Chapter 7: From the Other Side
"Y-you bastards! You're supposed to be Magic Knights; protectors of humanity, and here you are leading a whole group of people into aimless death!" The spear lady lunged forward, a sharp piece of rock adorning her left arm as she charged for the blonde Knight who remained still—a casual smile gracing his lips.
Lyra's dreary eyes couldn't follow the next two seconds that came after.
There was a flash, a blue saber, and a vibrant trail of spurting red blood across the air as the lady's head rolled and thumped to the ground, severed from the rest of her decapitated body.
"!!" Lyra's heart sank with instant horror.
One moment the lady was up and running, the very next her headless body fell into a pool of her blood. Soundlessly.
Any idea ...any hope of the monsters here being reinforcement or saviors was instantly tarnished that very moment.
Lyra forgot to breathe. All of a sudden the domineering pain of her organs and brain swelling didn't seem so overwhelming in the face of certain death.
"Y...you... bastards—" Before John could protest, he had his head pierced by the green saber of the third Knight.
There was no sympathy in his eyes. Just somber darkness as he spoke:
"You're too loud, old man."
Lyra stopped breathing entirely. Her breaking body stiffened in place on the ground. She didn't move. She wasn't going to move
'Play dead...play dead!' she screamed and begged in her pounding head.
If she remained still they wouldn't see her. Better yet they would probably ignore her.
She was Small.
Insignificant.
...What exactly was she in the eyes of Knights of their levels?
Ah, yes. Wasn't it already obvious by now?
She was fodder.
Nothing more than bait to catch a bigger fish. An insignificant pawn.
If the Knights' plan has failed, and Lyra did indeed die to the Hunt, then they'd just have to wait and send another Low-level Hunting team to try again the next time around.
Yes. She was easily replaceable.
...But Lyra didn't want that.
She didn't like that; being weak.
She cursed herself.
If she were a Mage Knight too...if she had her core and was a Mage Knight too, she wouldn't have to grovel before such scumbags and human trash like these...
She wouldn't have to hold her breath to pass off as dead.
It was frustrating.
Wasn't that why she ventured out into the Dens in the first place; to get stronger?
'It wasn't supposed to be like this...!' Lyra cursed behind tears internally. The severity of the effects on her body of the overwhelming "Mana" Radiation was excruciating.
Her ManaTech body armor lost all usefulness and purpose the moment she stepped foot into this very room it was nothing more than mere fancy accessories now.
Her body pulsed with pain, organs aching and threatening to rupture open; eyes burning feverishly behind her cracked visor. The interactive screen had already gone down minutes ago.
Its glowing neon screen lay blank and empty of its usual notifications and readings. A single long wide crack ran across its surface.
Fortunately, the crack wasn't so deep as to cause a break into her helmet.
Unfortunately, that didn't even matter now.
If the Knights weren't the ones to kill her, it was the Radiation density that would.
Even on the slim wishful chance that she managed to escape the Den, then it was the vile prowling Creatures on the outside that would eat her flesh and grind her bones. She had no strength or resources to hold her own in a fight with an Elder God in her current state.
Silently, Lyra continued to pray under her breath, to whatever voice out there in the vast universe.
Anything but "God's.
Lyra took a subtle side glance, she knew she shouldn't have, but still did and nearly gulped her entire tongue down her throat.
Her azure eyes met the deep green of the second man's. His smile spread and twisted knowingly and devilishly, relishing his prey's attempts at sadistic pleasure.
Suddenly Lyra felt so cold. Colder than she already did.
'He knows...!' she feverishly thought.
Lyra had avoided certain death many times before. The job of being a Hunter in a world like this often found itself bringing you right before death's door as easy as it was to breathe.
She had survived many enough to understand and realized, she had finally run out of luck this time around.
But suddenly...
Three of the Knights froze. Petrified in place, each of them.
Their expressions stiffened and tightened, shifting sharply and warily.
The blond knight in front jerked his head toward the direction of the Mana boulder at the center of the room.
His eyes narrowed sharply. His senses tingled.
"The "Mana" is—!"
His voice drowned in a shuddering sound like a clap of rolling thunder seemingly engulfing the Earth in vast tremors like an implosion.
The hairs of those who still pulled breaths in the room stood on end, vividly sensing the fluctuating spike of "Mana"
The boulder of raw "Mana" radiation in solid form glowed.
A giant pillar of blue light descended on the Earth...what was left of it...like heaven's piercing needle.
The old hospital ruin instantly exploded in scattering debris —the concentrated amount of "Mana" in the surrounding tripled — wong— exploded beyond measurements created.
An incredible pulse of energy radiation forcefully rippled the space of reality, visibly tearing apart its fabric.
A Dimensional Rift — one never experienced before on earth — tore open the spot that used to be the Heart of the Den.
Those closest to the impact —Lyra and the knights —were instantly blown away, with zero resistance against the force.
Lana crashed into the ground and lowered her head, spread flat against the rupturing surface.
The knights were blown off elsewhere, and the blond who was closest among all three met a worse fate.
The stones and debris of the hospital exploded with a pulse of energy and held suspended in mid-air, forming what resembled planetary rings around the epicenter of the rift ripping the fabric of space, time, and, reality of Earth.
The black clouds were revealed to be darkly gathered and spiraling dreadfully around the pulsating giant beam of light penetrating the earth like a tall beacon, spreading across incredible energy radiation over the corrupted face of the planet.
A powerful negative pull surrounded the Rift —a push as if to isolate the whole world from the rupturing space to prevent impurities. The hospital debris stood ghostly still around it, poltergeistic.
Lyra didn't dare once raise her head to look. She dared not to see the ghastly horrors that would match out of the Rift next.
But instead, a dark voice, like a heavy bellow, that filled her and those who heard it with dark dread, resounded.
"At long last"
The winds and pulsating energy ceased sharply at the first sound of the voice. They were still there, just more restrained and haunting.
Lyra, fighting against the opposing pressure this time around, raised her head slightly off the ground to look and her azure eyes widened behind her cracked visor.
'The Rift... it's red!'
The Rift as if slowly corrupted rippled with blood-red energy tearing a gap between the rift...and 'devouring' it.
This 'red energy ' spread and swallowed up all of the blue light of the Rift and pillar into an ominous blood-red visage.
Once again the Mana shifted and intensified.
Lyra gasped. The screen of her visor shattered into pieces from the pressure. Her organs ruptured and red rivers of blood flowed down her eyes, nose, ears, and mouth.
If before the 'Blue' "Mana" felt heavy and crushing...the 'red' "Mana" was corrupt and intoxicating.
Behind all of the insane pain, Lyra watched a figure slowly form inside the Red Rift.
From the other side.
"It has..."
The vague form took shape, growing more distinctive until it walked through the rippling Rift. The first of the creatures from the other side emerged from the portal into Earth.
And...
Lyra held her fading breath for the last time.
It was stunning.
***