NOVEL NEXT Chapter 222: Ominous
After stopping for a few minutes at the ruins we continue our flight towards the diaboli base. However, after just half an hour of flying past the ruins, specs in the sky ahead of us make it clear that that task will not be so easy.
“Looks like we are getting company.” Sam calls out while stopping her horse mid-flight. “And there’s even more of them here than I remember.”
“Sid and I won’t be very useful against those.” Gamma replies, making up the rear of our group. “Amicia, Veanya, can you do something about them?”
“We’ve not really killed too many before so I don’t know what they are weak to.” I reply to our purple haired friend. “Though I doubt they'll be able to resist holy magic.”
“Sid.” Veanya calls out to our tank. “Can you go and lure some of them behind you, that way I can test which element works best against them.”
Without hesitation Sid nods and spurs his horse forward, darting towards the dots in the distance, ever growing in number. As they are coming closer it’s clear just how many of those flying devils are in front of us and more are popping out from out of the treecover as we speak.
Within a minute Sid has gathered hundreds behind him, following him like a swarm of angry bees. At least these devils are only a fraction of the size of the devils we fought earlier, meaning they are probably a lot weaker too.
“What do you think, Veanya? What about a lightning attack so it can spread from target to target?” Sam suggests as she attacks with her bow from horseback like a Mongolian archer.
“I’m already on it.” A sudden power surge flies out from Veanya’s outstretched hands and into the swarm a couple of hundred meters away from us. The sparks jumping through the entire cloud of enemies. Dozens of fried devils fall out of the swarm and disintegrate in mid-air. “It did what it was supposed to do but that was a lot less effective than I had hoped for.” She then looks at me and shoots a jolt of electricity into my body. The short zap tingles more than anything else.
“What was that for?” I pout.
“Just attuning you, that’s all.” Veanya replies briefly. “Could you mimic the attack I just made but also add some of your holy magic to it as well?”
“Could you just warn me next time…” I take my staff off my back and point it into the distance. Focusing the fuzzy electric charge in my center and mixing it with the rest of my corporeal mana. When I feel like the magic is sufficiently fuzed I release it through my arm and into my staff, sending it off in the distance. While Veanya’s electric attack was mostly purple in color, my version looks a lot more… pink. Albeit a very very bright pink.
On contact with the cloud of diaboli it's almost as if a show of fireworks spreads through the ranks, devils outright bursting mere fractions of a second after having been in contact with my ray of holy electricity.
“Imbuing magic that jumps from one target to the other with Holy magic seems to do the best in this case.” Veanya smiles happily at the cloud of smoke that now hangs behind Sid. “But let’s quickly catch up with Sid now that there’s a small gap in their attacks.”
We quickly reunite with Sid so we can press on as a group towards the enemy camp although the relentless attacks from devils that fly out of the forest below slow our advance considerably. Thanks to my holy magic imbued with electricity however, none of the small devils really manage to get close before being fried by holy chain lightning. Any other stragglers are being picked off by the combined efforts of Sam, Gamma and Veanya.
It’s only when we get close to the enemy camp, after an hour of being relentlessly attacked, that the attacks stop which baffles all of us. If anything we had expected the resistance to our coming to increase, not completely fall off. The same is true for the enemy camp below. It’s twice the size and more fortified compared to the last time we saw it, but it looks completely deserted apart from the huge portal at the center of the camp.
Sam picks off the last small devil that flies up to us from behind a tree and then speaks up as she looks over the camp. “Where is everyone?”
“This is the main enemy camp you saw last time?” Veanya asks.
“It is…” I reply. “They were very busy with construction the last time we were here. I mean, half of these walls were not even started yet, right Sam?”
My girlfriend nods in agreement. “Yeah, half of these walls are brand new.”
“And totally undefended…” Sid comments. “This is not putting me at ease.”
“Me neither.” I agree. “What should we do?”
“Well, we can at least go take a look at that portal. Perhaps the diaboli pulled back as we were approaching. So shutting the portal down might solve our problem, at least for the time being.”
With Veanya guiding us, we fly down to the portal, which is still emanating the purple miasma we saw before, but unlike last time it doesn’t seem to flicker. Now that we see the camp up close though, it’s obvious that it is not built for human needs. There’s no barracks to speak of to house troops, no armory for weapons, no outhouses for your other sanitary needs. It’s just walls and other kinds of defenses all centered around the portal.
Gamma gets down on the ground and then dismounts.
“Are you sure you want to do that, Gamma?” Sam asks.
“There’s no one here, Sam.” Gamma shrugs. “I can’t study that thing too well from on top of the horse anyway.”
Sid also flies down to the ground and dismounts as well. “I’ll guard Gamma, but feel free to come down here as well.”
I look at Sam and Veanya but both don’t really make an attempt to swoop down as well. “Do you mind if I go down to the ground as well?” I specifically look at my girlfriend.
“Up to you, but if you do so, I prefer that you stay on your horse so you can get out of there as fast as possible if you need to.”
“Sure, I’ll do that then.” I smile and guide my horse down to the ground. Standing right in front of the portal, this close to it, feels very intimidating. The turbulence in the portal’s surface makes it impossible to look through, making it look like a stormy sea.
“Any idea on where it goes?” Sid asks Gamma, who has taken out some kind of metallic measuring device.
“No, I need to send a small probe through but I first want to measure a couple of things like radiation and such. This can be a breakthrough in our understanding of the Diaboli and I would like to not waste this opportunity if that’s alright?”
Sid shrugs. “Go ahead.”
I frown. “I would like to get rid of this as soon as possible though but I do get your point.” I then look up at Veanya.
“Let’s give her ten minutes.” She replies from up in the air. After that we are destroying it.”
Gamma sighs. “It’s not like I don’t want to destroy this portal, but do any of you have any idea how to do so?” She looks up from her measuring device for a moment.
“I was going to imbue Amicia with my magic like yesterday…”
Gamma is quick to interrupt Veanya “And do what? Slash the miasma? Correct me if I’m wrong but yesterday Amicia managed to destroy the devil because she blasted its core to bits. This portal is quite literally 1 millimeter thick. There’s no place for a core.”
“We can at least try, no?” Sam shoots back. “Why start lockpicking when you can just try opening the door with the doorknob.”
“...” Gamma looks up at Sam. “That’s actually a good analogy.”
“Thanks.”
“But give me those ten minutes first, alright?” After which Gamma looks back down at her measuring device, continuing to type in multiple parameters I have no clue about what they actually mean.
Ten relatively tense minutes go by without anything noteworthy happening. Sam has started to patrol around the fortifications for the last five minutes of it and according to her nothing appears to be hiding in the surrounding forests anymore either. It looks like the flyers we encountered were truly the last ones in the area.
“Alright, I’m all but done here. I am picking up radiation signatures from the other side, different from this planet’s background radiation, but still within livable ranges. Can I send a drone through as well to see what is actually on the other side or not?”
We all look at Veanya for a definitive answer on the question but she looks hesitant. “Is it really necessary?”
“I have learned a lot but with a drone we could learn so much more.” Gamma replies swiftly and decisively and then looks at the portal.
Veanya sighs. “Sure, but just a quick in and out… If it even comes back.”
Gamma’s eyes beam. “Will only take a moment.” After which she pulls an adult cat-sized drone out of her jacket’s inside pocket.
-Her little pocket dimension sure looks comical but is very useful nonetheless. If we didn’t have our vault I might have wanted one for myself…-