Two more to go. I have to resist just... skipping to the end... Still have some things to wrap up though.
Chapter 140
Underworld travel through teleport circles was much faster, and it took about two minutes to get myself, Shinkage, Hagane-ni and Ryuu through to the Phoenix stronghold.
Unfortunately, we popped up just outside the gates, where I'd arrived many times before. Except now, the front gate, a good section of the wall, and the security checkpoint was reduced to rubble, and we had arrived in the middle of a swarm of monsters.
"Crystal turtles, blue crabs. Water temple monsters." Ryuu said quickly as the four of us read the situation and started fighting, "Highly resistant to fire, with armour comparable to heavy steel."
There was a sudden hot gust of wind from the massive ash field past the wall, "Don't breath that in!" I yelled out, safe with my fully enclosed helmet, "Cover your mouth and nose!"
The monsters were another case of lazy naming. The crystal turtles were about the size of a small car, with a shell made of blue stone and crystalline growths. I'd never fought one myself, but I knew they liked to hide under the water and sink suddenly if someone tried to walk on them. The crabs were, surprise, blue. And they too had the blue stone and crystal shell, as well as a massive claw almost as long as I was tall.
Shinkage had to stay in the middle of us three, since her ability to breath fire was sort of pointless... Wait, no, not pointless.
"Shinkage! Fire into the air!" I called out, slamming a fist into the side of one of those massive claws, shattering the carapace and giving me room to reach in with my other hand to pull a hand full of crabby face off the beast. "Signal to the house we're here!"
Hagane-ni crashed into a turtle, his hydraulic jaw pulling off most of its leg while adamant claws tore open its underside, "Understood." Shinkage said.
"Even if we do signal, their courtyard is overrun!" Ryuu shouted, her emerald wind sweeping over the ground and flipping some of the car sized monsters over. Seeing an opportunity, I let loose a fox from each of my black tails, and had them start ripping at exposed limbs and throats.
"That courtyard is a killing field!" I winced as a turtle head the size of my chest latched onto my forearm, but then I put my boot to its shell, my palm to its forehead, and pulled its head off, "I'm fireproof, but if they are going to clear the field, they're going to use fire!"
From the corner of my eye, I saw a jet of blue flame surge upwards from the castle wall.
Then my phone rang.
"Seriously? I'm killing stuff over here!" I rolled out of the way of a crab claw, "HIDA-lite! Permission to access my phone granted!"
"Good thing someone charged me before we left..." HIDA-lite said from Ryuu's pocket, "Patching through and putting on speaker."
"YES WHAT?" I yelled when I heard the 'click' on the little ear pip on my helmet.
"My my, so rude." It was Yubelluna, though I could hear the smile in her voice, "We're glad you came, but the problem isn't the monsters outside the wall, but where they are coming from. That massive wasteland of volcanic glass on the other side of the path you're on is where they're coming from."
I slid under a crabby body, picked it up and Chloe Javlin'ed it away from the wall, just to give me a reason to look that way. And sure enough, even as the monster I'd thrown rolled and shattered itself across the sharp field of black glass, I saw another half dozen monsters crawl to the surface. "Have a plan?" I asked, hopping backwards and stomping my foot against a random turtle leg, giving Hagane-ni a good target to hit with a lightning spell card from his mouth.
"Well, if I weren't pregnant, I and several others would just blow it up, maybe make a crater for a nice new lake? Expand the orchards out that way now that we're at peace. Or fishing! We've been craving fish on and off for months now."
I couldn't help but laugh, and even Ryuu looked my way for a moment, just long enough to tell me 'you deserved that' with her smile. "Plan B then?"
"Well, our dearest Riser and his not quite as handsome brother are just about ready to flood the entire field with lava. We'd already given up the courtyard and let the volcanic ash do its work for us, since these nasty things still need to breath."
"Lord Phoenix?" I said after I'd punted a crabby face back into its shell. All this crunching was actually rather satisfying...
"Protecting the orchards." She replied, "Lady Phoenix is making sure we can all breath over here, and is going to flood that area you're in with sulphur dioxide and hydrogen sulphide to make sure anything with a pair of lungs melts from the inside."
"So you're saying 'thank you but you're in the way'?" I asked, stopping a turtle from charging into me, wincing as it slammed its armoured nose against my armoured chest, then heaving my arms apart, splitting its shell into top and bottom and spilling its insides all over the place, until it vanished into black ash.
"Basically." She said, "The teleport circle still works, if you had a place in mind?"
"HIDA-lite? Check in with Gasper!"
"Aye Boss!" A pause, "The Dragon's Jungle could use a hand."
"Dragon's Jungle?" I said, "Can you get us there?"
"Certainly." Yubelluna said cheerfully, "Thank you for everything, Lady Kodori, be sure to get home safe. We'll miss you."
"You have my card!" I waved the others back towards the circle as it started glowing, "I'll be waiting to see your children! Go go go!"
And with a bright red light, we sunk into the ground and vanshed from the Phoenix lands.
"Are they clear, Yubelluna dear?" Lady Phoenix asked, sipping some wiffle fruit wine and dabbing her mouth with a gold laced napkin, "Nice of her to visit, but we have this well in hand I think."
And so, with some nice classical music playing the background, Lady Phoenix filled the overrun courtyard of Phoenix castle with enough toxic/acidic gas to kill (ie: melt their lungs and condemn them to a slow asphyxiation) every blue shelled monster in sight. The gas itself, much heavier than air, sunk into the tunnels the monsters were using to come up from, and from overhead, the two Phoenix brothers simultaneously detonated the gasses, then flooded the subsequent crater with lava.
Yubelluna sighed, a mix of pleasure at seeing such a display, and disappointment at not being able to have helped. But then she tapped her chin thoughtfully, "It looks like it might turn into a lake after all."
I'd never been to the 'Dragon's Jungle' before. Sure, I'd sent a few things back and forth, helping with the 'dragon apple' (though it looked like a mix between a pineapple and bunch of bananas) substitute program. Using the chemicals I used when I took apart the Phoenix tears, I'd figured out exactly what was in them too! And while I couldn't make the supplement myself, Steve Irwin was delighted to get in on it, since he had lab contacts, and could get someone to synthesize some kind of pill or something. Happily willing to let them figure it out now that my part was done...
I was sad to see that they were going to need it. One of the 'worst case' scenarios from my book was happening right now in the Dragon's Jungle, and the only way I could think of to fix it... would be to burn it down and start over.
Because the Dragon's jungle was infested.
We four had popped up on a flat bit of mountain side, overlooking a massive stretch of dark green jungle land. I think we were on the edge of a crater, but it was wide enough that I couldn't see the other side. Though, it would make sense, since the high stone walls would help isolate the place, as well as keep in the humidity needed for the jungle itself. Above the canopy, I could see formations of dragons, mostly 'human' sized, flying about and letting out small blasts of various breath weapons. Ice, fire, lightning, that kind of thing.
But it was a losing battle. I could hear the drone of thousands of flying swords, and see swarms of their silvery bodies zipping about from place to place, occasionally attacking (and getting vaporized) by the dragons flying around, but mostly just minding their own business, occasionally descending onto a tree and stripping it of everything.
"They've lost." Ryuu said, mirroring my thoughts, "If this were the dungeon, we could contain them, and kill them room by room. But with this much open space, and all this food..."
I felt my anger starting to bubble. The insects weren't even paying attention to us! The bounty of food had overridden their aggressive nature to attack anything not of the dungeon. "Where's Tannin?" I wondered, looking to Shinkage, "Any idea?"
Shinkage seemed to look off into space for a moment, then, "He's busy fighting the source of it. This way." She hopped onto Hagane-ni's back, and jumped over the side of the cliff, the metal cat using his claws and tail to balance himself as they slid down the semi-smooth side like a sled.
It took almost an hour to slog through the jungle. With the massive jungle around us slowly being devoured, the flying swords and giant stag beetles (now that we were on the ground, we ran into these too) occasionally getting in the way, and occasionally stopping to help (or try to help...) one of the two metre tall 'mini-Tannin' dragon people, we made it to Tannin himself.
Sure, I could have flown. But my aerial combat skills were NOT up to taking on hundreds of flying swords. My armoured body would have mostly ignored them, but the wings on my armour were soft and feathery. I'd also have left Ryuu and Shinkage down on the ground. Hagani-ni wouldn't have cared about the bugs, but the other two...
Tannin and what ever he was fighting, had made a massive clearing of wrecked trees, swamp, and thrown boulders. 'What he was fighting'... I wasn't sure. It was a plant monster, with a body similar to a 'pitcher plant' (except the 'mouth' of it was lined with all kinds of nasty teeth) and dozens of thick vines coming off the main body. It was also HUGE. At least as tall as Tannin's fifteen metres, and it seemed like some of it was still buried in the ground.
Using one of its vines, it picked up a car size boulder and flicked it at Tannin. With an easy swat of his hand, he pushed it aside, but then had to roll to the side to avoid a blast of purple liquid from one of the many tentacle vines.
"Tannin!" I shouted, "Why haven't you burned it yet?!"
"Demon Fox." He said back, getting to his feet and running at the monster, "If I used my full strength, I'd burn the jungle down as well. Anything less, and this nuisance just heals itself." He proved this by ripping off a few of the tentacles, only to have them grow back a moment later, "I am stopping it from spawning more of those insects, while my brethren deal with what's already out there."
Ryuu and I joined in, while Shinkage hopped off Hagane-ni and said, "Tannin, your people are losing the fight. The jungle has been overrun!"
Tannin let out a blast of fire, engulfing the monster, but only really making it screech in pain than doing much harm. "NO! I will not give up the jungle! The hope of my RACE is here!"
I rushed in, my foxes and I getting as much of the monster's attention as we could, punching, biting, clawing our way towards the main body. Ryuu sent razor sharp blasts of wind towards the base of the tentacles, harming some, or severing others outright. I saw one of the tentacles wave through the air, a honeycomb formation of stone-like material on the end. Tannin sent another blast of fire at it, melting the end of that tentacle off, along with dozens of burning insect bodies.
"Save what you can Tannin!" Shinkage yelled back, "Every second you play around here, you lose more people for a jungle that's already dead!"
Hagane-ni joined Ryuu and I, blasting fire from his mouth. "Do you think this body can handle that acid?" He asked as he started fighting beside me.
"Probably. Plan?" We had to move apart as a massive tentacle tried to flatten us.
"Plan B." He replied, punctuated by a couple of clicks from the mana capacitors inside him.
"If this jungle dies, my people die with it! I'll have no food, no resources, and then no people!"
"Just do what you did the first time and start over! Before you end up being the LAST of your people!" Shinkage yelled back.
Tannin growled furiously, joining Ryuu, Hagane-ni and I in ripping off tentacles. His massive body took some severe lashes from the monster, and even a nasty splashing of acid, but he just roared in the face of the thing and kept pulling bits off as fast as he could. But it was easily apparent that without hitting it with full power, even the four of us couldn't outpace its insane regeneration.
"GRAAAAHH! FINE!" Tannin bellowed.
"Get me into its mouth!" Hagane-ni said, jumping into Tannin's hand, "Make it burn!"
Tannin once again spit fire at the plant monster, forcing Ryuu and I to back off lest we get caught in the shower of burning and flailing monster. Once again, it roared in pain, even as its supernatural regeneration put the flame out. But this time, Tannin wound up and heaved the two ton metal cat into the monster's mouth.
I realized exactly what 'plan B' a moment later, and started running, "Back up!" I called out to Ryuu, giving her cloak a little tug as I went by, to make sure she got the message.
Dimly, I heard, "STARLIGHT BREAKER!"
And the monster exploded in a burst of incandescent pink energy.
We spent a few hours alternately fighting monsters, rescuing people on the ground, and gathering as many dragon apples and tree saplings as we could. The people and apples went into a teleport circle, until Tannin finally said, "Enough. Get ye gone, Demon Fox. Perhaps with your help, my people won't starve. But I hope to never see you, or any of this dungeon of yours again."
"I plan on having a talk with the one who did this." I called back up, "Goodbye, Lord Tannin, O Admirable Dragon."
And we vanished into the portal along with the last shipment of people and ripe dragon apples.
Tannin watched the last of his people leave, then jumped into the air. Gathering his magic as he ascended, he roared in fury at what he needed to do. When he was high enough, he turned and looked down at the ravaged jungle that now held almost nothing but infested jungle. The invasion had been so subtle that he and his people only knew something was wrong when someone had cut open a dragon apple and nearly been killed by what was growing inside of it.
Now though... He was going to make sure this plague of locusts didn't spread to other lands, or happen again on his own land.
Taking a deep breath, he left his mark on the Underworld once again, as Tannin, the Meteor Dragon, reverting the entire jungle into a smoking crater.
After helping put away the last of the salvaged jungle (in a secure and undisclosed cavern someplace), we were quite firmly told to 'go away'. I knew they (the two metre or so tall) dragon people were just just lashing out at the first thing they saw, but it still hurt a little. Hopefully they would survive, and once again thrive, but unless they got a lot of help 'for free', it might be centuries before they had a proper home again.
"Where are we going next?" Ryuu asked, wiping her sleeve on her cheek to get some dirt off (yet only making it worse), as we all stepped onto the teleport circle.
I brushed a tail over the communication bead, "Demon Fox, checking in. Gasper?"
"Sensei!" Gasper's voice sounded relieved, "The Gremory lands are clear and the Sirti lands are in the process of being cleared. Lucifaad is still under siege, but holding. The Phoenix lands are on fire, but under control." A pause, "Lord Sairaorg has put in a request for aid... why is this so far down on the list?"
I was suddenly glad I never met Sairaorg's father. "Someone probably moved it down in priority. Can you get the circle I'm on to get me there? Or as close as you can?"
"Ye- oh! You have a message. You have a less than a day before your deadline."
December 13
Had we really been fighting that long? "Noted. I'm hoping Ajuka sensei can call me if needed?"
"Yes. He's reported a few small disturbances, but nothing to worry about." Gasper replied, "Activating..."
We arrived in a small forest grove, and I knew it was the same one I'd arrived at the first time I'd visited Sairaorg and his peerage. All wasn't right however, and the first thing I could smell was a sulphuric taint in the air. Thankful for the mask, while the other two 'fleshy' people in my party needed to wear modified carpenter's dust masks, I said the first thing that came to mind.
"That's not good."
"Finally!" It was Misteeta, the flame using blue haired bishop of his peerage, running towards us from the direction of the log cabin, "Oh! Well, help is help! Come on!" He turned right back around, "Come on!"
A bit of a lukewarm welcome, but such was the life of hired help. We caught up to him easily enough, "What's wrong? Monsters? Poison gas? Infestation? Rodents of unusual size?"
We broke into the 'last patch of green' where the big log cabin was, and he said, "All of the above."
The cabin itself was still intact, as well as the various things they had around the big lawn. Past that however, in the direction of their big training field that was next to the giant wasteland, was... well, all of the above. Closest to us, and what we were running towards, were hundreds of 'Almiraj' or 'killer rabbits' (not to be confused with needle rabbits). These metre tall rabbits stood on their hind legs, and liked to use bits of the dungeon as clubs or primitive boomerangs. Individually, they were weak. 'Experienced' level one monsters at best. Except there was never just one, usually spawning in batches of two to two dozen, making them a 'level two party encounter'.
And, with Coriana and Liban, the blond haired bishop and knight respectively, they were dying by the dozen. Yet, there were more, LOTS more.
Past that, I could hear Beruka's crazy horse and the knight himself, as well as the roar of Gandoma, fighting something bigger.
And past THAT, was a Black Goliath and by the sounds of it, something else I didn't recognize.
"Stop staring and help us keep these away from the house!" Misteeta yelled, fire spewing from his palms as he roasted a bunch of rabbits to ash, "We've been doing this for hours, but there is no end to them!"
Snapping back to what was in front of me, I fell in beside the fire mage and started kicking things away from him. Ryuu and Shinkage/Hagane-ni got into the fray as well. "Hours? You haven't found the spawn point?" Shinkage asked before turning and breathing out a cone of fire.
"We have Lady Kuishia and Ladora flying overhead to try and find it!" Liban said, hacking apart a few rabbits as they got close to Coriana, "But they've had no luck."
"What took you so long in getting here?" Coriana demanded, her nice blue business dress a mess of dirt and sweat even though she was an ice mage, "It's not like we are tired or anything like that! But we put out the distress call yesterday!"
"Ryuu? Cover!" I said, "That message probably went through the Bael communication network, and 'arrived late'." I moved aside one of the plates of my armour, just under my left breast, and took out a small metal tube. Lacking 'pockets' the best I could do was have 'compartments'. Better than nothing, but I didn't want to expend my own mana to unsummon and resummon my armour. I jumped back a couple of steps as Ryuu's wooden sword started sparking with green light, "Mages! Back up a step!"
They did, with Shinkage/Hagane-ni closing the gap, and I tapped out a pair of mind pills for each of them, "Oh! These are those pills the Gremory have been selling recently." Misteeta said, downing his and shivering, "Wow! Have to put these on the shopping list!"
"Urg, mint..." Coriana grumbled, "But thank you."
Recovery done as best I could, I put the tube away, "Best I can do for now, any wounded?"
"Scrapes and bruises." Liban grunted, "We were not caught by surprise, save for the numbers we are facing."
We fell back into formation, sweeping more of the rabbits away with magic, but it really did seem infinite. "How hard can you make your ice?" I asked, "If we can push the line back a little, think you can just encase the house in ice?"
"A simple task!" She said, "But if I did that, I would either need to sustain the effect, or hope they don't just chew through it! And at best, I could hold for an hour."
"Not a bad idea." Liban said, "With the house secure, we could move on to help Lord Sairaorg."
"Very well, Misteeta?" Coriana stepped back, a magic circle appearing behind her.
"We'll clear the path, don't be slow!" Misteeta said, a circle of his own popping up behind him as well.
So, for a moment, Liban, myself and the rest of my team, picked a spot in the wave of killer rabbits and dove into it. Flashing steel, emerald wind, fire and my heavily armoured form wrecked our way through the sea of white fur.
Then behind us, right on our heels, came a wave of fire that instantly dried out the air while filling it with the screech of burning monsters. A moment later, as that high pitched squeaking scream of pain seemed to take a breath, I heard a shimmering crackle of ice forming from nothing. Glancing behind me, I saw a massive dome of ice in place of the clearing, blocking the cabin and the path to the magic circle.
One crisis to the next though, the huge rocky form of Gandoma and the armoured knight/rider combo of Buruka and his horse were facing off with Trolls. But why would they be having trouble with trolls? There were only two of them!
Then Ryuu said, "Take an antidote, now!"
Without even bothering to ask why, I pulled a small tube of metal from behind my right bracer, thumbed the cork off, lifted my mask up just enough to get the tube under it and tilted my head back in a quick motion, the lemony taste making my mouth tingle.
Nothing. They were fighting nothing. The two (three if you counted the horse) were basically just flailing away at... nothing. "Mass illusion magic?" I asked, "It even got past my mask's senses!"
"I think I know..." Ryuu said, "Leave them, they're in no danger. You!" She looked at Liban, who had stopped in place like he'd suddenly been put into a daze.
"No good." Shinkage said, "Also I hate sour things."
"Then..." I turned back to look at the endless swarm of rabbits, but they were gone.
"It's a mix of the air and magic." Ryuu said, a wisp of green light spilling from her hand like sand. Also like sand, it was being pushed by a faint breeze, "This way. Hurry. I was lucky to have had this happen to me before, but your antidote won't hold the effect off for long." And she was off running.
"Even I was fooled." Shinkage said, patting Hagane-ni as she rode on its back, "Even with his eyes, I couldn't tell."
"We were distracted by the rabbits." I said, keeping Ryuu's green cape in sight, "I feel a little insulted. As the Kitsune, having someone use illusion magic on me seems disrespectful somehow."
We kept running until we got to the edge of the training field. Except now...
Sairaorg was fighting nothing. He had bonded with Regulus, his golden lion armour resplendent in the 'not so dark' of the underworld's 'day', and while he was jumping, punching, kicking and flying, he was... well just fighting with air.
"His meatheadedness has infected the rest of his peerage..." I mumbled, "So where is..."
Then I saw it. At the far end of the practice field was a huge yellow dust cloud. Visible above it, just the head and shoulders though, was a skeleton. Something seemed wrong with it though, with the cloud being about five metres high, and the skull being about two metres tall and fully visible...
"It's Udaeus." Ryuu said, "Its the floor boss on the thirty seventh floor. A bigger version of the Spartoi, a warrior skeleton monster."
"Is it supposed to be only half there?" Shinkage asked, "All I can see through the fog is its upper body." Hagane-ni finished.
"Its lower body is underground, making the field around it very dangerous."
"Didn't Ais beat one of these to hit level six? I heard about it, but didn't know what it was..." I asked. So far, this huge thing seemed oblivious to our presence, its dark eye sockets looking down at the ground like it was concentrating.
"Yes, and I heard that later, Ottar fought it alone to prove that he could as well." Ryuu said, "The sword he carries is made of a piece of the sword Udaeus sometimes carries, but I don't see one here..."
It was then that it seemed to notice us, its head tilting up, its skeletal mouth opening, its lungless body still managing to shriek a maddening howl of fury at us. Then it lifted one of its hands from the yellow mist around it, revealing an metre and a half wide sphere of polished black glass resting in its bony grip.
I took a step forward, eight foxes appearing around me, "Ryuu, Shinkage..."
They both sighed the exact same sigh, "We'll make sure you don't die." Shinkage said.
"But we are going to tell Haruhime on you." Ryuu added.
"Give me a good blast of wind to clear the field." I nodded to them, "My newly grown Kitsune pride feels insulted to have been caught in an illusion like this."
Pride indeed. If Delly had been here, we'd never have fallen for such a thing, but again, experience won over power, and Ryuu had alerted us to the danger. The effect even got past both my own abnormal resistance, and magic resistance! Hagane-ni shouldn't have been effected at all, since he wasn't organic, but perhaps it was because it had gotten through Shinkage's defences?
I'd have to think on it later.
About a hundred metres from Udaeus, a massive gust of wind came from behind me. Pushing me, and more importantly the dust in the air, I suddenly had a perfectly clear view of what I was dealing with.
And for a moment, I thought I might have found a distant relative of Fels or something. It really was a giant skeleton, its spine planted into the ground like some kind of Halloween prop. As I got closer, reaching about fifty metres from it and releasing my collection of black foxes I did take note of one other very important thing.
It's magic stone was in plain view, hovering in the middle of its rib cage, as big as a car. Yet even without my magic smartglasses, I could feel a great deal of protection around it, a simple strike wouldn't do here...
Twenty five metres...
The with a rumble, the ground started to erupt with sharp, rib-like spears. Three metres tall or more, I and my foxes had to weave around dozens of them as we got closer. This was no simple monster however, and I could almost feel the dark cunning behind its attacks. More than once I had to stop myself with my tails or a hand as Udaeus seemed to guess what path I would take.
Ten metres...
Just to test the toughness of these bone spikes, I punched one on the way by. It was tough, one of the hardest things from the dungeon I'd ever punched, but if I had to, I could break these. This did have the effect of making the monster howl in pain(?), and it raised the orb at me. It glowed, and energy started to pour out of it. Similar to Xenovia's 'energy blades' she produced from her silly plank of metal, dark slashes chased me as I wove around even more of those bone spikes.
5 metres...
I had my foxes, all eight of them, jump at the hand with the orb, biting and gnawing on the fingers, latching on and swinging the rest of their bodies to try and throw off its aim, but it was far too strong for something so... basic. Again, I took measure of how tough it was, running between more spikes towards its empty hand.
2 metres...
The orb radiated a sudden blast of energy, my foxes all vanishing and sending a spike of pain into my body with their banishment. But I grit my teeth and closed that last little bit of distance. Now close enough that it couldn't carelessly use its spike field, or that black sphere, I started pulling in my mana, the excess power charging up the enchantments on my armour, instead of pushing my body past the magic-matter barrier. Its empty hand scraped along the ground, its palm facing me as it tried to grab me, but instead of dodging, I dashed at the hand, my fist glowing blue with Hestia's Justice!
With an impact I felt all the way to the tips of my tails, the palm shattered like glass, another wail of pain(?) shrieking out of its mouth. I wasn't done though! My other hand touched the end if its wrist, the momentum of my charge pulling it sideways as I whipped around. My feet leaving a long drift trail in the dirt, I reared back again, my blazing fist aiming for its spine.
It seemed to know what I was after, and I was just getting under the rib cage when I had to jump to avoid a lash of black energy.
However, it wasn't as clever as it thought it was, my glowing blue fist leading the way as I jumped right into its magic stone. And yes, unable to resist, I shouted out, "SHO RYU KEN!" My fist smashing into the giant crystal, bits of it pinging off my armour like hail on a tin roof.
Ryu and Shinkage found me in the middle of the dust cloud shaking monster ash off myself. Once I had, I ate a couple of mind mints, then downed a healing pill as well. Empowered as I was, I could feel my knuckles bleeding inside my gauntlets after hitting that thing, as well as many other bruises and scrapes that went unnoticed while I was fighting. I also felt a little dried blood under my nose, backlash from all my foxes getting vaporized at once.
"Well done Sister." Ryuu said, "Though..." She looked at the giant black orb it had left behind, "You broke its magic stone too."
"Somehow, I can't call that fight boring." Shinkage said, "Though I think this thing is still on..."
Tucking my potions away again, I said, "Well, I'd love to take it with me, but..." I looked downfield, and spotted Sairaorg flailing around as if he were fighting still, "Unless he's doing that for fun..."
"Allow me." Ryuu said, waiting until we were clear before bringing her sword down on the orb, snapping it in half like a brick.
The effect was nearly instant, and the buzzing in my ears I never noticed was there stopped. Then, Sairaorg seemed to come back to his senses, and I could hear him from here as he yelled, "What the... AHHHHH!" (thump) as he suddenly found himself punching nothing, and plummeted to the ground like a rock.
"Lets go collect them and move on." I shook my head.
"Thanks Sensei." Sairaorg said after we'd collected him and his peerage, using a little smelling salt to refocus them, and giving them an antidote from our own first aid kits.
"How'd it start?" I asked.
Kuisha shook her head, "That skeleton you fought was the first monster. It simply rose up out of the ground, and roared at us."
"Then a mist flowed across the field." Beruka continued, "Not uncommon considering our location." He motioned with his head towards the barren volcanic tar fields they lived next to.
"Then we were fighting all those other... or not fighting them?" Misteeta shook his head, "We'd all been listening in when the raids started, so we knew what to expect."
"Ah." Ryuu nodded as she realized something, "You expected it, so that's what you all saw."
"Damn, and here I thought I was winning." Sairaorg laughed, "We'd probably have fought forever if you hadn't come along."
"Or until it lured you close to it." Shinkage said, "It's something Vritra, the Prison Dragon, would do."
Most of his peerage looked... well, kind of ashamed to have been fooled so completely, "Say, what day is it?" Sairaorg asked.
"December thirteenth." I said, "Why?"
"Bastard!" He growled, "We called for help yesterday!" He stomped his foot, "I'm going to kill my old man! Putting mother in danger like this!"
I blinked, "Was she in the cabin?"
"At first, yes. But the instant we started to fight, she evacuated to the Sitri hospital." Gandoma rumbled, "These lands are still quite wild, and her safety takes priority."
I found myself breathing a sigh of relief with the rest of them. "Did she get the shirt I sent her?"
"That? Of course! The delivery guy's horse did not get along with Altobrau though." Sairaorg laughed, looking at the Devil Horse Buruka rode.
"Time to go." Ryuu said, "We are on a time limit."
"If you want to trust your local communication network, you can try and contact Gasper in the Gremory Territory. If not, just go to Lucifaad." I explained.
Sairaorg looked at his peerage, who all nodded. They looked tired, but were still willing to go where ever he lead them. "We'll take a few extra minutes. Maybe eat something. Then head there."
"Gasper? You there?" I swished a tail over my ear.
"Young Gasper is napping." Greyfia answered instead, "Lady Kodori, in what state did you find Lord Sairaorg and his peerage?"
"A confused one. A high levelled monster had cast a kind of mass hypnosis on them. Even I was influenced for a short time, until Ryuu helped snap me out of it."
"Good to know. I will relay this information to the other command points. What was your countermeasure?"
"Antidote potion suppresses the effect for a time. There shouldn't be much worry unless there are also reports of a mildly sulphuric smell in the air as well." I explained, hoping it didn't happen again, as my armour only carried the one vial, and I'd have to dispel it to access the ones in my coat.
"Again, noted. The old Capitol of Lucifaad has come under further assault, if you wish to offer assistance there."
"Any word from Ajuka Sensei?"
"Not yet."
I frowned, since we were cutting the timing rather close. "Can you redirect his call directly to me when he does manage to get word out?"
There was a pause, "Done. Though, if you are jammed, the message will fail."
"If there is no reply, send it by text. I still have my phone."
"Very well. I have altered the portal near you to deposit you in Lucifaad."
"Thank you." I nodded to the others, and we all stepped onto the teleport circle.
The city felt... weird. The mana in the air felt thinner than it should have, but it didn't quite feel like a barrier space. We'd arrived in the same place I did the first time I was here, inside a large teleport circle under a nice stone domed gazebo. We four took a moment to look around for any danger, then started walking off the circle itself towards a pair of guards. I took off my helmet, just so I didn't look like some kind of robot cousin to the giant metal cat.
"Oh it's you again." And as luck(?) would have it, one of them was the same guard I'd met the first time. "Come to get us out from under this dome?"
"Dome?" I asked.
Then the sky exploded. Something huge, heavy, and on fire hit... something above us. The air over the city flickered, and the huge/heavy/burning something bounced off and continued on its way over the city.
"Yeah, Dome. Lord Falbium Asmodeus used his Ultimate Defence over the city when this all kicked off. Unfortunately, he hasn't turned it off long enough to let anyone out to go deal with what ever is hitting us."
"How long can he keep this up?" I asked, "And what about inside the city?"
"Rumour says 'forever'. As for the city, we've been cleaning it up a block at a time, but this is a big place, and there were a lot of monsters." He paused and put a finger to his ear, "Oh, yeah, she's here." He glanced at me, "Huh..." Another glance, "Sure." He took the finger away from his ear and said in the most formal, yet sarcastic, tone I'd ever heard, "Lord Falbium Asmodeus has requested your presence, Lady Kodori."
"Thank you. Where is he?"
"Just follow my familiar Ma'am." The other guard said, summoning a weird... cat/bird/lizard about the size of a small dog. It looked back at me, said 'moop' and started walking.
With the occasional impact above, we followed it to a nice looking building that looked very similar to Toronto's City Hall. Essentially three buildings connected to each other, with the centre being a squat, round, domed building. The buildings on either side, unlike the one in Toronto, were the same height as the middle building. Three floors tall or so, it looked a little like a bunker.
This look was amplified by the glowing edges of an elaborate magic circle I could see spinning on top of the dome. "Here then?" Ryuu asked.
The weird mini-chimera looked back at her and said, 'moop' again. On impulse, I bent down and gave it's feline head a pat, "Thank you."
"Mup." It said without pausing, trotting back the way we had come.
As we got closer to the building, the entrance marked by a big double door, we spotted a second difference to Toronto's city hall. It had a big blue bull outside of it. It seemed to be just laying on its side, but it was watching us approach. I was a poor judge of horses, and even worse with cattle, but this Bull was heavily muscled, had huge right angled horns on its head, and a neatly trimmed beard (or what ever you call that poof of fur some animals have under their chin).
"'sup." It said as we got within easy speaking distance of it, "Nine tails, pointed ears, gold eyes. Yeah, you're Kodori right?"
The shock of having an otherwise (magnificent) plain (light blue coloured) bull speak at us like a skateboarder wore off after a moment, and I replied with, "That's me. This is Ryuu, Shinkage and Hagane-ni."
"Kuyutha." The bull said after giving each of them a lazy look, its long tail swishing a couple times, "The boss is inside yeah. He guessed you'd have been here two hours ago, but he can't be right all the time." The bull yawned massively, "Just behave yourselves, or I'll have to.. I dunno, get up and be disappointed.
We blinked at him for a moment, then with a collective shrug, we all went in.
"Not the weirdest thing that's spoken to me." I said, pulling open the door.
"This way please." one of the local 'police' guards said as we got inside.
"Why are you inside, instead of outside?" Shinkage asked as we followed one of the two guards who were just inside the door.
"That's one of Lord Falbium Asmodeus's peerage. He wanted to be outside to guard the door, so, we let him take over."
"One generally doesn't argue with a bull." Ryuu smiled slightly, "No matter what world you're in."
A flight of steps, some nice hallways with polished marble floors, the occasional 'thump boom crackle' of things hitting the massive city wide barrier overhead, and we arrived at another double door. The guards at this door were dressed not in the 'functional bits of plate armour' of the city guard, but the 'transformer' armour of the Devil Army. They and our escort nodded at each other, and they opened the door for us.
"Lady Kodori, Gremory Retainer, has arrived." He announced, motioning with his head to go inside.
"Ah good. A little late, but within prediction."
Whatever this room was before, it had been remade into a magical version of a military command room. Dominating the middle of the room was a big round table, glowing with an illusionary map of 'the Underworld'. Bits of it were coloured in with reds and greens, with a few black spots as well, one of those being over what looked like a giant crater.
Falbium, no longer bald but with a perfect head of styled black hair to match his neatly trimmed beard waved us over to the table, "As you can see, we've been able to keep this latest... complication... under control for the most part." He sounded much more enthusiastic to be here, than when he'd been the 'judge' at my trial in front of all those old devils, "Your early warning saved us a lot of trouble."
"Happy to help, but?"
He pointed to that one black mark, and a couple of the red ones on the map, "We couldn't fully prepare. You say this is normal in your world?"
"No." Ryuu said before I could, "The monsters are much more contained. Some monsters live in isolated areas of the world, but they are descendants of what wasn't killed long ago, before Babel was built."
Falbium nodded, "Your little booklet is a fascinating read. And I can see why you put all those warnings in the back about letting them roam free." He shook his head, "Tannin has already requested aid for his people. And while the Pagoda's land is still fine, it's going to need rebuilding. The insistence to use 'authentic' wood was its downfall, and a great deal of it was burnt to the ground."
My ears and tails drooped sadly. Sure, I'd likely never go there again, but it was a really nice place, "And this one?" I pointed to another red spot on the map.
"That's on Grigori lands. Azazel says its mostly fine now, but they had to move in some old war golems to assist with a small army of very large red dragons."
Beside me, Ryuu's eyes went wide, "Valgang dragons? But..." She shook her head.
I felt for her, I really did. These were some of the biggest threats from the dungeon, and we were talking about them 'being dealt with' while someone came by with a tea service and biscuits. But I also think she fully understood my argument when she told me 'my basics were slipping'.
"The Underworld is a big place." Falbium said, "And a great deal of it is unclaimed for one reason or another. Partly due to our low population, and partly because we simply don't need to develop it like humanity seems possessed to do." He waved a hand, and a massive amount of the map turned dark blue, "After the immediate threat is dealt with, we are going to have to go over all this, looking for more of these monsters."
"That's a lot of area to cover." Shinkage commented, standing on top of Hagane-ni's back so she could see over the table with us.
"We'll likely just ignore it to be honest." Falbium shrugged, "It's a wild land out there already, and we're used to dealing with it. However, these titan class monsters we've been dealing with have got to go."
"Have you found the spawning points for the monsters around the city?" I asked, "All the other sites we've been to had a focal point for them."
"Yes we have, actually. But with me here, I thought it better to let those points exhaust themselves. Your book, and the information you gave the Gremory for the initial plan said they needed the dungeon segment. There's supposed to be only two more left?"
"Yes. Though we haven't found them yet. Ajuka sensei is looking for them."
"And while it seems there is far more than there should be, there has to be a limit. Even if Rizevim has had his hands on those dungeon segments."
Ryuu, Falbium and I all nodded, since yes, if the city here would never fall, it was better to let the siege break its teeth on the fortifications, instead of waste energy by chasing them done. With all the wide area magic the devils could use...
"However it is troubling that these monsters can breed. Do you know how fast their life cycle is?"
Ryuu and I shook our heads 'no'. "Monsters in the dungeon tend not to live long. Be it by adventurer, or other monsters." Ryuu said, "Though, with the Dragon Jungle, something like that might have taken weeks, or months."
"You've been here almost eight months now, right?" Shinkage asked, "And if Rizevim has had access to the dungeon segments for that long... He was also in contact with Cao Cao, and what ever they learned, he likely did as well."
"Loki as well." I growled, "It's a shame I'm not allowed to kill this Rizevim guy, because I really want to."
Then the map turned to static suddenly, and a big floating head and shoulders appeared over the table. Middle aged, like most 'older' devils, he had a handsome face, dark brown eyes and shoulder length silver hair much like Vali. He was also wearing that silly armour Sirzechs was wearing when I first met him, with the multiple sharp looking pauldrons and excessive amounts of useless detailing. Though, I will note, it was a much nicer silver to go with his hair.
"Aha! I hear my name." He said with a smile, "Falbium, terrible to see you again." His voice was also like Vali's, older sounding, but with that same arrogant 'I'm better than you, and everyone you know' tint to it. He turned around, and looked down at my team and I, "And the Demon Fox! You know, I've heard so much about you, I was wondering if we'd ever get to meet." He smiled, sipping from a fancy gold chalice, "But then I heard you were going to leave, so I decided to set up a little going away party for you. Maybe convince you to stay a little longer."
I put on a mildly surprised look, "You! You're the one with the last two dungeon segments I'm looking for!"
He also looked surprised, "Two? Odd, I only have one."
Ryuu and I looked at each other, and I asked her in Kione, a language that no one in this world could know, "Who filed the report about how many dungeon segments were missing?"
"The guild. Who were you expecting?" She looked at me confused, then blinked, "Ah, I see."
(Back in Orario)
"Achoo!" Eina sneezed, surprising the adventurer in front of her, "Pardon. Now if you'll sign here?"
"Well, no matter." I looked back to Rizevim, "Because as soon as I take it from you, I'm going to leave."
NOTES!
Okay, so this needs a little explaining...
(ahem)
IN THE BOOKS (last time I'll use this one in this fanfic...)
The adventurers and the Guild have a minor... difference when counting floors. The 'water temple' (might be getting this name wrong) is centred around a massive waterfall, and is basically one VERY tall open space, with the waterfall in the middle and a spiral 'ramp' that goes around it, branching off into the usual side passages you'd expect in a dungeon, this is 'the main feature' of these floors.
Except...
The guild counts it as THREE floors. The top of the waterfall, the middle, and the bottom.
The Adventurers count it as TWO floors. Top and bottom.
So, the 'floor count' from the guild, is 'ten floors'. And who does ALL the paperwork? The guild.
There. ONE MORE UPDAAAAAAAAAAATE, and it's back to Orario, where... well... 'the fallout' happens.
Daeore on Ko-fi, if you want to toss a coin to your writer.
Daeore on Inkitt, if you want to read my book, 'Were too?'
