Howls From The Abyss
Magnus subtly felt his mind split in two. 'Seriously, I can never get used to this feeling. I feel okay when we're fused. In fact, it's so natural it doesn't feel like anything's abnormal. But when you separate from me, it triggers this slightly icky feeling somewhere in my mind. And I know you feel the same.'
'Yeah, it's weird,' agreed Magnus 2.0. 'But I couldn't let you keep her all to yourself. Anyway, do you think we've prepared enough?'
'Absolutely,' Magnus answered in a reassured tone. 'We've planned which portals to assign to TJ and Summer, and all that's left to do is figure out where those portals have spawned.'
During the next few hours, Magnus decided to gather everybody and hand them each an undershirt or a camisole to wear beneath their sweatshirts and jackets. These garments were a bit special, though, as each of them had received Magnus' blessing. Yes, he realized the distaste of blessing underwear, but he couldn't think of any other option. He had discarded the idea of using sticky notes to offer one-week long boosts, as the glue would wear off and the paper would drop quite easily. He also had neither the tools nor the skills to engrave [Language of Magic] onto a sturdy item. Moreover, he couldn't just bless a piece of paper, crumple it into a tiny ball, and slip it in a person's pocket. The writings of [Language of Magic] had to remain in their original shapes in order for the divine magic to take effect. If they were to bear many scratches or distortions in their form, the item would turn useless.
Therefore, Magnus had the bright idea to implement his blessings onto the less-frequently folded areas on clothing. After collecting enough undershirts and camisoles, he began the practice of divine magic and blessed each one of those garments.
There were two things he needed to pay attention to.
First, the fact that the [Language of Magic] skill drew more mana from him when he used element mana. The point of utilizing element mana while executing the skill was to add affinity-enhancing effect to the blessed item. However, some people were already in possession of items with the same effect. Plus, these items were blessed by the gods, so their enhancing quality was astronomically higher than what Magnus could pull off with his miniscule Divinity. There was no point in wasting his mana just to bless an item that would contribute nothing to their affinities. Therefore, he focused more on boosting their stats, especially Health and Mana, using attributeless mana.
Second thing is, the skill's low level. After a pile of torn sticky notes and scrunched up papers later, so far he had only managed to ramp up the skill to level two, very close to reaching level three. Although this resulted in the slightly lower mana consumption, the quality of his blessing was still on the bare minimum. At most, he could only successfully produce an effect such as '+3 Agility' or '+5 Mana' per blessing. This was frustratingly wasteful for the mediums available. TJ's house only had so many papers, after all.
But then he had a sudden eureka moment: what if he stacked up these blessings on one single medium? For example, a single paper would bear four identical blessings.
'+3 Strength'
'+3 Strength'
'+3 Strength'
'+3 Strength'
That made for '+12 Strength' in total! Such a brilliant idea!
However, he soon realized how inefficient the process was for his Mana reserves. He had to spend 600 mana points for four blessings, whereas he could've spent only 150 mana points for a single blessing with the same effect if his or the skill's level were much higher.
Nevertheless, he couldn't complain. On top of already having to maintain [Unbreakable] and occasionally helping out his friends and family with their training, he also had to spend a lot of mana to practice [Language of Magic]. Suffice to say, he was exhausted from constantly being on a cycle between draining his mana and replenishing it manually. He even had to whip out his armor just for the Mana boost it offered, much to everyone's questioning eyes.
In the end, he had successfully prepared an undershirt or camisole that glowed with stacked up blessings to everyone expect TJ, Summer, and Katja. TJ because, well, he was already plenty strong as he was. Summer and Katja didn't need any more blessed items as they both already owned a B-rank item each. This item was enough to boost their stats considerably, and Magnus knew for sure nobody else in the world had yet to get their hands on even a D-rank item. So they definitely had the upper hand when it came to items and weapons.
Lastly, Summer had finally managed to learn [Rapid Growth] just as Magnus declared the end of their training. At the first level, the skill was useless in battle. At most, it would only allow her to slowly build a tree. A single tree no more than seven meters in height. Regardless, her achievement in learning the skill had granted her 20 XP and Magnus 400 DP. So he wasn't disappointed.
It was only about an hour away before Chapter 3 began.
'Let's see…' Magnus opened up TJ's and Summer's Status Windows.
[Status Window
Name: Tyler John Haysmith
Race: Human
Author: Magnus 2.0
Alias: Death
Age: 18
Title(s): None
Level 2
XP: 80/200
HP: 500
Mana: 780
Strength: 77
Agility: 59
Perception: 54
Stamina: 61
Skill(s): Rejuvenate, Ignite (Lv. 8), Flamethrower (Lv. 6), Swordsmanship (Lv. 6), Death Flame (Lv. 4), Decay (Lv. 3), Wind Bullet (Lv. 4), Pain Resistance (Lv. 6), Line of Fire (Lv. 1)]
[Status Window
Name: Summer Murphy
Race: Human
Author: Magnus 2.0
Alias: Glósóli
Age: 17
Title(s): None
Level 1
XP: 70/100
HP: 160
Mana: 140
Strength: 25
Agility: 67
Perception: 23
Stamina: 33
Skill(s): Rejuvenate, Lesser Heal (Lv. 3), Earth Bullet (Lv. 2), Rapid Growth (Lv. 1)]
[Forest's Wish] gave her +40 Agility, +50 Health, and +50 Mana. However, it wasn't enough. Apart from Magnus, she was the sole healer within the group. Which was why, Magnus decided to pull out another B-rank item that he used to rely on in his early years as a Protagonist. It was a rare item in the form of a gold ring, and of course, he had to steal it from another Team's Supporting Character.
[Mana Bank]
[Can store up to 100 Mana]
It was a rechargeable power bank for mana. Magnus had had it filled to the brim with his own mana since a while ago. And he always kept it safe in his Inventory if ever the need arose for it to be used. After the training was done, he slipped it onto Summer's thumb—since it had been recharged with Magnus' mana, the ring remained the size of his ring finger where he had last worn it. In the event where her mana reserve was almost depleted, all she needed to do to activate the item was to send her own mana into it. After that, Magnus' mana would automatically be converted into natural mana and then sent into her body.
It would've actually been better if Summer recharged the ring with her own mana, since using someone else's mana would decrease the speed at which their mana would be replenished. It had to go through a conversion process, after all.
With the training over, everyone only had to wait for Chapter 3 to begin. While waiting, Magnus 2.0 decided to pull up every system screen available to do some final checks. However, when the screen for their Mission showed up, both Magnuses frowned.
'The heck? It went down to twelve percent?' said Magnus.
'System, what happened?' Magnus 2.0 demanded.
[The Satisfaction Level had gone down by two percent after The Viewers witnessed the relieved expression on the host's Protagonist #2's face when the host saved him from dying.]
'Do you mean when I shielded him from the ice spear?'
[Correct. The fact that Protagonist #2, along with Protagonist #3 and the rest of the host's family and friends are constantly feeling safe under the host's protection is making The Viewers slightly dissatisfied. They think there is not enough tension and sense of danger for those under the host's umbrella of protection, therefore the current progression of the storyline has become boring in the eyes of The Viewers.]
'The fuck? This is so annoying.'
'What do we do, then?' asked Magnus 2.0.
[The hosts are advised not to interfere too much on his Team's and Protagonists' struggles and battles.]
Magnus fell into thought. 'Should we just stand back and provide support from the backline then?'
'I think so, too. Occasionally casting [Unbreakable] and providing healing when Summer's out of mana are probably the most we're allowed to do. We should definitely never go on the offensive.'
Minutes passed before suddenly a system message popped up in front of everyone's faces.
[Chapter 3
Following the massive shifts in The Universe, the hidden Realm, otherwise known as The Abyss, began to be affected by the ripples of changes. The abyssal energy was becoming chaotic, until finally it created tears in space and time between The Abyss and other Realms. With a connection slowly being established, every living being in all the known Realms within The Universe started hearing the distant howls from The Abyss. And the monsters, they were coming.]
Magnus observed as everyone's faces turned from surprise to fear to assurance. The last expression appeared when they glanced at him.
'I guess that's true. They're kinda relying on the safety I'm providing,' Magnus realized. 'As much as I like the feeling of being relied upon, I don't think it's a good idea to make them think I'll always be there to save them in times of crisis. I'm not a god, after all. There's only so much I can do.'
'We do need to take a step back a little bit, then,' Magnus 2.0 added.
A few seconds after the system message disappeared, the hairs on everyone's back stood up. They could hear an echoing hum coming from all directions. The hum's frequency was so low it resonated with their bones, giving them massive chills.
Magnus' eyes widened in shock. It was true that the creation of The Abyss' portals produced that particular sound effect. However, it shouldn't be this loud, and it was supposed to be concentrated on one direction that was the portal itself.
His bad premonition grew stronger as he strode toward the front door and went outside. That was when he saw the horror he had failed to predict. The gods still had one more card left to make his life difficult.
Magnus had been too caught up in leveling up [Language of Magic] and making absolutely sure that everyone had the power to defend themselves that he had forgotten one fact.
The gods were able to choose the spawn locations of the portals!
He watched with a troubled expression as three black holes the size of a tennis ball surrounded TJ's house. One was positioned on the street some hundred meters to the right, one was situated above a house next to the first one, and the last one appeared right above TJ's house. Magnus knew from his experience that no more than three portals could be placed within a radius of 500 meters. Which meant that the gods had deployed all three right by TJ's house, and left the remaining areas untouched.
Around the intersection to the left, The Mad King stood menacingly. His gang of demons had remained the same size as yesterday, which wasn't very big. They didn't have a lot of members in the first place.
Still, Magnus was trapped between the portals and The Mad King's Team.
The black holes distorted lights around them, making them look as if they had an outer layer made of jumbled fragments of faint colors. In just five seconds, these black holes had become as big as a basketball.
Magnus clicked his tongue and rushed back into the house. The others had sighted two of the portals, and they instinctively knew great danger was coming.
"Everyone, please listen up," Magnus said aloud. "Grab everything you need from the supplies in the basement! It seems we have to move out earlier than planned."
They didn't wait for Magnus to finish his sentence before running into the basement and putting the most essential stuff into their Inventory.
Magnus knew that even if they got out of the house immediately, they wouldn't have time to get far enough from the portals before they eventually grew big enough for the monsters to pass through. He thought everyone might as well take some things they would need for survival before setting off.
He headed outside and observed as the portals rapidly expand in size. He then pulled up all the system screens and said to his copy, 'You'll keep an eye everyone's status and I'll handle all the support and protection.'
Magnus 2.0, of course, didn't feel the need to object. Both of them were basically operating on the same wavelength.
Magnus mentally tapped on the phone icon on TJ's and Summer's screens to make a group call. 'So here's the plan. We're going to the right, away from the masked rioters. Their numbers might be smaller, but they are able to think straight and fight with a clear mind. On the other hand, the monsters will first experience slight disorientation upon passing through the portals, and that will be our chance to bash their heads. And I'm sure it would be mentally easier for everybody to kill the monsters compared to fellow humans.
So, we might have to bulldoze our way through all the monsters that are coming from the other side. TJ, you have the most Health apart from me, so you'll be on the frontline. Take everybody who mostly have defense skills with you. Summer, please stay in the back with me. You'll mainly be on the healer role while occasionally providing long distance attacks. I'll watch out for the ones coming through the portal above this house.'
Hearing Magnus' quick explanation, both TJ and Summer were taken aback.
'There's another one above us?' Summer asked in horror.
'Yes. The gods are really screwing with us,' answered Magnus. 'Also, permission to activate your POV and keep an eye on your Status?'
'Permission granted. Just do whatever you need to help us survive, Magnus,' replied Summer.
'What she said,' added TJ.
'Alright.' He turned around to see everyone prepared to make a run for it. Those who had weapons already had them equipped. "You guys ready?"
They all nodded.
"Let's go."