A creature of writhing tentacles shifts into this layer, granting Safyr the chance to [Analyze] it.

Ǝ̸̢͓̲͉̞̒̀́̽̿l̵̨̤̺̻̲̇̆̽́̈b̴̼̙̹̤͚̋͌̏̀̚ɿ̷̡͖̥͕̣̀͋̓͠͝ỉ̴͚̹̲͉̝̾̎̎̆Ɉ̶̲̟̪̼̙͗͂͗̀͠ɔ̴̼̫͕̳̖̄͛̿̓͠ʜ̶̡͙͇̞͎͂̀͑͌͝ ̴̹͙̰̳̘̽͑͐̿̍Ɔ̴͓̳̳͕̋͛̾̃̚ͅơ̶̤͖̟̱͐̊̍͝ͅɿ̵͈̭͈̟̥͛̿̉̒̒ɿ̵͉̼̲͕͓͛̈́̂̋̒υ̸̢͉̥͉̮̇̾͗͊̒q̸̺̘̣̽̊̈̔͛͜ͅɈ̸̝͔̠̫̣̓́͒̌͘ö̸̙̺͎̘̟́̆̓̕͠ɿ̸̢͚̹̰̤̍͆̉̆͠ (Legendary), Level 2012 X̷̨̹̪̗͔͛̒̉͋̉'̷̛̘̮̻̖̘͂̈̈͠ǝ̸̭̣̭̱̹̊͒́̾̆ɿ̸̞͉͚͉͈̄̀̾͋͂ḑ̴̘̺̻̳͆̒̓̅̓'̴̨̦͈̥͕̽̈́͛̄͘ɿ̷͍͇͖͖̀̑̅̏͘ͅɒ̴̠͉̺͕̭̒̾̈͑͌Ɉ̴̧̮̙̠̺̄͋̏̆̕ʜ̶̢̦͎̞͎͐̌̐̏͗ị̴̡͇̻̈̇̀̏̄ͅɔ̸̢̳͎̣͒̆͗͐̄ͅ'̴̛͚̖̖̮̩̔̇́̂ɒ̴̯̥̻̫͚̈́́̇̍͝ ̸̡̲̫̦̩̆͋̑͌͛Ɔ̷̫̘̼̝͙͐͂̃̈́͑ó̷̠̹̺̞͉̌̎̇͆n̸̰̘̥͙̯͊͋̃̊̓p̶̥̠̯͕̖̎̔̇͗̋υ̴̛̟̙͍̞͍̑̔̾̏ǝ̶̧̳̻̺͙̌̒̿͑͘ɿ̴̺̥͙̖̙̐̀́͑̈́ (Legendary), Level 1857 Ǝ̶̛̬͕̬̰̠̅͆͘̚l̵̢̙̪̝̬͆̅́̏̈́b̴̙̞̦̙̥̿̀̓́̚ɿ̷̛͇̟̼͕̼̅̈͌͘ì̸̪͍̺̯͌̀̍̔͜Ɉ̸̬͍̻̻͍̏̾̆̃̀ɔ̴̧̗͙̻͕͗̍͑̐͆ʜ̴̧̗̦̗̦̾͒̏̏̂ ̷̲͓̞̫̮̏̽́̽̏Ṭ̴͖̬͖̉͊̾̃̑͜ǝ̷̛͙̟̘̦͋̊͊̉͜ɿ̶̱̗̱̦̈́́͑̑̅͜ɿ̷̮̰̟̥͎̈́̑̾̂́ɒ̷̮̥̫̟̯̓̄͒͆͘ʇ̸̘̥̲̘̘͐͛͆̚͠ọ̸͈͉̫̋̏̄̀͝ͅɿ̷̟̲̬͇̋͗̔͒͘ͅm̷̧̯͓̘̣͐̿̿̿̊ǝ̴̡̛̜̘͕̭̇̽͐̿ɿ̷̛͕̬͉̜̬̊͌̋̅ (Exalted), Level 1704 Ƨ̵̡̣͕̲͚̀̓̏̑͝q̸̲͈̱̭͐̌͂̂̎ͅɒ̵͉̘̟̳̳̈͋͂̋͝Ɉ̶̧̙͎̠̦͛͋̉̔͝i̷̧̭̻̼̋̊̐̅͛͜ɒ̸̘͈̻̥̣̌̈́͌̅͘l̸̗͍̭̲͖̇͌͛̅̕ ̷͈̝̙̮̺́̔͊̊̚Į̷̛̹͔͖͓̍̍̏̿n̴̰̻̯͖̪̽͛͑͆̈́v̸̨̨̩̻͕̈́̒̏̇́ɒ̶̢̨͍̖̙̎̎̃͊̾b̷͍̲̜̩̝̆̇̾̃̽ǝ̴̳͇̠͈̙̂̏̀̋͝ɿ̴̛͎̩̟̰͖̀̏͋̃ (Exalted), level 4210 X̷̢͈̫͕̬̀̋̋̍̍ɒ̸̠̻̦̜̗̓́͂̕̕ǹ̵̢̙̘̹̹̈́͐̿̆d̵̳̘̯͔̙͆̄̄̊͠'̶̞̹͈̲͙̓̌͂͌͝ɿ̴̝̬͔͉͎̎͆̔̒͝ɒ̸̡̢̰͍̽̍̌̂̈͜Ɉ̸̯̖̭̰̭̀̋́̄́ʜ̶̯̙̱̤̼̔̓͗̾̽į̸̛̖̯͙̤̿͗̓͝ɔ̶̺͎̗̜͍͂̊̒̆̈́ Bond.

Safyr is lost in a moment of confusion; she had never heard of these things before, not even in the world notifications, which means they must not be native to this realm. Worse, Safyr can’t even make sense of the [Analyze] results, but she at least learned enough to know that these… things are on the lower end of legendary tier; she can probably take all three by herself.

Just then, Yrania swoops down, tackling the mass of flesh, her unseen mental attacks freezing any possible retaliation.

“Yrania. So they are coming back?”

“Yes, Grandmother! Alysara noticed these things, and they are rushing as fast as they can!”

“Troublesome,” Safyr growls, but she admits that she wants to see what that flying ship can do; at least they can help with the smaller ones.

Safyr pulls the remaining two onto this layer, commanding rain to gather and using jets of highly pressurized water to form a meat-mincing tornado that sweeps through the beings. Hundreds of the smaller ones die instantly, but the large legendary tier ones quickly regenerate, and worse, the bits of meat quickly reform into new, lesser beings.

“Annoying!”

At least the smaller ones don’t regenerate, but it’s still annoying that the larger ones make more. They might not compare to legendary tier, but they are still heroic tier, even if they are just born. Which seems to be the case, the newly formed beings are Classless with level zero Bonds, but the sheer number of them makes them dangerous to the Runalymo; Safyr’s one attack made a few thousand of them.

With another spell, Safyr cleans up the newly born monstrosities, but more are being made as Yrania rips her foe apart. Black ooze drips from the strange being’s wounds that form into more of them. They rush toward the villages below but are quickly slaughtered by the Runalymo warriors and mages.

Regenerators are especially annoying since the easiest way to defeat them is to drain their mana until they can’t regenerate anymore. Attacking their soul, mind, or vitality directly would be better, but Safyr doesn’t have those options, and attacking the mind doesn’t destroy the body, so it only solves half the issue.

“Grandmother!” A panicked voice comes from her pink-scaled relative. “The Blood of these things… I can’t get rid of it!”

Confused, Safyr glances at Yrania only to see her claws and arms have weird growths on them as well as many spots all over her body. Stranger still is the mana that has infused her flesh. It isn’t anything she has seen before; in fact, it shouldn’t even exist!

She charges at one of her foes, tearing deep into the flesh as black sludge sprays onto her; she needs to find out what’s going on. The monstrosity retaliates, trying to pierce her scales unsuccessfully, but she feels a strange itching sensation on her scales. Making sure enough of the blood is on her arm, pain wracks her as she examines her arm closely, watching as the strange mana buried deep in her flesh.

It’s slowly transforming her flesh into them! Safyr cut off her arm, letting it fall and regrowing another, but she soon realizes her mistake, as her corrupted arm morphs and twists, quickly growing into a fourth large but exalted tier being!

It’s newly born, so it’s weak, but it has Classes and a water Bond like her! She growls in annoyance and, with a spell, rips the thing to shreds, only for it to spawn more small ones and reform.

“Do not engage them in melee, Yrania! They will corrupt your flesh and turn into more of them!”

“You need to call my father! Fire is strong against regenerators!”

Safyr growls with stubbornness. “We can handle them! They are just low legendary tier, even you should be able to take them all on and come out on top.”

“Their attacks infect flesh; not even our scales protect us! Have you looked at yourself? You’re covered in corrupted flesh. If we keep cutting them off, we’ll be overwhelmed!”

“It’s that damned mana! We need to extract it from us; go inform Alysara and have her remove it. I’ll hold them off.”

Yrania flies toward the Airship, leaving Safyr to hold off the now four regenerators. By the time she returns, there will only be two left!

She summons her torrent of water again, shredding them over and over and over again; they’ll eventually run out of mana and die! She summons another torrent to destroy the thousands more being born from the gore.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

My clones that I left in the Nexus are currently on a business trips for my airship trial, I didn’t think this would happen, so I didn’t leave one behind to look after my family. I am still too far to use [Manuipulate Mana] for spells, but with the First Inscription stabilizing spells, I can still use my Bond and Class through them.

I currently have three villages defended with my fairies and created a new clone to fly back home, but by the looks of it, this will all be over by the time it arrives.

Ting! The Guardian of the East Nexus, Safyr, the dragon, has slain T̸͈̗̰̫͖̾̓̇̀̽ʜ̸̡̡̮̟̺̓̍̎́̓o̴̢̱̺̥̣͂́͛̍̚n̴̩̣̙̼̜̊͒̀́̋'̵̢̨̹̝̘̓̒̐̈̍X̸̩̱̠̭͓̐̓̉̎͘ɒ̵̨͎̳̰͚̌́̈́͝͠n̷̢̤̺̲̱̓̐́͗̿'̶̮̣̬͎̲̓̄̆͂͝ꓘ̴̛͚̭̱̦͓͌͑̃̚o̷̡̠̺͓͖͌̿͋͑͘ɿ̶̹͉̤̪̱̈̇̍͒͝, the Eldritch.

Ting! The Guardian of the East Nexus, Safyr, the dragon, has slain ꟻ̴͖̖̼̤̝̆̾̓͘͝ḷ̸̼͖̜̫̂͑͆̌͆ö̴̹̯̙̝́̋̿̃͑͜ɿ̶̳̞͚͇̐̽̒͊͝ͅ'̴̢͇̣̹̘̃̌̍͊͘Z̴̧̗̝̙͎̓̔͑͂̚i̸̬͖̖̗̿̒́́̌ͅx̷̢̮̖͖͕̿́̾̚͠Ɉ̴̧̢̺̤̙͆́̈̀͋ɔ̶̹̗̥̙͈͗͛̑͌̃'̵̧͎̹̦̜̅̔̈́̆̉Ϙ̴͎̟͔̘̦̉̐͋̈͑i̵͇͓̞͖̮͂́͌̃̈ȏ̸͍͉̳̬̈́̅̀̐͜l̶͙̮̼̱̃́̎́͜͠, the Eldritch.

Well, it seems like Safyr has it under control, but the odd thing is that she killed all of them yet only got two notifications; where could the last one have gone?

I scan the area, quickly finding the escaping eldritch being. At the same time, Safyr notices it, a small form like a small writhing tentacle diving into the sea. Safyr dives lower, and soon, a cloud of black blood is released as the tentacle is torn to shreds, yet still no kill notification…

“Alysara, we need your help” I hear Yrania’s telepathic voice enter my mind. “The mana of those things is weird and corrupting. We need you to extract the mana from us; otherwise, any flesh we shed will turn into more of those things.”

“I will be on the deck soon,” I reply, running up to meet the dragon who is flying by the airship’s side.

Just looking at her, I immediately know that the alien mana is being artificially stabilized in this layer. It seems this isn’t the first time those beings have crossed into other layers; in fact, they probably have skills that stabilize themselves and their spells no matter what layer they are on.

I reach out to Yrania with [Manipulate Mana] and tug on the alien mana, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t even make it budge! Worse still, the mana is twisting and warping her flesh and mana, spreading and consuming!

This sounds very similar to what Kayafe explained of what [Manipulate Magic] is capable of; this spell is being magically enhanced! Only [Manipulate Magic] can extract this mana!

I tell Yrania the bad news.

“I see; that is bad news. We’ll just have to deal with the consequences then.”

Yrania returns to Safyr, and they rip their infected flesh off, spawning more of the eldritch beings before Safyr shreds them apart. However, they are only afforded a brief respite as two large eldritch beings descend from the sky, shifting willingly to this layer.

This time their tentacles are tipped with eyes, and sharp hooks and suckers adorn the length of them. Being more prepared now, they shoot beams from their tentacles, a hundred hitting Safyr and infecting her scales with the corrupting mana.

Their attack is short-lived as Yrania flies in a circle around them, clearly engaging them in a mental battle to disrupt their attacks. Safyr’s whole front is infected, but it’s shallow; with the help of her water, she tears off the infected flesh and launches her own jets of water, cutting both in half, then half again, and half again. With each divide, a new level zero monster is born, but the mass of the legendary one is reduced, easier to tear up without spawning thousands more.

We finally arrive at the Nexus, entering battle with a barrage of cannon fire, attracting the attention of the weak inter-layer beings.

Beams hit the ship, but we receive no damage, the super-solid structure easily blocking the spell. I go back into the airship to avoid being hit by stray attacks.

A series of booms accompany another volley of shots, the mana cannon shells delivering powerful explosions as they hit the vulnerable flesh of the eldritch beings, and they begin to fall, engulfed in flames.

The two laser cannons focus fire on another offshoot, quickly killing the weak monster. Beams slam into the side of the airship as the enemy tries to attack the dragons and us, but Safyr uses her superior speed to outmaneuver the corrupting beams, taking care to draw the attacks away from the villages.

Another thundering series signals another cannon volley, and a second later, another weak foe falls as explosions blow it into pieces. However, the enemy takes the opening that their retaliation gave them to regenerate, only to be cut in half by Safyr once again and again, and again, once small enough, Safyr conjures another watery tornado to rip them apart, but unlike last time, it seems to have a harder time, the water bounces off as the eldritch flesh hardens like carapace.

They’re adapting…

I realize. Their first attack was easily repelled because Safyr ambushed them by forcefully pulling them onto this layer, they didn’t expect that and were left in shock, but now they’ve had time to prepare themselves.

However, their hyper-specialization against Safyr’s attacks has left them vulnerable to other forms of attacks. The laser cannons swivel and lock onto one of the legendary beings now that the weak ones are ripped apart and fire a beam of concentrated lightning mana burning through the carapace and blasting a hole in the foe. Safyr takes this opportunity to seep her water into the wound and past the carapace tearing the foe apart from the inside.

A notification signals the death of the invader, and the fourth legendary eldritch being, the reinforcement, shifts back to another layer to run away, but Safyr pulls it back, tackling it and ripping the carapace off with her claws. The being retaliates, digging its hooks into her and using its suckers to keep its grip, but that doesn’t save it from the water rushing into its wounds and destroying it over and over again until the system confirms its death.

Safyr sheds her infected flesh and quickly slays the resulting enemy before flying back to Temple Island to rest, Yrania flying by her side.

The Entalymo flies lower to land at my village, but I immediately notice something wrong. The bodies of slain Eldritch offshoots are bleeding over the wooden walkways, warping the wood and turning them into fleshy floors, but the worst are those who are infected with the corrupting mana.

It wasn’t just the Legendary ones that could corrupt things but their offshoots too. Among the infected are my parents; thankfully, Yafe and Yafel are unharmed, wearing the protective dragon silk dress I incorporated into their Kyhosa.

My heart sinks at the sight of the corruption slowly spreading on my parents, and it’s worse than them simply getting the infecting blood on them, it looks like my dad took a hit, and her liver is infected as well.

Most people can simply have the surface-level infection cut off, but we don’t have surgeons that can remove infected organs; we never had a need for surgeons. In a world where limbs can be regenerated, diseases killed via spell, and other ailments are just as easily healed, medical knowledge is far below what it should be.

I have to try and remove the corrupting mana from my parents; how else am I going to save them?

I teleport out of the Entylamo, conjuring my wings, and drift down to the healer where all the wounded are. Usually, there are not so many people here, but now dozens are crowding the beds and chairs as the healer tries to remove the infection by a spell.

They’ve already tried cutting off the infected flesh, but that just made another eldritch offshoot that they had to kill.

“Aly!” The twins tackle-hug me as I enter; tears are streaming down their cheeks from fright and worry.

“It’s ok,” I reassure them, patting their heads and purring. “I’ll heal them”