Insight: A Fantasy LitRPG Saga (A Touch of Power Book 4) Page 2

  Either way, for the first time, she was seriously considering whether she could keep a prisoner alive for continual siphoning. “Let fate decide, then.” Muttering under her breath, she chose to siphon devour from the three sylfae as she pulled a piece of metal from her ring. A yellow dot appeared in her vision, and she activated it as she shaped the metal in her hand.

  Alert. You have siphoned a species ability incompatible with your body. Correctional action has been taken. Special ability Siphon has been updated.

  Cool. She liked when things were updated, and this was her main skill! As much as she wanted to take the time to study her new upgrade, she really needed to move on. Looking at the new, unassuming metal ring in her hand, she poured magic into it, her familiarity with the process cutting down the time and energy she needed to invest into doing so. Once the space was around five cubic feet, she hesitated, then tossed the sylfae inside. She breathed a silent sigh of relief when no red dots immediately popped up.

  She hadn’t wanted to put them in her main ring because there was a lot in there they could wreak havoc with, not to mention the bodies of other creatures. Hopefully the new space would be fine… but even if it wasn’t, she would have killed them already, so it didn’t make much of a difference either way.

  Shoving the itchy feeling of her body adjusting to changes to the back of her mind, she began to run along the rooftops once more, searching for actual people to rescue. It bothered her that she hadn’t been able to see through their illusion. It meant her mana sense wasn’t totally reliable as detection. She wasn’t sure if she hadn’t been able to determine what they were because of their aura manipulation or illusions, but she realized it was probably a bit of both. Her danger sense and insight were the only things that warned her.

  Wanting to refuel back to full after that meeting, she pulled out one of the flasks that had soup made from the beann. If ever she could use a little extra luck, it was now. Maybe that was superstitious of her, but she didn’t really care. She hadn’t been able to save anyone in her last two encounters and that left a bad taste in her mouth. Taking a second, she molded a large straw into the lid so that she could keep it covered, drink, and run at the same time.

  Jumping to the higher roof of the next street, she looked down with sadness at the road below. Shop entryways were broken, bodies littering the area like trash tossed aside. There were large bite marks on some of the bodies, but it looked like whatever had come through this street had been focused on doing as much damage as possible without regard to anything else. It was pure destruction and mayhem. From the light pollution she could see, she knew things were on fire in other locations.

  Her senses tingled in warning and she whipped around to see four mesmer running at her. “Ssssssleep now…” The hypnotic pull of the mesmer’s voice tried to pull her under. Eyelashes fluttering as she fought the compulsion, she heard them murmur, “Sssssmellssss ssssso good…”

  And then it clicked. About to reach her, they were cut in half by the wind blade she sent out, her wind wall saving her from the splatter and claws that were still reaching for her as shock showed across dying faces in their last impulses before they were gone. Ignoring the bodies, she lifted herself into a wind bullet and shot across the city, aiming for a section closer to the wall.

  Standing in the air above an empty city square, she centered herself before lighting up her entire body like it was the noonday sun. It was sure to draw attention, but her next move cemented it: using wind magic, she sent her voice, filled with compulsion, into the city as she yelled, “Monsters, your fight is with me!” A second of near-silence filled the city before a cacophony broke loose. To cement her position as a beacon, she released the tainted blood she’d stored in her ring previously, letting it fall through the air to the ground below her in large quantities, considering how many people it was from.

  She’d finally realized what the best use of her time was. As much as she took joy in rescuing individual pockets of resistance, what they really needed was for the monsters to be out of the way so the guards could get them through the gate to safety. Rather than hunting individual monsters, she decided to draw them away, to her. The mesmer reminded her that she was, at least partly, to blame for this mess. They wanted her. Her blood. Her magic. She hoped any humans nearby had taken shelter, because from the rapid footsteps she could hear, things were about to get ugly.

  Having released the light as she floated to the ground, she stood alone in the center of the square. Humming filled the air, and she realized that the first ones to reach her wouldn’t be anything on foot; it was the sylfae.

  A tugging from her ring distracted her as she knew the monsters were closing in, and she quickly flicked the mirror out of her ring. She wouldn’t have time after this. “Jade! What are you doing? What were you thinking?” Derrick’s voice panicked as it came through as soon as she picked up.

  “I’m giving you time. Don’t worry about me, focus on getting the people out. Gotta go.” She hung up, the mirror disappearing into her ring as her flaming gun replaced it. The sylfae liked using icicles; she’d like to see how it fared against her superheated flames. Besides, a laser was almost too precise in a situation against tiny enemies. She needed something that would do AOE damage.

  Gathering the winds around her in an ever faster swirl that was fast becoming a mini tornado, she waited in the eye of the storm, sending a silent prayer that this would work.

  Sylfae began to enter the square, angrily shouting at her as they were buffeted and tossed around by the raging winds. Icicles attempted to fly towards her, though the wind was simply making them deadly projectiles that skewered a few of their own. As more flooded into her kill zone, Jade finally pulled the trigger.

  The wind tore the flames from her gun and into its swirl, becoming a fiery beast as it consumed everything in its path—icicle and sylfae alike. Horrendous high-pitched screams of agony and anger filled the air around her as she fed her magic into it, fueling it to spread further, to grasp at escaping enemies.

  That was when she felt it. The tug as others arrived and began to try to take control of her flames. Panic filled her veins as she felt her control slipping. Whoever it was had more mastery over the fire element than she did. Making a split second decision, she yanked the flames back, absorbing the heat flash as it vanished from the air.

  Blinking rapidly to clear her vision from the bright flames, she realized she was completely surrounded.

  Chapter Three - Blood

  In the wake of the flames, the grass of the square was burnt to a crisp, leaving it looking like a charred wasteland as monsters moved towards her, flowing over their fallen comrades without remorse. There were sylfae who’d been further away still fluttering in the air, joined now by impish counterparts with red coloring and batlike wings. Her mind supplied the term imps from memory, indicating they were the most likely suspects for her fire appropriation. A quartet of tialon blocked off one street entirely with their huge girths. Other areas were taken by things like what looked like a herd of horned bunnies, vampires that looked almost normal until their rows of sharp teeth shone in the dim light, patches of air that the other monsters were avoiding and probably contained beithiche, and many more that seemed to blend together beneath her glance, though her mind was picking out those she’d read of before.

  Perhaps the strangest thing of all was that moving within the sea of fur and claws were the mesmer, jumping forward completely unhindered as the rest got out of their way to let them pass. Surreptitiously switching out the crystal in her gun from fire to light, she yelled into the thrumming moment of silence, “Why are you doing this!?”

  To her surprise, one of the mesmer stepped forward, hissing, “Thissss issss our world, traveler… You sssshould accept that we are the rulerssss here… Join ussss…”

  She scoffed. “Your world? I think we should call it your graveyard. I will never join you!” Throwing the gun to her left hand, she squeezed the trigger and spun, her swo
rd pulled from her ring and into her right hand. Concentrating on the blade as her focus point, she released long slashes of wind from it as she turned, trying to mow down enemies on all sides. Laser focuses of light and wind caused chaos as the monsters tried to jump out of the way as she swung them up and down erratically to hit as many of them as she could.

  And then she was airborne, the pain in her calves and feet letting her know that the spikes of earth that just sent her flying were meant to impale her, but her lowered gravity made the force send her into the sky instead. Her wind wall had blunted the impact some too, but the spikes were still sharp and fast enough to be undeterred as they tore through leather and flesh before she was flung out of range. The unexpected movement meant that she had been flung arse over teakettle, upside down in the air as sharpened icicles and then flames roasted where she’d been seconds before. She felt the heat singeing her hair and yanked the nearby energy into her, knowing she needed every molecule of it she could get.

  Being flung from their original targeting position had unknowingly saved her from dealing with the rest of the attacks head on for that one important moment. Despite her strange position, her finger never left the trigger, burning through flesh, bone, and stone wherever it hit. Struggling to stabilize herself in the air, she took control of her wind to brace her, given that she instinctively knew her feet would no longer support her in their tattered state. Fifteen feet above the ground, attacks were being redirected towards her new position as her mind raced through the possibilities of how she was going to get out of the increasingly dangerous situation. Her confidence at getting out was falling as she realized just how many monsters were in the city and the aggro she’d so willfully collected.

  The blood draining from her feet wasn’t helping, and she took half a second to send a jolt of healing towards it. Not enough to fix it, but merely to clot the blood so that she didn’t keep losing it. True healing would have to wait until she wasn’t about to die. What could she do? Her gun was constantly firing, but it was the best crowd control she possessed. Her magic might be considered overpowered by human standards, but the fae had even higher mastery of the elements, if the three from earlier and her losing control were any indication. Fire and water magic were out. She’d even felt tugs on her wind swords.

  Her mind raced along the possibilities. She couldn’t fight them all herself. She was honestly most effective against small numbers, but trying to shoot them all with a bow and arrow was impossible. The massive amount of them did make her laser effective, and a few of them had even been hit by friendly fire when she’d moved.

  And then it clicked. “Fight yourselves!” Her scream was filled with as much compulsion and hypnotism as she could muster while shielding herself from the attacks she could and trying to move through the air to make herself a harder target. Her wind walls were of little use against the fire, and there were too many icicles for her to effectively stop them all, so she was using her wind to shift her through the air as much as possible, dodging as if her life depended on it; which, unfortunately, it did. She was doing her best to absorb any stray fire, but her clothes and skin were gaining tiny crispy patches when her attention wasn’t fast enough.

  Her scream had at least been mildly successful. The monsters on the ground had begun to turn on each other, claws and teeth ripping into others, while those who maintained their mentality had to turn to defense. Unfortunately, the fae in the air were largely unaffected, and they were the ones giving her problems at the moment. They were tiny, vicious, and powerful.

  Through the din, she heard the crystal within her gun break, drained of energy from her constant firing. She immediately stowed it, knowing it was useless until she fixed it now. Despair crept over her as she dodged, noticing the fight below was ebbing as well, her compulsion wearing off. Desperately, she tried again. “Attack the fae!” She heard snickers from most of the fae, because those below only threw a few things ineffectually at them. One or two fae turned to attack their neighbors, but the fast little buggers were quickly slapped back into sentience.

  An icicle that she dodged too slowly made it through her defense, resulting in a deep gash down her left arm. She panic-stopped the blood as she faced the very real realization that she might just die there. The elements were of no use, compulsion was losing effect, what did that leave her with? She couldn’t summon for fear of backlash or bringing something even worse. She was facing a slow death from loss of blood. Blood and death? Her mind latched onto the thought and yanked on a different aspect of her magic.

  An aura of fear spread out from around her, and she could feel some of the fae recoil slightly, hesitating in their actions. A few flew back or grouped together as she reached for the ones nearest her. She would not go down without a fight, and she ripped the blood from their bodies, determined to take as many of them with her as she could. If this was where her new life ended, at least she could say she had truly lived. She could go peacefully, knowing she made a difference to those she cared about.

  “Mommy, you’re not alone.” Lilith’s voice echoed in her mind as screams and shrieks of pain rang out in the air. Activating her mana sense as she dodged, she saw little speckles of magic wash over the fae and those below, and she made sure to expand her wind wall to keep the pollen away from her. Her eyes flitted from place to place as she darted around, searching for her little ones. Finally, she spotted clouds of dark magic hiding other flecks of magic, magic pollen streaming from them en masse towards the fae before swirling onto those below.

  Fae dropped from the air, paralyzed or missing pieces of their body and wings, while some finally turned to attack their neighbors, obviously caught in illusion. The square descended into pure chaos as it truly became a free for all. The fallen fae were torn to shreds by those below, a last remnant of her order kicking in as they dropped into range.

  “Open fire!” She heard the distant order from her left and turned to see a contingent of guards positioned down one of the roads, bows out as a wave of arrows launched towards the square. Another wave followed shortly, the guards shooting as quickly as they could into the seething mass. Jade quickly retreated from the path of fire, not wanting to be caught in the storm.

  In the chaos, she wrapped herself in darkness and wind and began her duty as a reaper. Any of the fae that had passed out but were not yet dead were tossed into her new ring of holding as she killed indiscriminately now that they’d lost their focus. Any itching as she chose siphoning options was ignored as she tried to strike an energy balance, her free hand weakly shoveling jerky into her mouth. She’d been handicapped before by needing to keep their attention and the fact that she had so many skills it was sometimes hard to remember everything she could do in the heat of the moment. With the chaos and the target removed from her back, she was free to do what she actually did best: whittle them down, one section at a time.

  Minutes passed in what felt like hours. When the last of the fae were taken care of in the sky, she stopped using her magic for anything but concealment and to stand in the air, taking out her own bow and arrows to shoot at those below. Another squad of guards had arrived from a different direction, adding their arrows to the fray as it turned into a one-sided massacre. Her little ones kept the situation in check with their constant pollen, and she had to wonder at both how much they had produced and how they’d managed to hide themselves in various shadow clouds when Lilith was the only one with dark magic. If they weren’t on her side, she’d be terrified by how effective their pollen clouds could be. As it was, she was simply grateful.

  When the square was finally free of moving forms, save the last twitches of the dying, she released her dark magic cover and pulled out a light orb. The arrows slowly stopped as the guards moved closer until she raised her voice to croak out, “Don’t come any closer, there’s still a lot of pollen in the air.”

  Her little ones had stopped releasing new pollen a while ago, instead using their wind magic to circulate what was already there. Sh
e should probably check if that was because they ran out or if they just figured there was enough. Maybe a combination? She could hear their soft chitters as they communicated, which was what finally clued her in. It wasn’t just her little ones. Somewhere along the way, they’d recruited other fellacai to follow them. Each of the five clouds was led by one of her pairs.

  As they dropped their own darkness and began to clear a path in the wind towards her, she called out to the guards once more, seeing them raise their bows, “Don’t shoot them! They’re on our side.” She was lucky they hadn’t been noticed before, or there might have been problems with them aiming higher. She quickly deflected the lone arrow that had been loosed while she was still talking. The guard who’d let go of his arrow looked a little sheepish as he lowered his bow, but she’d already turned her attention back to the fellacai.

  “Thank you, my lovelies. But we need to clear the pollen now. Can you help me collect it into one place?” Asking for their help, she began to use wind magic to sweep the pollen her magical sight was still picking up into one large orb, mentally guiding her little ones to do the same. Soon, all the pollen in the air was collected, though there was still a layer of magic speckles mixed in with the sheet of blood covering the ground. There was so much blood, even if all of it didn’t quite look like it, given that there was blue, green, and black goo liberally mixed in with the red.