Chương 46: A Losing Tide Washes Us All Away

Grim backstepped the first swing from the creature's sword, but it elongated by several inches and turned a near miss into a deadly slash. Her armor was the only thing that saved her as the metal left a gash across the chest plate. She felt the [LAST BREATHE FEATHER] she'd gotten from the Gateworld activate, and she blew out a gust of wind that blew the creature back. With the distance gained, the creature turned and started tearing into someone new as the feather turned to ashes, its power spent.

She was in what looked like Eternity city but a twisted copy of it. A purple sky roiled above them in anger, with only a large clock tower touching the skyline. It was several blocks away, and they were in the middle of a street. Debris and vehicles littered the street while the building nearby looked as if it were in a downtown district with many shops. Most of the damage appeared to be from the group that had entered, but otherwise the city seemed to be in good shape.

The thing that attacked her looked to be human in every way except for the giant meat petal that flared out from the back of its skull. They otherwise seemed alive, except for the faint glow emanating from behind their eye sockets. Around her, the battle looked to be underway, with many of the other trial takers caught off guard by the sheer number of the things coming at them. There had probably been just over a hundred people who'd entered, and already bodies were starting the line the streets.

The only upside is that the "petal" creatures seemed to be relatively baseline human in that they died pretty quickly after taking a lethal wound. Not all of them seemed to have Boons, but the one that had fought her definitely did, and the implications of that were horrifying. These must have been the people who had entered prior. It didn't seem like the tide of petals was slowing down, so she scanned for places where she could rest and get her bearings.

There were other people who looked to have had the same idea and were streaming into nearby shops to barricade themselves. One location looked promising to her. It was a bodega with an apartment above that. The windows looked to be barred, and the rooftop was close enough to other buildings that she could jump to it if she wanted to. It was a block down the road and in between a smorgasbord of fighting and death.

The amount of competing auras that were being broadcast was disorienting, each fighting to share its concept. [THUNDER GOD] She took a step forward, her sword drawn and ready when a bolt of lightning disintegrated a group of petals. Momentarily, everyone stopped fighting to stare at Soryn. He floated fifteen feet in the air, his hair sticking up as the area filled with static electricity. His eyes glowed with blue energy as he glared at the battlefield below.

"Run." Everyone listened as lightning bolts soared from the sky to strike at turned humans, lessening the pressure and giving the rest of them a slight chance to breathe. Grim needed no further encouragement. Interspersed among the fighting, pushing, and dying people in front of her, she darted forward. She barely got a couple of steps in before being tripped by someone else trying to survive.

She dodged underneath a line of energy hanging in the air like wire, rolled from the trip back to her feet and ran her sword through a petal's side in the span of seconds.

"My friends are my strength." A man in a thick suit of metal, wielding a shield and a hammer declared, his authority blazing.

"The air you breathe belongs to me." Several authorities in the area ignited and more around her continued to do so. Either from people who already had them unlocked or who were having it happen for the first time here. The man in the armour stared at her with fury, but moved on once he realized she wasn't turned. He was tackled by a larger petal from behind and then swarmed by several more when he tried to swing his hammer. Grim slashed one in the leg, crippling it in passing.

She wouldn't risk her life any more than that.

"Phylen Ge Nenmarlo se," a lone woman with hip-length black hair challenged her. She barred her way and pointed a rusted, broken blade at her. Grim swung her blade, relying on her superior reach, but the black-haired petal deflected the blade away and resumed blocking her path.

"I don't have time for this," Grim said as she shoulder-checked her, the women's blade practically disintegrating as it hit her armour. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Now defenceless, Grim stabbed into her chest only to be blown onto her back by a concussive force.

"Sorry-" the person responsible apologized before being interrupted by a hand digging into his back. He spat out blood as the creature gripped onto his heart. A hand on her shoulder ripped her to her feet only for her to see one of the squad leaders who'd rejected her before, "You alright?"

"Yeah," Grim said.

"This is a shitshow." He didn't reply as he and several of the other people he was with resumed firing their pistols at targets. There was no panic in their group as they picked off petals with ease and covered each other from their attacks.

"Fuck, he's running out of steam," one of his squad members said.

"We need to go." It took Grim a second to follow his Gaze, but she found it. Soryn was still in the sky blasting down bolts, but the glow and pressure he'd had before was running out. It was probably seconds before they'd lose the coverage he'd been giving all of them. Two petals moving in mirrored unison slipped past the squad she'd been hovering around and charged her.

They were unarmed, so she was able to cut down one without resistance, but the other tackled her to the ground and started flailing its fists on her face. The first hit stunned her, but hurt less than she thought it should have.

"Hazel!" Another hit made her vision flash black.

"Agh, fuck," her nose crunched painfully as she drove her chain knife into the side of the petal. It was bigger than her, but with her increased strength, she was able to push him off relatively easily. She picked up her sword as she stood back up, the squad that had been around her had disappeared by the time she'd gotten up and it seemed like the momentum the group had gotten with Soryn's ability had violently swung back in the other direction.

A dagger came towards her face, slow enough she tilted her head, letting it pass by her as she drove her own sword into its stomach. Spikes of bone erupted from its wound and tried to impale her, but shattered after hitting her armour. Grim kicked the petal away and saw another turned in robes had been controlling that one through thick marrow-like strings that connected the two. She cut the strings as she stepped forward and watched as the robed Petal opened its ribcage.

Arrow-like bones launched from its chest toward her. The first one she cut through by sheer luck, dodged another, and the last knocked the breath out of her but failed to pierce her armour. It only slowed her down a step as she recovered and ran her blade through the creature's chest. It grabbed onto her as she heard the sounds of bones cracking in its guts. Before it could impale her in a suicide attack, she let go of her sword and grabbed onto the thing's wrist as she used [CEDE].

She didn't go far enough to enter the terminal room because she wouldn't be able to take its boon anyway, but with the contact she could disrupt its aura for a split second. The timing was enough, and without its powers working, that moment of not being supported by their bones crumpled it. Grim grabbed her sword as it fell and ran forward. Four petals blocked her way, and judging by the faint auras they were emitting, combat boons too. Before she could decide on a plan of action, a blur eviscerated the four.

A woman was at the other end, wiping the blood off her blade on one of the bodies. The woman's feral smile turned into a frown when she made eye contact with Grim." It's you!" Grim recognized her at the same time and cursed her luck. Of course she would be here. It was the woman from the weapon store and that barely restrained violence was now on full display.

"Oh... hey."

"Hey? That's all you can say? Hey? My uncle made me raid E-rank gate worlds for a week! Do you know how boring that was?" Grim looked around, "I'm sorry? Listen, I'm not sure now's the time."

"We've got all the time in the-" She disappeared in a blur, only to come back with her blade covered in blood again.

"-World. Where do you got to go that's so important? You really think you can just walk away after you got me in trouble for helping you."

"Okay, I'm not doing this right now. If we both survive, you can yell at me after," Grim said as she started walking away.

"Where are you going? Where's your group?" Grim raised her sword to take care of a petal, but before it got to her, it fell to the ground, slashed to pieces. Maya now stood on the other side of her, clearly responsible but unbothered by the sudden violence she'd wrought.

"Don't have one," Grim said.

"There's that bodega over there. I'm going to get some cover in there and scout out the surrounding areas before we're all overwhelmed here." Before Maya could reply, an aura overwhelmed both of them, stronger than any of the ones she'd felt before. She turned to see Soryn fighting an absolute human wave of enemies. They seemed to be more aggressive and powerful now, with actual Boons being used to try to take him out. Even against all of that, he was definitely winning.

Any ranged attack was blocked by an invisible force that turned the attack into shrapnel around him and none of them that got too close could hit him. He moved like a blur, and everything he hit was sent staggering back, if they weren't outright destroyed. His [THUNDER GOD] also seemed to be active, but he could only maintain it in ever-shortening bursts as he used it to take out priority targets.

It didn't seem like the petals were slowing down, everyone that died seemed to have a replacement slink out of some corner or crevice, and as much as he seemed to be winning, they weren't losing either.

"He's not gonna last much longer," Grim said. Maya glanced in that direction for a second, "Yeah. Anyway, my uncle didn't even let me take [BLAZE RENDER] to this thing. That's how mad he was at me. He's acting like he can't even trust me, but like, you can? How many times have I saved him during a raid?" Grim was barely listening, Maya would blur in the middle of her sentence to cut something down. It was like a nervous tic for her, but she was more focused on how Soryn was doing.

The people who had grouped around him were gone now, either being torn apart, dragged away, or scattering any way they could. Each death he watched seemed to visibly rock him, as if he were the one being hurt.

"Fuck," Grim said.

"What? Are you even listening? What's wrong?"

"I have to go help him."