When it came to fights, there was a feeling a person got.
A sharpness.
A pressure.
The knowledge that they were locked in a match of might against might, whether magical, mental, or physical, and that every second forced them to stay on edge while draining themselves dry.
Yet even from a distance, as Jax watched Aiden and Jackson run around as streaks of fire and lightning, grabbing people and throwing them toward the rest of the group, he could feel the shockwaves from every blow coming from the massive beast.
"Jax, focus up!" Thalia called. "We have to get them to the gate here!"
Her strings latched around several people and threw them through the portal that had been created.
Jax turned back and braced himself, bending down as an unconscious elven man fell and landed on his back.
He cushioned the impact.
Selene, on the other side, caught someone else as Thalia's strings grabbed them and began moving them through the portal.
Aiden and Jackson began searching through a set of nearby buildings, while Jax turned back toward the fight.
Though calling it a fight was not a very good description.
Zilla was being ripped into.
Every few seconds, a strange pulse shot out, and boils and blisters formed across his scales.
The massive guy in the hoodie threw punch after punch, firing blasts from his mouth that ripped chunks of flesh away.
Shockwaves from what Jax could only assume was a cannon fired as pulses of psychic energy tore over Zilla's body.
Yet none of it slowed him down.
Wounds appeared, then vanished before more could form.
As Jax watched, Zilla opened his mouth as if to bellow.
Then Jax felt the air being sucked away, as if dragged inward.
Had that attack landed, the hoodie guy might not have still been standing.
A massive white-and-gold hand came through a gate, grabbed Zilla's jaw, and forced the attack upward.
It fired with an ear-shattering shriek.
The hand vanished, a chunk of it blown away.
Only when Jax looked up did he realize the magnitude of what had just happened.
The sky had been cloudy.
Not fully so, but enough that rain could have been expected.
Now, in a circle so large it had to be visible from anywhere in the world, the clouds were gone.
Ripped away by the force of an attack that had hit nothing.
Looking up, Jax saw a massive ball of flames beginning to form around the figure he could barely make out as Alaster.
On a nearby ship, the sounds of combat and exchanged blows rang out as the vessel rocked and swayed.
Jax had apparently been so enthralled watching the scenes that he did not notice a figure walking up beside him.
"Yeah," Emi said from next to him, "that feeling of being a little fish in a big pond doesn't really ever go away."
They began jogging after Aiden and Jackson, who were on finding duty so they would not have to run back.
Emi's brass knuckles were off, and her ears were tied down with small lengths of twine, like she was trying to muffle the sounds around her.
"What do you mean?" Jax asked as he caught someone else, Emi doing the same. "Aren't you and your group almost level forty? You're close to some of the highest-leveled people you can realistically expect to meet."
In the distance, the hoodie kid's arm was ripped off mid-swing.
Before his punch would have connected, a pulse of green shot through him, and a new arm was already in place.
Then his head was gone in a clean strike, his body beginning to lean forward.
Before he fully fell, his head was back.
He clasped both hands together and drove his fists up into Zilla's jaw.
"Yeah," Emi said, glancing upward toward the floating ships, where the figure of a massive demonic warrior was almost knocked overboard before grabbing on and pulling himself back into the fight. "But considering we're looking to guys like that as examples of what people can be around our level, we feel like slackers."
Jax turned back to her with a raised eyebrow.
"Those are a baseline?" he asked. "Hate to break it to you, but those guys are probably level sixty or more. Otherwise, how in the hell are they possibly keeping up with that thing?"
He glanced back at the hoodie figure.
"Hell, hoodie guy must have died like twelve times by now, but he keeps coming back."
"Yeah, that's Trent," Emi said. "We joke that he's an immortality matrix. Bringing the dead back is something he can do mid-fight. Those guys are probably dipping into HP for half their attacks just to do damage with Trent on recovery control."
She glanced at Jax.
"Though you won't believe me, they're only level forty-five."
Jax turned with wide eyes.
Emi chuckled as she caught someone heading for him, someone he had not even noticed.
"You're right," Jax said. "I don't believe you. Plus, even if I did, you all are on a similar level. So why exactly is the difference in power so substantial?"
"Well," Emi said, "it's because we were made as one-shot characters. Basically, we were made from the box with no extra flares. Those guys are more like main accounts with all the modifications and more to make them effective."
She leaned closer.
"Though the main reason they're so strong is because they are gi—"
Emi leaned in as if to whisper, but she was cut off.
Above them, the sound of a massive explosion erupted.
Everyone looked up.
The ship where the demon had been fighting was beginning to fall rapidly.
Jax turned to the others.
They all began to run as fast as they could to get out of range before it came down.
Ahead of them, Jax could see Aiden running.
And while Aiden would not admit it, using his max output skill-wise and keeping the engine active was causing him a lot of pain.
Even from here, Jax could feel the heat radiating off him, despite the engine being in Idling Mode, its lowest setting.
Jax sped up to run alongside him as Aiden watched the falling ship.
"How's your engine doing?"
"I-It's fine," Aiden said. "Just a bit warm from running it so long."
As they ran, Jax debated confronting him on that.
Then Aiden suddenly skidded to a stop.
His eyes locked on the ship.
As if by some silent magic, several icy structures had formed around the bottom of the vessel, trying to catch it.
But they were only half done when the ship crashed into them.
On the front of the ship was one of the student council members.
The ice woman.
She looked badly hurt from the fight and was about to be slammed into the road.
Selene stopped, yelling at them as she ran over and tried to pull them along.
"Come on!" Selene shouted. "We need to get out of their way!"
Aiden looked back at her.
The two of them still could not meet each other's eyes.
Jax saw Selene reach out as if to grab Aiden's wrist and pull him along.
Then she stopped.
Aiden turned back up toward the ship.
Jax opened his mouth to tell him to stop.
But Aiden had already pulled the cord.
His engine revved loudly as he yelled over the noise.
"If she dies, then that demon she was fighting can attack the group holding back Zilla."
The engine screamed.
"Now run!"
Heat burst from him.
"REDLINE!"
Aiden jumped, landed against a nearby wall, and rocketed toward the bow of the ship.
Jax's eyes tracked him until he felt it.
A feeling he had always hated.
But one that had saved him time and time again.
A skill he was not even sure his party remembered he had.
The hair on the back of his neck stood up.
Your soul skill Danger Sense has alerted you to the arrival of M*s@$y.
Jax whipped his head around, expecting to see something unholy.
Too many arms.
Too many legs.
Too many eyes.
Too many mouths.
Something indescribable and describable at the same time.
Instead, he saw a kid in a trench coat with a strange glow in his eyes.
He might have even blended in as a member of another group saving those caught in the massive blast from Zilla's emergence beneath the city.
Yet when he spoke, Jax felt nothing but animosity.
"It only takes one…"
The kid smiled.
"Bad…"
His eyes shone brighter.
"Dice roll."
Selene paled.
She whipped around, eyes snapping toward Aiden.
Jax followed her gaze.
Aiden was on the bow of the ship, one hand reaching in as he grabbed the ice woman and threw her to the side.
But as he did, a wave of rigidity rushed through him, as if he had been dunked in icy water.
Selene and Jax rushed forward to help.
Then a wave of tenseness slammed through them.
Both froze.
Every muscle tensed against their control.
A notification appeared.
Emit has used skill Eye of Paralysis (C) on you.
Emit has used skill Eye of Paralysis (C) on party member Selene.
Jax tried to move.
Tried to do something.
But his body would not listen.
He could only watch the ship falling toward them, ready to crush Selene, Aiden, and himself into the cobblestones.
Behind them, Emit laughed.
And the sound left no doubt that he was not human.
Because no human laugh could sound that cruel.