‘Master Izha,’ those were the words that caused John to take this whole thing infinitely more seriously. Words that Jackal had muttered just as a side note, Scarlett didn’t know the meaning of, but he had only been too aware of through Siena’s ears. Words that caused, a most likely justified, change in procedure. “You stay outside, I just got info that Bearings decided to put his final lot in with the Lorylim,” John told the parts of his military he had brought out to Central Park, where the last Bearings facility was located. ‘Of course, something horrible has to twist its head right at the end of a perfectly smooth plan,’ he thought.

They were currently disguised as a group of ‘Winter Picnic Enthusiasts’, but that wasn’t important. None of the normal people were enthusiastic when they heard their target was now overrun with mind-eating abominations. Rave was slightly different as she raised her arm. “Nice, something interesting!” she announced before disappearing. John followed immediately after, much less enthused.

They arrived to a scenery that was not much different from the greenery of central park. The distant trees, the large green pasture, it was the same. Except for the large building that sat in the middle of it all. It was a cross between a mansion and a science institute, large windows, oversized doors, highly decorated walls and so on. The marriage between science and beauty had been managed quite well; John had to compliment Bearings on the fact that he at least knew which architects to hire for his projects.

“Could you not teleport right into the place that could potentially be crawling with low-class eldritch-esque entities?” John requested.

“Ya know me better than that,” Rave winked, taking off the clothes she had put over her battle suit and handing them to John to store until after the battle. For the moment everything was quiet. Nia and everyone else teleported in after them. “Are they planning to pull a haunted mansion on us?” John’s girlfriend asked as there was no one coming out to face them.

Scarlett was still following Bearings, according to what Siena heard at least. Apparently, she had finally gotten that server she wanted. None of that was of immediate concern to John though. “If they want to, I am not planning to play their horror game,” John spoke coldly; he had nothing but disdain for the Lorylim. Thanks to his shadow spirit being with Scarlett, he knew roughly where in the mansion she was, so there would be no harm done in blowing up the rest of it. “Nia, you can see magic, tell me what’s going on in there,” John requested.

The visor formed in front of the blank’s face. The Gamer found himself asking if this was some sort of third eye, the description of his skill had said they could take different shapes after all. Nia’s head slowly turned from left to right as she screened the mansion.

“It’s too chaotic to see anything,” she finally reported. “If they are infected, it is at such a low stage I cannot see it in most of them.” Turning to John she added, “If I could, I would have reported it after the last battle. It seems they are only subject to enough to hurt their psyche, not enough to take permanent residence.”

That explained the bloody mouths. If the Lorylim, used in whatever strange concoction this Jackal fellow brewed up, were only able to hold on for a short time and they were taken orally, in the form of a potion or pills, then they would take hold inside the cheeks of their victims. Their dispersion would then leave behind tissue that looked like someone had worked it with sandpaper.

“So, all the drugs do right now is add an extra dash of insanity to the battle craze. Charming,” John narrowed his eyes as he thought about how best to initiate this fight. The people inside were basically NPC’s right now, they would only attack them once they were triggered to do so. Meaning, the first strike was of high importance. “Any estimates how many there are in there?” he asked both Nia and Gnome.

“Too much interference,” the blank reported. “I can track individuals, but I am not good at scanning for broad information.”

“S-sorry I can’t really get a read on it either,” Gnome apologized. “Too many storeys and rooms. I am not that good.”

“Not a problem,” John guessed at least fifty people were in there, the sorry remains of the combined forces of the Coalition. “Time to start this party.” He had two ways to blow up this building. The first was by Arcana Strike, but that needed charge up time and he doubted the remaining minds of the drugged people inside wouldn’t be able to see the attack flying above. The other was to use a powerful Combination.

Siena was with Scarlett and Undine was to stay inside his mind. No matter how small the Lorylim incursion, John wasn’t going to risk it, so she couldn’t be used. That left him with only one four-type combination.

Green flames appeared next to him as Salamander and Sylph converged together with Stirwin and Gnome to create Sylfrena. “Oh, hey, it’s me again!” the elemental blabbered about. “I got 4 minutes 56 seconds… 55… 54… oh my god, I’m going to split so soon! Gimme something to do, please?”

John sent his instructions mentally rather than make them ambiguous through words. Sylfrena immediately stormed off, the green of her wings beating like a dragonfly’s as she bridged the distance between the group and the facility immediately. Breaking in through a window, she vanished inside.

“What is she doing?” Metra wanted to know.

“Flying to a lower floor,” John answered as he closed his eyes and followed her progress. With precision she weaved through the hallways. The first person she encountered skulked around like a ghoul, hunched forwards and arms dangling lifelessly. He wore a lab coat, forcing John to correct his earlier estimates.

If it wasn’t just the fighters but everyone in the facility that had been infected, then they could have been dealing with a force more than triple his initial assumption.

“Once she pulls the trigger, they will come out in droves,” the Gamer told them. “They shouldn’t be too strong but the sheer number might a problem.” Sylfrena finally came to a halt and gathered all of her mana inside herself. She was only supposed to unleash one attack, so there was no need for her to hold anything back.

Inside the building air was sucked into the firestorm elemental, then heat encapsulated everything. The drugged people that were close to the attack were turned into charred caricatures of the human physique; the fire rolled over them and filled the hallways. Then it continued upwards, the fire trying to spread its immense energy as evenly as possible. The sudden expansion caused windows to explode outwards, the nicely decorated façade of the building turning into an ash-stained display of crumbling plaster.

The green fire subsided, and out flying came Sylfrena. “Aaaaand I am tapped,” she announced before bursting into her parts again. She still had time left in her existence, but without mana there was no reason to stay.

At the same time, John became aware of the situation Scarlett was in downstairs. ‘This guy is stronger than me,’ Siena informed them with immense disgust at the admission.

‘Just bring him here; we will fight them all. Scarlett is out, right?’

‘Yes, weaselled out now that you control the barrier. Convenient,” the nightmare elemental told him as she began her flight from Zimmothy, dropping into the shadows and only appearing to lead his now completely instinct driven self onwards or to change where one shadow ended and another appeared.

It was indeed convenient, but that was how the rules were set-up. The person with the strongest Fateweaver dictated who got out of the battlefield. Bearings had never intended this facility to be a battleground, so there were no machinations in place to prevent that natural takeover that came with John’s arrival. If the now deceased alchemist hadn’t poisoned his relationships with the local Fateweavers in the battle at John’s Guild Hall, getting Scarlett out would have been a bit more complicated.

John caught the first person jumping out of the burning building. ‘Here they come,’ he thought as more and more followed.

“Finally, something to fight!” Metra rejoiced and broke out of their line, charging right at the enemy. Everyone but John and Gnome soon followed suit. This fight wasn’t like any other in this war before, despite the many similarities. They were few, the enemies were many. They were just storming at them. They were drugged out of their minds. The difference was that every point was pushed to the extreme.

Against the nine of them stood at least a hundred, one by one dropping out of the windows like a rain of bloodlusting people that had forgotten to die. The drugs that had eradicated their minds must have been a higher doses or otherwise refined version, as many of the people charging were already in states that no normal human would have been able to move in. Some of them were even on fire.

A certain individual broke out of the mass, standing out due to his speed and red hair. ‘No exceptions made, huh?’ John thought as the drugged Damien attacked Rave. Two fists clashed, and while his was subject to a bang of light exploding inside it, it was the Lightbearer who was thrown back.

“Oy, I have delicate girl hands,” she complained as she threw out her wrists to get rid of the feeling of shock. Damien had no mind for witty banter, all he knew to do now was murder. “How boring!” Rave said and threw her headphones on. A song began to play, the beats coordinating the timing of her dodging.

She weaved between his punches, backed into another enemy and then executed a leg sweep just as Damien’s fist crushed into his would-be comrade. Losing his footing, Damien’s body reacted with muscle memory from years of training. He caught his fall on his arm and used a counter sweep. While Rave ended up jumping over that attack, her enemy was back on his feet before she could take any more advantage of this. “Man, it’s a shame you’re already dead in the head,” the Lightbearer bemoaned.

All around, magical and physical attacks flew in wild cacophony. Martial artists broke their bodies in imperfect executions of their craft, destroying themselves in exchange for more potency.

Somebody would have come to Rave’s help, but each of them was fighting at least five enemies themself, and those enemies were strong due to the disregard with which they treated their own life.

John was trying to coordinate the whole effort from the back lines. It was largely a success. With Shardbound he sniped at enemies that managed to approach his girls from a bad angle. Minor injuries were taken by Nia and Salamander. While Aclysia, Beatrice and Metra sustained some hits, it was nothing worrisome against their defences or regeneration. Only Sylph managed to evade everything thrown at her.

Rave meanwhile was still stuck fighting the miniboss in the horde. All until the song came to its climax and Damien went ahead and completely overstepped. At that moment Rave’s aura flared up, clearer than ever. She ducked down under the strike as everyone and everything around her seemed to move at a crawl. A world stepping through gel where she was the only one walking normally. Then she rammed her fist into Damien’s stomach.

The strongest technique Rave had learned from her father, Ascending Cut, caused the massive amount of ki concentrated in her fist at that moment to rip upwards like a shortly-lived cannonball. A hole the size of the techno-lover’s fist was ripped into the man’s torso, the flesh spilling out backwards as his whole body got carried upwards.

To finish him off with certainty and to prevent herself from getting buried under his body, Rave whirled in an almost impossible way. John had no idea about ankle techniques, but the speed at which she brought up her leg and kicked Damien to the side didn’t leave natural movement on the table.

Sadly, he didn’t have time to marvel at Rave’s fighting performance anymore as Siena arrived on the battlefield, with drugged criminal number one in tow. The Asian spearman landed on the field with the same inelegant demeanour as the rest of his compatriots. However, once he laid his eyes on John, something changed.

His uncontrolled but fluid movements became janky. Taking steps through the battlefield like a puppet on an amateur’s strings and shuddering head to toe like someone about to throw up, he passed the berserking men and women. In response, they suddenly ceased and looked at him in reverent fear. A feeling that John also noticed radiating from the ocean elemental within him.

Himself, he just felt something like dread numbing his decision making for a moment. The arrival of something ancient, something that was a proper Lorylim. Not just temporarily driven puppets but something so truly vile it was usually sealed away from this world by a deity that wanted to be non-interventionist.

The pale man’s mouth opened wide as he continued to stumble on. Taking the moment to disengage, John’s girls also just looked at the scene. Everyone but Metra, who had neither patience nor respect for allowing people to gather themselves. Appearing out of a rift of her own creation right next Zimmothy, she had Qiada grabbed like a spear, ready to ram the thorn at the tip into the man’s head.

The metal entered Zimmothy’s temple on one side and burst out cleanly on the other. If the hosts life was something needed, the creature controlling the spearman did not care enough to seem upset about it.

Out of the darkness of his throat rose a creature of bone-white. It spread six of its legs out of the open mouth and hooked them around the rim of the lips. It dragged itself out, inch by inch, new legs appearing and continuing the work. All of it was covered in a mixture of blood, saliva and phlegm.

What finally reared its one-eyed head appeared to be a fat, millipede-like creature. It had a white, segmented body that doubtlessly extended deep into its host’s flesh. The many legs it had, apparently able to grow from anywhere on its body, were shaped like an arrangement of hooks. The eye blinked, the lid changing into lips in the millisecond that it was truly closed, opening again to teeth and tongue rather than lashes and iris.