--This Chapter is written in Ellie’s POV--
Anna fell from the screen-wall behind us, crashing against the ground alongside a couple of destroyed screens.
Worried that she couldn’t defend herself, I jumped to her side, drawing my bow while I watched the shadows that had entered the fifth floor.
At the slightest movent, they’d et my arrows. And if that didn’t stop them, I’d bring out my daggers and force them to back off.
Ellie: "Anna? Is... everything okay!?"
It took Anna a second to rise from her knees, using her sword to support herself.
With her eyes still closed, she let out a deep sigh. Despite spitting blood from her mouth, she smiled.
I couldn’t understand why she seed calr than when we were fighting Ceres. But even seeing her like this didn’t dispel my worries.
Anna: "Yeah... Just got a broken rib, is all."
She lightly pressed her skin, as if to prove it didn’t hurt.
But as much as she wanted to pretend, the sharp pain forced her left eye to shut itself halfway.
She tightened her smile. It beca even less convincing.
The stab wound looked far uglier, yet her broken ribs concerned more.
No matter how painful it was, Anna wasn’t going to quit a mission given to her by Miwen. And to protect us, she would go even further.
Her courage was incredible, truly. But in a situation like this, knowing she’d tough out even a lethal wound for our sake, I couldn’t help but be mad at her.
I wanted to reprimand her. She was being reckless, and she could take it easy. Bea and I could always handle ourselves if it ca down to it.
However, now that Ceres had reinforcents, I couldn’t say any of that with confidence.
No matter how much we pushed ourselves, without Anna, capturing Ceres looked unfeasible.
??????: "Shit. And this one was signed too..."
An intense voice broke the silence that had settled in on the fifth floor.
I could hardly believe my eyes as, in the jet-black screens, I saw the opaque reflection of a man’s orange hair and fierce-looking eyes.
The man who had sent Anna flying shared the sa position as Ceres in the Army of the Gifted, though they couldn’t be more different.
While Ceres earned her executive role as the information hub of the organization through leverage, the leader of Mars had earned his position through rit alone.
He didn’t have trained soldiers like Adriarch, and his division fell short of Neptune’s numbers, yet he had so many key victories under his belt that the governnt assessed him as a threat on the sa level as Erik.
Individually.
There were even suggestions that, without nurical advantage, Alpha Team mbers should disengage upon contact with him.
I thought that was an exaggeration before. Miwen’s dad and the others were among the strongest on Earth.
However, seeing how he managed to break Anna’s bones in a single blow, that was probably for the best.
Even though he was a few centiters shorter than Ceres and the woman who accompanied him, it was hard to imagine soone would dare make fun of him for his height, as the muscles on his arms were as thick as my legs. The lack of scars in his body proved they weren’t just for show, either.
Despite the oppressive presence, he seed dejected, swinging the leftover handle of his broken wooden bat.
Still, even that was fearso, as TV screens on the opposite side of the floor would bend inwards from the air pressure of each swing.
Despite being five levels behind her, that level of strength put him on par with Mia, at the very least.
It was so absurd, I quietly closed the pockets where I kept my daggers. It would be aningless for to face him up close.
Though, as long as I kept my distance, I should be able to stop him in his tracks.
After all, when it ca to speed, he didn’t hold a candle to Mia, seeing as he needed the bat’s extra length to reach Anna, despite catching us off guard.
It could all be an act, but...
The woman beside him used her magic to summon vines and leaves, carefully attaching the wood fragnts back into the bat.
Though her work was a bit clumsy and left a lot to be desired, it seed like an honest attempt.
George: "No, you don’t need to... It’s fine."
His voice started stern, directing all of his anger towards the woman. However, it seed unintentional, and he quickly corrected himself. He even pulled back the handle and turned his face away from her in sha.
The sudden pull made the woman lift her arms in surprise, but a second later, a soft giggle escaped her mouth. She began to surround him, asking questions while trying her best to take a peek at his face.
They seed to be having fun.
I kinda forgot we were enemies and found myself rooting for them.
Just a little...
Ceres: "I won’t thank you. If you were going to intervene, you should’ve done it sooner."
Tch.
Just when he was about to turn and face the woman properly, Ceres caught her breath enough to open her annoying mouth again.
To think she could be such a pain even towards her own friends... if it were , I definitely wouldn’t have saved-
George: "We weren’t going to. But then, you started losing."
He turned his head in a surprisingly swift motion to face Ceres.
Despite their height difference, he kept his chin raised, looking her straight in the eyes and speaking with the sa stern voice he used before.
This ti, without softening a single syllable.
The shock was such that even Ceres lost her composure.
Perhaps she thought he’d treat her the sa way as he did the other woman, but she couldn’t be more wrong.
The more she raised her voice, the more he raised his, and soon enough, the two were caught in a petty shouting match, throwing insults like "incompetent" and "dumb" at each other.
Strangely, I noticed that the pressure from his voice would occasionally change. Sotis, it was enough to damage the screens; sotis, it wasn’t.
I tried to pay attention to it. Kinda.
But honestly... I felt so vindicated that it was hard to focus on anything other than Ceres’ humiliation.
I wasn’t the type to enjoy others’ suffering, but watching the scene unfold before my eyes simply put my heart at ease. Before I knew it, I had a satisfied smile on my face.
I knew it wasn’t very nice of , but then, I caught a glimpse of Anna and Bea. Their smiles were even bigger than mine, and after Ceres and George escalated their insults to more personal things, such as "Little guy. Baseball freak." and "Unsocial weirdo. Screen zombie.", we shared muffled laughs.
??????: "Hm... I don’t an to interrupt, but... Weren’t you ordered to be more efficient? I don’t understand why we would fight each other when the enemies are standing right there..."
Despite sounding ek, this woman was our biggest concern and the sole reason we couldn’t let our guards down and enjoy Ceres’ struggle to keep her composure.
She wore a deceptively cute pink dress that paired well with her black skirt. They fit her incredibly well and had that distinct cuteness that Earth’s clothes so often offered.
It was a sharp contrast to her hair, a muted green teal shade that beca lighter as it flowed down her face. Tucked behind her ear, it did nothing to hide the bright silver eyes that felt like a dagger pointed at our souls.
Unlike George, very little was known about this woman, other than the fact that she wasn’t originally from Earth.
No one was confird to have fought her and survived, and since Erik had created the rcury division entirely for her, no one in the AOTG had seen her fight either.
So in the governnt even believed she was nothing more than Erik’s bluff, but...
My intuition scread they were wrong about that.
I sensed mana around Alexis’ body on par with that of Ceres, even though she still suffered the effects of the [Mana Overload] I had inflicted on her.
Strangely, the flux of mana around the leader and sole mber of rcury wasn’t a single, unified flow like it was for most people.
It felt like... A thousand small spots. All disconnected from one another, yet so bunched up, they almost felt like one.
Almost. But not enough to feel right.
Even though she seed the most approachable of the bunch, and we shared the sa "otherworlder" origin, just watching her was enough to send a shiver down my spine.
Bea: "Hm... This doesn’t look good. Should we call our reinforcents, too?"
It was probably for the best.
Ceres alone was already a pain; even if we could win against two more executives in our current state, it would take too long, and the others outside would probably be in trouble.
Anna: "...!?"
I had my eyes focused on the three at the end of the fifth floor, yet I couldn’t miss the sharp shift in Anna’s expression.
The smile from before disappeared from her face. She mumbled sothing under her breath as her face turned pale from pure shock.
She inched closer, keeping an eye on our enemies in my stead as she whispered a terrifying question in my ears...
Anna: "Ellie... Check if you can contact the others."
I thought it was a joke. We all had the psychic link enabled in our roles.
Then I thought it was a mistake. Maybe Miwen had forgotten to activate it for Anna.
And then I didn’t know what to make of it. Miwen would never forget sothing so important. He had cracked his head thinking about multiple backups for us ever since the mission got the green light.
Thinking about it wouldn’t take anywhere, clearly.
I closed my eyes and focused on accessing the psychic link through the options in my role.
I expected a nu to pop up like usual, but instead...
[Due to the effects of [Enforced Tiout], the user may not use this function.]
I searched for [Enforced Tiout] on the massive list of debuffs that the AOTG had inflicted on us.
It was one of the many debuffs with an unclear description. My [Appraisal] only told it stopped from sending ssages until the debuff wears out, and that it was derived from a Gift with a similar na.
Since the girls and I could still speak with each other normally, I didn’t think it would affect us in any aningful way.
Honestly, we had been ignoring most of the debuffs that didn’t decrease stats or didn’t have a noticeable effect, but we weren’t being thorough enough.
It would take [Enforced Tiout] more than an hour to wear off.
And that wasn’t even the worst part...
Bea: "...How bold. It’s bad manners to force a girl to stay when they wish to leave..."
After testing our communications, Beatrice tried our escape route.
Thanks to another debuff called [Packet Loss], our access to the Kingdom was blocked.
Like [Enforced Tiout], the description didn’t say much that we could understand, other than that this debuff was derived from a Gift.
However, sothing else stood out about it...
Anna: "...[Packet Loss] has the highest duration for . What about you?"
Bea and I nodded silently to Anna’s whispers.
While most of the debuffs would only last a maximum of two hours, the tir for [Packet Loss] was up to four hours for , and since Anna had taken even more hits than Bea and I, hers was even higher.
We knew that each bullet that hit us increased the debuff duration and strength, so this tir difference, a pattern repeated in all of us, couldn’t be a re coincidence.
The AOTG had prepared more bullets with the [Packet Loss] debuff than any other, sothing they weren’t known to do...
Ceres: "Fu... Fufu... Have you finally noticed it?"
The screens around us turned on, playing several different videos of the girls and popping in and out of existence.
Then, they all repeated the sa video of Licia summoning all of us at the ruins of our old ho.
Lastly, they showed Miwen doing the sa, before Piper appeared to take him to the base of Alpha Team.
Bea: "...If we were expected, why didn’t you give us a warr welco?"
Right...
The [Packet Loss] bullets weren’t the only extraordinary counterasure they had prepared for us. Three executives rarely ever appeared at the sa place and ti outside of official AOTG etings.
Alexis and George were a bit of an exception to this rule since they often showed up on key battles and should have run into each other a few tis, but...
They had never been spotted near Ceres’ building before, and it definitely didn’t seem like they were friendly enough to hang out with each other.
Ceres: "Oh, I tried. But these two refused to fight on the first floor."
She raised her shoulders, waving it away and denying any fault. The eyes that looked down upon us and the smile that I hated so much had returned.
Alexis: "Wait, now... That’s not how I rember it. You said you’d be damned if you couldn’t take three invaders with so many squads, and that we weren’t needed."
The mood around Alexis shifted. Even the spots on her body beca unsteady, trembling.
The silver eyes that were so disturbing to before had grown even colder. Thankfully, she pointed them towards Ceres, who didn’t seem happy at all with Alexis’ attitude.
They confronted each other in silence. A couple of seconds passed as neither seed willing to lower their head.
Slowly, Alexis raised her hand, holding her own arm. Despite not showing any obvious maliciousness, this simple motion was enough for Ceres to step back from her, turning her neck while still keeping Alexis in sight.
Gritting her teeth, she turned off the TVs, letting the fifth floor fall into darkness again.
As expected, she launched a couple of screens our way.
In response, Bea slamd her staff into the floor. Her eyes twitched for a split second as the orb fired a stream of water wrapped in crackling thunder that released almost simultaneously from her stretched hand.
Her attack tore through both screens Ceres had launched without stopping, surging toward Ceres.
Once again, George stepped in front of her. With an open hand, he caught Beatrice’s magic, not even flinching as the shockwaves lashed against his shoulders.
Bea’s staff fired autonomously. As its orb rotated, it sent a dozen wind slashes against the three executives.
Ceres hid herself inside another screen cage, this ti, making sure there were no openings I could exploit.
anwhile, Anna charged forward. Using her sword as a faint, she kicked George away from the other two.
With him gone, I positioned myself to shoot magic arrows at Alexis, while Anna used the opportunity to cleave her sword into the screens protecting Ceres, hoping she could stab her through the screens.
My arrows flew fast, grazing past Anna as she moved.
But just a couple of centiters away from their target, the arrows beca unsteady, tilting off course before falling to the ground.
The iron tips made a soft, almost unnoticeable clink, whereas the wooden shafts... had vanished midair, surrounded by Alexis’ mana dots.
Her mana returned to her, drifting back in an erratic pattern.
While staring at it, I could almost make out the shape of minuscule, brown-
I wasn’t given any ti to think as a deafening boom echoed through the fifth floor, bringing George to my face with a speed I thought he wasn’t capable of.
His knee raised high, ready to crash into my stomach or trample into the ground.
I didn’t stay to figure out his plan. Jumping back, I put as much distance between us as I could, weaving through the screens crashing down from above.
Ceres: "Nimble little-"
While evading the screens, I fired an arrow upwards and two more directly against Ceres, as she rode on top of a floating screen to avoid Anna.
She didn’t make the sa mistake and readied screens to defend herself from all three arrows, but her aim was poor, and my arrows hit their target, thanks to a debuff called [Yehvi’s Disease] that ssed with her eyesight.
Once again, I got to inflict her with another debuff, and this ti, I gave her a curse called [Poisoned Well] that increased the chances of her magic backfiring.
The mont she tried to stop Anna with her screens again, activating her [Lightning Magic], she fell to her knees as the shock ran through her instead.
I thought things had been going well, but...
So of Alexis’ spots managed to block Beatrice’s magic, and with a wave of her hand, she sent so towards Anna.
The spots landed on her neck, turning it a reddish hue.
Anna scratched her skin, and the spots disappeared, but...
Thin jets of crimson blood splattered on the ground from her neck.
Bea used her magic to pull Anna back, as more spots tried to reach her, and as I readied my bow, I discovered so had made their way to as well.
I had no choice but to evade them, and that forced into a collision path with one of Ceres’ screens.
The impact sent a couple of feet back. I propelled myself from the ground instantly to regroup with the girls near the stairs.
Bea drank her second mana potion. The intervals were big enough that she wouldn’t suffer the sa effects Licia did last ti, but anything more than that and she’d be in danger.
Anna scratched her skin where Alexis’ mana had touched her, and small cracks started to form and fall, leaving her with patches of raw flesh exposed beneath.
With a wave of her hand, Bea coated Anna’s neck in a thin layer of ice. It turned red from the spewing blood, but at least it stopped her skin from falling off.
I also needed a second to recover. The glass had left a cut in my stomach, and Ceres’ lightning magic had burned the skin around it.
Bea: "...She can regenerate them? That’s... Quite interesting."
Even though Bea should have destroyed a bunch of Alexis’ mana spots with her magic, they multiplied before our eyes, once again covering her entire body.
Considering what I had seen, there was only one conclusion...
Ellie: "The forbidden fourth magic... Insect magic-"
Bea fell towards , her head resting on my shoulder as her eyes stared at mine, disapprovingly.
Bea: "There’s no such thing as insect magic, dear... At least not that I know of..."
Despite the look in her eye, she had a soft smile on her face.
She definitely saw through my attempt to bait out the two forbidden magics that she had refused to speak about earlier.
Ellie: "B-But... I swear that I saw termites eating away my arrows..."
At least that was what they looked like when they returned to Ceres.
And when her spots landed on Anna, it beca even clearer that they were bugs, as they buzzed around her before she slapped them dead.
Bea: "You’re not wrong... [Green Magic] is the only magic that creates life, and we’ve seen she can use it..."
With her so close to , I could feel her having trouble breathing. It was making it difficult for her to speak.
She was also sweating a little...
Bea: "But those insects aren’t real living beings... Or at least, their little clones aren’t."
It was easy to forget that Bea’s Gift allowed her to see the colors of the mana leaking from living beings, since most of the ti, she didn’t speak much about it.
However, it was a very useful ability in tis like this, and with it, she discovered that only a few insects around Alexis had a color different from hers.
Though I had a hard ti praising her, as I felt her skin warming up and her body starting to sweat.
Bea: "I guess she uses [Green Magic]... Hah... Maybe even [Blood Magic]... To enhance the insects... And poison her opponents... Fuuh..."
Her face was pale, almost blueish.
Ellie: "B-Bea?"
Bea: "Sorry..."
She cut a hole through her socks, showing she had been bitten.
On the floor, I spotted more dots of mana...
Anna: "...Do you think we can still win?"
Bea: "Hah..."
A burst of fire spread from Bea’s feet, destroying all spots on the ground.
Bea: "Yes... But we’ll have to be smart about it..."
In the end, it was up to Anna to decide whether we’d run or fight.
It was a tough choice.
We were holding our own, but her injuries were catching up. I could see how she overcompensated for her fading strength from ti to ti, raising her sword too high or cracking the floor with her steps.
Bea had only so much mana she could still use, and now that she was poisoned, she could collapse at any mont.
My injuries were also looking bleak, and to deal with Alexis’ bugs, I needed magic, so I was forced to drink my last mana potion as well.
Anna: "...Got it."
We could still fight, but...
Any more than this, and it would be the end for us.
We agreed that if things took a bad turn, no matter how small, we would flee.
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