“So how do you plan on doing this,” said Arisa as the car twisted and turn to dodge the attacks of several Inzektors.
“How long would it take for you to exterminate the Kalastor?” Luon asked.
Arisa pondered for a moment before saying, “If the other Inzektors don’t disturb me… about 10 seconds. I have fought it in the simulations before, and its defenses are fragile, but its vitality is plentiful. The only downside is that to do so, we have to get in close. Otherwise, all our efforts will go to nil, and it takes a lot of energy to burst it down.”
“That sounds great, but I got a better idea which could kill it much faster while taking out a bunch of Inzektors,” replied Luon nonchalantly.
“Oh, let’s hear your idea then,” said Arisa.
“At the other outpost when I was researching explosive materials, I found some data regarding nuclear level technology from this era. Before the event, Zekar told me that this information was classified by regulations and only available to level 3 engineers. I also studied the regeneration process of most Inzektors as well as their blood content before entering the camp, and with this information, I made a bomb. Using obsidian as the foundation the bomb can absorb the blood of an Inzektor and grow inside of its body causing it to become a living bomb that can blow up a region from a kilometer away. As long as you gut an opening I can toss it in, and we could get out of here,” boasted Luon.
“Alright, let’s go with that. I trust your bomb would be as effective as how you proclaim it, in that case, we should focus on safely arriving at the Kalastor,” said Arisa who started to focus on driving while channeling some mana into a defense matrix she pulled out from her intraspatial bag.
“Although increasing our speed and increasing our defense is great, some offense wouldn’t hurt a bit,” replied Luon who summoned from his intraspatial bag several robots causing the car to be filled to the brim.
“Hey! You just added more weight, it’s going to slow us down,” Arisa proclaimed.
“Just watch.” After Luon said that the robots started to attack the Inzektors surrounding them. The weak and pitiful range Inzektors died and the ones that survived faltered under their suppressive fire.
At this moment the car no longer needed to dodge and began to accelerate as its movements regained stability.
Within moments they were within range of the Kalastor, the Inzektors that were blocking their path desperately tried to break through the storm of bullets.
Arisa cut her mental connection with the car as she rushed towards the Kalastor to gut it open. The Kalastor after attacking entered a minor dormant state to charge up for another attack, and at this moment it was completely defenseless. Arisa hacked and sliced open a sector of its body as streams of blood gushes out of it.
Luon who had parked the car nearby tossed an oddly shaped ball in the opening, and after Arisa confirmed that it was greedily absorbing blood she rushed back into the car and yelled, “Let’s go now!”
With that remark, they began to escape. However, the Inzektors took the opportunity when they had invaded and encircled them leaving no room to escape from.
“Did I take too long? Is it not possible to escape,” cried Arisa as the car ran in circles avoided the attacks of the Inzektors.
“It would have been impossible if you left alone,” replied Luon as he began to watch the time.
“What are you waiting for? Your bomb is about to blow, and we’re completely trapped next to it. I don’t believe this car can survive the blast,” said Arisa. She didn’t know where Luon got his confidence from and it was difficult to break through the Inzektors with the strength of just the two of them and several robots.
Luon smirked and said, “We’re exactly waiting for that bomb to blow. Brace yourself! It’s coming now!”
At this moment the lively Kalastor who was drained dry cycled between a compressed and uncompressed state, it was as if someone was doing squats while lifting a giant bubble enclosed around him. After one more large expansion, it compressed into a ball the size of a meter before it once again rapidly grew, only this time the skin of the Inzektor was replaced with fiery embers that enveloped the region.
The explosion caused the remaining Inzektors to flee, but they were no match for the speed generated by the wave of death. Meanwhile, Luon had begun to retreat to the direction of the outpost as the car was chased by the explosion.
Just before the car was enveloped in flames, Luon tossed an explosive underneath the vehicle utilizing the forces from the miniature explosion to lift it up and breaking the defensive matrix. He then exhausted his wind magic to protect the car from the flames he used it as a propulsive force causing the vehicle to fly into the air.
Arisa who was witnessing all of this screamed in fear, from the explosion that chased after them to the extremely high and rough flight she couldn’t help but do so throughout the whole ordeal.
Right, when they reached the highest peak, and everything slowed down Arisa laughed and asked, “Wow that was exciting, so how are we going to land?”
Luon smiled and said, “And that’s why I said to brace yourself.”
At his words, Arisa grimaces and slowly said, “Do you… not have a plan for landing?”
Luon gave her a thumbs up and said, “Nope, but we can always pray to god and maybe we’ll live, right?”
Arisa grew angry and gripped Luon tightly as she began to shake him madly while saying, “You crazy madman! What are you thinking! QUICKLY DO SOMETHING!”
But her yells soon turned into screams as the car rapidly descended due to gravity, in fact, Luon had attempted to apply his wind magic to slow down the descent but the gravitational force of the planet, as well as the mass of the vehicle, deterred the magical energies and he didn’t have that much mana left anyway.
Luon sadly thought, ‘Come on magic how could you lose to science this easily? Physics, please go easier on us.’
But the laws of the world was constant and as they fell. At this moment Luon opened the windows and attempted to make a parachute using some cloth he had stored in his intraspatial bag but found it useless, it flew away as if it had intelligence and ran from the deadly situation.
Luon despaired as the pair came close to the earth. He quickly embraced Arisa in his arms and pushed her down to the safest position in the car. The two of them were entangled, and he placed a miniature defensive barrier wrapping around them. It was the best he could do as the car rapidly descended.
Luon and Arisa closed their eyes, they both sealed their nerves as they steeled themselves for the worse, and the impact of the car hitting the earth knocked them both unconscious.
…
Shizuka who was leading the cars away saw the giant explosion from her rearview mirror. It was the second huge one she saw today, although she didn’t know what caused it she roughly assumed it was Luon’s doing.
“Crazy madman,” she muttered as she began to operate the lifeform detection device integrated the car. To her surprise the radar wasn’t able to detect anything, it was jammed from the radiation of the explosion. She couldn’t verify the current status of the pair who sacrificed themselves for them.
Shizuka steeled herself as she reported the results to Belle and the others. Everyone on their team was saddened by the lack of news, only Shizuka continued to remain expressionless. She felt hurt inside, but she knew it wasn’t the time for this, she encouraged the group to press on to the outpost. Only after arrive could they be considered safe.
…
Time passed, and Luon awoke to the searing pain his body signaled him.
‘I’m alive?’ Luon questioned himself as he slowly opened his eyes.
What he saw was the devastated remnant of a vehicle, an injured Arisa, and a cave with a river running in it. He found himself alongside the river and assumed that they had landed themselves in it.
‘No wait, if we landed squarely in the water we wouldn’t be this badly injured. We must have hit a cliff before entering the stream,’ thought Luon.
Luon looked at the car damages and concluded so. He couldn’t help but smile as he had escaped the jaws of death with Arisa.
When he started to assess Arisa and his own damages he found out that they were in a dangerous state, Luon drank a potion only to find it to be ineffective. The injury they received was too much for a simple potion to handle.
Luon at this moment dearly clung to his life, his mind quickly processed through a series thoughts and suggestions, but to no avail, his options were limited. While he was searching for ideas, his eyes fell upon a crate near him.
Curious as he was he knew there was no such thing as random magical elixirs lying about, why would there be one here of all places? Still, he desperately hoped for it to exist.
Luon grit his teeth as he reached to his intraspatial bag and summoned a robot in this situation. He commanded it to retrieve the chest and open it in front of him.
As the chest opened up, Luon was enveloped by the herbal essences of the object in front of him. He couldn’t notice it before due to the heavy smell of blood and his injuries dulled his senses, but the chest had consistently leaked an aromatic aura. When the chest was pried open, he couldn’t help but gasp at what was in front of him.
‘A starlight twin moonflower!’ Luon was shocked to find this here. He had noticed that one of the flowers was missing as its stem leaked spiritual energy from the removal of its other half. Luon mind became more active due to the flower as he suddenly had an enlightening thought.
The Inzektors were extremely active, the appearance of this flower, and the logo design of the chest indicated it was from the Plana solar system. Luon concluded that Zythos had baited the Inzektors using this flower.
Although this flower caused their demise, it was no time to ponder on such thoughts as Arisa began to cough blood due to her injuries causing her state to worsen. Luon quickly stuffs it in his mouth as carefully chewed on until he was able to regain his motor functions. When about a quarter of the essences was absorbed Luon gently lifted his body up and position himself over Arisa.
Her eyes were closed, and her silver-white hair laid listlessly on the wet surface.
Arisa mouth was tightly sealed, and she was still out cold. Luon apologized to her in his mind as he lowered his face to mouth feed Arisa the remainder of the flower.
Luon and Arisa’s lips were interlocked as Luon poured from his tongue the residual energy from the flower into her body.
At some point, her body began to proactively thirst for more as her tongue ventured into Luon’s mouth and at some point while Luon was lost in his thoughts her crimson red eyes slowly opened.
Luon’s heart stopped, at first, she was still dazed, and when her eyes regain focus, she stared at Luon who was still immersed in the act and gently nudged him awake from his stupor.
Luon gently lifted himself from the position he was in earlier and Arisa sat up.
Luon began to sweat bullets, he yelled in his mind, ‘I’m sure she wouldn’t mind, it’s like doing CPR right!? I mean I was saving her life, she can’t blame me for this.’
Luon timidly starred at Arisa and waited for her response.
