Standing in front of the 10 metre wide, vaguely glowing metallic sphere he had found deep underneath the abandoned mining town of New Dale, Tom didn't know what to make of it at first.
"... Hmm."
Raising his weapon as he felt something from the metal sphere, Tom took half a step back when it shifted slightly; like someone had dropped a rock into a quaint pond the surface of the sphere's surface suddenly rippled, then the faint light turned blinding as the sound of flesh, bones and sinew twisting breaking and flaying drowned out everything.
As if it was trying to escape the tortured existence of life, a arm suddenly extended out from the sphere, still covered in metallic surface tension it was soon joined by a dozen other arms of various sizes and malformations which struggled to break free as the metallic surface barrier crushed and reformed them like a fractal pattern of mutations. Soon the various limbs were joined by what seemed to be human faces screaming in agony as the cycle of destruction and reformation sped up, soon entire people were caught just under the surface of the sphere, their bodies constantly reformed and broken down horribly.
"... Don't fucking tell me."
Feeling the hairs on his neck standing, Tom watched his hunch come true over the following seconds as multiple of the bodies just under the surface of the sphere were smashed together, then forced out of it; birthing a fresh group of gobs right in front of him.
"Nope."
Opening fire, Tom eliminated the gobs just as fast as he knew what he was looking at before preparing the explosives he had brought with him.
(... Now for the choice of detonation.)
As powerful as the plastic explosive he had brought along was, Tom was also well aware of how much of a fuzz it was to get it to detonate properly. Forget about lighting a match and just setting it off, compound gamma needed a booster to first 'excite' the material before an 'amplifier' finally ignited and detonated the explosives, luckily these two components were combined into a single 'fuse' with a timer; and hence Tom's current dilemma.
(Why the fuck did I only bother with a 10 second fuse?... Right because I'm a fucking moron that's used to do suicide missions, that's why.)
Tom's current issue wasn't completing the mission, it was surviving it.
"I know you don't want to, mini boss, but you need to start thinking about leaving him behind!"
"I know! 5 more minutes and we're leaving!"
Although she really hated to admit it, Lisa was well aware that the current situation was starting to become untenable. For the last 30 minutes monsters had been throwing themselves at the group with absolutely no regard for their own life, even the considerable amount of tear gas in the air around Lisa and the adventures didn't seem to deter them as they charged forward even blinded with their lungs full of chemical burns. Spotting another group of suicidal gobs charging towards her through the wall of teargas, Lisa raised her weapon and squeezed the trigger, but this time nothing happened.
"Eh?"
Experiencing her very first failure to feed misfire outside of training, Lisa didn't realise what happened and she froze up as the group of gobs charged her.
"WATCH OUT!"
Realising way too late that Lisa couldn't defend herself, Ruth could only shout in horror as the gobs charged Lisa to rip her apart.
OBJECTIVE_STACK_PRIMARY:
FIX THE WORLD.
STATUS:_0.000000003103%_COMPLETE.
SECONDARY_OBJECTIVE(S)_UPDATED.
SECONDARY_OBJECTIVE_UPDATED:_DESTROY_THE_CORRUPTED_CREATURE_DEN_NEAR_NEW_DALE.
OBJECTIVE_COMPLETED:
OBJECTIVE_REWARD(S)_AWARDED:
SA_P_CLASS_WEAPON_UNLOCKED.UAV_LA_CLASS_WEAPON_UNLOCKED.UAV_SUPPORT_MODULE_UNLOCKED.AR_CLASS_WEAPON_UNLOCKED.
Instead of Lisa getting ripped apart, 3 other things happened rapidly.
Firstly, Lisa felt a massive surge of mana, then not even a split second later the pack of gobs who where no more than a second away from ripping her apart disintegrated into black ash as she got knocked over on her face by a massive shockwave coming from the mineshaft.
"Arck! W-what the fuck just happened!?"
Getting back on her feet and wiping the mud off of her gasmask as she winced in pain from having her nose shoved into her head from the fall, Lisa looked around to see that the piles of dead gobs around her still laid there dead and decaying, but any of the monsters who had been alive a few seconds before this had disintegrated and turned into a pitch black ash which was now all that remained of them.
"... It seemed like the boss man actually managed to pull it off."
Initially, Ruth had also been stuck in a state of shock, but once the gears in her head started turning again she put 2 and 2 together and realised that whatever had just happened must have been because of Tom's efforts.
"SHIT! TOM!"
Being reminded that Tom was still inside the abandoned mine and whatever explosion that knocked her over and left her ears ringing had most likely treated him worse, Lisa started sprinting towards the mine entrance. Although she only made it 4 paces before getting tackled to the ground by Ruth.
"Calm down mini boss! Entering the mine is unsafe!"
"BUT TOM COULD BE HURT!"
Not taking well to being restrained Lisa struggled to free herself as she screamed, then when that didn't free her she started desperately grasping for things to grab onto, starting to crawl towards the mine before she was restrained by a second adventurer.
"NOOOOOOOO!"
"Lisa please ca!-"
As Ruth continued to plead with Lisa she was cut short by a gunshot that defended her left side and made her ear feel like it was on fire… Or what was left of her ear anyway.
"Get the fuck away from her, NOW!"
Hearing Tom's voice just before she turned completely hysterical, Lisa looked up with joy and hope only to have those feelings turn to ash.
There was blood everywhere, both the fresh red and the dried dark variety; even the inside of Tom's gas mask was stained with it as he had coughed up a good bit. Even worse was what the blood partially obscured, deep cuts and slashes all over his body left Tom's left arm limb as it looked like it had almost been cut off entirely while the dried out streams of blood running down from both his ears showed that Tom had lost all hearing.
Even in that state it seemed like all Tom cared about seemed to be Lisa, he saw her restrained by a pair of adventurers and distraught enough that her real ears had long since shown themselves so he was prepared to slaughter everything except for Lisa in sight, all he was waiting for was the adventures to foolishly part with the only protection that could save their life, then he would open fire.
"Tom! STOP!"
Just by locking eyes with him, Lisa understood Tom's intentions so she acted quickly. Freeing herself from the stunned adventures Lisa quickly rose to her feet as she spread her arms wide and put herself in between Tom's rifle and the adventurers.
"MOVE!"
"NO!"
Even as Tom couldn't hear what Lisa was saying, her actions seemed to convince him after a few seconds as he lowered his rifle before collapsing to his knees before keeling over on his side.
-
".. Oh, would you look at that? I haven't seen such a bright shine in forever."
Glancing over at a wall in her underground cell, the woman seemed to look at something no normal eyes could see as she narrowed her eyes and winched as if looking at a bright sunrise.
"What the fuck are you talking about woman?"
"Ah you're new right? These eyes can see things you humans are blind to, even more so since I've gained the grace of my cold and ruthless lady of the hunt. This light is not unlike the one I saw about a month ago."
"Is that so? Good for you."
As the guard decided not to listen to the woman's words anymore and outright ignore her she got a bit annoyed, as it was for his sake that she was even speaking up.
"Look, listen here kiddo. The reason you're even stationed here is because your superiors want to hear about what I 'see'. I'm doing you a favour even talking when you're being so rude."
Even before the guard had a chance to call the woman delusional, his superior appeared along with a group of high ranking mages, all of them clearly rattled and deeply disturbed by something.
"Women, something is-"
"Yeah, it sure was bright. I don't really feel like talking though."
Cutting the mage short as she was in somewhat of a mood, the prisoner wore a haughty smile on her face as she already knew what the mage's response would be and perfectly predicted it.
"Then!-"
"More torture? You know that won't work, it never has. Your goons even took away my eyes and my lady replaced them with even better ones not a second after you were done."
Stepping up to the cell door, the woman still carried her haughty smile as a slight glow appeared in her eyes as she continued speaking.
"Or have you finally grown enough of a spine to finally kill me? Surely you're prepared for the consequences then."
Taking a step back in fear the mage realised he had fucked up, it was true that this woman wouldn't budge at any kind of torture, let alone flinch as she had long since surpassed anything a human would be capable of.
"... What do you want?"
Realising there was no other way than to beg, the mage swallowed his pride for the moment as gasping the current situation was more important.
"The flowers from last time all but withered away in a few days, so this time I want to see some real flowers… I've heard that the garden in the royal palace is quite decent so spending a day there would be nice."
"Okay, we can-"
"Also since you absolute morons continue to disrespect me I also want to send a message, so you'll need to temporarily unseal my powers."
"Wh!-"
"God I hate all this blabbering noise so shut it!"
Making the entire prison shake just with her voice and the power it commanded, it was clear that the woman was properly ticked off and nothing the mage could do now would fix it so he shut his mouth.
"... You know what my price is this time, I won't change it so go tell your superiors and leave me the fuck alone, I'm tired."
Going back to her bed and laying down, the woman made it clear her demands weren't negotiable and once more made the mage swallow his pride as he bowed to the demi human woman.
"I see, I wish you a pleasant rest."
Hearing the party of guards and mages leave, the woman finally let down a bit of her guard as she exhaled a long, deep sigh.
(I guess I am really tired so I might as well sleep… You better still be alive, if not I'm burning down this entire shit world, regardless of what my great lady's wishes.)