"Then we get medieval on this bitch!"
Bo looked at the weapon I had offered him with wide eyes then frowned as he looked at me.
"Wait? You're going to let me fight with you?" Bo asked, suspicion thick in his voice.
"You already saved my bacon once and its not like telling you to return to the King's Glaive will actually make you do it. Besides that woman drained me down to twenty-six percent in only four seconds. Even if I had all my evos helping me I don't know if I can beat her." I replied as I reached back into my void pocket and pulled out an Egyptian khopesh. It wasn't enchanted like the one I used against Hideyoshi's former fiancé but it would be perfect for this.
"What's the plan?" Bo asked, gripping his short sword tightly.
"Overwhelm and conquer. My evos will attack using mana channeling to keep her attention, we'll circle around and attack at blind spots. Aim for places without that black energy. I think it might be void or disintegrate attribute mana." I told him.
"That stuff is mana?!" Bo exclaimed. I nodded grimly.
"I felt it when our mana clashed. Its mana but it feels wrong, like from a different dimension or something." I said and gripped my khopesh tightly. "But we'll think about that later…"
I channeled gravity attribute mana throughout my body again and my body started floating. Bellial let go of me then charged the woman while sending a gust of freezing wind at her while Alpa'Nagia sent bolts of lighting that slammed into her dark energy, only to be absorbed.
Bo dashed off in an arched to try and come up on that woman's blindspot while I flew down to come up and attack her from below. I watched how she defended herself against a true transcended and two transcended evos as I flew down. She was pinned to one spot in the air thanks to Alpa'nagia's lightning And Empress' burning feathers.
The infected woman; probably annoyed by the constant attacks; let out a wild scream. The black mana that swirled around her condensed near her chest then exploded outward in all directions as a pitch black wave that reminded me of the void past our planet's atmosphere and screamed dangerous.
The wave swallowed all of Alpa'nagia's lightning, all of Empress' flames and feathers, all of Bellial's freezing winds, as well as the sky itself as it expanded. It was like a black hole in the shape of an orb.
Empress and Bellial, who were the closest to the woman, tried to evade her attack but it was moving too fast to avoid completely. The black mana orb touched three of Empress six wings. Erasing them from existence and sending Empress into a free fall towards the ground. For Bellial they touched one of his wings and his front left leg, erasing them as well. He tried to keep flying but with only one wing all he could do was fall like Empress.
"EMPRESS! BELLIAL!" I screamed and changed direction to try and catch them.
I was pushing my gravity attribute mana channeling to the limit I could stand without passing out from the G-forces. My hand nearly grabbed Empress' leg when Bo suddenly tackled me from the side. I heard two loud thuds before Bo and I crash the ground, rolling and skidding across the ground. My body exploded into pain but I managed to choke down the screams as we slid to a stop.
"BO!" I yelled as I tried to stand only to find my legs were twisted at impossible angles. Bo stopped a few feet before me. He slowly stood and my eyes locked onto his right arm, which sagged too low to not be injured.
"I'm fine! You were the one that nearly became a stain on the ground!" Bo hissed through clenched teeth. As he spoke his arm moved on its own and I heard a loud sickening pop as his shoulder went back into its socket.
'He memorized his own Lysdale script! Thank the gods!' I thought as my own legs twisted back into place and the fractures healed over.
"EMPRESS! BELLIAL!" I yelled.
Empress informed me.
I glanced up and saw the woman dashing around the sky trying to attack Alpa'nagia. Though high in the sky I could definitely make out her smaller form flying erratically like a mosquito. It stood me out to me as strange that she was dodging Alpa'nagia's lightning strikes now instead of letting her black mana absorb the lightning and mana.
"We might need a new plan…" I said to Bo and tried to channel mana into my void pocket enchanted ring. The spell sigil started to form only for holes to suddenly appear and it shattered a brief second later. "…that's not good…"
"That last attack of hers must've released a large amount of dark element mana into the air." Bo said with a scowled.
"Fuck this shit!" I growled then took off running towards Empress and Bellial.
They didn't land too far from Bo and I as it turns out. They laid in small craters caused by their impacts only feet from each other. On Empress there was a black corroding wound where her three wings should be that shifted between healing and decaying. Bellial had similar wounds on his leg and wing, both shifting between regenerating and decaying.
My eyes danced between my two evos, my mind racing on what to do.
Gritting my teeth I jumped down into Empress crater and slid beside her, looking at the wounds. The black mana hadn't eaten away at her wings entirely or else it would probably be eating away at her body.
"Empress, I'm going to cut your wings off at the joint to get that mana off you." I warned her then popped my claws.
"What…ever…you deem…best…My lord…" Empress said slowly, like she was trying to force her breathing to be steady.
I channeled sever attribute mana into my claws then lined them up with the wing nubs and sliced them off, my claws sliding through Empress metallic skin like a knife through butter thanks to the attribute. Once separated from Empress' body the damaged wing nubs decayed completely, essentially turning to ash and fading into the wind.
Empress let out a sigh of relief after I cut away the infected tissue. Her wings started regenerating, completely this time and in a few moments she had six completely healed wings. Empress stood up and held her regenerated wings up high then folded them close.
"Thank you My lord! I will help General Alpa'nagia!" Empress announced then quickly took to the sky. I climbed out of the crater and slid down Bellial's crater and stopped right beside him.
"My Savior…" Bellial breathed then winced as the black mana on his wounded leg and wing started eating away at the flesh quicker. Overpowering his own mana's attempts to heal him.
"Fuck!" I yelled as I poised my claws to slash at the uninfected flesh to stop the decay. But the black mana was decaying flesh much too quickly and it soon reached the shoulder and then upper body. "FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!"
"I'm out of mana…my savior…" Bellial breathed before he let out a long and breath and his head fell limply to the ground, his eyes unfocused and lifeless.
'Not dead! He's not dead! Just out of mana! He'll be okay as long as his mana crystal core gets mana…!' I told myself as the decay worsened. '…as long as that black mana didn't destroy it first! I need more mana! I need to flood his core with mana!'
I was at fifteen percent capacity now, nowhere near enough to do what I wanted. Panic and anxiety set in as I saw Bellial's body rapidly started decaying as the black mana spread.
"Chase snap out of it!" Bo yelled as he slid down the crater and stopped next to me. "Tell me what you need to save Bellial! We'll work together!"
Bo's words snapped me out of the panic that was setting in and I looked at Bo with a nervous but appreciative smile.
"Bellial ran out of mana and needs more but I don't have enough!" I told him.
"Can you supplement your with your evos?" Bo asked.
"Yes but it would only be enough to wake him up. Not purge and heal the decay." I replied, already placing my hand on a non-infected part of Bellial's body and started channeling mana into him. Bone-lasher, Mzazzi, and Bahamut all started sharing their mana immediately with filled me with a surge of power that I funneled into Bellial.
"What about the mana in the air? Can you drain it then use it?" Bo asked.
I thought about it for a second. After Bo pointed it out earlier I became aware of the mana the infected woman and how wrong it felt. It felt alien and unnatural compared to the mana Bo and I used but fundamentally it was mana.
I gritted my teeth then held a hand up and channeled attributeless mana into the air. The moment my mana touched the mana in the air I felt a powerful and primal sense of revulsion rise up from the pits of my gut. I had to choke that to keep myself from actually barfing. Choking that down and reminding myself that Bellial's life was hanging in the balance I imagined my mana acting like a funnel sucking up the mana in the air.
It worked, too well. I felt my body go into mana overload after only two seconds. My farm crystal turned black and glowed and ominous light. It felt like my body was being torn to shreds from the foreign mana raging throughout my body. I coughed up blood on the ground next to Bellial, alarming Bo.
"CHASE!" He screamed.
"Mana...is...different than…our own!" I wheezed. It felt like something was pushing against the limits of my mana capacity, forcing more and more mana into the already filled mana veins.
"Use it! You're in mana overload!" Bo snapped.
"Can't! The mana is...not following...my commands. Its only gathering!" I snapped back. Bo punched me in the back and the sudden pain from an outside source caused my anger to flare up along with my mana.
"Bellial's crystal core will dissolve at this rate Chase! What happened to no more graves?!" Bo snapped.
"I! KNOOOOOOOW!" I roared, my mana surged through my mana veins overtaking and purifying the mana I absorbed then sending it into Bellial's mana crystal core.
The sudden surge of mana kicked Bellial's regeneration into high gear. The mana fought and overtook the black mana decaying his body, purifying it much like the mana in my body did. The remainder of his body glowed with a bright purple light that I recognized.
"True Transcended evolution!" I exclaimed as Bellial's body floated several feet in the air.
Bellial's body healed fully and his eyes snapped open. He let out a ferocious roar as his body began to change. His body stretched and straightened, becoming more humanoid. His front legs turned into feline-like arms then split and became four arms with feline-like hands with four inch long claws tipped with crystal. His lower body became anthropomorphic feline legs, crystal formed around the knees and encompassed his shins.
His many tentacle tails combined into one long singular tail. Crystal covered this new tail entirely, starting from the base of his tail to the tip. The crystal not only covered his tail but creeped up along his spine to the base of his neck. The limbs of his wings were encased in crystal as well, the feathers changing from normal to a clear crystal.
Finally Bellial's face changed to look more human while still retaining a lot of his saber-toothed tiger features. A crystal half cowling mask formed over the top half of his head, where openings for his cat ears. His long saber fangs turned onyx black from the pearly whites they were before. His fur changed from its midnight black color to a pure white.
The purple light emanating from Bellial's body faded as his evolution finished. He flapped his larger wings to keep himself aloft then looked up at the infected woman, who was dodging and keeping Empress and Alpa'nagia at bay.
"Orders my Savior?" Bellial asked without taking his eyes off the woman.
"Keep her busy! Switch with Empress!" I replied.
"As you wish…" Bellial growled then raised his left hand up, his crystal armor glowing slightly. Ice spears formed in the air around his body. He pointed a claw at the infected woman and snarled. "…I' drop this toxic bitch!"