The Five Evolution

『"It’s in the air and it’s all around. Can you feel it now?"』

In the eastern part of the cavern, Plague had filled the air with spores. Thousands of microscopic killers floating invisible to the naked eye.

However, Amara could see them. She pushed her intent sight to the point where she could see the spores’ intent to harm. Thousands of tiny points of malice floating through the air.

Her eyes blazed, leaving trails of blue light as she tracked every toxic spore. Her blade sliced through the thick air, cutting each one before it could reach her team.

"This feels like cutting tiny raindrops in half," Amara groaned, swinging Angel’s Bane so fast that afterimages trailed behind each strike, "with a scalpel, during a hurricane, while blindfolded!"

"Fall back," Maya said from beside her before leaping back. She swung Sol in a wide arc as she moved, and by the time her boots touched down, a protective dome of golden light had formed around all three of them.

"This should keep the spores at bay while we think of something," Maya said as she scanned their surroundings. "Is everyone good?"

"Yeah." Amara raised Angel’s Bane, masking her worry with a confident grin as her grip on the blade tightened.

She looked the Malice dead in what passed for its eyes and said, "Plague. No one dies by your hands today." She pointed the blade directly at its amorphous form. "This I promise you."

"Are you sssure about that?" Plague asked, almost sounding amused. The way it spoke, the way it moved. It felt like it was simply toying with them.

When it said that, all six eyes focused on one specific point inside the barrier. Amara followed its line of sight with growing dread, and her gaze landed on Sophia.

Sophia’s eyes were bleeding, blood running from the corners of her eyes. But it wasn’t just her eyes, it ran down her nose as well, and her breathing had become ragged.

"Sophia!" Amara shouted, spinning toward her teammate in alarm.

"I don’t—I don’t feel so good." Sophia swayed on her feet like she was drunk, one hand pressed against her nose as more blood leaked through her fingers. "I think... I think I inhaled something before the barrier went up. I—" She gasped, stumbling.

Plague did nothing. Just slithered around on its lower half, which had transformed into something serpentine.

"What was that you said about nobody dying?" It asked with mocking delight, clearly enjoying every moment of their panic. "Such bold promisssess you make, little Sword."

Maya turned immediately toward Sophia, maintaining her cool even in this situation. "Don’t move! That’s a hemotoxin. It’s attacking your blood vessels. Moving will only spread it faster through your circulatory system."

She shifted closer to Sophia with careful steps, moving sideways to keep Plague in her peripheral vision. "Listen to me carefully. You need to push your Awakener energy through your body right now. Flood your bloodstream with it and use it like a shield from the inside."

"Is that even possible?" Amara asked, her hand finding Sophia’s and gripping tight, both out of fear and amazement at how calm Maya remained under pressure.

She was a shaper, and yet she’d fought along side Dante and Yelena. The Director also trusted her enough to delegate to her when he was indisposed.

From outside the barrier, all six of Plague’s eyes narrowed as they fixed on Maya with something like contempt. Like it could sense her competence, her refusal to panic, and that irritated it.

Maya smiled reassuringly at Sophia while answering Amara. "I’ve seen Dante and Yelena do it dozens of times. Toxins, poisons, radiation—they channel their energy internally and burn it out. You just have to apply the same principle."

She glanced toward her golden shield, checking its integrity while making sure Plague wasn’t preparing another assault, then returned her full attention to Sophia. "Turn the flow of your psychic energy inward instead of outward."

"Dante and Yelena? Are you kidd—" Sophia coughed up blood, her chest heaving. "Those guys are built different." She gasped. "Plus they have like, ten times more energy than I do!"

"And we’re the Five," Amara said to her like it meant something in this moment, her grip on her hand tightening.

Sophia stared at Amara for a second and nodded shakily, closing her eyes. A soft golden glow began to radiate from within her as she forced her psychic energy through her veins.

For a few tense seconds, nothing happened.

Then the bleeding slowed... and finally stopped. Sophia took a deep, shaky breath, wiping the blood from her face with the back of her hand.

"I’m... I’m okay," she said, surprised by her own success. "It’s working. The toxin is breaking down. I can feel it dissolving."

SLAM!

Plague crashed into the golden barrier with enough force to crack it, spider-web fractures spreading across the luminescent surface.

Then it backed away, regaining its composure as it let out a mocking laugh that sounded grotesque. "That was the weakest sssstrain!"

Its body, now constantly shifting between solid and vaporous forms. "What will you do about the next one? And the one after that?"

It sent out more parasitic fungi monsters, dozens of them, all approaching the barrier and ramming themselves into it repeatedly. Each hit weakening the shield.

At the same time, it thrust its arms forward, and the air around them thickened again with something new. Something invisible, odorless, and far more deadly than the spores.

Amara’s intent sight was still active and her eyes could see the microscopic viruses in the air, spreading and multiplying. "It’s releasing something else!"

The golden dome began to expand and reshape itself. "I think it’s high time we stopped playing defense," Maya said as five giant fan blades took form, suspended right in front of the barrier.

The golden turbine-like blades began to spin. Slowly at first, then faster, accelerating until they became golden blurs that generated strong wind currents.

The concentrated gusts transformed into a powerful cyclone pushing outward in all directions, dispersing everything in its path.

"It’s working!" Amara said, her glowing eyes tracking the microscopic threats being blown away. "The viruses are being dispersed!"

"Let’s kick it up a notch." Maya lifted her arm and more fans took form. Ten of them arranged in a complex array.

The spin grew faster, intensifying into a roar of displaced air, and the wind blasted away all fungal-parasites that was still standing and sent them flying.

Plague itself was being pushed back now and it dug its limbs into the ground to anchor itself. However, Maya’s eyes widened and Amara could feel her energy spike.

With that intense spike came an exponential increase in the force of her attack. The wind ripped the ground up and sent Plague flying thirty feet into the air.

Boom!

It slammed into a massive stalactite hanging from the chamber’s ceiling, the impact loud enough to echo throughout the entire level. Then gravity reclaimed it, and Plague fell.

The crash when it hit the ground shook the entire chamber. And the stalactite it had struck broke free from the ceiling, plummeting down to land directly on top of the Malice, pinning it beneath several tons of stone.

Only then did Maya’s wind fans stop spinning, dissolving back into golden light.

Its body convulsed, pinned to the ground, then suddenly lashed out with black, glistening tendrils that shot forward with terrifying speed, aiming straight for Maya.

Dozens meandered swiftly through the air like flying snakes, weaving and twisting. One tendril in particular dove into the ground, burrowing through subterranean layers, traveling beneath the stone floor toward Sophia.

Amara moved instantly, appearing in front of Maya. Angel’s Bane flashed, severing dozens of the tendrils, but she caught one too late and it slipped past her guard.

Exactly as Plague intended.

Amara was distracted by the incoming tendrils that were out in the open, that she failed to focus on the one that moved under the earth, her intent sight seeing it too late.