"It's inside!" one of the guards yelled as I reached the door. I looked behind me and found the squad, plus the other librarians. Considering what Elody had said about Yorela, it was likely for the best that she was here.

From inside the building, I could already make out the sounds of screams and metal clashes. How had the thing come through the gate? Had they opened it back up? I dashed inside, spotting at least part of the answer to my questions. The gate was open, and one of them was already through, and worse yet, a second one had part of its body emerging after it.

"Can you close the gate?" I yelled as I released Alpha and Beta from my System storage. I quickly pulled up a chat window and fired off a message.

>Dave: Focus on the thing trying to get through. Try to stop it as best you can. Do not go through after it.

>Alpha: Do not like, protect new friends.

>Beta: They are soon to be members of the Empire. We will protect them with our lives!

>Dave: Keep them safe, but do not needlessly sacrifice yourselves. Your lives matter as well.

>Gamma: The energy coming off those creatures is strange. It is not like any mana signature I have felt before. Do your bests not to absorb any of it.

>Beta: Fine!

When we returned, I was going to have a talk with all the cores on what they wanted, as it seemed like even Alpha was starting to form their own desires. If only I had had this realization at a better time to dwell on it. Instead, the thoughts hit me just as I ducked under something strange, a black mass, the bone horror had fired from where one of its eyes should have been. At least I assumed those were holes for its eyes.

I placed a shield around myself, the cores, and the two guards trying to fight the creature, moments before its arm slammed into them. The feedback I absorbed felt strange. I understood Gamma's point now. Hopefully, this wouldn't be an issue for my core. Just as I reversed the gravity under it, several arcs of electricity flowed through the air into its bones. Its form slammed into the ceiling with a loud thud, and then made the same sound as it crashed back to the ground.

"We won't be able to kill it like this. I don't even know if we can with what we have. But if we can get the skull separated from the body, it should render it inert for now!" Elody yelled.

"Don't store the bones in your System storage either, if you manage to drop it. We'll need to dispose of it another way!" Yorela added, with much less confidence in her voice. She sounded scared, and as she was the one who had experience with this, that was a worrying sign.

"What can we hit it with that will actually hurt it?" Elicec yelled as the form rose back from the ground, looking no worse for our combined attack.

"The only real magic there's a chance you have is necromantic, and I'm guessing you don't, or Elody would have suggested it. That means brute force until the head comes off is all we can do," she answered as she dashed past me, a small hammer in each of her hands.

"Connie, give us the song you used on the outsiders, it might be close enough," Elicec yelled as his brother's scythe cracked two of the creature's ribs.

As the music started, I realized I did have a path that could help here. They wanted brute strength? Well, I just so happened to have some things I hadn't unlocked yet that could do that. I quickly maxed out both Muscle Control and Berserk and sent another message to Gamma before activating them.

>Dave: Likely about to lose control of myself, no idea how that will affect you. If you can stop me once this is over, or if you think I need to be. Do it.

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>Gamma: Understood.

I started with Muscle Control, and I could innately feel how to process the mana somehow. I pushed it towards raw strength, which seemed to trigger Overwhelming Strength at the same time. Then I did the thing that scared me the second most on my list of magical abilities. I triggered Berserk and felt my brain focus beyond anything I had ever experienced.

There was a large thing in front of me. Why was it making noise? Why was it attacking people I liked? I wasn't sure anymore. Had I known before? Maybe, but that didn't matter. It needed to die. I felt something like a roar escape my lips as I charged forward and slammed my fists into part of its skeleton.

The bone shattered beneath my blow. A smile crossed my face as I felt my hands grab the next nearest bone and rip it off the creature with a crunching sound. I turned as I swung the bone as hard as I could into its chest. More bones exploded with the force of my blow. My newfound weapon had turned to dust in my hand as I leaped onto the thing's chest and began tearing bones free of its mass.

Claws raked across my back as blood flowed, but that didn't matter right now. All that mattered was that this creature stopped moving. My skulled slammed into its skull, causing my vision to swim. By the time I could see straight, its skull was gone, but the body was still fighting. That was fine. I could handle that. I just needed to break more of the bones. And so I did, over and over until nothing was left, lost completely in my rage.

Suddenly, I felt something inside of me cut off, and pain flooded me back to reality. Memories of what I had just done under the orb's influence hit me. I realized Gamma had entirely cut off the mana flow to that socket, and with good measure. I was losing a lot of blood and barely had the mana needed to patch myself up. Had they waited any longer, I likely wouldn't have. While I was sure Elody would have taken care of my wounds, I was still glad for Gamma's actions.

"What the hell was that?" Cecile asked as I felt the stitches form on my back.

"Tried out some new strength magic, not sure I liked it," I replied.

"Liked it or not, that was pretty damn effective. Looks like your cores got the other one back out of here as well, and the gate closed for now," Yorela replied. They had, but how the hell did it open in the first place?

"Alright, listen up. I ain't gonna say anything twice, so ya better pay attention!" Mel said. His head hurt like hell, and his body felt ready to fade away. He had pushed himself harder than he should have, getting the fleet here with all the drones and Timon's mental connection.

He had already known that was going to be a problem, but with the tree back on Earth, it didn't matter as much. He could take some time to rest and fix what he had lost with this stunt. Without the tree, though, this would have been suicide. And he had no urge to rush toward death, at least anymore. He had a quest to finish now, and this human was going to help them get back home so he could work on it.

"Sir, yes, sir!" Grant replied loudly, a smile on his face. Mel hadn't been expecting that, but considering the kid's military background, maybe he should have been. He hadn't really been around enough of the Dave's people's society to really know how they worked. Not that Dave was that different from other humans he had met, other than being brand new to the Spiral.

"This here is a class orb, and it ain't no regular one. Some call it a Lightning Sharpshooter, but that's just cause it's what they're used to seeing. In reality, it's mostly whatever ya make of it. Once ya put this in yer core, it's gonna give ya access to a path that lets ya form a weapon. Do that, and then we can start working on how ta use it. Growth from there is gonna be up ta ya, but I'll do my best ta cover the basics with ya," Mel explained, wondering how well a human would handle a class like this.

Usually, it worked best for the Cloud People because of their fluidity of limbs. He considered the idea of convincing Grant to pair it with a Mutation mana orb. Would the mana be willing to do something like that? It was something to consider either way.

The thought of Grant using the class in the Arena one day almost caused Mel to burst out laughing. When one of his people saw a human fire off an elemental rocket, they would absolutely recognize the class. The real question was how big of hell would he have to pay when they realized he had given it to a different species. Hopefully, the tree could buy off some of that.

Mel watched Grant place the orb up to his chest before it vanished into the man. Moments later, a large object appeared on his shoulder. It didn't quite look like what generally formed. "Why's it look different?" Mel asked, confused.

"No idea, sir. But I can tell this seems closer to a type of weapon I trained on called a Javelin. It's not exactly the same, but the fit feels right," Grant replied.

"Hrm, probably customized itself a bit fer yer training then. Might make things a bit easier. Well, let's go fire that thing at some training dummies," Mel said, leading Grant from the room.

The problem with utilizing the energies of chaotic space for anything is how rapidly they degrade any of the Spiral's normal mana flows. This is why those who venture deep into chaotic space are either specialists or insane, and usually it's actually both. Now, despite what I've just claimed there, it does not mean it's actually impossible. Very few in the Spiral know of this, and the ones that do would likely never admit to it. But seven mana orbs were created from an energy source within chaotic space. I personally possess one of them, the other six have vanished into the hands of those who it would likely be better off didn't have them. As my mind begins to turn to different wonders outside of the known Spiral, I'm left wondering what I should do with my own. It doesn't seem safe to bring it with me.

An Entry From Thykle's Personal Journals

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