Derivan knew what he needed to do.

The rest of the party had already expended everything they had. Sev had exhausted most of his mana trying to keep them all alive. Vex had similarly spent most of his mana on spells, and Misa was already barely keeping it together. She had 30% of her health left, and a direct hit from a three-digit leveled creature — something he had, until now, been certain was impossible — would kill her instantly even if she were still at full health.

Derivan had a protective buffer she didn't, and much more health besides.

He took a breath. He didn't need to, but he did it anyway; it was one of the many small things that made him feel a little more like what he yearned to be. Someone the system didn't see as a monster. Someone with a name, and a class that reflected who he was as a person.

Not what he had now; not the label the system had burned into him.

Level 86 Infiltrating Armor.

He'd given himself a name, but if the system that the entire world ran on didn't acknowledge it — then who was he, really?

Derivan had never really allowed himself to consider his wish of being more, before. It seemed like too much to hope for. Then he'd been revealed, only to find out that his party members already knew, and didn't care... he felt that spark of hope.

Now, again, that spark died; he wasn't foolish enough to think that he could survive against anything this powerful.

But he could buy them time.

The system did not see him as a person. Misa, Sev, Vex — they did. That was enough to be worth sacrificing himself for.

He would've done it for less.

Besides, he could already feel what Sev meant — his link to the system creeping in once again, shrouding his soul. It was so insidious a force that he'd never felt it before, had assumed it to be just a part of his being; only when it was gone and then returned did he understand it for what it was.

And along with the link came a feeling of foreboding. He didn't know what it meant, but he had a suspicion, and it was a suspicion that both terrified him and filled him with resolve.

"Run," Derivan said quietly. "Please."

He didn't hear what they said in response. He understood, intellectually, that they protested immediately; he saw in the corner of his eyes that Misa was struggling to get up, that Vex was staring like he wanted to run after him. Sev held them both back with a gentle barrier of light, though he himself looked torn, and Derivan allowed himself a small, hidden smile at the sight.

They were true friends, all of them.

Disguise Status deactivated.

Level 26 —> Level 86

All [Disguise Status]-related restrictions removed.

Maximum health increased.

Maximum MP increased.

Derivan leapt into the air. It'd been a long, long time since he'd moved like this, completely free from the restrictions imposed on him by [Disguise Status]. He shot through the air faster than he anticipated, his blade whistling through the wind in front of him. Wisps of black lightning congealed along his sword as he activated another skill.

[Paralyzing Slash].

It was a basic Skill afforded to many melee combatants. He didn't need to defeat the Overseer, whatever an Overseer was. He needed to grapple it for the one second he would need to activate [Consume] at its maximum level. It could break out afterwards, but that happened at set intervals. It would give his friends time. It hadn't even finished forming yet; he was willing to bet it couldn't use skills—

The Overseer reached for his blade and caught it. Lightning dissipated like so much useless mana.

Worse, that same black lightning began to course through its body.

Derivan stared.

Far, far away, he thought he heard Sev yell in panic and felt the familiar charge of a heal rush through his body. It was a powerful heal that brought him back up to full health in a fraction of a second, and even then it barely hit him in time.

Flick.

Derivan's armor sounded like a gong as a mana-compressed finger slammed into his body, visibly denting the metal and sending him flying back towards the ground. He couldn't try to rotate or minimize the impact of his fall; his own [Paralyzing Slash] worked against him, black lightning flickering across his body and freezing up his joints when he tried to move.

He heard his friends shouting again and heard the worry in their voices. He felt light barriers break beneath him as Sev tried to cushion his fall, and then a gust of wind as Vex tried to counteract the force of it.

He still slammed into the ground, almost right next to where Sev had set up the barrier for Misa and Vex.

Half his health in one blow, and he suspected that Sev's heal and [Oneshot Protection] were the only things that had stopped him from being instantly killed.

[Oneshot Protection] [Passive] [No Grade]

Enemies cannot deal more than 50% of your maximum health in damage in one attack.

If Sev hadn't healed him in time... How had he known? How had he managed to heal him enough to max out his health? The cleric was the second strongest in their team, but he shouldn't have been able to heal half the health of a level 86 monster.

He looked over at Sev, sitting only a few feet away from him; the human looked pale, pained. There wasn't time for questions.

"We have a plan," Sev told him. "Two layers. Vex has a spell that can directly attack mana but he needs time to regenerate mana and it might not be strong enough. If it doesn't work, we'll fall back to my cast of [Divine Communion]. I'll start it now, but it's a ritual cast and will take longer than Vex's spell. Misa will be the second line of defense, but she can't hold it off for long, especially if it realizes it just needs to attack quickly. You're the only one that might be able to stall it for long."

Derivan wanted to tell them to run. A plan was forming in his head; he could survive, at least for a while. But he saw the determination in their eyes, and he wasn't sure he could hold it off for long enough that it would matter if they did run.

The Overseer could move faster than any of them could. Even him. He'd thought his level and his stats could at least be more of a barrier —

"I will," he told Sev, putting his doubts to the side. Misa nodded at him seriously, getting into position. Vex sat down to meditate. Sev began casting, lights slowly glimmering into existence around him. Motes of silvery brilliance drew into the focus he held in his fist.

The Overseer descended.

The mana, previously churning in visible waves of tattered light, had settled down into barely-visible distortions in the air — and behind them, the Overseer was finally fully visible.

It was a mockery of something humanoid and bipedal, compressed energy making the barest attempt at a body. Twisted light strung together into limbs that were just a little too long and a little too thick; its fists were malformed things, fingers glued back into its own construct like it didn't quite understand what they were for.

And then, of course, there were the eyes. Far too many eyes, the sizes different and wrong, with no pupils or irises to speak of. If not for the shape, they would barely seem like eyes at all, and yet looking at them gave Derivan the distinct feeling of being watched —

A smile cracked open in the mana that made up the Overseer's body. Cracked. The energy seemed to ripple and twist, and it seemed almost like the mana itself had been permanently rent. There was an echo of pain from something that wasn't the Overseer.

Derivan charged again.

He was more careful, this time. [Paralyzing Slash] hadn't worked, but a grapple for [Consume] was still his best bet for time; all he had to do was get somewhere the Overseer wouldn't reach. A grapple counted as long as he was holding on to the target. He didn't need to actually pin the Overseer down.

Still wearing the same jagged, almost pained-looking smile, the Overseer reached down to swat him away. It was a strike that would kill him, and it moved too fast for him to dodge.

No.

Disguise Status activated.

Level 86 —> Level 43

Stat and skill suppression activated.

Maximum health reduced.

Maximum MP reduced.

The hit struck him, sending him flying, but it didn't kill him, [Oneshot Protection] activating again. [Disguise Status] only reduced his maximum health; it didn't adjust his health percentage as a whole.

Which, well, was stupid. It was an obvious oversight. But it worked.

He hadn't been sure it would. Derivan took a breath he didn't need to take, then slammed his sword into the ground to kill his momentum. A split second later, he'd deactivated [Disguise Status] to charge forward again.

The Overseer was underestimating him; he'd paid attention to exactly what it had done. It attacked him as soon as he was within reach. It wasn't guaranteed that it would do the same thing twice, but that was often the pattern that other monsters followed, for reasons he didn't yet understand.

He didn't wait for the Overseer to attack — he didn't have the speed to dodge out of the way. Derivan jumped as soon as he was within reach, anticipating the attack.

It came.

The blow was powerful enough that the drag force pulled him along with it; Derivan went along with the flow, knowing he had only a split second of confusion in which he could act. He needed to get behind the Overseer. The change in his momentum helped. He darted to the side, leapt —

And clung to the Overseer's back.

It helped a lot that the Overseer's chosen body plan was, frankly, terrible. Long arms gave it better reach, but it couldn't maneuver them into position to hit him, and it didn't have the joints. He didn't know what skills the Overseer had, either, but as long as he could hold on for a second —

[Buff [Satiated] applied!]

The Overseer vanished in a flare of black light. Derivan fell to the ground, almost stunned that it had worked.

It was only enough to guarantee them five seconds, but five seconds was a lot in combat.

"...What happened?" Misa asked. She didn't ask if he'd won; she knew from the tension in his posture that he had not. But Derivan didn't have time to answer.

He'd gained skills, and they needed information. He glanced through what he'd gained as quickly as he could, flicking copies off to Vex and Misa at the same time; Sev couldn't receive system boxes while preparing [Divine Communion].

[Creature of Mana] [Passive] [No Grade] [Temporary]

You are born of mana and made of mana. Any mana-based spell effect that would be turned against you is altered to your benefit, whether to strike down your foes or to reinforce your form.

As an additional benefit, your physical form holds no true shape. You may, through an act of concentration, change the appearance of your form.

[Overseer] [Passive] [No Grade] [Temporary]

Skill description and functionality not available. Locked to administrator access.

[Creature of Chaos] [Active] [No Grade] [Temporary]

Shape mana to your will, imbuing it with the very essence of Chaos. Mana manipulated by you will be unstable in form and aspect, shifting rapidly until all possibilities are exhausted.

As an additional benefit, slow down or speed up the entropic progression of any object or creature with an act of concentration.

Derivan didn't know how [Creature of Mana] would affect Vex's spell; he trusted the mage to figure it out. If it was too risky to cast, he wouldn't cast it, and they would hope that Sev's spell would give them a way out of this situation. He knew very little about [Divine Communion], for Sev had never truly explained what it was, only that it could save them if they were caught in an impossible situation. It seemed powerful, but the fact that it could only be used once and had a cast time that made it nearly useless in combat made it... difficult to work with.

[Overseer] was... interesting. But there was nothing he could do with it.

[Creature of Chaos] was concerning. Clearly, whatever the Overseer was, it hadn't seen him as enough of a threat to use that ability. Derivan didn't know what entropic progression was, but it didn't sound good. He would have to make sure that the Overseer didn't get the opportunity to concentrate.

There wasn't much he could do about the first part of the skill. He'd just have to deal with it.

Two seconds had passed. Derivan felt something in his soul seem to shiver.

Three.

Something inside his soul seemed to snap. Derivan felt a strange sense of impossible vertigo for a moment, as something occupied the same space as him; he'd never experienced his [Satiated] buff failing early before. He was thrown back violently, and he only barely managed to catch himself and prevent damage.

But five seconds hadn't yet passed.