BAB3 -Chapter 33

# Chapter 33: Newcomers

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Chad swooped down to greet the newly arrived Awakened, quickly reporting which quadrants needed the most support.

The reinforcements had come just in time.

Because the monsters were growing stronger.

The spawns were still the same four twisted, Taowu-touched abominations, but their spawn level had clearly begun to climb.

Thankfully, the speed at which the monster spawned had begun to drop, too—if only just a little.

Dozens of fresh Orichalcum Tier Awakened surged into the field, flooding the area with powerful and varied techniques.

Their numbers had jumped from twenty-four to over two hundred in minutes.

Xay spotted several sect banners among them—but none of the real heavy hitters had shown up yet.

Most of the original defenders pulled back to rest.

Rox didn’t. She was still doing her thing, spinning in the thick of it like a living natural disaster.

A puff of darkness manifested into the air beside Xay, and Lexi stepped out.

“Something weird is going on in the city,” she said, her voice tight. “My aunt called. Said they were attacked twice by lunatics while trying to get to my mom’s bunker. Awakened lunatics.”

Xay frowned, glancing down at the field where reinforcements had finally turned the tide. Kimi, Tyra, and Willow had retreated to Dragon’s back with Ezra for a breather.

Xay nodded. “Go. Take Kimi and get them to safety. Stay in touch through bond telepathy.”

As he spoke, he activated two instances of *Arsenal Forge* and summoned both the Cerulean Longbow and Scarlet Katana at once.

~Kimi.~

A flash of multicolored light rushed toward them in the air and coalesced into Kimi.

Xay handed them both the weapons. “Stay safe. And see what’s really going on. Awakened attacking civilians during an emergency is disgusting.”

Lexi and Kimi disappeared, their movement techniques flaring as they rushed back toward Lexi’s Auralis.

The moment they vanished, a voice rang out behind Xay.

“Hey, Pretty Boy!”

Auntie Leah rocketed up beside him in the sky, casually launching massive fireballs into the horde with one hand, while sipping from a flask in the other.

The Vermilion Group had arrived, and collected in his quadrant.

“Hey, Auntie Leah,” Xay snorted. “Good to see you guys.”

“Mmhm. Was that my niece I just saw scurrying off?” she asked, her eyes sharp even behind the lazy grin.

“Yeah. Some Awakened attacked Lexi’s family. She and Kimi are going to help,” Xay said, drifting back toward his *Artillery Swarm*.

Active through one of his cognitive threads, it had never stopped firing.

“Cowards,” she scoffed, then grinned at Xay’s Jetnir Orbs. “My, look at what you’ve created here. A beautiful symphony of destruction,” she laughed.

While she studied the array, Xay spotted Auntie Miriam down below, wielding a broad sword nearly as wide as a door.

She lifted the sword high and drove it into the ground. A second later, fifty identical swords, each made entirely of flame, erupted across the battlefield at random.

Everything within six feet of each sword was instantly charred to ash.

“Whoa,” Xay breathed.

Auntie Leah floated back. “Take a rest, Pretty Boy. I’ll hold your spot for a bit.”

Xay released his Artillery Swarm, doubling the spin of his vital energy to prevent a headache.

Auntie Leah took a long swig from her flask and inhaled so deeply her back arched. Then she whipped forward and spat a torrent of blue, liquid flame.

It slammed into the ravine and flooded it. Every monster inside was incinerated, and the narrow gap instantly transformed from a bottleneck into a fiery death trap.

Xay sighed, shaking his head as his Origin Orbs fell back into his orbit. The casual power on display was both humbling and awe-inspiring.

It was the same across the other quadrants. Bloodline Abilities from members of the Big 5 were on full display.

Lapis was at the far end, and the water from their Nixie Bloodline both drowned the enemy and healed the wounded.

Arges stood beside them, the sand from their Jann Bloodline flaying monsters before burying them completely.

Next to Xay and the Vermilion Group’s quadrant was the Bathory Group. Their Bloodline was Upir, and they used blood to both attack and defend—the blood of their enemies and their own.

Xay found their Bloodline more than a little creepy, but he wasn’t about to say that out loud.

The Diamond Group was the last of the Big 5, but they didn’t seem to have a presence there at all.

Xay could feel some Awakened nearby drawing from the ambient psychic flow, but it was minimal at best.

Xay teleported near Rox’s cyclone, careful to stay outside its reach.

“Rox! Come take a break—the Vermilion Group is here!” he shouted.

She didn’t respond right away. Just as he opened his mouth to yell again, she cut him off.

“Get clear! It’s going to be a big one!”

Xay didn’t know what that meant, but he didn’t stick around to find out. He teleported high into the air.

No one else was within several hundred feet of her—no one wanted to get minced.

Rox’s cyclone came to a sudden halt. Then, faster than he could track, she slammed her axe into the ground.

A deafening boom echoed as the land caved in, forming a hundred-foot crater.

**Technique Identified: Momentum Break.**

***Momentum Break** - Smash the ground, releasing all stored momentum in a devastating shockwave.*

Rox’s body shifted, her skin returning to normal as the dust settled. Then, she tipped over, nearly falling.

But Xay triggered *Psychic Blink* and teleported her straight into his arms.

“You okay? What was that?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said, blinking rapidly. “Releasing all that momentum at once makes me a little weak and dizzy for a second.”

Xay guessed that made sense. She couldn’t be infallible—there had to be some drawback to constantly getting stronger.

He’d learned the same lesson with his own *Martial Burst Engine*. Once he crossed a certain threshold, the speed and power became harder to control.

“Well, I have you,” Xay said with a smile.

He teleported the two of them down to the back lines, where the Vermilion Group was in the process of setting up a base.

They’d arrived with deployment pods, tents, medical supplies, and a whole team of Awakened personnel.

The other Groups had done the same in their respective quadrants—and Xay was genuinely shocked by the sheer efficiency of it all.

He spotted Kimi’s father, Emanuel, and her grandfather, Obadiah, in the back, talking amongst a few other elders.

There were also men in sharp white suits, each bearing the Awakened Association crest on their lapels, zipping between the quadrants.

Tyra and Ezra had landed with Dragon and Willow. They were discussing something with Chad.

Rox had already regained her footing, shaking off the momentary weakness. Xay headed in his team’s direction with her—only to be stopped by another familiar face.

“Xay! Xavyer! Hey, hello,” Verka called out, clearing her throat. “I saw your attack—it looked very strong. You look very strong.”

Xay’s eyes narrowed. When he’d gone to take the trials of Kimi’s family, Verka had wanted nothing more than to see him fail.

She’d insulted him, insulted Kimi, and refused to acknowledge his completion of the outsider trials, demanding he take the real ones.

He and Kimi had even been forced into a duel against Verka and her brother, Elijah, just to finally shut her up.

Now she was being nice? Or whatever this was supposed to be? It was just weird.

“Ah, thanks,” Xay said, brushing past her with Rox.

“What was that about?” Rox asked.

“No idea,” Xay said, shaking his head.

He glanced back and saw Verka already heading to the battlefield, regrouping with Elijah, Jacob, and a few other Vermilion teams.

By the time he and Rox met up with Tyra and Ezra, Chad had already flown off again to keep coordinating with the Awakened Association staff.

“How’re you guys holding up?” Xay asked.

“Better now that reinforcements are here,” Ezra said. “We had to take multiple Mana Pills—thanks for that, by the way.”

Xay waved it off graciously. “No worries.”

He’d noticed that her spirits had been unsummoned once she left the field.

Tyra watched the deformed monsters with a shuddering grimace. “They’re horrible.”

“Yeah,” Xay agreed. “All the monsters we’ve faced before were—I don’t know—less monstrous? Far closer to animals than these Taowu-touched things. Whatever that means.”

~Repulsive, mongrel vermin,~ Willow sent. ~Don’t let them touch you.~

She was still in Tyra’s form, but didn’t bother to speak aloud.

~Evil,~ Dragon hissed, her slitted silver eyes narrowed in a deep scowl.

Sudden, overlapping, atonal screeches boomed across the battlefield, snapping everyone’s attention toward the horizon.

From the rust-colored shadows, four towering figures slowly emerged.

The largest grew fifty feet tall, and each of them was a grotesque evolution of the twisted creatures they’d already been fighting.

The wave boss had arrived—and there were four of them.

**Taowu Crawler Behemoth (S-Rank) Lv 50**: *Behemoth scavengers with teeth-lined bellies that collect trophies from all kills. Touched by Taowu Essence.*

**Taowu Reaver Behemoth (S-Rank) Lv 50**: *Behemoth inverted husks, driven by a need to ruin rather than consume. Touched by Taowu Essence.*

**Taowu Wulver Behemoth (S-Rank) Lv 50**: *Behemoth, multi-limbed pack hunters that toy with victims before tearing them apart. Touched by Taowu Essence.*

**Taowu Orit Behemoth (S-Rank) Lv 50**: *Behemoth hulks clad in scavenged bodies, faces, and names from the fallen. Touched by Taowu Essence.*

The Taowu Crawler Behemoth landed hard in Xay and the Vermilion Group’s quadrant, slamming into the ground with a deafening crash.

Its belly, lined with rows of gnashing teeth, devoured everything it touched as it unleashed a wave of putrid green and purple miasma.

Auntie Leah reacted instantly, rocketing through the sky on jets of flame from her feet. She met the toxic cloud with a torrent of liquid blue fire, burning away most of it.

Flame shields, burning walls, and whipping chains of fire shredded the rest.

The regular monsters stopped spawning for the moment, but the ones already on the field surged forward with renewed ferocity.

Awakened scrambled to meet them, redoubling their attacks on the horde while the more powerful among them broke off to confront the bosses.

Xay and his team moved, too.

He teleported into the air, breathed deep, and began rapidly cycling his mana while spinning his vital energy as fast as he could.

Twisting to the side, he cupped his hands into a ball and generated silver-white flames, lightning, frost, and crystal inside.

He condensed the mass, then wrapped it in a bubble of oscillating psychic force.

Xay repeated the process, generating more *Psi Elements*, compressing them and encasing them in layered psychic shells—again and again, denser and denser.

When the sphere of violent energy in his hands reached six inches in diameter, he turned, thrust his hands forward, and flooded the sphere with a massive torrent of mana.

Xay screamed, his crystalized channels straining as a sparkling foot-wide beam of iridescent light ripped forward and displaced the very air itself.

The beam crashed into the Taowu Crawler Behemoth, striking center mass with enough force to create a shockwave. Its movement halted, and the smaller monsters surrounding it were instantly flattened.

Xay had developed the new technique with Grandmaster Wu, based on the concept of Fa Jin. It was his *Psion Emission Beam*.

***Psion Emission Beam (Caster Sphere)** - Charge and unleash a condensed beam of mana, psionic elements, and oscillating kinetic pressure with psychic force.*

The creature let out a deafening screech as Xay’s technique seared into its flesh.

Xay met heavy resistance against its outer husk. But Dragon, Tyra, and Willow leapt in to assist—purple laser flame and thick teal lightning coils bombarded the point where Xay’s beam was pressing in.

With their combined force, the *Psion Emission Beam* punched straight through. It tore a molten path through the behemoth’s body, exploding out the back in a hole even larger than the one it entered.

Xay released the technique with a sharp exhale, then instantly teleported back to Dragon’s back.

He popped a Mana Pill and sat down, his chest heaving. The single attack had burned through more than half his reserves.

~Again!~ Dragon sent, laughing in his ear.

She clearly loved the technique—and Xay had to admit, he did too. It was his equivalent of a psionic Limit Break. But damn, it was exhausting.

Leah, Miriam, and a couple of other Vermilions finished off the behemoth with a bevy of flame and sword techniques.

Across the field, the other behemoths were starting to fall as well.

Hundreds of blood-forged lances skewered the Taowu Reaver Behemoth, each one as hard as iron. They punched through flesh and exploded, bursting the thing from the inside.

The Taowu Wulver Behemoth was swallowed whole by massive serpents made entirely of boiling water. They melted legs, fat, and muscle as they crushed the exoskeleton with pressure from the deep.

The Taowu Orit Behemoth had its hide scoured raw by razor sand, before a descending glass guillotine cleanly severed its head.

Awakened across the battlefield were tired and bloodied—but with the help of four of the Big 5, they had officially survived the first wave.

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Verka was embarrassed.

She had tried to flirt with Xay, and he hadn’t even noticed.

*How am I supposed to steal him from Kimiko if he doesn’t even look at me?*

She could practically feel Ayaka and Cousin Yumi watching from across the field, probably laughing at her.

And of course, her idiot brother had seen everything as well.

A blush crept up her neck.

*Maybe I shouldn’t have been such a bitch when we first met*, she thought, her wakizashi slicing through two monsters in one smooth arc.

She’d written him off as some weak nobody. Handsome, sure, but nothing more.

Then he turned out to be so much more.

He’d impressed nearly everyone in her family, and had literally just blasted a whole through a boss tier monster.

She could still feel the power from that beam, like an electric tingle running up her spine.

*I bet he gives warm hugs, too.*

She huffed, stomping her flaming foot on the head of an ugly creature.

*Kimiko gets everything!*

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*Half an hour ago.*

Piper Laurent ran, darting through the trees while the boy struggled to keep up behind her. She had him lugging all their things.

Her plan hadn’t gone perfectly, but it worked well enough. Omar was the sole survivor of the Project Arc commune.

The others had been more useful as her fuel, bolstering Piper’s level to 45. She was closing in on her third awakening, and Roxana would be the next step in her ascent.

They were currently heading back to New Meridian. Piper planned to take Roxana out during the Blood Moon, then rendezvous with Ethan for transport.

He mentioned having work in the Kingdom of Illantari, and she intended to tag along. It would be the perfect place for her to start fresh.

Piper didn’t know how or why Ethan always seemed to have exactly what she needed, but she didn’t care. If he ever tried anything, she’d deal with it when the time came.

Glancing back at the boy heaving behind her, she smirked. Worst came to worst, she always had a willing shield.

They were only thirty miles from the mining zone when the sky darkened. Above, the moon appeared out of nowhere, closer than it had ever been before.

“They’re coming!” Omar screamed, collapsing in a fit of terror. “The monsters! They’re coming!”

A distant alarm rang out. If her GRID was still active, Piper was sure Emergency Alerts would be flooding in.

*Damn kid really predicted a Blood Moon.*

She jumped back, standing over him as he quivered on the ground.

“They’re coming! They’re coming! They’re coming!” he chanted, dazed and rocking.

Piper hauled back and slapped him across the face. “Calm down!” she barked. “I’ll keep you safe.”

Omar sniffled, hyperventilating as he held his red cheek.

“Didn’t I save you before?” she asked, crouching to meet his eyes.

He nodded slowly, his gaze still wide with fear.

“Don’t you trust me?”

He nodded again, this one slightly quicker.

“Good,” she said, rising to her feet. “Now get up. We’ve got business to attend to.”

They started moving again, but slower now, staying out of sight and avoiding the spawn zone.

Piper still had to dispatch a few stray creatures along the way. They were more vile than anything she’d encountered before.

If the boy had been seeing these things every night, she could almost understand why he’d grown so twitchy.

Still, she pressed forward, all but dragging Omar along behind her.

From a tree about ten miles east of the spawn zone, Piper spotted that telltale cyclone of crystal shards and gore.

Roxana was already on the battlefield.

Concealed beneath the thick canopy, a slow smile spread across Piper’s face. All she had to do now was wait for the right moment.

She was finally going to get her revenge.