182 - The Last Dance (Patreon)

It was a battle that never seemed to end. 

Elric had been fighting for what felt like eons. When he’d tried to take the servants to the main building so they could access the emergency portals, that was when the trouble began.

In the open field, a series of demons began attacking them from all angles.

The good news was that none of them were quite as fierce as the first demon he'd faced.

But there were legions of them, one after the other, stretching them to their limit.

Between him and Camhanach, they were able to fend off most, killing, trapping them underground, and otherwise keeping them away from their charges.

However, the servants were understandably terrified, and despite his screams for them to stop, some of them had run and gotten separated in the process.

The demon had managed to section them off from the rest, and Elric could only imagine the fates they faced.

He blocked it out of his mind for now, saving the ones that he could. He put up as many barriers as he could to protect them, ensuring the shields would remain standing for as long as he did.

He used his arcane sense to detect where the monsters were coming from by checking for a disturbance in the atmosphere. It wasn't always accurate, and more often than not they were caught off guard. He did it anyway, to give them a better chance of survival. 

Elric had a wound at his side, several on his arm, a talon in his thigh. Camhanach bore even more scars. Both of them kept going.

Eventually, they were joined by Masters Dayne and Landing, both of whom were elite combat mages, thank the heavens, so Elric focused on defense.

He built golems to fight back too, split the Earth so that those he protected were on their own island, put up barriers everywhere he could, changing them every time his arcane sense indicated that they had been infiltrated.

He discovered one thing. That his magic kept them linked together. They couldn't be separated as long as he had barriers on everyone.

He didn't know how long he'd been at it, but his energy was flagging. 

Dayne and Landing informed him then that it was pointless trying to go through the portals. It only transported them to a different part of the estate, not letting them leave. 

Elric had to figure a way out of this. There had to be something they could do. He refused to let everyone under his protection die like this. Refused to let himself die like this, because then who would look out for Arielle?

There was Vittoria, but Vittoria had ulterior motives and was primarily individualistic. Arielle's family did not understand ascendant society and weren't equipped to protect her from it. And now Gio Li knew Arielle's secret.

Things were about to be a shit show.

His mind travelled far and wide, from his old demonology courses, which he barely paid attention to, to everything he'd found out in his investigation of the sect. Maybe even something from Yseult’s journal could help him, but all that it told him was about people’s weaknesses and debts and…

Wait.

That was it. 

Yseult was a paranoid man, and he'd suspected that the demons might eventually try to betray them in some way. So he'd studied them and collected a lot of information, including information about Demon Lord Mordius and some of the demonic generals.

To earn his trust, Mordius himself revealed information about certain demonic species, and had told him some of the techniques the demons used, which had helped Yseult fight back against them when they invaded Earth.  

Some demons had patterns of attack that enabled their powers to feed off of each other. There were those who attacked individually and those who tended to attack in packs, and pack demons often had a well that they pulled from, and it had to flow in a given order, which informed their direction.

The demons who attacked individually, and those who did in packs, typically never mixed up, and were often antagonistic toward each other.

Yseult had also noted down some of the warring species, but Elric could not remember most of them.

He did know that the convergence of multiple species at one point was unusual, which meant that they had to be appearing from different planes through the abyss.

If he was right, and some of them were pack fighters, they would appear in a given pattern, thanks to their shared pool of powers.

He just had to watch for the pattern, and then he could predict what would happen next.

Focusing on the defensive enabled him to sense the pattern quickly.

He had divided the field into quadrants, and the same species of demons typically appeared in the same two or three quadrants.

Those were the pack demons.

He used his magic to craft directions highlighting each quadrant of interest.

"Landing!" Elric screamed. "Watch the red quadrants. Dayne, the green. Go in the same pattern, 1, 3, 5."

Luckily, they didn't ask questions, fanning out instantly. 

That had them catching the demons right as they appeared, which gave them a better chance at eliminating them.  

Elric then focused on the solitary demons.

The second a solitary demon appeared, he used a skill called [Shifting Territory] to essentially combine the demon's domain with another. He would push them together, making their powers target each other, preying on their inherent antagonism.  

It didn't always work, but when it did…

They managed to cause each other a lot of damage before they realized they were supposed to be dealing with the common enemy.

The problem was that these tactics only gave them some advantage, but the swarm wasn't ending.

And the turning point appeared when Landing got his arm bitten off by a demonic creature of flight.

"Shit," Elric cursed and set about stopping the blood flow while Landing continued fighting with one arm. The demons cackled all around them, clearly quite happy with themselves. Elric's rage simmered.

"Latrice," someone yelled behind him, and his head yanked around to find a maid being led to the edge of his little protective island.

Her expression was hazy, clearly ensnared by some type of sirenous creature of the dark.

Damn it.

He reached out to pull her in, but the abyssal siren began emerging from nothing, its reptilian face and glowing eyes fixed on half the servants.

They too began to walk.

And then the creature glitched.

It shimmered in and out of existence, and at first Elric thought that was part of its ploy.

But the creature screeched as it was spat out by the abyss. 

It was now fully on earth.

Elric lanced it with a shard of rock immediately while he pushed the walking crowd back gently. They looked at each other confused, now that the spell was broken, but Elric turned his attention back to the fray. 

He couldn't help but notice that the number of attacks had reduced. There were no more coming from the abyss. No more creatures that were halfway in and out of reality. The ones who remained were fully realized their reality, and they were completely vulnerable to attack.

He trapped them easily in his quadrants and crushed them under the earth.

The rest of the mages took care of the stragglers, even as some demons took flight to escape.

"What's happening?" Camhanach demanded of Elric. The man was covered in sweat, blood, and dirt, but his eyes were still bright with battle, and he didn't show any signs of flagging. "Is it over?"

He looked around him, waiting for more attacks, and Elric noted things that weren't there before.

People came into view, including those battling large titans that were in the distance.

"I don't think so," he said, as he readied to go join them. "But it's changed."

***

Wulfric's sword sliced cleanly through the neck of some creature, and it fell on the floor.

His heart raced as it did every time he killed one of these things. He couldn't believe he'd already killed so many, but he knew it wasn't his effort.

It was the sword.

The Sword of Gormod was a thing of legend. A sword that imbued its holder with increased strength, speed and agility. Not only that, but it could cut through anything at all, including magical shields. His father had told him that only one with the true heart of a warrior could pull it out of its enclosure, and the statue that held it was a gift passed on to every single Lord of Iverson.

Luckily, he'd been close enough to it when the demons had attacked, and he'd grabbed it without really thinking when their group had gotten separated.  

With it, he'd managed to cut down whatever stood in his way.

Of course, he wouldn't be alive if not for the shield provided by Master Eunice and Archmage Benhai.

Eunice had made it her mission to protect him, and for that, she'd...

No, he couldn't think about that right now. He had to keep fighting.

Wulfric took note of his surroundings and himself. 

The sweat had plastered his hair to his head, and his suit was stained. His shoulders ached, but he wasn’t doing too badly. Probably because of the sword, and the fact that he’d managed to avoid significant injury by some miracle.  

He kept himself on alert for whatever came for him. He didn't cast any spells yet. His spellcasting was better in motion, and he was better at combat magic than he was at pure spells.

Unlike his father...

Lord Wesley had constructed giant golems and animated all the statues at the estate to fight back. Some of them were tasked to protect Lady Borjas and Lady Wesley, who were at the back of the skirmish. There was also the additional protection from whatever it was Archmage Lenore had done which blasted some of the monsters back the second they got too close. 

Benhai had also taken control of a few of the demons' bodies, using them as puppets to eliminate each other. He'd grabbed one large titan, but it seemed to take a toll on him, and he was now kneeling on the ground as he attempted to control it, blood streaming out of his nose.

There were too many of them. There were attacks that came from nowhere.

Archmage Lenore was lying on the ground. She hadn't moved at all, but luckily nothing had trampled her yet.

Wulfric kept trying to get to her, but every time he ran forward, something got in his way.

Luckily, he always managed to get away in time. He also managed to strike at the right moment and avoid most of the calamity that struck the earth.

Even now, when realistically, they should have been wiped out by the titans that surrounded them, most of them were still standing. 

They were all incredibly lucky. 

It was still a losing battle, though.

Especially when one of the titans targeted his father.

Lord Wesley was struck by a magical blast, and he flew backward.

He crashed on the ground while a shadow moved over him, a titan's foot about to crush him,

Wulfric started running, but at the back of his mind he knew it was too late. He wasn't close enough and wasn't fast enough.

But he refused to accept it. He refused even as the foot came down.

And then he felt someone shout "[Stall]!", followed by "Spore Burst]"

The explosion of air rattled the titan's limb, throwing it off path, although it didn't tear it off.

It gave Wulfric enough time to leap into the air and slice it at the ankle with his sword.

The creature screamed, as his foot hung on by a strip of skin. Wulfric landed, grabbed his father, and ran.

"[Stall]!" he heard again behind him as he got some distance away and put Lord Wesley down.

"Father!" he said to the moaning Lord.

He opened his eyes and squinted. "Wulfric."

"Dad?"

"Heal me quickly so I can get back up."

"Oh." He didn't know much about healing spells, but he used a simple one on his father's arm. Lord Wesley was able to lift it and do the rest. Then he got back to his feet.

Wulfric watched Lord Wesley get back into battle with no hesitation whatsoever, as though he wasn’t almost killed. He'd been told his father was a fierce warrior back in the day. But this was the first time he believed it.

He looked around, noting that they were being surrounded by the creatures. Edward was wounded, but he was still casting spells for all he was worth, behind Master Gorman.

Wulfric heard it again, "[Spore Burst]," and when he followed the trajectory of the blast, he found Lyra with her wand out at a demon, her face pale but her eyes determined.

They were still alive, but he didn't know for how long.

He didn't know how long they could keep this up.

Until something miraculous happened.

A flare of light burst across the arena, one that he'd never seen before. Half the demons exploded immediately.

The titans froze and screeched in the air.

A tall woman appeared in the center of the battle, in full green armor, her bright hair rustling around her.

She felt familiar, although he couldn't really tell with the bright light emanating from in front of her.

"Archmage Vittoria?" someone asked.

"No," Lord Wesley said. "It's Queen Di Santinael."

"But..." His eyebrows furrowed. "I thought no one could get in or out of here."

He looked around. Things looked different, appearing where they had not been before.

Some of the demons disappeared altogether, while some came in full.

And as the Legendary cut all of them down in fell swoops, he heard his father breathe a sigh of relief.

“The cage,” he said. “It’s been lifted.”

***

Arielle didn't know precisely when they left the abyss.

She could feel that Gio was straining at a point, and so was she, as she destroyed as many of the spell forms as she could.

Then her vision became a whirlpool, and they were back in the inferno wasteland of Leviathan's territory.

Except this time, there were colorful orbs all around them.  

Relief flooded her. She had broken whatever was hiding them.

It seemed that Gio had been carrying on the fight with Leviathan while they'd been occupied. It was obvious he was only toying with him, though, dancing around Leviathan’s attacks and slamming him down every now and then. 

He had been able to split his consciousness between the fight and helping Arielle, but it wasn’t necessarily a Vittoria type of spell. He hadn’t ensouled the butterflies, nor had he travelled physically, but he'd somehow managed to send both of their consciousness into the abyss while their bodies remained.

Incredible.

Arielle would like to know how he did it, but right now, she simply set about breaking Leviathan's domain.

When she broke the first spell, she was close enough to see Leviathan’s head snap toward her and his eyes widen in horror.

"You..." he hissed. “How?”

"I win," she told him simply, and she tore his world apart. 

He screamed in rage, in pain. The backlash knocked him to his knees, had blood streaming out of his mouth and nose. 

Gio decapitated him once and for all.

They didn't return to Earth, though.

The destruction of the territory led them to an even redder sky, a vast desert filled with multiple demons, arranged around them, with a kaleidoscope of spells behind them.

“Aha,” Gio said. He was in front of her, with Leviathan’s head in his hand. “I finally found you.”

"How..." A large horned creature in pitchblack armor stared at them in the same disbelief Leviathan had. "You could not have defeated the Master of the Abyss."

"Surprise," Gio said.

The demons began shouting to themselves in demon tongue, pointing at Gio. 

He looked uninterested in what they were saying, cracking his neck as he told Ari, "Stay behind me and break as many of their spells as you can. Oh, and don't die."

She nodded. That sounded like a solid plan.

"Don’t flee you cowards!” the horned demon yelled, as some of the demons began to run in the opposite direction. “Fight!” 

Gio held up his hand and said, "[Saint's Domain]."

His magic webbed out of there, although the environment didn't change entirely. The ground simply turned black, and nightmarish creatures began to rise.

Gio fought from multiple angles at once. Physically, he cut through the crowd with sabers of light. His birds swarmed the air. Clones of the demons appeared and started attacking them with their very own power, matching each of their moves, and reappearing if they were cut out. The ground trapped them. 

He turned their world against them.

Meanwhile, Arielle tore down every spell she saw, broke retaliatory magic directed at them, moving as fast as she could.

Eventually, her body began to let her know that she was approaching her limit. The pain she had suppressed began to return in bits, and weakness began to hit. At some point she had to kneel, and something attacked her, but a dark mouth burst out of the ground and swallowed it whole.

Her vision got hazy, and as she broke the last of the spells, her body began to sway.

Most of the demons were dead at this point, or had died multiple times. Some were fleeing. Gio was laughing like a crazy person.

As she passed out, the last thing she saw was a system message that appeared in the corner of her vision.  

[Error] [Hidden Ability] [Error]

[Hidden Ability Calculation Failed]

[Mandatory Core Reevaluation Required].