The trio had finally finished their ritual, whatever it did.

  Hopeful, Leo nodded as he departed. Scanning the chaos around him, he began rushing towards where Connie stood as she faced the jagged serpent coiling itself around Patrick, trying to get it to release him.

  Her black tentacles tried getting a grip on the snake, only to slip through its body as if it were water, all while the snake relentlessly stabbed its body into Patrick, hoping to crack his Refraction.

  “Connie!”

  She turned to Leo as he pointed at the trio.

  A wave of understanding washed over her face as she recalled the tentacles beneath her, causing a rippling effect underneath her. “I’ll do what I can.”

  Saying that, she jumped into the shadows, a dark, rippling spot on the floor surged toward Anthony.

  Escaping his notice, Anthony prepared his spear again as he reeled it back. But right as he was about to hurl the devastating needle, black tentacles pulled him down from below him. It seemed Connie had made her way into his shadow as she remained in that pool, removing his ability to attack her.

  Grunting, Anthony dropped to his knees from the pull. The shadows overlapped his legs, causing them to fade from view as the tentacles made their way to his arms. He tried to use the spear to slash at the shadows, but that did little to nothing against the unseen threat.

  “Let go!”

  In response, the tentacles quickly wrapped themselves around his arms, forcing them to straighten out as they locked.

  Leo turned back to Alyssa.

  “Whatever it is you guys were doing, do it now!”

  Alyssa cried out, “I need a piece of his body, anything will do!”

  “What!? You should’ve said that sooner!”

  Right as he said that, Anthony easily ripped out of his shadowy binds. The shadows receded from the contractor as he glared at Leo. Pointing a spear towards him, he snarled, “Come here, coward.”

  Taking a deep breath, Leo turned to face Anthony. “Alyssa, whenever you get the piece you need, use it.”

  Not waiting for a response, he charged at Anthony who in turn charged towards him with his spear pointed at him. The floor cracked with each step as Leo began imbuing his arm with small vibrations.

  Just before he entered the spear’s range, Leo stopped in his tracks and quickly punched the floor causing a powerful shockwave to shake the room. The area near him cracked with debris falling from the ceiling. The sudden change knocked Anthony off balance, allowing Leo to nimbly dodge the spear with it barely scratching his cheek.

  Rushing past the spear, he threw a punch at Anthony’s exposed face. But Anthony quickly countered dropping the spear and slapping from the bottom of Leo’s arm making it slide on the top of his helm.

  ‘Shit!’

  Gritting his teeth, Leo sprang his fist down onto Anthony’s leg, sending a shockwave into the armor. The area he had hit began to crack with Anthony spatting out blood, the leg he had hit began tearing itself apart, causing Anthony to fall to a knee.

  Not wasting this opportunity, Leo grabbed Anthony’s enforced head and rammed his knee into his exposed face, hitting him square in the nose, staining his knee in blood. In response to the attacks, Anthony’s armor began to slowly cover his opening.

  Before the armor completely enveloped his friend, Leo quickly stuck two of his fingers into Anthony’s nose, causing his head to lift up in pain. And with one swift motion, he jumped up and planted his feet onto the crystalline breastplate and pushed himself off of the armor, ripping Anthony’s nose apart.

  Wincing back, Anthony roared as crystalline spikes began emerging from his armor, puncturing the vicinity. From this wall of attacks, Leo couldn’t move fast enough and had a spike penetrate his calf.

  But alas, he had escaped.

  And not empty-handed either. Opening the palm of his blood-stained hand, a portion of Anthony’s nosetip in hand.

  Upon confirming his prize, Leo quickly tossed the nosetip back where the circle was and yelled out. “Alyssa! Now!”

  Without hesitation, she raised her hand above her hand, her palm wide open. “Please work…” Desperate, she slammed her hand down, causing the strange circle between the group to brighten up.

  The battlefield seemed to pause as the light engulfed the room in a flash, making Leo cover his eyes, closing them tightly.

  ‘Holy shit! That’s so bright!’

  After a few moments, the light dissipated, allowing Leo to open his eyes again.

  ‘What happened?’

  Leo scanned the room to see nothing had changed. But around Anthony, his spines had shattered, reduced to small pieces of transparent stone.. It seemed the light had practically destroyed Connie’s Refraction as well, the dark pool hid behind a pillar, struggling to maintain its form from the flashbang that had just occurred.

  Anthony chuckled. “Thanks, I guess?” Without another word, he threw the spear in hand straight at Leo. He was about to react before he heard Alyssa slam her hand onto the stone floor, right on the circle she and her friends had created.

  Immediately after that, Leo heard a thud. The spear that was shooting towards him had fallen to the ground, its shaft cracking under some kind of invisible force.

  Alyssa muttered to herself. “Alright, that works. Let’s do this now…”

  Clapping her hands together twice, she slapped the circle once again, causing the outlines to glow on the circle. This time, a much larger crash was heard as Anthony quickly collapsed under the same invisible force. It was as if a gigantic boulder had fallen on him as the ground below him began to sink from the attack. His crystalline armor began cracking, threatening to shatter on the spot, but barely holding on as he yelled in desperation trying to get up.

  Leo walked past the baffled Tyler and Kate to study the circle. From afar, inside the circle was a large “W” symbol. The circle didn’t seem to be drawn from normal chalk as the red outlines seemed to pulsate as if they were veins. Every now and then, the veins would glow either green or yellow, causing Anthony’s armor to crack even more. Inside the circle, the nosetip he had thrown was slowly burning with a small trail of smoke rising from it.

  Leo couldn’t help but ask, “What did you do?”

  Alyssa smugly responded. “It’s something we’ve been practicing for a while! It causes those I target to feel the palm of my hand slamming down on them. But obviously with a lot more force, hence the ‘W’ in the middle there.”

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  “What’s the ‘W’ mean, exactly?”

  She shrugged. “Dunno, I heard it was for gravity and weight, so I went with it.” She glanced at the struggling enemy. “I’m as shocked as you are with how effective it was though.”

  He nodded. That seemed useful. But wait…”Why did you need the others, though?”

  She blankly looked at him and answered as if it were obvious. “Well, I can’t draw the circle myself. I just brought the force, the circle itself just amplifies my Refraction. The others here had some amplification Refraction based on drawing, so I used that to do what I did just now.”

  ‘Right…’

  Alyssa looked at him coldly. “Stop judging me you animal.”

  “Whatever…Just keep him from moving, we’ll handle the rest.”

  With that said, he grabbed a long piece of wood to use as a shield and ran to help the others deal with the glass serpents that continued their rampage around the dormitory.

  First, he had to get the one still running around. At the moment, Oliver and the twins were holding it back with a handful of other people all unable to approach because of its sharp exterior. Not only that, but attacks shot at it just didn’t seem to hit properly as it practically phased through it.

  Leo saw this and couldn’t help but think. What was keeping those snakes together? If they acted as one, the individual shards had to have a central link to act on its own.

  It wasn’t Anthony, as he didn’t seem to need to focus too much on the glass pets.

  The worst case scenario would be to have to destroy each and every shard at once for the snake to be killed.

  “Ah shit…”

  Behind him, Connie had crawled out of her pool of shadows, groaning from the struggle as well as the sudden flash of light that had consumed the world.

  ‘Nice!’

  Leo smiled, glad she was here. “Connie, do you have any clue how those snakes are moving like this?”

  Connie looked at the snake, her eyes studying the creature carefully. “Can’t say I do…I can’t really do much to stop those things either, my shadows can’t grab them properly.”

  Not even Connie knew…The situation was more dire than it seemed. Although the snakes weren’t exactly the most dangerous, they didn’t tire like humans did. Eventually, the snakes will win if left to their own devices.

  ‘Shit…’

  Suddenly, as if given a new mission, the snakes turned towards Leo. The glass edges sharpened all around their bodies as if a cat’s fur were standing up with only one thought.

  To kill him.

  The two snakes immediately stopped their actions and charged at Leo, ignoring everyone else like Anthony had before. Glancing toward Anthony, Leo saw him muttering with his eyes closed as he no longer screamed from the crushing weight.

  ‘Alyssa!’

  As Leo ran and dodged the duo's attacks, Leo yelled to Alyssa. “Put more force on that circle of yours! Don’t let Anthony do anything!”

  Alyssa slammed her other hand on the circle, sweat dripping down her forehead. Now, Anthony let out a much more pained scream as Leo heard a large cracking sound. The armor finally broke! It wasn’t just the armor that broke either, the snakes seemed to have returned to their senses and lost their mission, no longer focusing on Leo as they ran rabid once more around the dormitory. But looking at the circle, Leo saw the nosetip burning faster than before.

  Leo couldn’t help but wonder what would happen once that piece burned out.

  Having been freed, Patrick unhardened and stood beside Leo. “What’re we gonna do about those snakes? It almost broke through my Refraction!”

  ‘What to do indeed…’

  Anthony had basically confirmed he wasn’t the link that they needed to deal with for the snakes to stop. Although they seemed to be extensions of his mind, the snakes were their own beings, maintaining their own forms and thoughts.

  But what could they do….

  “Leo!”

  Behind him, Alyssa cried out in desperation as she motioned her head toward the ceiling.

  Looking up, Leo’s eyes widened in horror as he saw a swarm of the glass snakes reflected in the circular crystal mirrors above. Each mirror contained two of the serpentine shredders, but the issue was that there were roughly a dozen of these mirrors!

  ‘Two was already enough of a headache…How are we going to survive that?!’

  They had to block those snakes from coming somehow. But they couldn’t break those mirrors! They were made of the same material as Anthony’s armor.

  “Alyssa! Can you destroy those mirrors with that circle?”

  She shook her head. “My Refraction only works on one target’s body and their Refraction!”

  ‘Ah! Why’d things have to always be so limited? No, that’s not it. What we need to do now i-’

  Before he could finish his thoughts, one of the snakes hurled itself into the direction of the circle.

  “Alyssa! Move!”

  Seeing the incoming monster, the group jumped out of the way, abandoning the circle. Two of the girls that were with Alyssa were caught in the path as they shrieked in pain, glass slicing through their flesh and bone as if put into a blender. There was no hope for them as they were turned into minced meat in mere seconds.

  Quickly containing the snake, three or four Smogborn moved to stop the snake from causing further harm.

  But the damage had been done.

  Alyssa looked on in despair at the loss of her friends, her hand reaching for where they had been before. “Jamie…Lizzie…”

  Luckily for the other two, Tyler and Kate barely hurled themselves out of the way, their breaths heavy as they trembled from shock.

  Leo knelt down to the two and whispered, “Get to Patrick, he’ll protect you guys. Get Alyssa up too.”

  A trembling nod was all he got as Kate muttered to Alyssa, quickly pulling her up as they ran to Patrick.

  With the circle abandoned, Anthony used a spear in his left hand to slowly lift himself up. He struggled to keep his balance with half the armor chipping itself away, covering only his left shoulder and chest. His chest heaved as he glared at Alyssa, enraged by her attacks on him. “You bitch, just get out of my way and let me kill that bastard!”

  Anthony motioned to the ceiling. “What hope do you have? Don’t you see it's useless to resist. This doesn’t need to be such a slow finale, just let us be done with it and move on. Nobody’s coming to save you!”

  From the ceiling, the snakes began to break through as they slithered across the ceiling, some threatening to jump down onto the people below.

  Leo couldn’t help but feel depressed with the sight before him. To his right, the circle was lost with one of the snakes being contained by five people, or at least being suppressed. To his left, the second snake was busy with Oliver, Connie, and the twins as they continuously tried immobilizing the swarm-like being.

  Leo spat out a mix of blood and phlegm that had built up in his mouth as he replied to Anthony with a weak grin on his face as he raised his fists. “Just be done with it now.”

  “Tsk, suit yourself.”

  He prepared to unleash the snakes, but they all paused, struggling to move themselves.

  Anthony looked up, confused. “What’s wrong with you guys? Go!”

  Despite his words, they didn’t budge. The snakes began to tremble, the glass shards slowly cracking before every single glass shard on the snakes were crushed, reduced to small chunks of gravel.

  The sound of muffled breathing filled the room. Leo stared at the entrance, where a white robed figure stood calmly. Her shining, spherical white helmet covered her entire head, blocking any sight of her facial features. A black stain marked on her left shoulder, representing a vulture. Its long neck curled around her deltoid area.

  It was the guard that had moved Amanda during the first trial.

  The one that had tried to kill him.