Samsara slithered ahead of me, something she seldom did anymore. I felt her tail go taut, pulling on my lower back, and her voice spiked into my mind. “Come on! We have to save them.” Her telepathic cry rang so sharply that both our hearts seized at once.

  I nodded and ran to keep up with Samsara. My stomps left crater-like impressions of dirt in the soft grass. The plains stretched endlessly ahead of us with no trees, no rocks, and nothing tall enough to shelter behind. Where is that blimp? The roar of the blimp’s jet engines got louder and louder as we got closer.

  There it is! Straight ahead, the large airship was ascending into the air. I could make out two things jutting from the underside hatch, but it was difficult to see what they were from this far out.

  The back of the blimp’s neon blue armored hull gleamed, thick plates riveted and reinforced. It’s six cylindrical engines, set in a hexagonal pattern, spewed long blue flames. Let’s see how well they do against this.

  As we continued running, I aimed my six free hair tentacles, as well as my new 20 finger tip tentacles, towards the airship. I [Focused] my mana and made a [Blood Spike] on each one. Corrosive ink coated the spikes I made on my finger tip tentacles. My teeth clenched to persist through the pain. Samsara also aimed her palms at the airship, [Focusing] to make a [Blood Spike] on each palm. She winced as our blood left us.

  With [Blood Spike Launch], our spikes launched from our hand, blue streaks tearing through the air. Dozens of whistling [Blood Spikes] soared towards the blimp. For a heartbeat, hope flared in my chest. Then, each spike shattered into useless fragments across the blimp’s plating. The spikes that entered the blue flames of the engines vanished, with no trace of them doing any damage.

  “What?” Samsara gasped, her panic ricocheting through my mind. My own shock doubled back, forming a nauseating echo loop.

  The blimp continued to rise and was starting to move.

  What the heck was that armor made of? I tried to see if any of my corrosive ink was doing anything, but I couldn’t spot any holes being formed in the blimp’s armor.

  I primed my legs for a jump, leaping forward, and pulling Samsara with me. My true strength pushed us directly under the blimp. I landed and kept sprinting forward, the blimp already moving faster away from us.

  I could see, from under the blimp, two multi-jointed, clawed, metallic arms dangling from its hatch. But instead of mechs being attached to the clawed hands, I spotted five figures above. Two of them were Aisling and Nara. While the other three were humans, with two men and one woman. Nara and the two men were on the right arm, with one of the men holding onto her limp body with two thin prosthetic arms coming from his back. His two normal arms carried a beam gun similar to the one that Latex Suit Lady had. In fact, all three humans were carrying beam guns.

  The human woman, who was wearing a blue neon latex suit, also had prosthetic arms. They held onto Aisling while she steadied herself on the left arm. Her normal human hands aimed her beam gun at us.

  I didn’t bother dodging, using my hair tentacles to absorb the blasts. I formed [Blood Spikes] on the tips of each hair tentacle and my finger tip tentacles.

  “Wait!” Samsara shouted in my mind. “Be careful, you could hit Aisling or Nara.”

  “Don’t worry,” I grinned. “I’m not aiming at the humans anyway.”

  My blood spikes shot out the moment I activated [Blood Spike Launch], all of them soaring upwards. The volley of spikes erupted upward, angled like a storm of needles. The blimp made a sudden turn.

  The spikes struck steel. Sliced steel. The entire right clawed arm dropped from the blimp. I sprinted to pick it up.

  “Yes!” Samsara cheered in triumph.

  But the left arm remained firmly attached. Why the fuck did the blimp turn? My attack had missed. I readied another volley of [Blood Spikes]. The left arm quickly ascended inside the blimp’s bottom side hatch. The woman fired a couple of more beams at me, but they did not affect my [Armored Tentacles]. As my spikes raced up into the air, the hatch door began to close. The left arm disappeared from view, and my spikes hit the hatch, shattering into tiny blue fragments.

  I sent my hair tentacles out to catch the left arm before it could crash into the ground. The human men shrieked and fired their guns at me. This time, they kept firing at my hair tentacles. These guys were amateurs.

  The beams hit my hair tentacles and fizzled, and I felt no pain. My tentacles caught the metallic arm. I then grabbed the two humans and Nara with my hair tentacles.

  I plopped the two men into my mouth and began to chew, savoring the crunchy sound their bodies made. The hair tentacle carrying Nara went behind my head, going right next to the two tentacles carrying Irene and the chimera.

  My happy thoughts were disrupted by a deep, intense anger emanating from Samsara.

  “NO! GET BACK HERE!” Her voice echoed out loud, shaking me from how loud she was. She launched more [Blood Spikes] desperately. They all shattered against the blimp’s hatch door.

  The blimp continued to get farther and farther away from us, even as I kept running towards it.

  It vanished into the horizon, the roars of its engines no longer reaching our ears.

  I stopped running.

  “What are you doing?!” Samsara panicked in my mind. She tried to slither forward, her tail pulling against my back again. But I didn’t budge. “We have to follow them! They have Aisling!”

  “We’re not going to catch up to them,” I said. “The blimps are too fast. Plus, we should get these three back to the monster girl village. What if we encounter a mech on the way? Irene and the chimera could get killed as collateral in our fight.” And that meant fewer worshipers for us, a terrible thing.

  “Fuck!” Samsara snapped. I almost corrected her language out of habit, but stopped myself. Her voice cracked. She was angry and scared. Manners were the least important thing right now.

  Instead, I checked Nara first, bringing her up to my ear. I could hear her chest beating, as well as very shallow breaths. Her pulse trembled weakly beneath her dark green scales.

  “Let’s head back,” I said.

  Samsara lowered her head, deciding not to argue with me.

  As we approached the valley again, the mountains were devoid of any person-made structures. Just nature, as far as we could see. The illusion peeled back around us as we reached the village border, the stilted homes on the mountains coming into view as if they had appeared from thin air. I still had so many questions about this.

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  The sun had dipped lower, turning the sky orange instead of blue. The same monster girls from before peeked from the windows, flinched, and hid.

  They still feared us. But that wasn’t my primary concern.

  I gently placed Nara, Irene, and the chimera girl on the ground a few dozen meters away from us.

  “How long until you think they wake up?” Samsara asked, turning towards them.

  “I’m not sure,” I said, putting a hair tentacle on each of their chests. Through each tentacle, I felt their chests move up and down. “Those beam guns must have knocked them out for a while. Should we wait?”

  “Yes,” Samsara nodded, slithering over to them. She brought her face closer to them, inspecting them for anything out of the ordinary.

  I sat down, watching the sun set in the distance with Samsara’s worries constantly on my mind.

  Nightfall came, and I was still sitting.

  “Ugh!” Samsara groaned. She curled her hands into fists. “I can’t wait any longer.” To be honest, I didn’t really mind since I was spending time with Samsara. Yet, her anxiousness was pouring into me.

  Samsara uncurled her fists, pointing her right clawed index finger. She moved her clawed tip over to Nara and activated [Sacrificial Mana Transfer].

  Nara gasped and sat up. “Huh?”

  “You’re okay!” Samsara cheered and smiled. I made sure to smile as well so I wouldn't look awkward. Samsara released her claw from Nara’s chest. “I’m so glad you’re awake.”

  “What’s happening?” Nara said, slowly standing up. “What’s going on?”

  “The Monster Purifiers were taking you away on one of their airships,” I said as Samsara moved out of the way so Nara could view me. “We rescued you. Plus, we got Irene and some chimera girl. Not sure if she’s part of your group.”

  Nara stared at me with wide pupils, the last hints of grogginess still dragging her expression downward. She looked around, stopping once she turned towards the still-unconscious Irene, and the way her breath hitched made it sound like she was tearing up.

  “Irene…” she muttered, her voice trembling. “She’s… really okay?”

  “She’s alive,” I said. “Barely breathing, but alive and asleep.”

  Nara swayed once, her body stumbling forward like her instincts had finally clicked awake. Her clawed feet scraped on the dirt as she ran the few meters between them, dropping hard to her knees beside Irene. She hesitated only a second before wrapping her arms around the falcon girl’s limp upper body. Her forehead pressed against Irene’s chest.

  “Why isn’t she waking up…?” she murmured, her voice quavering. “Come on, Irene. Please. You’re supposed to talk too much, not…not this.”

  I felt Samsara’s anxiety spike, pricking through our shared thoughts like needles. Not the biggest fan of needles since it would reveal to humans that I could heal.

  “She needs mana to wake up,” Samsara said, slithering over to them. “Probably. I can… I can do it. I’ll use [Sacrificial Mana Transfer]. She should wake up just like you did.”

  Nara looked up, her eyes lighting up. “Yes… Yes, please do it.”

  Samsara’s right clawed finger came down slowly. As she touched Irene and activated [Sacrificial Mana Transfer], Nara’s voice interrupted her in a tiny, broken whisper that we could hear clearly:

  “Where is Aisling?”

  Samsara froze.

  Her hand trembled. Her throat tightened. Her voice creaked as if every word cost her mana and pain.

  “She… they took her,” Samsara said.

  Her telepathic words wobbled, distorted with grief. “I couldn’t save her. I tried… I really did… but… I failed.”

  The echo of her devastation crashed into me, spilling like a tidal wave. I had no idea how to steady her. I wanted to. But memories of that blimp rising higher and higher replayed in Samsara’s mind. Too fast for both of us to reach. It made me feel insecure. Here I was, a chimera Kaiju, and a simple blimp was too fast for me.

  Samsara spoke out loud again. “But I swear… I swear on everything… I will look for her. We’ll find her. After this. No matter what.”

  I wondered quietly if that was even possible. The Wild Lands were vast, and that blimp had probably gotten very far away from that canyon.

  Yet Samsara clung to that vow so fiercely that it made my doubts shrink in on themselves.

  “Yes,” I said. “We’ll make sure to find her.” Mainly because she was mine. One of my worshipers. I wasn’t going to let the world take something from me so easily.

  Nara pulled back from Irene, her face falling, crestfallen but not collapsed. She wiped her eyes once with the back of her scaled hand.

  “I’m… sorry,” she whispered. “I’m disappointed, but… thank you. For saving Irene. And the chimera girl, even though I don’t know her. If you hadn’t shown up… we’d be gone.”

  Samsara didn’t answer. Instead, she was too entranced by using [Sacrificial Mana Transfer] over and over again on Irene’s chest.

  Nara leaned forward, waiting anxiously.

  “What?” Samsara grunted. “No… no, no, no. Why isn’t this working?”

  She lifted her clawed finger and then lowered it again.

  Her panic flooded our connection, a swirl of sharp and spiraling emotion. She turned away from Irene and brought her left clawed index finger towards the chimera girl. [Sacrificial Mana Transfer] activated, only for nothing to happen again.

  “Why isn’t it working?” Samsara cried out loud, her voice rising to a pained rasp. “It worked on Nara! It worked earlier! Why… Why isn’t it working now?! Wake up. Please. Wake up!”

  “Samsara,” I nudged her telepathically, placing a hair tentacle on her shoulder. “I think I might know why.”

  Images resurfaced in my mind that Samsara could see. Tubes carrying transparent liquids straight into the necks of unconscious monster girls. Each monster girl was strapped to a chair against a metallic wall.

  Back when I was carrying the juggernaut, the humans were injecting the monster girls with some kind of drug. Now, I had no idea how this was possible, but the drugs must have been blocking the flow of mana within their bodies, which is why [Sacrificial Mana Transfer] didn’t work.

  Samsara lowered her shaking hand. Her breath quivered. “Then what am I supposed to do? Just wait for them to wake up. Will they even wake up?! Or are they stuck in a coma?!”

  Her last set of words rattled across my mind. The only thing we could do is wait and see. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were stuck in a comatose state forever.

  A red flash immediately blinded us.

  [You require a different type of transfer,] Devotio said. The eldritch entity appeared before us, superimposed on Irene’s body.

  “What do you mean?” Samsara asked, focusing on Devotio’s single eye.

  [Allow me to give you knowledge of this spell [Incantation],] Devotio’s eye flashed, and knowledge flooded our minds.

  [Sacrificial Soul Transfer]: When activated on a target, replace all their souls with an equivalent amount of your souls. This flushes the body of all mana and mana effects. Furthermore, each soul you sacrifice will cost 10 mana to transfer. If you do not have enough souls to sacrifice, this [Incantation] will backfire with potentially lethal consequences.

  [For example, if a being has two souls, you will donate two souls and 20 mana,] Devotio explained.

  Wait a minute, should we even give her our souls? We had to eat a lot to get to 2,950 souls. Why should we give it to her?

  But Samsara didn’t listen to me at all. Her mind was busy [Focusing] on making the spell. Two rings of invisible mana formed on top of Irene. Then, more mana was used to make the [Incantation]. As Samsara finished the last word of [Sacrificial Soul Transfer], a burst of pain hit our Cores. It was as if somebody stuck a giant needle inside of us. Why am I thinking about needles today?

  And then nothing happened. I [Tracked] our souls. It had decreased to 2,942 instead of to 2,940. Oh, right, I got two extra souls from those humans who kidnapped Nara.

  “Huh?” Samsara asked. “Why didn’t it work?”

  [I implore you to reread the [Incantation’s] effect,] Devotio said without emotion.

  The description of [Sacrificial Soul Transfer] resurfaced in our minds.

  [Sacrificial Soul Transfer]: When activated on a target, replace all their souls with an equivalent amount of your souls. This flushes the body of all mana and mana effects. Furthermore, each soul you sacrifice will cost 10 mana to transfer. If you do not have enough souls to sacrifice, this [Incantation] will backfire with potentially lethal consequences.

  Oh. I get it. In addition to losing all of our souls to Irene. We also had to donate even more mana to her. Was this even worth it? What if this was all for nothing?

  I was left alone to stir in my thoughts as Samsara activated [Sacrificial Mana Transfer].

  Irene woke up with a gasp. But something was wrong because I could see Samsara’s giant clawed finger right in front of me.