Chapter 111: Ysterion

“Sou-san, the thing has been released!” One of his team members yelled out as the four of them pushed their hovercrafts forward toward the now parted mountains, the bike-like machines hovered low and fast across the Isle’s terrain.

“I can see that.” Sousuke’s eye twitched. “Aizawa-chan, what’s the status on the generators?”

“Well…” Aizawa had a visor helmet on and was working a portable terminal while keeping her hovercraft steady with her knees.

She took a breath. “The mana generators, both the main and backup are completely destroyed at the bottom floor of the tower”

She adjusted her visors and looked at the rest of them.

“The only people with access to that floor are the four of us and the Dean.” She said. “Which means one of us sabotaged it.”

“Ah?” Sousuke nearly stopped his hovercraft completely. “You’re saying one of our own did this?”

“Yes…” She said evenly. “Someone on this team accepted payment to betray the operation which is disheartening, given how long we’ve worked together.”

“I refuse to believe that.” Sousuke said.

They kept moving.

The mountain ahead had stopped looking like a mountain and it was more like something that had come right out of a horror movie..

“Can you explain why Class 5 student Ichinose Yui has stream drones positioned throughout the entire Isle, including several currently pointed at us?” Aizawa asked.

“Now hold on.” Minase’s voice came from the right flank with her hand drifting to the mana blade at her side. “How do we know it wasn’t you?”

“You’re free to think what you want.” Aizawa said. “I’m being paid too much to compromise myself over something like this… You know how I feel about my job but right now, we have a larger problem.”

The spider let out a screech that shattered the ground around it making the rock fragment outward in a ring and the trees at the mountain base bending away from the pressure wave like they were trying to leave.

“Ysterion.” Aizawa said, pulling data from her visor display. “In the first recorded emergence attempt, the team before us tried to subjugate it and failed completely. Its shackles are still structurally intact which means if we can restore the mana generator feed we can force it back inside. As long as the shackles are intact then it will remain at the base of the mountain.”

“That’s yours, Aizawa.” Sousuke said immediately.

“Understood.” She peeled off from the formation and powered toward the secondary towers near the mountain base where the backup systems were housed.

’Something feels off.’ Sousuke thought, watching her go.

The feeling had no specific source… Aizawa was reliable as she had always been, they had worked together for eleven years after all.

He pushed the thought down.

’Focus… Let’s get this done.’

“Begin! We’ll find the traitor afterward!” He called into his mouthpiece.

Minase and Daichi curved to either side of Ysterion in wide flanking arcs.

The machine guns mounted to their hovercrafts locked and the mana-loaded rounds opened up simultaneously… it was the kind of ammunition that could punch through the skull of an Iron-class monster without slowing and each shot generated its own shockwave as it tore through the air.

The rounds hit Ysterion across its body and tore into the outer hide making chunks of dark exoskeleton break away and fall to the ground.

The monster screeched in irritation and responded.

Spikes erupted from beneath its skin and launched outward in every direction at once.

Each one was the length of a grown man’s arm, they were also dense and dark and moving at round-for-round speed with the mana bullets that had just hit it, filling the air between the Furious Four and the monster in a single blinding wall.

The sound of them cutting air was a sustained high-pitched tone that sounded like screams in their ears.

The ground where the spikes landed melted, the concentrated mana in each spike converting every impact point to something that bubbled and steamed.

Several hit the trees that Ysterion’s screech had already bent and drove through them without slowing.

Sousuke read the spike pattern in the first half second and moved.

He twisted his hovercraft hard left and three spikes passed through the space his body had just occupied in a tight cluster with one of them so close he felt the heat from it through his jacket.

He pulled the nose up into a steep angle and the next wave came from below with four spikes tracking upward on a slight curve that would have caught him mid-climb.

He spun the hovercraft through a full rotation, letting the centrifugal shift carry him sideways while the spikes converged on where the rotation had started.

Two more came from his right simultaneously and he dropped the nose suddenly making the hovercraft plunge ten meters before he leveled it and the spikes passed above him with a sound like tearing fabric.

He straightened and checked himself. There was a scratch on the hovercraft’s frame on the left side where one had caught the edge and nothing else.

’According to the records, it takes several minutes for the spikes to regenerate after a full volley.’ He thought but Ysterion screeched again.

The leg came down immediately after the sound… one of the sixteen with the full weight of the monster behind it, slamming into the ground and sending the earth upward in a wave.

Trees… soil… rock, it didn’t matter. Everything within thirty meters of the impact point launched into the air as shrapnel, the shockwave from the landing radiating outward fast enough that the hovercrafts at the edge of range had to climb vertically to avoid the debris field.

Another spike volley followed immediately which was not the full arsenal this time but they were more like targeted bursts which were three or four at a time, coming from different body sections in rapid alternation.

The regeneration records were wrong… maybe it was because Ysterion had been in that mountain for a long time but he had to react.

Sousuke curved sideways, dodging the first burst and pulled up hard for the second before rolling left for the third and felt one graze the bottom of his hovercraft, taking a strip of metal off the undercarriage but he stabilized himself quickly.

“Report!” He shouted and there was static but Minase spoke.

“I’m okay Sou-san. My hovercraft took several hits so I’m currently flying on foot.”

“Good, come to me. Daichi, you?”

More static and then a sound that was unmistakably a laugh.

“Hehahahaha! I wrestled the spikes out of the air with my bare hands but my hovercraft is gone!”

“Are you stupid?! Each spike has a concentrated poison load… do you have any idea what that would do to…” Sousuke stopped himself. “Right… Poison affinity, Never mind.”

He breathed out. “Report, Aizawa.”

There was no static from the other side… it was just silent like Aizawa had ignored him.

“Aizawa, report!”

Minase flew to his side holding her mana blade while two wings made of pure mana came out from her back, this was how she was flying.

“Aizawa?”

“It’s done.” A voice came through the mouthpiece and it was Aizawa but that wasn’t how she spoke at all. “The Spider has been released.”

A powerful wave of mana detonated outward from Ysterion’s body as the shackles that had been binding its magic shattered.

The dust and debris that had been hanging in the air between them and the monster was swept away in a single outward breath and they saw the change happening in real time.

Ysterion’s body was thickening, the exoskeleton of the monster darkened from deep grey to an even darker shade of black and even the mana output of the monster was climbing past what the shackles had been suppressing.

“Aizawa!”

“Yes, Sou-san. I’m done.”

“Why is it getting stronger? What did you do?”

“I did what was asked of me.” She said. “Ysterion will be released at full power and everything on this Isle will die and ugh—”

“What are you talking about?!” Sousuke almost yelled out. “Aizawa, what did you…”

“If I were you, Tanaka Sousuke, I would focus on what’s in front of you.”

A beam of mana erupted from Ysterion’s body consuming the remnants of the mountain structure and every reinforcement pillar around it in a single expanding wall of light.

Sousuke pulled his hovercraft into a vertical climb immediately.

He heard Minase behind him and then he heard her scream and he also heard Daichi’s laugh cut off but he didn’t look back.

He was building his mana barrier with everything he had in his Blue crest reserves however it didn’t matter as the Spider’s power just ate through it.

“Who are you?” He demanded into the mouthpiece as he still shot into the air, the barrier had already began cracking at the edges. “Who are you really?”

“I am Disguise Master.” The voice said. “And my name is the last you will ever hear.”

The mana detonated, consuming him whole.

…

“Well, I think that’s the last of them.” Koya said, dropping Ryouma’s body onto the ground at the outside of the Tower.

Mio and Miyuki were behind him.

The base of the Tower and the Mega Bunks around it looked like someone had conducted a field exercise inside them with blood on every surface, the furniture was in pieces and even a familiar’s severed head by the front door.

“What happened here?” Koya raised an eyebrow.

“The commoners and nobles had a fight the moment the mana returned.” Mio reported, holding Takeru’s body over one shoulder. “From what it looks like they damaged a considerable amount of things. Should we advance?”

“Yes.” He dragged Ryouma up the steps and through the entrance before throwing him onto a broken table.

Inside was worse as blood was practically the new color for the ground, there were corpses here and there… It was not a good sign at all.

Itsuki was at the edge of the room, having apparently hanged several students from Omni Academy to the walls using water constructs and was now standing in the middle.

The moment he saw Miyuki he crossed the bloody floor in several quick strides and pulled her into a hug.

“Miyuki… you’re fine.” He said with genuine worry in his eyes and upon seeing that look which she missed, she started tearing up as well. “Don’t worry, I won’t let you out of my sight again. You, Amagi Koya, what happ…”

His eyes found Ryouma on the broken table. Ryouma’s face and hair had been thoroughly introduced to Koya’s blue flames and the result was not flattering… Itsuki looked at it for a moment.

’What the hell happened out there?’

“I should be asking you what happened here and where’s Class 5?” Koya said.

“A full conflict between commoners and nobles was what happened and it got out of hand quickly.” Itsuki said. “Your classmates were getting overwhelmed until the Tachibana heir showed up. She neutralized several high-tier nobles by herself and moved Class 5 to Mega Bunk 3… I had no idea she was that strong.”

“I see.” Koya said. It wasn’t like he was worried about Class 5 specifically.

He was more concerned with what Saki’s face would look like receiving a call about fatalities among her students. “S…”

A bat came through the broken window carrying a person.

It was a small bat with a heart-shaped tail, effortlessly holding a full-sized Class 5 student by the collar above the ground.

The student was Ichinose, dangling above a corpse and looking deeply unhappy about her current altitude and situation.

“Waah! I told you already, I’m sorry!” She was dropped, landing next to the corpse and recoiling sideways from it immediately.

Mirei descended and returned to her human form.

“I found the person who orchestrated the whole thing.” Mirei pointed at Ichinose. “She has drones everywhere, including in the mountains. I made her disable everything though…”

“Hey, it wasn’t my idea!” Ichinose raised both hands. “Don’t shoot the messenger, I was promised content by him and he even helped set up the drones. That’s all I knew.”

“Everything that happened has your name on it.” Mirei’s eyes narrowed. “You tried to kill Koya-kun.”

“Kill Koya-kun?” Ichinose blinked. “He only said he wanted Koya-kun’s scent. I didn’t know he was planning anything with it. I genuinely didn’t know.”

The room looked at her and Mirei’s tail appeared at Ichinose’s throat before she finished the sentence.

“Elaborate.”

“I—” Ichinose swallowed as every eye in the room was on her. “I was hired to get Koya-kun’s scent… The person that organized this paid me, I didn’t know what he wanted it for. He promised me a big stream and I just…”

“When?” Mirei said.

“Yesterday, when I hugged Koya-kun… Please don’t kill me, I’ll tell you his name…”

“That won’t be needed.”

A figure stepped out of the shadows at the back of the room and the whole space went quiet.

He had dark blue hair with a black cape pulled across his shoulders like he had planned this entrance specifically… this was Sendou Hiroki of Class 2 and one of the students with the least promising assessment scores in his entire year.

“I am the one you’re looking for.” He said.

Mirei looked at him for a long moment. “I refuse to believe someone like you put all of this in motion.”

“It wasn’t that hard.” He cleared his throat and straightened up before looking around the room at the noble students on the walls and the ones standing freely and the commoners mixed between them and apparently found what he was looking for because he squared up properly. “But I did all of this for our pride! Noble pride! How can we allow commoners to trample on our authority and act as our equals? Especially..”

His finger came out and pointed across the room at Koya. “Especially you!”

Koya blinked at the finger.

“As a commoner, how dare you have potential? How dare you not be like the rest of them? A commoner from Class 5 matching nobles? Matching heirs of Great Clans in power? Appearing on streams? Being talked about everywhere? How dare you walk around like you belong at the same level as people who were born above you! Huh?!” His voice had genuine conviction in it… Hiroki was not performing this, he believed it entirely.

He looked around the room as he spoke, clearly expecting the noble students present to begin nodding.

“You’re a cheater! You were meant to be nobody! But everywhere you go you steal all the attention and I… and we as nobles cannot allow it!”

The noble students said nothing, the ones hanging from the walls said nothing and even the ones standing freely said nothing. They were all astounded… and Sendou appeared not to notice the silence.

’He’s angry at me for being me.’ Koya thought.

“So I did it!” Sendou continued, turning back to face Koya directly. “I arranged for the generators to be destroyed and Ysterion to be released. I’ll wipe every commoner off this Isle and restore the proper order of things!”

He waited for a beat for applause that didn’t come. “The scent she collected…”

He made a gesture at Ichinose.

“… I used to stimulate the monster directly. Now it will hunt every commoner here and kill them, starting with…”

Before he could finish up, he dropped to the floor… Mirei clicked her tongue and looked at her tail.

“Tch, I killed him by mistake.”

The room was quiet for a moment.

“According to what I know,” Mirei said, “the Furious Four are the people responsible for containing Ysterion alongside the Dean. If the generators are down and that thing is fully released, there’s no survival path without the Dean returning in time. If he doesn’t come quickly…” She stopped. “Wait, where’s Koya-kun?”

…

From the top of one of the taller trees at the edge of the forest, Koya watched Ysterion move in the distance.

The Embermane Lions were gone from their grove, the Cindervixes weren’t at their cave and even the birds that had been in the canopy since they arrived had been gone since Ysterion’s first screech.

Everything that lived on this Isle had made a collective decision and acted on it.

He stayed in his tree.

「You have received a new Main Mission!」

「Survive until the Dean of Familiars arrives.」

「Reward: 50,000 IP, Super Mystery Box x5」

“Survive is crazy.” He muttered, reading the notification twice to make sure he hadn’t misread it.

He had known about Sendou’s plan almost from the beginning since the Order grunt had reported it to him in his room.

If he had moved on that information the moment it landed he could have had Sendou dealt with before a single generator was touched.

He had watched instead. “All of this could have been prevented if I’d just dealt with him the moment the grunt reported in…”

He looked at Ysterion across the distance of the Isle and Ysterion looked back.

Its eyes found him through the treeline and it slowly focused all of its many eyes on Koya’s position.

“Let’s…”

“CREEEEEE!”

It released one spike that had been selected, aimed, and launched with a precision that made every previous spike look like an area-of-effect attack.

A single projectile with Koya at its destination, moving at a speed that dragged a visible white trail of compressed mana heat through the air behind it.

It crossed the distance in a fraction of a second and hit the tree he had been standing in… drove through the trunk completely, splitting the wood in a jagged vertical line then drove through the three trees directly behind it in a straight line before finally stopping in the fourth, buried halfway to its center.

However Koya was already gone by the time the first tree split.

“Go.”

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