Weight

With Yuuto and Stelle off in another unknown plain prepping for the wave of monsters inching their way, the others still on the mountain tried to gather themselves.

"W-What should we do?! The two of them disappeared to who knows where…" March shook after seeing the two disappear right in front of her eyes.

Dan Heng was silent. In addition to their disappearance, the air around them turned heavy. Ripples in the space grew even bigger and monsters began to pour out once more.

Monsters covered in thick crystals and ones that had potent corrosion rolling off them emerged from the tears in space. The size of this wave was much larger than the one Cocolia made.

"We should hurry down the mountain. We'll be overwhelmed if we stay here." Dan Heng said urgently.

"But what about…"

"..They will be alright..." 

March looked at Dan Heng who was focused on the wave before him and spun his spear.

"Before Yuuto was dragged into the tear, he was more focused on us eliminating the monsters than saving himself and Stelle." 

By understanding the last few words Yuuto had said to them, Dan Heng could figure out a rough estimation of his intentions.

That they were not in any immediate fatal danger.

The reason behind how Yuuto knew this was unknown to him but he felt like it was a way to convey that they would be fine. 

Having his eyes still on the scene in front, Dan Heng slashed his spear and destroyed the icicles aimed at them.

Chunks of ice flew outwards and the monster that threw the ice roared in anger seeing its attack break apart so easily.

"Plus we also have no clue on where the two have gone so instead of scrambling around, we should focus on the situation right in front of us."

March listened to Dan Heng's collected thoughts. It may have made her frustrated but it was a fact that they had no idea where the two had gone. More so a way to figure that out.

She was annoyed but she knew that acting like this wouldn't solve the issues Dan Heng raised as more monsters began to flood out the tears.

"Geez! Let's go and hurry down as you said." March puffed her cheeks and pulled her bowstring to shoot an arrow. "But I will contact Himeko just in case!"

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea."

Dan Heng agreed and felt a bit at ease knowing that Himeko and Welt were within a phone's reach in case an emergency occurred.

Despite not openly showing it like March, he was also worried about them. However, knowing the two, he believed in their abilities to protect themselves.

"Right now we just need to trust them." He mumbled and turned towards Bronya and Seele. "We will be surrounded if we stay in this small space so we need to go down."

The two who were still stunned at the events that just occurred nodded and immediately gathered towards them.

Bronya kneeled down and supported Cocolia who had her eyes closed. While Seele assisted her knowing that they needed to hurry.

"You guys go first, I'll make a barrier real quick."

March stood a few meters back from the others and a pinkish-blue hue began to envelop the palm of her hands. Swirls of this color grew around her before finally exploding in the space ahead.

This energy grew like a wave before engulfing the enemies that attempted to rush them.

Pinkish-blue crystals grew in size and formed a large wall that blocked the path down the tall mountain.

"Enjoy breaking that~!" 

March stuck her tongue out before following behind the others. Leaving behind an angry hoard of monsters.

***

While they were escaping the mountaintop, the people who they were worried about were trying their best to survive in the space they found themselves in.

A mixture of sweat and dirt covered the two but that didn't prevent them from fighting the monsters aiming to overwhelm them with their numbers.

–THUD –THUD

Bodies made out of crystals fell to the ground and the lingering silver moonlight gradually disappeared from their dismembered parts.

"I'm actually going to beat the shit out of the person who brought me here…"

Yuuto moved his white sword without rest and allowed the moonlight covering his body to sever each of the monsters attacking him.

With one swipe, multiple lines gradually formed and shaped into medium-sized crescents.

The crescents exploded outwards and accelerated trying to reach the enemies Yuuto laid his eyes on. 

Five monsters felt the impact of the projectile made from his sword ripping their exterior apart. The light dug deeply into their body before launching them backward and leaving a few of their body parts behind.

Yuuto watched them take down a few of their friends on their way down and prepared for the next ones running towards him.

But before he could act, Yuuto felt a hefty amount of energy drain from his body and he immediately turned around.

A large and sharp claw floated a few centimeters away from him. It struggled to reach him but a bit of cold sweat dropped from Yuuto's face.

Ice out of Space.

It was a humanoid monster that was similar to the Blaze out of Space he fought before but had the inherent element of ice instead of fire.

Judging by the shape of its fingers that were the size of his body, it would have ripped apart his body with the slightest touch.

Yuuto inwardly thanked the memory that saved him and stomped his foot. A dense mist exploded from his body and submerged the Ice out of Space before it could register what happened.

The mist grew in size before extending outwards. Spikes began to form from these parts that extended out and pierced the monster leaving no room for struggle.

–VRAAAAAAAM

The Ice out of Space roared, feeling the spikes break its armor apart, and waved its arms in an attempt to break the mist surrounding it.

Yuuto who moved quickly despite all this, landed on the monster's back and converged moonlight on the tip of his sword.

He pushed with all his strength and bore his sword deep into its back. It moved about halfway before meeting some resistance preventing it from going any further.

"Stelle!"

"Wait! I'm beating the crap out of something first." 

Yuuto strengthened the mist trapping this monster and looked at Stelle who was running towards him.

She swung her bat and bits of blue sparks exploded from each attack she landed. But something felt out of place.

"Are you going to keep dragging that thing?"

"For now." Stelle finally reaching Yuuto looked at the light blue lance on her left hand. "It's a pretty good hammer."

Stelle grinned and jumped upwards. She already knew what Yuuto wanted and struck the sword embedded in the monster's back.

"Another good hit."

Yuuto raised his hand and poured moonlight into the sword that was now hilt deep and retreated.

The moonlight that remained in the sword began to condense. To the point where it began to shake and wanted to escape the object it was placed into.

"How many was that now?" 

"It should be the 8th one."

Stelle slammed her bat into the mobs attacking her while Yuuto continued to follow steadily behind her.

She looked at the Ice out of Space and briefly covered her eyes when a bright silver light exploded from within its body.

As she had asked, this was the 8th elite monster as Yuuto called it and this was only in a couple of minutes.

Even with her light attitude, Stelle was getting a bit worried as the monsters didn't seem to end. And the speed at which these elites appeared was getting shorter.

'There's also Yuuto…' 

Even with him saying that he was fine, Stelle knew that he was the person who had exerted his body the most during their fight with Cocolia.

This was especially true when she saw him healing Cocolia before they got trapped in this space.

'I need to pull my weight.'

The sparks within her bat began to grow brighter with her conviction. Remembering her moments on this planet, Stelle wanted to match Yuuto.

Match him in doing his best to save this planet from the dangers eroding it.

With this thought, Stelle gripped her bat and the sparks grew even brighter. And unknown to her, the lance that was in her other hand grew a light shade of orange. 

Before fading into the cold blue it originally had.

–SWISH

The air began to slice apart as Yuuto swung his sword ignoring the sweat dripping down his body. His body was aching but he ignored that too.

All that mattered to him right now was to eliminate the monsters inching towards him and find a way out.

[Clarity] was in full effect and he tried to find some holes in this seemingly infinite space they were in.

The surroundings were empty and not a shred of life appeared.

"The only other thing is the tears these monsters are coming out from."

As they moved from their initial position when they first arrived here, they began to discover the place where these monsters came from.

Yuuto had a feeling that these tears were the key to helping them leave but the issue was to find out which one.

There were hundreds of these tears. Some were inactive while others were too small to fit themselves into.

"I just need to find some sort of trace—!?"

Yuuto formulated these ideas to try and find a plan but it seemed like his surroundings didn't want that to happen.

The ground began to shake and more tears began to appear. Flooding their space with more enemies.

"At least give us a damn break…"

"This feels like overkill."

Yuuto and Stelle felt uneasy seeing the monsters appearing and noticed a bright light gradually growing from the back.

"Shit! Get down!"

The changes in the air he caught through [Clarity] brought countless warnings into his mind and Yuuto grabbed Stelle to the ground with him.

As he ducked he felt a beam of energy rain past them and countless explosions assaulted their ears.

"You have got to be kidding me.."

Trying to figure out where these beams came from, Yuuto frowned when he saw a line of Imaginary Weavers gathering energy within their outstretched hands.

The line didn't stop as more of these Weavers appeared through the tears. They continued to fire these beams before retreating into the tear that summoned them.

"We need to find a place to…"

Yuuto was about to stand to tell Stelle that they needed to retreat for now. But his left leg became weak and Stelle hurried to support him.

"You're overworking yourself."

"No, I will be fine if I heal myself. I just need to divide the energy I use and…"

"YUUTO!"

Stelle shouted, which surprised Yuuto and he finally noticed the angry look on her face.

"Stop trying to do everything by yourself. Your body is already telling you that you need a break."

"But we have no choice. We'll be overwhelmed if we even relax for a moment."

"..."

Stelle bit her lips as she knew this was true but she still refused to leave Yuuto like this and wanted him to take a break to collect himself.

"Leave the attacking…"

"Huh?"

"Just leave the attacking to me." She figured that his words were true so she compromised. "Focus on protecting yourself and rest for a bit. I will be in charge of attacking."

"But…"

"I swear if I hear another word from you I will ask Pom Pom to give you Himeko's coffee every time you ask them for a drink."

"....."

Hearing such an odd threat made him shut his mouth. If a certain redhead heard their conversation she would have been shocked to find that her drink was being used as a threat.

'I'm sorry Himeko but I can't experience that coffee again.' Yuuto apologized to Himeko and let out a deep sigh. 

He already knew that the fatigue accumulating in his body didn't feel too bad as he used [Mother's Embrace] to heal himself.

But it seemed like dividing his energy was not enough to have his body keep up his growing exhaustion.

He covered his body with a meter-wide barrier listening to Stelle's request and watched as she was satisfied that he listened to her.

"Alright, now I need to beat a few of you so little Yuuto can have his beauty sleep."

Stelle's golden eyes shined and she swung her bat shattering each of the mobs apart with the impact she created.

Yuuto who was sitting behind felt odd seeing her take on all the monsters herself.

"Well, that's a protagonist for you…"

Closing his eyes, Yuuto felt a warm energy envelop his entire body. Now that he wasn't dividing his energy into attacks, he could now focus all that on relieving the fatigue and injuries in his body.

Fluctuations of blue and gold covered him but after a few minutes of healing, he felt like it would take hours to reach a point that he was satisfied with.

"I need more energy…"

This thought formed in his head and he sunk his consciousness into the Stellaron residing within him.

The previous empty orb was now glowing a light shade of gold and held the destructive energy he had gathered throughout his time on Jarilo-VI. 

'Looks like absorbing the corrosion within Cocolia only brought it up to 5%'

Compared to the measly 1% that he had gotten from absorbing the fragmentum crystals. The energy within Cocolia was enough to fill it up four percent.

But what surprised him was the potential amount this Stellaron was able to carry. He started to understand why this thing was so excited when it began absorbing the energy within Cocolia.

Like a certain quench had been finally fulfilled. 

And what he needed to do now was to use this Stellaron to help him. More than it already has since the first time he got it.

When he first turned this Stellaron into an engine using the [Core Memory] of the Antimatter Beast and an archived memory of his [Heart], he placed a certain limit.

A certain threshold that was viable to the current him as he was unsure of the consequences of circulating this potent energy through his body.

'I'm still hesitant but based on the situation I need to use everything I have.'

Yuuto remembered Cocolia and how her body was unable to keep up. So he decided that he should slowly go past the limit he set upon himself and gradually increase it.

Playing safe wasn't going to change anything so he needed to take some risks. He had already exerted his body to this point so why not go all the way?

He took one last look at the Stellaron inside and willed the engine to slowly lift the limit he set.

As he released it, a searing and potent heat rushed through his body. Causing him to hiss in pain. It was overflowing and Yuuto was able to feel a surge of vitality slowly rise.

Golden vein-like lines began to grow past his neck and arms as the Stellaron's energy roamed his body.

Yuuto clenched his fist trying to contain the energy and willed [Mother's Embrace] to help support him. With the addition of [Heal] threaded within it, he was able to feel his body slowly adjust to the energy.

His blood felt alive and wanted to find a way to go wild but Yuuto placed his entire focus on preventing this from happening.

Setting the limit back up and removing it. He did this process countless times to get his body used to this chaotic element with the support of some memories.

An unknown amount of time began to flow and Yuuto was in a state where his body tried to contain this newfound energy and prevent it from going wild.

He gradually felt the searing and hot pain lessen to a considerable degree to where he could finally move without hurting himself.

A gush of steam escaped his mouth as he breathed and noticed the changes appearing on him. Thin golden veins still appeared on his skin but it was hardly noticeable as he controlled it.

The energy was overflowing but he needed some time to control it. Managing to prevent it from going berserk was going to be a bit different from actually using it. 

"Wait…" Yuuto looked up from his position and was shocked to see the piles of bodies surrounding Stelle. "How long was I out..?"

It felt like a few minutes had passed but seeing the litter of corpses he was certain that it was way more than that.

He immediately stood up and used his senses to find Stelle as he knew she was still fighting.

"Over there." He kicked the ground and rushed towards an area where he heard a person screaming.

Reaching the area he saw Stelle on top of a monster bashing its head in with a light blue lance.

What shocked him even more was that she was using the round part of the lance instead of the sharp tip it had.

Feeling like she had done her best, Stelle stood up and was about to walk toward the next enemy when she noticed Yuuto standing a few meters away from her.

"Ah! You look much better~!"

"Yeah.. but you…"

"It's nothing much! I just had to show them who's the real boss but they were still pretty resilient after beating so many of them." 

Stelle waved her hand and walked towards him. Yuuto on the other hand felt unpleasant as he noticed the wounds Stelle had on her body.

Chucks of ice pierced some parts of her shoulder while dried blood hung on the corner of her lips. She tried to appear energetic but her complexion was pale and she struggled to catch her breath walking to him.

"Why are you looking at me so weird?"

"....."

Stelle noticed the frown Yuuto had on his face and eventually figured out the reason why.

"Don't worry. Remember I told you that I'll keep them busy while you rest." Stelle showed him her signature grin. "Well? Do you think I carried my weight?" 

"You did more than that…"

"Hah! I wish I had March here so she could take a picture of your face."

Yuuto tried to control his expression when he heard Stelle laughing and wondered what could bring her to joke in her state right now.

A few seconds continued to go by and Stelle eventually stopped before her legs gave out and Yuuto had to catch her. 

"I will leave it to you now. It's my turn to take my beauty sleep."

"What beauty sleep? I don't seem to recall seeing a beauty needing sleep around here—OW!?"

"Excuse yourself but you must be deprived of any sort of understanding of what true beauty really is."

Stelle clicked her tongue but felt satisfied seeing Yuuto rub the part of his arm where she pinched. She took one last breath and felt a wave of exhaustion overtake her.

"I.. will take a quick nap.."

"Go ahead. You deserve it."

"You damn right I do... " Stelle laughed one last time before finally closing her eyes. "Thanks..."

Yuuto felt her body relax and he raised his hand over his tired form. He began to heal her of the injuries she sustained and was relieved to find that she didn't have anything serious.

"I feel like Kafka would kill me if she found her in this state." 

Feeling a slight chill at this thought, he quietly healed her before feeling the presence of a few monsters heading towards him.

"There is no end to them." He whispered this and covered Stelle in a barrier.

He felt incredibly grateful that she did what she said. But he was angry at himself for not realizing sooner that she was pushing herself into the state she was in right now.

"Let me relieve some of this frustration…" 

Feeling the new depth of energy he had access to, Yuuto dug deep into his memories and decided that he should use everything he had.

Mist grew within his palm and a thin spear materialized. But a subtle change grew within this spear.

The simple spear that had no details began to move and grow longer than what it originally was. The shaft began to have some finer details while the head turned into a spear that was very similar to the one Cocolia used.

"I thought that some of her memories would come in handy in the future but I guess now's the time."

Yuuto raised his hand and spears that were similar to the one in his hand began to take shape before 15 of them appeared.

Not wasting a single second he dropped his hand and these spears rained down on the enemies coming towards him and pierced their bodies.

That wasn't all as these began to shake and a piercing cold frost was released on the surrounding area. Ripping their bodies to shreds. 

[Ice Edge]

The spear technique that Cocolia was fond of using. He managed to copy this memory when he attempted to heal her corrupted [Nexus] as a backup for her.

He remembered the AOE potential this memory had and felt like it was suitable for his current situation. 

The area in front of him turned into a deadly field that ripped apart anything that entered as he anticipated. Slowly killing off the wave of monsters.

Yuuto was going to send more but feeling the change in the air once more, he stomped his foot and a wave of mist immediately formed a wall that absorbed the condensed beam that approached him.

"Now it's you guys…"

He remembered these Weavers from before as they would unleash a barrage of beams before retreating into the tears that summoned them. 

Feeling like his energy was still brimming he noticed that when he used the Stellaron's energy it felt like it wanted to burst out of him.

Taking some time to control himself, Yuuto tapped into the engine and used a memory he didn't think he was able to use so soon.

A thin circle began to glow behind him and countless golden rings with a singular point on opposite sides followed along. Energy rapidly escaped him but the engine began to churn as it tried to replace the missing power Yuuto was using.

Finally reaching the limit, Yuuto heaved a deep breath before finally releasing a barrage of bluish-yellow beams that rushed toward the Weavers trying to escape.

–VRMMMM

The condensed energy they fired at them was immediately sent back by Yuuto. But the sheer force that came from his [Barrage] was enough to eliminate a large chuck of the Weavers.

With some hefty casualties that were caught up in the crossfire.

Yuuto clenched his chest after firing [Barrage] as the energy grew fiercer but he forced it to calm down.

"I need to use this time quickly."

Not knowing the potential consequences, Yuuto wanted to use this opportunity to finally figure out a way out.

And what was going to help him was the disgusting gaze that was always glued onto him.

"You better keep watching."

***

Arc will be ending soon.