The Over-Break System

With a few more seconds of banter between the two brothers, Cynrik cut off the conversation due to his arrival at the edge of the lavafall. Tilting backward, he assumed a leaning posture and observed the liquid-like sky of the Shadow Realm, with Benny joining him.

“Are you ready for this?” Cynrik looked over at Benny and noted how much stress the boy was wearing on his face. Since the Shadow Realm was, in essence, a world devoid of any Mana particles aside from Dark Mana, the task Cynrik had bestowed on Benny was unreasonably challenging and required him to converge all the Mana inside his Codex into his hands, forming a weak blue glow that radiated from his hands.

Fearing if he looked away at the older boy speaking to him would break his concentration, Benny only gave a short nod to Cynrik.

“Good, remember, once I bring us out, I’ll be using [Shadow Veil] to hide us immediately. This will still leave us visible for about a second, so don’t make any sudden movements. Lastly, since the village is surrounded by lava and a heavy amount of Fire Mana, it will be difficult to converge Water Mana.” Cynrik paused and withdrew the Medium Mana potion he received from the chests earlier and stuffed it into the pocket of Benny’s jacket.

“It will take more MP to draw the ambient Water particles, so don’t panic when you bottom out; just chug down that potion and continue. We only have one shot at this, so make it count. Don’t drop the [Water Sphere] until you’ve charged it to maximum capacity.”

Cynrik extended his left arm and gripped Benny’s shoulder.

“Let’s do this; I’ve got your back covered, so just focus on your task.” With those last words, Cynrik kicked off the shadow pillar he was perched on and carried Benny towards the barrier between the Shadow Realm and the real world, deactivating his [Shadow Leap] in the process.

Benny couldn’t help but suck in a final breath of oxygen as they breached the sky, which left a feeling of popping your head up from underwater in a pool.

Cynrik used the momentum from his kick off the shadow pillar to carry himself and Benny a couple of feet above the ground and quickly cast his [Shadow Veil] before landing on one knee mere inches away from the massive pool of lava fed by the lavafall.

Being so close to the bubbling molten lava forced sweat to pool from both boys’ brows as Cynrik went on high alert, and Benny spread his hands as if praying to the sky so he could draw in any Water Mana.

[Tsk, I fucking hate the hot; why do I always end up in hot areas, fucking Florida was always so damn hot; now my ass is standing right next to FUCKING LAVA.] Watching Benny out of the corner of his eye with [Mana Sight], Cynrik took a moment to complain in the mind link.

[I mean, it was your choice to move back from Chicago to Orlando back on Earth, so ask yourself this…deep down…do you really hate hot weather?]

[Ppfft, what the hell do you know, Brance, I clearly moved back after you got out of the military, so TECHNICALLY doesn’t that mean it’s your fault.]

Even though Cynrik and Brance were back to their typical banter, neither of them dropped their guard for a second.

Cynrik was crouched on the ground and observing his surroundings carefully, counting each Mana signature that came into view. At the same time, Brance stood alongside Gabby, monitoring the surrounding area to keep tabs on any of the aimlessly wandering Kobolds. His goal was to make sure that the party wouldn’t end up getting snuck upon if any crept too close.

Heaving a sigh internally, Cynrik quickly confirmed the number of Kobolds to be close enough to Gabby’s initial estimation, and it didn’t settle his rapidly beating heart one bit. If there was one thing history in both his lives had taught him, there was astronomical strength in numbers, and right now, it was four vs. 140. Even for someone as reckless as himself, Cynrik wasn’t about to waltz into battle, thinking he could complete this subjugation effortlessly.

A brisk wind suddenly whipped up from behind Cynrik and Benny, bathing them both in sulfuric volcanic gas and causing them to force down coughs that threatened to come out of their mouths. Tasting the acrid and acidic taste, Cynrik leaned close to the ground before spitting a glob of mucous-coated saliva onto the hard ground.

Catching his breath and standing up, Cynrik, for the first time, got a complete view of the village from his high-up vantage point.

The lavafall was located atop a small mountainous rocky hill, overlooking a bowl-shaped valley where the village was nestled strategically. Upon further inspection, Cynrik determined that instead of being a naturally formed valley below a mountain, it appeared that the village was actually on top of an inactive volcano, which explained the lava moat surrounding the entire village. From his vantage point of over 75 feet, he had a full view of the village’s whole layout and quickly picked up on the differences between what he saw from the door earlier and what he was viewing now.

But his further inspection raised deep concern in his mind. The village itself and the surrounding area appeared roughly a kilometer wide, but outside that…there was nothing. All he could see beyond the rocky terrain was a never-ending expanse of darkness reminding him of what happens in a particular blocky sandbox game he used to play when the map chunks didn’t load correctly.

‘Well, I guess that narrows down the teleportation theory; by entering the Boss room, we weren’t brought to a different part of the world, and instead, it appears the reverse has happened. This narrows my ideas to only two suspected theories. The first was a randomly generated zone created by the Egress Core, or second, this large chunk of land and its inhabitants were forcefully summoned by some magical means.’

While Cynrik was lost in thought trying to figure out what the hell was actually going on, Benny was struggling greatly to manifest the massive ball of Water Mana. Even though Cynrik had warned him ahead of time how difficult it would be to gather ambient Water particles, he didn’t expect it to be this hard.

Benny estimated that there seemed to be a rough estimate of 100-1 when it came to the composition of Mana in the surrounding area, with 100 being the active Fire Mana and one being the active Water. Unfortunately, this left the boy to struggle with vast amounts of effort to convert the Mana in his Codex into a physical manifestation and only allowed for supplemental outside Mana.

To break it down into simpler terms, what Benny was trying to accomplish was no different from trying to suck a golf ball through a thousand-foot hose. He would need a large vacuum or more than one person blowing from the opposite end to draw in the golf ball.

Unfortunately for Benny, the task was solely given to him, and he could only accept his solo task with a grain of salt. The sweltering heat coming off the large pool of lava didn’t help either, as just standing by it was constantly draining his Stamina at a rapid pace of one point per second.

The whole time Benny was proceeding with this task, his eyes never left his Stats Panel, something that Cynrik and Brance had instilled in both Sanford siblings was how vital micromanaging your Stats was. His current situation was a perfect example. He watched as his MP rapidly drained, and when it fell below 10 percent, Benny quickly uncapped the Medium Mana potion and chugged it down, ignoring its flavor and going back to creating his Water ball.

However, he nearly broke his concentration when he heard a chain of dinging noises ring out in his mind signifying incoming notifications. Realizing he couldn’t let his concentration slip, Benny put his trust in Cynrik, who, although he couldn’t see, he knew was right by his side, analyzing these notifications.

And he was correct. The instant the flood of notifications came through, Cynrik and Brance both stiffened and went pale.

-WARNING, ANOMALY DETECTED, EGRESS CORE IS EMITTING UNSTABLE AND UNPREDICTABLE MANA FLUCTUATIONS. AN EMERGENCY QUEST HAS BEEN GENERATED.-

-Emergency Quest – Subjugation Mission.-

-Because of an Anomaly created by -OMITTED-, a third party, this Quest is issued to the group known as “MyrkLys.” This third party has infused a massive amount of Mana into A-G 22097’s Egress Core, explicitly affecting the randomly generated Instance, causing the Dungeon Boss Quest to undergo abnormal and unpredictable changes.-

-Instead of facing a randomly generated Boss creature, a chunk of land from an unknown location has been forcefully moved into the space formerly occupied by the Egress’s constructed Boss room; as such, it falls onto you and the members of your party to wipe out and rectify this occurrence.-

-Subjugate Kobold Soldiers: 0/84- (incomplete)

-Subjugate Kobold Villagers: 0/68- (incomplete)

-Subjugate Kobold Shaman: 0/1- (incomplete)

-The above-listed tasks are shared between all members of MyrkLys and do not need to be met individually.-

-For the duration of this Quest, all XP will be shared equally between party members no matter the distance between them.-

-The time limit to complete this Quest is the same as the time remaining to complete the Instance quest. 12:33:06-

-Rewards: ???-

-Penalty for Failure: All party members will die, and the Egress Core will spiral out of control before exploding with a force equivalent to an attack from a Tier-7 existence.-

Brance’s mind went completely blank as he read the Emergency Quest notifications, and Cynrik’s spun even faster than before when he was planning their method of attack. An uncontrollable rage started overwhelming him as he thought through everything logically.

‘A third party whose name has been forcefully Omitted by Tobs, that can only be….’

Cynrik’s thought process came to a screeching halt. Concerned that someone or something may be spying on him, he quickly confirmed something with Tobs, ‘Tobs, verify that my mind can’t be read by either of “THEM” I need to know for a fact that it’s only us in my head.’

-Hosts’ thoughts and my corresponding responses to said thoughts can only be heard by the two of us. Although the Deities are known as omniscient, they are unable to read the thoughts of a being unless they are within physical touching distance.-

An angry grin formed across Cynrik’s lips, and his eyes turned into crescents.

‘Tobs, run the probability that this Anomaly was caused by either a Deity or their Legacy Charge.’

-Running calculations…The probability of this scenario being caused by a Deity level Being is 2%. The probability of this scenario being caused by a Legacy Charge is 98%.-

‘Excellent, fucking EXCELLENT, let me find you, you son of a fucking bitch, I can’t wait to tear you limb from GOD FORSAKEN LIMB AND BATHE IN YOUR BLOOD YOU DICKLESS PIECE OF SHIT.’

Clenching his fists tightly, Cynrik stood up while wearing his sadistic expression and looked over in the direction he left Benny. With his [Mana Sight] still active, he could clearly see a massive ball of Water that reminded him of the Spirit Bomb, floating several meters above the lava.

[Brance.] Cynrik paused and popped his neck loudly.

[ I’m here.] Standing on the roof of the Shamans hut, Brance made the exact same motion as his brother, a rapid downward angle turn of his head making his neck pop.

Slowly and in sync, the two brothers formed claws with their hands and got in position, channeling pure Wind Mana into their fingers. Cynrik and Brance had seen that Benny was almost ready with his part of the plan, and even with the knowledge presented by the Emergency Quest, they didn’t hesitate to prepare for the next step.

[On three.]

[Three.]

The brothers forced hundreds of MP into their palms and made grasping motions in the direction of the lava.

[Two.]

Cynrik exhaled slowly; everything that happened next fell on how successfully they could cover the village.

[One.]

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