Chapter 17 : Fight to Death 1 The days passed and the fights became more and more violent. On the third day, Alice got injured by a monster that she couldn't take down in a single surprise attack, she had to go back to the hangar to recover. Hearing the hard fighting behind the door, Kat and Jerome asked several times to take part in the fight but I refused. Unless we find ourselves in a desperate situation, I refuse to let them out of the hangar. Although we had already eliminated more than a thousand enemies, there were always more that joined the fight, to the point of attacking us continuously to prevent us from resting. It seems that the hive has voluntarily left an open entrance to let the surface monsters attack us, which allows the swarmlings to defend other places that are more strategic and important for them. On the fourth day, Gladia detected a presence of dark matter among our attackers, which definitively confirmed the involvement of the Scyllas, and gave me one more reason not to let Kat and Jerome join the fight. Although Douglas and I are naturally resistant to the mind control of the Scyllas, and this year we spent on this planet away from them allowed us to slowly erase the traces they left in our minds, we still didn't know if we would be able to resist and refuse an order coming directly from a Scylla. Although the presence of another rifter unit is bad news for us, it also means that the scyllas have once again underestimated us and sent other rifters instead of directly getting in contact with us. The fighting that day was extremely difficult and I received a serious blow when a monster pierced my abdomen from behind. To be honest, I had seen it. I had also predicted his attack, but I was too busy fighting a much more ferocious monster in close combat. I was in a situation where I had to choose against which one I would defend, and I preferred to take the less powerful attack. All these fights allowed me to realize my weakness when battling groups. Fighting with one arm handicaps me when I have to fight multiple enemies at once. Although I'm also able to use my legs to block and attack, and my left arm allows me to unleash Void energy when I am in danger, it is still extremely difficult for me. Douglas advised me to retire to the hangar to heal myself but I refused, the dark matter that was now part of my body could heal me while I keep fighting. During the battle, I was happy to have the 2 golems on my side. I think that just by themselves, they are so strong that they could have held out until the third day without our help. Their armor is nearly unbreakable, which makes me wonder which ancient beings were powerful enough to damage them in the olden times. Each golem uses a wide variety of weapons operating with an energy that is unknown to me and that even Gladia with her impressive analytical skills could not understand. After these four days of intense confrontation, I was able to increase my mastery of the Void energy by two percent, up to 16%. I also progressed on each of my skills, and my Dark Surge now has a range of 6 meters. At the end of the 4th day, Gladia informed me that the core was almost fully charged, the flagship was ready at 99% and we could activate it in about fifteen hours. I was relieved to hear that, until she gave me another report. [Jun, I feel multiple black matter signatures rushing at your position!] 'They are finally moving from their hole, uh!' We fought for four days straight, and even if the golem were still fine, Douglas and I were exhausted and we were almost out of stamina. Sooner or later, I knew we would have to face the rifters that have been lurking and hiding behind the waves of surfaces monsters all this time, but I didn't expect them to come just a few hours before the ship core was finished charging. They could have fought from the start, but instead, they decided to tire us out as much as possible, before finally showing themselves. Although I expected it, I had hoped that they would wait a few more days and then find out that we had already left. Unfortunately, it seems that my luck has slowly turned against me during this last week. 'Alice, we need you to come back, now ! Douglas, a bunch of enemy rifters are hiding behind the surface monsters, they are rushing at our position. You have to take your shot as soon as you see one of them. They are the highest priority target from now on.' 'On my way.' 'Roger.' After they both answered me at the same time, I decided to prepare myself in case the situation got out of control. [I know what you are thinking Jun, but you need to be careful. The core isn't charged yet, you can't fail now... If you are using this, it is the end for you and your squad no matter the result. Even if by miracle you survive, you might not lose only a limb this time and just be definitely crippled, unable to fight anymore.] 'I know, don't worry I don't plan to use this until there is no other choice left.' I always considered the Void energy as my last trump card to use in the direst situation. Although I learned how to use a few amounts of it, I always stood ready to create a powerful attack as I did against the centipede in a situation where I wouldn't have any other choice left to survive and protect my squad. The battle intensified slowly until I could see within the ranks of the monsters a bunch of immense rifters, which had a form I instantly recognized. 'Out of all the rifters, they had to send those...' In front of me were five 2m high Giant Ants with 8 legs each, and behind them stood one who seemed to have evolved to a completely different kind of Giant Ant. It had the same features as its peers but it was two times bigger, and it looked much more ferocious. Before I could give the order, sustained laser shots came from behind me and plunged the giant ants into a deluge of fire. It seems that Douglas understood why these rifters are targets to be absolutely shot down, each of these ants was powerful enough to kill us all during our evaluation at the monolith. I dare not imagine how much they have progressed since then. After confirming their presence, I immediately withdrew from the front line. As if the golems understood the danger of these beings, they deployed incredibly high firepower that they never used until now even during the worst situations. Two metallic orbs came out of their back and started floating next to each of them. After glowing for a few seconds, they produced an extremely concentrated laser beam so powerful that it pierced the tunnel walls like a knife in butter. Within seconds, most of the surface monsters were decimated, only a few lucky enough to not have been hit by the four lasers beam were still alive. As for the giant ants, what was my surprise when I saw them still motionless in the same place. They all stuck together close to each other and took cover behind the largest of them that had evolved. Although the lasers were powerful and concentrated enough to pierce the most powerful surface monsters as well as the sturdy and dense walls of the tunnel, they only left a trace of burning on the chitin armor of the alpha Giant Ant. Its black armor seemed unbreakable. The golems wasted no time and decided to switch techniques, if the long-range energy weapons didn't work, then they would use their own bodies at close range. As the two golems rushed towards the giant ants, I took position next to Douglas and gave my orders. "Alice and Douglas, both of you need to attack the same target. Forget about the biggest of them, after what I just saw, I'd be surprised if you had the necessary firepower to wound it.' "Leader, we should let Kat and Jerome join us !! We won't be able to defend the door against those rifters, there are five of them and they are all high lethality vectors !!" Alice exclaimed, apparently those giant ants surviving the golems laser beams without being injured left a big impression on her too, she didn't think we would survive by ourselves. "Negative, we don't have any information yet on these rifters especially the biggest of them. It wouldn't surprise me if the Scyllas made it evolve specially to fight us. If they gave it a way to enslave our minds like the Scylla mind control, I won't risk loosing Kat and Jerome to their side." Alice, understanding the seriousness of the situation, no longer argued and started fading away until becoming totally invisible. Douglas, aware that his modified rifle might not be able to hurt them still took his aim, ready to fire at the Giant Ant that Alice would attack first. As for me, since I spotted the rifters I continued to store Void energy in my arm, before activating another skill that I developed during this past year. 'Red Mist' When I thought those words, bright red lines appeared on my body, and those same lines appeared on Alice and Douglas as well. Red Mist was a weird skill that was created from the fusion of Netherite particles, dark matter, and Void energy. Gladia named it that way because when I fell unconscious after my first fight, this ability had briefly activated and produced a thick red smoke around my body. After several tests in combat and analysis, we were able to know the properties of this ability. When I activate it, it continuously consumes my blood to produce a wide area in which the rifters from my squad and I have all our stats boosted. We can think and move faster, hit stronger, and jump higher. It also allows us to recover our stamina and heal our injuries at a faster rate. While the ability is extremely useful, the continuous consumption of blood is incapacitating, and I can't hold the ability for more than five minutes before losing consciousness from lack of blood. After the red smoke coming out of my body did spread throughout the entire tunnel, I returned to the fight. During our training, we already faced this kind of situation and we thought about the best strategy to use. Jerome takes the aggro while Alice is the one in charge of initiating the first attack, to allow Douglas to take his shot so Kat and I can finish the target. However, this time was different. Before Alice could even attack, two giant ants rushed in my direction leaving their comrades to fight the two golems. These rifters were extremely fast, knocking down one is already almost impossible due to the natural advantages that their species is giving them compared to us, lowly humans rifters, so facing two at the same time seems suicidal. Thanks to the buff of Red Mist, I was at least able to avoid the rapid legs attacks of the ant, regrettably even tho I dodged the first ant attacks, I couldn't dodge those of the second Giant Ant rushing at me and I had to block it with my arm. Even if I blocked its attack with all my strength buffed by Red Mist, I still received a huge blow and got violently projected, crashing the wall behind me. I clearly wasn't strong enough to attempt to block any of their blow, and Red Mist just made me quick enough to dodge hits from only one of them. As I got up, the second Giant Ant did not give me time to regain my position and rushed me at full speed. When her leg was a few centimeters away from piercing my skull like a skewer, Alice who appeared out of nowhere sliced its leg with the most powerful of her skill. Despite having lost a leg, the Giant Ant didn't seem bothered at all and was using its other 7 limbs to fight both of us. After exchanging a few blows, the second giant ant appeared behind Alice and took advantage of the fact that her previous injury from the surface monsters caused her to lose some speed to stab her in the left leg and cripple her before she could become invisible again and escape. Meanwhile, Douglas who was taking his aim and preparing his most destructive skill finally pulled the trigger and fired the most powerful of his shot, a supercharged laser coupled with the Singularity energy from his black matter. The shot, as fast as the light, hits the ant attacking Alice right in the joint of its chitin, between two shells covering its abdominal area. The power of the shot that managed to pierce the defenses of this Giant Ant softer skin between the shells, disintegrated all the organs it encountered and was only stopped by the dense black matter present inside the giant ant. Even if it was not a lethal attack, the giant ant seemed seriously injured and in pain. Its comrade, who until then had been targeting me, immediately turned its insect head and started rushing towards Douglas, surely considering him the most dangerous of us. Unfortunately for him, although they are the perfect killing machines, their individual intelligence is so low that even an ape would be smarter than them. The second I saw him turn his head, I too used my strongest attack, boosted with the Red Mist buff still in action. 'Dark Surge' Although the giant ant was already moving and I could only hit it at the maximum of my reach, after a loud explosion sound I made the whole lower half of its body disappear into nothingness, leaving behind its inanimate body which had the abdomen separated from it. The remaining torso fell to the ground lifeless, his limbs still writhing. After eliminating one of them, I wanted to help Alice who was injured and had blood flowing profusely from the hole in her leg. However, I didn't have the time when the remaining giant ant fighting Alice clicked its mandibles and attacked her more fiercely than ever. "Chikiikik !!" Alice, though doubly wounded, still managed to dodge most of its blows and even cut off a second of its limb. Unfortunately, by the time I arrived to help her and Douglas reloaded his energy rifle, Alice got hit very seriously. The giant ant slashed her with a swift and deadly attack and cut her whole body from her face to her hips. The blow was powerful enough to completely pierce her black armor and helmet, and she fell to the ground seemingly lifeless, bathed in her blood. As if to avenge its fallen comrade, the ant stabbed her and pierced her whole body multiple times on the ground to be sure and secure the kill. After seeing her collapsing on the ground, I couldn't help but feel a strong rage rising from deep inside me. Before the ants could react I used the maximum output of Red Mist to jump on its back, leaving a bright red line behind me, and I planted my dark blade in between two chitin shells around its neck, before activating another skill. "VOID BLADE!!" At this moment, the Dark Blade which was struggling to pierce even the softer part of the creature's skin between its chitin began to shake violently and the Void energy transformed it for a very short time into a dimensional blade, which easily planted itself in its body and pierced its neck. I swiftly moved the Void Blade and obliterated everything until reaching the Giant Ant brain, before losing the effect of the skill that I could only use for a few seconds. The Giant Ant who lost two limbs, was injured and had the inside of his head entirely disintegrated ended up falling to the ground, finally defeated. I didn't waste a second and went straight to check Alice's condition, who had lost enough blood to fill several buckets. 'Gladia!' [She isn't dead yet, but if nothing is done she will pass out very soon. Her black matter is currently keeping her alive but she doesn't have much time left.] Without even checking the situation of the fight between the two golems and the three remaining giant ants, I carried Alice and ran to the door as fast as I could. ___ Q&A : Q. (sh) What is the race of the villagers on Lunaris ? A. I can only tell you they aren't human (their ears should have given you a pretty obvious clue about their race tho lmao) Q. (discord) What is the difference between Void energy and Singularity energy ? A. All the Void Rifters can use the Singularity energy via their black matter, which is a native being from the Singularity. For example, the Dark Blade skill is a manifestation of Singularity Energy in the form of a blade and as long as you have the black matter inside of you, you can use this skill. As for the Void energy, it is much rarer to be used by a being non-native from the Void. That is why the Scyllas were so surprised when the monolith considered our MC able to control it. The Scyllas believe that once they create perfectly fused Void Rifters, they will be able to use both energies with the same efficiency.