“Ya know, haha, it’s weird to not actually be preparing for Halloween for once,” I commented to Tabitha’s alt-rhi, Tabbi, as a handful of sweet tooths and grove tenders stared at her pair of dragons, Vertrala and Scalugon the Last. It was nice to know that I didn’t need to be so hands-on with this holiday season because Treant Orchards had seven years of experience under its belt plus a lot of underling blackzone managers. But it was like wow, I’m helping out Robert with a quest, especially since it involved dealing with Borolio of the Plague Clouds and Starving Pillars Limos. The end of days was already hitting all Enigmas on Summer-6 hard enough as is, but for a famine-based herald to appear, one that never appeared before? Us Flasaporium hub Enigmas were really going to have to watch out. Thank god Robert and I are so close.

“You’re not doing anything? Are you actually pulling a Robert?” asked Tabbi with a raised brow.

“No, just letting my underlings handle it. We got a few Schemas to pick from while we buy up mana crystals. Which means I get to help out with the quest!”

“Which is definitely a help,” chimed in one of the sweet tooths leading the group, Lyria, as she and her cousin inspected their bows.

“Yeah, I’m glad you gals are helping with the reinforcements. I don’t feel so awkward leaving Scalugon and Aurum here to defend,” commented Tabi, pointing to her high-familiar dragon-riding dead rider and asset that took the form of golden armour.

“Don’tcha worry about it, we’re take care of them and your friends’ assets too,” I reassured her as I cracked my knuckles with a flare of mana, happy to have extra support. The more pitching in, the more fun I could have without worry about accidentally snagging MVP. I don’t want to steal someone else’s quest reward when I already got my amazing Flasaporium Hub’s Sour, Sweet, & Savory, I told myself as Lyria and her cousin chatted with Tabbi a bit more before we split off into our separate groups: having Tabbi plus five other spellmen backing us up was a nice thought.

“Well you did willingly choose to lower your chance to be MVP,” commented Jaffa from the back of my head as I made my way to the base proper and where all the fighting was happening.

“Yeah that was a pretty neat option,” I replied, glad that I could lower the weight of my contributions to these massive fights since between my four kits of Brawler, Brawler (Earth), Goddess’s Brawler, and Brawler of Gaia meant I could throw out my signature mana-supercharged punches without worry. It was amazing what you could do with a single system slot, multi-system slot, and stratum 2 multi-system slot could do with some clever connection allocation and help from legendary tier mages like Reagan, Johari, and Gunther.

Arriving at the base’s barricade, I instantly recognized a few faces: Johanson, a blackzone manager colleague of mine that ran a booze-themed Enigma who was currently throwing molotov cocktails, and Mr. and Mrs. Emric, the pair of sweet tooth delvers that often took their son blackzone farming in my Enigma. Excited, I rushed up the stairs to the barricade’s top and past the blackzone manager before jumping down. Aiming my landing, I glowed with the lights of my signature blend of manas: green, Foundation-typed, Leylines-typed, World Kernels-typed, divitas, and true magic-typed with some virya and qi mixed in. 

Hitting the ground, I released it all in a shockwave that destroyed a few nearby enemy RTSes and drudges, leaving them as smoky trails in the wind. Awesome, barely any suppression, I laughed internally, enjoying the fact I could flex most of the Goddess’s Brawler and Brawler of Gaia kits’ power despite this pocket dimension being a stage 0 one that dampened the full potential of stratum 2 and higher multi-system slots. From back on top of the marginally gold-trimmed barricades, Johanson shouted out,

“Nice one Lucilla!”

“Thank ya!” I shouted back as most of the surviving summons started to focus on me: throwing and shooting a stream of different shadowy projectiles that bounced off my quadra-layered skin grafts from my kits. I could feel the tickling presence of another hybrid system in their attacks, probably one of Crestier’s fancy systems I heard people were talking about since we were currently in the spiralling corridor. I guess this Midnight Parlor faction was a local one.

“No thank you, this place is amazing, and holy shit your heads up about you know what is saving me so much trouble,” laughed back the blackzone manager as he continued to chunked more molotov cocktails, sending them splashing against the concrete and surrounding plain-looking skyscrapers. He wasn’t wrong, getting our hands on a new type of hybrid system was always a lot of fun! Quickly scanning the enemies as they got peppered from above, I noticed it was pretty much RTSes, drudges, and people definitely in proxy bodies or the likes. This hybrid system’s systemancers must really love using throwaways, I mused with a grin as I continued to drive into each, heading for the nearby underpass where a bunch of the enemies were coming from: we had three dragons between Vertrala and the two Scalugon the Lasts protecting the base, so might as well stretch my legs. It was definitely a help that both Tabitha and Tabbi learned how to overlap their mode options for their dragons.

Punching my way through a group of RTSes and their small but bulky drudge counterparts, I started to feel the other hybrid system’s presence go from tickling to sticky with an abundance of curse and other non-Five Powers non-chromatic manas. Talk about nasty stuff, luckily I don’t have to worry about it too much, I noted as I breached the underpass and blinked a few times to get used to the really magical darkness that was making things hard to see. A sudden surge of darkness and mana: on reflex I released a surge of mana.

“Oh wow, that’s something,” I yelped as I had to dodge to avoid the full brunt of the blast, my connection to Gaia suddenly flaring up in warning. It’s been a while since I instinctively tried to dodge something, especially since becoming an apex and hitting high tier 5. Thanks Gaia, I muttered as I realized why the goddess actually used her connection toward me: defense-reversing forbidden magic, something she loathed. If I got cleanly hit by that then no way my defense or bane resistance would have been able to protect me.

“Damnit, I could have sworn that was a kill shot,” commented the secret worlder that fired the shot as he hefted up his two-handed cannon-rifle and readied to fire again.

“Oh yeah, ya and me both,” I replied, scraping off the sticky darkness that did land on me before it could erode my body’s defenses even more. Picking up my rate of passive mana circulation, I stared at the secret worlder and noticed the large portal behind him that was slowly spewing out RTS, summons, proxy bodies, and the likes. Hehe, found my next target.

Hearing the whine of the cannon-rifle revving up, I spring into action to try and exploit the fact the guy couldn’t heft up his weapon past his hip even with two hands. Moving in, I skidded to halt and jumped to the side as another surging blast of darkness and mana, this time completely dodging it. As the secret worlder cursed at another missed shot, Jaffa piped up from the back of my head,

“From the looks of it, the portal and the magical darkness are from his kits. That and he is definitely in his real body also.”

“Ahh so that’s why I can sense his tier so clearly.” He was probably tier 4.7 or 4.8, maybe 4.9, but he was way more experienced with this hybrid system and has abilities and spellcraft that countered mine. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t out maneuver and pummel him silly!

Bringing my fists close to my face, I twisted around a pillar. Betting on the secret worlder thinking I would duck out the otherside, I circled back and to finish closing the gap. A swirl of mostly green coloured manas with traces of yellow and violet as I straight jabbed his arm. 

“Fuck!” shouted the secret worlder in pain as he lost grip on his oversized gun. Hearing the sound of movement as some of the RTSes and drudges coming out of the portal started to head toward us, I let out another quick mana-empowered jab before stepping back. “Fucking moons, have anyone told you to control your aura?”

“My manalogical aura? Haha yeah, I get that a lot ya know,” I replied as some of the melee weapon-wielding RTSes darted toward me. With a flurry of blows, I took them all down and watched as the secret worlder awkwardly grabbed a pistol with his good arm, his mangled arm not bleeding but definitely messed up. Guess his tier didn’t give him a good enough defense to block my blows.

Before he could even pull the trigger, I was dodging and closing in again. Tilting my head to the side to dodge the first shadowy bullet, I stepped forward and brought my fist into his exposed elbow with a crack! Even with all the darkness, I could see how thoroughly I shattered his passive spell shield. Keeping it up with a smile, I pushed out more mana as I went from the punch to elbowing him in the chest. 

Feeling him teeter backwards, I threw my weight on him like a wrestler and brought him to the ground. As he wheezed and struggling to find a weapon to use, I readied another blow and asked,

“You’re insured right?”

“Of course I am, I’m not an idiot,” coughed the secret worlder, his eyes bulging at the amount of mana I was compressing around my fist.

“Oh good, I don’t like killing people when I don’t have to ya know.” With that, I punched with all my might and took him out. “And a win for me.”

“Don’t forget the portal,” followed up Bosch for me as I picked myself up.

“Thanks Bosch, I’ll do that now with a pear of punches.”

“Haha, nice one Lucilla.”

“I know,” I chimed as I made my way over to the portal before my connection to Gaia suddenly flared up again. Before I could protect myself with a cloak of mana and dodge, I felt as my arm was torn off. The feeling of pain shot through me before being dampened by shock, magic, and the hybrid system’s influence.

“This is why you get rid of the body,” suddenly quipped the secret worlder, alive again out of the blue as the green manas passively circulating in my body quickly went to staunch the flow of blood.

“I didn’t know you could revive yourself like that,” I replied wide-eyed in surprise, feeling a bit annoyed that I was going to have to burn a use of system insurance to repair my arm.

“Self-reviving kit.” Another blast that I saw coming this time: making use of the flat that my left arm was just blown off, I twisted slightly to the right to avoid the projectile. And as I closed in, I focused on my mandalas, activating it full blown and feeling the sting of cross karmic retribution.

Shooting out of my left shoulder, an arm of pure visible manalogical aura slammed into the secret worlder's face and stunning him. I can’t believe he made me pull out Aura-Arm of the Incarnation of Gaia, I thought to myself with a mixture of annoyance and excitement. Before the secret worlder could say another, I punched him again, breaking his nose, then repeated the process to break his skull: killing him again.

“Surprise attacks are always no fun,” I quipped to no one in particular as I went to pick up my arm and reattach it with my racial feature, letting the aura-arm cover it and infuse it with green manas. Luckily it was a clean blow, so maybe I could get away without using the system insurance and instead just buy some assisting healing. “Oh maybe I can get Robert to brew me a potion for this!”

Smiling at the thought of getting Robert to make me a specialize healing potion and maybe even helping him out since I did have some potioneering mandalas now, I went to bashing apart a few straggling RTSes and drudges and breaking the portal they were coming out of. As the portal crumbled and the darkness of the underpass started to return what it normally was, the sounds of explosions filled my ear. Turning around, I could see the faction base even more under siege. Oh wow, looks like I got more work to do!