Moving The Hopper to avoid being slammed into by a tentacle, Nedira shouted, “Take out some of those things or we’ll never be able to get through!” Even though it wasn’t likely, she thought she could feel the wind of the tentacles’ passage as it flicked toward their right, just barely out of range of the vessel’s exterior wall.

  “We’re trying! But those shields – or whatever they are – keep getting in the way!” Bartholomew shouted back, lined up against one wall with his staff pointed toward the massive All-seeing Parademon. They had quickly learned that using the Vacuum Blast and Heavy Load Effects from their Multi-Purpose Arsenals could manage to damage the monster if they were created a little distance away from the shielding tentacles, but the Parademon was already starting to adapt to the new attacks and was able to block most of the effects with their absorptive protections.

  Fortunately for them, they had more than one person able to pile on the damaging attacks, as everyone on board The Hopper was similarly armed with the Fusion.

  Vivienne spoke up even as she unslung her bow, fitted an arrow to its string, and then ran up the stairs to the top deck. “Distract the tentacles! I’m going to try hitting those damn eyes that keep looking at me!”

  “Projectile barrage! It can’t block everything!” This time, even Nedira pitched in with her own staff as she unleashed hundreds of flying stones and icy spikes, sending them out so quickly and so erratically toward the spherical center of the monster covered in creepy, staring eyes that it looked like she was intentionally flailing her staff around. In reality, that was exactly what she was doing, and the others on board followed suit, while two of the Volunteers on the side closest to the monster sent out Focused Light Beams that raked across the tentacles haphazardly, with—ironically—no particular point of focus.

  Despite having more than a hundred tentacles that seemed to extend out of thin air helping to protect the monster, it struggled to keep up with the barrage, and a few of the weaker projectiles made it through. Those that made it through didn’t do much—or any—damage to the eyes when they were hit, but Nedira could feel a build-up of a Battle Art coming from the top deck. Right in the middle of their barrage, when there was just the barest opening, she watched a glowing streak of light thread through the protective shields to hit another one of the eyes on the Parademon.

  The Battle Art-infused arrow penetrated deeply into the eye, disappearing within…

  …before it exploded in a flash of light and a shower of viscera. When the light cleared, Nedira could see that a good quarter of the Parademon had been blown apart, all of the eyes on that side having been obliterated.

  Nedira thought it was the sudden shock of the attack and damage that made the tentacles hesitate to defend against the continuing barrage, as the group on The Hopper suddenly tore into the appendages with abandon. None of the crystalline shields that had been protecting them before materialized, and they seemed to flail about for a few seconds, many of them falling apart as they were cut and blown apart by their assault.

  But that wasn’t the reason at all. Even as they started to make some headway through the tentacles, she saw the eye-covered body of the All-seeing Parademon shift until the damaged portion was now facing away from them, and a whole new fresh set of eyes was looking at them. As soon as that happened, the crystalline shields were back, blocking everything they could send at it.

  While all of this was happening, Nedira was continuing to move The Hopper in some evasive maneuvers to avoid the attacking tentacles. Despite her success, her avoidance was only temporary, as the first attacks against the Parademon had garnered the attention of the others, and Nedira could feel the weight of their gazes upon her. Fortunately, the Fusion that Larek had ensured they all had to protect themselves against the Gergasi helped to alleviate whatever the ocular monsters were trying to do to them, but that didn’t mean they didn’t still feel it.

  But worst of all was that the other 5 Parademons that had originally been about to attack and destroy the other transports were all now focused on The Hopper – and they had moved close enough to start attacking with their own tentacles, making things even more dangerous as Nedira could only move the vessel so quickly. A tentacle that she couldn’t avoid entirely bounced off the side of one wooden wall, and it nearly threw her off her feet as they were battered to the side, but no one was injured as she was able to recover and get ahead of the lead Parademons for a brief moment.

  She glanced at her betrothed, worried that he had been knocked out of whatever trance he seemed to fall into when he started looking at the Diregate, but he was as steady as usual. She was half-tempted to disturb him so that he could help kill some of these monsters, because she instinctively knew that he could do so with little difficulty, but she also noticed how his focus was on something else – something much more important. He seemed to have an idea of how to slow down or stop the flood of monsters coming out of the gigantic portal, and at the moment that had to be the priority; even if he was to help kill these Parademons, who was to say that another dozen wouldn’t suddenly pop out of the Diregate? It was better to take care of the problem at the source, rather than put it off until later.

  Besides, she was hesitant to ask for his help; she’d frequently told him that she and his other friends had gotten stronger and didn’t always need his protection, as many of them had been part of the SIC at one point or another. They knew their duty and were perfectly equipped to carry out that duty; even if it was easier to ask him to solve all their problems, that didn’t mean they were helpless without him.

  It was time to prove it.

  “I’m putting some space in between us and them!” Nedira shouted, wanting to be heard by everyone on the battle deck as well as Vivienne on the top. “Make the most of it!”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Putting her words into action, she had The Hopper quickly flee from the approaching Parademons, putting some space in between them, which had the benefit of not having to dodge tentacles, but it also made it much more difficult to get any attacks through. The extra space allowed the All-seeing monsters to have enough time to get their crystalized shields into place, easily blocking their attacks, while at the same time the Parademons were also close enough together by this point to help block attacks targeting others of their kind. Vivienne shot three more times from the top deck, but despite her impeccable aim, she was unable to thread the needle like she had before. A trio of tentacles was obliterated when her arrows exploded, but that wasn’t quite as effective as eliminating hundreds of eyes on the Parademons’ bodies.

  As she dodged the group of floating monsters once more, she caught something out of the corner of her eye. Her reaction time was just barely fast enough to send the vessel shooting straight up as a seventh Parademon suddenly appeared behind The Hopper, nearly trapping it in place with its tentacles. The sudden accelerated dodge upward was the only thing that saved them from being caught in its grip, but it also allowed the others to catch up. When Nedira looked around again, she found that the vessel had been backed into the side of the cavern, the floating entities having corralled her into a place from which she couldn’t escape.

  Frantic for a solution, she nearly gave in and asked her beloved for help, but as the first Parademon closed in with its multitude of tentacles, she rocked back in surprise as it suddenly exploded, the eyeballs that had encompassed its body rocketing off in all directions, obliterating it entirely.

  Huh?

  When the debris cleared, she could see in relief the other transports behind it, as they had obviously recovered from whatever had been done to them by the eyes, and had thrown everything they had at the singular Parademon, overloading its defenses.

  Alright, we can still do this.

  The gap that had opened in the cluster of Parademons with the death of one of them allowed Nedira to slip out of the encirclement, as the other monsters were temporarily fazed by the sudden obliteration of their fellow attacker. Once they were free, they linked up with General Auran and the other transports, and through an unspoken command, they all focused on a singular Parademon and began to overwhelm its defenses immediately.

  That was when the eyes on all the monsters began to glow again, and she felt the pressure on her increase. With a passing impulse, Nedira ordered, “Quick! Use Blinding Freeze or Blinding Heat!” She did so as well, sticking her staff back out of the side of The Hopper and triggering Blinding Freeze in front of the closest Parademon. She had to look away as that Effect – along with over a dozen more – was triggered, causing a massive burst of bright light before some of the shielded tentacles seemed to suck up the magical effect.

  But the sudden blinding Effect did its job, as the eyes – which had no way to look away from the powerful light and could only block it with their tentacles – were greatly affected, shutting off the glowing mental attack that had been hitting the other transports, and likely blinding them – at least on one side of their bodies.

  The other transports recovered much quicker this time, and they took advantage of the blinding effect to kill yet another of the Parademons, leaving only 5 left for them to manage.

  Of course, that was easier said than done, but now that they’d succeeded in killing a couple of them, they knew it could be accomplished. Those on the Hopper and the others worked together to either overwhelm or distract the Parademons one at a time, blinding them and sending exploding arrows at their eyes, whittling them down one-by-one. It became a battle of movement and attrition, with the powerful monsters getting the jump on one of the transports and ripping it apart at one point, dropping those inside into the hordes below, but those were the only casualties when they finally managed to surround and kill the last All-seeing Parademon.

  When it finally died and joined the mounds of monster corpses below, Larek suddenly stirred from where he was still standing throughout the entire battle. “Ah, I see,” he muttered to himself, but it was still loud enough for everyone in The Hopper to hear. “All I have to do is….”

  Before Nedira could ask, a massive surge of energy that she could almost see emerged from her betrothed’s body, flowing toward the Diregate. While she couldn’t see or hear anyone on the other transports, she could only imagine that they, too, held their breath in anticipation as the wave of energy rushed past them, and she wasn’t the only one who stared at the massive portal at the end of the cavern.

  At first, nothing seemed to happen, but then the Diregate seemed to flicker a few times, before it steadied on a deep red color, bathing the entire cavern in what looked like blood from the coloration. Almost immediately, the flood of monsters pouring out of the portal began to trickle to a stop, and Nedira explosively let her breath out in relief, before turning to Larek.

  “You did it! How did you—?” she began to ask, but the worried look on his face stopped her. “What’s wrong?”

  He was silent for a few seconds even as everyone on the battle deck began to celebrate at the miraculous stoppage of the monster horde.

  “I’m… not sure, exactly. All I did was reverse the flow of Primal Essence, but there seems to be some sort of feedback loop that I didn’t anticipate.”

  Nedira could feel it then. The extreme energy that the Diregate had been giving off had shut down almost as soon as the flood of monsters had trickled to a stop, but now there was a disturbance in the energy levels again. She knew that Larek could easily see the energy with his Skills, but Nedira wasn’t quite to that point; there were times when she really concentrated that she could see small glimpses of what he seemed to take for granted being able to observe, but she didn’t need to see it to feel the energy building up again.

  Her primal instincts were going crazy at this point, as she practically shivered at the hostile feeling the energy gave off. It built and built, rising to a crescendo of frightening intensity, and she held on to Larek as he seemed to be fighting with it in his unique way of doing things. Suddenly, the build-up of energy disappeared, and Nedira staggered into him, as if a weight had abruptly been ripped off her back that she hadn’t even known was there.

  “Did you do that? Whatever it was, it seems to be gone now,” she observed unnecessarily, as everyone on the battle deck sagged with relief.

  “Nice job, Larek!” Kimble called out, turning toward her betrothed. “Now all we need to do is clean up the monsters that are even now escaping out into the world and then—”

  “I didn’t do anything.” Larek’s words abruptly cut off the leader of the Volunteers.

  “What? Of course, you did,” Penelope assured him, walking up with her sword slung over her shoulder and her staff by her side. “You shut that thing down.”

  The others began to say the same thing, but Nedira was watching her betrothed – and he seemed more worried than before.

  “Uh, guys?”

  Nedira turned toward Verne, who was still standing by the side wall looking toward the Diregate.

  “I don’t think this is over.”

  Gazing past him, she saw something emerging from the massive portal, and it was so large that it was almost incomprehensible.

  “Like I said, I didn’t do anything. The energy was already used by the Diregate before I could stop it.”