Professor Malvidio woke up to find that he couldn’t move his body. No matter how he tried, he wasn’t even able to flex his muscles. It was as if his nerve pathways were cutoff.

He found himself rising from his bed, but not from conscious control. The professor’s mind raced back to the headlines of the past few days.

“Goblins, Supernatural Mold, and Ghosts- Worldwide Hoax or Alien Invasion?”, “Family of four possessed by specters”, and “New Energies Discovered: Mana and Ki”, were merely the ones he had read. Quickly running through the characteristics of the alien races led him to believe that a specter was in control of his body.

While he was pondering, his body involuntarily left his room and entered the living room, where Amy, his girlfriend, was watching the news.

“Akon! Apparently there’s a massive riot going on in the city,” she yelled over her shoulder. His Adam’s apple shifted beneath his skin as his body was made to reply.

“Oh, that’s interesting. We should stay inside.” His hand snaked out to grab a knife from the kitchen counter in the adjacent room. I know where this is going, Akon thought grimly.

He slowly stalked towards Amy’s back from behind the couch. His eyes focused on the skin of her nape, exposed to the air except for a few strands of curly brown hair. Akon was admiring her beauty. The specter possessing him was eyeing its prey.

The knife plunged into skin, slicing through muscle and digging into the spine. Instantly, Amy gurgled and tried to push him away. Her efforts were futile, and soon Akon was standing red-handed over her corpse.

I heard victims of possession can break free if forced to do something drastically against their conscience, he pondered. Well, I was never serious about Amy anyways. Internally, he grinned. I heard that specters turn their hosts into mages if given enough time. This is perfect.

The professor resolved himself to learning everything he could from the specter’s use of mana.

***

Sarah had fallen into a routine: subdue a rioting civilian here, stab a specter over there, and rinse and repeat. Routines are dangerous when dealing with the unknown.

A bullet tore through her thigh. Lancing pain arced through her body, and her nerves fired searing impulses into her brain. She collapsed to the ground, gasping.

The other soldiers of her unit immediately dived for cover. Peter paused just long enough to drag Sarah with him.

“Heal yourself,” he snarled, scanning the surroundings for a sniper.

“I- I’m trying,” Sarah moaned. She was used to pain, but not enough to maintain focus through a bullet wound. Thankfully, cycling ki through the leg helped dim the pain enough for her to imbue some regeneration intent.

The wound immediately started to heal in a glow of green light. Luckily, the bullet had already left her body. Sarah shivered at the thought of having to reach into her leg and pull out a bullet.

Even without the bullet, it exhausted most of her ki sealing up the wound. A massive scar was left at the location of the exit wound.

A bang echoed through the street, followed by a soldier shouting, “Sniper down!” After a couple more minutes searching for shooters, the squad regrouped.

“Fricking private gun ownership,” an Asian soldier cursed.

“Nobody could’ve predicted aliens, Steven,” someone else admonished.

The commanding officer gathered everyone’s attention with a wave. “From now on, we’ll encounter increasingly more possessed with access to private guns. Sarah, you’re our lifeline, so you are not to risk yourself. Stay in the center of our group.” His tone brooked no disagreement, and Sarah nodded glumly.

He returned to sweeping his gaze across the group. “It’s been an hour since the specters attacked. Central Intelligence’s temporary guidelines for specters says that mages may start to appear among the possessed at this time. Be prepared for mind-boggling effects.”

The memory of Isabela’s blinding white purity mana came to mind, sending a shiver down Sarah’s spine. She hoped that the newborn mage possessed wouldn’t have access to as terrifying intents.

The squad resumed their march towards the center of downtown Houston. Slowly, apartment buildings sifted away in favor of skyscrapers. Streets were packed full with cars, making it difficult to keep progressing.

Once, Sarah was ambushed by a possessed who was hiding in a car. They burst out of the car just as she passed by, tackling her to the ground. She kept her calm, infusing her limbs with ki in an attempt to overpower the possessed man.

Sarah felt a flash of worry when he pulled out a gun. Immediately, she lashed out with her left arm to try and grab his wrist. Gotcha, she grinned.

Suddenly, the man’s gun flashed with grayish-blue light. Sarah’s hand slammed back into the ground as a magical force slammed into it.

Mana infused with an intent! She thought in alarm. Sarah twisted her waist and shoved the man off her with her knee-kick.

“He’s a mage!” she shouted while retreating in the direction of her allies. She heard gunshots, and gullets ricocheted off the metal frames of the cars she hid behind. Soldiers returned fire.

“Bullets aren’t hitting correctly!” Peter shouted while taking cover behind a truck.

A police officer stood up and unloaded a full clip in the possessed’s direction. The metal bullets impacted what looked like an invisible force shield around him in a spray of sparks. A quick cycle of ki to her eyes let Sarah see a film of the man’s blue-gray mana intent around him. As she focused, she acquired a feel for the intent suffused in the energy.

The intent of Separation. What is he, a loner possessed by a specter?

At first glance, the mage seemed over-powered. He could “separate” himself from bullets, and could likely “separate” himself from any melee combatants, all the while having his own bullets to fire.

The mage whirled on the spot, staring at the police officer with a manic gleam in his eye. Before the officer could react, the mage shot him in the chest. The bullet emitted a pulse of mana as it entered his flesh, applying the mage’s separation intent.

The officer split into halves, forcefully separated by a plane of mana. Blood splattered onto the asphalt road.

Sarah decided to put an end to the fight. She charged the mage, trusting in her intuition. The man immediately shot her in the torso. First, the bullet crashed through the Kevlar vest. Then, it clashed with her ki-infused flesh. The separation mana surged out, cutting but being grinded down by her ki as it spread. The mana exhausted itself before it dealt too much damage for Sarah to heal.

Sarah dropped to the ground and played dead as she infused regeneration intent into her stomach.

“Sarah! No! I’ll kill you!” Peter howled, catching the mage’s attention. In the corner of her eye, Sarah saw him wink. That rascal, she thought.

Her spear fell into her hand with the unbuckling of a strap. Then, she crawled beneath cars. Her actions gave her a strong sense of déjà vu, as if she had spent her childhood performing similar antics.

Sarah cast the thought to the back of her mind as she came up behind the back of the mage. Immediately, she thrust her spear. It was a clumsy thrust; Drake hadn’t had much time to teach her. Still, it was her best attempt at a proper spear thrust. The metal point pierced through the air.

Right before it hit the man, an invisible layer of mana pushed against her spear. At that instant, a multitude of factors came into play. The mage was caught off guard, preventing him from funneling more mana into the shield. Sarah’s thrust came with both the physical might of the greatest weapon of war, and the empowerment of her ki. Despite the relative strength of intent-imbued mana compared to regular ki, Sarah’s thrust smashed right through the shield.

The weapon stabbed through the man’s back. The specter inside decided the situation was lost, and tried to flee into the air. A quick pair of thrusts with her spear ripped the ghost into oblivion. Immediately afterwards, she healed the civilian, saving him from bleeding to death.

Sarah smiled. Her intuition had been right. Although his separation intent seemed overpowered, he had tried for too much for just a single intent. By spreading his intent thin over such a multifaceted intent as separation, it was weakened. Thinking back to the examples of powerful energy she had, the mold colony and Isabela, every powerful intent seemed to be made up of smaller, individual intents combined together.

Singular intents, or “tier one” intents, can be combined to form higher tier intents. Aiming for too much with just a tier one intent is asking for failure.

Peter clapped, leading to a smattering of claps here and there. There wasn’t much to do afterwards. A pair of soldiers evacuated the unconscious mage out of the city, where he couldn’t be re-possessed and have to be fought again. Sarah didn’t have anyone else to heal, as anyone who was shot had split into two, instantly dying. None of the other soldiers had developed their ki enough to take a hit.

The mood had taken a noticeable dive afterwards, as the squad resumed their silent march. Just one mage had led to two casualties. Ten more and they would be wiped out.

They grudgingly engaged with the next batch of possessed, who had some civilian pistols, but no mages. Sarah hated fighting groups, as it was more dangerous, and she had to be extra careful to not kill a specter in view of the other possessed. The last time that happened, the remaining specters refused to leave their hosts, forcing the group to handcuff them and leave them in the streets.

There were fighting a group of possessed in a park this time, so Sarah had little cover to hide her activities. As such, once she took down a possessed in an arm lock, she had to stop herself from killing the specter that flew out. Sarah groaned as the specter diffused into her body, possessing her.

I hate how they always try to possess me. Well, it’s not like they know I’m experienced resisting control.

Before she could expel the specter, a blast of mana rocketed through the streets. It was pure gray, and Sarah could sense a thick intent suffused throughout. Immediately, Sarah slumped to the ground, unable to move a muscle. The clattering of metal dropping to the floor told her everyone else was in the same situation.

Unable to move her muscles, Sarah decided it was a bad idea to push out the specter. If free-flowing specters could somehow still move, Sarah might be in danger. She instead turned to studying the mana locking her in place. It was spread across an unbelievably large area, and still managed to overpower her ki like punching through paper. This has to be second-tier intent at the least, she despaired. I’m being beat by laziness intent.

Her cheek felt remarkably uncomfortable pressed against the rough asphalt. If I’m going to be stuck like this, I should at least be put in a comfortable position, she grumbled.