The rift was enormous, and the demon beasts pouring out were beyond counting. Kye and company were watching from outside the food court. Most of the group had never seen a demon beast before, but Kye and Alethea both had trained long enough in Daemonheim to know how big of a threat the sight in the sky posed. Suddenly, Allison’s voice came out of nowhere.

“I am Allison Barrett of Alcanus and this is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill. All citizens, students, or otherwise non-combatants are ordered to take shelter indoors. All combatants prepare for battle and follow the chain of command.”

Layla teleported in front of Kye’s group as soon as Allison’s announcement ended. “Return to the dorms. This is out of your league.”

“No,” Kye said as she activated her light aether. “I can take on A-Class beasts at least.”

“I expected you would be stubborn about this,” Layla said.

Allison and James appeared next to Layla and reinforced Layla’s command.

“I have information you do not,” Kye said. She turned to the Venturi sisters. “Escort Louise and Isabel to the dorm and stay there. That’s an order.”

“But-”

“No. This is an emergency. Go!”

Liliana grabbed Louise’s wrist and Aliana took Isabel’s hand, and they teleported.

“Okay, explain yourself,” James said. “What information do you have that we don’t?”

“The man behind this is dangerous,” Alethea said. “He teleported into the food court and blocked the security system. Most importantly, he knew a name from our shared past life.”

“When you were Shiori and Sayaka?” Layla asked. “Nobody should be able to teleport into buildings due to the protective barriers.”

“Yes. He introduced himself as Shiro Shikigami,” Kye said. As Shiori, Kye had fought Shiro Shikigami with Alethea and killed him. It was the culmination of years of war and their victory led to a lifetime of peace.

“It’s impossible for that man to be in this world,” Alethea said. Shiro Shikigami’s soul resided in Eden, a prison for the worst souls that existed in a space devoid of time. Over their eons of reincarnations, Kye and Alethea had put countless people in that prison.

“Playthings?” James asked as he was looking up. “Even I don’t have a sense of humor that bad.”

Allison was glaring at Kye, but Layla relented. “Fine. If you’re going to participate, don’t take on anything you can’t handle. If it gets to be too much, get out.”

“Given enough time, I could win a war of attrition. I know my strengths. I can’t use much of it at once, but I have a lot of mana.”

“The biggest advantage we have,” Alethea said as the two exchanged glances with a smirk, “is our experience.”

Allison let out a sigh of exasperation but finally relented, too. “I’ll admit you’re not wrong. Your combat prowess is frankly frightening.”

Kye nodded and she and Alethea disappeared. Allison glanced at her siblings. “I’ll watch them.”

“Lord Apollyon, urgent news! Arslade is under attack. A rift as large as the city appeared and demon beasts are pouring out of it.”

“Impossible! There are no rifts open on Daemonheim!”

“I can’t explain that.”

“Where are they coming from? No, that’s not important right now. Mobilize our elites. I want Arslade backed up immediately! I’ll lead the force myself!”

“This is terrible,” Astarte said. She and her sisters were floating in mid-air above the palace in Arslade.

“Daemonheim and Drachenheim are sending backup. Lord Apollyon and Lord Drangan are leading their forces. Nothing from Nippon Sekai, we can’t even contact them right now,” Astraia said.

“No matter,” Atalante said. “We must trust that the monsters will be handled. The three of us must isolate and seal the rift or this will never end.”

Kye was first to meet the beasts. She sliced through several with her light aether until she found one powerful enough to take a hit. Alethea wasn’t far away doing the same thing. Several instructors were flying up from the academy, and Allison blasted past all of them and started fighting closer to the rift. Mana and magic filled the sky as the beasts were met by Arslade’s defenders.

“What do you make of this?” Kye asked. She and Alethea were keeping a channel open on their phones to stay in constant contact.

“Not good, to say the least,” she replied as she launched a massive blast of mana at the nearest beast. “The very instant that man appeared I had a bad feeling. His... aura was all wrong. And then he said that name.”

“Yes. I think he may have something to do with our mission. I don’t think we’re getting out of this fight unscathed. We may have to overdrive.”

“I don’t know about you, but I’ll be out of commission for a while if I do that.”

“I will, too. For now, I think teamwork is our best bet.”

“Right, let’s group up.”

Kye and Alethea met up and joined up with Allison. She was in the middle of fending off several A-Class beasts on her own. She was still only using mana and was having no trouble with them. She moved quickly and did not resort to big spells. She was focused on conserving her mana and attacked with only the minimum to get the job done. Her expertise was evident. Kye and Alethea were impressed.

“How are you holding up?” Kye asked after adding Allison to the channel.

“I’m fine, but these things are never ending.”

“I imagine it’ll be down to just the three of us before the Atlantis sisters can seal the rift,” Alethea added.

Kye clapped her hands together and started channeling aether. “Rune of Replication.” A magic circle appeared underneath her and fifty just like it appeared around her. She flung her arms outward and the duplicates quickly flew away. She brought her hands back together and channeled for her next spell. She placed her right hand on the magic circle that remained and continued, “Rune of Amplification.”

Alethea followed up, knowing what Kye was doing. She placed her hand on the double-layered magic circle and casted her spell, “Flare!” An explosive ball of white fire suddenly launched from every duplicate magic circle and virtually lit the sky on fire. Alethea continuously cast the spell for as long as Kye allowed her. Allison was astonished at the combination.

Their experience is no joke. This sort of tactic isn’t taught at the academy. “Buy me a little time, and add James and Layla to this channel.”

“Got it,” both replied.

Allison released her aether and began channeling. Meanwhile, Kye and Alethea continued their combination assault. “James, Layla, come to me. I’m going to cast a rune-enhanced barrier and I’ll need you to maintain it while the three of us fight.”

“Understood,” they replied.

Allison began her intricate casting. “Grand Aegis.” She generated an enormous flat barrier separating the sky and ground, wider than the rift above. “Rune of Reinforcement.” A magic circle appeared overlayed on the barrier. “Mana Core.” She generated a large orb of mana beneath the barrier. "Mana Link." A line of mana appeared between the orb and the barrier.

“Channel aether into the orb,” Allison instructed. “The orb is connected to the rune and that will continuously rebuild the barrier.”

“Rebuild the barrier?” Layla said. “What the hell are you planning that would require this barrier to be rebuilt?”

“It’ll be fine.”

“That makes me worry more!”

Allison began channeling for her next spell, but before she could get started, a humanoid S-Class beast descended from the rift. It was as if a mass of mana appeared out of nowhere. Everyone in the sky felt the pressure from it. Allison ordered everyone other than Kye and Alethea to retreat. Apollyon’s team arrived shortly after the S-Class beast appeared and received an update from Allison. Before they could do anything, the powerful humanoid beast charged.

Kye was the first to react. She quickly channeled a mass of aether and prepared a spell. “True Binding! Gravity Collapse!” Chains of light aether wrapped around the beast and a purple sphere surrounded it, inside an intense gravity. But that only served to slow it down.

Mana is nowhere near as potent as Aether, yet this thing is only slowed down by my aether-enhanced spells?

Alethea followed up Kye’s restricting spells with her own. “Blades of Light.” She condensed aether into swords and threw them at the beast. Each exploded on contact and helped slow it down.

Allison ran her fingers over her sword and charged it with several runes. She condensed her aether and met the beast in an enormous clash. The shockwave was powerful enough that Kye and Alethea had to brace themselves to keep from getting pushed away.

“Everyone, leave the S-Class to me,” Allison ordered. “More A-Classes are coming out!”

Apollyon’s team set to work on the latest rush of beasts while Kye and Alethea stayed near Allison, keeping other beasts from ganging up on her while she fought the S-Class. Layla and James continued to support the barrier Allison created. With the barrier there, Allison could use more destructive spells safely and not have to constantly protect the ground from the beast’s attacks.

“Kye, what is that magic that Aliana uses?” Alethea asked. “The one where she made your fries untouchable.”

“We don’t really know. It’s currently called Shadow Magic, but there’s a lot to it. She can make things invisible, intangible, part of either, or any combination.

“I think I came across an ability like that once in a heavily system-based world. One with level-ups and everything.”

“An RPG world? Oh, those... I was about to say fun, but they’re really hit or miss.”

“Yeah, so that world had skill trees and you could specialize in things. People dedicated enough could specialize in multiple things, too. Anyway, there was a certain skill tree. I think her ability may be a type of Spatial Manipulation... specifically, Void Manipulation. I specialized in that tree so if I’m right... I might be able to mimic it at least to a degree.”

“What are you thinking?”

“We can go over details with her afterward, but in short it was a primarily non-combat tree that could be very devastating in combat in the right hands.”

“Think you can pull it off?”

“I’m not sure, I tried it in another life, and it didn’t work, but this world is different than most. I’m gonna try it.”

Alethea formed a ball of aether and focused on her memories of void magic. The ball shrunk but left an outline of its original size. She threw it at a beast, and it passed right through it. The space that it passed through was completely erased. The ball kept going and pierced or grazed other beasts until it fizzled out. The first beast she hit had a large hole through most of its body and fell from the sky.

“Wow, that was effective,” Kye said. “You’re gonna have to teach me how to do that.”

Alethea ran her fingers across her sword to enchant it with void magic. Every beast she slashed simply lost whatever part of its body that she slashed through. Her sword didn’t cut, it erased.

As they continued fighting A-Class beasts, Kye noticed some students were watching in the courtyard outside the training grounds. What are they doing? “There are students below. They’re just standing there watching!”

The S-Class beast noticed a moment of distraction when Alethea turned to look and broke off from Allison to attack, intending to take out a deadly opponent quickly. Kye saw that coming and cut it off, taking the powerful mana-infused punch in her stead. Despite the amount of aether she used to block the attack, she was still launched downward, landing in the courtyard mere seconds later. Layla abandoned her position under the barrier and flew down after her.

“KYE!!!”