"…I'll drop this toxic bitch!" Bellial snarled. The Ice spears flew at the infected woman with enough speed to create a sonic boom.
Despite being fired from the woman's blind spots she still managed to notice and dodged them. Bellial growled deeply then flapped his wings and soared towards the infected woman leaving a trail of ice crystals in its wake.
I dropped to my knees and coughed up a mouthful of blood. It felt like waves of knives were swimming through guts. I was still in mana overload despite all the mana I pushed into Bellial a moment ago.
"CHASE!" Bo yelled. I spat a wad of blood and spit, then gritted my teeth as more pain wracked over my body.
"Still…taking in…dark…mana….!…Can't…stop…it!" I spat out. It felt like my own mana was rebelling against me, funneling more and more mana into my body. I had at least double my normal mana inside me and it was still growing.
"Well stop drawing it in!" Bo yelled.
"Oh! Why…didn't…I think…of…that!" I hissed sarcastically.
"CHASE!"
"Yelling…won't….help!" I snapped back.
"My lord!" Empress called out. I looked up and saw her gliding towards Bo and I. She landed in front of me and let out a screech when she saw the blood. "My Lord! You're injured!"
"No shit!" Bo snapped.
"Bo…shut up!" I hissed then forced myself to stand and placed my hand on Empress chest. "Empress…here!"
I forced as much mana into Empress body as I could. She gasped as her entire body glowed with a familiar bright purple light. Her body floated into the air, the light getting more intense the higher she flew.
"Again?!" Bo exclaimed.
"No choice…too much….mana!" I managed to spit out despite the pain.
Empress fanned all six of her wings out as she started to change. The bottom wings, her fifth and sixth on her left and right side respectively began to elongate and stretch until they were two and a half times their original size. Four claw-like talons grew at the ends of the two wings. The remaining four wings grew an entire half size.
Her body became even more slender and elegant while her beak shortened and curved like a eagles, her eyes narrowed, and crystal started to form on her forehead. The crystal stretched as it wrapped itself around her head and twisted into the shape of a lithe and elegant tiara, the center of which a prismatic crystal in the shape of a star formed.
Finally Empress began to change. The change happened from the top of her head, the once metallic feathers crystallized. Hard edges, conformed to a delicate edge as if being molded by a master glassblower. The color changed of each feathers turned prismatic. The light refracting on each feather and revealing a array of colors; reds, oranges, blues, and whites, the many shades of flames shifting like waves down the length of her body.
The light faded and Empress floated to the ground and landed gracefully in front of me. The late afternoon sunlight shining brightly on her new crystal feathers. Empress wrapped her fifth and sixth wings around her waist and clasped the talons on the wings together. The act turning her wings into a skirt that completely covered her legs and with the addition of her long tail feathers gave the appearance of a ball gown with a train.
"My Lord…I have no words to describe what I am feeling. Simply give me a order and I'll show my appreciation by fulfilling it to perfection.!" Empress exclaimed.
"Keep the woman occupied!" I ordered, pointing at the fleeting figure dashing across the sky. Empress bowed deeply, her new feathers Seeming to burn softly in the sunlight.
"By your order!" Empress exclaimed then turned on her heel. She snapped all her wings open then took to the sky. Her speed leagues above what it was at the transcended stage.
"You're still in mana overload!" Bo observed then looked up at my evos fighting.
"I know!" I growled then spat up another mouthful of blood. I winced as I felt a gash appear on my arm, several more appearing all over my body. "There's too much mana in the area! I have alm…most four times…m-m-my max!"
"Fuck! Casting spells would get rid of the overload but the dark element mana into the air prevents that!" Bo growled. His eyes widened and a grim smile tugged at his lips. "Chase! Condense and channel all your mana into your bone claws! Like a projectile!"
Without thinking I popped my claws and channeled as much mana into my claws like he said. Remembering that the air had dark element mana in it now I channeled void attribute mana and a black hole formed between the two claws. The black hole got smaller and smaller the more mana into packed into it.
With the active mana channeling I felt like I was at a standstill, my mana stores weren't increasing anymore but they weren't going down. The mana I was absorbing was being canceled out by the mana I was channeling.
"Aim that mana straight up! If what you taught me is right then that black hole should suck up all the dark element mana!" Bo exclaimed.
"Fuck it! Hold onto something!" I yelled then pointed my claws skyward and fired the void attribute mana.
The black hole shot into the air, the nearly microscopic black hole flew high above where Alpa'nagia, Bellial, and Empress were fighting the infected woman. Just as it passed four hundred thousand feet it expanded into a black hole over a mile on circumference. In that instance all light and sound vanished around us, there was only feeling. The feeling of being pulled off the ground and yanked towards the black hole.
I channeled gravity attribute mana throughout the air around me and increased the local gravity to pull everything within the field toward the ground. It didn't stop me from getting sucked in but slowed me down. After fifteen seconds the black hole collapsed and shrank down into nothingness. Light and sound returned the very instant the black hole disappeared and I realized I was in the at least two hundred thousand feet in the air, Bo was flailing next to me and looked terrified and confused.
"THAT WAS TERRIBLE! NEVER DO THAT AGAIN!" Bo screamed as he started to fall towards the ground below. There were large chunks of earth that had gotten ripped from the ground to be sucked into the black hole all around us, they were falling now and throwing the area into chaos.
"I am regretting this idea!" Bo exclaimed. He slowed down and started flying, bobbing and weaving through the falling debris. I channeled gravity attribute mana and did the same while fighting through the severe mana overload.
Bone-lasher shared his senses with me immediately following Empress warning and I saw the full damage of the black hole I created. Large chunks of rock and earth had been ripped up and sent hurtling into the sky by the black hole up to five miles away, turning the air into a mine field of debris. I saw the infected woman weaving through falling rocks and boulders half a mile away and headed straight for Bo and I. Bellial, Alpa'Nagia, and Empress were hot on her tail and trying to slow her down with mana channeling attacks.
"She's coming for us again!" I yelled as I flew beside Bo.
"That didn't kill her?!" Bo screamed incredulously.
"No! But it got rid of the dark element mana!" I replied.
"This woman is too strong! She survived a black hole, kept three true transcended evos at bay, and is kicking our asses!" Bo griped. He glanced at my farm crystal, still glowing bright red as a sign of mana overload then gritted his teeth. "You need to bring out all your evos! They can blitz her while we set up to strike from a blind spot."
"I don't have all my evos. Grimm-Guard and Jiggles are back in Andromeda. Beside Bone-lasher can't fly." I replied.
"Bring out who you can!" Bo growled as his own farm crystal glowed inside his mouth and a crystalline structure formed in front of him before he threw it backwards. Midnight emerged from the structure and immediately kept close to the both of us, his eyes scanning for the enemy.
"Fine! Mzazzi, Bahamut! Help the others!" I exclaimed as I summoned their crystalline structures.
They emerged and immediately turned towards the infected woman, guided by Bone-lasher's electromagnetic vision shared through the mental connection I shared with all my evos. Though Bahamut just charged through any falling debris instead of flying evasively like Mzazzi was forced to.
I grabbed Bo by the arm and forced us both to fly up, bobbing and weaving through falling debris until the last piece was below us. We spun around and looked at the devestation caused by my last ditch plan to deal with all the infected woman's mana. Thankfully we were pretty far from any towns or cities because there wouldn't have been anything left standing. The once flat savanna plains now more closely resembled mountainous tundra with new cliffs and jagged bluffs dotting the five mile landscape.
"Well fuck…" Bo and I said in unison.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAH!" A voice bellowed Bo and I looked towards the sound and saw the woman barreling towards us.
"FUCK A DUCK!" We yelled in unison then quickly flew backwards to keep distance however she was moving too fast.
I moved to cut her off and channeled shock attribute mana as well as gravity attribute and channeled the mana into my hands and held them in front of me. Lightning shot from my fingers and lit up the skies, arcs spreading out like spiderwebs. Several finding their mark and hitting the infected woman with enough electricity to light up a small town, not that it slowed her down any or made a dent in my mana overload problem.
Spears made of ice pointed towards the woman suddenly appeared in front of me. Their sudden appearance making the woman stop in mid-air and fly downwards. The spears tracked her and flew after her, moving so fast they caused a sonic boom. Bellial, Mzazzi and Empress flew into view, all three trying their best to use mana channeling to hurt her or cut her off.
"I thought that magic attacks were useless or didn't work around infected people?" Bo said. He flew beside me and ran his hands through his hair in frustration.
"Considering we can't hit her I'd say they're useless…but something has changed. When she had that mana around her she didn't bother to dodge attacks but since that mana explosion she's been dodging…" I mused.
Wanting to test something I channeled mana into my void pocket enchanted ring and started casting the axiom spell sigil. Once again holes started forming in the spell sigil before it shattered.
"I thought I couldn't cast spells because of the dark element mana in the air. But I destroyed all that…" I grumbled then winced as more gashes appeared across body.
"Your mana overload is tearing your body apart…but when you can't spells the mana is still expended…Chase, follow me!" Bo exclaimed then started flying rapidly towards the ground.
I flew after him keeping an eye on the infected woman and our evos keeping her at bay. Alpa'nagia and Bellial attacked her from a distance to keep her confined to a small area while Empress, Mzazzi, Bahamut, and Midnight launched targeted attacks meant to wound or slow her down. Mzazzi was forced to attack using her claws since every spell she tried to cast was disturbed and shattered.
Bo landed on a newly formed cliff and I landed beside him. I nearly double over from pain when a new gash opened up on my calf.
"Before anything, use your new mana to heal the wounds caused by the overload. If you bleed out then this will be useless!" Bo ordered.
"So pushy…" I said with teasing tone despite myself. Bo scowled at me and started to snap but I had already tuned him out and focused on using the overflowing mana to heal. With all the extra my wounds healed in a matter of seconds only to have new ones appear because of the bursting mana.
'Think Chase! Mana overload is caused when you have more mana than your body can handle, your body's mana storage gets filled beyond your natural limit and the excess is forced into your body unpurified…wait…my own storage is stretched larger than normal because of the overload...so maybe I can shore up where my mana is stored to stop the overload…at least for now….'
I smirked then reversed the flow of my mana, using it to repair and map out my mana veins until I found the core where my mana was stored. As I expected it was my farm crystal, or rather a organic component inside my farm crystal. A small bundle of flesh connected to the base of the crystal in my hand that connects the mana veins and nerves to the rest of my body. That flesh bulb had expanded to at least four times its size and had large laceration and gashes all over that mana was flowing out of.
'Seal the cracks in the storage organ and make it sturdy enough to handle it the overflow…or maybe…' I thought then channeled my mana out through the lacerations, turning it into flesh attribute mana as it wrapped around the mana storage organ. I imagined the mana acting as a layered shell, fortifying and supporting the more fragile flesh underneath. The layers allowing for the shell to stretch a little.
The moment the last of the flesh attribute mana solidified into the layered shell my mana overload stopped. I opened my eyes and smirked devilishly, glancing down at my farm crystal which had stopped glowing red and returned to the normal faint shifting colors.
"Fixed the overload…" I breathed, a little out of breath.
"That's great…actually that's amazing! But forget that for a second…do you still have that Rune hound with you?" Bo asked.
"Rune hound…?" I muttered. I felt a twinge in my mind, the beginnings of a connection threatening to form. My eyes widened I connected the dots. "…Oh him! The one that got free at Moldworks East. Yeah I brought him…didn't really have time to take him back to the special research section in the last few days."
"Being him out! He might be the only one that can help!" Bo exclaimed.
I summoned the Rune hound's crystalline structure and threw it on the ground in front of me. The Rune hound emerged from the structure and howled loudly then bowed his head so low it touched the ground.
"Star Shaper…." The Rune hound breathed.
"Chase! I need you to scratch a spell on the Rune hound's back." Bo said.
I popped my claws then quickly scratched runes on a line of scales on the Rune hound's shoulder. To his credit the Rune hound didn't flinch when I started scratching on his scales, it was what he was designed for.
"Channel mana into your scales on your shoulder." I ordered the Rune hound.
"Yes Star Shaper…" He replied. The runes I scratched into his shoulder started to glow and a moved from his shoulder to his neck and formed a offensive spell sigil on his scales. A massive fire ball formed in front of him then split apart into dozens of smaller fire arrows. The arrows all pointed at the infected woman then flew at her, each arrow having a homing ability.
The infected woman turned towards the fire arrows then started flying erratically to evade the arrows but they kept following her. The first of the arrows were only mere inches away from hitting when she unleashed a small orb of black mana at the arrow. The orb detonated on contact with the arrow and created a small black hole that swallowed up the remaining arrows.
"It worked!" I exclaimed with a devilish smile.
"We can cast spells if we use the Rune hound as a median!" Bo cackled.
"Then everyone cover me and the rune hound! I'll take this bitch out with maximum prejudice and absolute zero no chill!"