Beyond The System-Chapter 289: Return of Rage

I didn’t wait, charging in the instant she spoke.

My control and awareness spiked as everything inside me turned on. The others behind me moved too.

Before I even reached her, several thin blade fragments flashed past my shoulders, launching toward the young woman.

She smirked, but said nothing, just lifted a hand and waving it lazily through the air.

And yet… nothing.

My skin crawled. Goosebumps rose and my hair stood on end. There was nothing to see, no flare, no glow, no impact.

But I could feel it.

The danger.

Without a sound, each of Elric’s blades froze mid-flight as if they’d struck something solid then stopped dead. And the problem was, the ten pieces weren’t moving in a neat line. They were flying in different patterns, erratic arcs, and every single one was halted.

Something inside me screamed to move.

A ripple.

With a sharp suck of air, I dove sideways, landing only paces from her as a gust snapped through the space between us, waving her deep-red hair back behind her shoulders.

“Oh?” she hummed, actually surprised.

Thea flashed in front of her with a bang, spear already in hand, thrusting straight at the Starborn.

CLANG!

The spear clad in violet-red lightning hit something invisible. But the impact gave us a clue: a shimmer, a clear pane catching light for a heartbeat.

A refraction line coiled with sparks around a barrier-work unlike anything I’d seen. For the briefest moment, clear geometric shapes linked together at the edges separated before snapping back and knitting into the main body. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

The sound rang out through the village.

It vibrated, sending more unseen ripples through the flow of Force.

But there was nothing I could do.

“AHHH!”

Behind us, screams burst from the crowd. Some people dropped to their knees, clutching their ears and shaking.

I felt it too.

It speared through me, striking skin, then driving deeper into bone. And deeper still. Even my Internal Realm shuddered under the shockwave, an immense flare of pain ripping through me.

“Thea—”

I didn’t have time to finish.

The red-headed woman raised both arms and took a single step forward.

Thea was flattened against an unseen wall the next moment then launched backward at high speed.

“CATCH HER!” I screamed, forcing myself upright through the pain.

If that vibration shook me from this far, I couldn’t imagine what it did to her at the point of impact.

A torrent of flame erupted around the woman then, in the same breath, it was snuffed out before it could even grow. Sia stood wreathed in a red glow, gripping a red-gold staff as her hair whipped wildly around her.

Before I could charge, that danger prickled again.

So I dove forward, feeling something brush my robes, and a piece of it tore at the hem near my feet.

The robes Sei prepared.

Still, I landed in front of her.

The Starborn’s eyes crossed toward me as my fist drove out. She moved back like it was nothing, gliding without moving her feet, raising another hand.

BANG!

“RNG,” I grunted, the sensation from before magnified several times. It blasted through my ears from the inside as a brutal pressure that made my teeth rattle.

My eyes narrowed, but I didn’t stop.

She moved back again.

There could’ve been several reasons, but my guess was simple. She didn’t want to take my hit.

DING! DING! DING!

Elric’s blades returned in full force, harmlessly clinking off in multiple spots around her. She huffed a quick breath through her nose and snapped two fingers together, pointing toward Elric as he came up behind her.

Blood was already leaking from his nose and mouth in what I guessed was a backlash from whatever her barrier’s resonance was doing through his Spiritual Weapon.

SWIP!

A line of red bloomed across his arm, a spurt exiting cleanly the other side. Maybe he sensed the next a fraction before it happened because he jumped the next instant, and another bloom of blood tore open his leg where his head had been moments ago.

Still, he didn’t stop. His fragments snapped back together, gathering into a complete sword. Flame breathed along its edge as he slammed it downward.

“Peter!” he shouted in the same instant it happened.

Of course, I had no plan to stop either.

A surge of power swept through me and my mind cleared.

Blades formed in my palms of ice condensing from low pressure, freezing into a solid state. More solid than usual. Red lines warped through them in fractured veins, and violet energy spread from my gloves into the ice, feeding it, reinforcing it.

BOOM!

We struck at the same time.

I felt my energy bleeding outward and at the same moment, something rushed into me. Pain far greater than before, abrupt and crushing. A reflection of my power.

Cr—Crack.

One of those polygons appeared, flaring a bright gold before it shattered into small nodes of light.

Elric was thrown back the next instant, hurled away just as quickly as Thea had been. He hit the ground hard, rolling, crumpling, and sliding straight into the crowd.

I blinked.

“How…”

It was only one.

Stolen story; please report.

One each.

The barrier hadn’t shattered, only a part of it had. The cracks spread only to the edges of a single fragment, then stopped. Because it had disconnected from the rest.

My internals shuddered as I met her eyes.

There was fire in them now.

But not pain.

Just fury.

Her fingers spread wide then curled inward.

Behind.

From the front, there was a wall.

From the back… I didn’t know. But I knew it wasn’t good.

I couldn’t react in time. That much was clear.

But something did.

Crawling in without my noticing. Without anyone noticing, a blanket of dark scales unfolded across my back, stretching into place.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

It struck me in multiple places, dimples forming where the impacts landed, but nothing pierced through.

The Snake’s scales were tough.

Thea’s slime shuddered with each hit, then slowly fell away, condensing back into its usual shape. From behind it, a shard of ice formed wrapped in visible Air Force and fire, energy circulating tightly around it.

SWISH!

It cut through the air, straight through the gap I’d opened with my blades.

“AHHH!”

She screeched.

The icicle punched through her side, exiting cleanly from the other, but it lacked the overwhelming force from before.

Tsss…

She didn’t stop shuddering as the coiled energy continued to gnaw at her from within.

I pushed forward, slamming my shoulder into the full barrier.

“MOVE!” she shouted, throwing her hands out.

The three of us were blasted backward, but there was no resonance that pierced through me this time.

It’s not the same ability.

That realization snapped into me.

Flickering.

They were all flickering now. Her defenses were stuttering, unstable, but just a heartbeat later, the smaller barriers vanished again.

Bristle was panting heavily as the slime hopped onto him, wrapping around his body like a layer of armor.

If I’m faster…

Before she could act again, a dark spear was thrown only to ring uselessly against the barrier. Thea had moved again, rushing forward.

And this time, instead of gliding, the Starborn girl took a step back.

A real step.

She was affected.

As if she’d read my thoughts, Thea shouted, “Don’t take too long!”

Fire wrapped around her as a concentrated, pinpoint-like dot of radiating energy streaked past her.

Elric was back on his feet beside Sia, only controlling his blades without moving.

Our eyes met.

Our attacks were nearly useless… and in moments, everyone could be dealt with. Seconds, at most.

Still, when he nodded, I understood.

They wouldn’t stop.

They would keep me safe.

I turned to Bristle.

“Just a few seconds.”

Then I sat and closed my eyes.

Instantly, I dropped into my Inner World.

“Peter?! What are you doing in here?!” Drybel shouted, already aware of the chaos outside.

I ignored him, reaching for the cord of fully converted Animora.

Last time, the change came after only a few seconds of contact.

Soon, I would feel the familiar, comfortable tingling along my scalp. The sensation of something sprouting.

One… Two… Three.

“Dammit, come on,” I hissed.

Of course, it wasn’t the same feeling as when Thea had been rubbing the ears, but the second time I’d transformed, there had been some sensation to it.

Five…

“Peter, you need to—” Drybel started, but I cut him off.

“I need to be faster!”

There hadn’t been enough time in the last opening. Even with all my speed, in those fractions of a second, she could adjust.

But her body was weak.

Now I understood the clear terror of Starborn.

Or at least this one.

And why Sei could handle the previous one.

Once you broke through that unreal, impossible magical power, they would be vulnerable. But getting through it took everything in me.

I was enough. Just as I had been when I managed to strike Sei once.

Nine… Ten—

I felt it.

My eyes snapped open.

For half a heartbeat, everything moved in slow motion.

And Elric was already there.

Right in front of me, half-turned with fragments of his weapon scattered on the ground, some dissolving into nothing but golden dust.

His body heaved up and down.

Behind him, the slime again was stretched wide, but pierced through.

And with arms wrapped around my neck—

Thea.

Blood pooled under her. Under him.

My heart stopped, and my breathing turned heavy.

My chest hitched.

She looked into my eyes, lifting her head.

There was too much.

Gashes covered her abdomen.

Sia screamed from further away.

“They’re cute,” she said with a smile.

Thea went limp.

Elric slumped forward.

The slime shuddered, then spilled over Thea, wrapping around her tight.

And the woman was still standing there.

Not a single hair out of place.

A crazed glint in her eyes.

And a smile.

A fucking smile.

My breath stuttered.

Then sound drained out of the world.

The village. The screaming. The ringing barrier. All of it fell away.

There was only the sight of her and the weight of Thea against me.

When I moved, I was already in front of her.

No thought. No plan.

Everything inside me slid into alignment smoothly.

Claws extended from my fingers.

Violet energy laced through them, threading the joints, hardening the edges, turning my hands into something else.

I swiped with my right.

Neon light filmed over the claws, then surged past them, coating the blades that extended beyond each nail. The air tore with the motion.

My strike met that shimmering surface, and fire burst outward on impact, crawling across the barrier in furious tongues.

She kept smiling.

She had recovered. Her confidence had grown in the time I was…

My left hand formed into a dense block, heavy as a hammer, and I brought it down from high to low in a straight drop.

Another burst of fire bloomed across the shimmer.

Behind her, an explosion even greater than mine detonated, like a sun compressed into a singularity of power.

Sia’s controlled energy wrapped around mine, the heat washing over even me.

My hands burned. My insides shook.

It didn’t matter.

Because she stepped back.

Another real step.

Her hands seemed to move, but to my eyes it was like she was dragging them through water.

It was slow.

Still, the attacks came with every fraction of that motion.

So I only moved what I had to. My head and neck by a hair’s breadth.

I struck again.

And again.

Her smile twitched, not gone yet.

But no longer effortless.

Because my movements were too fast now.

There was no preparation, no draw before an attack.

I curled my fingers into a drill, then drove forward.

SHATTER!

Was it really that easy? To make fear bloom in her eyes like this?

The moment my hand broke through, each finger spread.

It had been a while since I used it.

An Air Lance formed along every finger.

The energy of Blasting Wave was packed into them, sealed tight and ready to burst.

She opened her mouth.

I knew that.

There was something she wanted to say.

Swip. Swip. Swip. Swip. Swip.

Five bullets lodged into her.

They didn’t pass through, staying exactly where I planted them.

One in each shoulder.

Then her thighs.

And finally, her stomach.

Less than a second later, everything that was her ceased to exist.

She had trapped herself.

I only saw the blast, not hearing it.

Even as it tore through each piece of the barrier, my hand waved.

Sensory Veil overlapped with pressure, and my power stayed contained.

When it cleared, all that remained was charred ground rimmed with frost.

The Starborn had been killed.