Infinity: Rising of the Soul Weavers

"You know, Maria, we'll be facing the biggest danger we have encountered so far, in just a few minutes from now," Kayla ignored her question and spoke in a rather calm tone, contrary to her conversation with Aella. 

She was trying her best to sound as confident as possible. A smile faintly started making its way towards her rosy face. 

"Uhm, I know," Maria nodded dismissively, her voice sounding rather nervous. "But please don't change the subject, what happened to Raven? Is she okay?"

"No, nothing, Raven is just fine," she denied and didn't mention any of Uriel's harsh torture methods and how she cried blood and even lost her left eye. "But something really good happened…"

"Oh, what is it?" Maria seemed both relieved and excited as she asked.

Kayla's smile began to appear more clearly. "We found your little Maya!"

Hearing that, Maria was suddenly frozen as if she had just been struck by lightning. 

Tears welled up in her eyes and slowly made their way down her cheeks and dripped down her chin, hitting the dusty ground.

Kayla didn't mind her silence, but rather continued talking: "Maria, you can't die. You have to survive in order to see her come home!" 

Without waiting for Maria to reply, she ended the transmission and went back to organizing the battlefield. After all, her time was limited.

"Little girl," a voice was suddenly emitted from her bracelet. "When you mentioned that strong enemies were approaching, did you mean that the Star Twenty ranked angel was included?"

The only person who would call Kayla as 'little girl' is Scott, the current Canadian EDA General. Although Kayla didn't like this, she didn't say much.

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"Yes," although a simple word, it was enough to make Scott sweat profoundly.

"What do we do?" He asked, nervous.

"Well, did you not hear me say that all units must retreat?" She asked impatiently. "But since you decided to ask me...

"Let me ask you something: You have trained with Tu for some time and you should be able to use your Cosmic Inclination, do you think you'd be able to take on one of the strong angels?" Kayla asked decisively.

"Um… No?" Scott hesitated before answering. "I am not even at rank Star Five, what do you expect from me?"

"Well, apparently I expected too much," Kayla said with a shrug. "But too bad for you, I have already included you as a part of my plan!" 

Scott almost coughed blood after hearing that. "You what?!" A mere Star Three attacks a Star Ten? That's suicide!

"Yes, as you've heard rigt," she didn't repeat her point. "You will be fighting one of the twenty rank Star Ten angels.

"But you would be alone so don't worry. You'll be fine, I promise… well, fine for the most part…" without giving him a chance to retaliate, she ended the transmission forcefully.

Taking a deep breath, she started transmitting a message to every General.

"All units hear my command," she said with a serious, and almost grim, tone. "All Generals will step forward to meet the enemy. Deputy Generals take control of the army. 

"Make sure to avoid direct contact and always stay on the defensive. If you estimate that the situation has become dangerous to a point of extinction, then you should take the army and leave through the Teleportation Gates. Does everyone understand?"

Contrary to Kayla's expectations, no one replied. No soldier dared answer. Most of them looked down in embarrassment because they chose to ignore their Commanding General while the other part looked upwards resolutely, preparing for facing a powerful enemy.

"I said, does everyone understand?!" Kayla repeated with an angry tone.

"Commanding General… Please allow us to fight with you!"

"Yes, Commanding General!"

"We have to fight together!"

"Yeah, we stand together for your home planet!"

"Stand together!"

"For our home planet!"

Countless similar cries spread across the battlefield. Excitement and pride was used to mask the fear and anxiety.

"Is that what you all want?" Kayla finally asked while flying with the help of one of the Cyber Force members.

"""Yes, Commanding General!""" Everyone replied.

"You will die, you don't stand a chance against them," Kayla was rather blunt. She had made her calculations already, and they were indeed going to die if they stayed.

Not that she didn't need them to attack what's left of the Star One angels, but it's just that those soldiers are the strongest the Terran Army has to offer; the first part of the army that left to organise the evacuation was not blessed by Gaia. And, Kayla thought that it was just too wasteful to let them all die here.

"Again, you will die if you stay," Kayla repeated with a serious tone. 

"""Yes, Commanding General!""" Everyone replied. 

"Uhm, I understand then," Kayla nodded. "I have noted your determination; it's truly admirable. We shall stand together and fight side by side then. For now however, stay in your defensive formation and wait for further instructions."

"""Yes, Commanding General!"""

*Sigh*

Even though her clone did not necessarily breath air, Kayla let out a soft sigh as she looked at everyone's faces, as if to engrave their faces and their brave, yet stupid, stand into her mind. 

Quickly after, she returned to her spot on the ground. Sending some transmission to the Generals, she informed them of her updated plan.

Right now, everything was almost ready, except for a few steps...

Exchanging some thoughts with a few of her clones, Kayla suddenly smiled from ear to ear. Finally, she received some good news!

"After such a long wait, they're finally ready! Talk about convenient timing, hehe," she chuckled happily while covering her mouth. "Now that the Cyber Elites are ready, we can have some leeway in terms of planning!"

The Cyber Elites in her mouth were none other than the team of EDA young Elites that she selected to undergo her special transformation and evolve using her Cyber Matter.

Although the matter sounded rather simple, it was by no means so, but the participants obviously were informed and agreed anyway.

The process of infusing Cyber Matter into one's Mana Core is quite dangerous and could quite well cause the destruction of the Mana Core or death.

The destruction of one's Mana Core means that they can never store mana in their bodies anymore. In a sense, this would take away their most precious skills. 

Some would rather die than go back to being a normal human, but some would also rather risk everything for the sake of more power, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Especially considering the situation Earth is facing.

Unfortunately, out of the fifteen elites chosen by Kayla, from various teams throughout the matches of the 'Tournament of the Elites', only eleven survived, and only nine succeeded. 

The last two who survived but didn't die stuffed a great backlash, causing them to get injured and lose their powers; their Mana Cores were destroyed!

Kayla had quite the expectations for each one of them, and held in her heart a lot of responsibility regarding the risk of their transformation. 

Not only were they her hope of a new path in developing her powers and guarding Raven and her precious ones, but also most of those who were chosen were her close friends!

Thus, the death of those four individuals and the crippling of the two others made her quite sad, and the feeling of guilt wasn't easy on her.

But at this time, she didn't have time to think of these matters. Right now, as the leader of the Terran Army, she had to have a cold heart of steel…

*Sigh*

With a sigh, Kayla shook her head. "It's sad that four have died and two have failed and lost their powers due to backlash.

"I should make sure to keep everyone in mind and reward them when this is all over. I could maybe even try to heal those with broken Mana Cores somehow. And most importantly, I have to visit and compensate the parents of those who have died…" 

Pain was clear in her eyes for a second before she shook her head one more time and disregarded those thoughts. "But what matters the most now is that there are nine who can fight and help out with our situation!

"Those who have succeeded can be said to be quite lucky as they have improved quite a lot!" She continued thinking to herself out loud. "The first is Erin, the leader of the Cyber Elites and the most responsible of them. He is a Sword Warrior with his Greatsword Lightning. He jumped from rank A++ to Star Eight!

"The second is Jina. Erin's precious girlfriend. Both of them used to live in Korea but they were enrolled in some EDA exchange program for the tournament.

"Jina is a Mana Controller who can form force shields to protect her allies. Previously, she and Erin acted as a duo and got quite famous amongst the Korean army members for protecting their shore during the Portals Incident."