Altair's hands, which were hovering over the consoles, were frozen tight. Neither he nor Vigil could comprehend what they were seeing. It was as if his mind tanked after all the stress he had been receiving recently. But, nevertheless, he breathed in and out and narrowed down his eyes, intently observing the ones in front of the Ironside.

  Four giant Stygians stood in the clearing, a few hundred meters from the Ironside, and were moving towards them, each easily more than ten meters tall. Their bodies were human, two arms, two legs, and a torso, yet where there should have been faces, there was nothing to be seen. Their skin rippled with black and silver patterns that never held still, like oil flowing in water.

  "Vigil." Altair's voice was barely a whisper. "What am I looking at?" he muttered under his breath.

  "I-I don't know, Lieutenant," Vigil stammered, his voice uncharacteristically uncertain. "I will run a full sensor sweep, Lieutenant." Vigil's voice steadied, falling back into routine.

  "Alright," he said, barely audible. He glanced at the ground-level feed. Mira and her group were still huddled together, staring at the same thing he had been staring at earlier. "Damn!" His eyes caught movement on the ground feed. Mira's group were panicking as they witnessed the giants coming closer, and a subtle movement from the periphery of the video feed.

  Then he saw it. The sensor grid lit up with red dots, twenty dots, thirty to fifty dots, up until the entire grid was covered with Stygian biological signatures. "Damn!" The sensor grid erupted in an intense glow of red markers. When suddenly it all moved. Dozens, if not hundreds, of Stygians were now converging on their position. "We're completely surrounded!" Altair slammed the console as he bit his lip in an attempt to further contain the frustration.

  Then suddenly Vigil interjected with a report. "Lieutenant, further analysis shows that they are all indeed Stygians. Sensors show that they have the same biological framework and class, but diverged from their evolutionary paths!"

  Altair pivoted his right hand and grabbed the nearest console controls. "I understand, continue analyzing, and report back to me with any weaknesses that you may find!" He said, his voice now firm and clear.

  "Roger that, Lieutenant!" Vigil said with the same firmness and clarity.

  Mira took a deep, long breath and focused her eyes with such intensity that almost all her fears disappeared into the abyss of her mind. "Brennan, I don't think the Ironside would be able to protect us here. Protect us while I try to take down those Nightmares," Mira said, her voice slightly vibrating, but she forced it through. Her heart was pounding loudly in her chest, her mind scrambling to find other means to escape the difficult situation they were in. However, she merely closed her eyes and began feeling the surroundings.

  Soft whisperings reverberated through the surroundings, as if she were speaking to nature itself. Slowly silver wisps appeared around her, and a soft, translucent light enveloped her body. With a snap, she opened her eyes, and the soft glow turned richer and denser, from the smooth white light into a fiery crimson one, followed by a cascading reverberation in a concentric circle from her.

  At the same time with the knowledge of what she was going to do, Lyria grabbed hold of her staff and started whispering under her breath. Almost immediately, two shining patterns emerged over her and over Mira. Then, a shield-like formation revolved around both of them, with Lyria taking Brennan along her shield.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Once both of her spells were finished, the formations lit up, crackled for a few moments and disappeared. Along with the disappearance of the formations, with laborious breaths Lyria fell to the ground but was saved in the nick of time by Brennan.

  "There, there. It's all okay now." Brennan comforted Lyria. Yet she persisted and gazed up towards her cousin Mira. "You dumbass!" She said as sweat dripped down her cheeks, but then she smiled, and continued. "Give them hell." She said one final time until she finally let Brennan take care of her.

  Mira merely gazed back. Thus, before the Ironside could even move, Mira dashed forward, her speed and agility so fast and agile, that she dodged and moved through the sea of enemies like a rat.

  As she was running, boosted by her spell earlier, and now protected by Lyria's magic, she moved confidently, and once she was a dozen meters off the Nightmares, she pulled her bow. Visible cracks appeared, and it shattered along the ley lines of her silver bow, and within it a silver arrow appeared. She narrowed her eyes, and in her irises she found her mark. She swiftly adjusted her aim and was about to release the arrow when the nightmare prepared its counterattack.

  Meanwhile, inside the cockpit, Altair's eyes widened. "She's insane!" His fingers moved across the console. "Vigil, track her movement. We cover her when she lands."

  The two nightmares in the front end section moved in unison, and along their black and silver tendrils, they moved and molded into a shield. The two giant behemoths crouched and slammed the shield down, effectively blocking Mira's range of shot.

  While the two nightmares on the back end section pulled their right arms back, and from their hands a giant black spear was molded and formed. With the giant spear in their hands, they climbed over the two giants in front of them and aimed to strike at Mira.

  However, Mira did not falter; instead, she sped up even further, and once closer, she leapt toward the shields, flipping backward midair. The spears shot past below her. She caught one spear's shaft with her foot and used it to vault higher.

  Then a soft whistling sound echoed through the pitter-pattering black rain. Like a silver needle that had found its target, it sewed through the rightmost Nightmare in the back, and along its trail a soft glowing silver thread was left behind.

  The Nightmare's body erupted with numerous mouths that screamed a horrifying screech. Its entire body was filled with a massive amount of mana until it finally broke free. Its body cracked with a silver glow, and like a silent chorus from the abyss, its body disappeared, dissipated, and was put to eternal rest.

  However, she was not done yet, as she landed over the top of the shield of the frontmost Nightmare. She now found herself staring face to face with the Nightmare. Before they were able to counter, she jumped back down immediately.

  "Now, Vigil!" Altair barked. The autocannons roared.

  As she was going down, she heard a sudden crackle of thunder. It made her slightly anxious, but for some reason, she believed in the Ironside. She staggered midair; the spell draining more of her magical reserves than expected. But there was no time to rest, as three more nightmares remained.

  Just as she gazed back, she was right; the Ironside supported her when she went down, as there was now smoking debris around the giant nightmares in front of her. Then she moved hastily into another position, trying to exploit the openings, and trying to save more time, before the other Stygians fully awoke.

  However, the Ironside whirred into place, and a voice reverberated throughout the clearing.

  As Mira repositioned, the Ironside's auto-cannons roared to life behind her, and more than a hundred Stygians collapsed under the barrage.

  Altair's voice crackled through. "Mira, fall back. They're adapting." But she did not hear it or deliberately ignored it.

  From then on, the three remaining Nightmares screamed in unison, and the forest answered with the same fury. She gazed around, and now she saw that every Stygian who wasn't fully awake a while ago, now staring her down.

  Throughout the forest, shadowy figures were moving forth, like an army of cockroaches.