Luminary Institute

79: Squeezing Out The Creativity

After killing the boar and the mass of flesh, Mira, Celeste and Nyssa moved on without celebration. Mira, as they flew, asked Celeste and Nyssa a few more questions about their powers. Hearing stories and examples of the sheer firepower the two could produce, she shook her head, urging the two to not lose their drive to improve. As they continued, they cleaned up another five fights while Mira took notes on the environment. 

“Everything is run-of-the-mill which is nice. Nothing too intriguing,” Mira shrugged as Nyssa and Celeste floated in the air beside her. “I am getting messages to meet up with Kael. Seems like he ran into something that would be more advantageous to fight in a group.” 

Before Nyssa and Celeste could even ask which direction to travel in, their newfound mentor swung off into the sky. They hurried along, following behind Mira and ascending into the air, and as they flew upward, the gray wasteland stretched out before them. Whilst in the air, they spotted a purple streak of lightning blazing across the ground, speeding ahead of them with Orin in tow. 

Flying forward, Nyssa and Celeste followed Mira into the fog. Once enveloped though, they began hearing the sounds of battle. Similar to before, out of the corner of their eye, they spotted a flash of light streak past them towards the source of the sounds. The sounds of sword clashes filled their ears until they reached the site of battle. 

A horde of monsters had come together and begun brawling. Dead carcasses laid in piles as the sounds of battle drew more and more monsters towards the epicenter. Kael, situated near the middle, wielded two swords in his hands and five more with his mind. Like a human blender, he shredded through monsters without leaving a second to breathe. Conrad and Angelica on the other hand, bobbed and weaved through the crowd of monsters. 

Equipped with a polearm, Angelica’s fighting style painted a beautiful, yet lethal art piece, every part of her body flipped and twisted as she never stopped moving. In a masterful demonstration of martial arts, every movement of hers landed a critical hit on a different monster. As for Conrad, he wielded an energy blade, and cut through the monsters with strong strokes; though unrefined in terms of technique, his pure strength and physical abilities shone like a brilliant star among a sea of anemone. 

Second by second, more people joined the battle. Electra, free to go wild, let loose giant bolts of purple lightning in her own area of the battlefield. A mushroom cloud appeared as Ryker committed to his signature battle strategy. 

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“Though there are some species we would want to conserve, it's a mess. So, it's not really possible right now,” Mira shrugged before diving into the battle. “Good luck, just kill everything you can. We’re trying to stifle this as much as possible.” 

Left to their own devices, Celeste and Nyssa could only look at each other for a few moments. Reaching out, Nyssa patted Celeste on the shoulder before pantomiming a mock salute. “Good luck fellow soldier.”

“Same to you,” Celeste patted the white-feathered wings Nyssa had grown to fly in human form. “Have some fun, my love.” 

“I’m sure you will more than me, since you actually enjoy letting loose,” Nyssa shrugged before floating off to see which area of the battlefield needed the most help. 

“I probably will...” Celeste trailed off as her eyes followed Nyssa into the distance. Hovering in place, she closed her eyes and turned her attention inward. With each beat of her heart, she felt her body jolt as blood and heat rushed through her veins. Her eyes began to glow, her eyes began to glow, and her veins began to fluoresce through her skin. Starry light and heat flooded out of her as she began evaporating the fog around her. 

Careful to not let her entire body explode, she opened her eyes and flew downward while keeping the speed low. The heat increased and she allowed for the energy stored in her heart—and now coursing through her body—to streak out of her in beams. As she flew low like a fighter jet, Celeste torched every monster in her vicinity, boiling their skin off and melting their eyes as lasers cut straight through their bodies. The screams of monsters drowned in the sounds of battle as she cleared out swaths of monsters through her movement alone. She began shining like a mini-sun as the temperature of her side of the battlefield increased by a degree or two. 

Nyssa, relaxing a touch from the warmer temperatures, turned back to see the horror show Celeste had initiated. She, though, flew towards the cold side of the battlefield where Albion had demonstrated his domination over ice. Monsters on his side hadn’t even been frozen—they had been transformed into pure ice. 

Albion, now half-ice, skated around towards the inflow areas of monsters, freezing them and erecting barriers to prevent more monsters from congregating. 

“He’s fine...” Nyssa flew towards a different area. As she flew, she wracked her brain for a transformation to purge the area of as many monsters as she could in as little time as possible. “I don’t want to use those ones though...” 

Several basic ideas did come to mind, but her urge for creativity pushed Nyssa to scratch the back of her head as she flew. Judging by the area she had found, she settled on a circular design and her body began to glow while in the air. 

Her form grew. As her head faded into the light, she clenched her teeth to maintain her focus. Expanding into a living wheel covered in metal plate–like teeth, she crashed into the ground as her body began to rotate. After each second, her body spun faster and faster, shredding monsters while drawing them inward. 

Though her sense of self had diminished a touch maintaining this less intelligent, gargantuan form, she grew in size until she covered her own section of the battlefield. Areas where monsters had been shredded had its biomass funneled towards the center where she compacted it, leaving empty spaces for other monsters to get pushed in. 

Like a giant drain-garbage disposal mixture, Nyssa claimed dominion over her own section of the battlefield. With her transformation though, she began paying less attention to the battlefield’s larger situation. She trusted those in charge to keep everything under control. 

I just have to clean this area up as fast as I can. 

With their teamwork, totalling thirteen people in total, the expansive battlefield ended up clearing out over the course of thirty minutes or so. As everyone untransformed and calmed down their powers though, Angelica began noticing weird similarities between the corpses strewn across the battlefield. “Crystals? In everything?”