Masenia: Chapter 20 Stigmata (Patreon)

Chapter 20

Stigmata

Beeeeeepppp!

The heart monitoring system beeped loudly, warning everyone that the patient’s heartrate had either flatlined, or is no longer able to be recorded by the instrument panel.

Confused chatter.

This of course caused Maria’s parents, her twin sister, her brother Juan, and her ex, or at least soon to be ex-boyfriend, to cause a commotion as they looked at the bed, only to find the sheets completely empty. This of course was because Maria had spent the last few hours running around killing off every monster that would normally come to the hospital and destroy the sick, elderly and the remaining staff. This cleansing of the area in turn set off a security alert, as Maria had done so while the system was paused, and caused two system watchers to come and try to see what was happening. At least that was the way Maria remembered everything happening, though recently her memories of her past life have been bleeding over into this one, causing her to doubt herself. What she didn’t doubt was the way she felt about her family, which is why she tried to now take control of the situation, by getting everyone to calm down.

“Hey guys.” Maria said, as she awkwardly waved her hand, drawing everyone’s attention to her.

Hearing her voice coming from the far end of the room caused everyone to be shocked into silence for a moment. Then her mother was the first to speak.

“Oy mio, Maria, what has happened to you?” Momma Alvarez said as she dashed up and ran to Maria. Maria, for her part, was a bit confused as she had no idea why her mother was so flustered. Well, there was the fact that she had spent the last few days in a forced restart induced coma, where she was left to her own devices and all but forced to learn how to wield and manipulate spirit mana to avoid from going stir crazy. That was also when she realized her ex-boyfriend was a complete scum bag and finally remembered why she had completely forgotten about him in the previous timeline.

Tackle.

Despite her exceptionally high Attributes, with an effective 144 Strength after her six percent bonus was added to her now 136 base Strength, she still felt the impact and force of her mother’s tackle.

Then Momma Alvarez grabbed Maria’s arm and pulled it down. Begrudgingly Maria offered her hand without resistance. That is when Maria saw what Momma Alvarez saw, a giant purple bruise that was welling up under her skin, causing a slight tear to form in her palm, allowing for the tiniest sliver of blood to pour out. As soon as Maria saw the wound, she instantly knew what it was from, from Overcasting a spell at a glorified alien janitor who had machinations of deleting her entire existence. An existence that would have been deleted solely for the fact that she happened to be around areas where anomalies happened, causing stress in their lives.

“This…” Momma Alvarez began, but then stopped as she turned to the second hand, only to find that it too had the same wound. Maria knew exactly what had happened, this was because she had channeled not one, but two Overcast spells out her hands to take down two people that were classified as Lesser Gods by the system. Given that they could stop, restart, and delete people from the world at any time Maria could see this being a legitimate classification of the two, although she did find that the two were more than likely granted the status just due to their location and the fact that they were, at the time, interacting with the world as an alien. Their status of being classified as Neutral was also odd, but not entirely unexpected, as they were supposed to be impartial arbiters, or watchers of the whole integration process. Maria was quickly pulled out of her thoughts, when the rest of Momma Alvarez’s words hit her. “This is stigmata…”

Hearing that, Maria almost wanted to scoff at the idea, but then stopped herself as she looked down at her two hands and saw the physical damage caused by Overcasting with her meridians and realized that her mother’s description of what happened might be an accurate description of events. Well as accurate as someone who has no clue as to what happened might say randomly waking up from a sudden coma, appearing at the far end of the room, and then bleeding out from both hands would consider. At first Maria wanted to argue with her, but then realized she could use this to at least get out of here and get everyone to safety.

“You are right mother. I have been given a warning about the future. We are being judged by rapture, right now. The entire world is at stake, and we must all ban together before tragedy strikes.” Maria began, her words spoken in earnest, as she spoke, she felt the weight and pressure of having stayed quiet during her last time, the time when the world was reset, and she was forced out of her body and into an induced coma come back to her. Suddenly the fear of being seen as crazy was alleviated, and she could tell the truth, especially as the world was suddenly proving her to be correct.

There was a pause as Momma Alvarez looked at first confused, then Maria could see the moment doubt filled her eyes as she shook her head no. “No, no. This is not so…” Momma Alvarez said, as she put her hands up to grasp Maria’s face.

Maria could see the gesture for what it was, an attempt to deny the proof before her. Honestly the whole thing seemed crazy to Maria’s perspective as well, had she not lived through it twice, or was this three times now, she too would have had her own questions about what was being said and done.

Maria opened her mouth to protest, to say something, but that is when the power went out.

Phwoom.

“Ahh!”

Hospital staff and patients alike cried out from the sudden lack of lights. Maria used this moment to go and get her clothes from the cabinet. Now that she had time, this would be a perfect chance for her to go, get dressed and get ready. Her heightened Perception made traversing the room quickly and quietly very easy to do.

She was most of the way to the bathroom when she first felt, then heard the auxiliary generator spark to life and begin pumping new life into the hospital. Maria knew that this would be a short reprieve, as the power generator would only be able to fuel a hospital of this size for so long before it also ran out of power.

“Maria?!” Her mother called out for her.

“I’m changing.” Maria shouted from the bathroom, quickly changing into her new set of clothes. The minute she put them on, she felt a sigh of relief come to her lips that can only be summed up as pure bliss. This is the sudden sense of relief you get when you suddenly realize you were made whole by having something you didn’t quite realize you needed until they were missing. In Maria’s case, she realized that now and forever she would need clothes that covered her completely, or at least protected her back side from gusts of wind caused by moving too quickly.

“Ahh!” Maria sighed contentedly as she left the bathroom, only to find that everyone in the room was lost in their phones. Well Anita, Juan, and Mark were all glued to their phones.

“My phone is dead. How can this be?” Anita said, truly panicking at the idea of not being able to use her phone for the moment. Maria wanted to tell her to get used to it but figured that might be a bit too much of a shock for her at the moment.

“Oh Maria.” Momma Alvarez said, as she grabbed Maria’s arm and dragged her back to the bed. Her eyes did a quick glance over her, and recognized that she was now wearing her clothes, but decided not to say anything. Instead, she was pulled back to the one TV in the room, where her father was quickly clicking through the channels to find that most were off the air.

“What is going on?” Father asked no one in particular as local new 9 had only the emergency broadcast tones displayed, as did all of the other news stations. Everything was out. After about a minute of this, an orderly came in.

“We have just received word that everyone is to stay here.” The male nurse said.

Hearing this, everyone paused, but then began asking questions all at once.

“What do you mean, what is happening?” Father asked, his voice cutting through and over everyone else who tried to speak at the same time.

“I don’t know, our short-wave radios are picking up chatter that there is a lot of odd activities that are going on…” He began, but that was all Maria could hear as she had used the distraction to sneak out and begin making her way out of the hospital. She had made a temporary safe spot with the hospital being a safe area, but she knew this wouldn’t last so long as monsters were able to be summoned through the nodes that were now active all-around town. With the world being reset, all her prior work of having a safe spot that encompassed the town was undone, meaning she would have to do it again. Fortunately, her work the first time had not been completely forgotten as she still had the bonuses from having completed the run through, even though she was no longer able to display the Titles she earned the first time. Now that her titles were completely hidden from everyone, thanks to her new Perk, she decided to earn as many titles as possible, to include but not limited to more Lesser God Slayer titles, especially if they were all as easy to kill as the two incompetent arbiters were.

Running.

The streets were completely dark, as only a few buildings still had power. It was clear that the power plants that supplied energy to her town were down and were likely going to remain down until someone could get to them and repair them. Fortunately, it was only late afternoon, meaning that most people could use the next few hours to move around quickly to find shelter. People in Europe and most of Asia were not so fortunate as it was now dark there, meaning they would have to survive the night first, while being hunted by monsters. That said, those who would survive the night in Europe and Asia were often some of the strongest from the start, as they had to kill monsters immediately just to survive. Maria didn’t know why this thought was coming to her at the moment, but she figured it might have something to do with the fact that she was now learning to move while meditating, or at least that is what she figured to be the most likely scenario as she was able to cycle energy into her body, while running, in her past life this was something that only happened towards the end of her life, when she had been chosen to progress. The process itself wasn’t that difficult, but just being able to split her focus on two repetitive movements like running and meditating meant she was much further along her path to progression that most would be for years to come. Of course, now that the integration had begun, she would have to remain vigilant of all things around her.

Rustle.

There was the snapping of branches and rustling of leaves to Maria’s left. That is when Maria paused, halting her run in two and a half steps. At the same time a blurry mana infused figure charged forward from where it had been hiding in the bushes a moment ago. The creature was, or rather had been a large mastiff, but with the surge of energy caused by the system, the beast had grown to be nearly to Maria’s chest level, even while on all fours. Instantly her mind saw the creature and registered it for the threat it was, with her last step, she planted her left heel firmly into the ground, stopping all of her forward progress. Then with a quick exertion of strength, she spun and pivoted on her left foot, swinging around violently with her right foot that happened to catch the lunging mana infused mastiff right in the neck.

Thwack.

Her foot landed firmly, and Maria could all but feel the loose vertebra of the dog’s neck twist around her foot. This was good, as it gave Maria the leverage, she needed to continue her spin move, picking the large evolving beast off its paws for a moment, then crashing it down on its neck as she completed her spin move right back where she started.

360 Degree Roundhouse Swipe

The strike was a simple one and was often used by people who were on the run and needed to take down a combatant with as minimal time lost as possible. Maria landed, then felt how her foot landed on top of the neck of the beast. The whole thing had been so fast, that Maria barely noticed how she had first missed her primary target, that being the head of the beast. Had she managed to strike the beast there the battle likely would have been over. As it was, the beast was beginning to twitch and try to squirm its way free from under Maria’s heel. Now Maria was still bound by physics, her small 115 lb frame was still developing, and while her Attributes might denote her being stronger than the mastiff, that had little to do with physics. The massive dog was clearly powerful to begin with, and then adding in the bulking roid rage of mana infusion and the beast was a massive slab of muscles.

Realizing there was no easy way to end this, Maria began channeling spirit mana through her legs and into and then through her right foot, then she twisted.

“Yipe, yipe.”

The big dog let out a whimper like it was a small chihuahua that had nearly been stepped on. Then the energy of her foot was released directly into the neck and spine of the dog causing the dog to stop squirming immediately.

Spirit Heel Strike.

Silence.

There was a moment of silence as the world around her seemed to still as her adrenaline still coursed within her veins. The entire event had taken only a few seconds to complete, but she had managed to take care of the massive beast in a matter of seconds.

Panting.

Only now that it was over, and the dog lay completely still underneath her heel did Maria take a moment to breathe out and relax. That had been close, almost too close, she had somehow missed the massive creature laying in wait to ambush her. Well, realistically she knew the dog wasn’t there for her specifically, that it would have likely attacked and continued to attack any and every creature that passed by its territory.

Sigh.

Breathing in, Maria took a breath to compose herself. She still had a lot to do, but that had been a lot closer than she would have liked. First, she missed her mark of the beast’s head, then there was the fact that she had to use mana to cast a spell. While she had the perk that allowed her to cast without her meridians, she did not trust that at the moment. Fortunately, the meridians in her legs still worked and were more than enough to kill this would be kujo monster, but it had all been too close in her mind. While she knew her Attributes were exceptionally high for the current time of the integration, she could not forget the fears of her past life where she had suffered from beasts far smaller than this one.

“My dog! You killed my dog!” A man yelled out, coming from his house.

Seeing the large man come out and angrily yell at Maria she almost wanted to run, but then realized where she was.

“This was self-defense. Next time, I’ll bring a lawsuit against you. Keep your dog on a leash!” Maria shouted, her words having power and venom behind them that she was not used to using. In her past life she would have never said such a thing, but this was the end of the world, the final trial that Earth had to pass and be accepted as a legitimate organization within the universe. This was their last time they could rally together and prove they deserved to still exist once this integration process was finally completed. She didn’t have time to play nice, or to make it so everyone understood the gravity of the situation they were in. At least not currently, she had to take control of the central node for the region, along with all of the auxiliary nodes around town to take control of the region and make sure no more kujos would be coming.

The dog owner hearing the venom of Maria’s words paused, and then seemed to take in the location of where her dog was. It was clear that the dog had gone outside the boundary of the yard and had seemed to attack a petite female on the sidewalk, despite the rage he had at losing his dog, it was clear from a simple glance that she was right. Also, there was something about her that caused the man to recoil slightly from her reproach.

“Yeah, well, get out of here!” The man shouted, a last act of defiance.

Maria almost wanted to argue with the fool, but then thought better of it, as she had places to go and nodes to conquer. Twisting her right foot once more, she felt bones crack and squish beneath her foot, as her foot was now clearly grinding against the sidewalk. Realizing she was done, she gave a crisp head nod to the former owner of said dog and began running.

Only after she continued running towards the school did she have the thought. “I really hope his last name is not Wick.”