Chapter 77 – Strangeness Of The Beta Seed

She knew what the words meant, of course. Arch anything meant it was a higher rank. Seed meant it wasn’t born yet. A higher-rank unborn with a beta release tag.

I didn’t know we were hatching higher-rank entities from eggs, but here we are. It’s heavy as well.

Her very first guess about the Dreagans back on that beach on the first island seemed to be the right one now. These things were game testing mechanisms, operating outside the constraints of the game. Sarka had told her that they were magical entities that weren’t born from mana. That made sense now. They were manufactured entities.

White blood rained on her as the Terminate ended and the world caught up to the prediction dots. She stayed where she was. She had just cut the Dreagan open and uncovered its next trick. She could end this one right here.

“I’m detecting a massive mana signature from that flower, princess!” Sarka said urgently.

So, it knows I’m here. It’s trying to hatch faster, maybe?

“On it. Focus on Emil. I’ll deal with this one.”

[Vainfall: Terminate]

This didn’t seem that hard, given the amount of damage that she had dealt to the Dreagan so far. She swung her arm, phasing the long spear through the Dreagan into the gaping hole.

Slowing the movement for prediction dots, she drew a line across the open petals. The dots showed meaty chunks flying off with splashes of blood.

She watched the Seed.

One.

It didn’t have any prediction dots around it. Nothing at all. She swung her arm again and stopped right on it.

The petals around it would rip and break at the end of Terminate, but the seed stayed exactly as it was.

[Vainfall: Edit Collider Wireframe]

She watched the blue preview of the collider.

It was doing its job, colliding with the Seed as it was supposed to. It went straight through the shell, as all phasing-through objects behave in Terminate.

Vonrak Filvoran Defeated.

Damage Dealt: 871 (34%)

EXP: +290 (View Axes)

An unrelated notification startled her. It was most certainly one of the four-eyed angels she sent flying into the waves. She dismissed it, focusing on the task at hand.

Dreagan flesh surrounding the Seed received damage just fine. She could just draw with the spear to rip the petals to smithereens.

The seed doesn’t move. Could be some sort of invulnerability?

Two.

That wasn’t right. She looked closer with the wireframe preview still active. This time, she focused on the collider of the seed itself.

It didn’t have one. It was just the same Seed tinted blue. No edges, no vertices at all.

That was the answer.  The seed couldn’t be damaged because it wasn’t real. Now she was confused. There was a weight listed on Inspect. How could anything have a weight without a collider?

Three. This is getting more complicated. I have to get out.

“Sarka, forget what I said. I can’t deal with this one,” Darya said flatly.

He let out a gasp. “Are we doomed?!”

“Not yet.”

Doomed or not, she couldn’t leave this stick’s collider. It was too long and unpredictable. If the Dreagan rotated, it could sweep a massive radius with an invisible rod. While it would be really funny to watch random Shadows get swatted like flies from a safe distance, it could also be a random fatal mistake.

This was the first time she actually thought about restoring an edited collider. With the wireframe still active, she touched the collider surface with her glowing blue hand and performed the undo gesture that she remembered from the VRMMO days.

The stretched vertex sprang right back to where it was, sending a ripple through the rest of the wireframe.

Half.

Darya turned away from the hole and targeted the first Shadow she saw.

[Frame Selected Entity]

Zooming in a straight line, she felt the cold wind on her skin as the Terminate ended halfway through. She appeared a few feet away from the Shadow.

It turned around, flapping its long wings.

[Vainfall: Terminate]

The world flickered around the corners with visual artifacts. She had lost track of how many activations she did in a row.

“Emil?”

“Left, above. You can see a trail of Shadows!” Sarka said urgently.

She saw it right away. Emil was being chased by a swarm of Shadows that looked like a tendril. Whatever he did, he had managed to draw aggro from at least half of all Shadows. At least twenty mana spears were frozen mid-deflection off his warding. Filvorans, those four-eyed angels, seemed to be throwing everything they had at him.

One. He said he could buy me five minutes, but that doesn’t look good. Don’t know how many minutes it’s been, but he’s not going to last another one.

She took out her telescope and targeted Emil directly.

[Vainfall: Frame Selected Entity]

The travel time was a bit longer, and she had spent at least a fraction of a second looking at him through the telescope.

Two. Maybe a little bit more. Two and a half.

She appeared above him about three feet away. She needed to defend herself for the brief second right after Terminate. Anything could hit her, including Emil himself.

[Skill: Warding of Alta]

-30 SP • 250s Cooldown

[view more]

At least one and a half seconds left. She stared at the nearest shadow. It was clashing with Emil’s defensive mana layer. Somehow, her brain came up with a great idea that she really wanted to test.

[Vainfall: Edit Collider Wireframe]

She looked at all the shapes nearby. A wing of the first Shadow was the closest to her left. She reached out and grabbed a vertex.

Three.

She targeted another Shadow to the right.

[Vainfall: Frame Selected Entity]

Phasing through several Shadows, she appeared near the one she targeted, carrying the vertex in her hand. The prediction dots showed exactly what she envisioned. She let go.

Half.

The monochrome world faded as the world caught up. First, a mana spear grazed her thigh and deflected off the warding. Second, the wing of the first Shadow near Emil bent inward, pinning it to its owner’s chest. Three other Shadows behind it got pierced by an invisible spear.

“Prince Volfarro!” Sarka yelled as loudly as he could. Darya opened her mouth to scream, but the tangled Shadows started thrashing mid-air with their blaringly loud screeches.

A stray wing whacked her across the hip, sending her flying. Emil turned around and fired something at the nearest Shadow, which was already tangled with the other three. He seemed to realize something was odd, but his spell worked.

The tangled mess of struggling Shadows fell off the sky.

“Emil!” Darya yelled.

He saw her by chance. Using some sort of fast skill, he jumped the distance and grabbed her around the waist.

“How did you—?” he asked, wide-eyed.

“Hold on tight!” Darya said, wrapping her legs around him at once. She

[Flying Celestian]

“Whoa whoa!” Emil yelled as they both turned weightless. They could feel the wind from approaching Shadows as more mana spears bounced off Emil’s warding mana.

“Princess! Shadow! Really close! Behind you!” Sarka yelled.

Darya pulled out her telescope and looked down. She saw several white patches in the water below. She targeted a random whale as Emil swung his gauntlet arm.

[Vainfall: Frame Selected Entity]

The travel time stretched more than one second. They came about twenty feet off the ocean. Their tangled limbs loosened, and they flew in different directions. Separated from her Flying Celestian that kept him weightless, Emil fell into the waves with a yelp.

“Shit!”

[Skill: Smooth Slither]

-30 SP • 30s Cooldown

[view more]

Darya flew an arc around the whale. Emil resurfaced and swam for his life. She swooped down and crashed into him with a splash. 

Lifting off the water carrying him, she circled the whale again. The island was too far away to fly to.

“It’s cold!” Emil yelled, trembling from head to toe.

“I know!” Darya yelled. Underneath, she heard the whale’s sharp sounds. Seconds later, it broke the surface.

“Oh god! Is that a whale?!”

“Worry not, Prince Volfarro! These are our allies I mentioned earlier!”

“Hold on,” Darya yelled as they entered the third circle. 

She spiraled down with Emil for another turn and performed her best smooth landing next to the whale. Both of them slid across the cold water and slammed face first into the whale like thrown frogs, knocking all the air out of their lungs.

Her best landing was still catastrophic.

It took several minutes for them to crawl up the waterline, resting against the soft, blubbery surface. Emil flipped onto his back, panting hard while shaking like a machine. Darya dug into her bag and found the metal decanter with the heating potion. She pushed it onto him. “Drink!”

Emil took it, tore the lid with his gauntlet claws, and poured it all into his mouth and face. He howled when it sizzled on the cold water and turned to steam.

“Don’t drink too much of that potion!” Sarka’s panicked warning came a bit late.

Smoking like a chimney, Emil slid off the whale and fell back into the water. He bobbed up and down, trying to balance the potion’s heat with the cold ocean water.

Norun Filvoran Defeated.

Damage Dealt: 37 (0.23%)

EXP: +1 (View Axes)

Varek Nul Filvoran Defeated.

Damage Dealt: 167 (1.3%)

EXP: +1 (View Axes)

Asdar Norlam Defeated.

Damage Dealt: 18 (0.12%)

EXP: +1 (View Axes

Solner Strumfil Defeated.

Damage Dealt: 318 (2.9%)

EXP: +2 (View Axes)

That’s the four I tangled. Must’ve died when they hit the water.

Emil spurted steaming water. “God, hic-” he let out a hiccup, “I thought I died!”

“You were close,” Darya grunted, leaning her back against the soft whale. She needed to think about her next steps, but too much had happened. She stared at Emil. He had proven what he could do. He could use a collider weapon without killing himself with it.

A shape burst from the water behind the whale, skidded over the soft, wet surface, and splashed down next to her.

“Watch out!” Emil yelled.

Darya already knew who it was just by the splash. Two glowing turquoise eyes emerged from the water and dashed up to her.

It was Lurim. He wrapped his tiny arms around her stomach as if he had missed her for a month.

Emil was already raising his gauntlet hand. Darya raised her hand while wrapping the other around the boy. “Wait!  This is Lurim!”

“Wait, that’s not a creature?!” Emil looked bewildered as he lowered his hand.

Another shape emerged to his right, showering him in a massive splash. Nerima burst out of the water like a torpedo, looking panicked. Caught completely off guard, Emil let out a scream that echoed to the horizon.

“Prince Volfarro! Calm down!” Sarka shouted. 

Darya looked up, ignoring the chaos in the waves. 

That seed must be hatching the Archangel. Emil’s safe now. I should get back up.