My hopes of this being an enclave of exclusively mooks were evaporating into the air, much like several of the mooks themselves had. Well, parts of them, anyway.

I was facing down the survivors from my initial attack, forming these frankly evil-looking spears of Nebula that I launched at them pretty much any time I thought something would hit. That was going well enough, and I'd managed to tag one of the five in the leg, resulting in the limb's owner being taken out of the battle. Kind of. Instead, they were drug back towards the buildings by some nominally invisible forces that I couldn't see without using a dangerous amount of concentration.

Meaning there was someone here other than me (and maybe Celistar) that could use some spooky action at a distance tricks. Great, that's not foreboding at all. So much for my dreams of an easy engagement.

I suppose we were the ones that attacked first, but I think people who torture animals into creative jerky and spend dozens if not hundreds of lives trying to kill what effectively was a little girl probably should probably expect a roving group of upstanding folks such as ourselves to drop in for a little retribution.

Even if we were dropping in to an odd forest cavern in the middle of an even stranger magic lost city.

Which gave me an idea. Above us, an orb popped into being, a chunk of Nebula I'd had a hell of a time keeping together while 'escorting' it out of the obvious range of vision for the individual down here. It wasn't big, probably about the size of the one that'd given me the inspiration for what I was about to do.

As soon barely came together, I shot it upward at an angle, packing it tighter until I lost my hold on it. It was holding still, and well on its way, a frankly tiny dot that would be difficult to notice even if you were looking at it with as high above the ground as it currently was.

Similarly, the sharp crack it made upon impacting the ceiling and detonating went unnoticed. My bombarding of my assailants with everything I could muster and the repeated pops of István's pistol probably had something to do with that.

The man was deft with that thing too; pretty much every time it fired, someone got hit. Not always directly, as I saw people deflecting or outright neutralizing his shots with their own powers, but he'd made the device into a right menace to the opposing side.

I didn't see Celistar anywhere, but I caught sight of something else that made me feel as though she couldn't have gone far… something that made me grin when I saw it.

Turning back to my skyward plans, I saw a pile of rocks crush the escapee, who probably would have been confused if he had the presence of mind to be so. I'd given him some, uh, 'intrusive thoughts' in the form of a chunk of the ceiling, deliberately making use of the mechanism from my accidental mistake earlier.

I had thought about the potential consequences of bringing the whole thing down on us, but it seemed to be being magically reinforced somehow, as I could see the layer just beneath the rocks shining brightly in my vision, fairly oozing Nebula from itself.

I brought my hands up, pushing a blast of power from them, which both toppled me over backwards and deflected the blade that carved directly for my face.

Graceful, for sure. Leave it to me to get distracted in the middle of all this.

Tendrils of Nebula caught me and pulled me to my feet before I could fully hit the ground, setting me again upright like a falling leaf that just happened to miss the ground.

This maneuver startled the owner of the blade, some sort of artifact with a plethora seals radiating the corrupted energy everyone of these dudes seemed to be using. The energy would gather and drip from the end of the point, hitting the ground and mangling the shapes of the small leafy plants living there.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Definitely not the thing to get cut by, that's for sure.

Snapping my eyes to their face, I was startled to find a woman glaring daggers at me. Not because she was glaring, mind, but because the apparent gender composition of this group had been homogeneously male up until this point. I hadn't really given it much mind until now, but it did seem odd.

I also hadn't felt her get close the way I'd expected, but now I could see (and feel) why: her energy was pushing back mine, guiding it around itself instead of destroying it. Not that it wasn't trying, it just wasn't succeeding. It's trickier to feel a gap than a presence normally, and so I had definitely let her get inside my guard.

That'll teach me to use only my Nebula for situational awareness.

You know, if I survive this lapse.

I suddenly shrunk down the field of Nebula I had laced throughout the battlefield, forming all sorts of interesting, unfriendly shapes that all collapsed towards this new intruder.

Her eyes went wide as she dodged backwards, a resounding crash of power inundating the space she'd occupied just seconds before. The other two that remained retreated the moment they had the option, only to encounter a certain Elder Mountain, who seemed elated to be given new toys.

I left them to him, since I had my hands full with this one.

I pulled most of my outstanding power onto myself, forming it close to my skin with a large portion concentrating around my hands and feet, figuring that I could better protect myself (and my punchy and kicky bits) from damage.

A move proven wise when my opponent lashed out at a speed faster than I could follow, her blade meeting a forearm that I only got in position via intuition. I really did need to figure out why everyone but me could move that way.

The densely packed energy across my skin stopped it cold, and got her a blast of Nebula to the face by way of destabilizing my control over it. A riposte, if you will.

Seizing on the opportunity and making use of what I'd just seen, I let go of control on the back of my elbow, resulting in my fist rocketing forward and a searing pain forming on the back of my arm as my own idiotic experiment more or less vaporized the top layer of my own skin.

Turns out such a maneuver requires pinpoint precision or the Nebula in and under the skin goes up as well. Who knew?

Well, my poor epidermis did, now.

As did her shoulder, since the lopsided application of force and my inexperience meant that the hit missed her pretty little face and instead landed just inside her shoulder, where I clearly heard her collarbone snap.

It was the left one, and she was right-handed, but it still caused her to immediately withdraw a few feet, wincing as the quick movement shifted the already broken bones.

I swung my other hand widely, a broad scythe of Nebula tearing free from it at my command to form what I was quickly starting to consider a signature attack. It was wide, and the shallow diagonal path my arm traced as I created it made it difficult to dodge without also ducking or jumping, depending on which direction one chose.

She, likely because of her arm, elected to duck, and I thrust myself forward into the space behind the attack, bringing up my foot with the attendant power I'd gathered there.

It connected directly with the side of her face, and I heard a noise I'm pretty sure will haunt my dreams as her body went limp.

I'd fought people before, but it still wasn't something I preferred to do, especially not up close and personal like this.

In the distance I saw Viktor, who didn't seem to have the same hangup as me, gleefully 'dressing' himself in his favorite outfit.

Simple pleasures, I guess.

Seeing as I'd either eliminated or ran off all the immediate enemies, I turned to the sky, where I could see Celistar's 'project'.

I wasn't sure if it was the innate compulsion to expect a moon in the sky, but no one had noticed when one had suddenly appeared above the back of the hamlet they'd created in the jungle.

Nor had they paid it much attention as it slowly grew larger and brighter.

That ended at some point before I'd finished my fight, when someone observant had observed that there was a moon in a cave.

A small amount of hell had broken loose back there, with several attacks aimed at this foreign celestial body and a few people running around trying to find the cause.

These feeble attempts at disrupting the construct were harmlessly absorbed by the surface of the planetoid now hanging ominously above the far side.

The Moon Fairy herself appeared beside me in the next moment, grinning.

"It's gonna be big!" She proclaimed. And I believed it. Celistar didn't do a ton of fighting, but whenever she participated, she did so with overwhelming power. I didn't expect this to be any different.

"Is that actually the moon?" I asked, and she looked at me strangely.

"I mentioned I was working on a present for them, and to stay away from anything that looked like the moon."

"You did?" I asked, and her look changed a little. She opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, the sky fell.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.