Alien Massacre

“Where are you three coming from?” 

“I’m not dealing with this.” I give the man with his arms crossed a weird look before I start flying towards the battlefield. I’m not wasting my time dealing with this guy when I have people to save.

“Well fuck you too I guess!” Through the portal the aliens start marching, massive lightning rods rapidly being deployed causing my eyes to widen. God dammit, they fucking prepared for me! 

I rocket to the ground and ramp up my Mana Boost in case a stray blast goes for me. Then suddenly I feel amazing! Mana Boost in its upgraded state improves my physical body to an obscene degree. I feel like I could get shot right now and just walk it off with ease.

If I didn’t have Gaia backing me up I wouldn’t be able to sustain this at all, but with her power I can keep this going for a long time.

“Can you hear me on the other side of the line?” 

“Yes, now why aren’t you hitting them with everything you’ve got?” I give a strangled sigh before continuing.

“They brought lighting rods, that isn’t going to work this time. I make a volcano, hit this place with a tsunami, or crush everything with an earthquake but a lot of people will die and collateral damage will be immense.” There’s a pause for a moment before I hear a curse.

“Shit, how long will it take you if I need you to do it?” I give the air a weird look as I fly into the sea of aliens and start popping their heads with my fists. Gaia’s power stormed through my body allowing me to easily kill them each in one strike.

“I have other options too, I’m not just a weather machine.” I feel anger at the thought of wiping a city off the map, and the Global Defense Agency willing to do it immediately if need be. Gaia comforts me as blood splatters on my helmet from another dead alien.

Gaia’s swirling emotions hit me and I understand the GDA a bit better with that. Her regret, her sadness, her anger, but ultimately her resolve. She is willing to kill the few to save the many, though luckily I’m currently strong enough to prevent that right now it's the cruel reality.

I crush another skull as Mark barrels past me and slams into more aliens. I’ll just get so strong I won’t need to get anyone else hurt. Gunfire pelts towards me and Thought Castle is the only reason I’ve been able to stay focused while my mind wanders. 

Then all the sudden I’m hit by some ball-like device that tried to attach itself to me, instead of allowing such a thing to happen I channeled dense wind mana into it causing it to burst. Pulling myself away from only focusing on myself I take a look at how my allies are doing.

They actually seem to be doing alright, I’ve drawn a lot of the focus of the enemies. Probably because I was the one who drove them off last time. Then they start . . . wilting? What? After a moment they start fleeing back through their portal causing my eyes to narrow.

I send raw earth mana spiraling outwards and cover the portal before most of them can get out. They start firing at it with their rifles but a bomb goes off from the Robot guy and kills a large group of them.

Did they actually think they could invade our planet, kill our people, hurt our world, and get away without any consequences?

My breathing turns heavy as the blood stains my fists causing me to pause. They were weak compared to the Hunter. The Hunter could still kill me as I am now, I’d put up more of a fight but if it didn’t get cocky I would die. 

“Are you alright? You killed a lot of them . . .” Mark flies down next to me as I look at my hands and then clench them tightly. The portal closes as I turn to him.

“I don’t like killing.” I turned to him, my expression shielded by my helmet. “There should have been a better way to solve this.” I was being honest. I honestly just wish they’d never come back. Or the next time it would be an apology or just something that meant I didn’t have to slaughter them like animals.

“Well you definitely tricked me, you practically ripped them apart. I thought you were supposed to be Weather Boy or something? Just don’t do that to me and we won’t have a problem!”

“You did good today, kid. You did what had to be done . . . Just focus on getting stronger for now. We might be needing you to fight an impossible battle soon.” My heart pounds in my chest as Gaia sends me an uneasy look. He’s awake isn’t he? I get a nod.

[Flaxan Fiasco II]

[Defeat the Flaxan invaders, Succeeded. 2 Villainy]

[Prevent Civilian Deaths up to 100. Succeeded 2 Heroism.]

[Prevent Collateral Damage up to 100,000,000 USD. Failed.]

Honestly I don’t know if I’m ever going to get those collateral damage ones. Dammit. Just roll it. I’ll throw the points into Intelligence, I can feel like I’m on the cusp of a breakthrough in my magic. There’s just a tiny barrier in the way stopping me from reaching it!

Rolling 4d6.

+1 Strength. +1 Constitution. +1 Intelligence. +1 Wisdom.

[Status]

Name: Emile Shemmer

Class: Wizard 4

STR: 13

DEX: 11

CON: 11

INT: 21

WIS: 15

CHR: 17

Skills:

• Mana Flux II

• Planetary Heartbeat III

• Mana Boost II

• Formulization II

Perks:

• Thought Castle

Equipment:

• Pure Jewel of Lead

• Walking With Birds

• Magic and How Not to Accidently Kill Yourself

• Mop of Cleaning

• Hermes Ichor

“Sorry, I have to go.” I fly upwards and start talking to the director on the other side of the line.

“I’m going into another dimension for a while, I don’t think I’ll get a signal. Will you need me now?”

“No, and don’t talk about it anymore. We don’t know who could be listening.” I give a curt nod to empty air before tossing off my helmet into a nearby dumpster.

Suddenly Invincible flies right past at me at an insane speed, guess he’s in a rush as well. I feel Gaia tremble slightly at the thought causing my eyes to narrow. Anything I should worry about? She doesn’t answer for a moment before shaking her head, a faint hope lingering in her eyes.

If Gaia thinks it's alright then it should be alright. Definitely something I should keep an eye on though . . . I flew off and knew I had to get back to being a Bookworm. I went to the library and sent a message to my boss about my plan with a whisper.

“I’m going to try and get some new offensive magic, please be ready to pick me up.”

“Hold on.” My expression became a weird mix of confusion and slight annoyance before taking a seat on a couch. There was no way I was going back to school after that incident, and I’d much rather read a book than anything.

I kept reading Walking With Birds and I’d actually started to piece something together before I was interrupted through my ear.

“False alarm. We’ll have people ready to pick you up in an hour. They’ll be on standby for 24 hours unless you need more time.”

“That should be good . . . thank’s Director.”

“Stay safe. We’ll need you soon.” 

I peered at the portal and my eyes narrowed at its yellow glow. 

[Library of Mavidra]

[This library was opened to commoners as a good place to learn fundamental magic and become more useful members of society. However a terrible curse has spread throughout and each floor has different awakened objects that claimed the library as their own. Reclaim the library for magic users who simply desire to further themselves in pursuit of helping others.]

[Stage Two Unlocked]

[Animated Books]

[Enchanted Books]

So I can’t go back to the previous stage and just grab another Enchanted book and get out. Looks like I’ll have to fight multiple Enchanted books instead. This could be a risk, but it’s a risk I’ll have to take.

I stepped through the portal and instantly I took note of my current objectives.

[Clear Enchanted Books 0/4]

[Secret: ???]

That’s not a lot of objectives . . . certainly something to keep in mind is that I don’t have an easy escape. Gaia’s mana roared through my body and I had a light stretch as I took in my surroundings. 

I was a lot higher than where I was previously, Planetary Heartbeat allowing me to gauge where I was in this massive place by using the gigantic source of corruption at the top as a signifier. It felt a little bit weird to use my mail service with Gaia as a compass but the usefulness of such a thing wasn’t to be underestimated.

Looking up I was about halfway up from where I was before, I could only assume that I was really getting into the real magic section of the Library now. It was a scary thought but I was more excited if anything. 

This was my real chance to gain magic of different types that could help me massively in the future.

The massive room had paintings all around that depicted different landscapes and fostered a peaceful vibe that helped me relax. I spotted an old sofa and decided to take a seat, the inviting atmosphere of the place taking me away from my reminder that I was probably about to be attacked.

I sat upon it for a moment and my senses screamed at me, mana had gathered from nearby and I flew out of the way as dark and shadow like tendrils stabbed into where I was just seated. The sofa had been ripped apart and I threw a glare at the book with a black claw symbol upon the cover.

“Couldn’t you at least spared me five minutes?” Instead of responding tiny black spell circles appeared and shot needles of darkness towards my form. I activated ‘Atmosphere’ by pouring dense mana into it and buffeted them away as I glared at the book. My eyes scanned the surrounding area and many of the other books had dense mana within, yet at the moment they seemed to be resting.

I could try and blow this entire place up, but if I fail to destroy the books required for me to leave I’ll be fighting an entire army of magic. That’s something I’d like to avoid if possible, I’ve had enough of fighting a massive group of foes for one day.

I fired off a bullet of wind mana and to my annoyance the book fell into a shadow before appearing right behind me. A black tendril raced towards my stomach and I reinforced the area with a Mana Boost but the attack still drew blood as it tore through my back side. 

I pressed the Mana Boost into my entire body after throwing the pure jewel of lead at the thing, causing it to stagger and fall to the ground while slowly slinking into darkness.

You aren’t going to be able to do that twice. 

I grabbed the book and the action pulled it away from the jewel allowing it to do something that terrified me. I felt the ‘darkness’ within my flesh threaten to burst from my skin. The insides of my veins screamed at me in pain as the tendrils rushed through my arm.

I threw the book away and the feeling receded as I paled. If that got to my heart I would have died. I clutched my now bloody arm and sent a spike of earth at the bastard. A shield of black energy manifested over the incoming rock as I re added the jewel of lead to my inventory.

I’ll be needing that for later. I sent another blast of wind into the barrier but I found myself losing track of the Shadow book for a moment as I backed myself near the wall. My eyes scanned the area for the annoying little bastard but I couldn’t spot it.

Then I felt something wrap around me. My ears peeled down to the long grey limb in horror. The limb extended from one of the nearby paintings, and I attempted to fly away but the limb's grip was like unbreakable iron.

Then I was pulled inside the painted world.

AN: A lot happens in this chapter, Flaxans get slaughtered and realize they are having performance issues so far from home. Because of how quickly they were defeated last time the Flaxans didn’t realize the time stream disruption with a thing until this time!

We also go back to the library after Omniman wakes up in order to find something that might be of use . . . only to get kidnapped!

Feel free to leave any comments or questions down below, they help push me forward and I read every single one!

Thanks for reading and catch you next time!