Aric had realized that something was wrong far too late.

Wisps of smoke streaming from chimneys had been their first clue that they were getting close to their destination, a sense of relief had even settled over Aric. Thoughts that everything was still fine and that this would become a hunt through the woods eradicating lurking shadowbeasts played through his mind. Even plans to flush out the creatures began to form as he wondered how well traps he'd used back home would work here on these twisted creatures.

Those thoughts were instantly dispelled as they passed through something that sent magical reverberations scattering throughout his body. The peaceful forest sounds were suddenly overcome by harsh growls and screams of agony, the wisps of smoke now billowing clouds of deep black.

"Fuck, we may be too late," Elara spat, breaking into a sprint towards the sounds of violence. "We've never seen wide-area magic being used to mask their presence before. We didn't even think that the beasts had the mental prowess to consider using tricks like that."

Quickly shaking off his surprise at hearing the petite elf curse, Aric followed after her, his longer legs allowing him to catch up with relative ease. "The barrier seems to still be up, so maybe we can get you some answers. Right now though, we need to do what we can to protect the people here."

As they crested a small hill along the road, Aric got a full view of the chaos that had overtaken the small town. The wolf-like Shadowbeasts, the tell-tale darkness roiling off their hides in the fading light of the sun, patrolled up and down the streets between the homes. Humanoid creatures, vaguely resembling the hunched form of a goblin, were systematically breaking into homes, one by one, dragging people from their homes. He watched as some dragged their new captives down the T-shaped road that created the center of town, throwing them before a monster that stood alone.

The bipedal creature standing in the center of town had its clawed hands raised to the sky, the majority of its eyes closed in focus. Its black-scaled tentacles flicked erratically through the air behind it, while its two backwards legs seemed to disappear beneath the soil.

Aric and Elara exchanged a grim look. Unsure of how many surviving townspeople were left, there was no time to waste.

"I'll try and draw their focus. Wait for a clean shot when its distracted, then try to take out the caster," Elara said. Not waiting for a reply, she began murmuring an incantation as she moved down the road toward the village, her tome growing brighter as she moved.

While she moved towards the monsters, Aric dropped into to a crouch and brought his rifle around. He had a feeling they would only have one chance for this plan to work. Training his sight on the otherworldly horror, he waited.

With a wordless shout, Elara flung a pulsating orb of blue energy at the chanting creature. It impacted on its scaled shoulder in a burst of light, interrupting its ritual. The square beyond the caster was coated in frost, spears of ice embedded like shrapnel, but it seemed unharmed. The beast whirled with an enraged shriek as Elara crossed the boundary into the village square, flinging a dizzying combination of ice and raw aether at in a barrage of elemental fury.

With the creature distracted by Elara's entrance, Aric inhaled and fired off a three round burst at the creature's head. Each round seemed to flow around its mark, missing and instead punching through writhing tentacles in bursts of ichor. One round seemed to catch an arm as it passed through a tentacle, blowing the appendage apart.

Screeching in pain and rage, the caster only seemed to become more enraged as it realized that its minions were mindlessly continuing their predetermined tasks. Shouting to the surrounding shadowbeasts, "Intruders! Crush them you useless worms!" The majority of the shadowbeasts in town shifted as one, with more flooding out from the already destroyed buildings, and as one their focus locked onto Elara.

Cursing under his breath and knowing that a single shot likely wouldn't make a difference with that thing's tentacles guarding its body, Aric sprung to his feet. Pushing his rifle to rest behind his back with his off hand, he drew his blade and rushed the shadowbeasts that were quickly surrounding the beautiful caster.

Elara doesn't have much time before she's overwhelmed The dark thought circled Aric's mind as determination grew within his chest. As he slashed and dodged his way deeper into the fray, he was particularly glad that none of these warped creatures seemed to be capable of casting spells of any kind, instead relying on brute force and numbers.

Realizing that he would never make it to Elara's side before the encroaching forces crushed her, a plan began to form in Aric's mind. There were risks to it, certainly, but it may be the only hope they had of surviving this.

For a second, he felt Amy's presence flood into his mind, almost as if she agreed with his plan. That small bit of a reassurance from the experienced demoness gave him hope. Working to split his focus, Aric let his aether flood out of him. First he formed a sphere the size of a watermelon, then with movements that came to him almost fluidly, Aric quickly constraining the orb within a surrounding cloud of aether. Unfortunately, this time the drain became noticeable, the quantities of raw power flowing out of him to support his makeshift bomb were exponentially higher now. The ache that spread through him was distracting enough to miss the lunge of a nearby wolf. The beast's powerful jaws snapped shut around his leg, anchoring him in place and almost shattering his concentration. The wolf began savaging his calf, as Aric pushed to finish enacting his plan.

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Once he positioned the construct near the middle of the pack that separated him from Elara, he detonated it, compressing the top and bottom while rupturing a thin ring around the sphere's circumference.

Aric's world went momentarily white as the blinding light of the explosion tore through everything in the village, the rolling wave of force even forcing him back as he tried to keep himself grounded. As his vision cleared he was shocked by the devastation that the pure-aether explosion left behind. The shadowbeasts that had been closest to the origin were simply gone, vaporized within the first moments of the blast. The impact appeared more gruesome the further away it got, the magical component clearly lessening as more of the beasts lay bisected, slowly disintegrating into shadows.

Most importantly though, Elara was still alive. The shockwave having forced her to her knees, and whether it was the fighting leading up to it, or just the shock of the detonation, she looked exhausted.

"Fuck, the caster!" Aric tried to turn to where the abberation has been, but collapsed to his knee when he tried to put pressure on his ruined leg. He only caught a fleeting sight of the wounded caster, arms spread wide as it floated backwards through an inky black tear in the very space of the world. Clearly not willing to fight after its horde of minions had been taken out.

They had done it, they'd managed to survive this fight. Elara was safe. That was all that mattered to him in that moment as his eyes slid shut of their own accord and his world went black.

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Nightmares plagued Aric's unconscious mind. Dreams of skittering abominations supping upon him while the world fell apart around him. Dreams of watching Elara being eviscerated by the cruel beasts he'd witnessed since arriving on this world.

Jolting awake, Aric sat bolt upright, a wave of nausea roiling through him at the sudden motion. The first thing he noticed was that he was in a dim room, placed carefully on a rather soft bed. Elara's delicate sleeping form laid draped over the edge as if she had been there for a while. The second thing that Aric noticed was the deep ache emanating from his core. A short inspection later he knew why. For the first time since coming to this realm and learning about magic and being able to sense his core, it was empty. Bare dregs of aether floated around in it, which would explain why he felt awful at the moment.

Damn, this is what being aether-deprived feels like? No wonder Elara warned me about it so many times He thought with a grimace.

Lightly flexing his legs, he was surprised to find that there wasn't even a trace of the injury he'd incurred from the wolf bite. Although he hadn't truly investigated just how bad the wound had been prior to falling unconscious.

Elara must have exhausted herself repairing the damage that had been done. Between that and the amount of magic she'd thrown around throughout their skirmish, it was no wonder she was passed out right now.

All of that made sense, but that didn't explain where they were, or how he'd ended up in this bed.

Well my brave champion, as it turned out, you arrived shortly after the onslaught had begun. Meaning the majority of the village had been safely holed up within their houses. Amy's sultry voice rolled through his mind. Her presence was a balm to his exhausted mind.

I'm glad to hear my presence no longer bothers you as much She crooned proudly within his mind, having clearly noticed the effect she'd had.

Don't get too used to it, I'm just glad to be alive right now. Aric shot back, While I'm glad to hear that we actually made it in time, I still don't understand how that explosion didn't cause more damage to the village, let alone myself and Elara.

Ah, yes, I was wondering if you would have considered that. Amy responded with a hint of pride in her voice, that quickly turned into a lecturing tone as she continued, Your aether has no true affinity to it with the way you channel it now, meaning that it will have far more of an effect on creatures such magical creatures. The very nature of their beings is held together by shadow-attuned aether, with a hint of something twisted. She paused for a second, checking his thoughts to ensure he was following along. While most mages start off casting with similarly un-attuned aether, there's also a mixture of their natural affinity bleeding into it. Which seems to lessen the cascade effect that you witnessed vaporizing those closest to the epicenter, but does produce a more... volatile effect.

Aric nodded along, proud that he'd actually followed along with the long-winded explanation. But not knowing that when he executed his plan meant that he had gotten very lucky that things went as well as they did. Had he been even slightly fire-attuned, he would have likely ignited a large fireball that caused significant damage to everything in the village. Including Elara.

Shuddering at the realization, he took a deep breath. Reaffirming that he did what was necessary and it all worked out. She's waking, I'm sure she'll want to talk to you. After all, she hasn't left your side since you collapsed Amy said as her presence slid out of his mind.

Sure enough, Aric looked down in time to see Elara's eyes blink rapidly as she woke up and tried to adjust to the darkness of the room. "Oh good, you're awake," she said with a bright smile. "I was worried after seeing the way you collapsed. I thought it was from blood loss at first, considering how mangled your leg was."

"I'm better now, just running on fumes as far as my aether goes." Aric replied with a reassuring smile, as he unconsciously reached out to brush a few strands of silver hair out of her face.

While she blushed at his actions, Elara made no motion to move away, which Aric took to be a good sign. Elara cleared her throat, as the blush took on a darker tone, "You should meditate. It'll help refill your core slightly faster if you focus on pulling aether from the environment."

Once Aric nodded that he would do that, she got up."I'm going to go check on the rest of the village. Hopefully they'll have some left over dinner to spare for their town hero," she finished with a wink.

Now alone in the dim room, Aric had no real choice but to close his eyes and attempt to recover.