BAB3 -Chapter 38

# Chapter 38: Butterfly Effect

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Xay’s awareness snapped back to the battlefield.

He was still holding Rox’s body in his arms, and Piper’s dagger was inches from his face, with her body unmoving.

The twilight black butterflies swirled faster and faster, forming spirals of motion until reality folded around them like origami.

Color bled into monochrome lines. Black-and-white images of the last several minutes played in reverse around him.

Xay saw himself arriving to kick Piper away. Saw the moment she cultivated Rox’s essence.

Rox’s fall. Her final smile. The daggers in her back. The moment she stopped herself from striking the boy Piper had pulled in.

Xay made his decision.

The Rox in his arms disappeared, and she was once again fighting Piper in close-quarters combat.

This time, when Piper yanked the cord—there was nothing there.

Xay had teleported the boy to the backlines. Rox continued her swing, the edge of her axe biting deep into Piper’s forearm, and nearly severing it.

The twilight butterflies vanished, along with Dragon and the visage of Xay’s Bloodline Resonance.

Xay, Rox, and Piper slipped back into the natural flow of time. The world around them had never stopped, but their fate had changed.

Rox was alive.

“What?!” Piper screamed, agony and rage twisting her face. “This isn’t what happened! I killed you! You’re dead! What is this?!”

“My good fortune,” Rox murmured, glancing over at Xay.

“Fine, I’ll just kill you again!” Piper snarled, splinting her injured arm with two daggers.

“Together?” Xay asked, glancing at Rox out of the corner of his eye while watching Piper’s every move.

“Together,” she confirmed, dropping her axe to the ground as her skin began to crystallize.

*Elemental Force Ward* poured over Xay’s body as he teleported behind Piper and activated *Martial Burst Engine*.

Rox stalked forward, triggering her *Juggernaut Drive* just as Piper lunged.

Three daggers flew toward Rox’s face, but Xay batted them away with *Supreme Psychokinesis*.

Rox met Piper with a brutal punch to the solar plexus.

Xay was right behind her, slamming a sharp knee into Piper’s kidney as Rox followed with an uppercut.

They both dropped into World Tortoise Style, grounding their lower bodies as their upper bodies wailed on Piper.

Xay and Rox met one another’s force opposite Piper, accepted it, multiplied it, then sent it back through Piper in a shattering burst that folded her across her own spine.

Unable to land another blow, and thrashed from all sides with mounting force, Piper didn’t stand a chance.

Over the span of several minutes, she was brutalized, folded, and broken, again and again.

Their blows compounded faster and faster, creating shockwaves until neither Rox nor Xay could stand the bruised and bloodied sight of her anymore.

Rox channeled her built-up momentum into the spiral of her vital energy. She touched Xay’s hand, and he absorbed it, letting it merge with his own as he activated a technique.

The crushing force of mountains, avalanches, rockslides, and tidal waves rotated in Xay’s outstretched hand.

He touched Piper’s chest with *Tranquil Palm*, just above her core.

She convulsed. Her bones shattered. Her organs burst. Her blood vessels unraveled. Her skin peeled away. Her core cracked and dissolved.

In an instant, Piper was reduced to nothing more than rust-colored flecks that blew away in the wind.

Before Rox could blink, Xay was hugging her as tightly as he could. She hugged him back, turning her head away from where Piper had once stood.

“Don’t ever fucking do that again,” Xay demanded.

“Yeah, I don’t plan on it. Dying fucking sucks.”

Xay snorted as he pulled back and met her eyes. “I’m serious. You’re not allowed to die.”

Rox smirked. “Well, when you put it like that.”

Exhaling, Xay stepped back—and finally noticed a third orb in his *Orbital Array*.

It was larger than the other two, and its surface was covered in tiny, metallic crystalline scales. Two glittering white butterfly wings were suspended in the center.

*Butterfly Effect* had temporarily consumed Dragon, and Xay had no idea how long it would take for her to revert to her normal form.

He could still feel her across his bond. It was as if she were in a very deep sleep.

But Xay didn’t have long to feel sad over it. He was on a battlefield, and the Blood Moon was still happening around him.

After a quick scan, Xay saw that some Awakened from his quadrant had moved on to help take down the bosses in the others, after the Thorin Behemoth had fallen early.

There was also an absolutely massive tree—that felt like Tyra—in the middle of the battlefield for some reason. Though it was starting to disappear.

Still, Xay wasn’t taking any more chances. Grabbing Rox’s hand, he teleported them both to the backlines.

There was a traumatized guy he needed to have a word with.

He also needed to apologize to Ezra for snatching Dragon out from under her.

***

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Kimi extinguished the remaining fires and sprinted back into the CEO’s office.

Lexi was already behind the desk, working furiously at the holoscreen.

“The asshole left a literal kill-switch,” Lexi growled through clenched teeth. “If his command protocols get overridden, the NeuroSync implants shut down—killing the hosts.”

“What do we do?” Kimi asked, stepping behind her.

“I just let my mom into the system,” Lexi said, slumping back in the chair. “All we can do now is wait, and hope she can fix it.”

“Done!”

A small hologram of Talulah popped up on the desk, grinning widely.

Lexi snorted, while Kimi smiled behind her.

“I’ve uploaded a new firmware to the implants,” Talulah said brightly. “It wipes out that vile control nonsense, but it’ll take at least fifteen minutes to propagate through every device in the city.”

“Then we’ve got one more mission,” Kimi said, already heading to the door.

“Yeah,” Lexi agreed, glancing at the bodies scattered around the room. “The worst of the fighting was on the bottom floor. We need to make sure no one else dies before the update finishes.”

Lexi and Kimi vanished, one through a *Dark Passage*, the other in a swirl of *Iridescent Pirouette*.

***

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Tyra, Ezra, and Shifu Wu met Xay and Rox near the guy that Piper had used.

His name was Omar, and he was a complete mess.

Terrified, crying, and jumpy, Ezra’s spirits had been holding him down by the time Xay even got there.

He clearly remembered Piper throwing him into harm’s way, but he was still begging for her, nearly hyperventilating.

Xay had no idea what she had done to him, but it was honestly sad.

He was maybe a year younger than Xay, but had obviously lived a very different life.

They didn’t get much out of him—just that he came from one of those Project Arc communes. Beyond that, he was uncooperative and did not make much sense.

He hadn’t seen Piper die, and Xay thought that was for the best. Xay didn’t think the guy could handle it.

In the end, they had one of the Vermilion Group staff escort him back into the mining zone for his safety.

They couldn’t afford to keep watch over him in the backlines for long.

The final wave was coming.

Once Omar was gone, Tyra threw her arms around Xay, while Ezra and Shifu Wu inspected Rox thoroughly.

“Are you okay?” they all asked simultaneously, then glanced at one another.

“I felt your pain,” Tyra said, looking into Xay’s eyes.

“I saw your body,” Ezra said softly, very confused about Rox standing there.

“I’m not certain what I saw,” Shifu Wu said.

Xay quickly explained his Resonance Break, careful to leave out the part about Primordial and Primeval Gods for now.

He had no idea how to break that to everyone.

“I’m so sorry,” Tyra whispered, her voice thick with emotion.

“A form of resurrection that bends time?” Shifu Wu asked, still shocked, but also impressed.

“I guess,” Rox shrugged. “I’m fine now. Just a little tired. Never really had a miracle performed on me before.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re still with us,” Ezra said softly.

“Your Bloodline Resonance triggered mine, too,” Tyra added, turning to Xay. “It probably happened to Lexi and Kimi as well.”

Xay only had time to check in with them telepathically—just enough to confirm they were okay—before new monster types began to spawn.

The third wave was here.

***

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The final wave was the real reason the heads of the Big 5 couldn’t just rush back in to help the city.

They needed to be here.

The first of the new monsters was all muscle and madness—charging forward on clawed hooves that shattered stone and snapped spines beneath them.

**Taowu Ravager (S-Rank) Lv. 50**: *Ravenous warbeasts that slaughter for pleasure, trampling the weak beneath clawed hooves. Touched by Taowu Essence*.

The next crawled low and screamed high, their mouths yawning into impossible shapes that warped the air and fractured the minds of anyone too close.

**Taowu Shriek (S-Rank) Lv. 50**: *Wailing terrors that weaponize agony, cracking stone and sanity with every scream. Touched by Taowu Essence.*

The third slithered in from the edges, wearing the faces of the dead. Their bodies shifted with each step—flesh to bone to something unspeakable—never holding one shape for long.

**Taowu Aberrant (S-Rank) Lv. 50**: *Shifting horrors born from greed unbound, mimicking what they see to lure more prey. Touched by Taowu Essence.*

And behind them, the last loomed like heralds of collapse. Massive, slow-moving monstrosities that radiated decay.

Their eyes burned with a bottomless hunger, and anything that met their gaze began to bow without even realizing it.

**Taowu Tyrant (S-Rank) Lv. 50**: *Dominating monsters that hoard power and servitude, reducing rivals to ash or obedience. Touched by Taowu Essence.*

The Awakened forces at the front began to buckle, their lines threatening to collapse as they pulled back in tactical retreats.

Then the walls rose.

Four complex barriers erupted around the battlefield, each sealing its quadrant off from the backlines. This marked a clear shift in the direction of the fight.

In the Vermilion quadrant, a thick golden wall of fire burst upward, bright enough to blind.

In the Bathory quadrant, a dense black blood mist rose like a living curtain, pulsing and breathing on its own.

Arges’s quadrant split between a sudden flood of sparkling blue sand, while a glacial wall of silver water rose in the Lapis quadrant.

The backlines were officially sealed off.

The co-heads and second-in-commands had entered the fight.

At the heart of the Vermilion quadrant, Emanuel Vermilion stood atop a floating disk of pure heat, his arms spread wide.

Columns of flame spiraled around him, rising into the sky and casting long, flickering shadows across the scorched ground.

His voice rolled like thunder.

“From flame, fury! From fury, salvation!”

The ground cracked and split beneath him as fire erupted from the depths. The entire quadrant glowed and its foundation melted into volcanic stone.

Rivers of lava carved through scorched channels that hadn’t existed moments before.

This was Emanuel’s Territory: *Burning Sanctuary*.

Territories were advanced Bloodline Abilities that allowed Awakened to reshape a small part of the world, bending it to their will and intent.

Every Awakened within range instantly felt the shift. Their bodies moved lighter and faster, driven by a fervor that wasn’t entirely their own.

Their attacks grew more explosive. Strikes burned hotter and landed heavier. Flame techniques blazed brighter, stretched wider, and ignited on contact.

Even Xay’s *Psi Element* flame reacted, dual torrents roaring through the wall, burning with a sparkling silver-white intensity.

Above them, dark smoke churned and gathered in the sky.

From its depths, Emanuel summoned golden drops of liquid flame that rained across the quadrant, impaling monsters mid-charge and igniting them from the inside out.

In the next quadrant over, Ilona Bathory moved without a word, her heels splashing in shallow pools of blood that hadn’t been there seconds before.

The blood wall pulsed behind her like a living ruby, and black mist spread from her presence, clinging to skin and bone.

She raised a single hand.

“May they drown in what they’ve spilled.”

The entire quadrant answered.

Blood pooled beneath every Awakened, rising to cling to their bodies—sealing wounds, hardening skin, and bolstering vitality.

For the enemy, something far worse occurred.

Monstrous bodies bulged as blood rebelled inside them.

Shrieks gagged mid-scream. Aberrants burst from within. Even the Tyrants faltered as red mist thickened in their throats.

From that mist came blood beasts: fanged wolves, engorged rats, sharp-winged bats, and coiling serpents.

Each one ripped into its host's flesh, shredding its way free from the inside out with the ferocity of caged animals.

This was Ilona’s Territory: *Sanguine Benediction*.

Florin Arges stood in silence as sand consumed his quadrant. The barrier had already risen, but now the world itself bent to his will.

He pressed one hand to the ground, and blue dunes rippled outward.

“From soaring heights to shadowed depths, all are swallowed by the sands of time.”

The ground shifted beneath the monsters, dry earth turning to flowing, moist sand that transformed the terrain into a massive, sinking trap.

Florin raised his staff and rotated the hourglass embedded in its head.

Every monster in the quadrant slowed to half speed, while the Awakened moved twice as fast.

Ravagers charging forward found their hooves sinking deep, their momentum drained with each step. The harder they pushed, the heavier they became, slowing every breath and every thought.

For the Awakened, the dunes flowed like water. Their movements sharpened, and their senses cleared.

Each blow landed with unerring, mechanical precision.

This was Florin’s Territory: *Dune Tempo*.

In the Lapis quadrant, water crashed against the battlefield’s edge like a wave searching for a shore.

The water wall shimmered with pale moonlight, even beneath the Blood Moon’s baleful glare.

Vesper Lapis hovered above the ground, barefoot and still, encased in a slow-turning spiral of suspended droplets.

Her voice barely rose, but it carried clearly across the battlefield.

“The current flows uncontrolled, but the tides bind all.”

She lifted both arms, and it began to rain—soft, cold, and glowing silver.

Where the rain touched her allies, their wounds closed, their breath steadied, and their strength returned.

Where it touched the enemy, it burned.

A spectral moon formed high above, silver and perfect, untouched by the havoc below.

Beneath its light, water surged from the broken ground, forming a great current that tore through the ranks of Aberrants and Shrieks.

Ravagers stumbled. Tyrants howled and planted their feet, but the tide would not yield.

Then the current turned upward.

A cyclone of silver water spun into the sky, slicing into monsters with crushing pressure before crashing back down, only to rise again.

This was Vesper Lapis’ Territory: *Lunar Tide*.

Each quadrant had become a living extension of its commander’s will. The battlefield stabilized, but it was far from over.

The monsters kept coming.

Everyone fought with everything they had, sticking close to their squads, staying behind barriers, and unleashing devastating projectiles when they could.

The monsters were mindless, but relentless and heavily armored.

It took multiple Awakened—or a second-in-command—to make a dent in an S-Rank Level 50.

But just one of those monsters’ attacks could end an Awakened instantly.

Still, they fought on.

Because there was light at the end of the tunnel.