My Wives Are A Divine Hive Mind-Chapter 182: Unwelcomed Entities

The rooftop air thrummed with the distant clamor of the invasion—shrieks of those chitinous forms slicing through the evening haze, punctuated by the sharper war cry and supernatural booms of human defiance below.

Yet Noirette's attention fixed on the figure emerging from the shadows at the far side of the roof, his silhouette cutting a precise line against the sodium glow of the city lights.

He moved with the unhurried certainty of someone accustomed to command, his business suit tailored sharp enough to slice the wind, as the fabric unmarred by the chaos unfolding mere blocks away.

A black steel mask concealed his features, its surface etched with faint circuits that pulsed dimly, like veins carrying some hidden current. The mask's lenses gleamed opaque.

"What is the reasoning for such a demand?" Noirette replied to the man's earlier statement.

The masked man paused, his head tilting fractionally as if recalibrating his assessment.

When he spoke again, the words flowed measured and direct, painting the situation with the efficiency of a field report.

"An invasion grips this district at present. The rift in the sky has unleashed entities that seek only consumption and ruin. Civilians are being guided to the underground safehouse bunkers, where reinforced barriers and suppression fields offer the chance to endure until the threat recedes."

His gloved hand gestured broadly toward the streets below, where flashes of azure fire and crackling barriers marked the efforts of those costumed figures Noirette had glimpsed earlier. "Yet you two stand apart from the flow. You observe with intent focus, unmoving as if anticipating the escalation rather than fleeing it. I witnessed the one in the hat—I presume—disrupt my Ego mere moments ago."

The term landed like an unfamiliar glyph in Noirette's thoughts, sharp and opaque.

Ego? As in a term of a form of power in this world maybe?

The masked man pressed on, undeterred by their silence. "That act alone marks you as interlopers. Either you possess no grasp of the peril, stumbling into the fray like fools bereft of sense, or you harbor designs that would undermine the efforts of the Heroes holding the line.

"Hostile elements cannot be tolerated when every second tips the balance toward collapse."

A low rumble swelled from the city's heart then, the ground trembling faintly beneath their feet as an explosion bloomed somewhere amid the tower clusters—a prismatic fireball unfurling in slow, voracious petals that licked at the smog before guttering out in a plume of acrid smoke.

Shards of glass tinkled like distant rain against the streets.

Noirette felt the vibration through her soles, a dull throb that resonated in her bones, but she did not shift her stance.

Blanchette merely tilted her head toward the flare, her expression one of detached appraisal, as if appraising a fleeting display of fireworks rather than a structure's demise.

Regardless, there seemed to be some sort of a misunderstanding, and Noirette wanted to avoid prolonging it if possible.

Before Noirette's first syllable escaped, however, a shift rippled through him, subtle as a gear clicking into lock.

His posture straightened, and without preamble, he extended one hand toward the rooftop's surface.

The concrete responded as if alive, veins of electric azure surging upward in sinuous coils.

They lashed out in tandem, forking toward Noirette and Blanchette like strikes from a fractured storm.

Blanchette moved first, her motion deceptively languid. She reached down as one might intercept a stray vine in a garden, fingers closing around the nearest coil with unyielding poise.

The plasma writhed in her grasp, spitting arcs that scorched the edges of her sleeve, but she held it fast, the energy buckling against her will like a serpent denied its strike.

Crimson undertones flickered along her arm, subtle reinforcements drawn from her own essence, though she expended no visible effort.

Noirette, by contrast, reacted with a surge of instinct honed from Fathomi's relentless trials.

She leaped sideways in a fluid arc, boots scraping a brief skid across the gravel-strewn surface before finding purchase.

As she landed, she channeled the ambient Malleable Essence—threads coalesced in a hasty lattice before her, hardening into a ward of translucent force that shimmered like heated glass.

The pursuing coils slammed against it, azure lengths splattering in futile sprays, as the barrier held firm.

The coils dissipated in crackling afterimages.

Annoyance flared hot in Noirette's chest, sharpening her voice to a blade's edge.

She rounded on the masked man, "Why did you strike before I could declare my intention, as you yourself demanded? We showed no hostile act, drawn here by chance alone, and your smartest choice of action is to attack us once again without waiting a moment for us to speak…?"

The man did not retreat.

Instead, he assumed a combat stance, knees bending slightly, one hand remaining outstretched while the other hovered near his suit's cuff, as if ready to unleash further summons.

The mask's lenses fixed on her, then flicked to Blanchette, who released the subdued coil with a casual flick, letting it retract into the ground in defeated curls.

"Your appearances betray you," the masked man stated, his tone hardening into accusation. "The foreign cut of your garments, the archaic flair of that hat—it speaks of origins beyond our borders, realms that bleed into ours with malice…

" You are Demons, spawn of the rifts from the Demonic Realm, and possible the catalyst that birth that dimensional gate above!"

Demons.

The word hung alien in Noirette's mind, another fragment of this world's lexicon that offered no purchase.

In this world, were they spectral foes, corrupted essences, or something baser still?

Annoyance coiled tighter in Noirette's gut, the repeated interruptions fraying her patience like thread under strain.

She extended her free hand, palm up, and drew upon the Malleable Essence once more—this time shaping it with deliberate intent.

The threads gathered swift and dense, condensing into the form of a compact pistol. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

She leveled it toward the masked man without flourish and squeezed the trigger.

The report cracked sharp, a single bullet lancing forth in a trail of compressed air.

The masked man reacted in kind, his will snapping downward to the rooftop once more. A fresh coil erupted, weaving a barrier of plasma that intercepted the projectile mid-flight.

The bullet embedded in the azure mass, momentum stolen as if caught in thickening sap—the energy around it flaring briefly before subsiding.

"As expected from your kind," the man said, his voice steady, laced with a grim satisfaction. "Demonic refuse that favors savagery over discourse, brute application over civility and reason!"

Noirette couldn't help but grin in absolute annoyance. "I fired because you are a paranoid fool who leaps to violence without cause!" she shouted back, "not because I bear any mark of your so-called Demons. We are strangers here, yes, but not your enemies, dammit!"

Blanchette stepped forward then, her wide smile unwavering, a counterpoint to the tension etching lines across Noirette's brow.

She placed a light hand on Noirette's shoulder, the touch was cool and grounding.

"It might be best to cease attempts at reasoning with them amid the heat of this battlefield," Blanchette said, her voice still playful and melodic, carrying the lilt of gentle counsel. "Words dissolve too easily in such clamor, might as well disperse from here and plan for our next step."

"Right, we're still at fault for being interdimensional strangers, regardless."

Then, suddenly, a staccato barrage erupted from the gloom beyond the parapet—bullets streaking in from unseen angles, their trajectories defying the open expanse.

The shots came from afar, perhaps from adjacent spires or shadowed ledges, cloaked in some veil of this world's supernatural arts that muffled sound and sight alike.

Noirette twisted instinctively despite not being able to sense it at all, essence flaring to shield her form.

But the onslaught pierced through, rounds punching into flesh and riddling holes onto her vessel.

Pain bloomed in staccato bursts across her torso and limbs—hot, insistent stings that tore through coat and skin, vitality leaching away in crimson rivulets.

She staggered, vision blurring at the edges as the rooftop tilted, dust biting into her palms where she fell.

Beside her, Blanchette crumpled in tandem, her body jerking under the impacts, as her snow-white hair fanned across the surface like spilled silk.

For Blanchette to let herself get off guard instead of doing anything. Considering how cunning she was, this might as well be intentional, but was it?

The question swirled in Noirette's fading thoughts, unanswered as darkness pressed in.

Her last clear sight was the masked man, one gloved hand rising to touch his temple.

"The targets have been neutralized," he murmured into some concealed channel, the words crisp and final. "My thanks to Farseeds and Noble Infantry for the support, please support the Heroes on the frontline once again."

And darkness was where her mind returned to.

Was this the end?

What would happen if she died outside of Fathomi? Would the reset still happen?

To think that she let herself be this careless.

But just before she thought she would return to the beginning again, her mind started to assemble.

Awareness returned not in a rush, but in fragments—cool metal was against her skin, the sterile tang of recirculated air laced with the faint ozone of active machinery.

Noirette's eyelids parted to a ceiling of seamless alloy panels, inset with grids of soft blue lighting that cast no shadows.

Her body ached with a muffled persistence, wounds bound and numbed by unseen interventions, but restraint pinned her upright against a curved wall.

High-tech harnesses encircled her wrists, ankles, and torso—straps of flexible polymer prickling faintly, laced with conduits that pulsed in rhythmic sync, monitoring vital flows she could only guess at.

Beyond a transparisteel window set into the chamber's facing wall, figures in crisp lab coats performed their activity.

They huddled over holographic panels that flickered with streams of data—vital readouts, spectral analyses, cascading lines of code that danced like contained lightning.

The room was filled with their low voices, gestures sharp as they adjusted interfaces, oblivious or indifferent to Noirette's gaze.

Confusion coiled in Noirette's mind, sharper than the residual throb in her limbs.

A lab facility. How long had passed in this synced timeline? Minutes? Hours?

The harnesses held her immobile, essence stirring sluggishly within, as if the air itself dampened its reach—suppression fields, she surmised, woven from this world's ingenuity rather than Fathomi's metaphysical weight.

Well, this was quite the problem.

Before she could test the bonds, motion erupted beyond the glass.

A woman strode into view, her form clad in apparel that married form to function—sleek bodysuit of iridescent weave, reinforced at joints with matte plating, augmented by a holographic visor that projected faint overlays across her field of vision.

She, seized one of the lab-coated scientists by the collar and slammed him against the adjacent bulkhead.

The impact reverberated through the transparisteel, muffled but unmistakable.

The woman's mouth moved in a torrent of words, her expression a mask of controlled fury—visor flaring with overlaid alerts, perhaps amplifying her tirade with evidentiary overlays.

Noirette strained to catch the cadence, but the chamber's isolation sealed sound away, leaving only the visual of the scientist's paling face, his hands raised in placation as he stammered responses.

"I'm hungry…"

Yet apparently, hunger was the first thing that came to her mind.

Abruptly right after, the harnesses disengaged with a series of soft clicks, magnetic locks releasing in sequence.

Noirette's arms fell free, followed by her legs, the sudden liberty sending a cascade of pins and needles through her limbs.

She pushed away from the wall, steadying herself against the cool curve of the chamber's pod.

The chamber's hatch cycled open with a pneumatic sigh, admitting the woman in the high-tech suit.

She stepped inside, visor retracting to reveal features sharp and expressive—dark hair cropped close, eyes alight with a spark of mischief that undercut the earlier wrath.

A playful smile curved her lips as she regarded Noirette, hands spreading in a gesture of open apology.

"This entire affair is nothing but a profound misunderstanding," the woman said, her voice warm and contrite, carrying the easy lilt of one accustomed to defusing tempests. "Your wounds have been healed and the only thing left to do is probably to sue us. But, I hope that I can talk you out of it, since we don't want any budget cut impending our important project at the moment."