We did run into foes before the library but I could forgive Maria for missing them. The walls leading to the library were clean and pristine white. The enemies stepped away from the wall with their white shirt, white pants, white skin, and blocked our way.

They had no hair, no eyes, no mouth... nothing. Just clothes on a blank doll.

I Observed them as they walked towards us.

Conforming Sheep Doll. Monster. G-3: An echo of those too afraid and scared to stand out. Their envy of those turn to scorn of others as they themselves fade into the walls. Attracted to movement and bright colours. Their touch is to be avoided.

“Long range!” I yelled and fired pebbles with fire. I had about 12 stacks of 99 pebbles to be ready for this. Annoyingly... I didn’t find a single perfect one! It was maddening. My first pebble sank into the flesh like the doll was made of cotton and pudding instead of meat and bone. The fire singed the creature but it didn’t seem to feel any pain. In fact, the damage fizzled and shrank by half.

A tiny similar mark appeared on the other doll as if I had hit that one as well. Did these things just share damage to overall reduce it?!

I was about to maybe get close when I saw Chisai move to my side, hand held out.

“Hado number 4: Byakurai!” he cried and twin forks of lightning flashed out, tearing up the wall and floor as it slammed into the two dolls, lifting them off their feet. One of the dolls soaked up the damage and almost negating the damage dealt to the other.

Still, that one went down fast. The Doll went in and Maria gave a cry.

“Behind!” she called. I turned my head to see another two rushing around the corner. Exact same clothes and features.

Did they feel one of them die?

That might... not be good.

King went to act as Maria’s tank so I hurried to take down the original Doll, Maria had King’s Sacred Orb so she also had some basic repel as well. With my acid, ice, and fire going, I moved in with a new combo. Shield Smash and Charge!

I shot forward and crushed the doll into the Library door. The thing crumpled before it began to reinflate. I watched my acid and fire work to counter it. I risked a look behind me as I kept the doll pinned. The two other Dolls were sharing damage so I was actually helping by making them slow down. Maria tripped one as King did her best to make it hard to pass her.

Chisai came in and buried his sword into the head of the creature. Instantly, it popped and fell to the floor. Oh... that helps.

“MARIA! Aim for the heads!” I yelled. Pebbles might not have dug deep enough but Maria’s chain whip was spikey. Her chain wrapped around the head and she yanked.

It fell lifeless and King slammed the remaining Doll into the ground. Chisai rushed up and beheaded it with a grim set face.

“They don’t bleed...” he said after a moment. He turned to look at me oddly.

“Even Hollows bleed,” he added.

“It’s all ideas and feelings turned physical for us to train. It doesn’t make sense but you did really good! The spell was amazing,” I grinned.

I saw no gems but as I was about to look at my notifications... I felt a vibration. Not a shaking or tremor but a uniformed pounding of feet on the ground. A wave of Dolls turned the corner and walked towards us, the front line holding their hands out, as if wanting to shake out hands.

“Into the library!” I yelled.

Chisai lagged behind, waiting until he was the last one to move. Despite his power issues and level, he had trained to work as a medic and reaper of a squad. I forgot he might still think he needed to protect us because he was much older so had to watch for us.

“Bakudo number 5: Hikabe!” he cried and slashed his hand horizontally.

From one edge of the hall to another, a wavy line of red light shimmered before it spread up and barely brushed the ceiling. The barrier spat sparks of fire and the bottom of the wall burned with lashes of flame.

I was impressed and felt bad for doubting Chisai a little but I could see why it was only number 5. The wall was damn thin. He turned, looking a little pale.

“Oh I shouldn’t have skipped the chant,” he wheezed but ran to catch up.

“That’ll buy us time until we can secure the door!” he explained. The library opened up to a large circular room as dark as a tomb. We slammed the door shut and Maria pushed over a bookcase and I piled on a desk. Chisai kept guard with his sword drawn. I added a Sacred Orb for that extra push. The Dolls tried to push past Chisai’s barrier but the front line burned their hands and even their arms a little before the damage was spread to the vast group. After a few seconds of pushing and punching, the fire barrier broke.

They calmly pushed on the library door but when it didn’t budge they just went very still and stared at us through the glass windows. Just... watching us.

They didn’t break down these doors.

“Are they... too scared to break down the door?” Maria asked incredulously.

“More like they don’t want to be known as troublemakers. They value their blandness,” I said, confused by the Dolls but also glad for their behavior. I turned to scan the library and everything was dark. My Observe passive let me see further than most but I still struggled to see where the twist of shelves ended and walls began.

Maria wrinkled her nose.

“It’s like old trapped air. Musty and cloying,” she commented. I’d deal with the dolls after I cleared the room. If they wanted to wait then so could we until I felt secure to act. Maria instead huffed.

“Go away! Loitering in the halls is not allowed!” she told the Dolls. A few walked away but most didn’t do anything.

I turned on my Empowering Bulwark for a good buff and to light everything up. Something big moved on the wall. We all looked up at the dozen layers of web and dust as a creature scuttled towards.

King looked pissed off as a Spider the size of a horse and with the head of a dog eyed us with hate.

Web Collector. G-4. Monster: A spider who detests invaders to her domain. Uses skin of the dead to bind her treasured books.

It didn’t speak but the growling maw of venom was enough of a speech. Maria twitched.

“God weeps to the fact you exist,” she hissed and lashed out with her chain, activating her whip summon to layer it over the chain. The weapon glowed with holy power and looked dangerous as it wrapped around one of the eight legs.

She yanked but the spider nearly yanked her to it. I touched the handle of the chain and Pyro-Infused the whip. Maria jumped in surprise. The fire snaked up the whip making the holy energy turn blinding white and hot.

The Spider shrieked and fell to the ground as two legs burned before Maria had to recall her whip to avoid losing it in a tangle. Chisai moved in and tried to slash at another leg but a fast reaction on the Web Collector’s part had him knocked into a bookcase with a kick.

I also charged with my new combo and snapped a leg off in a crunch. The entire thing was unbalanced but it reached out and buried its wolf jaw on to my shield. Pus yellow venom leaked down the shield and turned my stomach at the stench. My brands and acid got to work, melting a forked tongue, eyes, and another leg before I was knocked back by a body slam.

I should have fallen but my passive knockback resist kicked in. Maria was praying as Chisai pointed his hand. The healing seemed to really help focus Chisai because he gave a confident yell of ‘Sai!’ and the spider, losing blood and extremely off balance, had its remaining legs snapped together.

I rushed in and gave this spider a lovely helping of my new mace.

It went still a moment later as I bashed its brains out, well the ichor equivalent for Malice zones. A moment passed before we all just looked at each other with surprised looks.

“That was much easier than a Hollow! My Sai spell never holds them!” Chisai said excitedly.

“Great work on that spell! Maria that whip was awesome,” I cheered. Maria blew out a sigh but was almost smiling.

“I go to this school and... well, the librarian always seemed a little stuck up,” she said admitted as I made sure no more Spider-wolves were waiting for us to let our guard down. From the fading corpse from the cleaning aura, we saw our first drops.

A Green Gem and an Orange Gem. I cut my various brands and acid to conserve Energy and picked them up.

“Perfect. We can show Chisai what we were talking about,” I grinned. Maria nodded.

“You can get the other. I’m happy practicing my current skills,” she held up both hands. I eyed her.

“Rotation. No one gets left out. You get the next gem even if you don’t use it. I can store them for you,” I said sternly. Maria shot me a gentle smile.

“You’re a good guy but maybe too nice for someone who needs to get as many powers as possible because you’re tangled up in these,” she gestured to the Malice Zone. I explained to Chisai about the gems functions without arguing.

She was right but Maria pulled her weight and she should feel appreciated no matter what. I held the gems up and told him could have either.

I hoped he picked the orange to see new things but I could see his eyes lingering on the green ‘support’ gem.

“This is your power getting changed. Your choice in the end,” I promised, showing he was safe to say no as well. Chisai gently took the Green Gem.

It was a safe bet and something he would feel better with, I thought. He crushed it and held his head as pain rippled through his body. He gasped as he fell to his knees.

I rubbed his back as Maria gave him a prayer heal.

“First one is never nice,” I assured him.

His eyes went wide as he read a screen I couldn’t see.

“It’s talking to me! It called me ‘Smol boi’. What is ‘Smol’?” he questioned wildly. I eyed him.

“System, he’s called Chisai,” I reminded.

Small Shield. Smol Boi. System’s translator program glitched. A planet blew up. A blackhole got stuck in her chair. Boss popped around and she had to look busy. Hit the wrong key. Won’t happen again.

“Oh you told me your powers came from a powerful spirit of sorts... is this her? Oh, if it is a nice nickname, she can call me ‘Smolboi’. Whatever that means! I am Chisai, floating box person!” he bowed to his own box.

System will orbital cannon the first person to hurt him. Oh wait... System is not allowed to do that. As System’s avatar, you will orbital kick people in the gonads if they make him cry.

I rolled my eyes but asked Chisai about his new skill.

“It saying I can do something but I can’t! This is very advance but... I know how in my head,” Chisai looked at his hands.

“I could never just... do something like this. Nothing has ever been that easy,” he almost said in tears.

“I believe in you,” I crouched down and touched his arm. Maria was on his other side and smiled.

“Me and the J-man are rooting for ya, kick ass , Chisai!” she encouraged. Chisai looked between us and his light brown hair was brushed out of his green eyes.

“O-okay... I’ll try!” he said with a more solid tone and stood with our help.

He pointed to a spot not far away and focused.

“Tombstone!” he said and the floor rippled like sand as it rose up, drawing in the surface layer of wood and metal to make a foot thick wall that was maybe a 5 feet wide. It rose to about 6 foot in total. The floor around it looked stripped and skinned for the material.

Chisai’s hands trembled.

“I... did it,” he whispered. Maria whistled.

“That’s a big wall,” she commented lightly. Chisai looked at her.

“It is! I did that! Can you believe it! Russ just made me feel like I was finally good at something... I’ve been waiting for that for a long time and it’s sort of unfair because I didn’t put work in but I won’t be ungrateful!” he said seriously. He turned to me and hugged me.

“Thank you for sharing this power with someone as useless as me!” he said, voice tight.

“You kinda have Kido spells and kicked ass. Not useless,” I chided him and then smiled.

“Got details on the spell?” I asked and Chisai’s eyes lit up.

“Yeah! It’s called Tombstone and it raised a wall as big as you saw. I can make them smaller, enough to fit in my hand if I wanted. It has a cost of 15 Energy it says but has a cool down of 2 minutes!” he told me with excitement.

“It said that smaller walls lowers the cooldown,” he said thoughtfully.

“I expect you to use this power for good,” I said mocked seriously. Chisai actually saluted me.

“Yes sir!” he beamed. I shared an amused look with Maria as King...

You have gained 15 EXP as King has cleaned a portion of the room.

As expected. On that note, I finally looked at my waiting messages.

You have defeated x4 Sheep Dolls! 56 EXP!

You have defeated Web Collector! 20 EXP!

You have created a combo skill by combining Charge and Shield Smash!

Bulldoze. Combo. Active. Lv.1: Charge forward with an object to inflict massive knockback and blunt damage. Cost 10 Ene. Must have weapon.

Charge has reached level 3! Increased speed and increased control!

Shield Smash has reached level 5! Increased area spread of effect. 5 levels until skill evolves!

Knockback resistance has reached level 7! Increased balance after an attack!

Shield Skill has reached level 5! A passive ability has been unlocked since this skill cannot evolve. Please select a passive!

Oh System, you’re so nice to me.

-The Shield of Magic: shield skill can now affect barrier spells to give them extra power.

-Rebound: Throw the shield once every hour to have it fly back to your hand unless it is caught or forcible stopped.

-Big Shield, Little Shield: If using a shield bigger than a kite shield or using one buckler size or smaller gain the following bonuses. Each effect cannot be activated within an hour of each other.

Large: Increase your weight slowly up to almost x2 your weight. Wears off outside of combat.

Small: Increased reflex speed and takes lower force to deflect attacks.

Rebound sounded fun but gimmicky. Barrier spells were my comrades abilities so by order of elimination...

I picked big/little and the passive was added under my shield skill. My current shield was averaged size so I don’t think I triggered either one yet but my Yew shield would change soon enough.

One handed Blunt weapons has reached level 7! Passive in three levels.

You have discovered a Party Combo skill!

Excuse moi?

The power of protective fire and furious light reveals a building bond of good teamwork.

“You can face the chains of justice or the mace of karma but one way or the other... you will be burning in hell tonight.”

Blessed Burning Chain: Maria/Russ. Combo. Active. Rank-null: Send out a barely contained chain of burning holy energy to bind the foe and set the negativity ablaze in their soul. The more sins known to the users about the target, the heavier the damage. Costs exact half of total Energy from each user.

I whistled and Maria was looking like a kid on Christmas.

“We need to try this! Oh we can chant it together and make a cool incantation for it!” she squealed.

“‘Fuck off and die in a fire’?” I suggested.

“I got... EXP? Is that bad? Do I need to see a doctor?” Chisai asked with a worry.

I couldn’t help the grin as I cracked up.

“Nothing like that. Actually, unlike other three letter acronyms, you want to share these with your friends!” I beamed.

I eyed my Orange Gem and decided to go for it.

It shattered and I think I just had a piece of glass shoved into my brain. I choked as the glass went deeper.

Maria was healing me and that did help.

I just needed a small... seat. I sat on the floor and curled up for a moment.

---

Tatsuki was looking at the front door of her school with her bag held loosely in her hand. Someone had broken into her school! She growled aloud at the assholes who messed with her school!

What was wrong with people?

“I’m going to call the police,” she said with a smirk and turned to leave. Something... quivered in front of her like a blur. She paused, rubbed at her eyes as she thought she saw something on the school fence but the sight was gone and nothing was there.

But she felt uneasy.

Tatsuki looked around once more but she saw nothing. She went to move the gate and found it was heavy... it shouldn’t be that heavy. She pushed in a panic and the oppressive feeling bore down on her like an animal was watching her. Her eye caught something just above her like a sight out of the corner of her eye.

A giant white... bird?

She snapped her head up but nothing was there. Tatsuki’s fight or flee senses were going wild so she turned to leave and find another exit. Something sliced her cheek and she touched it to see blood on her hands.

Her blood. Something was attacking her!

“Who’s there?!” she turned and yelled but the mournful howl of the wind was her only answer. She put her fists up, they were shaking. Tatsuki forced herself to stop shaking. Something hit her hard enough to send her flying into the school. She saw shadows moving and a blur but her head was spinning.

Everything felt so... numb.

---

Portal was a good Portal. It knew so because System Admin told it so. No higher authority existed! Except Human Russel. Human Russel was nice even if he did tickle Portal! Portal was watching Human Not-Russel-NotMaria-NotSmolboi.

She was being attacked by a negative bound soul wearing the mask of madness and sin.

Or Hollow Bird for short. Portal was a good Portal and didn’t leave its post to be on hand for when Human Russel beat the zone and needed rescue! But... it squirmed at the sight. Humans were interesting and to see one be crushed to its muscles and bone as its brain shut down was not nice.

Portal wanted to be nice but it couldn’t defy orders...

It pondered that. It also had a log of Human Russel as did System Admin. Those logs were protected and Portal was no snoop! But it looked quickly to see if there was cause... cause... it needed a reason!

Oh! Human Russel claimed he wanted Human Tatsuki to join him. Human Tatsuki had 99.8% match to the Human before Portal!

Now, Portal was no loophole. He was a LoopPortal as he looped between two dimensions so he deemed that as an order and desire of his Human and stretched.

The girl gave a muffled yell as Portal carried her to the safe zone. The Hollow Bird screamed and Portal had a lovely sight of a black cat suddenly appearing at a speed that even Portal respected to kick the Hollow in the face hard enough it shattered and was sent flying.

The cat known as Reaper-Feline Yoruichi looked to where Portal was but Portal knew she couldn’t see it.

“Where... did she go?” the cat whispered. The cat vanished a moment later and Portal waved goodbye with a wiggle.

Now, Portal had to go back to doing what is was doing before.

‘Hello grass blade number 20005902! How is your night?’

Portal listened as it tapped into the soul of everything. The conversation was very nice.

‘Hello grass blade number 20005903! How is your night?’

Portal was happy.