Chapter 392: In and Out of Time
Camila shot across the shrouded golden dunes, entering the monument of sand without any fear. Her only concern was reaching her grandmother and cousin, knowing that every second they remained inside the cathedral of sand could push them closer to their last. Fighting inside the storm was accepting an enormous disadvantage, but sometimes it couldn’t be avoided.
The kinetic aura that normally protected her from the wind also repelled the sand that would have otherwise collided with her skin, leaving damage due to the speed of the impacts. Each individual grain was suspended by an independent force, floating in patterns that moved together in massive sheets of reflective golden crystals. She blasted right through them.
The sands established vast constellations of equally spaced grains and she just shoved them aside. When they shifted, it was like a school of minnows trying to confuse a predator, manipulating light and shadow in ways that distracted and deceived, but they couldn’t resist her propulsion.
Her kinetic aura expanded to its maximum, bolstering her perception to its absolute limit as she moved at a completely inhuman pace. Her velocity exceeded 500 miles per hour and anything she could actually see transformed into a blur, with the objects directly in front of her rushing forward at terrifying speeds. Without an absolute focus on her trajectory, she would crash, but her mind raced as fast as she did, barely keeping up with the demand.
She smashed the first lizard to shift into her path with her forearm and continued on, doing her best to pick her way through the armies while ignoring the scalding corrosion that assaulted her mana and threatened to diminish her focus. A long chain of dragons were suddenly exploding, one after the other, subjected to the kinetic force of the Interceptor as she forced her way deeper into their domain.
To the lesser developed enemies, it seemed like they were spontaneously exploding into showers of golden blood and scale, but compared to their vast numbers, it was such a minor reduction that it could be completely ignored by the rank and file. They lost more individual soldiers when the larger bosses inadvertently stepped on them as the battles increased in ferocity. The more advanced dragons watched her go, unconcerned by what appeared to be the last hurrah of a lone human caught in their domain.
Camila tore through the sand, gathering up grains in her wake and outpacing their chase. Geysers erupted with each elongated step, stretching across entire blocks as she instantly approached her top speed. It barely took longer than a minute to reach where the members of her family should have evacuated from. Once she was stationary, the monsters allowed themselves to take notice, immediately encroaching on her position like she was a magnet to their senses. Anyone one of them would have welcomed the opportunity to eliminate her presence.
The previous evacuation point was near the former George Washington Bridge, where phantom ships had helped secure against the encroachment of civilization shard territory until the sands drew too close. All that was left was a cloudy desert of fine sand, blanketed by the golden haze after the shard territory shrank away, evenly coating land and water with equal thickness. If she wasn’t sure of her location due to her own confidence in speed and direction, she would never have recognized it. There was no sign of any people in the vicinity, so she drifted toward the Bronx, passing through legions of reptilian forces of mana as she picked up speed once again.
When it was necessary and she couldn’t sidestep the enemies, she jabbed at the individuals in her way. The unimpeded kinetic energy sent them careening into the crowds of monsters, assuming they weren’t completely broken by the surprise attacks.
Her momentary stop had drawn enough attention that she could observe the change in posture of the nearby dragons. They shifted like a mass of liquid, flowing toward where she had been still, but she broke through the same way as she had arrived, with a line of defeated monsters and a trail of disturbed sands.
It only took another minute to find her grandmother, the Lady of many titles, the matriarch of her family, and the actual leader of the broader organization of The Family. The monsters were all facing the single point of resistance within their domain, having had their attention previously drawn to where a few remaining humans struggled. When Camila exploded through the perimeter, she leapt in front of her family member, applying not just her built up momentum into an overwhelming attack, but also her complicated emotions at the sudden appearance of a personal rescue mission.
Her fist didn’t connect with any monster directly, but the wind that she generated rivaled even the most powerful gusts that Charlie created. A blast zone extended a quarter of a mile into the distance, dramatically sweeping the encroaching enemies away and even temporarily wrecking the structure of the sandstorm itself. The blast sent the golden sands flying, transforming the area back to crimson in the aftermath as the corrupting haze lingered in the atmosphere.