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(“Go!”) Rhea commanded, and Kiki responded before I understood what was happening. As a demonic veil poured out from the blazing black sun which had suddenly appeared in the sky just to our north, we shot southward like lightning, away from the summit.
Out of the same dark source, clouds of demonic mana boiled forth and spread across the sky, stretching to the horizons. The veil continued to pour out, surrounding the group behind us with a curtain of demonic magic.
It had to be an illusion. That much demonic mana surely couldn’t be available. But Kiki’s senses were telling me that the mana was real.
Then the sky to the north opened like a curtain and a demonic host appeared out of thin air. I began to feel true panic for those on the summit.
Even when connected to Kiki, I can still sense my pathways. Three Servants simultaneously drew additional mana through me in vast quantities. Especially, I felt Healing mana gushing like a river and pouring into Melione. She couldn’t possibly hold that much. She had to be releasing it as she drew it.
Kiki’s mind remained out of sync with me, but her serious, un-pixie-like stare remained locked on the bizarre sky as she flew. She surely felt my shaking thoughts fretting for the safety of the Servants and comrades we left behind, but I could feel her ignoring my anxiety, prioritizing Rhea’s command.
<What do you mean, ‘Go’?> I demanded.
<Smart smart!> Kiki snapped at me, exasperated that my sluggish mind couldn’t figure it out myself. She was nothing like her normal self right now. The only thing I could grab from her thoughts was an ever-rising sense of concern over the threatening clouds.
(“I will break your connection with Kiki shortly, but I need to keep you here a bit longer so I can see a few things through her senses,”) Rhea warned. (“Melione is inside that veil and cannot see out well. I’m sorry to separate you from them, but this is the safest choice.”)
<Don’t send me away!> I begged. <My people are all in there!>
(“It’s too dangerous in this place, Little One,”) the goddess explained in patient tones. (“If that touches your mind while you’re connected, it could affect your body and your babies through the link. I absolutely have no choice, no matter how you feel.”)
She didn’t clarify whether that meant the veil, the sun-like black orb, or the clouds. Perhaps she meant all of it.
As Kiki circled in a wide arc around the summit, I sensed she was aiming to be near her granddaughters and Shindzha. I struggled to come up with a rebuttal to the goddess, but I recognized that I had nothing. I didn’t understand this bizarre situation at all, so naturally I couldn’t argue with it. This wasn’t anything like the sort of ambush I had imagined, but I could sense its lethal danger.
<The clouds are descending!> I warned, but Kiki knew, since of course I sensed it through her. She was already circling lower.
(“I’ve already warned Melione,”) Rhea answered my fear. (“She is taking steps. Trust in her.”)
Trust? This insanity kept turning more insane! I had sensed absolutely nothing before the newcomers appeared. The crowd of Fiends, Imps, Liches and Skeletal knights, mounted on flying demonic beasts had been perfectly hidden somehow. I knew Kiki’s senses were even stronger than my own. How could they possibly use such perfect stealth?
(“They did not,”) Rhea stated. (“Something far more powerful than these creatures must have used stealth well beyond what they are capable of, to cover their approach. I only sensed them once they dropped it.”)
The host began to surround the summit. From the mana I could feel her drawing through me, Ceria’s [Wind Wall] was surely still active inside that curtain. Now, Melione prepared something new, as she pulled a preposterous amount of Healing, and Chiara began something as well. I could feel her pulling all three of her aspects, Wind, Water and Earth.
Ceria’s flow of Wind mana abruptly halted, then a brilliant white blaze of Healing mana overwhelmed the dark veil at the summit. I could even feel Kiki’s surprise at the strength of the pulse.
The blaze faded to reveal Melione at the center of the group, holding her fan above her head. Her spell had blown away not only the veil but the cloud above the summit, and blasted a hole into the cloud cover that reached as far as the black sun itself, ripping them away from it.
Serera, Ryuu, Graham and Bruna, the front-liners, ringed the group. Mathias and Brigitte labored to wrap shrouds around the bodies in order to strap them into the wicker litters. Arken, Amana and Ceria stood ready as the supporting mages.
Every single member of the group wore a peculiar radiance wrapping them from head to toe, which I recognized as Healing mana. I had no idea what the magic was, but I supposed Melione had done it as well.
(“Nope. It’s Amana,”) Rhea corrected. (“She has a natural talent for Healing. That’s very rare in a fairy, but I imagine it happened because her mother was studying Healing while she was pregnant with her. She used Healing to cast a fairy-style protective layer against demonic mana on everyone.”)
The ‘reserve group’, Dilorè and two fairy warriors, came flying in to position themselves above the secondary peak, between the demons and the spot where the horses and Terese were waiting. They had clearly decided that Elhàn and the other two fairy warriors might not be enough against this threat.
I felt more [Healing] pour through my pathways into Melione as she built up her next attack. Then my mind boggled as I witnessed her body and her fan beginning to shine with bright white light.
Something inside me stirred, a knowledge that I had done this myself at some point. And with it came the knowledge that my body could handle this, but Melione’s body, being human, couldn’t possibly do so!
(“I am directly supporting her, Little One,”) Rhea assured me. (“All she needs from you is the mana.”)
The supporters now all targeted the incoming demons with [Magic Arrow] and other ranged attacks, while Graham and Bruna prepared with their weapons to meet whoever arrived first. It was impossible for my anxiety not to rise again. The demons outnumbered them horribly.
Rather than preparing as well though, Serera and Ryuu were doing something strange. Serera had sheathed her sword and stood behind Ryuu, wrapping him in a bear hug. Kiki and I both stared in astonishment as her wings grew and the two shot upward together.
I had a bad feeling that I knew exactly what the plan was as they streaked skyward. Even so, when they flew above the black orb in the sky, my heart went into my throat because Serera actually dropped Ryuu over it…
I almost groaned as I heard him yelling, “[Spirit Shot!]”, his same old ridiculous attack, but to my shock, the mana strike he delivered on the ‘sun’, rather than just Wind, now contained all seven elements, and in increased quantities as well! The meathead had actually improved that foolish attack at some point!
The strike blasted the ball and, as he fell back to the ground, we saw that he had damaged the thing. A moment later it took more damage as Serera followed up with her sword and a loud “OHOHOHO!”
I suspect she intended to chase after Ryuu to catch him following her attack, but her sword rebounded hard enough to send her flipping through the air backward instead.
I already knew Ryuu wasn’t in trouble. I had seen him pull this idiotic stunt before. I’m a little ashamed to confess, but he once persuaded me to deliver him to the target the very same way Serera had just done. Perhaps not quite as high up, but that time surely inspired this one. And sure enough, just like then, he pulled his equally insane “Ground Slap” move as he reached the end of his fall, blasting forth an alarming cloud of dust and debris in the process as he sent a [Magic Strike] of Earth mana straight into his landing spot to cushion his fall.
He really does have a stupid amount of mana for a human. And a stupid amount of resilience. Unharmed, he bounded back up the hill with mana-assisted leaps to rejoin the group.
Kiki had descended now to a point above a little tunnel with a hidden entrance where Shindzha was hiding with the Nanas. I had the sense that they had newly dug this shelter for her, but I couldn’t imagine they had done it in the short time since I last saw her. I also had no guess where they had sent the spoil from digging it out. It wasn’t anywhere nearby.
To my alarm, Kiki’s senses picked up another presence with them, but her thoughts identified it before I could worry. Lhan, now pretending to be a fourth pixie, had come as well.
I couldn’t spend any time wondering how she could possibly turn herself into a pixie. I only identified her from her aura.
Up on the summit, Ceria and Arken were preparing to take their turns attacking the damaged demonic orb next. But, before they could do so, Lady Dilorè came streaking in from the lesser peak. She pointed her magic staff, which was actually some sort of spear, aiming it like a lance, and I thought for a moment that she was planning to charge the orb head-on.
But long before she reached it, a blaze of Fire burst forth from the spear, delivering an attack of astonishing power, which struck the ‘black sun’ squarely. The demonic object shattered and its mana dispersed. The clouds instantly vanished as well, but…
Rhea warned. (“Something’s wrong!”)
I couldn’t grasp what had just happened. The clouds should have turned into an expanding mist of mana as well, not just blinked out of existence. But they could not have been an illusion, because Melione’s [Purification] had disrupted them.
My mind caught up with Rhea’s words. <What do you mean?>
(“An Immortal class spatial distortion is at work here,”) she answered. (“Those clouds were superimposed here from another location.”)
Before the debris ball of demonic mana from the orb expanded too much, Melione struck it with another blaze of Healing. It was clear this time that the spell was [Purification], although I had never seen [Purification] shining with white light like that before. The demonic mana dissolved under the onslaught.
Except, then I thought I actually had seen [Purification] blazing white before, somewhere… I pushed it out of my mind, certain it was something I was supposed to avoid. I focused on Rhea.
<Immortal?> I echoed. <You mean a god did it?>
(“It can only be Astaroth,”) the goddess answered. (“The demon god. He’s the only one present in the Mortal Realm at Immortal capacity, so only he is able to pull such a thing off. But he can only do it with extreme infrequency and under the right circumstances. It isn’t possible to just exert Immortal power in the Mortal realm whenever you like. The extreme mana conditions in this region must have allowed it. But what is he up to?”)
<If it’s gone somewhere else, it’s no longer a threat to us though, right?>
(“If his purpose for those clouds was here, he would have just created them here in the first place, with far less difficulty. Why did he go to the trouble to… Wait, what?”)
Her sudden exclamation cut off with no explanation, then I was abruptly staring into Mireia’s wide open eyes and pale complexion as she grasped me in her arms. Outside, the castle’s defensive alarms blared with a voice as anxious as the banshee in the mountains.
