-Umi-

One second I was a sentient standing in front of a Glory Daze member that was breaking reality with her disgusting magic, feeling completely overwhelmed. And the next second I was overflowing with mana and a partial-magi-sentient as well as a blackzone manager, emperor-spirit, high-enlightened, and apex with a mirroring Grand Key that had to come from my stupid dad.

“Congratulations Umi, you have become a blackzone manager for Historie Pastoria Sweets,” suddenly rang out a monotone unisex voice from the back of my head as the Glory Daze member narrowed her eyes at me: her digusting pitch black mana-covered flowers crackling with energy.

“Thanks Anlola,” I replied to the voice, naming it the Alihi’a’Poungian word for candy cause I’m pretty sure it was my vox system assistant like how Sal was for dad.

“Did you just become a partial-magi-sentient? Disgusting,” quipped the Glory Daze member as the fight with Clockwork Witchwork started back up in the background. I didn’t even have to look back to know that Margaret was taking her chance to flee over to Tabitha despite the huge hole in the side of her simulated body that she still was bleeding out from. Only reason why they are still active is cause this Hybrid System is pretty anti-gore and pro-safety…

“Seriously? That’s all you have to say?” asked Uncle Robby as he shifted stance, obviously flipping back and forth between cowardice and whether or not he should fight this Glory Daze member or Clockwork Witchwork. 

“Of course, it’s such a disgusting thing. Something that I, Crush-Four, can’t stand abide,” haustily replied the girl, slapping the pitch black bouquet sticking out of her chest as her cannons started to whirl with the weird reality-cracking energy that I could help but felt entropic. “Now then, let’s get rid of you. Hahaha, if I knew our trump cards wouldn’t kill us, I would have started off with mine. Destroy more of your precious dungeon cores and even call down UMCs! Now then… Descend! Z-Erub!”

It didn’t matter that she was monoluging from her high horse of a legged-throne: every piece of my being didn’t want to get near her as whatever she was channelling picked up in intensity. As cracks started to appear on her simulated body like Clockwork Witchwork when they did their ‘Descend! Y-Prapaht!’ thing, I felt something in one of my facsimiles stir,

“Y-Prapaht and Z-Erub… to think the second I return, I am greeted to this hell once again.”

“What the hell? Who are you and what are you talking about?” I asked as I jumped back to avoid the first volley of cannon fire, watching as the place that Robby and I were standing earlier was sheared away. Entropy-based disintegration and potential future removal, these people are crazier than the cultists dad has dealt with.

“Driscoll Avarawacky and I can’t explain.” I wanted to yell at the thing residing in my new facsimile, but I could tell he wasn’t lying: he was busy dealing with whatever insane amount of pain that dad was dealing with right now and whatever knowledge he had on the magic the Glory Daze members were using was heavily fragmented and locked up… to protect me. Well that’s stupid… and scary…

“Well is there anything you can do other than stopping dad’s stupid pain from spreading to me?” I asked, dodging the next volley as I instinctively conjured my original fishing rod now that my mirroring Grand Key with dad and pappa gave me system slot’s connections to my own existence as a primary spirit halo.

“I can summon Neo Draceld Z with your phylactery. To two of you should be able to handle this cultist now that she has started the countdown to her own demise,” replied Driscoll as some of mana swirling through me separated and went to summon Draceld in a vortex of mist and magical miasma. 

“I’m here,” replied the high-enlightened demigoddess as she swirled the leftover mist and magical miasma with a Grand Key, probably the one that obscured her mandalas from dad and others. “Now then, other Robert, I suggest you go help the others.”

“You’re kidding right?” asked Uncle Robby, surprised by the sudden appearance of Dracled and that she was telling him to leave.

“Yes, Umi and I can handle this. This should be easy enough with all this wonderful mana.”

“You ignorant scum. How dare you!” screeched Crash-Four as she shot out another volley of overly destructive cannon fire, only for Draceld to block half of them with a swirl of mist and magical miasma as she held out the phylactery I shared with dad and pappa: a black anatomically-correct heart skewered with nails and suspended in a large vial. 

“Seee? We’re fine.”

“You don’t need to tell me twice…” muttered Uncle Robby, staring at the heart in the vial with a weird look on his face before taking the chance to bolt: leaving the two of us to deal with the now raving mad Crash-Four.

“Loook at how weak this mage is evven with their so-callled trump card.”

“How dare you insult the power of Z-Erub!” howled Crash-Four, the legs of her throne now coated in the same weird energy as she bounded toward us. Moving to restrain her, I paused and instead went for moving to the side while Draceld jumped overhead in a gust of mist: there was no way my fishing rod’s line could survive that energy. 

As the sound of shearing increased from an uptick in rate of cannon fire, I realized just how weak Crash-Four really was: she was probably a higher tier than Clockwork Witchwork, probably around tier 6, but all her power was tied to those cannons. Cannons that were already spent from obviously being used to destroy the dungeon cores of this Interconnection. She also couldn’t use whatever she was using the same way Clockwork Witchwork was, just wildly blasting our surroundings. She is just one of those self-enlightened brats I heard about that were only brought to trim unprepared blackzones, I thought to myself. To think I was actually scared of her a few minutes ago: all I had to do was keep dodging and I won! 

Another wild volley of cannon volley, swinging my cross-system fishing rod upward I latched onto a lamppost and dodged over it. Looking over at Crash-Four, I saw more cracks criss-crossing her simulated body and even her equipement now. As for Draceld, she was dodging even more entropic cannon fire, blocking a few of them with her swirls of mist and magical miasma that were being empowered by the phylactery: each time making me feel something weird. What is going on with that phylactery?

“Something that shouldn’t be posssible, if that Driscolll person is tellling the truth,” telepathically answered Draceld as she blocked another volley with a barrier of mist and magical miasma. “We only have so long before the exhaustion catches up to us.” Taking the chance to figure out what she meant, I focused inward to notice how fast my influx of mana was being drained and that the mandala holding the Grand Key and the phylactery both had a tag that I couldn’t make out. 

Not even having time to be angry at dad for getting us something we didn’t even know fully about, Crash-Four honed in on me and fired off a series of beams instead of cannon fire. Panicking, I jumped down from the lamp post and watched as the beams sheared the skyscraper behind me. Crash-Four was getting desperate, but it didn’t look like she was going to self-destruct before we were going to run out of mana. 

“Any idea of what to do?” I asked Draceld as I scrambled away from the collapsing skyscraper, watching as it crushed a handful of train tracks and aerial tramways: that was going to be a total pain to fix later.

“We make her self-destruct first.”

“How? I don’t have any ranged abilities.”

“You can strangle her with your fishing rods. And when she explodes, you’lll just be sent back to your real body.” I was going to ask about the others, but I realized we were probably a third of a mile away from Clockwork Witchwork and others now from all the darting and dodging.

“What about you though?! You aren’t.”

“I havve your phylactery. Driscolll already told me it would work to keep me from being killled, let alone true deathed.”

“Fine…” I replied as I went to feel how much mana I had left, only to realize that the facsimile and mandala that that Driscroll personality were both cursed to lower my effective tier and ability to generate man. Damnit dad! Why did you accept even more cursed stuff? I swore to myself in frustration knowing full well whatever was going on his side of things meant he wouldn’t be able to hear my complaining even if I tried. What was the point of being a tier 3.5 if I had the effective tier of 3.1 with even lower mana generation capabilities?!

Another beam of weird overly destructive energy snapped me back to my senses, forcing me to drop flat against the ground and roll to the side. Looking up at the insane Glory Daze member as she received more and more cracks from using her weird energy, I saw that the only chance I could get at strangling her was if I struck from behind. But it wasn’t exactly easy to do with all the beams and cannon fire, or the weird energy-clad legs of the throne thrashing around.

It wasn’t until Draceld sensed my hestistation and created a giant smoke screen that I knew it was my time to act. Keeping low to the ground, I sprinted forward with both my fishing rods in hand and commanded my black azalea’s strangling wire conjurations to wrap around both of the fishing lines.

“A smokescreen?! You think that will stop the power of Z-Erub?!” screeched Crash-Four, cutting through the smokescreen with a spiral of beams from her floating cannons: a half a foot lower and I would have been erased.

“Ohho, no, not at all. But it got your atttention just fine,” replied the high-enlightened with a grin, her berry-esque complexation glistening from sweat and mana emission as my phylactery deflected a thick beam of weird overly destructive energy. Catching Draceld’s slight nod as Crash-Four went to focusing her down with beams and cannon fire, I went to make my move.

Making full use of my Twin Fishermanship mandala and Dual System-Fishermanship (Game-Vox) quasi-mandalas, I coated both of my fishing rods’ strangling wire-wrapped lines with mana to better control them. Before the Glory Daze could notice that I wasn’t in line of sight anymore, I lunged up the back of her throne, making sure not to touch its legs or any of the cracks of reality surrounding her.

“What are you ack-” shouted the annoying girl before suddenly getting caught off as my fishing rods’ wires wrapped around her crack-covered neck. It didn’t matter how anti-gore the Hybrid System of Flowers was if it still meant your stimulated body still needed to breathe. What the hell is she using? I thought to myself as I struggled to keep the lines taut as I felt mana rush from them in a strange attempt to damage the Glory Daze member.

“Not so much of a master trimmer now are you?” I goaded her in a vain attempt to keep her from trying to pull at the lines with her hands, remembering the term used for people with her style of spellcraft. 

Unable to say anything, Crash-Four just shot her head back to stare at me with cracked eyes so full of malice that I got spooked for a split second. Next thing I knew I felt all my mana leave me as everything went a crackling black and I was gasping for air from the safety of a pod: now in the other layer of reality in one of those real body-holding towers. Still feeling just how big and dangerous that explosion was, I telepathically called out,

“Draceld? You there?”

“I am, just very exhausted and in my personal space right now,” answered the high-enlightened with a worn out voice.

“The phylactery worked?”

“Yes, but it is completely shatttered, you’lll have to remake it.”

“Damnit Driscoll!” I shouted, accidentally sent that outburst across all my connections.

“At least you are safe and sound right now,” commented Anlola, finally speaking up now that the fight was done.. That wasn’t the issue though. Phylacteries were hard to remake… And I just got that one! That stupid personality was going to pay for making it break! He better know how to remake it fast or at least get me another one!

“It was the only way to win that fight. Be glad that the wills gave you a counter to Z-Erub,” off-handedly commented Driscoll as I struggled to get up and out of the pod I was in.

“You’re lucky you’re a part of me or else I would be beating you up right now,” I scowled in frustration before grabbing a lollipop from my personal space.

“Beating yourself up would probably be bad,” noted Anlola, slowly starting to get her personality from the looks of it.

“I know… it’s just Driscoll is annoying. I already have one stupid dad, I don’t want to deal with another!”

“But isn’t he an alter personality? Another sapience?”

“That’s besides the point. Ugh… how is the fight with Clockwork Witchwork going?”

“It is finishing up, whatever magic they were using ended up being their downfall. Also I’m being told by the others that the half core would be remade shortly.” Well at least things were going our way and I’ve done my part. Now I just needed to wait for dad’s fight to be done so I could go beat him up for giving me a Grand Key that had a cursed mandala and facsimile in it. And whatever weird tag that was on the phylactery… Today was just the day for weird magic wasn’t it?... Y-Prapath, Z-Erub, the weird tag I couldn’t figure out, and who knew what else. Ugh, why must dad attract such weird stuff?!