"Above!" Nikolas yelled out, alerting the tanks to the new threat. An angled <Light Shield> appeared overhead in time to block a bomb that had been falling at terminal velocity. The barrier caught the bomb and bent, the force still crushing the bomb as it bounced off towards the attacking Completionists.

The bomb landed harmlessly amongst the attackers, having taken too much damage to detonate. Noah was standing between four tanks from The Mall, his hands constantly shifting as he placed his palms on two of their shoulders at a time to give their spell the <Elastic> modifier. On his own, the spell was too weak. Even if it did successfully add some elasticity to the transparent barriers, it wasn't enough to safely bounce a bomb without destroying it in the process.

Clyde, the healer with <Featherfall>, was running towards Noah as Teresa herself focused her senses skyward. <Suffocate> shot out towards the clouds from both hands as she tried to make a long, thin rectangular prism aligned with both the trajectory and edge of a spherical bomb.

The shape of her skill couldn't reach that high in the air without making it unbelievably thin, but that was fine. This was something she had practiced, although she would have preferred a lot more training. She created an extremely thin rectangular prism of low pressure air with a base that was no more than a square millimeter, which was fully capable of reaching the clouds with some change to spare.

With the shape being so thin it was incredibly easy for it to break as the higher altitudes got windy, something she didn't have a lot of practice with. She needed to continuously alter just how much Mana the spell was consuming with only milliseconds to react on time.

Once the tall shape had been created, she began yet another tricky maneuver with <Suffocate>. She created a cube attached to the top of the shape, with the intention of making the cube slide down along the shape like it was a pole. All in all, the entire process took ten seconds.

Now that bombs were falling, the battle had changed. Before, it had only been a matter of time before the army saw victory. The Completionists were powerful, but they couldn't compete with 46 people using 46 people's worth of skills. They couldn't advance, and sooner or later they would run out of resources first.

With the army's attention split in two, the army could no longer keep the Completionists back. The attacking parties had begun to operate together, albeit awkwardly. They didn't have any group tactics that weren't improvised, but they weren't Completionists for nothing.

Several tank skills blocked the army's projectiles, as translucent barriers and walls of porous rock shot up from the ground. At one point, the attacking Completionists disappeared into a cloud of smoke similar to the skill Sindri had used against Teresa's party. This allowed the Completionists to advance in one big stride, closing the distance between the two groups.

<Embers> shot out from one of the attacking mages, now in range as the two groups were roughly 150 meters apart. The continuous stream of fire was extremely difficult to block over and over again with <Light Shield>, both due to how the fire was constantly being shot and due to the power of the spell melting through defensive skills. Arrows and even a few bullets were fired towards the mage, though defensive skills from the opposing tanks were able to block these projectiles as well.

Bombs collided with barriers appearing above the army, crashing into the defensive skills and breaking. A few rained down around the outskirts of the army, causing explosions that were thankfully too far away to hurt anyone.

One of the attacking tanks must have gotten distracted by the explosions, as an arrow shot through a mage's palm and stopped the spew of <Embers>. A separate attacking mage took their place, firing out gray bubbles that popped on impact. The bubbles fired out in a continuous stream similar to how <Embers> operated, with each bubble causing a burst of force towards whatever caused it to pop.

It broke through defensive skills just as efficiently, destroying skills like <Light Shield> while struggling against solid objects like actual shields held by the tanks of the army.

Teresa was focused on her <Suffocate> skill. She slowly moved until her spell lined up with a falling bomb and began to shift the cube of low air pressure down along the tower, matching the speed of a falling bomb. Changing a shape was difficult, as many things with this skill was, but the trick was to make an action simple and repeatable. Sliding a simple cube down along a rectangular prism wasn't too bad once she got the hang of it, the real hard part was keeping that cube over just a portion of a bomb.

The bomb she chose had a portion of it covered by the cube, making one side of the bomb deal with more air resistance than the other. It began to spin as it fell, only to collide with a <Light Shield> like many of the other bombs.

Her first attempt failed, but now that she had tried it she had a better understanding of what to expect. It failed because she hadn't matched the speed of the falling bomb as it began spinning as well as she could have. The bomb also experienced some lateral movement as it began spinning that she needed to account for. She just needed to be faster is all.

She aligned herself with another falling bomb she spotted at high altitudes, carefully shifting her skill along with her. The millimeter thin tower of <Suffocate> lined up with the falling object, and the larger cube began to track the bomb in a similar manner as before.

The falling object began to spin once again as she manipulated the air pressure, her skill following along with the bomb in a much more efficient manner. The falling bomb began to spin faster and faster, and began to move away from the army as Teresa kept focusing on making it spin more.

It shot out towards the Completionists, gaining a surprising amount of velocity from Teresa's air manipulation. The bomb whistled as it flew overhead, right past the attacking Completionists before detonating on the ground over a hundred meters behind them.

Whoops. Too far.

Nevertheless, the explosion behind the attackers spooked them, stealing their attention long enough for an arrow to pierce through a ranger type's head, killing her instantly. The attackers' advance slowed as their gazes went skyward as well, worried they were being bombed by the drones too.

Noah and Clyde were working together with several tanks in a similar manner, though they were struggling to achieve the same results. When Noah used <Elastic> on a <Light Shield>, a falling bomb would still get too damaged to detonate upon shifting directions so quickly. He was launching them at the Completionists, but his skill combination functioned more like a catapult launching hunks of metal.

With Clyde using <Featherfall>, the bombs were slowing down in the air enough to not get completely thrashed upon colliding with a <Light Shield> with <Elastic> applied. Unfortunately, Clyde didn't know how to remotely disable <Featherfall> on an object, meaning the redirected bombs would float through the air for far too long, making it easy for the Completionists to either avoid or deflect.

Teresa redirected another bomb, getting much closer to hitting her target once it detonated. She was still off by a large margin, but the bombs were landing within 100 meters of the attacking Completionists now.

Her next attempt went much better. While the bombs were spherical, they weren't perfectly round. As such, there was often a bit of deviation she had difficulties accounting for, but this time around the bomb arced towards the Completionists and detonated right in front of them, sending fire, rock, and debris their way.

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The Completionists were able to defend against it just fine, but a literal bomb had much more attack power than most spells at this level. The army had enough experience to be used to the explosive power of the bombs, however many of the attacking Completionists had not seen them up close before.

One of the attacking light warrior types must have thought this was the perfect time to push, using the explosion as a distraction. Nobody would expect someone to run right through where a bomb just detonated mere seconds after it blew up, but he was quickly proven wrong.

The attacking light warrior Completionist stumbled as he ran towards the army, the porous rock becoming sticky. Noah was not the only mage who could use <Adhesion>, he was simply the only mage Teresa personally knew with that skill. The light warrior was quickly peppered with projectiles, far too many for any attacking tank to protect against. The man fell to the ground dead, riddled with enough arrows and burns to look like a Decayed Echidna.

"I have an idea!" Noah yelled out, being audible to anyone with a high enough Perception stat. He talked with the tanks around him and moved towards the front line, seemingly pausing with the effort of deflecting bombs.

He placed both hands on the ground as Teresa deflected a bomb of her own at the Completionists again, which was blocked by a <Light Shield> from one of the attackers. Teresa wasn't sure why Noah thought a second person using <Adhesion> would make much of a difference, but after a moment it clicked for her.

He wasn't using <Adhesion> on the ground, someone else was already doing that. He was using <Elastic>.

The Completionists tried to advance further, only to find that not only were their feet stuck to the ground, but the ground was stretchy. When trying to tear their feet away from the sticky surface, the porous rock would stretch almost like the ground was glue. It was completely unnatural to see such dry material behave that way, but it was certainly effective.

None of the attacking light warriors could advance. The attackers were stuck, being peppered by an endless barrage while struggling to return fire. Their tanks seemed to be low on resources as they began to use their defensive skills more sparingly, allowing themselves to take hits so long as a healer could fix it.

Unfortunately, the army tanks were running low on resources as well. The fight hadn't been going on for overwhelmingly long, but tanks generally didn't have a massive resource pool. The formation was manageable against a single opponent where tanks could cycle off and take short breaks, but against both drones and Completionists they were being overused.

Distant sounds of machinery alerted many to the approach of Avatars, showing signs that Chernobyl had begun thinking much more strategically. It had allowed the humans to wear themselves out against one another, while giving minor assistance to worsen the battle for everyone. Now that the army was weak, this was the perfect time for them to strike.

At least that's how Teresa saw it. Something needed to change if they wanted the operation to continue. Fighting the Avatars without their tanks having access to the majority of their skills would be catastrophic. Teresa noticed she had repeatedly underestimated just how much the army was capable of on their own, but this time she felt like she was correct.

Fuck redirecting bombs, there was only so much that could do. She had already been throwing bomb after bomb at the Completionists, and while they had certainly proven valuable the strategy's use was rapidly diminishing as the Completionists got used to it. Teresa could do more. Ezio had warned her against doing too much, that by trying to help she could inadvertently make things worse, but she had an actionable idea.

She directed <Suffocate> higher into the clouds, using her Mana to feel out for bomber drones. Her Perception wasn't quite enough to see beyond the clouds, but using <Suffocate> to 'feel' out the area gave her a rough idea of what was going on.

Up above, there were four drones carrying a massive container that they had no business lifting. The container seemed to be attached to the drones by tethers, while the container itself was periodically releasing bombs from various openings.

Her spell broke as she tried feeling it out more, but she created another instance of <Suffocate> that shot into the sky. She didn't know the finer details about the container she had sensed or any of the drones, but that would be fine. Her skill passed the clouds, still extremely thin. <Suffocate> branched out and searched for a container or a drone, and found one relatively fast.

She simplified the spell and eliminated most of the branches above the clouds, focusing on a single drone. A cube of depressurized air formed around a drone carrying a corner of a container, causing it to immediately begin losing altitude.

<Suffocate> stayed locked on the drone as the container began to tilt, the other drones struggling to account for the weakened corner. Teresa lost track of the drone she was manipulating as there was a huge momentum change, the container having crashed into something, creating a loud crash.

"What the fuck was that?" Sarah asked as she fired an arrow made of Mana, having gone through most of her actual arrows. Hang on, how did Sarah hear that so damn fast? How did Teresa hear that? The sound originated in the clouds, shouldn't it have taken a few seconds to reach their ears? Was the speed of sound different?

This was not the time to get distracted by something like that, as Teresa saw up above the havoc she had caused. Large metallic blocks that looked like shipping containers were falling out of the sky as two of them collided, snapping the metal cables attached from the drones to the containers.

A few drones were still attached desperately trying to lift the falling bomb supplies, but they were failing. The massive containers didn't have the same trajectory as the bombs, and were being influenced by the drones flying them. They had collided into each other and had been set way off course from the army. Teresa wanted to influence the containers to land in the direction of the approaching Avatars she could hear in the distance, but she simply wasn't powerful enough to do so.

There were no more bombs falling from the sky, allowing the army to focus back on the Completionists who were in a sticky situation, metaphorically and literally. They were hunkered down and doing their best to deal with the barrage, barely able to return fire.

"I'm out!" Someone from the army yelled, likely a tank.

"Out!"

"My Mana's gone!"

"After this potion I'm out too!"

The number of defensive skills deployed rapidly began to drop, the tanks being the first to run out of resources. There were still multiple operating, but they were spread thin.

It only took a few seconds for the attacking Completionists to use the sudden advantage. An arrow, one singular arrow, was fired from the core of the attackers, flying at a speed faster than any pre-System bullet.

It tore straight through a <Light Shield>, then another, before striking someone from the army. Their body crumpled over as it shot through the top of their shoulder, blasting straight through their body and likely killing the person.

"LEO!" Theo yelled, running towards the fallen ally. It was Leo, the healer from Theo's party.

Leo was dead.

The falling containers slammed into the ground well over a kilometer away, resulting in a massive explosion larger than any Teresa had ever seen before. Teresa began firing <Embers> at the Completionists, the spell active in both hands as her attack began to slowly melt through a tank's shield.

There were no more bombs to worry about, but the fight wasn't over. Teresa wasn't sure how long it would take for the loud approach of Avatars to arrive, but the situation was grim.

Regardless, she would fight until the end if she had to.

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"I'm sorry, but Yuki's gone." Ezio said as his party watched them grieve. "We should get back."

"We have to bring him back." Kinjo whispered, his voice unsteady. "When Yuuma died, we couldn't get her body. Monsters ate her, there was nothing left to bury. We can't do that again."

Ezio hesitated to tell him to put Yuki's body in his <Inventory>, feeling that might be insensitive. It didn't work on macroscopic living things, but Yuki was not alive anymore. They had found him by smell, his corpse letting out an odor that had caught Mordecai's attention. He looked mostly unharmed, only having a trickle of blood pouring out from his ear. They had tried using Yuki's party as bait, but no one had ever attacked.

"You can bring him back, but we really-"

"HOLY SHIT!" Mordecai interrupted, his eyes wide

BOOM

A massive explosion lit up the horizon, several kilometers away near where the army had been stationed. Ezio and Lilith exchanged a look, an exchange of information passing between them with no words needed.

"Put him in your <Inventory>. We're going, now."

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