"Alright boys, how does it feel?" Yajinn asked everyone.

Just to be extra safe, they had deployed the dozen or so silent flying aethertech drones from the second ADV while they were still on the road. Those drones were now in the air following along the line of ADVs like a small flock of birds. They were able to activate the VAF by casting their support artes through this proxy network. As a result the dogtags, which everyone had already received prior, began to emit a low hue of blue light.

Just a moment later, they all felt the aethereal surge which accompanied the multitude of supporting artes flowing through their bodies. Though this sudden sensation might take away the breaths of someone not used to being supported by artes, everyone here handled it like the experienced Vanguards they were. And these artes, which if Yajinn had to list their effects out, would be: Strength boost, power boost, dynamic vision enhancement, low light vision, shock dampener, and an elemental ward of the flame variety.

While the physical burden from maintaining this amount of supporting artes might not be too severe even for the average support caster, the mental stresses involved was quite another story. To analogize, the act of maintaining each specific kind of support arte was to be given a ball to juggle. Increasing the number of targets for the arte was for that ball to become heavier, while the act of adding a different support arte was to be given one additional ball to juggle.

Concentration was key for support casters. Keeping at least three balls in the air was a minimum any qualified support caster should be capable of. The leap to five would make one a distinguished professional. Anymore than that took someone of a caliber of exceptional talent, especially considering the kinds of chaos that might be happening out on the field at any given time.

At the moment, Yajinn was maintaining a set of seven different supporting artes. Under normal circumstances, it would make them a support caster of exceptional talent, someone capable of joining the ranks of the royal guards of Arca Archa— under normal circumstances, that was. Of course, they had a good measure of skill in this field, but their true realm of expertise lay in aethertech R&D. What they were able to produce were the specialty drones which they were able to offload the majority of the mental gymnastics to.

Instead of having to consciously maintain a formula in their mind for any particular arte, they were able to simply transfer aether through the use of an aether focus to the drones, which would then convert that aether through one of its many embedded formulas to produce the result identical to an arte cast by them personally. By itself this was nothing revolutionary– there were many existing artefacts which could cast a preset arte by simply feeding it aether– but what Yajinn innovated was the essence of mutability through the implementation of integrated software and smart programming. This was actually one of the most crucial steps for the creation of the VAF and this was the method with which Yajinn was able to use to go beyond their means as a traditional support caster.

"You shouldn't feel anything different from the usual, but just to be safe, how do you feel, Garmr? I know you don't do very well with support artes your body isn't used to."

"Hrm…" Garmr mused. She closed her eyes then swayed her head around one direction before swaying to the other. "I think this is okay. My body feels fine."

Jackie then added her own take, "Yeah, it doesn't feel any different from the usual. Are you sure your VAF thingy is working?"

"Yeah, it's working for sure," Yajinn confirmed. "Right now I have the output set to the standard levels, but it's taking way less out of me than before. The rate of consumption is like the difference between keeping a medium paced run and a brisk jog. I'll have to check the data later to see the exact numbers, but if it's like this, then I should have a lot more leeway to increase the output of the artes or I could even take on the role of an offensive caster too."

"Oh really? That's so cool!" Jackie exclaimed.

"We are lacking some more range options, so that would bring a lot of needed utility to the team." Nemeadas agreed.

It was then that the sounds of the road changed. They had exited the evenly paved asphalt of the highway and were now on the path connecting directly to their destination.

…

As they pulled up to the dropoff location at the cemetery, they could see no less than ten ADVs and a few dozen people awaiting them.

"Yahoo!"

Hyped up and full of energy, Jackie was the first to leap out the door, followed by the rest of VGT Tyr who took a much more normal walking approach.

"This will be the place of battle!" Krakjen's first action was to take in the sight of the cemetery.

"The air stinks…" Garmr's sensitive nose twitched. There was a foul stench about.

"I can't smell anything. Hey, who put gum wrapper in my pocket?" Iteza came out complaining.

"You really need to take that stick out of your ass and stop complaining about every little thing." Yajinn walked out next, chewing something in their mouth.

"Be on high alert." Nemeadas said as he came out last.

Not long after they landed, their leader was quickly waved down by a veteran Scout, Mikey of SCT Noctua.

"So glad to see you all from VGT Tyr here. We've been waiting for you guys all night."

"My apologies," Nemeadas bowed his head slightly, "we ran into trouble getting started, and encountered a minor roadblock right before arriving here."

"That's quite alright. I heard the director requested aid from the SPF. Knowing those guys, they probably did some shit again."

"Yes, it is as you have guessed."

"Ah well, nobody has died just yet, so no harm no foul, eh?" The Scout laughed. "We expected for the worst when we heard the rift transitioned into an outbreak event, but up until now the manticore's movements have been pretty tame. We've been keeping a close eye on it with the drones and at worst it's come close to the road a couple of times."

"I understand, so where is the beast currently? Now that we have arrived, we will make a move to take care of it right away before anything potentially worse can happen."

"Ah…" Mikey hesitated.

"What is the matter?"

"Right… so here's the thing," he sucked his breath in, as though still not wanting to be the bearer of bad news, "We lost track of it."

"Pardon me?" The massive Aslan asked. Did he just hear that correctly? They had lost track of a three meter tall manticore the size of an elephant.

"Yep, disappeared into thin air it sure did! Poof and gone! As a matter of fact, it happened right before you guys arrived. One minute it was there, and the next minute, it wasn't! We have absolutely no idea where it could be now. Is it still there? Maybe, but how would we tell? Did you know a manticore could even do that? We sure as hell didn't, so it sure is a damn good thing you guys arrived when you did, ahaha… We are not geared to be able to handle an ambush from a manticore. It would have been a goddamn massacre…"

Hearing this left Nemeadas on high alert. Although the contents of Mikey's description were quite unbelievable, he trusted the words of their scouts implicitly. As such, he guessed that the manticore had the ability to use some kind of a hiding arte. He was aware of a few of these himself and from the way Mikey had described it vanishing from the drones' feeds, the arte must have been a physical one rather than a cognitive one. That made things more complicated.

If they had only arrived even a few minutes earlier, then this situation could have been avoided altogether. But that did not mean they were out of options. For now, Nemeadas made the decision to proceed with the plans as usual, which was a better idea than to try to wait the situation out.

"Since there is only one manticore, we will escort you Scouts to the rift to set up a quarantine zone. Should the manticore ambush us or reappear during that time, we will move to intercept it."

"Sounds good." Mikey nodded. "Truth be told, ever since the manticore started wandering, some of us have been making bets about whether we could set up FBDS's around the rift quick enough before it can come back. I was against it though, just between you and me. We would get our asses roasted by our department head if we come home breaking a few of those because of a bet. Last I heard, even the older models are going for well over 10 mil Argentum. You could easily nab a high end apartment with that kinda money. I don't know if you've heard, but there's word going around about how a few of the supposedly broken FBDS's were in fact not broken, but rather someone took parts from each of them to frankenstein into a full FBDS to sell on the black market."

…

Garmr's nose twitched again.

"I can smell it—" she muttered.

This scent, pungent to her and her alone, stained the land and washed away her drowsiness like a blast of cold air. A switch called instinct had been flipped within Garmr and it returned her to being the savage beast she had always truly been. She gripped her sword tight enough to whiten her knuckles and she shot past Nemeadas and the scouts like a living missile.

"Garmr!" Nemeadas shouted towards his love, yet to no avail as his voice became drowned out by the battlecry filling her ears. With only a glance, he already knew what she was thinking.

"—HaaaaAAAH!" Garmr roared, with each step digging deep into the dirt to hasten her charge. There was only one thing occupying her mind now. With one mighty kick, she launched herself three meters high, then wielding her giant blade, she struck out lunging towards the empty air. What followed was a gruesome sound— of bones crushing under the weight of the stab, and of the horrifying beastial screechings of what everyone present could only guess to be the invisible manticore.

"Gasp—!" She inhaled sharply and jammed her blade even deeper before a torrent of winding and hellish crimson flames erupted from where she hung. It enveloped both her and everything surrounding her immediate vicinity. And briefly, just briefly, before the flames overtook everything, they were able to make out the silhouetted form of the manticore Garmr clung onto.

…

The seconds ticked on like hours, but even as time passed, the roaring flames continued strong and did not give even a moment of respite towards the manticore held within. Still, the horrifying screechings continued, along with the thrashings of the beast which shook the ground with every hit.

As the waves of sweltering heat swept across the cemetery, Nemeadas advised the Scouts still standing awestruck.

"Go! Quarantine the rift. We shall handle things here!"

"Y-Yeah, will do." MIkey swallowed before making a quick beeline towards SCT Noctua's ADVs. The rest of the Scouts soon followed and within a minute, the ADVs took off away from them.

"VGT Tyr, assume your positions!" Nemeadas commanded. "We will engage the manticore as soon as the flames die down. Yajinn, back away thirty meters and maintain your support artes. You do not have to worry about offensive casting. Iteza, stay near Yajinn and provide cover fire. Krakjen, Jackie, you both take the rear and cut off the tail."

"What about Garmr?!" Jackie quickly asked.

"She will be fine."

"B-But…!" she stammered.

"She will be fine. I will take the front along with her, now go assume your positions!"

"O-Okay!"

"I hear and understand!"

"Got it!

"Aye!"

…

Two minutes had already passed since Garmr's charge.

It would be any moment now when the flames would subside. Nemeadas, who had worked with Garmr the longest, knew of her limits. He knew that though she could arm her sword with flames, she could not keep up flames of this intensity for long, and the price to do so would be costly.

She had clearly done this to give the scouts time to evacuate and to give them time to reorganize. But now that the scouts were evacuated and they were in position to fight, she could pull back now!

"Garmr…" Nemeadas clenched his fists tightly. Even though he brushed off Jackie's concerns quickly, there was nobody there who cared more for Garmr than he did, not even the woman in question herself. That was undeniable as a fact, and everyone in VGT Tyr knew that.

—Then, there it was, the signal they had all been waiting for. The flames which had gone on strong this entire time finally flickered, and but a moment after that, vanished without so much as a single ember remaining.

The great form of the beast was revealed at last, its head three meters high, and its body just as massive as described. Like some kind of chimera from hell, it had the head of a man, the body of a lion ripped with muscles, and the spiked bludgeoning tail of a wyvern. There were dozens upon dozens of battle scars that littered its body, and it was now missing a chunk of its nose, ear, and cheeks as Garmr's sword was struck deep into its face.

"Are you kidding me…?" The muttered voice belonging to that of Iteza could be heard through the comms in their ears. His disbelief was entirely justified however, as even after taking all that, the manticore's fur was barely singed, whereas not even ashes remained of the grass that once stood at the scorched earth by its feet. How was that even possible for a living being? It was no doubt a monster by any measure of the term.

Now that its figure was clearly distinguishable, there was something which caught their eyes and differentiated it from any other creature of the wild.

"That's an artefact of compulsion," Yajinn's voice came through, "a slave's iron collar. It dulls the mind and suppresses a person's urges."

"Then are you saying that this is someone's pet?" Iteza asked.

"No, but a thing like that would never have been able to work on something as magically resilient as a manticore!" Yajinn quickly denied. "Not to mention the use of such an artefact has already been banned by international law since over two decades ago. It was one of the first things to go with the opening of the permanent rifts."

"Whether what is illegal or not does not matter right now. Focus. We are in a battle."

"Right, sorry, Nemeadas. I got carried away. I just wanted to say that if it lived with someone before, then there's a possible chance that the reason it can use stealth artes is because of an artefact it has in its possession. Or it could be a mutation."

"I understand. Everyone, keep an eye out for anything that might look like an artefact."

…

The manticore snarled, before thrashing its head about and swatting with its claws in an attempt to throw Garmr off. Nemeadas rushed in then, at a speed which made him look like a blur. Without so much as slowing down, he dug his heels into the ground with a stance, and then struck, both fists towards the side of the beast.

*BANG—!*

The sound of an explosion ripped across the night. It was no exaggeration to say that Nemeadas's fists struck with the force of a bomb. It lifted the massive body of the manticore up into the air by an entire meter and threw it onto its side with a great thud. For sure, he felt a crack come from within the beast. At least a rib must have been broken with that strike.

Garmr freed her sword then, with a grisly wet sensation as blood and shards of the manticore's skull clung onto the blade. She jumped off the face of the manticore where she then rejoined by Nemeadas's side. Much like the manticore after the flames died down, she too was only looking slightly worse for wear. But Nemeadas knew… that she only looked like that on the outside.

"It's resilient, like a wyvern," she commented.

"Is your mind clear?" Nemeadas asked.

"I'm okay… for now. But I used all my reserved vials just now." Garmr nodded without taking her eyes off the manticore.

"Good. Take the front with me. Give it not a single opportunity to focus its attention elsewhere."

"Okay!"

…

…