The monsters intensified their auras.
Again.
Again.
The ground vibrated under the combined pressure of their powers. Cracks spread like black veins through the ruins, while the air grew heavy, oppressive, saturated with a sickening energy.
Maki, motionless in the center of the chaos, briefly looked away.
On the horizon, the other half of the city was nothing more than a vast cloud of dust and distant explosions. Over there… Yamero was fighting.
Her heart clenched imperceptibly.
Damn…
What's happening over there…?
She gritted her teeth.
Hold on, idiot… No matter what you face, come back alive.
A foul growl brutally pulled her from her thoughts.
The slimy-limbed monster opened its gaping mouth, far too wide to be natural. Black flashes crackled in the back of her throat, mingled with an unstable violet energy.
"GRAAAAAA"— A colossal beam erupted.
A column of destruction.
Everything in its path was annihilated: rubble pulverized, ground vaporized, remaining structures reduced to ashes. The beam hurtled straight toward Maki, charged with raw, devouring hatred.
She didn't flinch.
Maki simply raised her hand.
"...Pathetic." Around the beam, a luminous sphere formed instantly. A perfect shield, smooth, vibrating with a stable white energy. The beam collided with the barrier, causing a deafening shockwave.
The energy tried to unleash itself.
In vain.
Inside the sphere, the beam was compressed, crushed, its violence stifled second by second. The black flashes faded, the violet light weakened… until it vanished completely, like a flame deprived of oxygen.
Silence fell once more.
Maki slowly lowered her hand.
Her eyes were cold. Determined.
"My turn." A lightning bolt shattered the sky.
With a thunderous roar, a weapon took shape in her hand: a scythe made entirely of lightning, its handle crackling with electrical arcs, its blade gleaming with a blinding white light.
The monsters instinctively retreated.
Maki whirled her scythe.
With an electric roar, lightning slashes erupted from the blade, tearing through the air and streaking across the battlefield. Arcs of light struck the ground with force, leaving behind scorched furrows.
The monsters reacted instantly.
The horned colossus crossed its arms, its eyes trembling, concentrating its aura to block the slash head-on, while the winged creature leaped into the air to narrowly dodge.
A heartbeat.
Maki vanished.
…?!
The horned monster didn't even have time to turn its head.
Maki appeared behind it, her eyes icy, her scythe already in motion.
— lame ass
The blade slammed down.
The impact was cataclysmic. The creature's massive body was hurled through the air like a projectile before crashing violently into a building, pulverizing the facade in an explosion of concrete and metal. Barely back on the ground, Maki sensed the danger.
The slimy monster unleashed a rain of gooey tentacles, hissing through the air with deadly precision.
Maki instantly crouched.
The tentacles whizzed past her head, just inches away. Without rising, she spun around, her legs moving with fluid, precise movements.
Clap—Clap—Clap.
Every attack was parried cleanly, her feet striking, deflecting, and shattering the slimy limbs with absolute control, despite her low position.
Her gaze hardened.
"You're annoying me." A flash of lightning erupted from her body. Maki reached out and unleashed a concentrated blast of lightning, a blinding white explosion that struck the creature head-on. The monster was hurled dozens of meters, howling in a hideous gurgle, before crashing against the same already cracked building.
The structure finally gave way.
With a deafening crash, the building collapsed on top of the two creatures buried under tons of rubble.
Maki slowly rose, her scythe still crackling with electricity.
Her breathing was calm.
"There's still one left..." Her gaze turned toward the last abomination, ready to continue the slaughter without the slightest hesitation.
Maki dispelled her lightning scythe.
The lightning dissipated around her arm with a dry crackle.
She lowered her center of gravity slightly, her fists raised, her gaze fixed on the last creature.
"Hand-to-hand…" she murmured inwardly.
The humanoid creature let out a low growl and charged without hesitation, its long legs pounding the ground. Its right arm contorted with a sickening, organic sound, the flesh rearranging itself into a living chainsaw, its metallic teeth screaming as they spun at full speed.
Maki didn't move.
One step too far.
At the precise moment the blade was about to slice her, she pivoted sideways with surgical precision. Her elbow slammed down in a white flash, charged with pure lightning, striking the creature's abdomen.
"Too predictable."
The impact was devastating. The monster was thrown several meters, digging into the ground before settling with a muffled groan. Its mouth immediately filled with dark blood that gushed out in thick streams.
Its torso was unresponsive.
Its arms hung limp.
But its eyes… were still moving.
Maki narrowed her eyelids.
"Just as I thought…
These creatures haven't yet developed advanced regeneration."
She observed more closely, sensing the aura still present, faint but persistent.
"My attack was intended to completely block the nervous system… yet only the upper part is paralyzed."
A detail struck her.
"It deflected the impact."
Suddenly, the creature opened its mouth violently.
A wave of compressed energy erupted with a roar, hurtling straight toward Maki.
Without even changing her expression, she raised her hand and slapped the attack away. The wave was diverted skyward, exploding high in the air with a deafening blast that lit up the clouds.
Maki exhaled slowly.
"Equivalent exchange…" He sacrificed the function of his upper body to preserve his vital nervous system.
She felt his aura collapse.
"An instinctive oath. Poorly controlled. Colossal energy cost."
Her inner voice turned icy.
"And for a beginner… it's a fatal mistake."
The creature's eyes hardened.
[An equivalent exchange oath is a universal principle respected by users of alchemical energy; it allows one to obtain something one doesn't have, or escape a perilous situation by making a sacrifice of equal value to what is requested.]
His aura faded like a flame deprived of oxygen.
A few seconds later, her body collapsed heavily to the ground, bathed in its own blood, motionless, drained of all energy.
Maki sat up, looking at the corpse without the slightest emotion.
"Fight over." In the distance, the chaos continued... But around her, no monster was breathing yet.
Meanwhile, Daru and Aika were still immersed in the cold light of the holographic screens.
Satellite maps scrolled by, data streams crisscrossed, algorithms ran in loops… without the slightest result.
The silence grew heavy.
Aika tapped the control surface, her brows furrowed. Her pupils analyzed thousands of lines of data per second, but nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Daru finally broke the silence, his voice weary but clear:
"There's really nothing we can do… We'll never find that damned floating island with conventional means."
He leaned back slightly in his chair, arms crossed, his gaze fixed on a screen devoid of any anomalies.
Aika took a slow breath before replying, her tone calm but thick with suppressed irritation:
"You're right about that."
She paused. "Unless they possess some technology completely unknown to the rest of the world… otherwise, only the Black Heart relic could camouflage a structure of this size to the point of fooling satellites, radars, and quantum networks." She clicked her tongue in annoyance.
"It's really… annoying." Daru turned his head slightly toward her, thinking.
"Since our searches are leading nowhere, why not just go directly to the Sahara Desert? Search area by area. Sooner or later, we're bound to stumble upon them." The idea seemed simple. Too simple. Aika shook her head slowly, crossing her arms.
"In principle, yes… it's an option." Then her gaze hardened.
"But in practice, it's a recipe for disaster." She conjured up a three-dimensional projection of the Floating Armada, based on Suka and Miya's descriptions: an island armed to the teeth, bristling with cannons, autonomous platforms, and unknown defenses.
"Searching blindly in the Sahara would expose us needlessly."
"Their arsenal surpasses anything the world has ever seen."
"We risk losing our equipment, being detected, surrounded… overwhelmed by sheer numbers before we even reach the heart of the fortress." She looked up at Daru, serious.
"It would be a suicide mission." Silence fell again. The screens continued to scroll, indifferent to the urgency of the situation.
Two brilliant minds.
Two strategies.
But still no leads.
And somewhere, above the desert, the Floating Armada waited, unseen, ready to unleash the apocalypse upon the world.
Daru remained silent for a few seconds.
His gaze drifted to the holographic projections, then his fingers stopped typing.
A click.
"...Unless..." Aika immediately turned her head toward him, attentive.
"Unless what?" Daru straightened slightly, his tone calmer, but still full of intention.
"Unless we force the issue."
"Unless we create a diversion." Aika's eyes lit up instantly, understanding his point.
"You want to attract their attention?"
"Force them to reveal themselves?" Daru nodded, a slight smile playing on his lips.
"Exactly."
"A flying fortress of this size can't afford to ignore a major anomaly nearby."
"They must be equipped with ultra-sensitive radars and sensors, capable of detecting the slightest energy or military variation around the Sahara." He conjured up a map of the desert, drawing several red zones on it.
"We'll land there."
"We'll cause a ruckus. Enough to trigger a high-level alert."
"Either they send units to neutralize us, and then we can use them to make our way back to the floating island."
"Or, with a bit of luck, we'll make it straight to them." Aika remained silent for a moment, analyzing each parameter.
The risks. The potential losses. The probabilities.
Then she let out a slight, almost amused smile.
"Hm…"
"It's risky. Very risky, even." She crossed her arms, her eyes shining with determination.
"But you're right about one thing."
"Nothing ventured, nothing gained." She swatted away the projections with a swift gesture.
"Very well."
"We're going to the Sahara Desert."