As the Phantoms spawned in, there was no time to waste. Finn and Iris immediately readied their weapons and began attacking the Ghosts, while Reaper and Octane did the same.

“SKREE!” Two Phantoms attempted to trap Finn and Iris in a pincer attack, but Finn merely slashed the one in front across the face while Iris took care of the one sneaking up behind with a direct bullet to the head.

“Hey! There’s a big one here!” Octane called out as he leaped out of the way of a devastating smash attack that sent the rock tiles of the floor flying around. “My attacks don’t work on him!”

Iris shot a few pieces of the debris so that she and Finn wouldn’t get hit, then reloaded her weapon.

“Ace — 7 o’clock direction, about 15 meters. Roughly 14 feet tall!”

“On it,” Finn replied briskly before dashing towards his target, silver claws sharp and ready. Iris holstered her handgun and pulled out the sniper rifle on her back in one swift motion, aiming for the creature’s head.

“GRAHHH!”

The monster slammed down once again with its two thick arms, but Finn narrowly avoided it by hearing the sound of its limbs moving against the air and feeling the wind on his skin. Iris took advantage of the Phantom’s momentary defenseless state and let out a high-caliber bullet straight to the eye. Her aim was true despite Finn’s unpredictable movements.

“ROOOOARRRR!” The Phantom cried in agony, clawing at its own face.

“Alright, Ace — split!”

She activated her wings and flew off of Finn’s shoulders, hovering in the air before unleashing another shot, this time in the monster’s chest. Since it couldn’t see, this was the perfect follow-up to her previous attack. The monster moved its arms to block its body, rendering its face vulnerable once more.

Finn, naturally, didn’t let this opportunity go to waste. He activated Burning Fist on his midnight-black gloves, causing the silver blades on each hand to light up in flames, then jumped up so that he was on a direct path to the creature’s hideous, injured face, using Iris’s height callout from earlier as reference.

He slashed down in an X-shape with his flaming gauntlets, setting the Phantom’s face ablaze immediately.

“GRAGHHHH!” It roared in pain, the most pain it had felt since its birth. The fire soon spread to the rest of its body as it fell onto its knees, screaming and flailing its burning arms around wildly like it was confused about where to put them.

“Reaper, finish him,” Finn said, landing back on the ground.

[Copy — Terminate Protocol Activated.]

Reaper, who had been busy clearing out the minions, now set his single bionic red eye on the burning Phantom, on the verge of death. He performed a spinning slash around him using his dark metal scythe, clearing out all the little creatures who tried getting close, before flying up into the air and cutting down with his superhuman, mechanical strength.

He pierced straight through the Phantom, landing on the ground behind it. The execution was so quick and deadly that the flames originally on the monster didn’t even catch onto Reaper’s hood.

“AGHHHHH!”

With one final, dying roar, the enormous Phantom exploded into a cloud of black fog, flowing into Finn’s body. He could feel the Souls he had increasing — this big guy had been worth quite a bit.

But of course… that Boss up there, drawing closer and closer… would be worth a lot more.

Finn utilized Lightning Breathing with the help of Zelestria, channeling his Stormbringer Angelica’s power through his veins while his allies worked on taking out the remaining Phantoms.

Glowing blue lines lit up on his body as a spark of energy formed in his right hand. With the use of the Lightning Breathing technique, chanting was unnecessary — only the ending was.

And so, as the spark of electricity in his palm became too condensed to bear, he spoke the Ability’s name under his breath.

“Lightning Reach.”

Immediately, a wide, destructive laser beam of raw electricity shot out of his hand, heading directly for the priestess-Phantom at the speed of light. But just as his attack was about to hit — it stopped.

An invisible barrier had blocked the attack with ease, preventing Finn from doing any damage to her at all. Confused on why he wasn’t hearing screams of pain, Finn canceled the attack as the priestess glared down at the four condescendingly.

“HMPH… HOW FOOLISH.”

Synia began chanting once more in an unknown language, a white ball of energy condensing above her, emitting a dark and dangerous energy.

“O-Okay, I don’t know what that thing is, but if we let her finish the chant, we’ll all probably die!”

“There’s a barrier preventing us from hurting her,” Finn muttered in disdain. “We have to find a way to disable that — if we don’t, not only can we not kill her, but we will also have our heads crushed when we reach there.”

“Ugh, but how do we get this thing to stop?!” Iris yelled in impatience as the platform rose further and further up, closer and closer to the priestess, using her Eye of Omnipotence to look around for any hidden mechanisms in the room.

“Wait!” Octane cried, pointing at the ground where the big Phantom had died moments earlier. “The big one — it dropped something!”

“And these five terminals… each one has a compartment where I can put something in, along with a symbol on each one marking them,” Iris analyzed. “They’re the same ones as the ones on the pillars…”

And then, it struck her.

“Octane, pass me that!”

“H-Huh?” Octane, who had picked up the mysterious object the Phantom had dropped — a ball of pulsating white light — looked over at Iris, a bit confused.

“Just pass it!”

“O-Okay!”

Octane tossed the ball over to Iris, who caught it and immediately dunked it in the terminal right in front of her. It lit up pink, signaling that it had activated.

“REEEEE!”

Suddenly, the priestess Synia above us shrieked ear-splittingly loud, as if in pain. Iris smirked smugly as Octane blinked in confusion. The platform also came to a stop momentarily while four new portals opened up, sending in another wave of Phantoms — and along with it, another ‘big one’. The invisible barrier protecting Synia also flickered a bit, signaling that it had weakened.

“Alright — rinse and repeat!” Iris ordered, riding back on Finn’s shoulders to let her back muscles get a little break. “Kill the big one and pass the orb over to me!”