Alice wasn’t naïve enough to think that Ethan was invincible. This fight had been incredibly dangerous. Ethan had barely squeaked out a narrow victory with her help. She had no idea if they could do it again while pursuing Emilia and the other Near – Immortal into the woods, especially if they were fleeing towards any allies of the two. It was best to take this victory for what it was – Alice was still alive and un-kidnapped, Ethan was safe, and Cecilia was also still alive.

They had won.