Project Seraphina [LitRPG, Magitech, GL]

I can hear the demon laughing and gloating even before its attack has finished. The damned monster apparently never properly learned the importance of double-tapping, so confident he was that I’d be killed so easily by such a pitiful attack.

Oh, I’m hurting something fierce, and if I don’t get that beautiful healing magic from my beautiful girlfriend soon, I really will be a goner. But I’ve got a half-minute extension to my lease on life, and I’m itching to extend that for a few more years— preferably decades— to come.

“Are you ready, Chloe? I need healing the second I fly back up there!” Ow. It even hurts to use our [Angelic Bond] to communicate telepathically.

“Sera? You’re… You’re really alive! I–”

“Yeah, and at about negative three thousand health. New Skill. We can talk about it later. After the current problem is dealt with.”

“Y– You’re right.”

“Your city’s pathetic champion has fallen by my hand,” the demon roars, using some sort of [Wind]- or [Sound]-type magic to amplify its voice to echo throughout the city. “Now your city is mine. Mine to dominate, to subjugate–”

I start floating out of my would-be grave, careful not to damage anything even further, nor to make any noises that might alert the demon that I’m not quite as dead as he’s led himself to believe. His villainous monologue continues for some time as he brags about his inflated sense of superiority and domination over me, all while I realize the truth.

That attack took a lot out of him as well. I might be tattered, broken bones, missing chunks of flesh and oozing blood so much that it’s only through magic and sheer force of will that I haven’t been turned to so much paste. My current situation really makes a girl believe in the separation of mind and brain; surely, what parts of my brain are undamaged are far from sufficient to allow me to think or quip with any semblance of clarity.

It hurts to breathe. I’m not even sure how I can breathe. I’ve got multiple holes in my chest and lungs from where my armor and tissue wasn’t sufficient to absorb the blast. Good thing my head is as hard as it is, or I wouldn’t be able to see out of my bruised and broken eye sockets. [Valkyrion’s Perception] must be how I’m getting any sensory information; my eyes are sure as hell useless right about now.

I just realized that I don’t have a heartbeat anymore. Nerves still work, though, constantly reminding me in the worst possible way that I should be dead. Another reminder to self: I really ought to avoid relying on this Skill going forward. I ought to, yes. I still will anyway, though. Circumstances are going to demand it, and I’ve always been the sort to leap into the fray, regardless of the wisdom of it all.

The demon is gloating when I finally emerge, seeming not to notice. I suppose it does make sense. By all rights, I am dead, my spirit clinging to my broken body by magic and willpower alone. I probably don’t exude any of the aura that I did whenever I was properly alive. As for my coursing veins of [Ether]? I’m not at all sure how that works, although learning how to properly cloak it from something like [Valkyrion’s Perception] or another similar perception Skill did seem something to look into in the future.

Chloe taps me with her [Potent Cure]. Twice. The first time sends waves of pain through me as all my vital organs start rebuilding themselves. My mind, which was starting to feel a bit foggy after twenty seconds, now feels crisp and sharp again now that I have a proper brain to coordinate my thoughts. My heart begins beating again, trillions of blood cells propagating in mere moments to replace the ones lost to my injuries. New oxygen floods my bloodstream, revitalizing my damaged organs and helping them stitch themselves together once more into a properly functioning body for my willpower and spirit to again inhabit.

The second cast of her [Potent Cure] fixes all of the more minor issues still plaguing my body. Broken bones, this massive headache that decided to show up the moment my brain was back around to process it. Flesh wounds and crushed ligaments and damaged intestines and lots and lots of internal bleeding. The sort of things that were going to kill me in a timespan of hours or days rather than seconds or shorter.

“Seraphina? Is that you?” That’s a familiar voice, and certainly one I’m glad to hear right about now.

“Alana?” I call out. “Is that you? Goddesses above, it’s good to hear from you right about now!” I look up toward the blonde [Valkyrie], and, now that I think about it, one of my fellow sisters in the order. That’ll take a bit of time to adjust to.

“What in the! You should be dead!” the demon screams. “I know that attack scored a direct hit! I threw more than enough power in that attack to turn a level 80 to ash!”

“Sorry.” I shrugged my shoulders and summoned Filia back into my left hand. “As I’ve heard it said from a long line of people before, I guess I’m just too damn stubborn to die.”

I let loose a bellowing cry of authority and defiance, all of my pent up energy bursting forth from the seams of my skin as I channel my magic into the call of [Valkyrion’s Rally]. As my battle call echoes over the city, I feel the reverberation of hundreds more people shouting out, a chorus which blankets the entire city in a single shared desire: to tell our demonic terrorist exactly where to shove his arrogance and dark ambition.

“Well, that’s just cute, little girl.” Seriously? I just face-tanked his strongest attack and he can’t even give me the dignity of calling me something more serious than ‘little girl’?

“Seraphina.”

The demon scoffs. “What? And my name is Fornieth, the Desecrator, not Seraphina.”

“I said, my name is Seraphina. You should know the name of the woman who’s going to send you back to hell. Where you belong.”

More raucous laughter shrieks outward. “You may have a trick or two up your sleeve, but you’ve already shown that your flesh can bleed and your bones can be broken. I wonder, how many times can you cheat death? Let’s find out together, shall we?”

Fornieth charges once more, but as I’d expected, its attacks are a little slower, and with those few extra Skill ranks, I was a bit stronger and sharper to counter. I take a defensive stance in the instant before it’s upon me, but it proves unnecessary. Unlike the first time, Chloe’s [Scouring Light] actually manages to pierce through Fornieth’s defenses and deals a significant blow to his side.

He turns to Chloe and readies a blast of dark energy. Alana slashes at his hand before his blast is loosed, diverting the attack away from my waiting girlfriend and up toward the disc of tenebrous energy still eclipsing the sun.

She’s not the only one. Dozens more people are gathering both in the skies overhead and on the ground below. A few of the people I recognize, either from the battle against the City Slayers back in early July, or my time working with the military, or just random names and faces I vaguely recall and which might be my memory playing tricks on me. Most of them, I don’t.

And most of them are weak, with levels in the 30’s and 40’s. People who could end up dying just from the splash damage of the attacks Alana is throwing out, let alone myself or Fornieth. But they came to fight all the same, and I understand a warrior’s honor more than enough to try to tell these brave men and women that their presence on this battlefield isn’t likely to do much good.

They throw what spells they can at our demonic interloper, and though none of the attacks are individually powerful, numbers carry a power all the same. Fornieth attempts to dodge the giant flaming spheres aiming at his head, but a thrust of my spear forces him to dodge backwards, sustaining a minor singe to the rocky carapace on the back of his head.

“Useless trash!” Fornieth screams, unleashing a cataclysmic shockwave. Chloe and I are briefly rattled, Alana and some of the others flying around are stunned, and most of those on the ground are knocked into the fetal position, bleeding out their ears and screaming in pain.

Chloe’s hands clasp as she begins chanting some sort of spell. Fornieth goes after her, but is slammed from both sides by Alana and me. My swordstaff pierces its flesh, but molten blood oozing out forces me to retreat before I can turn the wound fatal.

“Be careful, Seraphina,” Filia cautions. “The demon’s dark energies are affecting me as well; your aura protects me, but I can only take about ten more of those before I succumb.”

“And what happens then?”

“Best case scenario, I fall unconscious and lose the majority of my power until I recover. Worst case, my entire existence unravels and you’re left with a glorified hunk of silver as a weapon.”

Not the absolute worst case scenario; I can always use my gun arm if needed. But it’s a sacrifice I don’t want to make, especially because Filia is an existence in their own right and I ought not order them to their death on my behalf.

“Impudent bugs!” Fornieth tries to slam down on me with an elbow thicker than my head. Instead, he skewers himself on my swordstaff, screaming with pain and sending more of that fell orange-red liquid raining down on the ground far below. I’m not so lucky with the follow-up punch to my face, but by twisting my neck and flying backwards at top speed, I turn what would have been a fatal wound into one that merely makes me wince.

Jasmine has now joined in the fray, their shining blades of light working to overpower the darkness. Each of them is individually weaker than I am, but their tactics and battle acumen are in no way my inferior, given their years of military training before the System’s arrival.

“[Mass Heal],” Chloe says, calmly but resolutely.

Golden light emanates out of her body, along with thousands of tiny sparkles that look like golden snowflakes. Each of them rains down upon one of the many victims of Fornieth’s sonic attack, filling them with a small tincture of healing energy. One by one, the wailing from below stops as the injuries from the many combatants down below are stitched upon once more.

A stream of violet lightning pierces through the cloudless sky, striking Fornieth in the back. For a moment, I wonder if Kristil has paid us another visit, except as I trace back the source of the staticky pulse, I see not a certain [Lightning Elementalist] but a large armored vehicle, definitely of military origin. It’s not nearly as strong as the mana cannon Nicholas had commissioned some months back, but it’s far smaller, more mobile, and definitely more useful in these sorts of fights.

With the battle slowly turning in our favor, morale skyrockets to new levels. Beams of white light assail the demonic adversary from every direction, joined by beams of ice and fire and clods of dirt at only slightly subsonic speeds from below. I can see in Fornieth’s eyes that the combination of so many thousands of attacks is wearing through his defenses, but I can also tell–

Darkness and hellfire radiates out from him as he screams with a fury borne of the netherworld itself. He’s weakened, he’s injured, but most of all, it’s his pride that has been irreparably shattered by seeing his dominant bravado broken by the combined efforts of a human race he sees as far beneath him as mere flies.

“I have had it with you insolent flies!” He begins flying up higher and higher, gathering the dark sphere previously blotting out the sun and compressing it much as he did with his earlier nexus. “I don’t care if there’s not a single living left to rule for a thousand miles. I don’t even care if I live or die anymore. Seraphina! I will see you die, even if I have to destroy my very being in the process.”

A wry smile creeps up upon my face as I look at the demon now going mad. Bring it on, Fornieth. Because the only one I plan to let die today, my friend, is you.