The Grand Weave

A crack in space was met by Callen opening his mouth and firing off a large beam of water into the sky. Like everything involving dimensional spaces, the beam twisted, curved, and turned before reaching a stop in the distance that caused the air to vibrate. More cracks sounded out, and the world went deaf as a wave of tentacles threw themselves at the beam. The water cannon shredded and tore through, obliterating chunks of flesh with its sheer pressure.

Callen shut his jaw and swerved his head out of the way just in time to dodge a giant blackened spike about the length of a quarter of his serpent body.

He coiled upwards, sunk his teeth into the flesh attached, and shredded it to pieces. There was an air-shaking trill that forced everyone to their knees.

I thought my head would explode, but the water that Callen had spread before transforming pulsed and splashed against my chest.

There was a brief moment of relief followed by hissing as my flames were gutted. It felt wrong, and I released my transformation. Zharia appeared and kept to the air as the pain went away.

Above us, the dimensional breach was in full effect, and more things began to spill out. More cultists, who had survived the time it took to land or whom someone's skill had taken out before their robes could touch the ground, spilled out.

Among them were the tree-like monsters with their spindly limbs and large claws. They dropped and shot forward like a bullet, running with their limbs dragging on the ground behind them.

The entire room was a chaotic mess, and I took a step back to reassess where I could help the most. Monsters were spilling into the world in an endless stream. Mana was used, skills were activated, and the world shook with a hail of gore.

Wait, no, there's actual shaking beneath my feet.

Another trill pierced the sounds of battle and drowned the world with its noise. There was no time to look up, but everyone watched in shock and horror as an even larger monster tackled Callen. Their bodies crashed into the building's roof and continued on.

Trailing behind them was a downpour of black mucus that sizzled on contact with the ground. Monsters and people alike burned when the mucus landed on their limbs—the screams of pain from the people mixed in with the trills and screeches of the monsters.

"Áine go," I ordered.

She took off, and I kept Zharia near. Back to only having a knife was infuriating. So I reached down and grabbed the nearest cultist's blades. It still had an oily residue on the blade, but the handles were surprisingly dry.

"Zharia, burn anything that gets too close."

"With pleasure!" Zharia responded.

I activated Spirit Lord's Invocation, and Magnus fused with me.

For a brief second it occurred to me that I didn't have a cooldown. The transformation took hold and I shook my head.

Focus!

Not wanting to waste time, I sped up the process and activated his skill. Fur grew along my armour and limbs, followed by the crystal shell that grew on top of the fur. Before my halo could form, I struck out an arm and let the dagger aiming for Sereza's side bounce off.

Grabbing the offending limb, I locked the cultist in place. She slammed her blade into the cultist's face and activated her skill. Neon yellow acid lit up and melted the head in a burst of grey slush.

She used her spectral blades the most, her skill providing enough support to the defenders of the nearest barricade to facilitate the switching out of members.

I saw the healer, a human woman with dazzling purple hair dressed in full plate and battle robes, extend her arm, and a fast-moving mist expanded outward, healing wounds and cuts when they reached the squad member's body.

The mist ignored the monsters and cultists that tried to rush through the defenses. Around her, on the further reaches, Áine could be seen flying from one target to the next, healing any injury that looked threatening or posed a danger to the person's ability to fight.

I wasn't running on full mana, but the exchange of mana used to activate and absorb energy through Magnus' skill was efficient enough that I wasn't worried.

But if the fight kept on for long, my familiars would start to pull from my mana pool, and not even my mana regeneration would be able to keep up.

Putting my head down, I focused on helping out where I could. I tried to stick near the healer. There was already somebody guarding her, but I was able to intercept a stray attack or two. The cultists loved throwing their blades.

Each impact against the crystal coating my body, whether that be my head, arms, legs or even my chest, provided me with a growing pool of power waiting to be used.

The fight felt like it had already been an hour long but was probably shorter than five minutes. Suddenly, another breach ripped open, and another bone-rattling trill preceded the emergence of another monster.

Tattered cloth and grey tentacles rolled through, and I channeled energy down into my left hand. Before the giant cultist could fully exit the portal, I sent five kinetic slashes into the center of their chest. The cuts impacted the cloth, tearing through a shallow layer before they exploded and sent the cultist back through the portal. The tentacles were sucked back in, and I extended both arms.

Closing my eyes, I felt around for the mana, trying to cut through the ambient static blanketing the entire hall. Another tentacle pushed through, ready, roiling, and angry. But my senses locked onto the spatial mana making up the breach, and I pulled.

The spatial mana spiraled into my palm and up my limbs to settle into my chest. There was a strange suction noise, and the breach collapsed, pulling in the tentacles that had just entered through. They lifted and struggled but were left to drop to the floor, the tips severed from the main body.

My chest hurt, but I turned around and blitzed off to the next area. I felt a breach forming. Like that, running from one place to the next, I spent the next five minutes minimizing the invasion and helping the squad control the fight. Outside, the clash between the monster and Callen could be heard. They joined the chaotic fray of the monster noises around the city.

The scariest part of it all, those noises were getting louder.

I tried to close the breaches, but the large one in the sky released a wave of mana so powerful it used up most of Callen's skill that had continued to protect us throughout the fight.

The flow of water stuttered, and the glow began to dim. Then, a long fold tore open, the opening stretching from one end of the room to the other. A few looked at me, and I shook my head.

There's no way in hells, I'd be able to close that.

There wasn't a sudden spillage of long tentacles thicker than my body, nor did greyish limbs covered in mucus emerge. Instead, it was a long flowing cloth made of pure black. It was so dark it reminded me of the illusion over the cellar's door.

The cloth stretched out, swallowing the ground beneath the void. A few people sent skills against the fabric, but the blackness swallowed anything that managed to pierce the cloth, and the cloth repaired itself a second later.

I held back, tempted to release the spatial mana I had accumulated. Something about the way the cloth felt to my senses made me hold back. So I waited, daggers in hand, ready for the next eldritch horror to crawl out the dimensional space.

The cloth continued to extend till it pushed past the barricades. One of the earth-skill users tried to summon more walls from the ground, but the cloth rose and swallowed it beneath the tide.

"Everyone get back! Don't let it touch you!" The tank from earlier called out.

We retreated till we were pressed to the back wall. When the tide of void cloth continued, we rushed out of the building just in time as the cloth broke through stone seeping from the cut it had opened up.

Then, the cloth began to fold and condense. The long stretch of fabric formed a hole in reality at the entrance of the building.

When the fabric had fully formed into a folded sphere, it shot up and twisted into a pillar that raced into the sky. We stood uselessly from afar, watching the pilar stretch and spiral like a spear that pushed past the tallest building.

As it continued to stretch, a sudden wave of force knocked me to my knees. When I looked up, I saw that the barrier was no longer invisible, and it glowed with iridescent light at the point of impact where the void cloth met hardened air.

The air around the pillar vibrated, and bursts of iridescent electricity began to form, causing brief flashes to light up the night sky.

A hand gripped my shoulder and helped haul me to my feet. I stood up with a grunt and found Sereza looking at me with her fangs in full display as she nearly growled.

"Cyrus," she said as she pointed towards the pillar. "Do your attack thing you did with the mega cultist. We can't let the barrier break. You heard the shadow guy; the gods are fighting out there. If that fight spills into here, we're dead for sure!"

I gritted my teeth. She was right. I wanted to save the energy, but if I didn't use it now, we could all die the moment the god noticed the barrier was down. Hells, anything could kill us. This entire rift had been one nightmare monster to the next.

"I need you to pull me out in case something goes wrong," I shouted back through the noise.

She wrapped her tail around my waist. "Let's go."

We ran to the pillar. I wanted to get close enough to ensure the attack hit where I wanted. There was only one shot, and I wanted to aim dead center. If I missed, there'd be no second chance, and the strange mana powering the cloth was not something I could absorb. Maybe if I was two tiers higher, even then, something about the cloth set my fur on edge.

And frankly, I'm getting really tired of passing out.

We approached, ignoring the shouts from the Callen's squad, and I stopped with Sereza as far back as she could stand with her tail ready to yank me backwards.

"Cyrus, Sereza!" Giyanna yelled.

I looked back in time to see a black dagger plunge into her neck. I growled and ordered my familiars to help out. Zharia torched the cultist, who pulled back only to be met with a massive metal spike that pinned them to the ground. From there, another squad member cut off their head before turning back to help Giyanna stand.

Áine flew over and waited until they removed the dagger before slapping her hand over the wound. Blood coated the fairy, but she ignored it and channeled her dwindling mana pool into the puncture.

I didn't have time to continue observing, so I called to the mana inside my chest. I let it bubble and crawl up my throat. The mana fought to escape, but I needed it to build up, to channel itself into one single attack, using everything I had stored in me.

After three seconds, all that was left in the receptacle that held the absorbed energy was kinetic. The spatial mana causing a strain in the back of my throat fought to be released, the foreign mana itching to escape my control.

Another flash of light lit up the sky, and the barrier started to form cracks. I opened my mouth and let go. My tongue licked the mana that rocketed outwards.

The taste was impossible to describe.

The spatial mana formed into a beam of continuous energy. It penetrated the void cloth and pushed into the spear. For the first time since the fabric appeared, damage could be seen affecting the material. It attempted to repair itself but got torn to shreds, sending scraps flying like black pixels across my vision.

As the beam pushed into the sphere, the pillar of cloth sent out another energy pulse that would have knocked me onto my ass if it wasn't for Sereza using her tail to tug me upwards.

I barely managed to steady my legs when the rest of the mana inside the sphere exploded. The sphere trembled, and then it imploded. A part of the sphere was sent upwards while the other half skipped across the ground.

The quick movements of the holes in space still hurt to see, but the pillar of cloth lost its rigidity and began to fall. Sereza pulled me back, and I turned as we ran. We raced out of the area and watched as more scraps began to pelt the ground before the long stretch of cloth fell on us.

It hit the ground with a thump and knocked up a dust cloud. I forced my eyes away from the ground and looked towards the sky. The barrier held, glowing brightly but slowly fading. Then the light dimmed, and the barrier turned invisible.

Sereza clapped a hand on my shoulder. "Fuck yeah, you did it!"

I smiled, but then I pointed off to the distance. "Is that... Is that Ventus running at us with a horde of monsters?"

Sereza whipped her head around, and her shoulders slumped at the sight. "Yes. Yes, it is."

"Form up! Group A guards the entrance to the Grand Hall; do not let anything else exit the building! Group B rest, Group C brace for the vice captain's entourage!"

With an internal sigh, I ran back towards the squad and prepared.