Chapter 973: Distortions In Time
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Brisingra ran towards her mother, cleaning the tears from her eyes as Planta and her familiars opened the way for her, “patching” the cracks on reality. Her mother noticed her presence approaching, her eyes shifting towards her. Even without her wanting to, her own attention made space and time twist around Brisingra, as her rainbow shield protected her from an invisible wave.
BAAAM!
“Ugh…! M-Mercedes! It’s me, please calm down!”
Brisingra fell to her knees, slowly running towards her mother again. Her eyes looked completely silver now, showing glitching colors of the rainbow. It felt like Mercedes was now being possessed by something else, by a power she couldn’t understand.
“Bri… sin… gra?”
“Please calm down!”
As she moved closer to her mother, Mercedes looked down and then around her. Her glitching eyes widening as she saw the corpses of her friends, dead. This only made her go madder.
“N-No… Everyone… Why… WHY?! Why did it had to end like this?! WHYYYY?!”
As she screamed in horror, the surroundings around her further glitched, falling apart. The fabric of “reality” within the Scenario started to distort, being destroyed!
RUMBLE!
The entire dungeon was being absorbed into a shattered piece of reality, a crack, a black hole below Mercedes, while the ground below her remained floating. Even those fighting the two Divine Beasts gasped as they saw the world around them twist and beginning to be destroyed.
Stars, nebulas, memories and emotions all mixed together, swirling around Mercedes. Brisingra, Planta, and everyone else gasped as they saw something within her. Something as her body became slightly transparent.
A floating piece of something, a fragment of a transparent, gray colored grass. It emanated an endless brilliance and it twisted everything, it was as if time itself was slowing down and accelerating at the same time!
“MOM!”
As Brisingra screamed, Mercedes opened her eyes again, looking at the destruction she was making. She was terrified, horrified to see her friends’ dead bodies turn into particles of light and disappear.
“W-What’s happening?! What is this?! Is this reality?! Am I real?!”
As she started to question herself, Planta saw the time tickling. There were less than four minutes left before the system were to forcefully reset the entire thing, which might end in the deaths of all the NPC allies she brought along.
“Is talking not going to work?!” She thought, gritting her jaws. “Will I have to somehow kill her, will that work?!”
It was the first time that Planta didn’t knew what to do for sure. It was a sickening feeling, a feeling of helplessness that she never expected from a Dungeon she had imagined would be a challenge, but not something that would escalate out of proportions like this.
“Brisingra… Come!”
She grabbed Brisingra with her giant draconic arms, as she ordered her Familiars to fight back against Mercedes time and space distortion with their own abilities, constantly patching everything as it was being destroyed.
“It’s not working, I don’t know what to do!” Brisingra cried.
“You know what to do, Brisingra! We have to wake her up from her daze!” Planta said. “We have to tell her that she’s real, your voice, it was special. It caused changes within her. I think she is really fond of you, more than any of us… You have to help us help her!”
“But…!” Brisingra was still doubting herself, until they reached Mercedes.
“AAAGGH!”
She screamed in agony, waves of distorted time and space hitting Planta’s body, tearing her wooden body to shreds every time, as more of her regenerated almost endlessly.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
“Come on, a bit closer… A bit closer…!”
She felt time around her slow down, and then accelerate, it was fucking with her mind, but Brisingra was well protected in her claws, with her rainbow barrier set over her entire body.
“Wait, that barrier!”
And then, an idea found its way inside of Elayne’s head. It was the barrier! That barrier Brisingra used, it was both a power of her own and also something awakened from the ring her mother gifted to her.
This was a barrier her mother could make, and something capable of resisting these time and space distortions. She quickly smiled, rushing down.
“Mercedes, calm down and listen to us!”
“GRAAAH!”
However, the woman was not listening, another guttural scream came out from her, distorting space and time and bringing destruction to everything.
However, this time, Brisingra generated a huge shield of her barrier, the time and space was unable to pierce through it, although it still left cracks.
BOOOM!
“I-It worked?!” Brisingra asked.
“It did! Your shield is the way!” Planta said. “Brisingra, can you make a sphere with it, and put me inside!”
“S-Sure, here… here we go!”
Brisingra created a triple-layered bubble of rainbow barriers with her special magic, her mother’s ring shining brightly, as the sphere of rainbow rushed down, drawing closer and closer to Mercedes.
“ROOARR!”
“AWOOO!”
However, the roars of the two wounded, yet still alive Divine Beasts reverberated right behind them! Somehow, both beasts caught up with what they were trying to do, chasing them and trying to stop them, they attempted to get in the way!
“Dammit, move away!”
Planta fired a myriad of magic beams against them, made out of channeling her familiar’s divine sparks with her divine skill, but the divine beasts tanked all the hits as they rushed forwards.
CLAAASH!
However, a giant made of flames punched both beasts, alongside a half-dragon woman encompassed on a dress of darkness, and then a giantess made of stone, metals and crystals.
It was Mark, Rita, and Lily, arriving right in time.
“Don’t worry, we got this!”
“Go! You two can do it!”
“Please help her!”
“You guys!” Planta couldn’t help but smile, thanking god she had good and reliable friends.
The trio managed to push the divine beasts away barely, as the sphere of rainbow light reached Mercedes, clashing against an invisible barrier of time around her, and shattering it.
Crack, crack…!
CRASH!
“Mercedes! That’s enough!” Planta roared.
“Mother! Please stop, you’re going to kill everyone!” Brisingra cried.
“Y-You…?” Mercedes silver eyes looked at the two, her body beginning to distort. “R-Run… Please… run!”
As tears streamed from her face, she became something else.
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