The void burned as the three of us stood on Sallia’s metal platform. A moment later, Sallia leapt forward.

There were dozens of times more worldstriders in this area than there had been in our first fight, and our essence reserves were much worse. The one and only possible advantage we had right now was that we were near our destination.

The massive pyramid.

I had no idea if the Zelyrians had set up their buildings to be Worldstrider-proof, and even if they had, it might have deteriorated by now. It had been centuries since the Zelyrian empire had collapsed, after all.

But we had no other places to look in this pocket dimension. The worldstriders were slowly hemming us in, and if we didn’t gamble on the pyramid being able to protect us, our only other option was to wander around the void and hope that we found a way to get back to reality. With the horde of worldstriders closing in on us, I didn’t think we had the time for that to work. I closed my eyes and prayed to whatever gods existed in the Multiverse that our plan had a chance of succeeding.

Moments later, the flaming feathers surrounding Anise’s body launched themselves outward, followed by a shower of magic missiles.

The first wave of worldstriders were swallowed up by a river of flames. I had been worried that they might somehow survive. The worldstriders had proved frustratingly good at evasion, after all.

Luckily, my worry was unfounded.

Anise’s wall of flames enveloped the encroaching horde of worldstriders like a smothering blanket. The worldstriders simply disappeared off the face of the planet the moment they made contact with the flames. Anise quickly wiped out the first wave of worldstriders, before the flames puffed out of existence, and she started scanning the battlefield.

<It’s eating up a lot of my binding essence,> said Anise, after a moment. <I can produce flames now, but the fact that I’m creating the fire instead of manipulating what’s already there makes it cost more essence. It’s lucky that the sword lets me use any kind of essence, or there’s no way I would be able to do anything.>

<How long can you hold on?> I asked.

<The sword boosted all of my stats by 2 grades, including my essence stats… so I can last several minutes,> said Anise. Then she grinned. <Even if I can only use this ability once per lifetime, this feels amazing. And I’m getting so much Achievement!>

As she said that, another wall of flames flickered into existence and started vaporizing the next wave of worldstriders. They tried to dodge and weave out of the way, and some of them succeeded - but most of them were killed by Anise, and Sallia quickly jumped in and wiped out the survivors.

I grinned as I watched the worldstriders disappear under the combined assault of my friends. Things felt… surprisingly manageable right now.

The next wave of worldstriders, which had a considerably larger number of enemies inside of it, shied away from Anise’s flames, and chittered at each other, before another worldstrider stepped forward.

Unlike the others, it bothered speaking in Zelyrian, meaning I could at least make out some of what it was saying.

“.... … … ……. …. not able to … … …….. …! Hand over … …. ……… can let you two… ………. …!” The creature yelled at us.

I had no idea what the creature meant to say, but that didn’t change my response. I flipped the creature off, and then threw a rock at it. The rock didn’t have a fortitude stat to prevent it from collapsing in this layer of reality, but it was more about sending a message.

I didn’t have my umbrella anymore, so I couldn’t convert my absorption essence into attacks. I also didn’t have enough alteration essence to really throw extinguishes around - doing so would be a colossal waste of the previous few resources I had left.

But I could still tell the stupid worldstrider who had backed us into a corner and kept trying to chase Anise to drop dead.

The creature seemed to give up on negotiating with us, and fired a projectile towards Sallia, which I promptly teleported right back at the creature. It wove out of the way, and I was hit with another wave of strange, out of body sensations.

I was everything and nothing, an ocean and a person. I was both the tiny, insignificant sack of flesh my soul was inhabiting and every single trace of water vapor in the air…

The strange sense of out-of-body oddness disappeared as I adapted to it. I was on the verge of figuring something out, but I was missing more than the barest speck of understanding. Every time I tried to grasp the sensation of being an ocean, it slipped out of my fingers again.

I shook my head as a ball of black energy flew towards Sallia. The worldstrider who had tried to negotiate with us had noticed my distraction, and nearly slipped a projectile by me. This time, my teleported projectile hit it and killed it.

But the other worldstriders were closing in on us, and there were far, far more enemies in these waves than there had been in the first few.

Anise summoned another wave of flames, but couldn’t mop up the majority of the enemies this time. Sallia still dove into the enemy horde afterwards, but with the next wave of enemies more than half intact, she couldn’t just demolish the remnants of the wave. The ones she didn’t kill immediately quickly reorganized and started attacking her with threads and bolts of black essence. 

I didn’t bother teleporting away the strings of manifestation essence. Sallia’s robes deflected them as if they weren’t even there, and Sallia was more than capable of protecting the uncovered parts of her body with her sword and her rapid movement. But I did teleport away the larger projectiles, returning them to the worldstriders who launched them.

At least, that was what I did until a few strings of black manifestation essence cut into Sallia’s neck. I immediately teleported them away and healed Sallia’s neck, hoping that the string of manifestation essence hadn’t hit her jugular vein or anything important.

<Lucky bastards,> said Sallia, swearing as she hopped up a meter and bisected a worldstrider. <Missed that one. Thanks Mir.> Then, before I could say anything, Sallia was right back in the action.

I eyed the next wave of worldstriders, which was approaching us before we had even finished off the previous wave, and felt the jaws of despair start to clamp down on me.

There were just too many of them.

Worse, the ones that were further away were starting to realize that Sallia couldn’t shrug off the larger, heavier blobs of manifestation essence. This made it even harder for Sallia to dodge everything. Sallia was performing admirably well considering the fact that her eyes must have also been damaged, but as more worldstriders built up and they started to figure out her weaknesses, things started to get more and more desperate. I teleported away every single attack I thought was about to hit her, but I couldn’t cope with the number of attacks that were bombarding us anymore.

<Sallia, how much sunlight do you have stored in your sword?> I asked, still examining the battlefield with my spatial manipulation abilities.

<None. I already used it all.>

I winced, and the beginnings of a new plan flew out the window. So much for that.

I stared at the worldstriders again with my many, many eyes, and tried to ignore the fact that all of my thousands of eyes felt more natural than the two that had been destroyed by Sallia’s light. 

Felix and the adults were getting closer to the pyramid, but there were still a few minutes left before they could reach it. We didn’t have a few minutes. We didn’t even have thirty seconds, with how quickly the worldstriders were converging on us. Sallia would be overwhelmed sooner or later, and the other worldstriders were starting to take potshots at me and Anise as well.

I looked over my magic items and my abilities, but I couldn’t see a way out. I resisted the urge to throw something in frustration.

<Does anyone have any ideas? I thought the fire and Sallia would keep them away for longer,> I sent.

<Let me try something else…> said Anise, after a few moments. She squinted, and the fire in our surroundings started to flicker and meld together. For a few moments, I had no idea what Anise was trying to do. Weren’t the walls of flames one of the only things we had going for us on this battlefield?

Then, all of the flames pulled closer to Anise for a few moments, before they exploded outwards.

I blinked in surprise as I realized what Anise had done.

She had created a literal fire bomb, using herself as the center point.

The scorching heat passed by me, cooking a fair amount of my skin and flesh but not outright killing me. Anise had clearly tried to avoid friendly fire, but hadn’t quite succeeded. Sallia responded to Anise’s fire bomb by swinging her sword at the wall of flames.

I blinked in surprise, before I realized that her sword, {Mirror’s Edge}, was flickering unnaturally with mana. It took me a moment to remember its abilities, but I realized after a moment that it had the ability to reflect one attack of below a certain level of power.

Apparently, Anise’s fire bomb counted. Sallia had ‘reflected’ the firebomb directly over her head, towards a group of incoming worldstriders, and killed them all. 

The firebomb quickly wiped away most of the worldstriders near us, but Anise sent us the mental equivalent of a gasp right afterwards.

<That… took a lot of essence,> she said. <Not… not as much left in the tank now. Maybe half left? Or a little less than half now.>

I grimaced. Anise had bought us a few more seconds, but I still just wasn’t seeing a way to survive the onslaught.

The remaining worldstriders hesitated for a few moments, before they started rushing back towards us again. Moments later, the barrage of endless manifestation essence resumed.And they were starting to get used to my teleportation tactics. It was getting harder to hit them with their own attacks. It was becoming impossible to handle.

And then, for the first time, Sallia took a bad hit.

A massive wad of dark manifestation essence slammed into her stomach, tearing right through her {Wandering Swordsman’s Robe} as if it weren’t even there.

<Ow! Fuck!> screeched Sallia into the friendship bracelet, before she dropped out of the sky. The metal platform Anise and I were standing on also wobbled for a moment, before Sallia stabilizied it. She caught herself a moment later, and I immediately sent her the last bits of my alteration essence packed into a renewal.

I was out of alteration essence.

I glanced at Felix and the parents again, and saw that Anise’s firebomb had bought them time, but they still hadn’t reached the pyramid yet. They were maybe 70% of the way there, but we were running out of tricks and resources.

It was then that I accepted something deep inside of me.

We were going to die here.

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