WinterHord (11) – Foreigner against Foreigner.

POV: Robyn Jheut.

As much as my father was a successful merchant and my store had great revenue, we always tried to save on "useless" things, so to speak.

Mechanical carriages were useless to us, as they were horribly expensive and not much faster than a regular animal-drawn carriage, especially considering some of the animals I raised myself.

So, because of that, I had never bothered to even try to learn how these contraptions worked or how to operate one.

Of course, after Devas appeared and showed the Humvee, that false assumption that "mechanical carriages" or cars, as he called them, were slow and useless, entirely dispensable, had been thrown out the window.

The Humvee was ridiculously fast, sturdy, and equipped with more defenses than anything I had ever seen, except for some ridiculously important place or the kingdom walls.

Unfortunately, that didn't change the fact that I had no idea how to drive a car, and well...

"Press the last pedal to accelerate and shift the small cool lever in the middle twice!" Millia wrote, her small body on the dashboard above the steering wheel.

... The only person... or rather, slime, who knew how to drive the Humvee besides its owner, Devas, and Dylan, who had ridiculously good memory... fit in the palm of my hand.

Which put me in a not-so-great situation since I needed to improvise while driving, to avoid crashing the Humvee into a house. Not that it would damage the vehicle, but I didn't want to harm anyone, and I also needed to read what Millia was writing.

Fortunately, I wasn't alone here.

"I'll read what she writes; focus on the road," Melissa's voice came from the seat beside me, where she was sitting.

Selina and my old man ended up in the back seat, with Selina focusing on watching Dylan's arrows, as even with the arrows made to catch fire, they burned for seconds before extinguishing, so someone needed to pay attention.

On the other side of the seat was my father, who was looking outside, searching for anything approaching the Humvee...

... And by anything, I mean not just hallucinations, even though we could see them now...

All of us were wearing the glasses that Dylan, Selina, and Melissa had made... Seeing these things, how many of them existed, was eerie.

There were many hallucinations, so many...

As Melissa instructed me on what Millia was writing and Selina pointed out the direction Dylan had shot, I focused only on driving, but I couldn't help but notice how everything was in chaos.

The countess's soldiers tried to calm things down, almost all of them wearing the prototypes of the glasses we were using and weapons bathed in what Devas called Scarlet Dye, but they weren't enough...

For every soldier fighting, trying to protect the residents who hadn't been evacuated to the shelters near the countess's mansion, two, three hallucinations existed and seemed to multiply, as despair seemed to settle more and more in the city.

Chaos, more chaos than I thought possible, that I would see in life, desperate people running from living shadows, soldiers fighting against monsters they were not prepared to face...

I felt my heart racing, fear or adrenaline?... I didn't know... Maybe it was because some of the hallucinations I knew I could see even without the glasses... Probably a combination of the three.

... Death... a battlefield, that's what Winterhord had turned into in minutes, a frozen battlefield, as even the flames, which the residents lit, trying to kill the hallucinations, didn't last more than a few moments in the cold.

The whispers, could only I hear them, or could everyone?...

"Stop here." Selina's voice was cold, the most emotionless I had heard the woman speak since I knew her.

Looking at her getting out of the Humvee, her face was like her voice, almost mechanical like the machines she liked to talk about for hours, as if she had suppressed her own emotions... Everyone else seemed to have that look too.

Melissa had a tense, focused look, as if she were analyzing every fact that was happening around us like a book, something to be studied and dissected, like the doctor she was.

My father, whom I had almost never seen with a serious face, always playful, easygoing, trying to lighten everything up, make it calmer, had a dead look in his eyes while killing the hallucinations with the sword Devas had lent him...

That's what it was like to be a contractor, or was it only the high-level ones who were like that? Everyone seemed almost accustomed to death, to battle, and focused only on the goal they had, on surviving...

Was that why my father had told me to try something else, not be a contractor, when I insisted on wanting to be like him? I... I didn't like those eyes, those expressions...

"Robyn!" My father shouted, getting back into the Humvee. "Are you okay?" He seemed worried, his dead gaze melting into something kind that I knew well.

This wasn't the gold-ranked contractor, but rather my father, Gilbert...

"I... I... I'm fine..." Was I? I didn't know.

How could they change so quickly? How could they act like this and return to normal?...

"Leave it to me!" I could barely read what Millia wrote before the little slime turned into a ball and jumped onto one of the matrices on the dashboard, making the Purification Powder mix with the air inside and outside the Humvee, thanks to the open doors.

I felt my mind calm down, even if just a little, but still, it was progress.

"I'm fine." I replied more firmly.

No matter what happened now, I can deal with it later; for now, we had a mission, we needed to fix and maintain the barrier.

I wasn't a contractor like everyone else, I didn't have experience in combat and situations like this, but I wouldn't drag the group down; I wouldn't be something like a helpless damsel.

Everyone had their role here; I would play mine, be the driver of this thing and take everyone where they needed to go, and then back to the mansion, safely!

"You may have your mother's appearance, but I can proudly say that look you inherited from me." My father's voice sounded proud.

Before I could respond or even look at myself in the small mirror on the ceiling, a loud noise occurred, catching my attention, everyone's attention.

Melissa was responsible for the noise, the woman being in the center of a small crater, which, judging by the punch pose she had and the hallucination dissipating at her feet, she had created herself.

"It seems it wasn't just the Oakwood boy who inherited his mother's talent." My father said with a whistle, looking at the metal gloves Melissa wore, bathed in the dye Devas had provided.

"Let's go!" I heard Selina shout; only then did I realize that the whispers I was hearing had diminished until they ceased.

Less than five seconds later, Selina had returned to the Humvee, with everyone following suit, the first having fixed whatever needed fixing on the Mystic Symbols of the barrier in less than a minute.

Even before the doors of the Humvee closed, Dylan noticed that we had finished things here and shot another arrow in a direction to our right.

I gripped the steering wheel and accelerated, following Millia's instructions but with a certain familiarity after this short period of driving.

It was good that Millia had activated the barrier around the Humvee a few seconds after we started moving again; otherwise, the scream of that damn thing outside would have made me crash the car.

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The protections of the Humvee practically nullified the effect of the scream, at least for us, but they didn't make the dark looks that appeared on everyone's faces smaller.

Besides everything happening here in the city, the risk of the barrier falling, the hallucinations, the chaos, the death...

We still had to worry about that thing outside... That being... That...

"Monster..." Melissa murmured with a tense voice, tinged with emotions I couldn't distinguish at the moment.

"More like a demon..." Selina growled, pointing forward. "There, stop there." She said before opening the car door, as I stopped the Humvee and got out.

A small, deranged whisper echoed in the back of my mind, perhaps caused by the scream of that thing, maybe by the idea that Lili was finally settling into my brain, but something made me wonder if it was just the Deerclops everyone was referring to...

... Because even after so many minutes, the fish earring indicated that the Deerclops had stopped, far from the city, not reaching WinterHord...

Something had stopped it, someone...

[...]

POV: Devas Asura.

Walking in the midst of the storm sucked; the cold was terrible, and the snow, even with my mask, made my vision a complete mess, not letting me see more than a few dozen meters, and worst of all: the Environment.

Everything seemed dirty, as if the air was impregnated with something filthy, the snow was mud, the ground was rotting. The nightmare energy, not mine, but the deer's, was disgusting.

The presence of the Deerclops had made the atmosphere darker, almost insane in a way that would have driven almost anyone mad in minutes, that is, if they survived the cold.

The only reason I was okay was not even my title but the fact that, the moment the energy got close to me, my own energies reacted in a not-so-friendly way.

My mana, which was once indifferent, treating the energy in the air and the Nightmare Fuel as some kind of annoying mosquito, seemed angry, destroying the Deerclops's energy to nothing.

My spiritual energy fueled my breath to the maximum, shredding the energy in the air, absorbing the parts it wanted, fortifying itself, and throwing the rest into the nightmare energy well.

The nightmare energy seemed like a hungry animal, devouring every piece of Deerclops's energy that came near me and getting stronger and stronger.

This went on for some time as I ran through the storm towards the red skull point on the minimap, a point that had changed direction.

Before, the boss's trajectory was clearly towards Winterhord, with the creature almost eager to get there after locating it. But the moment I stepped out of the city, directly contradicting the deer's energy, the direction changed, with it coming in my direction.

When I set my eyes on the deer, it was the moment it set its single eye on me.

I must say I was impressed with Cael; his drawing conveyed well what the creature in front of me was, but still, he couldn't capture everything that the Deerclops was.

When I heard that eyes were the windows to the soul, I treated it as a metaphor, as looking into someone's eyes, you could see their emotions, how that person was at that moment.

Looking into the huge eye of the Deerclops was like looking into a pitch-black well, where the black color was not just something bad but the pure and raw insanity.

This thing wasn't inherently evil, something told me that, but whatever happened made it crazy, insane, something that if it ever had sanity, lost a long time ago, corrupting whatever good existed within this being.

The central part of the Deerclops's body, the chest, was covered with light gray, thick, and dense fur, which, along with the enormous amount of nightmare energy covering the creature, made it practically immune to the cold.

The arms and legs were thin but not weak, as they supported the deer's body, which must have been over fifteen meters, and had few black hairs that were close to the skin, almost stuck.

What seemed to be the boss's hands looked more like branches, with pointed and sharp fingers, resembling huge claws, not real fingers.

The hooves were more like black stones than anything else, marking the ground with each step the deer took.

The antlers on the top of the head were curved forward, sharp but at the same time fragile, as if they were about to fall at any moment.

I realized almost instantly that it wasn't alone; its silhouette projected a shadow that seemed to devour the light around it, with dozens, hundreds of small eyes blinking, all looking at me.

The minimap seemed to count all the hallucinations in the shadow of this thing as part of it since they didn't have map points, so maybe it was alone but with several puppets.

In the moments I observed the boss, it also observed me. I didn't know what it had seen when it stared at me, but it seemed not to like it and showed it by roaring.

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The noise was worse up close, a horrible sound. It still didn't affect me, but it was not at all pleasant to hear. However, from this distance, I could distinguish something I couldn't before.

Beyond the insanity, pure rancor that seemed to emanate from the deer, anger, hatred, anguish, for some reason, when the energy contained in the scream reached me, from this close, a small trace of something seemed to remain within the resounding scream...

Sadness... Despair, almost...

It was something weak, crushed by everything else, all the madness, but a small part of the being in front of me, something minimal, for some reason, was sad, almost... Alone, truly alone.

A quick thought of mine theorized that I could distinguish so much only because my nightmare energy was directly derived from that of the Deerclops, something close enough to have this "false connection," but distant enough to be something entirely different from his.

This thought lasted briefly, just like the trace of sadness from the scream, ending the moment I took a deep breath, taking a step forward...

'Sun Breathing (Devas Style) - First form: Solar Flare.'

... And reappearing inches from the boss, not holding back my speed or worrying about how I moved, with the destruction that my movement would create.

The sound barrier shattered, the wave momentarily dispersing the storm around us along with the snow, the sound of the barrier breaking echoing a few meters before being muffled by the storm.

I noticed that my movements were slower than usual, the storm, the cold, delaying me, albeit slightly, but it was noticeable; I felt sluggish.

Houtengeki blurred alongside my arm, heading towards the deer's knee but was stopped by a layer of ice that emerged from the ground around the boss's leg.

While the ice was shattered by the halberd, the Deerclops moved, its arms blurring at a high speed but still much slower than I could move.

I dodged the blow moments before the deer's two hands hit the ground, creating a spiky ice structure around the boss's body that traveled a few meters before stopping.

"You don't control ice..." I realized even before my feet touched the ground.

Since I left Winterhord, my eyes had been imbued with nightmare energy, so when the ice formed, both around the deer's leg and with the blow, I could see how the energy in its body moved.

The ice was not something created by nightmare energy but something from Deerclops itself, another power, something more innate, which was somehow amplified by nightmare energy.

I instinctively knew that I wouldn't be able to copy this use, not without letting my body be completely taken over by this energy, corrupted and distorted to the point where I wouldn't be human anymore or even anything close to that.

Whenever I looked at Deerclops with nightmare energy in my eyes, his appearance was different; his body took on a dark purplish tone, and his eye turned red.

I knew it was because of his nightmare energy, but this...

Deerclops was something made of more than just flesh; he had practically merged with the energy, and not in a remotely natural way or anything close to it, if it ever existed.

Seeing the energy move inside him was like seeing worms control a body, a puppet controlled both from the inside and outside.

A chimera, that's what the being in front of me was, something artificially created by someone else, who, I didn't know, but it wasn't someone sane, much less good.

The moment my feet touched the ground, the shadow of Deerclops moved, much faster than itself, shaping into a hand-like form, several black hands that emerged from the ground to attack me...

... Each of them with dozens of hungry red eyes.

How delightful... Well, combating fire with fire wasn't always the best option, but in this case, it was.

I didn't have shadows, but I could emulate something similar...

'Sun Breathing (Devas Style) - Ninth form: Dance of Solar Shadows.'

Eight steps, eight quick strikes, one on each of the hands, piercing the center of them.

As the eight strikes connected, all the hands exploded into a liquid fire, plasma, my spiritual energy, and dispersed, the boss's shadow quickly retreating back under him.

Sun Breathing was more effective against creatures of darkness; if a shadow rising from the ground wasn't something dark, I didn't know what else it could be.

I quickly checked the durability of all my equipment; they were all dropping, but slowly enough for me not to worry.

As much as it seemed colder near Deerclops, it wasn't really the temperature that had dropped.

It was more of a bad feeling, something created only by his presence, the feeling of cold when something terrible is about to happen, a bad shiver...

In the meantime, while the boss's shadow attacked me, it lowered itself, placing both hands on the ground and throwing them upwards, along with dirt, stone, grass, and the ice it had created, all quickly flying towards me.

I pulled everything into my inventory, the only thing resisting being the broken pieces of ice containing the deer's nightmare energy, but not nearly enough to resist more than mere moments.

I noticed in passing that when the boss threw the debris from the ground, some were to hit him, not that I thought that would hurt him, but it was for some rocks and ice to collide with his body, which didn't happen.

The moment the debris were about to hit him, they simply passed through Deerclops's body...

Well, it seems he could also act like a hallucination, which was unwanted but not unexpected; him being practically one with nightmare energy kind of confirmed that.

Even the ice debris, which contained his nightmare energy, which theoretically was meant to hit him, even if he was "emulating" a hallucination, didn't hit him.

The nightmare energy contained in the debris was absorbed back by him even before hitting him, returning to being just ordinary ice...

If I weren't here, forget the storm, the cold, the hallucinations; Deerclops alone could destroy WinterHord, and I doubted he would even be touched.

Whoever opened the seal of this thing, if he didn't escape on his own, had signed a death sentence for the city...

'Sun Breathing (Devas Style) - Seventh form: Dawn.'

I leaned before the deer could bring its arms back into place and propelled myself forward once again, this time leaping toward the deer's eye as it quickly raised its hands, trying to defend itself.

I knew there wouldn't be time; his movements were slower than mine, even with the weather debilitating me. He realized that too, and when he did, he chose not to defend himself but to attack me, turning his head so that his horn would collide with me.

At the same time, his shadow moved, creating several black hands again that flew in my direction, surrounding me.

The horn wasn't a problem; I doubted it would seriously injure me, but I wasn't willing to bet on that. The hands were what concerned me.

The amount of nightmare energy in those things was absurd, and, as much as I trusted my own energies to combat the boss's energy, betting on something like that in this situation was something I would prefer to avoid. So, I changed my attack, spinning Houtengeki to the left around my body, where the horn was coming.

'Sun Breathing (Devas Style) - Third form: Binary Stellar System.'

The first strike collided with the horn, to my slight surprise, not breaking it but merely cracking it. It was a significant crack, but for the force of the blow, which also propelled me away from the boss, I expected the horn to be torn off.

It was like hitting solid rock, which with my current strength, I could easily break. The horn of this thing was calcified to a point that could very well be a fossil, a fossil that was more resistant than steel alloy.

The second strike, I spun Houtengeki around my body again and destroyed three of the, again, eight hands that were coming towards me before falling to the ground.

Some kind of limitation? I doubted it was about energy; that was the least lacking for the boss, so a lack of control due to madness? Or was it something more instinctive? Creating only eight of those hands for some reason... These two options were likely...

The other five hands, unlike what happened before, did not continue the attack but retreated back into the boss's shadow, which had returned to normal, taking the shape of Deerclops again.

Did he realize he couldn't hurt me and saved energy? Even mad, the instincts of this thing were absurd...

It also seemed not to feel pain, or completely ignored the pain of the cracked horn since it didn't even grunt or make any sound when struck.

In fact, the horn didn't even seem to be something from the deer's body at this point; they were more like rocks that got stuck in its head than anything else.

It seems that these good years sealed had done harm to him; now, how much? I didn't know, nor if he had become stronger or weaker over time.

One thing I knew at least was that the nightmare energy that created the storm was something he didn't have full control over.

The storm was more a reflection of the boss's emotions than anything else; it was fueled by resentment and anguish, but it wasn't something he could control; otherwise, this battle would be even more complicated...

Not being able to attack this guy's eye was also bothering me. My mobility in the air was limited, even more with the storm winds interfering.

I was tempted to throw Houtengeki like a dart at the deer's eye, but that thought lasted shortly before being discarded.

As much as I could retrieve the halberd with the VoidBag, risking damaging it if the deer struck it in the air was foolishness, risking losing my best weapon in an experimental attack was foolish.

Let's change the strategy then...

Holding Houtengeki with both hands, I propelled myself forward again, attacking the boss's knee once more, which, the moment it realized my movement, created a layer of ice around the leg while also raising its hands to strike me.

... Let's see if I could ignore this thing's defenses.

'Sun Breathing (Devas Style) - Eighth form: Solar Rupture.'

A few moments before Houtengeki collided with the ice, I twisted my arms and thrust forward, transferring all the force of the blow to the halberd's tip.

When the halberd's tip touched the ice, even before the entire tip pierced the ice, I had moved again, jumping backward at the same time as I pulled Houtengeki back, evading the deer's attack that created another ice structure.

At the same time, the central part of the boss's knee, covered in ice, imploded into not a rain of blood, but something thick, black, like mud, which, the moment it came out of the deer's body, froze with the low temperature.

I was sure that this "mud" also stank, but I couldn't smell it because of the mask and the icy winds.

Liquid nightmare energy, that was my first thought upon seeing this "mud," but I dismissed that thought after looking more closely.

It wasn't just liquid nightmare energy. It seemed more like a mixture of flesh, bones, blood, and everything that had ever made up the leg of this thing, all in one, mixed, held together, and fused by nightmare energy to take shape.

At this point, I don't even know if I would categorize this deer as a living being...

This strike, unlike the previous one on the horn, seemed to have affected the deer since, for the first time in the entire fight, it reacted; its mouth opened again, revealing the yellowed teeth, while it roared...

A roar that I was sure was of pain, pain caused by my spiritual energy in the form of plasma corroding what remained of its frozen leg.

We could be in the midst of a snowstorm, surrounded by nightmare energy that made the weather even worse, with the sky dark, cloudy, and icy winds cutting around us, but still...

...The Sun still burned.

I watched from afar as its shadow twisted and spun around the boss, defending him, creating a black hurricane, with him as the center, preventing me from getting close. At the same time, its leg began to regenerate... Or try, at least, as it was prevented by the remnants of my energy that it tried to expel, unsuccessfully.

Seeing that its leg wasn't reforming as it wanted, the Deerclops snarled, emitting a raw rage, and froze what was left of the leg, creating a leg made of ice and pieces of the "mud."

Even so, I could see that inside the ice, the pieces of the deer were trying to reform again, moving like worms, slowly joining together and merging very slowly back into one...

Then, all the eyes in the Deerclops' shadow looked at me, all with even more hatred than before, unblinking, resentful and furious, hungry...

Its single eye was even worse, seemingly wanting to devour me right there, shining in a sickly red color.

I knew I was wearing a mask, and the boss wouldn't see my eyes, still, I returned the gaze, staring at the deer, the shadow, without taking a step back or hesitating.

When someone looked into the abyss, the abyss looked back, don't blink, that's what they always said, so I didn't blink, and that seemed to have irritated the deer even more.

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[...]

POV: Darnell

"I'm gonna drink until I pass out after this shit." That is, if I make it out of here alive, which I was beginning to doubt would happen.

As I finished speaking, I had to duck to avoid the claws of a hallucination and kicked it back before firing with my gun, making the thing disappear into thin air.

I knew the thing wasn't dead; even though my bullets, coated with that ink that Devas had provided, gave them an extra kick, they weren't enough to kill these creatures with a single shot.

This shit would come back, I knew it; the last ones always did. They could take a beating.

Shit, I hadn't even named my gun yet… Melissa, why do you always get us into these messes!

I wasn't even sure if this hallucination was something I could only see because of the goggles or if it was my own. The whispers were hell, but the uncertainty of whether the shadow at your feet would rise to attack you was even worse.

Nowhere felt safe, and the light illuminating the corridor seemed to flicker, on the verge of going out at any moment…

"All good over there?" I yelled, asking the rest of the guards down the corridor.

Distracting myself from these thoughts was the best thing; spiraling down that path would only lead me to two places: madness or death, probably the former slightly before the latter…

We had set up a defense outside the countess's room, with me at the door, looking inside in case any hallucinations appeared.

Luckily, none had shown up inside, or tried to get in. Well, not that Annabel was defenseless; the woman had those scissors of hers.

I've never seen anyone fight with scissors, but she seemed to know what she was doing with those things.

"As peaceful as a sunny day in hell!" the senior guard yelled back, attacking the air, or so it seemed to those without the goggles.

The senior guard was crazy, and I called him the senior guard not because I didn't know his name, but because no one knew it!

The guy introduced himself with a different name every time someone asked him his name! If it weren't for the fact that this guy was somehow ridiculously skilled and extremely loyal, from what Annabel had said, I'm sure this old man would be in a mental institution!

"We're good!" the other guards shouted, with some variations in the responses, but the general consensus was that everyone was okay, at least for now.

These damn things! Damned hallucinations seemed to be multiplying more and more; the screams from that damn monster didn't help either!

Damn, this shitty deer thing must have screamed more in the last few minutes than in the past two weeks!

Honestly, I didn't know if that was good. On the one hand, with every scream, the hallucinations grew, they got stronger and faster. At some point, we would be overwhelmed; it was only a matter of time.

On the other hand, even after so many minutes of this chaos starting, that thing outside hadn't reached the city, and some of the screams also seemed different, not like before.

They seemed more angry, even in pain…

Damn, I need to ask Devas how he trained and if he could give me some tips on getting stronger, since I was sure he was the guy out there in that damn cold fighting that thing.

I had talent, but when compared to other monsters my age like Melissa, Selina, and even Dylan, who seemed to have finally decided to become a contractor, I was lacking, I knew that.

It wasn't low self-esteem, it was a certainty. Compared to them, I fell short by a lot.

So any opportunity I had to get stronger, I would grab it.

My weapons were something Selina had helped me create after I had the idea, my clothes Dylan had helped me enchant with Mystic Symbols.

I wasn't too proud to reject help. If I could get stronger to keep up with Melissa, I would.

"South side! Six o'clock!" Annabel shouted again. I didn't even need to look out the window to know Dylan had fired another arrow, guiding the group outside.

Damn, if it weren't for the damn EcoMirrors being interfered with, to the point where Annabel had to shout for Dylan to hear with his EcoMirror, even though he was just on the roof, I'd be out there.

I knew that protecting the mansion was important, but I would prefer to be outside, helping the others.

"Hey, old man!" I shouted for the senior guard and the others to hear. "I'm heading up!"

Everyone waved, moving to cover my position as I ran to the roof to check on Dylan.

We had done this a few times already, so everyone was prepared; they didn't hesitate to move.

Dylan was the least protected person in the mansion, but at the same time, the one at least risk since he was alone.

As long as he didn't attack any hallucination and kept calm, no damn thing would attack him.

Staying sane was the key here, which was difficult… Damn, these whispers!

As I ran to the roof, I shot again, punching a hole in the hallucination that had attacked me from the right.

I ignored the hole in the wall that my silver bullets made after passing through the hallucination.

Property damage wasn't much of a concern at this point.

"Dylan! You okay there!?" I shouted as I climbed the stairs; Melissa's brother shouted back moments later.

"I'm not dead!" The bastard had developed a somewhat acidic sense of humor since the last time I saw him.

It seems being part of a group of contractors, especially one with Gilbert, had done well for him.

The old trader was someone I wouldn't mind inviting for a drink; Devas too, by the way. I might have interacted with the guy little, but he seemed like a nice person.

Robyn too, as she was Gilbert's daughter. Even though she's the person I interacted with the least from Dylan's group, she seemed like a nice person, not snobbish.

Not Selina. The less said about Selina and drinking in the same sentence, the better for my sanity, already not so good. The woman couldn't handle her liquor.

Dylan had a good group; I'm glad the kid is finally doing the things he wants and living life.

"How are things?" I asked after getting on the roof.

I could see the chaos in the city, but I was sure Dylan could see better and tell me how everyone was.

"They're okay, none of them got hurt." Dylan replied without taking his eyes off the city, at the same time firing another arrow, even without Annabel's order...

"You're not attacking the hallucinations from up here, are you?" Was he out of his mind? How many of those things were down there?

"These things don't detect me from this far away, if I can help, I'll help." His voice was serious, with no room for arguments...

He had grown a spine too, apparently, that was good.

"South side! Eight o'clock!" I heard Annabel's voice coming from the EcoMirror in Dylan's ear, the voice was low and crackling, but still understandable.

While Dylan fired a frost-coated fire arrow, I said goodbye and ran back inside the mansion.

"I'm heading down, be careful up there." Dylan would be fine; anyone with that look, even in this chaos, would be fine.

Damn monster family. Were all the Oakwoods anomalies?

[...]

POV: Selina Steamhord.

If it weren't for the years of experience controlling my hands to work with delicate machinery and Mystic Symbols, I'd probably be shaking while patching up the barrier.

Adrenaline didn't help, and the weight of knowing that I needed to fix the Mystic Symbols quickly to keep the only thing protecting us from the storm standing didn't help either.

Still, I finished patching everything, redoing the symbols that needed redoing, and reinforcing everything in seconds.

Say what you want about me, but when I was serious, I was serious!

"Let's go!" I shouted the same phrase again for the umpteenth time, returning to the Humvee.

How I wished to study this beauty, to know how it worked from the inside out, all the tiny parts, mechanisms...

"Selina. You're drooling." Melissa's voice made me open my eyes.

"Don't blame me; I need to distract myself." Melissa had taken on my role of observing Dylan's arrows so I could stay in the best possible state without losing concentration.

These few seconds, minutes, if Dylan indicated a place far from our location, were the only ones we had to rest, both the body and the mind.

For all the death we had seen? The soul as well.

Robyn had driven the Humvee into several hallucinations, the car's barrier and paint practically disintegrating the things; that saved a lot of people... Not everyone, nowhere near.

Even with our preparations, that damn deer had appeared too early; the guards weren't fully armed, nor was the city fully evacuated.

"The Humvee is extremely strong against hallucinations..." Robyn murmured, paying attention to the road; she had gotten good at driving the car.

I may or may not be jealous; I don't admit anything!

No one spoke, letting her complete the sentence.

"... Because Devas isn't using it to fight that thing?" The silence lingered after the question.

No one doubted that the Humvee could be used in battle; against that weird deer, it should be more than useful.

Still, everyone also knew why Devas had left the Humvee in Winterhord.

Without it, we wouldn't move fast enough, without it, the barrier being destroyed by mana overload was only a matter of time.

The options were to leave the Humvee with us, or everyone getting in the car and going with Devas to the battle, maybe just flee.

The Humvee was large; putting Melissa, Darnell, Annabel, and maybe two or three more people was easy... But how many would die? I wasn't Dylan; I didn't know the total population of the city, but at least ten thousand Terrarians lived here, maybe more.

Less than ten lives at the cost of ten thousand...

Devas gave us one of his best weapons, one of the strongest protections he had against the storm, and threw himself out there to fight something that fought against a damn Fae general over fifteen thousand years ago.

Alone...

"Don't even think about making those faces." Gilbert spoke, seeing the weather inside the vehicle. "Don't think that Devas sacrificed himself or something..."

The merchant said in a serious tone before flashing an amused smile, almost relieved in a way.

"You weren't there in Jille; you didn't see what he did..." I had heard Aunt Helena's report, but not everything that happened, just that Dylan almost died on his first mission.

Come to think of it... This is his second mission, isn't it? At least in a group...

"That man won't die, that thing outside won't be able to kill him." The way he said those words was as if he were sure.

I was tempted to believe, especially after everything I had discovered about our leader; still, I couldn't help but ask.

"How can you be so sure?" It was the question that the other two besides me wanted to ask, Robyn and Melissa.

Millia seemed content to just watch, but the little slime seemed as confident as Gilbert, for some reason.

Before Gilbert could answer, a loud bang occurred, the sound seeming to echo throughout the city.

Along with the sound, another scream from that thing...

█▆▄▆▆▄▆▅▃▅▃▂▅▃▂▆▃▄█▃▄█

... That was close.

[...]

POV: Devas Asura.

I was careless, it wasn't arrogance; I would never underestimate an opponent, especially not this guy in front of me. It was a simple oversight, I had been caught off guard.

I had managed to injure the Deerclops several times; they weren't as significant as the first, but they were still not negligible wounds.

Always, with each injury, the black "slime" had oozed out of the wound. I avoided touching it since I didn't want to take the risk. This happened with every wound... Except the last one.

I had almost torn off one of the deer's hands when it attacked me, cutting the limb in two. Three fingers flew away as the wound opened. Then, from the wound, instead of the usual "slime" that always came out, what emerged was the Deerclops's own shadow, moving much faster than itself.

I managed to dodge a large part of the shadow, but the small part that managed to touch me clung to me like tar, weakening my movements, the eyes in the shadow blinking rapidly, trying to cover my entire body.

It must have taken just over a second to explode my spiritual energy and practically incinerate the shadow. It was enough time for the Deerclops to lift the leg that wasn't destroyed and frozen to step on me.

This damn thing was heavy. Holding a hoof of something that was over fifteen meters tall and was determined to turn me into pulp wasn't easy. Especially since its shadow also continued to attack me.

I managed to push the deer's foot up and strike the shadow attacking me with Houtengeki.

'Sun Breathing (Devas Style) - Second form: Static Rotation'

My feet were already firmly planted on the ground, holding Houtengeki with both hands and cutting forward using my whole body afterward was simple.

About a third of the boss's entire shadow had disappeared with the blow, which, judging by the scream of pain that echoed above me, coming from the deer, hurt it.

The slap I took from his intact hand, not so much. I had managed to block it using Houtengeki, but the inertia still existed.

Hitting the barrier that surrounded WinterHord hurt, not as much as it should, especially since the Heart Valve and Band of Regeneration started healing me rapidly.

Fortunately, the barrier didn't break; the folks had done a good job fixing the parts that were overloaded, it seemed.

The real problem was that breathing is highly instinctive, even more so for me, who used a breathing style. Breathing completely frozen air because, unlike my armor, my mask wasn't as resistant, was something that hurt.

It hurt a lot!

Even with the protection my armor provided against the cold, even with the Warmth Potion, even with my adapted body, even with the remains of the mask protecting me from the cold, still, it wasn't enough.

I replaced the broken mask on my face with another reserve quickly, but the damage was already done.

Having the throat frozen, and with it the lungs, is an unpleasant thing, to say the least. I was sure that some other organs were partially frozen too, but the sensation was somewhat numbing.

It was probably just my lungs, but I couldn't say for sure.

I had been careless, not in receiving the Deerclops's surprise attack, but in not instantly noticing the damage to the mask and ending up breathing the storm wind.

This wouldn't kill me, weaken me for a few minutes? Yes, but kill me? No, my body had already started to heal itself, with my accessories, it was a matter of time before I was okay. But until then, the deer that was running in my direction, and consequently towards the city, wouldn't wait.

█▆▄▆▆▄▆▅▃▅▃▂▅▃▂▆▃▄█▃▄█

I was sure this scream was meant to be mocking, but it didn't seem like it for some reason.

I pulled my body out of the barrier and stood firm. Going without breathing for a few seconds wouldn't hinder me at all, even though my lungs were hurting, the pain at this point was secondary.

I didn't take any chances and pulled one of the regular Healing Potions from the inventory.

I didn't open and drink the potion; I was wearing a mask, and the liquid would freeze before even pouring. So, I improvised and manifested the liquid directly into my stomach.

At the same time, I threw as much mana as possible to my two accessories to heal me more quickly.

Feeling my organs thawing was strange, very strange. Them regenerating and returning to normal operation, not so much.

I really needed to create more of these potions. I knew how because of the Analyze: Item, I just didn't have the means...

I can say anything about this deer, but he realized I had recovered the moment the potion touched my stomach and stopped running.

All the eyes of his shadow, which seemed smaller but growing slowly, looked at me, the same with his own eye, and then he opened his mouth to scream again.

I didn't let him, and I didn't need to move.

I had seen him scream so many times that I had an idea of how he did it...

[…]

POV: Third person.

Before the Deerclops could scream or even move, the human opened his mouth.

"Silence!"

It wasn't a scream; the tone of voice was normal, but it echoed through almost all of Winterhord.

Compared to the Deerclops's screams, which reached the entire mountain range, fueled by the nightmare energy in the air, the human's voice was silent, but for all the hallucinations, it was like a scream that reached the center of their being.

The human had not used the nightmare energy to amplify his voice but rather his spiritual energy, something that, combined with Sun Breathing, was more than simple poison for hallucinations...

The first to notice what happened were the Terrarians inside the Humvee. Selina, Robyn, Melissa, Gilbert, and the little slime Millia; all of them saw the hallucinations in the distance not simply disappearing as they did when they died but being incinerated to dust.

... It was death.

The spiritual energy contained in the human's voice shouldn't traverse the entire city, but with each dead hallucination, part of its essence was transformed and consumed, amplifying the area of effect.

House by house, street by street, a single word echoed, sweeping away a large part of the nightmare energy from the city, incinerating almost all, if not all hallucinations in Winterhord and around the city, until it finally lost strength and stopped.

Even part of the storm seemed to have calmed down, the energy that drove it being consumed, making the winds calm.

Even the Deerclops in front of the human had been affected, even if to a lesser extent.

"It cost me more than I thought..." The human murmured. "But it doesn't matter, let's finish this quickly."

The Deerclops's instincts, even after millennia of imprisonment, remained sharp, especially due to the loss of his sanity. Without his mind guiding him, his body moved on its own.

Still, even with his instincts warning him that the human would move, he couldn't react in time.

His shadow could.

The shadow of the deer flew towards the human, blocking his path.

Attacking the shadow meant being open to a counterattack, that's what the Deerclops expected, what would normally happen...

The human struck the shadow of the deer with the halberd, Houtengeki, cutting through the shadow easily. At the same time, the Deerclops struck with the intact hand, a claw-shaped attack that would tear through part of the human's defenses.

... But like the deer had done, surprising the human, the human surprised the deer.

The human, seeing the claws coming towards him, raised his left arm with the hand slightly open, as if holding the handle of something. A spear, something improvised, made entirely of an immaterial material.

Nightmare Fuel.

The human thrust the spear into the hand coming toward him, using the nightmare energy within him to empower the spear even more.

The Deerclops's instincts told him to retreat, but the blow had already been dealt long ago. The moment the spear was thrust into the palm of the deer, the two energies clashed, starting a dispute.

One's nightmare energy against the other's.

The Deerclops would win this conflict; he had millennia of accumulated energy, generating more and more within the seal, modifying his being to the extreme. He would win if the conflict was only that.

The human held the halberd with his right hand and changed his grip, tilting the halberd to the ground and thrusting it into the shadow of the deer attacking him again. This time, not cutting it but tearing it, destabilizing the deer.

With the balance tilted, the spear began to absorb the nightmare energy from the deer's palm, while the halberd incinerated the contained energy from the shadow.

The Deerclops reacted by screaming in pain, while creating dozens of ice spikes around his body, forcing the human to retreat.

In the meantime, many in WinterHord had climbed the city walls. With the storm calmed, the field of view was clear, allowing a view of the battle that was taking place near the walls.

"Holy shit..." Selina wasn't sure if she was the one muttering the curse or if it was Melissa, maybe Robyn. The reaction of all was practically the same.

Amazement was the least everyone felt. Even for Melissa and Selina, who were high-level contractors, the battle in front of them was something absurd.

For the residents of WinterHord? The guards? The human was just a blur for the Terrarians, something tiny facing something enormous.

Still, the one who screamed and seemed to be losing the battle was more significant between the two.

The only ones who seemed more restrained were Gilbert and Millia.

Millia, having seen even stronger beings, creatures that would obliterate the Deerclops in seconds. Still, for the little slime, the human was someone impressive.

Gilbert was impressed, as much as the others, but fatigue prevented him from showing it all. The merchant decided to put his emotions into words, answering the question that the Steampunker had asked earlier.

"How can you be so sure?" Was the question?

How was he so sure that the human wouldn't die? He wasn't, but old age, years of fighting as an orphan, fighting, loving, smiling, crying, made Gilbert learn some things.

One of them was that...

"Hope..." He muttered to no one in particular.

... Having hope was never too much.

It never was.

At the same time, on top of WinterHord Mansion, Dylan watched the battle from afar, the brief standoff that had occurred with narrowed eyes.

"No..." Since Jille, Dylan had been tormented. He knew he had helped in some way, purifying the people of the village, aiding in the battle... But he felt he had done little, very little compared to the human.

Dylan knew the human would have managed to survive without him there, perhaps saved everyone in another way, even without his help.

These thoughts tormented the guide, who, despite helping, felt useless.

"No more..."

The guide's eyes began to glow, his innate magic activated at full force, consuming all the mana he had in his body.

For what Dylan wanted to do, all the mana he had, and even more, would be insufficient. If he had as much mana as Melissa, his sister, or Helena, his mother, he could manage, but he didn't.

So, he improvised.

He didn't have mana, but he had many mana stones, even more "Artificial Sapphires." Using them would kill him before he could complete what he wanted to do.

So, he improvised again.

He placed the mana stones along with the "Artificial Sapphires" in his mouth but didn't absorb them, just left them there.

Then, he breathed, mimicking the human's breathing, the mana flow the human had, and moved the mana from all the mana stones and "Artificial Sapphires" with fast and precise flow.

One mistake, and Dylan would die; his mana core would be shattered into pieces.

He continued, this time mimicking the mana control of his sister, who was so skilled that she could reinforce parts of the body. He had seen his sister train so many times that imitating her was almost too simple...

If one mistake would kill him, he wouldn't make a mistake, it was that simple.

He continued, the magic Dylan wanted to use was something that few could achieve, teleportation, not just any teleportation but a focused one, used in battle.

Creating a matrix of Mystical Symbols that teleported objects was possible with the right materials, the right inks, and knowledge.

Using teleportation in battle was something different, something that required absurd control and mastery in a single magic, and even if someone had that, the mana requirement was ridiculously high.

For Dylan, Grongir was someone who had trained teleportation his whole life, using the mana of everyone in Jille to fuel the magic. He couldn't be more wrong.

Many goblins were born special, weak, with fragile bodies but an aptitude for certain high magics. Grongir and many of his brothers were good at teleporting, not spatial magic, just teleporting.

It wasn't study, it just needed mana, and they could use the magic.

But for Dylan, who didn't know this information, it only served to make him feel inferior, which, instead of making him depressed, now motivated him.

Finally, Dylan copied one last person, Helena, his mother.

He didn't copy a technique, some matrix that the Duchess had created, but something beyond...

Dozens of Mystical Symbols appeared around the guide, around his bow and the arrow he had placed on the string.

... He copied the innate magic of the one considered the "Duchess of Symbols."

Helena's innate magic was simple, being able to shape Mystical Symbols out of nothing.

Something so specific, so focused on a single area that it was almost impossible for someone to be born like that.

Helena was born, and she was a monster. Dylan was even worse because his innate magic was something simple but would get stronger all the time.

A mental library with everything he had learned, seen. Just open a book, and the information would come to him.

Dylan's eyes glowed brighter, with the brightness, came the blood, which flowed from both, from the nose, from the ears.

When pushed to the limit, the more mana used, it was almost possible to bring the book out of the library, not just know the information but copy it.

Something so out of the ordinary for Terraria standards that it almost seemed...

... Foreigner...

Dylan continued, even after his vision darkened when a vein burst in his eyes, even after the headache was too much to bear, he still continued.

What he wanted to do was practically impossible for him, if not impossible. Just as he had seen the human do the impossible several times, he would do it too.

The human called him a friend, helped him, was fighting because he brought him here...

Dylan would do the impossible if necessary. He had seen someone do it before, hadn't he?... Copying was something he knew how to do...

So, he released the arrow, which flew a few meters and disappeared, reappearing inches from the Deerclops's eye kilometers away.

Even with all this, Dylan still didn't have spiritual or nightmare energy; he couldn't copy something out of nothing, imitate something he didn't know how to imitate.

Then the arrow, when it collided with the deer's eye, passed through it as it would through a hallucination, without damaging it... But thanks to the ink covering the arrow, a small, tiny distortion occurred, smaller than it would if the arrow hit a hallucination.

It didn't harm the deer, not even scratched it, but it was enough to make it do one thing...

"Never again..."

... To make it blink.

Dylan fell unconscious, Darnell appearing seconds later and helping him, sighing in relief when he saw that he was okay, just very exhausted.

The guide's last sight was of the human tearing the Deerclops limb by limb, the creature's shadow unable to react in time...

Dylan knew that even without this, the human would have won. His help hadn't changed anything, just like before, but for some reason...

"You passed out smiling?" Darnell murmured confused.

... He still had a smile on his face.

[...]

POV: Deerclops. (Third person).

The first memory the deer had was waking up on a laboratory table, a cold surface. Then came the pain.

The cold helped to numb the pain, even if only a little.

Pain was all he knew for a long time; that being, an extremely tall human, as he later learned, tortured him, used him for experiments.

For the first time in his life, the deer felt fear, fear of the extremely tall human.

For years, it was like that until the deer managed to escape, due to a mistake of the extremely tall human.

The deer later discovered that his body was different from what he remembered, larger, not like the others of his species that walked on all fours.

Nevertheless, he continued living, for the first time without pain, enjoying life, running to the north, where it was cold; the cold always welcomed him.

After years, he had somehow created others like him, his children, his family.

He treated them well, the best he could, hunted to feed them, killed to protect them. He was their leader, it was his duty, and he would fulfill it.

Years later, on a simple day, the world began to shake, something that scared everyone, yet the deer remained alert. Something big was coming, something evil, more evil than the strange energy that the extremely tall human had put into his body.

When the space around his pack began to crack, the deer pulled them away, took them to safety; even after his body fell into one of the rifts, he still didn't care. No one but him had fallen; pain was an old friend, if he needed to suffer, so be it.

When he woke up in a similar but different world, he wandered, looking for a way back home. For years, he roamed, not interacting with anything or anyone, avoiding the strange small humans he discovered had another name: Terrarians.

He avoided them, just as he avoided humans with pointed ears, the Fae, and the soft humans, the Slimes.

He still called them humans; it was an easier name to remember.

He avoided everyone and looked for a way back home until one ordinary day when the world started shaking again even more than before, the world crying.

Then when he looked at the moon that night, for the second time in his life, the deer felt fear, fear of the monster on the moon.

After that day, the deer's mind began to deteriorate more and more, his thoughts slowing down until he lost consciousness, waking up over bloodied bodies of the small humans.

All dead.

Every day he felt more and more like he couldn't control himself, the energy inside him that was once dormant, surfacing stronger and stronger, corrupting his thoughts.

With each blackout, he woke up over bodies and more bodies.

When he found several humans with pointed ears, led by a soft human pretending to be a human with pointed ears, he feared what he would do.

When the soft human in bronze armor stopped him, for the first time in a long time, the deer was relieved.

This being they called "The General" would be able to stop him. The light that existed within him was strong, burning, but it would finally be able to stop him.

Then the world shook a third time, space collapsing and distorting again.

Several of the humans with pointed ears died because of it; one of them, he could remember, fell into one of the rifts, going far away, where? The deer didn't know...

Thanks to this, something happened that weakened "The General," no longer able to kill him, losing much of the light that existed within him.

The deer roared with sadness and then relief when "The General" still managed to imprison him, with strange symbols and a strange metal.

Pain was an old friend; loneliness, after so many years as well. So the deer accepted his imprisonment, staying silent.

The years passed, and passed, and passed...

Each year, his body grew weaker, but his energy stronger, consuming him from within until he was no more than a shell of what he used to be.

Much weaker, but with a lot of energy, without a mind.

Almost without a mind, a tiny remnant of something remained, deep down, very deep down...

Years later, when the deer was freed from his imprisonment, his thoughts were no longer thoughts, his body moved on its own; still, he had seen who set him free.

One of the little humans, in a blue outfit.

Before he could devour the little human, he fled. This enraged the deer, who roared in anger, all the energy from his body and more, accumulated for years of his imprisonment, reacting to his fury.

His loneliness, sadness, despair...

The deer wandered through the storm he had created, eating bodies of frozen animals, frozen little humans.

He wandered and wandered, roaring into the air. Why? He didn't know.

He never looked at the moon, never again.

So the deer wandered and wandered until he found something moving fast, in the distance, but it was made of metal, or was it stone? So he didn't follow.

Days later, the deer stopped wandering, finding an area with several little humans.

It was going to be a feast; he was so hungry...

A part of him cried in sadness, desperate, a small part... Tiny...

Then the deer was forced to stop wandering, a human stopping him.

A real human, not the little ones, or the ones with pointed ears, or the soft ones.

The deer roared; the human would not stop him from eating. He would devour them all; no one would steal his food; it was his.

A part of him cried in sadness, which for some reason, the human seemed to notice, just before attacking.

The human was fast, very fast, and when he cut, hurt him, for the first time in years, the deer felt pain.

He screamed, not out of anger but pain, an old friend who had returned.

The deer fought, his shadow, something created like him, resembling him, but still a part of him, fought alongside.

The human battled both, two who were one, he fought with something bright, a light smaller than what he remembered "The General" using but hotter.

It burned more, hurt more.

It could kill him...

But it wouldn't kill him, the deer knew that, and he fought, fought even more, deceiving the human and striking him.

The human's armor protected him, but he was injured; the air was cold, the storm was cold.

Ice had always been his ally...

The deer screamed, shouted at the human. Would he die so easily? Would he not fight back?

Then, somehow, the human healed, recovered quickly. The human was strong, the deer knew.

The deer wanted to scream, in pain, despair, anger, sadness, but the human stopped him.

The human shouted, spoke, and shouted, both at the same time, before him.

A word he didn't understand, but it was powerful, shining like the Sun.

Then the human attacked him, again, this time stronger, more focused, faster.

The shadow stopped him, and the deer followed, striking the human.

The human surprised him, more than before, and used something evil, but contained, no longer evil but dark.

The human could use his energy; this made him angry...

... This made the deer sad, but happy. Someone understood him, someone had something that only he had for years.

The human attacked him, with the right hand shining, and the left dark.

The light burned, always burned, the darkness consumed him, always consumed.

Ice had always been his ally, and he expelled the human, forcing him to retreat.

The deer prepared for another fight, wounded, his leg had been broken, his hand too, and something on top of his head.

Horn... maybe...

Before he could attack, something appeared in his eye, something small, harmless.

A small straight twig, but it scratched his eye, making him blink.

When he blinked, the pain came, a lot of pain...

... Old friend…

The human tore him apart, destroyed him, just as he had done before to others, many others...

Something in the deer changed with each blow, the human's right hand consuming the darkness within him, the right burning with light.

With each blow, a part, small... Tiny of his mind returned... Came back...

... Maybe it never left.

Then the deer realized that the human attacked him to protect the little humans, not to eat them like him, stealing his food.

The deer realized that the human caused him pain not because he enjoyed it, like the extremely tall human, but because he treated it seriously.

An enemy on par, never underestimated, never considered beneath.

When the deer looked into the eyes of the human, the deer thought that for the third time, he would feel fear... It didn't happen.

The deer did not feel fear; the deer felt joy, relief... Finally, he could rest.

The deer knew he had done bad things, he knew...

He accepted death; pain and loneliness had always been old friends, he would die in pain, alone.

Then something changed, the human moved differently.

The human then changed his movement, his final blow, something that was once aggressive, intended to tear, shred to prevent the deer from reacting, resisting...

The human changed to something swift, precise... Gentle, something resonated with the human.

The deer realized that maybe the two had some similarity...

When the light hit the deer's forehead, the deer smiled happily. Ice had always been his ally, but the light no longer burned... Not this time.

The light was gentle; it had been gentle.

The deer didn't know where he was going, but his death had not been lonely, it had not been painful.

It was more than he deserved...

The human accompanied him; the light warmed him. For the first time in a long time, the deer learned a new word on his own... For the first time, with no one to teach him, he learned by himself.

...

The last vision of the deer was the human staring at him, the mask on his face, cold, his armor on his body, tough, his weapons in his hands, sharp, but somehow, his blow... Gentle...

The human had struck him with light...

For a moment, the deer saw himself in his home... Just for a moment...

Then the deer existed no more.

[Deerclops is defeated!]

[...]---[...]

I liked how this chapter unfolded, the beginning, the middle, the end.

Overall, I was pleased with the arc, the battle, and the meaning behind it...

Well, I won't linger too much. Any questions, feel free to comment, and I'll try to respond with my best without giving spoilers.

That being said, this time, have a good day, happy reading.

[..]

(P)(A)(T)/CalleumArtori

I left this part at the end to avoid cluttering the beginning of the chapter.