Chapter 35: Chapter 35: Sara saves the day (Part 1)
Seeing his life coming to a brutal end, Night’s mind wasn’t filled with fear but with a profound suffocating regret.
He regretted only one thing: he didn’t get to spend enough time with his summons.
He wouldn’t get to watch them blossom into their full, terrifying potential.
Deep down he felt that Eve, Lilith, Death, and Lucy were destined for greatness. If he were ever to achieve anything in this unknown world, it would have been riding on their undeniable success.
But seeing it all come to an quick end... he was completely unwilling.
He immediately purchased the Epic skill; he had been hoarding his energy for a while.
Looking at the skill he had previously avoided for obvious to save EV in case life-threatening reasons like this one.
Ironically he would be purchasing the same skill in the said life threatening situation.
[Wind Overdrive (Epic) (Lvl. 1) – Cost: 1000 EV]
[Description: Allows the user to explosively enhance their physical body by overloading it with the Wind aspect.]
[Purchase? Y/N]
Yes.
As soon as he confirmed the purchase, he felt his energy quickly drain away.
[Energy Value (EV) - 162]
A torrential flood of foreign information rushed into his mind, forcefully hardwiring his brain with the knowledge of how to overload his physical body.
But even with the skill, he had absolutely no confidence in escaping the massive crescent shaped wind blade tearing toward him.
Just as he was about to desperately activate the skill...
BOOM!
A highly condensed red fireball shot out from the blue portal behind him. It slammed directly into the massive crescent wind blade, detonating in a blinding flash of heat and completely dissipating the lethal attack into harmless gusts of air.
Night blinked in shock. Before he could even process his survival, he felt the ambient mana shift violently behind him. Dozens... no, hundreds of red fireballs, or rather firebolts, erupted from the blue portal at his back.
They completely ignored the boy, streaking past him like a meteor shower to target the cunning wolf.
The wolf’s sinister smile vanished. Seeing the incoming barrage, its body began to emit green light. Its yellow eyes burned with a emerald intensity as the surrounding air exploded.
Thousands of tiny razor-sharp wind blades formed in instantaneous retaliation, completely shredding the cavern.
As if provoked by the beast’s resistance, a thousand new red firebolts poured from the portal, violently clashing with the wolf’s wind blades in a dazzling display of elemental destruction.
Because of this massive clash; the suffocating pressure pinning Night to the ground completely vanished.
Seeing a desperate new lease on life he didn’t hesitate. He simultaneously activated [Wind Overdrive] and [Wind Dash] to escape toward the portal.
The extreme overload took an immediate toll: Night’s fragile body emitted a green glow and his crystalline blue eyes shifted into a piercing bluish-green.
The wolf noticed his escape attempt instantly.
Ignoring the thousands of clashing firebolts and wind blades, it charged at Night. It moved so fast it was as if it had simply teleported. Before Night could even reach the threshold of the blue portal, the beast was upon him.
From the corner of his eye, Night could see the wolf’s paw coated glowing in green light. The beast’s eyes shined with absolute malice, leaving trails of emerald energy as it closed the final inch.
Just as the deadly paw was about to touch Night, a hastily created red barrier materialized around the boy. It was a fragile, desperate shield.
CRACK!
The protective barrier was obliterated in a single touch. It barely made the wolf pause, shattering into pieces with a single touch; but it managed to buy one singular, priceless moment of time.
And that single moment was all it took.
Sara’s spatial magic latched onto him, teleporting him into the portal. The blue spatial tear snapped shut as if it in an hurry, as if it was terrified that the wolf might attempt to cross the boundary.
Losing its target, the wolf flew past the disappearing portal. As it looked like it would plummet off the endless cliff but it simply paused stepping on the empty air as if it were solid ground.
Around it, the thousands of clashing wind blades and explosive firebolts suddenly dispersed, fading away into nothingness as if the entire catastrophic battle had merely been a mirage or an elaborate illusion.
The beast looked incredibly annoyed at the sudden turn of events, cursing under its breath for foolishly toying with its prey instead of dealing the killing blow immediately.
Sara’s POV
After waiting for over twenty tense hours in the narrow, secluded alleyway, Sara had finally received a direct response from "The Witch" the real ruler of the Desert City.
The reply confirmed her worst fears: this was indeed an Invasion-type dungeon. And surprisingly this was not the first time it had happened.
The World Council had already detected several other invasion attempts from advanced races across the universe.
According to the hidden lore, when the System integrated with their universe it had started at the very core and taken its sweet time expanding outward. Earth, being a planet located at the edge of the universe had its advantages and disadvantages.
The advantage was; Humanity got much more time to live their previous, simple lives before the apocalypse began while the disadvantage was that they were already centuries, perhaps millennia behind the advanced races, civilizations and empires thriving near the core.
But the System was nothing if not fair. It seemed these invaders were heavily restricted by universal laws and those restrictions were further reinforced the moment they attempted to enter the planet.
The Witch had shared detailed information; information Sara was only receiving because she had inadvertently stumbled across one of these critical dungeons.
Apparently, the World Council had unanimously decided to deal with these invasions internally. The threat level was far too catastrophic for standard powerhouses to handle.
Furthermore, if a powerful Awakened sided with the invaders, the resulting damage would be devastating. If a human powerhouse learned of the invaders and turned traitor; selling out humanity for advanced cosmic resources, the internal damage would be utterly devastating.
Looking down at the messages on her device, Sara found only one instruction besides the briefing data:
"Kill any Invaders and Silence the Witness."
Staring at the screen, Sara felt a mess of complex emotions.
If only it was not an innocent child, I would have followed your instruction in a heartbeat... she thought bitterly.
Beside it was her fault. Unknowingly, She was the one who had practically pushed him into this mess; driven by her own good intentions to help him level up.
A dark thought crossed her mind: There is a high chance he is already dead.
Upon thinking this her grey eyes turned completely blank for a second.
Sighing heavily,she prepared herself. According to the research files, these Invasion portals usually stabilized and opened around the 24-hour mark.
She pulled out her magical tome. As it floated before her, the pages flipped rapidly on their own stopping at a specific spell.
An ash-colored magic circle expanded outward, completely covering the alleyway before vanishing as if it were an illusion; a high-tier concealment array.
Following that, several other magic circles of varying colors expanded from the tome, layering over the alley and camouflaging themselves perfectly to take any opponent by surprise.
She then used her communication device to contact a specific someone, asking them to be on standby just in case she was horribly outmatched. But involving that person in a densely populated city like this was a terrible idea. She was much better suited for this kind of wet work.
If a true battle broke out in a crowded place like the Desert City, the collateral damage would level entire city blocks.
When the 24-hour mark finally passed her anxiety kept multiplying. After twenty agonizing minutes, just when it felt like the portal would never open, the ambient mana around the alley suddenly spiked.
A swirling blue portal roughly the size of a grown man, tore open in the fabric of space. As it stabilized the mana in the surrounding air became pure.
Sara watched closely. Seeing that nothing immediately stepped out, she retrieved a monocle from her space ring and placed it over her right eye. With the magical artifact active, she could finally peer through the portal to see the other side.
What she saw completely pissed her off.
All the stress, guilt, and negative feelings she had accumulated throughout the long day violently exploded.
She saw an impossibly massive wind blade hurtling directly toward Night, the malicious intent of the wolf standing before him crystal clear.
Without a second of hesitation, she waved her hand. A massive red magic circle shone brilliantly, instantly creating thousands of condensed firebolts in the quiet alley, shining like a constellation of red stars.
With a sharp flick of her wrist, she sent the first small fireball directly through the portal to intercept the wind blade.
