In an instant, the huge ball of mana in the sky shifts all at once from a torrent of churning energy into a beautifully glowing second sun before a beam of light slams down upon Jetlins body.

Lanya flinches, half expecting to be caught up in the attack but feels nothing. She has to remind herself that her real body is elsewhere, even though she is talking with others in the embassy right now. It’s difficult to explain, but it looks like she really is in two places at the same time.

Lanya half expects the attack to stop but instead, the spent mana loops back into itself! The rock below vaporizes as the spell drills into the sea, but then the spell instantly becomes weaker, as if something just sapped it of some of its strength.

A deafening roar rocks the earth and sea as Alysara’s spell is blown away, revealing a mutated monstrosity of regenerating flesh. Spikes grow out of its body and shoot in all directions, slamming into the water and creating huge waves that crash against the mainland shore.

It is only now that Lanaya realizes that she and Alysara are floating with a pair of flapping wings attached to their clone bodies. The cursed being stands on the water as if it were solid, its arm mutating into a gnarled mouth. It raises its head at them and breathes fire, but Lanya doesn’t feel any heat; her clone body is unable to feel temperature or be harmed by it.

With a swift motion of her arm, Alysara gathers more mana for another spell and manifests a shimmering spear that seems to embody beauty itself, and hurls it at the Mutant. A shockwave rips through the air, and the spear blasts off at lightning speed before a hundred fairies appear and swarm the Mutant.

The spear slams into the Mutant with explosive force before detonating inside the cursed being. Light brighter than the sun itself overwhelms the world. The air trembles as the light fades to reveal a mushroom-shaped cloud, the Cursed Being nowhere to be seen.

Lanya breathes a sigh of relief, but floating on the surface of the sea, a clump of flesh quickly regenerates, forming a more massive and monstrous being with mutated heads attached to several arm-like limbs.

Every head opens its mouth simultaneously and delivers another earth-shaking roar, and she’d have probably gone deaf if it weren’t for her body being a creation of mana.

“Do you have ways to counter its regeneration?” Alysara asks, not breaking her focus on combat as flames erupt around them. “I cast an anti-healing and regeneration spell on it, but it is entirely ineffective.”

“If you can’t stop its regeneration, then why do you think I can?” Lanya dodges a spike, but Alysara just lets it go through her, clearly used to the fact that a body of mana can’t normally be hurt.

“It’s using the mana from my spells.” Alysara says, “I’ve drained the area of mana so its magic is weak but that all changes when I attack, but if you can use your healing Bond to restrict or stop its healing, then that might work.”

In the brief moment Alysara stopped attacking, the Mutant loses interest in her and turns toward the mainland.

Alysara conjures a few fairies at it to get its attention. Its many-headed limbs bite at the fairies, which explode in its mouths, but it is either not interested in Lanya and Alysara or is too dumb to realize Alysara is the one attacking it.

“That’s not good; it’s moving towards a town; we have to keep it distracted!” Alysara says and flies at the Mutant, a spear and dagger appearing in her hands.

She stabs the Cursed Being, and in an instant, it has her in its jaws before her body vanishes. It suddenly grows bigger as if being empowered, and back at the embassy, Alysara gasps, clutching her head as her face grows paler.

“What happened?” Lanya asks, walking over to Alysara.

“It used the mana of my clone to attack me directly!”

Lanya places a hand on her shoulder and flows healing through her. That’s when another clone appears on the battlefield.

“I’m not sure if it knows what it’s doing or if that was a fluke, but to be safe, we should not let it catch us,” Alysara says with her new clone, visibly shaken.

“Is this the first time something like this has happened to you?” Lanaya asks.

“In this way, yes, but not the first time in general.” Alysara launches another super explosion spear at the Mutant, bathing the land and sea in light and filling the air with a mushroom cloud.

“I can’t keep throwing those forever; we need to come up with a plan, a way to slow its regeneration enough to slay it for good,” Alysara says, her tails flicking with frustration. “But the problem is that the attack itself gives it enough power to survive!”

“What about an indirect attack like throwing rocks at it or something?” Lanya suggests as the Mutant leaps at Alysara with its many heads outstretched.

“Not strong enough, it will just regenerate from the damage” Alysara casts a spell that ripples out from the Mutant, and it suddenly slows to a crawl. “Perhaps if I slow it for long enough to overcome its regeneration.”

She conjures two more explosion spears, launching them one after another as soon as the Cursed Being reaches the edge of the slow field.

The shockwaves wash over them harmlessly, but the multiple explosions of a scale that could each individually destroy a city have devastated the coast.

“I think I only have two more of those in me,” Alysara says, sounding drained.

The fact she can cast six of those is amazing no matter how you look at it. However, even with two, one to reduce it to a tiny clump, and one to destroy the rest, the Mutant still survived.

“I think I’m going about this all wrong,” Alysara says. “It’s using just enough mana to shield a part of it from any and all damage and letting it recover through its regeneration. The use of any mana at all is the problem, like it’s using it by reflex.”

“So what do we do? We have to keep its attention, otherwise, it will rampage throughout the land!”

Alysara places a hand on her chin, her tails swishing in thought.

“Hmm… Well, now that I think about it, I can turn mana into matter, but can I turn mana into anti-matter?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Something really dumb. That much energy being released could destroy everything within a few dozen kilometers and have devastating effects even further beyond, not like the one-kilometer babies I’ve been throwing, but it can’t prevent damage if the matter itself is annihilated. However, that will get at least three fishing villages caught up in it.”

“Can you teleport it further away?” Lanya asks, still confused about what Alysara is talking about.

“No” Alysara shakes her head. “That’s still using mana on it. I suppose we can try to lure it away though…” Alysara uses a spell to pick up and throw a large boulder at the Mutant as it is walking away.

Enraged, the Mutant rushes at Alysara who continues to attack and retreat. The Mutant runs on the water as if it were solid ground, and jumps over waves. For over an hour Alysara attacks and retreats until the land is far beyond the horizon.

“I think this is far enough,” Alysara says. “now for the antimatter…” She ignores the fire attack from the mutant and concentrates on the space directly in front of her where a tiny grain of sand seems to form.

“No, that isn’t it…” Alysara frowns before turning toward Lanya. “Can you distract the Mutant? I need to figure this out.”

“Can’t you use your other minds to distract it? Lanya asks.

Alysara doesn’t immediately answer, but now about two dozen grains of sand appear in front of Alysara.

“No, I need them all to figure this out, if it’s even possible in the first place. Plus, I need to save on power, and this is another drain on it.”

How many minds does she have?!

“Fine!” Lanay says, giving in. It’s not like she can complain when somebody is helping her save her nation from a Cursed Being.

“Don’t let it touch you; you will regret it.”

“Wait! Doesn’t that mean I can't touch it either? I’m not a caster! I have to get close!”

Lanya has trained in hand-to-hand combat, delivering destructive healing through her fists, but if her clone body will be destroyed upon contact, then she can do nothing.

Alysara’s tails flick in thought “What kind of weapon do you use?” She asks.

“My fists”

“Hmm,” Alysara hums. Then with a wave of her hand, stone forms around Lanya’s fists. “I haven't practiced this at all, so I can’t make clothes or swords or whatever; this will have to do for now.”

Lanya throws a few punches, noting how she doesn’t feel the weight of the stone. It will be hard to gauge strikes, both in power and accuracy, and she won’t be able to use her destructive healing through the rock. That’s probably fine, though. Dealing damage is not really the point, she just needs to keep the Mutant busy.

Lanya flies at the Mutant, striking it on a head and hearing its skull crack, but it doesn’t even flinch and retaliates by trying to bite her with the multiple heads it has mounted on its limbs. She twists out of the attacks and goes for a kick by instinct, but she manages to pull back just enough to miss.

Her attack prediction skill blares in her mind with every potential contact, which she thought wouldn't happen for a clone body since it can’t be harmed. However, every warning from her skills says the danger comes from the Link between her real body and the clone body, a type of pain spell or something like that.

Spells that only cause pain don’t usually meet the triggering threshold of harm predictive or prevention skills since it technically doesn’t do any harm, so how bad does it have to be to alert her this much? What kind of pain tolerance does Alysara have to take such an attack and only show minimal reaction?

Lanya isn’t keen on finding out, there are things she doesn’t want to know. Instead, she focuses almost solely on dodging, pulling her leg out of a bite, ignoring fire breath attacks – her prediction didn’t warn her, so it was hard to dodge in the first place – and twisting out of several simultaneous biting heads.

She loses herself in the battle dance, getting more and more used to fighting in the air, and becoming more confident in retaliating and batting away heads to create openings. Time melts away, at least to her copy mind. She even starts to enjoy the challenge, safe in the knowledge that no lethal damage would be done.

Her main mind knows that around an hour has passed as the meeting at the embassy has ended, Alysara and herself making their way back to the carriages. The Elders will be staying at the Embassy, but she has more business with Alysara.

“What’s taking so long?” Lanya asks. She can’t ask at the battlefield, so she is asking at the embassy.

“It’s way more complicated than I originally thought. I thought it was similar to making matter, but the opposite. However, protons are made of smaller things like quarks and muons, and I don’t really know much about them.”

Nothing Alysara said made any sense. She’s making matter from mana, right? So is she talking about mana or matter? Just how advanced is her understanding of those things?

“I’ve got it! It was a little hard, but I finally figured it out!” Alysara suddenly says.

Before Lanya has a chance to react, light envelops the Mutant, and she loses contact with her clone body. Next thing she knew, a violently bright light shone from over the horizon, turning the night back into day for several seconds.

“Hmm… I may have made too much antimatter.” Alysara says, “I think I should ask Kayafe to help stop the shockwave and tsunami.”

“Who’s Kayafe?” Lanya asks. It takes her a few seconds, but she remembers that there was a world notification recently mentioning her.

“I guess you could call her my friend?” Alysara slightly tilts her head. “Or maybe my teacher?”

If Alysara can do that, then what the hell can this Kayafe do?!

“Anyway, is it dead?” Lanya asks.

“Yes. Very dead.”

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

Clone POV: Miasma Study part one

Ting! Sense Magic has met the requirements for a breakthrough and will continue leveling past level 1020!

51st Breakthrough: You have detected Miasma in the body of a person; this will help you study the interactions between Miasma and life.

I figured there had to be more. In Jetlin’s case, I was only detecting the excess, which was why I didn’t immediately get the breakthrough. After all, everybody produces Miasma, why wasn’t I seeing it? In addition, there should be trace amounts in the air that I am not seeing, so I need to get that breakthrough too.

Breakthroughs are only obtainable if there’s something fundamentally different. I can’t just get one because Miasma is in a new place; it has to have unique behavioral differences compared to anything else I’ve been seeing.

So what is Miasma doing in people that is fundamentally different? Well, the first is that it is expelled as seen before, but not before some of it is burned through interesting interactions. However, to explain that, a review of ‘social rituals’ should be explained. Social Rituals are cultural traditions like Runalymo bathing traditions. These are technically rituals but very weak that may not even be strong enough to produce its own ritual mana. It seems that these Social Rituals instead take trace amounts of Miasma as fuel instead of mana.

It appears that these Social Rituals act as a way to cleanse or get rid of Miasma safely without corrupting the rituals somehow. I’m not sure exactly how it’s doing that, but it has now made its way to my top observation priority since if I can figure it out, I may discover a safe way to conduct rituals without the risk of them being corrupted.

I suspect it has to do with how only a tiny bit of Miasma is being used, but if that is the case, then a society with more traditions should be more free of Miasma, so that begs the question: what happens if those traditions suddenly stop? What happens to the Miasma?

I don’t know, but the short-term answer will be nothing. I suspect that Miasma will slowly build up over time which is dangerous since all it needs is an appropriate spark to ignite.

In addition to being used for rituals, it seems that Miasma might have adverse effects on the body, but I’m not sure how. Runalymo has plenty of traditions, so the Nexus is relatively pure, and I haven’t been on the Lunaley island long enough to notice differences other than cultural differences. I will have to make more observations in places of higher Miasma concentrations. The Luna Empire that Klaman is ruling is a good place to start. They aren’t doing so well, so they should have more Miasma than normal.

I take a look with another mind while keeping vision on the other main nations and try to peer into the ambient Miasma. How is Miasma behaving that is different than normal? I keep that question in mind as I look, but whatever the effects are, it’s too subtle to notice.

I can’t even brute force it since I am looking at cities. I have to keep my perceptive pressure low so I don’t get blasted with hundreds of retaliations and so I don’t scare thousands of people witless, although that would be hilarious.

It seems like I will just have to shelve this breakthrough and focus on the individuals for Miasma study, which means comparing those with very little Miasma in their bodies to ones with a lot. It will probably take several days, if not weeks and months, but it’s a worthy endeavor, considering the recent events.

I may not be able to study how Miasma behaves in a living settlement, but I know where there are pockets of Miasma under the Nexus since I've seen it before, and it may grant me insight as to what I might expect in a living environment, but I’ve always been afraid that even looking at the old ruins would somehow trigger more cursed beings. I know more about magic now, and it should be safe to just look, but I decided to ask Safyr just to be safe, and in her words…

“If merely looking at ruins is enough to spawn a Cursed Being, there’d be far more of them roaming about. You are wise to be cautious, but in this instance, it is unfounded.”

With Safyr’s blessing, I study the ruins beneath the sea. The Miasma is very still and dormant, almost like it’s sleeping, waiting for a chance to awaken. It has a different color compared to Miasma in people. The best I can describe the color is that it’s the color of aged Miasma, but even then, there are gradients to the desaturated color. This isn’t very useful in comparing it to active Miasma, but perhaps there’s something to the color that indicates behavioral differences. For instance, why are Ruins so dangerous to explore? Is it the Miasma amount? Or could it be that the Miasma is ‘ripe’ and prime to spawn Cursed Beings?

If that’s the case, then perhaps I should first look for ‘younger’ Miasma in living settlements. Perhaps like wine, curses come from aged Miasma? This is all pure speculation, but shows that no one has even a clue when it comes to Miasma other than ‘Miasma bad’; perhaps not all Miasma is bad? And if that’s the case, then can Aether go bad too? Or maybe it becomes even better in time?

Whatever the case, I can’t spend all day speculating. I focus on the Lunaleyan Island and try to look for ‘young’ Miasma, peering long and hard in people's basements, and other places infrequently visited. Eventually, I start to notice something. A vibrantly colored fog mixed with other duller colored parts swirling around.

Ting! Sense Magic has met the requirements for a breakthrough and will continue leveling past level 1040!

52nd Breakthrough: You have detected ambient Miasma in the air; this will help you study this form of Miasma.

It seems like I’ve found the key to sensing the differences in Miasma. I have a lot to learn over the next few months and years, and this is only the beginning.