“You got to be kidding me,” muttered Robert out of the blue as I navigated the gazebo around a particularly dense patch of noxious fumes.

“What is it now?” I replied, releasing an arrow specially made from my cursed anachronistic attunement, Arrows of Blindness, along with my Arrows of Fate and watched as it managed to pierce one of the aircraft’s wings and release a burst of blinding divination magic. My nearsightedness and farsightedness from all my curses becoming a non-issue as I got a clear view of yet another target for a few seconds.

“Fayn Weaver just jury-rigged a phylactery for the other me to use.”

“I’m guessing that’s your new sapiance.” He definitely had multiple versions of himself now, but I could also tell he had another sapiance beside them… and they felt different compared to Sucria-Robert and Driscoll: sensing things over our connections wasn’t my forte and I had more important things to do.

“Marvelous! What is their specialty?” half-roared half-asked Editon before firing off an overcharged ballista bolt and piercing the just-struck aircraft-drudge, causing it to explosion into a fiery noxious plume. A sudden volley of rapid fire blaster fire forced me to swerve the gazebo, letting Robert’s shields take the brunt of the blow and forcing me to give him more mana.

“Crap, and no clue, I literally just met her,” replied Robert as he awkwardly fired off a bolt from his floating spirit ballista, only to miss the aircraft-drudge he was aiming as it scissored around his attack.

“Wire Tech, particularly low-maintenance Technologia that splices together Five Powers, magecraft, and true magic,” suddenly explained Robert’s new sapiance through the new mask on his chest. “Also wow, there are a shit ton of enemies. What’s going on? I thought these guys weren’t that strong.”

“Carbon Pharma connected a stage 1 pocket dimension to this one… they’re attacking both this base and our forward base,” I replied in frustration, just accepting the fact that this Fayn Weaver was already caught up due to the fact she was a part of Robert now. Gunther was handling the higher stage pocket dimension for us with the rest of Goldenrod Compita-Phantasm along with our other allies who were interested in the system like Tala, Nathan, and Johari: none of us were expecting a reversal like this. We got complacent because we knew the quest would help us…

“Ahh I see, we thought we could handle this quest cause people were treating us with kiddy gloves. Damn talk about shit luck,” bluntly pointed out Fayn Weaver, already grasping something we were all avoiding.

“What the hell Weaver?! No cool,” shouted Robert in a mixture of frustration and shock, missing another ballista bolt.

“I’m just saying it as it is, also I’m pretty sure sugar coating it is just going to make things worse.”

“She is right too, we can’t sugarcoat this failing, only work on minimizing our losses,” I replied, grumbling in frustration: it was only a matter of time too many members of Carbon Pharma got past us or overwhelmed Mita and the others in the system-made base core’s room. Focusing on my connection to Pattisoria, Sugiel, and Rom-Arch, I could tell they were coordinating with all the gingerbread urbanites that had fallen and having them spend faux-system slot’s connection to create empowerments for proxy body kits and our allies outside of these pocket dimensions to stem the tide.

Focusing back on the aircrafts and their gunfire and fumes while Robert and Fayn Weaver bickered between each other, there were still a few dozen flying around but it looked like the numbers coming through the new portal were slowing down. It’s not going to be fast enough… I noted as I sent out another volley of arrows and made sure to detonate the ones that missed midair. Between Editon and Robert, my cake-eye-balls, my divination magic, and the gazebo’s ethereal vision itself, I could see the entire surrounding battlefield.

“Permission to start drawing on your crystals!” loudly inquired Editon, shaping another ballista bolt as I moved the gazebo higher up to get a better angle.

“Just don’t overextend usage,” I replied, letting the lion-headed spirit start using one of the crystals I managed to manifest from Synthesis: Editon’s Bow of Glyiria. Just another downside of chaining stratum 2 multi-system slots with power-links: if we had to deal with this hybrid system in detail past this quest, I was definitely going to have to invest in some blackzone manager-based system slot expansion procedures.

“Mind if I do the same? It’s getting hard keeping all the barriers up,” followed up Robert awkwardly, creating another set of barriers as a volley of blaster fire buffeted the side of the gazebo. Nodding as I continued to focus on maneuring and returning fire, I let him grab a crystal also and started to feel the strain on my mandalas and system shift.

“I got a message from Gunther’s reinforcements, Carbon Pharma just sent out their last push,” commented Pattisoria from the back of my head with Sugiel quickly following up,

“And Johari’s reinforcements are analyzing it as primarily a set of stratum 4 kits, likely the source of all the aircrafts. It is confirmed they are at least partial drudges.”

“Saintess Van Valiry…” I mentally muttered back to my system assistants as I felt the ripple of mana that signalled the last push; entering my sphere of view, I watched as a small flying aircraft carrier started to make its way toward our base. If our base didn’t follow by the time this carrier got past our aerial defenses, it would definitely fall afterwards. “Robert, Editon, focus on the aircraft carrier.”

“You’re fucking serious? A flying warship!” shouted Robert, quickly whipping up a haphazard ballista bolt and firing it at the carrier. Out of the corner of my ethereal vision I could say the other Robert was panicking as much and currently getting the gingerbread urbanites to retreat.

“Need some help?” questioned Fayn Weaver from out of the blue as Robert and Editon fired ballista bolt after ballista bolt while I maneuvered the gazebo away from the flying aircraft carrier’s main turrets. 

“Shouldn’t you be helping Robert right now?” I telepathically replied, sending out a volley of Arrows of Fates to get a better picture of the aircraft carrier’s movements.

“Robert, well Robert 1 is retreating right now so he doesn’t need the phylactery, same with Robert 3 and Mita since the crystal room just got overrun.”

“Did you just number the Roberts?”

“Yeah, I mean it’s not like they are the original Robert.” She wasn’t wrong, but it was a tricky subject because they were all effectively the true Robert: their existences were regulatory reflections of the first Robert. “So do you want some help? I might not be the most competent Weaver out there but I have some tricks.”

“What can you do?” I pressed as I fired another volley, refreshing my divination magic surrounding the aircraft carrier, dodging its attacks the best I could while Editon and Robert continued to fire away.

“Modification mostly if we’re talking about on the fly, I think I can help you use your Greater Catharsis right now with some help.”

“How much help?”

“Let’s… put my mask on and then some support from Surcia-Robert and Rom-Arch.”

“Why are you bringing me into this?” scowled Surcia-Robert over our connection as I quickly took Fayn Weaver’s mask from Robert’s spirit form and put it on: it was a weird sensation to say the least due to the fact that this new sapiance was pushing her presence through it.

“Because you and Rom-Arch are connected to his Greater Catharsis via a Grand Key, and I need something more to work with other than the fact Ras’s stratum 2 multi-system slot is power-linked to the synthesis built out of it,” explained the sapiance, already getting to work and piecing together a haphazard way to deploy my Archer Catharsis of Frisylt & Mallenberg without too much interference.

“I shall take your lead and focus on offloading the excess cross-karmic retribution. Ras, please go all out,” commented Rom-Arch as I felt my connection to Frisylt flared up with mana and activity. As my quicksilver cloak and Bow of Glyiria changed shape, I could tell what was happening of a simulated Greater Catharsis and not an actual one even though I was feeling a swell of emotion.

Letting the sense of frustration build up for release, I created a glowing arrow out of the thin air and notched it. Watching as our remaining forces started to focus fire on the carrier, I followed suit: a streaming beam-like arrow of blackness, not from black mana but rather sheer blinding darkness, struck true and managed to notably damage one of the aircraft carrier’s jets. Is it only a budget stratum 4 multi-stratum slots? I mused as I readied another Greater Catharsis-wrought arrow. It would make that three stratum 2 multi-system slots combined with a Greater Catharsis could potentially be a threat to it…

“Well yeah, probably twenty-two to thirty system slots used, likely no tags or atleast only a few low-value ones, and definitely geared toward RTSes and aerial vehicle-type drudges. Don’t think the aircraft carrier itself is a summon though,” chimed Fayn Weaver from the back of my head as I had the gazebo weave back and forth between blaster and turret tire, drawing on information my system assistants were feeding us in trickles.

By the time we had managed to take down half of the aircraft carrier’s jet with the help of some ground reinforcements, the pulse of mana that signalled our base had fallen and pushed past us. Letting my frustration continue to build and follow through my Greater Catharsis as Surcia-Robert and Fayn Weaver continued to manage it: I readied myself for a final shot.

“Let this be our decisive blow!” laughed Editon as he caught on to my intentions and pushed the spirit ballista he was using to the max. Nervously gulping, Robert did the same while also shifting the barriers into spell amplifiers. Seeing that aircraft-drudges started to focus on us, I decided to not take truly evasive action and instead commanded the gazebo to fly toward the aircraft carrier and upward, doing my best to throw off their aim.

“Frisylt, smite them,” I muttered as I pulled on my connection with the old blind god of saintesses and much of mana my mandalas could draw in and refine at once. With a single movement, I fired my final arrow and felt the Sea of Phenomena cramps and cross-karmic retribution kick in. You’d think that being a spirit king would help with cross-karma, I wearily muttered as the aircraft carrier was struck and its entire front part was torn apart, my arrow not just piercing but eroding it.

As it started to descend and crash, its aircrafts frantically flying around and escaping, I watched as all my cake-eye-balls and Robert were forcibly dispelled as I struggled to even keep the gazebo aloft. Letting my pseudo-Greater Catharsis also undo itself, I relished the fact we did manage to prevent further bases from being lost, but we still had just lost two bases and only had two of the four bases we were supposed to protect left. Not to mention… it was only a matter of weeks before Borolio of the Plague Clouds and Starving Pillars Limos made their appearance.

“We just need to get stronger,” commented Sucria-Robert bluntly as I directed the gazebo to the ground and quickly dispelled it to conserve the last of my strength.

“Yes! All we need is more training and strategy!” roared Editon in agreement, now back in his personal space. “And we can always ask Uncle Ester for assistance! There is no shame in succeeding with the help of others!”

“Powerful spellman uncle? I like the sounds of that,” quipped Fayn Weaver as her connection to me grew more faint now that I wasn’t summoning Robert. Of course Robert’s new sapiance would be the type to quickly scrape together information: I couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or not at this point. I guess it’s time to give Uncle Ester a call… let’s just hope everything works out…