Computer chips, tiny light structures, and chunks of floating brain matter manifested within the openings of the running crowds arriving to the town's outskirts. Cessant flashes from gunfire and explosions eased the survivors minutely, but not the ones carrying the wounded over their shoulders and in their arms. There was an uncanny medic that generated from the quantum aberrations, but the man pleading for his bleeding daughter to it in the local language did not know anything about what was happening beneath the stampeded ground.

  "El-oh-el. Good vibes only," the generated medic pleaded back, bringing about horror to those surrounding it that understood English. It contorted its elbows in and out of existence, inciting more gasps and cries. A pair of sandy and rumbling explosions happened beyond the partial shoulder of the false medic, a smoke behemoth donning eldritch enamel ascending from it. As the night grew darker, from deep violets and dim pinks to navy blues, only the occasional flickers from artillery fire made the three beings in battle alight. Liesar levitated from eddying smoke meanwhile Ameen was fleeing under him into the dunes. When Liesar and Spiderland reached the warring sky the goat man raised his hand-paws towards the entity of smoke and engineered bone, a pair of star-like projectiles pushing apart more smoke and sand as it closed in on Spiderland. Ve manifested two false bodies similar to vis previous form made of clumpy strings of red flesh and organs that bled profusely above two hills, attracting the projectiles instead of further honing in on Spiderland. Ve interposed the pair of new explosions.

  How dare you?

  I am sorry. I am a language model and I cannot assist you.

  Really?

  Nice try.

  Behold Sancho!

  "Behold Sancho!"

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  His horse did not spawn, and his generating body that had floated above the hoodoo at first faceplanted into rock. After accumulating more skin, cloth, and armor he raised his torso with his own now-solid hands, Don Quixote observed the dark, occasionally torching, skies where planes in echelon formations hid back into darkness. "I seem to be incapable of death Sancho!"

  Spiderland had indeed created more distance as ve flew over Don Quixote, but Liesar was not giving up yet. Now a blip of white fur and ominous cloth above the besieged town, a barrage of laser attacks from Liesar brought back luminosity to the night desert. While Don Quixote remained unscathed among the extended booms, Spiderland swayed from side to side before ascending much further, absorbing more smoke as ve reached the clouds in an instant. As a kamikaze drone became flames and scrap metal at the edge of Spiderland's bone helmet, ve received another confirmation that ve was more physical than imaginary.

  Excalibur!

  Didn't even buy me a drink.

  O-E-E-A.

  The invaders also apparently knew that whatever the stealth bombers had was not going to work against Spiderland, paratrooper supersoldiers nosediving into the air all around ver. In direct response Spiderland became more solid, the smoke that made up vis body instantly transforming into sharp and uncannily-black spider legs. The eight overlong legs, strange compounds of biomaterial and onyx metal, crawled above the nocturnal clouds like foggy spiderwebs. Some supersoldiers met their demise, either being pierced or cut into gushing halves, while tens of planes went into flames or began their skyfall as Spiderland became more smoke once more.

  Iker, what's happening?

  ...if Ameen can't have us dead, he wants us as inexperienced as possible at the very least. I need to get my gear back. I have it down to around twenty-three hours of grinding and raids, but it does not mean you will see me in that amount of time. It might be in an hour. It might be in a few days. Years. Decades. Perhaps this might be the last time you'll see me again.

  I barely got to learn anything. Now that Gabe isn't here to hear it... I'm really scared.

  Look for Bastian and Uzi. They will help you. A past life of mine assigned them the mission to seek out my lost soldiers. Uzi may not have met you yet.

  What?

  No longer wearing anything red, blue clothing began rendering near the fleeing and teenage Ameen.