Ciel scrambled through his belongings and found only four rounds of bullets left. Half of them were expensive explosive rounds that were certainly not fitting for fighting inside a closed space. While he could use them to condemn the corpses from flooding in, he had no guarantee that the crypts would be solid enough to withstand that sort of explosion. On the other hand, if they were surrounded in an open space, those bullets could save them. He was going to be completely out of physical ammunition from this point on. Ciel clicked his tongue at the thought. While he could create mana bullets, the recoil from shooting them was stronger, as the mana he drained to produce them also took part of his stamina.
However, those worries paled in comparison to the ever-nearing coming of winter. He did not know how much snow could fall on this region, nor did he know how cold the area could get. The coldest he had experienced were Resiam's humid and snowy winters, but since he was much further north, he could not use that as a reference.
Rena could die if they did not make their journey to Elder before snow covered their path.
He searched for mana and health potions and packed two of them in his bag. Once he counted the bullets he had once more, Ciel looked back at Rena, who was still sleeping due to the dry poppies Lu had given her last night. Leaving her alone here was a huge bargain they all had to take. None of them knew what defeating the elven spirit would mean for them. Maybe they would all get out safely, or perhaps Rena would be stuck there with no way out. And yet, Lu seemed confident that Rena would make it out with them.
Ciel had asked her about it, but the demoness only told him that it was a hunch. He speculated that the hunch had some kind of reasoning behind it, but he decided not to press the matter. Lu was hiding the identity of the one who left the map for them and perhaps a few other things about the place. The mercenary supposed she had detected some old dark magic once used in the demon realm, but he knew that she had good reasons to hide that information from them. It would not be fair for two kids to be dragged along their game of cat and mouse with demon nobility. He packed the map Lowe had left with them and glanced around to see Lu, Elsword, and Aisha prepare their weapons for the upcoming battle.
While Aisha had been reluctant to come, Lu finally managed to convince her by reminding her of Rena's situation and their increasing need for food and shelter to avoid the bitter cold of winter. The Sanderian mage had put on a light gambeson over her purple dress which had a hood to protect her head. She still had fear in her eyes, but once Lu gave the order to go, she followed the group's quick pace. Ciel had the impression that Aisha left something in Elsword's hands, muttering something about combat, but he did not let his mind be distracted by anything that was not a potential enemy.
The last time they got distracted, the enemy had taken full advantage of it.
Luciela had decided to lead the march, but even as she dashed through the forest, Ciel could see that her movements were clunkier. Her shoulders and back still ached under the burden of the shot wounds the golems had given her. He had been lucky last time, getting away with only an invisible strain on his body from the overflow of demonic energy and some bruises. This time, he'd have to make sure none of them would get seriously injured before they met the spirit which had made them prisoners of its world.
Some of the buildings were still standing, despite having been turned to a charcoal black, but the flames had made nature fall back a few more meters from them. Their view of incoming attacks was only enhanced as the chances of another ambush had grown dimmer. Ciel saw the shadow of a tree branch move and glanced up.
Only an instant later, Luciela glanced up and ordered them to leap back. Ciel followed her movements in sync, leaping and landing one block behind. Elsword tripped as he slowed down to step back, and a tree branch appeared from underground, aiming to pierce his heart as he fell. In the blink of an eye, Aisha teleported to his side just in time to snatch him away from the sharp wooden branch. The mage who grabbed him by his left pauldron put herself in front of the branch and summoned two orbs of fire from her staff. The living weapon swung backward as the tree it belonged to stretched its branches, twisting them together to form a sword that plunged through the walls of five buildings, all of them crumbling down in a cloud of grey ashen dust.
The mage grabbed Elsword again and teleported both of them to Ciel's right. Once the cloud had dissipated enough for the silhouette of the wooden sword, Luciela dashed forward to slash it in a single movement. The flames overflowing from her gauntlets instantly turned the splinters and wood chips to ashes. Lu mentally warned him about the heavy steps of three golems coming their way from behind, and Ciel turned around to hear the heavy thumping steps of giants made of mud and leaves.
"Heads up, Elsword, Aisha!" he hollered as he fired an explosive bullet. The recoil was stronger, and he could feel his arm almost flinching under the explosive power his weapon had unleashed. Yet, the shot did not miss its target by much. Instead of the right elbow, the bullet pierced its shoulder and exploded, blasting its head and torso into atoms. The red stone shone where the monster's forehead had been a moment ago, and Aisha did not hesitate to throw another fire orb at it, catching the jewel and burning it to crisps.
Elsword dashed towards the golem to the right as his sword shone with a mana enhancement. The boy swung it as strongly as he could, slashing the golem sideways, and then followed up with an upward slash. The stone lodged in the middle of the giant's chest gleamed briefly under the sun before being crushed by yet another heavy sword blow. The remaining golem transformed its arm into a heavy cannon that was a gigantic replica of the barrel of Ciel's weapons.
Aisha muttered a chant as she teleported in front of Elsword, and her shield gleamed with a green light. The golem fired, and a giant stone came in an instant to crash against the shield. It exploded with such power that Ciel was pushed slightly back. Fearing for the kids' lives, he immediately dashed into the cloud of smoke to take the golem down.
The first thing he saw, to his surprise, was a pile of dried mud that was shaping itself again. Ciel swung his weapon and cut the jewel in half before its power reanimated the golem. The dirt crumbled again before it was swept away by the wind. The half-demon glanced eastward, his heart filled with the vain hope of seeing Rena standing and well. Alas, his hope faded as fast as the fraction of a second it took him to glance and see that there was no one there. He called for the two kids as the cloud dissipated and he saw that the wind he had felt emanated from Aisha's shield. The currents dissipated and brought the fragments of the stone bullet to the ground.
Aisha took a deep breath and wiped some sweat from her forehead. The shield she was carrying was an ancient and powerful relic, but there was no room to get a breather in the middle of this fight. Lu hollered for them to advance, and Ciel could see why. Dozens of Phorus were running at them from behind. The trees were closing in on them from the sides, and there were neither buildings nor nature in front of them, only a destroyed plaza that extended for at least five blocks on all sides. If they were to fight dozens of phorus and a handful of enchanted trees, they had better chances to win in a large area where their enemies did not have any chances of an ambush nor a pincer attack.
Elsword jumped away from the roots that wished to snare him, but, as one dragged him back on the ground, he took an ice orb from his side pocket and threw it over the plant. The enchanted ice crawled over the roots like a hungry snake, swallowing the wood avidly until it became as fragile as glass. With a swing of his sword, Elsword broke free and rushed towards the rest of the group. Ciel noticed that the cold had not only affected the three living trees around Elsword, but also some of the Phorus. He noticed that there were two waves of them, and he aimed at the tree closest to the two dozen Phorus who were charging in. The least he could do was to blast the gigantic tree and block the Phorus' path. And maybe, if he's lucky, he could even crush some of them in the process.
At that moment, he felt Lu's mind connect with his. 'You have only 12 explosive bullets left, Ciel. We can't waste a single shot. This is not the real fight.'
Her voice echoed in his mind, and part of her knowledge on mana manipulation flowed into his mind. Ciel poured mana over the bullet shell until every small explosive inside it was under his control. He fired once, and time itself slowed down as he focused on this new attack. As it was supposed to do, the shell fell apart, each wall of metal detaching itself to reveal two rows of four small bullets now filled with mana. Even if the distance increased to more than three blocks from where he stood, Ciel could see the rows of projectiles traveling as one as clearly as if it were right in front of him. The tree he was aiming for was only a window apart from the first bullet of the second row. He took control over it and propelled it towards its target with all his will.
The moment the bullet touched the wood, it did not even have the time to creak before the mana burned through it into a blinding explosion that left over the trunk a hole almost as wide and as tall as the tree itself. The colossus crumbled and fell over the three Phorus Elsword had frozen in place. This was but the start of his attack. The remaining seven bullets were still going straight ahead. Ciel forced them to turn at a ninety-degree angle, right where another wooden knight was pushing its roots to advance faster than the incoming Phorus. At this distance, even if it fell, it would not hurt the spirit rodents. Instead, it would only slow them down and, knowing the kind of place this was, knew that every delay on one front increased their chances to get to where the rogue spirit was in one piece.
The first bullet of the first row was the closest, and Ciel fired it. The tree fell like the first and lifted the dust that remained of the golems they had fought before. The remaining six bullets turned forty-five degrees to the right, climbing slightly upwards so the third bullet made the third three fall. Ciel lost track of time as he used each projectile to take the biggest and slowest of their immediate opponents down. Although he could clearly see what he was doing, anyone else would have only seen a single bullet bounce between its targets with such momentum that the point of impact left a gigantic hole behind. It was a dance of blue explosions that formed a pile of wide and long trunks from which no Phoru could circle without being caught off by Aisha's flames and Elsword's blade. Lu stood still by his side, giving him back the copious amount of mana she had made him use in less than a minute.
He nodded at her, thanking her. She gave him a smile and stopped her mana from continuing to flow into him. Elsword had slashed down the last Phoru who had tried to flank them, his breath growing heavier as pearls of sweat rolling down his forehead. Luciela looked in front of them to see seven golems raise a wall of stone to trap them. Ciel called both kids to press forward, despite their fatigue, and leapt with Lu to tear a hole as fast as possible before the Phorus tore through the barrier of fallen trees.
The demoness let sparks of demonic power flow evenly between them, empowering their shared strength. The mark of their pact over their bodies began to glow with a light blue as their weapons themselves gathered demonic flames on their blades. Lu used magic to harden her muscles and bones as she sped up, her left gauntlet clenched in a tight fist of flames that bashed in a hole into the barrier. It was big enough for her to pass through with ease, but everyone else was too tall to hope to do the same. Ciel used his mana to empower the flames that covered his weapons, slowed down to make the barrels aim downwards, and he jumped upwards as he focused his mana on the tip of the barrel. The blast of energy the flames had received formed a circular explosion that propelled him three stories high into the air. He had the perfect angle to aim and shoot comfortably another explosive bullet to make the breach Lu had made wider.
He reloaded, aimed, and shot. The bullet shell left a trace of blue flames in its path, and the real bullets rained on the structure, doing exactly what he had set himself to do. Now, he could pass by only bowing or sliding across it. The recoil of the shot, however, made his fall faster. Ciel could see the ground get dangerously closer to him. Once he was only half a story over the ground, he used the weak levitation spell Lu had taught him to dissipate the momentum of his fall. Although Ciel ran towards the other side of the wall, following the two kids, he had begun to feel his legs stiffen. They were only halfway to the temple. The only thing he could quickly get out of his bag to trick his body with another rush of adrenaline was a small mana potion. He took the cork off with his teeth and gulped the content of the small flask before throwing it aside.
He readied his weapons to slash the golems on the other side only to be tackled by a strong wave of fiery wind. Ciel had only the time to raise his forearm to protect his eyes from the dust and ashes before he was thrown off his feet, rolling over the uneven stone floor. Once he came to a halt, the half-demon saw that his weapons had rolled out of his reach, and the shadow of a golem hid the sun from him. He could only glance up in shock as the puppet's fist came straight for him, too fast for him to be sure if it was a fist or a claw.
A flash of light blinded him for a second, and he saw Elsword barely parrying the hit with his sword. Something about him, however, was different. There was a pendant hanging over his neck embedded with a gem that emitted some magic. Its effect on the boy's body was akin to the demonic energy Lu used to enhance her endurance and strength. He rolled out of Elsword's way and rose again to deliver deep cuts over the golem, but the heavy blows that he delivered only left scratches and sent tiny pieces of the metal of his blade flying. The golem, upon learning what material Ciel's blade was made out of, enhanced the resistance of its armour. Lu's mana was growing low, and he did not have to look at her to know that she was facing the same challenge.
The golem turned around, transforming its clenched fist into a clawed gauntlet, and swung it at him. Ciel had barely the time to step back, but he felt the graze of the sharp claws cut some strands of hair over his forehead. The mercenary soon realized it was more than his hair as dark liquid blocked his sight briefly.
"Look out!"
Ciel instinctively leapt back and swept the blood that had momentarily blinded him. The tremor that followed as he landed again was a signal that the monster's attack had crashed on the ground. He charged small spheres of mana in the barrel of his weapons and pressed the trigger. A magic circle charged itself in front of him, and he fired three shots. Once the small spheres of mana went through the magical circle, they became small flames that pierced through the stone and revealed a fraction of the red jewel on the left palm of the golem.
Elsword swung his sword, his grip growing weaker, but he managed to crush the centre of the stone, rendering the magic that animated the statue useless. The golem froze in place, and its legs crumbled as easily as broken glass. Elsword held himself from crumbling as well with his sword, but it was obvious the continuous fighting had tired him beyond what he could resist. Ciel was also feeling his legs wobbling, but he still had enough willpower to keep himself walking straight. The half-demon took a deep breath as Elsword gulped a mana potion to recover part of his stamina. Aisha was helping Lu stand. Some of her wounds were reopening again.
Ciel rushed to her side, and, although Lu only had to drink half of a health potion for her wounds to close, the way she clenched her teeth gave him a bad feeling.
"Lu, you don't need to force yourself."
"We need to press on, Ciel. I'm okay."
The demoness stretched her arms before throwing the burnt pieces of clay towards the entrance they had formed. It was barely enough to delay the Phoru's pursuit for a minute before getting to the other side. The effort, however, made Lu grunt in pain, and she finished the content of the red flask in her hand before throwing it to the ground. The demoness glanced at Aisha, who was also out of breath.
"Keep a fire or a nature orb at hand. We might need it."
The mage looked through the bag she carried and took a fire orb out. Luciela nodded and hollered for everyone to continue. Their pace was slower; the battle had taken a lot of their energy. The few mana potions they had could not fully restore their stamina. They still had a long battle ahead of them. After they had put a distance of four blocks from the wall, Ciel turned around to see at least thirty phoru claws rapidly scratching the clay barrier they had put between them and the other side. Luciela turned around and ordered Aisha to use the explosive orb in her hands as she quickened her pace.
A wave of dozens of Phorus poured through the wall, screeching as they ran towards them. Another wave was coming from behind them, crawling over the surface of the wall. Aisha screeched as well before sending the orb flying with her magic. The crystal ball hit the ground with a bang and the explosion was so great, a gust of hot air knocked them off their feet and sent them rolling for a few seconds. Elsword grunted as he got up. His left wrist was swollen, and his feet were left in an unnatural angle. Aisha silently cried as her left arm bent downwards. Luciela was barely better, having bruises all over her arms and a cut over her right leg. Ciel felt as if he had been crushed inside a windmill, but he did not dare to look beyond the cuts and bruises over his hands as he got up with a grunt.
Behind them was nothing but a field of smoke and bright orange flames. It had the smell of burnt meat, which was completely odd for Ciel. Spirits were supposedly ethereal, not made of flesh, yet he could not mistake that distinct smell for anything else but burnt flesh and burnt hair.
Thinking about it made him uncomfortable, more so than the crushing pain that his every movement caused. He hoped at least one of the flasks he carried in his pockets had survived the two falls he had gone through and was glad to find that one bigger health potion, protected in a wooden case, was still intact. He took two big gulps of the red liquid, and his pain diminished. He offered the flask to Elsword, but the boy shook his head, taking an identical flask out of his bag.
Aisha was still on the ground, unable to move, and Lu was once again prey to the pain of her unhealed wounds. He gave the flask to her, and the demoness drank one long gulp before she could find the strength to rise once more. She walked towards Aisha and crouched next to her.
"Is it only your shoulder?"
The mage weakly nodded. Lu then turned her around softly so that the mage laid over her back and grabbed her arm. She placed one hand over the wrist and another over her armpit. She slowly distanced Aisha's injured arm from her body and turned her wrist slightly to the right. Aisha's eyes widened in fear.
"No, please, no...it hurts already as much as it is!"
"If I don't do it, you'll be injured even more later on. The battle isn't over. The rogue spirit will take advantage of any injuries."
Aisha opened her mouth to protest again, but Lu pulled her arm slowly and firmly, downwards at the wrist and upwards on the armpit, until the strange bump on the mage's side returned to where it should be. Lu took Aisha's bag and left a small health potion in her hands. "I know it hurts, so take this for the pain and your other bruises. We must get going."
The mage clenched the flask in her hand and slowly sat down, still breathing heavily at the pain she went through. She glanced up at Ciel, her purple eyes still shocked by the constant and dangerous fight they had just gone through. The half-demon offered her his hand, and, after a few moments of hesitation, the mage extended her trembling and sweaty hand towards him. He grabbed it softly, yet firmly to pull her up. Aisha nodded weakly and turned around to drink a sip of the potion before storing it once again in her bag. They were too exhausted to run anymore.
Without a word, the group licked their wounds as they dragged themselves towards the most dangerous part of their fight. They were too far away to notice that, behind the pile of burnt Phorus, two had survived. Parts of their limbs had been scarred by the flames, but the unnatural power that tied them to the ruins was strong enough to make them ignore the intense pain that would have otherwise immobilized them.
Aisha had barely managed to teleport them into the underground entrance before the most hideous Phoru Luciela had ever seen recovered from its injuries. The haunting image of the thing was still carved into the demoness' mind, and it left her with more questions than answers.
Phorus were already ugly spirits with withering rat faces, anthropomorphic bodies of rodents with claws so sharp and sullied that the danger of a scratch was not so much the depth of the wound but the risk of infection. This Phoru, however, made even Lu feel cold sweat roll down her back. Its face was skeletal and, instead of the normal rat ears, the rotting faces of two men stared with glassy eyes at them. Some ribs popped out of the greasy, ashen-coloured fur like dull knives. Its tail was bitten and revealed molded flesh where flies and maggots gathered to feast on it. A slushy sound above made Lu look back at the monster's face again. The faces were sliding down towards the empty eye sockets. Once they were there, a snapping sound echoed through the tense silence, as if to signal that the heads would not move from there. There was still enough hair and skin on their two skulls for her to know that they were familiar. The blue rags that hung over the monster's torso only enhanced the familiarity. Needless to say, the stench of death surrounded the beast like a second shadow.
It was this, Elsword's sudden grave silence, and the smell of burnt meat coming from where they had thrown a fire orb at those spirits that made Lu wonder if what the Phorus they had fought against were not spirits at all.
Yet, she had no time to keep her questions running wildly in her head. Her shoulders ached from each dash, each jump. The demon countess admitted that she had a long way to go in order to adapt to her current power. Her combat instincts were honed by her overwhelming strength, not by pain and scraps of her power. She dared to hope that, after being treated properly, she would not have permanent sequelae.
The corridors of the mausoleum were narrower than she remembered. They had to go in pairs, Lu swiftly lighting a torch with demonic fire so that Aisha could see where the rest of the torches were. The mage threw a fast series of fireballs, and their eyes widened in horror as dozens of skeletal arms emerged from the walls and ceiling as if they were made of mud. The skulls of those disembodied hands were slowly dripping out of each wall, very slowly but in such numbers that everyone considered safer to stand their ground instead of rushing in.
The demoness reached up to crush the open jaws that dropped over them to dust, even if a thousand invisible needles awakened her injuries each time she slashed the corpses right in half. Ciel and Elsword were slashing the arms that flowed like waves trying to drown them. The claws on her gauntlets and the blades of both her servant and the brat clashed against the fragile bones, which grew in power. The dark energy that empowered them made each skeleton harder than the last. At this point, Luciela felt as if she was trying to crush a steel blade instead of skeletal hands. The unmovable grasp of a corpse curled around her ankle just as another corpse was falling from above, jaws and arms opened to throw her to the ground.
If she pushed her limits to retrieve her former power temporarily, she would have to exhaust Ciel's energy as well. While her demonic flames would consume the corpses in an instant, they would not be strong enough to burn through every room and destroy the real body of their enemy. Another hand grabbed her free foot, leaving her even less chances to duck the living corpse that was getting increasingly close at her.
Luciela heard her heartbeat slow down. Each beat was clearer. The pain over her shoulder blades was distinctively clear. She could feel her blood rushing out from the bandages again, drop by drop. Her mana was low. She could feel it in every inch of her body just as the empty eyes of the skeleton stared at her. Its fingertips were sharp like daggers, and, inch by inch, it was swinging them to her neck.
It was going to decapitate her.
The hands that held her feet down grabbed her ankles even tighter. She could feel the bones of her ankle grind out of place ever so slightly. Luciela let her last remains of mana overload the palms of her gauntlets. Just as slowly as the corpse swinging its deadly attack, Lu rose her left fist above her, coating it with her mana. The spell carved on her weapon made it look double its size to her opponent when in reality, it simply summoned a mana shield to deflect the attack. Almost simultaneously, she swung her right fist in a straight uppercut to crush it in a haze of demonic flames. The enemies might be outnumbering them a hundred to one, but she was Luciela R. Sourcream; defeat was never an acceptable outcome in any battle. The nails of her enemy scratched some of the colour away from her gauntlets. The enemy was too slow to react to her counterattack. It did not even turn around to the bright blue flames that began melting the side of its skull.
Her burning punch eventually hit its target, turning the melted bones the flames had grazed to ashes. The sound of Ciel's blades parrying an increasing number of enemy attacks replaced the slow beating of her heart. Elsword cried out, but she could not help him as long as skeletal hands kept reaching for her head. Come to think of it, she had lost track of where Aisha was. The mage was the only chance they had at sweeping every enemy away.
"Aisha!"
At that moment, Luciela sensed something that did not quite fit with the dark magic around them. It was a faint trace of defensive magic from behind her. The demoness barely had the chance to glance at it before a bright green light blinded her. The next thing she felt was a howling, deafening gale lifting her from the ground, sending her spinning into a haze of dismembered skeletons, shadows and an overwhelming light that swallowed everything else. She called out to Ciel, but the wind was swallowing any sound coming from her lips. A hand grabbed hers; it was warm, but it was not Ciel's hand. The demon countess held onto it, and the wind stopped for a second before resuming again. She saw another shadow approaching her, and she reached out for it, knowing it was Ciel holding onto someone else.
The wind stopped again and the light with it. They were back in the corridors of darkness, a darkness so complete Luciela could almost swear she could touch the rotten humidity that lingered in the air. She was standing on solid ground, finally. She clasped her hands, but only found emptiness to hold within her gasp. She remembered holding Ciel's and someone else's hands. Yet, she had no reason to believe she was alone now.
"Ciel, where are you?!"
A grunt to her right answered her. Her demonic nature allowed her to get used to the darkness faster than anyone else, and she quickly distinguished Ciel's movements. He was slowly getting up, using his weapons as a cane. "Dear El... where are we now?"
He stopped and turned sharply to his right. "Where's Elsword? And Aisha?"
Lu's eyes searched in the darkness for their vague silhouettes but found nothing but the faint rusty smell of blood.
"This can't be good. Ciel, can you track Aisha's mana?"
Ciel coughed as he finally got back on his feet, searching the remains of his belongings to gulp the rest of his protected health potion.
"Let me catch my breath...I think I broke a rib or two when I fell."
Elsword was panting, completely blinded by the darkness that had come back to reign over them. He knew that Aisha had somehow summoned that gale and, just moments ago, he had heard her fall somewhere to his left. He groped around the floor, searching for his sword over the humid stone floor he was crawling over. Each time he stretched his arms, he felt a burning pain swallow his chest, but after a few seconds, he felt the handle of his weapon well within his reach.
"Aisha..." he mouthed as he blinked. The light of the spell was still burning in his eyes, some stains of blue light dimming even further his vision if that was even possible.
The glitter of a flame-coloured the darkness with the orange glow of the sunset surrounded him. He glanced up to see Aisha sitting her back to the wall, panting and with blood streaming from her temples. Her staff kept the flame alive, but her gaze was lost. He was not sure if she had realized that he had moved around, or if she had heard him. She simply stared at the flame. Her shield was on the other side of the room they were in, close to where he had crawled from.
"You almost managed to keep the demons with you. But I couldn't allow it. It was a mistake to let you live after you refused my offer, mage girl," a voice similar to Rena's announced. It seemed to come from every corner, and as soon as it spoke, Aisha's lost gaze sprung back to life, her eyes widening, and the flame in her staff extinguishing itself for the blink of an eye before being replaced by a gentle light. She had teleported closer to her shield and was slowly reaching out for it.
Elsword had a bad feeling about the darkness around the shield. Even if the shadows were retreating as Aisha's light approached them, they seemed to only get darker around her. For a moment, his pain disappeared, and he felt as if the air itself was helping him leap towards Aisha. Just as he reached for her, the shadows transformed into a short sword ready to slit her throat. He pulled her away from it and swung, with every last bit of strength he had, his sword to try to parry the incoming hit. Blades of bones grazed his fingers, but his grab remained firm. The daggers he had parried hit his sword with the same strength as a heavy double-handed sword.
The impact pushed him back, and his grasp gave out, leaving his chest right open for the final dagger. He felt a hand over his shoulder and, an instant later, he was on the opposite trajectory from the shadow that ended its course on the wall. Its darkness melted away and revealed the real shape of the weapon: a rib sharpened like a scythe's blade.
"I'm impressed, little knight," the voice mused with a chuckle, "You might be a better companion than William. No, you are better than him."
Aisha let his shoulder go and stepped forward so that she was now by his side. "This idiot is too weak to even be a granny's friend, spirit. I'll...I'll burn you to a crisp before you even think of another cheap trick..."
Aisha's voice was hoarse, and her legs were trembling, but she held her staff firmly, so much so that even with the weakening light of her fireball, Elsword could see that her knuckles were white.
The woman's voice laughed and laughed, each fit of laughter getting more maniacal. Suddenly, she stopped and spoke with such a cold voice one might have never guessed she had been laughing just seconds ago. "A mage who has pushed her capacities to the limit is as dead as a cripple in a battlefield. I'm not going to let you touch that shield again. Die."
Aisha let out a weak laugh. "I'm perhaps a cripple now, but the winds reached all the corners of your fortress. You might've stopped me from getting us all here, but I will burn you to a crisp, once and for all."
Elsword could see that even though she was injured, Aisha's smile was as confident as ever. Mana gathered with a howl around her staff, and she reached for his hand. He knew she was charging her teleportation spell, and he grabbed her hand.
The light of her spell surrounded them, and, a few seconds later, Elsword saw a different room. The walls were lit by a gentle green light emanating from crystal torches. Statues of elves ran through a corridor that ended where a decapitated queen held a staff to her right. Aisha fell to her knees and coughed until she was gagging and finally spat blood all over the floor. Her breaths were shallow and forced. He knelt to her aid, getting out what remained of his health potions, but she did not move. Her hands were shaking too much for that.
"I guess I'll just help you drink it."
She glanced at him with a frown on her face. "Only this once. I'm only like this because that demon wanted to go down. Don't ever think I'm weaker than you just because you saved me once."
Had they been in a less dangerous place, he might have corrected her. He had had her back as much as she had had his countless times today. Elsword kept silent and helped Aisha gulp down the remains of his second flask. The burning pain in his chest was coming back, stronger than what he had felt before. Aisha took a dried leaf out of her bag and crushed it before pouring the remains in a mana potion. The flask's contents changed from a deep blue to an aquamarine colour as she shook it. She swallowed until the last drop and put the empty flask gently to her right.
"This is the only place unaffected by her curse. It's what keeps her tied to this place," she began, drawing a magic circle beneath her with a glow flowing from the tip of her fingers, "Neither she nor her corpses have attacked us so far, so I think that she can't easily sneak around here. This room holds old magic, but it's not completely foreign to modern spells. The biggest difference is that this magic is engraved on the bones of one of the corpses here."
Aisha finished the last trait of her circle and grabbed her staff, making the circle multiply over each tomb. "Drink a potion and watch over whatever comes towards me. If that spirit attacks me, it's all over."
Elsword sighed before he chugged the last potion he brought with him and put his hand over the amulet she had given him. Somehow, that crystal was keeping his stamina high enough to keep him fighting for this long. Without it, he was sure he would have collapsed from exhaustion long before they reached this place. "This place has only one entrance, and if the spirit can't come from the shadows, she can only face me fair and square!"
The young knight walked towards the sole entrance and stared at the darkness beyond it, all his senses focused on the slightest of sounds.
The laugh came back from nowhere, oppressively loud and mocking. A skeleton emerged from the ground, cutting in half the circle Aisha had drawn where she sat. The mage leapt back as two disturbing mauve flames stared at her from empty and dark eye sockets.
"For a moment, I feared I had underestimated you, mage girl. This magic that you're giving me is what will trap me here until both of you die!"
The skeleton summoned blades of darkness into its closed fists and leapt towards them. Aisha grabbed him by the shoulder to teleport them out of there, but they did not get further than two steps from the door. Elsword touched the only entrance with the tip of his sword and felt an invisible wall trapping them in.
The skeleton's blades were ready to slash Aisha's staff in two, but the mage soon covered it with her mana to strengthen it so it could parry the hit. Elsword side-stepped to roll behind the enemy and land a strike, but just as his blade neared the skeleton's tibia, the enemy jumped above and threw its daggers at him, with such strength that even if he parried the hit, he was pushed two steps back.
Aisha threw fireballs at it, but, with a single swipe of her skeletal arms, the enemy summoned a gale of foul wind that choked the flames.
This battle would be far from an easy one, but they had no choice but to fight her.
Luciela followed Ciel through the darkness beyond, only cut down by her demonic flames, which cut Ciel's shadow over the disturbingly silent corridors. She could not shake the feeling that they were being observed very closely. A sudden chill made her turn around and see a skeleton throw something at her. Ciel turned around and fired at the giant being, but the bullets ricocheted over what looked to be a blade of some sort. Lu grunted as she parried the blades from piercing her throat with her forearm.
The skeleton continued to dash, completely ignoring them, but the demoness was determined to not let it run away. She reached out for its leg only to find other skeletal hands jump out of the walls to stop her arm. Before she knew it, a dozen more hands pushed her to the wall, almost completely immobilizing her. Ciel rushed in to help her cut down her chains. Once she was freed, the demon countess felt a familiar energy oozing from one of the rooms. It was more concentrated than anywhere else.
"Ciel...do you sense that?"
"Yes. Maybe we are getting closer to where the spirit is," he stepped closer with his right hand uncovered. The tattoo over it was a spell that could track the mana summoned by any mage staff.
"Aisha seems to be a floor below us. She teleported there just now."
Luciela squinted. She had to know exactly where they were. Ainchase had drawn a map of three floors, and there was no light from the outside coming here, so they had to be somewhere in the second underground floor. She filled her fist with demonic flames and scattered them around the hall, burning some spots while getting all the torches around them lit.
Two steps forward from them, a hole the size of a head let them see a peek into the dark floor below; right next to her, the wall was cracked, with lingering traces of blood over it, as if someone had been thrown towards it like a rag doll. All over the walls, there were traces of arrow points trying to cleave the stone while some bigger traces left her wondering if it was the work of a spear. Trails of dried blood led to a staircase to the floors above, seemingly fleeing from this place moments before dying. Ciel walked towards the staircase, putting his glove back on before passing his finger over the marks left behind.
Lu knew something about them was bothering him. Maybe he would figure out on his own what she could not tell him for his and the group's own good. The arrow marks and the crack on the wall already gave them a good idea of who had recently been here.
"It's strange," he began before the sound of rattling bones from behind them made him turn around. Since her hearing was sharper, Lu knew the bones were gathering from below, and she jumped just in time to avoid another grasp from the skeletons. Ciel fired two mana bullets enhanced with her demonic flames, and the attackers burnt until not even their ashes were left.
Ciel turned back at the staircase and shook his head, "It looks to me as if someone was injured trying to get Rena out, but Elsword and Aisha found her alone."
Luciela nodded, but her senses were dragged back to the dark room none of the remains of Rena's battle had reached. The bones impaled on her flesh were stinging with pain, but she had no health potions left to take them out and close the wounds. Instead, she cut the daggers so only the tip that pierced her flesh remained and ripped part of her empty bag to use as makeshift bandages over her injuries. It would slow her speed to manipulate her gauntlets, but it was better than feeling lightheaded during a battle due to blood loss.
The demon countess knew for certain that the spirit had attacked both Rena and Ainchase viciously, probably to stop them from getting into the room at the end of the corridor in front of them. But the spirit had not manifested itself for some reason. It could be either a trap, or it had gotten to Elsword and Aisha first.
"Ciel," she began as she headed silently down the source of the dark energy, "let's end this quickly."
She heard him walk to her side and reload his weapons with explosive rounds to hit multiple enemies again. She would lend him more of her demonic power to prevent the bullets from ricocheting. It was a subtle trick to get through most barriers of this world, which had never been made to parry demonic magic. The two demons carefully stepped in the darkest room, and a dark mist began to gather like fog around them. Luciela coughed at the putrid smell that made her guts churn.
She took another step forward, but the mist quickly condensed into sharp edges that would have gone right through her head had she taken another step forward. The demoness swung a quick jab at it, but as soon as her claws reached the blades of darkness, the mist returned to be what it was. It seemed impossible to fight an enemy who could very well change its shape to be unreachable. Yet, it had not attacked her precisely, it was simply due to dumb luck that the mist had not been able to hurt her. The same could be said for Ciel, who had stopped barely an inch before another blade made of that putrid mist. She looked to the flames around them and saw that small blades were also closing in on them, changing ever so slightly as the flames wavered under the darkness. There were more of them around the flames than around them. It followed heat and rapid movements more precisely than their slow steps forward.
With an idea in mind, she looked at Ciel, and he nodded. She watched him fire an explosive bullet right behind them and the mist rushed towards the collapsing shards of hot metal that lodged themselves deeply within the walls and torches behind them. Now with a clear path ahead of them, they rushed towards the dark room and did not dare to light even a spark of a flame. What little they saw would have to do. Their demonic senses would guide them more to see where the source was and once she destroyed it…well, maybe she could gain back some of the power she had continuously wasted here.
She would need that power to protect herself and Ciel after this chase was over.
The room's darkness was unnatural, the smell of rotten flesh was even stronger here and so was the malicious energy. It was hard to pinpoint where it was coming from now that they were surrounded by it. Ciel was walking cautiously, his arms trying to find the edges of the walls after a misstep almost made him trip with one of the stone tombs all around them.
Luciela did not see much better, but while the darkness weighed even on her demonic vision, it was not absolute. She could guess the shadows of statues and pillaged tombs. All of them could be the source and she had no guarantee of what destroying them would do. The demoness looked back to see that the blue light of Ciel's bullets was running out and so were the flames. The mist was becoming invisible, closing into the darkness they were in.
"Ciel, let's destroy everything here."
The man turned towards her, frowning, "Are you sure you can handle it?"
She could not find an answer, but her servant was already reloading his weapon with another explosive round. Even if Luciela had known him for the past two years, she was impressed by how he did not hesitate to aim and shoot at the hall they were in before, making each small bullet ricochet along the walls, setting a trail of demonic flames as they passed.
The mist gathered like a cloud of angered wasps around the bullets, looking to suffocate the flames. He crouched slowly and groped around where he was until he grabbed the top of one of the tombs. He made his blade glow slightly with demonic power and slashed it in half. The loud crash of crumbling rocks was still swallowed by the successive explosions in the distance.
Nothing else occurred, but the evil of this place could not come from anywhere but the tombs around them.
"Lu, we at least need to try to fight whatever evil comes out of here. We can't hesitate when we're out of options."
He crawled to his right and swung his blade again to break the second tomb. Nothing.
The demon countess nodded, covered her gauntlets with demonic energy to absorb anything that would come out of the tombs. It could be poison but she would take that risk, trusting that no dark magic of Elrios could truly harm her. She walked to the nearest tomb and smashed it to pieces. The energy got stronger for a moment, but no energy flowed into her body. A gust of wind was howling in the distance and Ciel cursed before cutting the fourth tomb.
She did not need to turn around to know what he was thinking. The Mist had reacted to what she had done and was growing in power, like a hurricane of blades ready to turn them into mincemeat.
The energy had cried for its help.
She charged her gauntlets with demonic flames and lit the room with the glow of blue flames within her hands. Two punches and the fourth tomb crumbled. The wind was roaring in her ears, seeking to lift her up. Dust stung her eyes, but her determination to live overpowered her instincts. She would not let anything stop her until she had crushed the last tomb.
With a roar, she dashed to her left and threw a rapid series of punches, ignoring the stinging pain of the thorns of darkness that pierced her knuckles at every punch she threw. She eventually broke them all and her final punch, the strongest one, hit the tomb directly.
Elsword gasped for air, using his remaining strength to kick back the skeleton who choked the air out of his lungs. He hit it one or two times, but the enemy's grasp onto his neck barely got any weaker. Aisha was still unconscious from a heavy blow to the head next to him. He could not die here, not when his entire village depended on him. He still had a hold on his sword, but perhaps not enough strength to swing it with one arm. Even if he had trained, his weapon was too heavy to be wielded properly with only one hand. He had to be stronger, even just for a second. If he could muster the strength to get the enemy away from him, he could fight it.
The stone of the amulet Aisha had given him shone, and for a moment, he could see as if it was gathering energy all around him within it. All that energy rapidly overflowed from the amulet into his own body, and he felt an overwhelming power, enough to clench his sword and deliver a fast blow aiming right for the skull. The enemy instinctively leapt back, letting him breathe again. He coughed and took deep breaths, savouring the air that could finally enter. The wave of power had mostly dissipated, but he could still feel a bit stronger than usual. Aisha barely opened her eyes and mouthed something. He was glad she was still alive, despite having gotten most of the hits from the skeleton they were fighting.
The enemy's fiery orbs of mauve flames got brighter, and her voice was burning with rage. "I don't have time, I don't have time, I don't have time! I'll chop that amulet right off with your bloody head!"
She came charging back at him more like a beast than the agile warrior that had almost killed them both. He rolled under her, and his blade cut one of her legs clean off right under the knee. The enemy crumbled as she crashed through the statues behind him. It let out a low growl and glanced at Aisha, who could barely crawl away from where she had crashed. The skeleton summoned once again a blade of shadows to stab Aisha right over her back, but the room was narrow enough for him to swing his blade to parry hers. She pressed on her attack, but just as Elsword feared that he could not hold his defense any longer, the shadow blade began to crumble into dust and her closed fist along with it.
The skeleton cried out in a language Elsword could not understand as its body vanished.
Rena saw herself back on the citadel she had fled from ages ago, not the crypts but the pristine home she had known. Every building was back to what it once had been, lively and peaceful.
"Rena," Lua's voice called. Unlike her dreams, it was not a voice filled with rage, but the joyful voice she remembered.
The elf turned around to see her long-time friend standing with her short swords over her back as if she was ready to depart on a journey. One by one, the people she had let down by fleeing came next to her, all ready to leave through the main gates. None of them glared at her, and that unnatural tranquility made her increasingly nervous.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"Where we should have gone long ago. Before the Darkness fell upon us," Lua answered, "It was a force too strong for us to handle, but those made out of the same darkness freed us. When you have the chance, thank them on our behalf."
Rena wished to move and go with them, tell them how sorry she was for leaving them behind that day, but none of her muscles moved. She was paralyzed there with tears forming in her eyes as Lua turned back to her one last time.
"You have nothing to apologize for, Rena. Live the dream we both shared."
Lua finally crossed the gates, and one by one, the buildings began to disappear until she was alone in a peaceful forest no different from where she had been traveling with the rest of her group.
It was all over.
I'm finally back, right on time for Thanksgiving (or Columbus Day).
This was a challenge to finish, considering my schedule for the past month, but it was a very satisfactory chapter to finish. Hopefully, it'll be the same for you. Thank you for your comments and continuous support even during this two-month-long hiatus. I doubt I can publish again for November, but December will most likely bring a double-chapter update. ;)
~Kalafinn
