Rock And Stone!

John slowed their approach on Adantia as they closed in on the dangerous mage, holding enough distance to observe the woman carefully. Caution and urgency weighed in his mind as he watched Adantia walk along the streets, as casually as if she hadn't just attempted to slaughter intruders from so far away she couldn't even guess their hair colors. He didn't want to wait too long before contacting her, not only would his Twin-Soul ability run out soon, but he didn't want to risk Adantia catching onto them somehow and either attacking them or vanishing altogether.

"She's acting so nonchalant," John noted, as Adantia walked into what looked to be a grocery store. "She's either brave or this is a trap."

"And what do you intend to do about that trap, Master?"

"...Spring it. And hopefully not die in the process."

It wasn't much of a plan, but it wasn't quite as foolhardy as it sounded. Having access to Vallya's abilities meant that revealing himself didn't have to be quite so risky – in fact, he didn't even have to truly reveal himself with her illusions taking the brunt of the blowback.

John descended until he was level with the grocery store's entrance, glancing in through the store's multiple doors and windows. Adantia wasn't in sight, probably having already gone too far inside – but what John did see was enough to raise his curiosity. Unlike some of the other stores that John had peered inside while initially searching for Adantia, it wasn't only the facade of this store that was fully restored.

Shelves were stocked with products that looked less like they'd been sitting idly for decades, and more as if they were freshly made the day before. Most of the shelves were empty, but the ones that were stocked were in as fresh and renewed a condition as the infrastructure of the city itself.

"Hmm... magical preservation techniques? Or is something else going on here?" Vallya noted. John could feel the curiosity burning through her mind even before she voiced it; it was a powerful feeling.

"You're actually interested in all this, aren't you?" John noted, almost relieved to have something to think about besides the severity of their situation. "Preserving food and buildings, magically enhanced society... they might have a little to do with being a Guardian, but it's more than that, isn't it?"

"W-we can discuss my interests later, Master," Vallya growled, sounding more surprised than actually angry. "What about the statues?"

"What about them? There are plenty of..." John's thoughts trailed off as he took a closer look inside the grocery store itself. There were statues in the grocery store, which he'd thought was odd enough, but as John stopped his mad dash to chase after Adantia and took the time to properly observe them, he realized there was something different to them. The statues outside were ornamental, usually on high pedestals and made out of elaborate materials with platinum, gold, and even diamonds accenting their features.

The statues in the grocery store seemed to be made out of marble, or perhaps a particularly well-smoothed and polished granite, and they weren't exactly decorative. Rather, they seemed to be mimicries of shoppers – some of the statues were in the middle of reaching for items on shelves, some were standing around, a few were in places where the employees might have stood... and were even wearing what appeared to be the uniforms of the store.

"That's... creepy. It almost makes it look like everyone inside was frozen in place... but that's not it, or it'd be the whole city. So why make a bunch of statues of people like that?" John murmured.

"Well, there's only one person who might know the answer to that... and she's inside. So how are you planning on getting in there?"

"Like this."

John used his Elemental Infusion ability to control the air within the store – thankfully whatever enchantments were on the building to recreate it and keep it so pristine did not prevent his magic from working through the doors. With a strong enough burst of air, John was able to open the automatic doors and hold them there. Then, he waited.

And waited.

...And waited.

"No reaction from inside," John noted, glancing through the aisles. Wherever Adantia had gone, she was too deep to see from the storefront.

"She's either somehow missed a very obvious sign of an intruder... or she knows, and isn't taking the bait," Vallya noted.

"Let's give her some more obvious bait, then... and perhaps we can sneak inside if she doesn't take it."

"I like the way you think, Master."

John and Vallya worked together to craft a series of illusions, spaced just a few seconds apart, that appeared to be their fused form descending to the ground and entering through the opened doors while hovering above the ground. The first four went unassailed, so John floated down between the fourth and fifth illusions, entering the store while hopefully remaining unseen, allowing a handful of additional illusions to follow behind so that it wouldn't be obvious exactly when he had slipped in. But there was no sign that it was even necessary, because there was no motion inside the store that John could see... and the only faces staring at him were the uncanny expressions of the statues erected around the store at various points.

"If this is some kind of a mental game, designed to throw me off... it's working," John noted, grimacing as he stared at all the unmoving faces. "Why would someone do this? Forget the city being destroyed; this looks like something out of a horror movie. 'Return of the Gorgons' or something. Actually, a city filled with fake people sounds kind of familiar. Didn't Dr. Nev-"

"Still your mind. We're not alone, remember?"

The words sounded like a simple reminder, but the motion at the corner of John's eye told him there was a more direct implication. Turning his eyes toward the checkout lanes at the front of the store, John noticed Adantia approaching the registers. The muscular ravenette had an entire cart full of groceries, and... was unloading them onto the belt next to one of the registers?

"I don't understand, what's the point of this? Is she doing all this to feign obliviousness, or... wait, is she talking?"

"Nope, nothing fancy today - just the usual. I could use a little comfort. You remember that guy I warned you about, right?"

She does indeed appear to be talking... to a statue," Vallya noted, amusement and concern both evident in her voice. "Something is very wrong here, John. This isn't naivety. We should leave, and reconsider our approach."

"We can't leave. Let's test her. See how she reacts to an illusion."

John ignored Vallya's objections as he conjured up an illusion of them – this one not being quite so subtle. The illusion hovered only an inch above the ground, walking slowly toward Adantia as she unloaded her cart. Though John had never done so before himself, he had experienced Vallya's illusions creating sounds before – and though she continued to voice her disapproval, Twin-Soul supplied him with the knowledge to do so.

"Hello there... your name is Adantia, right? My name is John Newman. I'm sorry to intrude on your Barrier like this, but my home is in trouble. I need your help... Hello?"

Adantia never reacted to the illusion at all, she only unloaded the last of her groceries onto the belt. Despite the fact that the statue of the cashier never moved, something propelled Adantia's groceries across the scanner, causing the occasional dinging sound to interrupt Adantia as she began to speak again, facing the cashier.

"Hah, yeah, just like you said I would. I don’t know, something about that guy just… it works, okay?”

John hovered forward as she continued to ignore his deliberately loud illusion, though he paused briefly at the mention of 'that guy', wondering if he'd been detected. But no, Adantia never indicated she noticed John as he hovered around above the cashier's head, still cloaked and starting to observe the woman more carefully. At this range, John noticed something about the woman – something he hadn't had the chance to at greater distances. Her eyes were white. Not a brilliant white, not a mana-infused arcane white... milky white, and unseeing. Her eyes were not locked onto the cashier; rather, they were facing somewhere beside her, or perhaps beyond her.

"She's blind?" John murmured, caught off-guard. "That seems odd. Wouldn't a mage that powerful have access to the resources needed to regain her sight?"

"Not if she's been sealed up alone for decades... with no one to heal her, or to teach her how. Be careful, John. There's something dangerous in the air."

Adantia's eyes weren't the only thing that John saw more clearly at this proximity. He also noticed how unbelievably beautiful she was. This close, John could see the firm tones of her body, the sharp contours of her face... not that he hadn't come to expect some measure of beauty in the Abyss, but Adantia was certainly a cut above in terms of both her natural beauty and her physical conditioning. The tone in her legs alone could’ve given Lerianna some stiff competition…

"Adantia?" the illusion voiced, stepping closer, within arm's reach of Adantia. "Please, I know this is rather sudden and rude of me... I know you've been hiding here for years. But there's a great threat from the north coming to destroy my home town. I was told you're one of the most powerful mages alive, and maybe the only one willing to help me. Please, I'm willing to give you whatever I have, whatever I can, if you'll just help save the people I care about."

The woman's milky irises never moved, never wavered, never reacted to his presence... but for just an instant, John saw the woman's unsteady smile begin to break. And despite not reacting directly to him, John saw her eyes glistening in the light as a slow layer of wetness began to engulf them, pooling up at the corners of her eyes.

"Yeah, he's coming over tomorrow night. I just... he actually asked me out last time I went in, and you encouraged me to talk to him for so long, how could I turn him down? I know, I know, I shouldn't just let random guys over to my place, but he was just so charming. Do you think that I... that we... do you think there's a chance it could all work out? I've been so lonely lately..."

John eyed the woman behind the counter, the unmoving stone, and then cast his gaze back to the woman before him. For a moment it was as if time itself stood still, no movement nor sound coming from any of them. Then the raven-haired beauty before him threw her head back and roared with a laughter uncalled for.

"Yeah, right! Like I'd do that on a first date, are you kidding?! Seriously, you've got such a dirty mind on you!"

"Please, John, this is obviously a trap. We have two minutes left on the fusion, that's enough to-"

"Adantia, please, I need you to hear me out. This army, there's no telling where they'll stop. They might come all the way here, they might invade your Barrier, try to kill you, to tear down what's left of this beautiful city, they-"

At once it was as if the temperature around John had fallen a hundred degrees. A chill in the air the likes of which no natural being had ever brought around him filled his lungs, and Adantia turned towards him – not his illusion, towards him. John found himself staring into a pair of dead eyes that seemed to see nothing, yet still stared directly into his soul.

"Finally found you," Adantia said calmly, flicking her wrist up.

Bare instincts saved John as he flickered to the right – just before a mound of steel emerged, the clustering of cables that had been circling Adantia erupting forth and scattering across the area he'd been in. Unlike before when they'd been walking on the ground, the cables didn't spread out much or attempt any kind of scattering over the area.

"She knows right where we are," John realized with a start. "She's seen past our illusions, Vallya!"

"She was analyzing the area around us the entire time you were casting illusions!" Vallya said, the Star Guardian's voice not panicked, but with more agitation than usual. "I can't tell if she's found some trace of our aura that my illusions can't conceal, if she's used some kind of close-range ability to see past the illusion, or if she's just gotten familiar enough with the area to notice the slightest disturbance... we need to leave, now!"

"I don't think that's an option!" John growled as the cable turned in mid-flight, redirecting toward them. It moved so fast that John had no hope of dodging fully; he had to adapt on the fly.

Purifier's Muse Activated! Lightning Jump mimicked at Level 2.

A bolt of lightning erupted where John had been, stretching from the floor to the ceiling and travelling down the metal cables that pierced John's former location, finding a home in the ground a few moments later. Meanwhile, an identical bolt struck at the same time a few feet away, across the next checkout aisle, putting the tiniest bit of distance between John and his assailant.

"If she's powerful enough to take an army, we don't have any chance of winning this fight," Vallya insisted, her voice urgent. "You need to find a way out of here, now!"

"If she's powerful enough to stop an army, there's no way she'll let us escape – if your illusions don't work anymore, we won't be able to get far enough away before the fusion wears off!" John replied immediately. A second use of Purifier's Muse and the copy he had of Shishun's Lightning Jump ability barely saved them from a section of the cable cluster breaking off, a half-dozen metal tendrils swiping through the store, tearing apart the checkout registers and the numerous displays of candy bars while John reformed a few feet away, nearly backing into the bread aisle out of fear.

"Please, Adantia! I don't want to fight you!" John shouted, as if he had any intention or ability to actually fight back against this woman. He was already struggling to survive, and it had been less than five seconds since the fight began. "I want your help, I want to help you! Whatever you need, I can-"

John's voice was lost in the peal of thunder as he vanished again, as the entire column of steel re-united and soared into the air before shooting downward through his location. Reforming again near the entrance to the store, John prepared to dash out the door, when Adantia finally deigned to speak again.

"What I need is for you to be gone," Adantia shouted.

"Master, look down!"

John looked down and had an instant to process as the mass of cables Adantia had been wielding spread apart into over a hundred individual high-strength weapons, covering not only the area John was standing in, but the entire area around it, all the way to the limit of his Lightning Jump range. They were just below the surface, about to pierce upward and obliterate most of the store.

"She figured out the range? That quickly?" John thought wildly, as the cables burrowed upward at a terrifying rate. He couldn't move fast enough to escape such a wide area. He could only do one thing.

Adantia's frustrated shout went unheard by John as he disappeared entirely, flickering out of reality just before her cables shredded the ground he stood upon.