Vigil sent out the command, and without a second of delay, the Ironside hummed with a deep toll from within, and the resonance disruptor and dissonance projector sped through the top of the Ironside. The cylindrical array atop the Ironside's hull silently vibrated and pulsed with a bristling pale blue light, and from its opposite flank, a compartment opened wide with the secondary array rising for the dissonance projector, which was sleeker than the resonance disruptor, with crystalline lenses that pulsed with a deep violet light.

  "They ambushed us with an unorthodox pincer attack." Vigil spoke through the communication systems in the cockpit, no longer keeping it within the confines of his mind. "It's time to pay them back!" He decreed with fury.

  He didn't know what was happening; all he could understand was that he wanted to erase the existence of what placed them in this precarious situation. It was as if his mind was being overloaded by excess energy from its systems and it was giving him the feeling that he wanted to violently disperse it as it was getting uncomfortable and irritable.

  Yet, despite all of that, he focused all this emotion to fighting, and so, with an imaginary device, he drove down the energy circuits across the Ironside and triggered both the resonance disruptor and dissonance projector into full capacity. He no longer minded the now twenty-six seconds of time left of fighting capability. All he needed was to kill and to take down the enemy.

  While Vigil fought a desperate fight, Brennan meanwhile was locked in a tight battle against the Stygians swarming across them. When a Stygian came close, with both of his hands he raised his axe high above his head, to which with a force of a mountain brought it down in a powerful vertical arc toward the Stygian.

  It was split in half and along with it the heart of the Stygian was exposed, before it could even hide itself, he moved forth and crushed it under his boots. The Stygian squirmed before disappearing like dust.

  Once it was killed another came in close, and with not enough room to maneuver he took advantage of his axe being at the ground, so he stepped forth, and swung it with a deliberate crunch upward in a diagonal arc. However, this wasn't enough as the cut was too shallow.

  With barely functioning limbs and a limping body, the Stygian reacted and with its closest limb it rapidly morphed it into a blade-like structure and drove it forward toward Brennan. However, before it even reached Brennan a gust of wind bypassed him, and splashed his face across with the black water from the black rain.

  The Stygian that he had failed to kill was struck by a silver arrow, and almost immediately the Stygian started to have cracks along its entire body as a silver glow leaked out until it ceased to exist.

  "What did you say about not taking risk again?" A figure moved from behind him, but he knew it was Mira, so he did not look back, and instead focused what was in front of him.

  "I must not fail, not this time." Brennan briefly spoke before he continued again by gripping his axe even more tightly.

  Mira, as if understanding where his point was coming from, didn't pursue it further. However, as both of them were about to continue fighting and return to their respective positions, they felt a wave of energy pass by them. That was followed by a scathing noise that they could hear and were making them weak.

  Mira lowered herself as she tried to support her stability of movements. However, as the disruptive noise subsided, she noticed something strange. It was too awfully quiet, as if the black rain suddenly stopped. To confirm her suspicions, she slowly raised her head.

  Then as if she was smacked by a speeding space liner across space, her eyes dilated and her heart momentarily stopped as she held her breath. The black water that came from the black rain stopped as if it was frozen in time. Stuck, and frozen in air, unmoving it was.

  Along her pristine skin she could feel a wave of energy slamming softly, and the soft whirring sound that was initially unpleasant now more manageable. She glanced around and Brennan and Lyria had the same thoughts as her.

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  Lyria brought both of her hands to her mouth, her eyes filled with childlike wonder. Then suddenly the dark and ominous color of the rain was suddenly being siphoned away. With a lingering premonition, she snapped at the Stygians that were attacking them, and saw that they were down on the ground and were moving frantically in the ground as if lost control of their bodies.

  Brennan looked at the black water being siphoned of its darkness with caution. However, he was proven wrong when all its blackness was destroyed it continued falling to the ground. The ominous feeling that he had disappeared in an instant, the lingering corruption banished away.

  He raised his right hand, and let the crystal clear water accumulate on his palms.

  "I-Is this water?" His voice cracking, "P-Purified water?" He questioned, yet nobody was able to answer.

  "It was as if the taint of corruption never existed nor touched it?" Mira stepped in marveling at the purity of the water.

  Then she noticed something as she gazed at the water accumulating at the ground, her resonator.

  "I-It's glowing?!" She muttered with shock, as her resonator was now glowing with a radiant color similar to that of the sun.

  Then a few dozen meters from them, a Stygian succumbed to the resonance disruptor. Brennan and the party looked over the Stygians who were now dying one by one.

  Slowly but surely, each of them turned into dust, and as they were disappearing a soft melodic sound echoed throughout them.

  "W-What is happening?"

  As the party managed the numerous discoveries they were finding, Vigil immediately took action once both weapons were activated. In the first instance of the pulse of the resonance disruptor, he was able to shave most of the Stygians around them, which in turn should increase the Ironside's units of energy, which would allow them to fight much longer.

  Also at the same time the first pulse came out, he focused the antenna of the dissonance projector toward the Giant Stygian who was fully able-bodied in front of them, which he deliberately ignored the one below and the one on top of the hull.

  With the assembly of blades stopped by the Giant Stygian below, attacking the one in the middle was the most natural course of action. So he activated the modular mechanisms of the sword-like structure and so it moved toward the front, and with a single command from his mind, the sword swept across the middle, slicing the Giant Stygian in half.

  Once the Giant Stygian was incapacitated, he slightly raised the assembly of blades and slammed it toward the ground, as he slammed it down, he also simultaneously triggered for the assembly to turn into a spear-like structure. To which when the assembly rose, and a crushed head but still alive Giant Stygian was left behind, he immediately turned it toward the top of the hull and drove it as fast as he could.

  The Giant Stygian was caught by surprise so it was pierced at the chest. With the joints and parts working overtime, Vigil with the Giant Stygian now pierced at the middle drove it further in, and then swung the spear toward the ground. The ground crackled with a thunderclap, and the Giant Stygian who was at the top earlier was now at the bottom along with the other two incapacitated Giant Stygians.

  Vigil with unbridled anger forming within, pulled the spear back, and with a force of a mountain slammed the front of the pneumatic driver toward the Giant Stygian who had its body pierced, and fired it at point blank.

  The ground crumbled and the entire half of the Giant Stygian ceased along with its core ceased to exist. Unsatisfied, Vigil raised the spear once again and pointed it downward and struck the body of the headless incapacitated Stygian and repeated the same action as the last one.

  Now with the last remaining one, the final Giant Stygian saw what happened to the other two, and so with both of its arms, started to crawl away from the Ironside while it was busy killing the other Giant Stygian with its head crushed.

  However, it was not fast enough, and so, Vigil with rising anger once again, poked the bottom of the final Giant Stygian and when it got pierced, he dragged its body toward the front of the Ironside.

  As the Giant Stygian only had its upper body left, Vigil felt a great deal of joy, as he slammed the pneumatic driver directly at the center of the upper torso. With a single thunderous sound the ground was pushed a few meters deep, and when he raised back the pneumatic driver, there was no trace of the Giant Stygian.

  All of the Giant Stygians were now killed by Vigil.

  The action was so fast, that now that he was getting rest, Vigil felt his circuits were fried and were now burning. Nevertheless, he switched along the cameras and into the cockpit and stared back at Altair.

  "Lieutenant… No, Altair, I did it…" He said in a tired voice. "There won't be much energy left, so I will force the system to enter passive energy regeneration for a few hours." He spoke as his consciousness was drifting away. "However, I will keep the bare minimum of the life support systems and the resonance disruptor at its most minimum consumption for the meantime…" Were the final words he said before he too lost consciousness.