Late Evening - Mid Summer : Moriai | Leyfa Askr

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  - Eve Altera ~

  "But before we continue.. if I may... Who is this woman to you, Queen Altera?"

  Smiling wide as I recognized what Evren was doing, I pridefully stepped to the side before motioning toward her. "She is my Mother's closest fr-" But before I could finish my sentence, an indescribable sound met my ears, the sensation of falling flooded my body, and... *Vwoop* "-iend!" In an instant so short that a neuron couldn't even fire, the dark, lantern-lit canopy of the treant we stood in was swapped with an endless field of yellow grass, and a vast, bright cyan sky. "WHAT THE HELL?!"

  Completely caught off guard, I didn't even have a chance to react. *Thump-Rustle* I simply fell on my ass, unable to even give the prickling pain covering my legs, and palms any thought before I looked over at a figure casting a shadow on me with wide, confused eyes.

  It was Evren, but while she was typically a bastion of confidence, at that moment, her gaze was the same as mine. -W..what...-

  *Beep* "Error detected." Hearing my system ping and speak to me, I quickly looked over, only to find an ominous red panel floating in front of the wall of grass next to me. "Connecting to Local Server to begin debugging."

  But it didn't stay there for long.

  *Beep*

  -W..what.. the...- When it first popped up, my mind was in such chaos that I only managed to register one out of every few words I read.

  However, the farther my eyes passed down the panel, the more my mind pictured the figure of a black-cloaked spirit standing behind it... The more it felt like death was breathing down my neck...

  Without warning, I had been transported to a world where I did not belong.. instantly descending from the peak of the food chain to the absolute bottom...

  *Rustle* Picking my hand up off the grass as a deceptively gentle breeze blew by, I shakily turned it over to see the countless cuts in my palm and along my fingers, allowing a bright crimson liquid to flow out.

  In that world, I couldn't even call myself the bottom rung... I was weaker than grass...

  But as I aimlessly stared at the blood dripping off my palm, I was pulled back into reality. *VWOOM* In an instant, the surrounding grass, almost a meter tall, was flattened to reveal that were at the center of a herd of creatures grazing on the grass.

  "Eve?! Are you alright?!" Grabbing my bloody hand without a hint of hesitation, she forced me up to my feet and gripped my face to look into my eyes finally ripping my mind out of its daze.

  "H-Huh?!" Instantly erupting into panic, my eyes started darting around while my senses heightened and my body was flooded with an addicting amount of adrenaline.

  But Evren wasn't giving me a chance to sort any thoughts. "Hey, idiot! Use magic to make the air more breathable!" Grabbing my wrist so hard I thought it'd break, she yanked me off my feet and threw me into her back, tightly gripping me with so much aura I felt like I was getting crushed before yelling. "And hold on tight!"

  "W-what? PFO-" Before I could even process what she said, we blew through the sound barrier several times over, ripping the air from my lungs before, in a moment of lightheadedness, I threw up countless barriers to give myself a chance to breathe and get the plasma-inducing wind resistance off me. *VWOOM*

  The barriers took so much mana it was almost sickening, but as I went to take another breath, feeling an almost acid-like burn rip through my lungs, such worries became meaningless. -The air.. isn't breathable!- Slapping Evren's back to try and get her attention, to no avail, I was quick to focus on my mana, attempting to maintain the countless barriers in front of us before using wind magic to vibrate the air directly in her ear. "Slow down! I can't cast a spell I need to breathe when moving this fast!"

  But just as I said that, a massive shadow was cast over us.

  And as I looked back over my shoulder to see what it was, I found an absolutely mountainous creature blotting out the early morning sun; a drake completely covered in spines like a porcupine with two colossal horns the size of buildings standing right where we just were, staring at us.

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  "NEVERMIND, RUN!" Slapping Evren's back to get her to go faster, I lowered my head behind hers to shield myself from the wind before dissipating the barriers I put up. -I can figure something out! I'm a pioneer of magic! I just need to think!-

  Dedicating every ounce of conscious thought to digging through magic theories, I began piecing together pieces of seemingly unrelated puzzles before throwing my hand up next to my head.

  To make the air breathable, I needed to first figure out what the air was made of, so in a moment of adrenaline-fueled panic, I stuck my hand up in the air next to me, using several layers of glowing runes to split the atoms in the air before turning them into plasma, and dissecting the air via colors.

  At first, it was like a rainbow, a huge mess of color, with everything from red and orange to purple and blue.

  But as I split the beams of plasma, I found a dim pale blue streak.

  It was the glow of oxygen. -Then...- Tracing its path back through the runes like solving a maze, I figured out the sequence I needed to isolate it. -Channel 1, 4, 7, 6...-

  However, that was a sequence that relied completely on the energy states of the air entering the first rune, so as I felt Evren being to slow down, I slapped her back. "Don't slow down!"

  But that was the moment she threw me off her back, rapidly slowing me down with her aura before stopping on a dime and turning around with her axe in hand.

  Having been so focused on my magic that I didn't know what was happening around me, I looked up at her back with a mix of confusion and irritation. If she didn't slow down, I could've gotten some air.

  But before I could even pull my focus off her, a black wall ripped over the horizon and before I could blink, the wall of quills blew past us with a deafening bang. *CRRRRACKKK*

  It was like the air was screaming, completely unable to get out of the way as the quills ripped past us faster than my eyes could follow. *WOOSH* And the blast of wind that followed was so intense it felt like my whole body was punched at once, pounding me into the immovable wall of Evren's aura behind me.

  But while it hurt, feeling how solid it was gave me faith that Evren was fine, letting me hastily throw up my hand with several runes, find the new sequence, and holding the cone of glowing runes up to my mouth.

  "HAH.. HAH.. HAH..." Immediately gasping for a breath, I flooded my lungs with enough oxygen to dilute the unbreathable air still lingering in them, taking several breaths before the sensation of suffocation left my brain.

  But even as Evren set her hand on my shoulder, yelling something at me, I couldn't hear over the deafening ring.

  "I-I'm.. okay!" At the time, I thought I spoke normally, but I was completely dazed, slurring my words as I barely managed to maintain the flow of oxygen to my lungs.

  Between suffocating, accelerating so fast it was sickening, and slowing on a dime, my brain was at its limit, but by some miracle, I managed to keep myself awake.

  More gently picking me up, Evren was quick to get moving again, this time accelerating less aggressively before, after less than a minute, we made our way into a dense forest with a canopy well over a kilometer over our heads, and up a tree bordering the plains.

  *Pat* Gently setting me down at the base of a massive branch, looking out over the seemingly endless plain rustling in the breeze, she opened her system and tapped around before suddenly, Bella fell out of the air next to her, letting them speak for a moment before Bella ran up to me.

  -H..huh.. what is she...- But rather than looking at me, Bella walked up and started inspecting the series of runes in front of my mouth. -Is she.. wanting to replicate them?-

  It was an impossible task, but feeling my consciousness starting to slip, I brightened the bit of light magic in them to better see the circuit's intricacies.

  But it wasn't for her. Regardless of her having a mana core, controlling mana wasn't something so simple, especially to form things as intricate as runes using nothing but mana. "Evren..."

  Speaking somewhat lethargically as an irresistible exhaustion blew through me, I mustered every bit of energy I had to stay awake. I wanted to try and tell her to copy the runes into layers of something thin, whether sheets of metal or layers of wood, effectively creating an artifact that could supply me with oxygen as long mana was moving through it.

  But as I opened my mouth, my vision started to blur, and after moving my lips, unsure whether I even said anything, everything finally went dark, and my consciousness went silent.

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  - Evren Lestir ~

  "Eve!" *Pat* Lunging over and catching her unconscious head as it slumped to the side, my mind raced.

  She was still breathing, and her heart was pumping, but her brain was swelling more with every second, and the runes hovering in front of her mouth were rapidly losing their clarity.

  I was on the clock to save her life. -FUCK!- "Bella, how can I reduce the swelling in her brain?!" If it kept swelling at the rate it was, it would kill her before she would have the chance to suffocate.

  "Without special equipment, there is no way to reduce it!" Turning to me in a rush, Bella spoke with a slight coldness, losing herself in thought. "If it doesn't kill her, it will go down on its own after some time. For now, we need to focus on finding a way to get her oxygen!"

  But as I fell into thought, Bella's advice went in one ear and out the other. -Her brain is swelling too much.. if it keeps growing, it'll crush itself against the inside of her skull...- If that happened, she would either go braindead or die.

  But there was only one solution I had in mind for it...

  *Pat* Quickly straightening her head, I set my palm on the top of her head, and flooded her skull with as much aura as I could manage. "Hooh..." Letting out a cold breath, my gaze sharpened, focusing entirely on the image my aura painted in my mind before... *CrACkLe* Jolting my hand up, just off her head, a series of cracks ripped out, and Bella turned to me in a panic.

  "W-What did you just do?!"

  "I shattered her skull." Speaking somewhat emotionlessly, I kept a close eye on her skull to make sure her brain could take advantage of the extra space to relieve the pressure without cutting itself on the jagged edges of bone.

  And it worked flawlessly. Almost instantly, the controlled cracks I created with my aura started widening, and the intense pressure on her brain was eased, letting it swell as much as it needed to.

  -But I can't relax yet...- Lowering my gaze to her chest, rushing breaths as her supply of oxygen thinned, I set my palm on her stomach, quickly finding exactly where her reserve was.

  "Hooh.. okay..." I had an idea, but I wasn't sure if it would work.

  The issue was that there was no alternative.

  "Alright, Eve..." *Vwoop* Pulling the colossal wyvern mana core out of my inventory, I set it behind me and looked at Eve's strained, hyperventilating face before closing my eyes. "I'm sorry, but.. this is really going to hurt..."

  *Vwoom* Using some aura to try and strengthen the base of her spine, I pulled back my hand and slammed it into her stomach. *WHAAAMMM* In an instant, her reserve ruptured and exploded, shredding and dissolving the surrounding organs, muscle, and tissue.

  But it was all to raise her chance of survival.

  Even if it was just from zero to one.

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