Chapter 76

To Be Oneself (I)

Staring at the construct down below that was beginning to awaken, Emma couldn’t help but to panic. She wasn’t alone -- everyone in the group felt it. No matter how much they did ‘on their own’ thus far, the truth was that Cain was always behind them -- and they knew that no matter what happened, he had their backs. Now, however, for the first time -- he wasn’t here.

Even Senna found herself feeling somewhat pensive, realizing she too had come to rely on him subconsciously. She tried to shake the feeling off, but it persisted; it was the warmth, she realized. The feeling of being accepted unconditionally.

“Right!” as his face remained in her mind, she suddenly recalled something he said a while back. “Everyone, get on!” she told others as she whipped out four swords, jumping on one and barely stabilizing. “I’ll take us down slowly!”

“... are... are you sure we won’t die?” Jamal asked with a dubious gaze.

“Just get on! Do you have another idea?!” she growled at him.

“Let’s go,” Emma said, jumping up and barely stabilizing as well. “We’ll just be sitting ducks here. Even if Senna can take us halfway down, I’ll just make sure that Diya goes unharmed so she can then heal us.”

Jamal and Diya unstably climbed the swords as well while Senna took a deep breath, concentrating to the best of her abilities. The key to controlling the swords was Mana -- establishing a link, knowing the number of threads she needed for a specific action, and then manipulating the Mana rather than the sword to perform the action.

Though it may appear simple even with the people on top of the swords, it became more than ten times as difficult due to the added weight, the shift of the center of gravity, unbalance that isn’t present in flat, symmetrical weapons, and the fact that no matter how trusting or calm the other three may be, they physically couldn’t maintain a state of complete calmness.

She slowly began to lower them, yard by yard, droplets of sweat coalescing on top of her forehead. She could practically hear her heart thumping loudly in her chest, blood rushing through her veins like a river, her sight growing blurrier and blurrier due to nervousness. Just till a halfway point--just till a halfway point... she kept repeating to herself, almost like a prayer.

The group reached the halfway point and continued to descend -- something Senna hadn’t even noticed due to her concentration on just trying to lower them safely to the ground. She only did notice that they were close when they were less than twenty feet away from the ground, her concentration lapsing for a moment and blades giving in.

Luckily, Emma had been observing her and quickly jumped over and grabbed Diya as the group flattened toward the ground, landing somewhat awkwardly but without injuries.

“No time to rest!” Jamal warned, taking out the sword. “The fucker’s already attackin’!”

Emma took out the shield and shoved Diya back, summoning a golden screen in front of her that swallowed a blade surge coming from the construct.

“Stay with Diya,” she warned Senna. “And keep moving! At all times! No stopping! Cover Jamal when you can, otherwise try and attack it on those gems that Cain told us about! Go!”

She flashed forward while Jamal was already stationing himself in a flanking position. In the meantime, Diya and Senna began running along the edge of the arena, the latter summoning out every weapon in her arsenal and keeping it at a ready while the former rapidly buffed the party.

Senna came to an abrupt halt and wound her arm around Diya, pulling her back and getting out of the way of a sword that dug its way out of the ground. She continued to awkwardly stumble back and to the side, avoiding several more underground blades.

Noticing this, Emma rushed even quicker to the front, swinging her hammer at the massive, spherical body with all her might. A sound similar to a banged gong exploded out, deafening her for a moment and causing her ears to bleed as she felt herself bounced back, the skin between her fingers splintering into a burst of bloody gore and causing her to nearly drop her weapon.

Jamal's attacks, similarly, had no effect on the sphere as the construct readjusted, slamming its two fists toward the ground as halos sprung in droves around it, each summoning one, terrifyingly-large blade. Some were pointed at the rear of Emma and Jamal, but not at them directly, and some at Diya and Senna.

"DODGE!!" Emma warned as she quickly tossed herself slightly forward while Jamal used Blade Dash to close in on the construct even further.

As Senna was about to dodge the strike as well, she noticed that Diya had frozen up next to her and was standing still. Gritting her teeth, she summoned all her weapons together and raced forward, butting Diya out of the way as she built a barricade of weapons. A hefty, fifty-feet long blade slammed directly into the ‘barricade’ and trounced through it within a second, affording her a minute moment to merely nudge her body to the side. The blade swept cleanly through her left side, cutting off her arm from her shoulder and getting a good chunk of her leg.

“HEAL HER!!” Emma cried out at the panicked and pale-faced Diya who, by instinct more so than anything else, raised her staff and shot a beam of golden light toward Senna, rapidly restoring the girl’s arm and healing her wounds.

Senna quickly scattered large chunks of rock from her and stood back up, her attire bloodied and torn, causing Diya’s eyes to tear up. Noticing this, the former sighed and shook her head.

“Move,” she warned. “Keep your eyes open. We need a plan to create an opportunity for those two to attack the gem. So, get that brain of yours in the work mode and stop worrying so much. Alright?”

“Y-yes!”

In the meantime, both Emma and Jamal were madly dashing around, the former much more slowly, which led to several attacks landing either on top of her or near her. While she managed to block most of the damage, a good chunk still went through and she could practically feel organs rattling around in her. Just then, a golden beam of warm light descended upon her and restored her to the peak form.

Diya realized that this wasn’t working -- despite the immense size of the creature, it was not only deceptively nimble with its ‘smash’ strikes, but the fact that it repeatedly continued to summon swords from seemingly nowhere and throw them at the party gave them such a narrow window of opportunity that it was quite difficult to grab it.

She continued to run perpendicular to the arena’s end, Senna right by her side covering and deflecting attacks headed their way. This meant, however, that she couldn’t provide any cover fire for Jamal or Emma, let alone directly attack the rubies on top of the construct’s ‘head’. And the few attacks that Jamal managed to get ‘through’ toward the head were blocked by at the very least two of the eight ‘limbs’ that the construct sported.

With Cain gone, she knew that she had to do something -- not necessarily because she was the ‘smartest’ in the group, but because she had the greatest room to think. Jamal and Emma were too busy not being killed with a single strike, and Senna was too busy babysitting her. And while she had to throw heals repeatedly herself, they weren’t nearly as consuming as what they were doing.

We need to get into the rhythm first, she considered. Just like with that plant. Blocking those swords and ‘fists’ will only hurt us in the long run. We also need to bait it into attacking with its fists more and less with the swords--

“Senna,” she said aloud, realizing something. “We need to go into its melee range.”

“Huh?! What the hell are you talking about?! You can’t even dodge those swords from this far away, and even I’m barely keeping up as is!”

“That’s the thing,” Diya said as Senna tossed her to the side, avoiding yet another behemoth of a blade. “Have you noticed that the monster never attacked Emma and Jamal with swords? At least not when they were right around it.”

“... you’re saying... we should limit its scope of attacks?” Senna quizzed.

"Hm," Diya nodded. "Furthermore, if we could tie up its 'limbs' a bit more, it should give us a slightly larger window during which we can attack. But... it will be too taxing on you to stay with me all the time, so I'll have to keep getting bounced between the three of you."

“...” Senna frowned, dodging yet another blade as she haphazardly summoned one of her own and tossed it at the creature. Not only did the sword lose quite a bit of the momentum as it crossed the massive distance, but it was easily swatted away and crushed into smithereens by the construct. “Fine,” she agreed. “We’ll give it a shot. I also wanna see whether it has any blind angles. The two of us will keep circling at the edge until we’re at the creature’s rear, and then we’ll dash forward. Emma won’t be able to stay with you, so it will just be Jamal and me. It’s worth a shot, anyway. This way... we’re just killing ourselves slowly.”

“Hm.” Diya nodded, her expression hardening as the determination sunk into her gaze. She knew she was a liability with bosses like these -- those that attacked everyone and especially quickly at that. She also realized just how large of a gap there existed between her and Cain -- the latter was never a hindrance, despite likely having similar physical stats to her own. I should have practiced with them as well... but it’s in the past now, she resolved to at least get good enough so that others didn’t need to get wounded repeatedly just to keep her alive. For now, however, all she could do was repeatedly heal them, and ensure they weren’t killed in one strike by precisely-timed shields.