‘Jesus fucking Christ, Richard,’ John thought, as the images from Jack’s sight flooded over. Even where he was, the supernatural pressure of the wrathful god’s presence influenced him. The whole thing overpowered his senses. Although he wasn’t forced to his knees, he did have to lean on a nearby shed for support. The whole separation of minds things he had going was currently getting violently pried open.

“…now, Theron…” he heard a very quiet voice and was immediately set into defensive mode. The elementals moved, but there was no enemy to be seen they could have protected him from. Which just meant that the enemy was invisible. Something that John had overcome in numerous ways at numerous occasions.

Looking around with his own eyes, and the corresponding contact lenses, provided nothing. The enemy was cloaked better than that. It was likely that, if John concentrated on the right spot, the enchantment would do the rest. Logically, the next step was what he had done to locate that Metracana. There was no way one of the Lake Alliance was even better at hiding than that ancient weapon. All John had to do was connect with his elementals, Undine and Sylph first and foremost.

However, he couldn’t. The brute force of the Horned Rat’s power still tore through his mental connections, disturbing his concentration. ‘Goddammit, Richard,’ John thought, now irritated. Just in time for this Theron to reveal himself.

Peeling out of the, no doubt shared, invisibility, the man came into sight about ten metres away from John. Already sprinting, the enemy approached John. A short man with brown hair and a tired look, that was as much as the Gamer could perceive, watching as Theron weaved his way through the sloppy counterattacks of his elementals.

John summoned two Arcane Echoes and dropped them to his feet, not trusting himself enough to aim an Arc Lance. The two runes appeared and immediately were consumed into waves of magical might when the enemy stepped on them. Arcane burns appeared on his shirt and pants, seared part of his skin mildly, but did little damage overall. Certainly, not enough to prevent the fist flying into John’s stomach.

While Particle Skin prevented the impact from hurting or bothering John in any way, the status effect caused numerous ill effects. The elementals fell over, their senses confused by the messy data they received through the mental connection. Something worsened infinitely because of how much they were interconnected. In action-heavy times like these, their information sharing was constant, and now all of that fired right back at them.

Across the water, Jack was suddenly harder to feel. As were Aclysia and Beatrice. It wasn’t the worst; it was definitely still operable. Whatever was happening with the Horned Rat was coming to a slow end, so John’s mind managed to split into three operations again. At least that was a plus.

Forcefully, he shut out all the elementals from his mind, so the Connection Fizzling didn’t affect him too intensely. Still, his reactions weren’t fast enough to prevent the next two punches coming his way.

Finally, John had ordered his mind enough to move normally again. A Mana Blade extended from his left hand as he slashed downwards, finally forcing Theron back. The brown-haired man stepped away, remaining in striking distance, as the four elementals around lay on the floor uselessly.

‘So, they had someone who could properly counter me after all,’ John thought as his mind raced to formulate a proper strategy. He was in a clear ‘lose more’ situation. Without his elementals, it was hard to keep the guy at a distance and the more he was struck, the more this Connection Stuttering became a thing.

As it was, he had to play for time. The debuff would run out in a minute and there was something else he could do to increase his chances at a melee victory. All connections were damaged, but Jack was still largely controllable. There was just a bit of mental manoeuvring he had to do.

He saw and heard Undine cry out in pain at the same time. Not because of Theron, that man was still standing ready for his next strike, but because of that invisible additional enemy. Apparently, it was their plan to take out his elementals while they could. Taking them hostage would have been useless, it was highly unlikely they had a weapon that could kill them. Nobody really knew how sturdy John was, Gamer’s Body made sure of that, so taking out the elementals while they were down was a good strategy.

Also, one that John absolutely hated to witness.

Rushing forwards, he used another Mana Blade to keep Theron away, then wildly jumped at where that invisible fellow should have been. That person was too quick, however, John finding nothing. Except for the squishy wetness that was a sprawled-out slime girl, covering the ground he landed on.

‘ITEM!’ he screamed this single, mental word at Undine. It cut through the fog around her mind, concise enough to rattle her to that single action of switching states. Although she took up the left arm instead of the usual right, in her confusion. At the same time, John forced every other present elemental to go incorporeal.

Something that he had hoped they wouldn’t be able to take advantage of if he caused enough confusion. While the weapon of the invisible assailant was too far away from any other elementals, Theron reacted with a bored look on his face and stomped down on the dematerializing Sylph. Already a glass canon, the extra vulnerability the shifting moment provided caused this simple attack to instantly kill the thunderstorm elemental.

“You’ll pay for that,” John growled, feeling the unseen knife bouncing of Particle Skin as he got up. His mana was dwindling quickly, already down to about 1000. Although pushing the elementals to an incorporeal state was allowing his effective regeneration to rise to above 20 a second, he still found himself outnumbered and disadvantaged. ‘I’ll have to disable Particle Skin,’ he thought. It required an active wish on his part to overpower the passive activation of the Skill, but it was regardless possible to conserve his mana in situations like this.

As the barrier was lowered, with no visual indicator that his enemies might have picked up on, Theron decided to oblige the small talk. He started doing so with a heavy sigh. “I am sure I will, in some way,” he stated, scratching the back of his head. “This is all a massive pain in my sides. But, what Lakamun wants, Lakamun gets. Dem’z da rulez.”

“Another set of rules in this world that I reject and will soon rewrite,” John announced, reaching out to Undine’s consciousness. It was a very slow process, at least compared to the instantaneous understanding they could reach normally. Even after he got through to her, all he got was an ocean of thoughts that made no sense. Waves slammed against each other in her mental landscape, rain fell from the water towards the sky and nothing behaved like it should.

In that state, Undine as a glove was nothing more than a very well sitting and protective layer on his left arm. Which was helpful but not the healing capability John had bargained for. His disadvantage just kept growing. Observe returned nothing on Theron and, without Undine’s help, the invisible enemy remained invisible.

‘Playing on time it is then,’ John thought betting on three possible avenues for victory. Number one, he survived long enough for Chemilia to clean up every other area and ultimately come to this island. Number two, he succeeded in shaking off the debuff and could use the elementals again. Siena was still hanging around somewhere, so she could come in as reinforcement. Optimally, he could just let everyone else go corporeal again. Number three, he managed to turn this around on his lonesome. While unlikely, this wasn’t impossible if he played his cards right.

Checking on Jack, his double was swaying along like a drunk towards a severed arm. He still needed time.

Time his opponents didn’t want to give him anymore. All that thinking had cost John only a couple of seconds, enough time for the two enemies to strengthen their resolve and attack. John suddenly felt a knife being plunged into his neck. The pain was a mere inconvenience, he rammed back his elbow and hit something, but only lightly. Severing his throat on the way out, the attack dealt a considerable amount of damage, a third of John’s HP was gone in one moment, but left the Gamer in the same physical state as before.

“What the fuck…?” the whisper reached John’s ear. To them, it must have looked like he could just instantly regenerate. Theron wasn’t distraught by this, however, still looking to get his own attack in and worsen John’s debuff. With Shifting Momentum, John teleported behind the Interrupter mage and started running.

“Take your Blank Lite powers somewhere else!” the Gamer shouted over his shoulder, simply running in a straight line. Theron (and the invisible guy as well, presumably) immediately followed after him. The intent wasn’t to actually run away, but to gauge how quick they were compared to him.

As it turned out, quicker, but not by as much as he had expected, fighting two melee-oriented people as a mage build. Not until Theron became encapsulated in the blue of an Aura and started using martial arts to catch up anyway.

‘Fantastic,’ John drily thought to himself, ‘so he can do that as well. Maybe I can exhaust his mana supply to take the force out of the connection interruptions?’ Whether or not that was possible was left on the wayside of considerations. The Gamer was too occupied suddenly falling over as another invisibly delivered stab invaded his side. It only took 200 HP off his pool, but still caused his flight to come to an abrupt end. One foot planted down on the floor and he whirled into a roundhouse kick. It connected with nothing; the invisible enemy was already gone.

Theron threatened to reach him any second now. That was when Jack finally got the item off the dismembered arm of Helene. Dumping it into their shared inventory, John opened his character screen in frantic hurry and dragged Purgatory in its usual slot on his left arm. Only when it was in place did he remember that Undine was already in that slot. Something that would have normally meant it wouldn’t work, since Undine wasn’t a piece of regular equipment that could enter his inventory.

However, just as he realized his blunder, he also realized that Purgatory was equipped regardless. The obsidian scales connected with the sleeve of the Suit of the Chosen, but their black entirety now had a dark blue tinge to it. Translucent blue energy constantly drifted from the dragon claw, in mist-like fashion. John would have loved to inspect what any of that meant, but he had to react to the attack coming his way.

Theron’s bored looking expression didn’t change, even with the sudden appearance of Purgatory. John slashed in his direction with the claws. Stopping short in his charge, Theron let the swipe pass him. ‘Come on,’ the Gamer thought trying to switch the missed swipe into a thrusting motion. Claws weren’t the best weapon for that. In fact, they sucked. He needed more reach, something with a pointy end.

Something formed in his hand, reacting to his thoughts. It barely entered his vision, a blade of flawless ice. It was thin, the guard was thin, the blade was thin, but long and becoming ever sharper along its way to the pointy tip. An estoc, as John recognized and immediately used to his advantage. With that sword in hand, he had all the reach he could want. What enchantment had produced it, he couldn’t care less about at that moment.

While Theron had ignored the appearance of Purgatory, he couldn’t ignore it when a sword of ice threatened to pierce through his stomach at an angle that put everything behind his ribs at risk as well. Utilizing Shift, the man suddenly vanished from in front of John. Having seen that martial art more than often enough by now, John reacted in a drastic fashion.

His MP hit 0, as a massive ball of mana launched from his right hand. The arm had already been stretched out for balancing purposes, so it was just a matter of opening his palm towards the sky. The charging form of Arcana Strike caused his assailants to hesitate for just one second, and that was all he needed to teleport forwards with the Shifting Momentum stack he had just earned.

He turned around, switching the estoc into his right hand. It was cold in his hand, but not to the unpleasant degree expected of ice. It felt more like touching a piece of cold glass and was surprisingly easy to hold for how smooth it was. ‘Guess I’ll have to get fencing lessons from Lydia soon,’ he thought, pointing the tip of the weapon towards his enemies. He was no longer swimming against the stream in this tide of battle. Just a few more seconds, and the debuff would fall off. Seconds that he could gain.