Nexus Awakened (An Isekai LitRPG Gender Bender Story)-Chapter 1103. The Truth of the Anids

The 3rd Branch specialized in autonomous firepower and was heavily utilized by the 6th Branch during nightly patrols. However, since the disappearance of the nightly Impuritas raids, the 3rd Branch were suddenly overflowing with spare weaponry.

Rather than disposing of it or leaving it to rot in storage, they offered them as gifts. They were nowhere near as powerful as a traditional Justica Arm, let alone a Talon.

Alter Frosts did not need to limit themselves to their own weapons and Skills. Wai was resourceful at heart. Unlike most who only used what was most familiar to them, she was open to discovering new tools.

Whiteout: her firearm: was not a universal tool.

“Black Dove. Focus fire on the Anids. Their kind ignores yours. Be glad you’re a damned Healer.” Wai ordered, and Abgail instantly shifted targets from the Corrupted to the Anids.

“Right!” She exclaimed and opened fire to the Anids. “Stay out of my firing cone!”

A cone of fire was left clear for her. Everything within was reduced to waste. The range of a Standard Talon was around a hundred meters at most. Anything further required the long-range variant, which could reach further than a kilometer.

Where it lacked in range it made up for it in its penetrative power. It did not matter if there were a dozen or a hundred Octanids in her cone of fire. The bullets travelled through hordes of Anids unhampered, entering and exiting their shells as though they were made from plywood.

After exactly thirty bullets were spent, she cried: “Changing!” It was mandatory in the Black Wings, especially the less experienced ones and those who did not possess a CognitO Transmitter or Receiver. During the short lull of her reload, Sin fired a covering volley from a dark Justica Long Arm.

“I trust you will pick off the strays with Alcina.” Sin nodded at Wai.

“Please. I lack a main target. I’ll lay down fire wherever it’s needed. Our main concern are not the strays.”

Indeed. The Corrupted Denizens, the Anids, and Act X were secondary to the main threat at hand. Where there were Denizens, there were Corrupted. With five types of Corrupted Denizens present, there had to be five Corrupted hiding someplace within Act X’s territory.

And they did not need to look very far.

* * *

Thirty minutes had elapsed since their arrival. Thirty minutes of constant pushback was enough to give them the edge against the onslaught.

Sin’s Conflagrator Skills that were inherited from Frost made quick work of the Corrupted Denizens. Since they were selective in their targeting, Act X personnel were relatively safe. Furthermore, many of the Milinid’s Legs were shot down before they could even reach the Grand Stage.

“We’re winning! We’re winning!” Alcina celebrated. “Push them back! PUSH THEM BACK! Constructs! Rip and tear, my babies!”

Her radiant smile infected the others. They were also certain they were on the cusp of claiming the Grand Stage. A front line had been established largely thanks to Res’ painted barricades and Sin’s molten river of [Liquid Fire].

Limiting the Milinid’s ability to bring reinforcements reduced their numbers significantly. Tens of thousands dropped to a meager ten thousand. In five minutes, they’d be reduced to a few hundred.

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“I’m running low on ammunition!” Abigail cried. She fetched into her [Dimensional Storage] for a white-colored magazine. “Switching to Healing Bullets! Acedia! You can take greater risks! I’ll support you!”

“Refrain. You will reset my form to a previous state.” Acedia denied it.

A carpet of flesh swallowed a massive 300-meter section of the Great Stage. It became a zone where no Herald nor Acolyte could tread. But the Missionaries were quick to cut their way through with minimal difficulty.

“You’re… Correct. Shifting to the Heralds!?”

“Fall back into the Isolation Sphere. Your bullets will prove useful there.” Sin urged, her eyes landing somewhere above.

She had sensed movement beyond the cracked ceiling. Abigail searched for what she had seen but found nothing out of the ordinary. Tension suddenly spilled from Sin, and she noticed Wai’s ears flap from beneath her hood with attention.

“Go, kid. You’re not needed here.” Wai, swatted her back with her tail.

Abigail was used to being kept aside from combat. As a Healer, her role and namesake was no more than to provide Healing. Even as a Black Dove it was her primary role. While she was not bound to any contract like the Repenters, Horus or Acedia, she understood that she was better off staying in the back as a Healer.

She was capable of holding her own. She had a weapon that could cause a Moon to bleed.

And yet, this was not her place. She did not complain. Abigail was far from a prideful person. These people held the face and judgement of the person who gave her a second chance, after all.

But witnessing the air around them change from dominance to caution caused her to realize that she was out of her league. She thrust the weapon onto her shoulder as the Grand Stage came to a sudden profound silence.

Then, after taking several steps towards the Isolation Sphere, she heard it.

The sound of a trumpet.

“Hoooh~! Hear that!?” Horus adjusted her shades. “Trickle.”

And another.

“Hailstorm.”

Another.

“Monsoon.”

And one final trumpet.

“Eternal Night.”

Abigail had not encountered an Eternal Night Corrupted in the flesh before, aside from Mimicry and Raoul’s Corruption Event. Mimicry was a notorious Corrupted that miraculously favored her when she had been drugged by an innkeeper as a White Dove. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Thus, her picture of an Eternal Night Corrupted was skewed despite knowing what one entailed.

Five pallid Milinid Legs descended. They were not like the others that came before it.

And for the first time, she bared witness to a Corrupted worthy of its Risk Classification.

* * *

Jury observed the Grand Stage as she fell into a second lull with Lachesis.

Five Milinid Legs descend from the heavens. It became immediately apparent that they were different from their predecessors.

Every bullet fired, every Skill used and ever magic that bombarded its radiant shell left no marks behind.

It was pristine. Indestructible.

The legs fell with an uncanny grace, and they penetrated through the marble as though gliding through the surface of a lake. It resonated with an unknown power, yet Jury could not help but feel an odd familiarity with the sheen of those legs.

“A Milinid Leg? The Hired Arm can’t destroy it… Where… Have I seen that before…?”

“Beholder Jury. What do you know of an Anid’s birth?” Lachesis was curious, and she was ready to answer Jury regardless of whether she knew or not.

When Jury shook her head, Lachesis then continued.

“You are thinking about the mortal birth of an Anid post-creation. What of those born pre-creation? Of the Anids born from the same ashes spread across Elysia?”

“… What are you saying?”

Were they beings from the Old World? There was a chance of this. Or perhaps they were based on an Old World being? Jury did not believe this to be the case, since Anids had not always existed. There was a point in time when the Anid Region was not infested like it was today, until one day, the Celestial Anids appeared.

The only beings to come from the Old World were the Angels, the Archetypes, and Gods of Cognition. Stars as well, since their remnants: the Gifts: were also present deep beneath this world.

“Then, do you know how the Magicallis came to be outside of the Nexus?”

“What… do the Magicallis have to do with the Anids?”

“Shavings from the Nexus. The Pallid Beings that came to be when the first shavings came loose. The Angel’s hair that falls from the heavens. Inconspicuous strands which disappear at the slightest winter breeze, only to bloom come spring.”

Jury’s blood ran cold. She had known that Magicallis were born from the shavings of the Nexus. But Anids…? If that were the case, then Anids…

“Anids are Magicalis…?”

“A Celestial Anid, a founding Pallid Being of the Nexus: a Magicallis: bears the materials of its mother. A life not born of flesh and blood, but of crystalline make, requiring an essence of humanity to function... It is plated with a material comparable to Genesis Stones.”