A black blur, moving incredibly fast even for who it is, swipes its tail at me.

My staff is entirely in the wrong place, so I block with my arm and try to increase the power of the Qi shied in the moments before impact. Flesh compresses and bone bends. Though, as the shield breaks and flakes of my wooden armor fall to the ground, the momentum of the attack is gone. A scary prospect but no actual damage takes place, but with my high health and vitality.

The initial confrontation messes up our neat lines but everyone manages to surround the five beasts that remain together. I try to power a freezing formation underground with the mana Aspen is yielding, but even as he powers it up, the beasts break in unison out of range.

If I could make enormous plates that covered hundreds of meters and could freeze anyone in range, battles like this could be either avoided or become all but trivial, but things aren’t so simple. The plates were enormous just fine, this one reaching a good 30 meters in diameter underground, but barely a tenth of that was its effective range. Even then, the edges of this barely 3-meter circle don’t approach the restraining power in the middle. And while I had slowly increased the power and my understanding making the bindings stronger, the enemies grew ever more slippery.

Alex concentrates on a single beast, the Black Panther. Following the mostly feline makeup of our instances HLZ beasts he can barely keep up with it in terms of speed, but Alex’s sheer talent and skill make up for a lot of that allowing him to slowly inflict wounds on the Panther. Each scratch seems to be aimed at my heart, but I steel myself at what I’m helping perpetuate.

Headless of the danger and needing to take my mind off it, I plunge in and start swinging my own weapon in the direction of the beasts, in and out trying to find any unprotected spot. But with the seemingly supernatural capability of communication and instincts so sharp, that their minds can rival Alex’s spear, all our efforts only match them. We don’t even force them to trade meaningful blows with their skin against our armor.

But as the seconds pass, I know that this can’t continue.

The beasts seemed to be pushing as hard as they can right out of the gate and while the Panther’s slowly accumulating wounds would eventually cripple it, but that was taking too long. Alex didn’t manage to skewer it in a few seconds. About 20 seconds passed and nothing significant yet.

People’s main skills will end taking away their extra speed and coordination. Their spears that currently shine a path forward will return to the bare dull metal and even with his prodigious mass and expertly wielded spear, Greg can only tank one beast at a time and even that is a dangerous prospect without skills and support for any length of time.

My head spins and spins in place as every single second tick.

Each second that passes is another thousand opportunities lost.

What the hell can I do?

If nothing else works, go back to the basics.

Fireball.

Qi floods out of my pool as I drop my staff into a portal to the inner world. Its bonus can be helpful, but I want to feel the magic at my fingertips, and I hadn't tested my Qi magic through that particular set of runes.

I ignore the reflexive judgment of my own actions. Even in desperate struggle, putting away my weapon properly was not a waste of time, just preparation should need it again.

Two fireballs grow in the palms of my hand as I not only input a lot of energy, I focus them in a space as small as possible trying to imitate the focus Merlin can display with his magma balls. In the very instant I shoot out my attack, a trio of magmas balls hits the beast. It blocks two with its claws and dodges the third, but the sheer heat remaining behind still scorches its skin.

My entire will goes drives my attack as I aim at its belly, pushing the spheres of death at impossible speed like I just shot a hand cannon so fast I can barely feel it moving. Even my perception field with all the powers I do possess and the over 300 perception points only notices a line.

Barely a moment before my attack hits, I can almost feel the anger wafting off the beast trying to dodge.

The characteristic muscle movements, the tightening of its jaws in near imitation of a human gesture, and its attempt to twist out of the way. Even if it dealt well with Merlin’s attack, I catch it off guard and without time to change its direction.

Both my attacks hit its torso, one on the belly and the second in the ribs.

I can almost see the mana pulsing its back legs, but even if it had managed to control the multiple streams of mana simultaneously, it wouldn't have been fast enough.

As my attacks bore a hole of burned flesh is when I realized something.

Each of my actions is slow and deliberate, my body is no faster than usual, but everything isn’t be pilling on top of each other in combat. Another benefit of high perception and mental stats. Along with the subtle undertone of the system's skill, I’m connected to the world and what I happening, but this is not the time to ponder over it.

Everyone else is moving and reacting faster than anyone could back on Earth, Even the slowest long ago surpassed the best athletes and the agility-focused fighters shine even above that into superhuman levels of speed and reaction. But even if I can’t match everyone else in raw speed or power, every grain of sand is clear around me and I can keep track of everything instinctually.

As entire streams of thought are formed in the split seconds, the beast seems nearly to move slowly as it waits for its feet to reach the ground with the constant pull of gravity. Too bad nobody else is in a position to take advantage of that. I start building another two attacks to use somewhere, but my attention continues mostly on the Leopard.

It takes a split second, as the interminable instant after a monumental happening, the shock fades and as it tries to sprint forward and reality catches up to it.

Its mana fueled movement is slower than usual.

Only by a hair, but the wince of pain and the slight imbalance in its intercostal muscles trow off its balance ever so slightly and hinder its movements.

Two and half seconds for the next volley. Assuming Merlin continues at his usual pace. But as soon as I think about it, my perception field instantly tells me: the formation of the next trio of magma balls is on track. This is our chance, I have found the path that will give us a small edge we need to tip the scales and overcome the beasts.

I put another 100 points of Qi in each fireball and shoot, once, twice, thrice.

I manage to shoot 13 more times helping the others slowly whitledown the beasts before their skills enter the normal cooldown period.

Fourteen pairs of fireballs faster than anything in the instance, each carrying enough punch to bore into their tough flesh and best of all: displaying near immunity to mana disruption.

A minute into the battle the only remaining beast is a tenacious and incredibly strong Panther taking all of Alex’s attention. Even without help, my old HLZ friend, the Black Panther, won’t be taken down so easily.

I lay my gaze on the other four corpses, all with burns, cuts and several deep holes they gained soon after they lost their mobility.

My head and my heart sing at each other in dissonant tones. The sound is overwhelming, like a toddler bashing a piano or the teeth-grinding sound of wire brushes scrubbing sheets of metal.

My head knows that even if we invaded their territory, we weren’t pushing them out, we only wanted resources that they don’t even use. My heart however still cries loud as ever, for my hands brought death to their doorstep.

A wrong twist of his paw and Alex’s spear cuts the Panther’s Aquiles tendon.

Everyone pauses and retreats.

“I should try something…” I say. Everyone turns to me and that is when I realize I spoke aloud.

“Go ahead.” Alex encourages me as he joins Greg by my flank.

I open a large portal just underneath the Black Panther.

The group takes a step back and forms a perfect circle, just inside the inner diameter of the shield the beasts breached initially.

I grow the portal until the Beast is stepping on it. But gravity doesn't do what is supposed to. The beast pants with its 109 visible cuts on its skin seemingly floats mid air.

Why the hell it doesn’t just fall inside the inner world?

I reach out with the thinnest of tendrils and touch an uninjured spot in its back paw. It twitches but doesn’t step away from the tendril as its gaze turns from Alex to me tilting its head in curiosity.

I reach with my mind and drive my telepathy skill as hard as possible. I open another portal just an inch from my hand and with both of us outside the inner world, I can’t touch him. I will the tendril of root to become a piece of my body harder than I have ever done and bridge this small gap screaming in my mind and hoping he can hear me.

Friend, Friend, Friend

Lie… Hurt… Two legged

You hurt, we hurt, everyone hurt. Why?

You evil

The eye in the sky is evil, not we

As I try to formulate how could I continue, something about my mental picture sets him off and he seems to teleport to me with a feral snarl that belied any of the intelligence I had come to expect of it. Even fully prepared, I can only block with my staff as it throws me back like it just bulldozed a rag doll. Maybe a sturdy ragdoll with well over 100 points in vitality fully encase in a Qi shield, but I hit the shield pylon some 8 meters back from where I stood a moment before and I can’t shrug the blow off like a stuffed animal, I have bones and nerves to feel the pain.

Even as I try to come to terms with what would be needed, to try and find a way to keep at least this one alive, it is no longer a choice. I keep my eyes closed watching the scene before me.

Both Alex and Greg formed an X with their Spears through the panther’s heart in their attempt to stop the beast from bulldozing me.

After that, even a million points of Life would make no difference, not with an uncooperative being like this considering I didn't have any healing skills. I had so many skills on day one, but I barely gained any after that besides t few from my class and subclasses. But none have anything to do with healing.

I open my eyes, just so that it will see my gaze. The curvy and muddy picture that arrives at my eyes makes no difference inside my perception field.

Its attempts to break the spear shafts or to injure someone else are feebler by the second. It gets one paw pinned to the ground, then another, and another. Just three seconds is enough for most of the energy in its body to fade and its heart is not in condition to pump any more blood, blood that is pooling in the ground.

The formerly majestic creature, a creature that I would have liked to call a friend is splayed on the ground, not preening as a cat should.

My mind whirls for any option possible, even as Greg and Alex take backup spears from the inner world and advance again to finally put an end to it all, I say:

“Leave it.”

Their momentum is gone and they realize that the beast is no longer any threat.

I pick myself up, groaning from the tackle and walk forward. A tread of Life flows from me uselessly into its body, but I can do nothing else.

Try as I might, all my grand and lofty ideas have left me. For some reason, the beast isn’t falling through my portal even as it starts losing consciousness, it isn’t giving up. The best we can do is to leave it alone, but a second or minute of life won’t change the outcome.

I try to heal its heart around the spear, but nothing happens as even the last sliver of its own life deserts its flesh and the final twitch exhausts all the energy in its limbs. Even shocking it wouldn’t cause a jerk.

Whenever I see something like this, I always feel contrived in my displays of emotion. Why should I cry when I didn’t even know my enemy and he had left me no choice. But this was no attacker that had come to our doorstep and we killed afterward. This was an old ‘friend’, the very first HLZ beast I encountered.

I shake my head, surprised at everyone suddenly standing in a different spot, but then I realize I just lost another few seconds. The pain in my heart contrasts with the decisions in my head and forces tears to freely flow. I put on a grim smile and move to get up but I sense Aether in the air. The barest of threads extending from the beast and being absorbed back into the system.

I cannot do anything for you, but I will honor you, and if I can, I will carry on a sliver of your legacy.

I reach out into the air and try to drag a little of it back, but the system fights me with a vehemency that is hard to believe. Each tug with the strength of a finger gets a response as brusque as a donkey’s kick, but I don’t let that discourage me.

I had stolen the Automaton’s Aether, why wouldn’t I escalate and get some of the Aether from these beasts from under the system’s nose?

Stepping inches from the beast, I hear a small space, even as action drives the sorrow in my heart a little deeper and the tears dry up. Sitting crosslegged, I return the wooden armor even as the others prepare to leave. I let the direct skin contact of the corpse with my back be our connection and some of the very Aether the system is drawing from the Beast has to pass through my body before switching direction.

My peaceful state is simply gone, rage and adrenaline infuse my blood being pumped with the strength of a horse's heart. My entire body is flooding with more energy than is natural like I’m high on blue crystal.

The desire to attack everyone around me is all encompassing, but deep within my mind, I can tell that all of that is external.

A little corner of myself is simply above the fray. An island of peace that lets me gaze at the cacophony of my soul and mind that clearly shows me the contrast. I KNOW anyone else would have simply let their baser instincts out and attacked everyone around, but I’m somehow different. I see that peace is possible for I have a piece that is calm and silent within me even while noise that would drive the wisest of men mad sounds around. I reach for the island tucking in as much of myself inside the only real place of peace amidst the turbulent waves contaminating myself.

Tucking in under the protective blanket, the contrast becomes obvious and I realize I was nearly gone. Even with this, to help me, most of my will and consciousness was unprotected and only a seed of myself was here by chance.

Godammit, I was pulling Qi to form… something and I didn't even realize that.

I extend tendrils of my will out, and the contrast is like being in a magical soundproof room, but putting my hands out of it with Death metal vibrating my very bones but not my ears. For this is not music, it is chaos incarnate with just a hint of order to make it as unsettling as possible. Aether raging and trying to warp me into something I’m not. I grab whole chunks of it, though in total it merely makes a fraction of my own reserves, and start stuffing it inside a self contained bottle similarly to how I stored the Automaton’s Aether. After sealing it up, I will be back to my normal self.

Now I just need to find out if all this rage is the direct result of the system or just indirect. Though I have the feeling this may be another question that will go unanswered for a long while.