The Demon Hearth Crystal was something exclusive to the Demonic Realm. They were rather rare and hard to obtain even when the realm was open, and in this world without the demonic realm open it was impossible to obtain, and yet here I was staring at the damn thing right in front of me. It was pulsing with green energy, continuously pumping out gaseous mana for a type of shield. "
"Why the hell is there a Demon Hearth Crystal in the mortal world?! Better question is, how the hell are we going to get rid of this freaking thing?!" I was panicking at this point as I didnt expect to meet one of these, especially at such a low level. To put it into perspective, a Demon Hearth Crystal was capable of nuking this entire city out of existence and with the explosion would spawn forth hundreds of demons that would run around causing havoc. None of said demons would be below level 30 might I add.
Grangar unleashed a monstrous amount of mana and sent forth a golden punch straight out of an anime, with golden light flying out from around it. It impacted with the green mana barrier, causing it to slightly bend inwards and bounce straight back into position. He was panting and bleeding from his mouth after that last attack and it was at this point that Alfred pointed out something that neither of us had noticed in our panic to destroy the damn thing.
"Couldn't you just pick the corrupt mage up and throw him into the sky? I mean our residential meathead Grangar could throw this ball of doom rather high up." He said standing around to take a rest, looking rather calm for a man who had just fought to the death with a powerful foe.
Silence.
After everyone here sat there processing what he said and Ronia then yelled out "Well don't just stand there... Throw that thing away You old coot!". Her scream brought us back to reality and Grangar sqatted down and got his hands firmly underneath the green gaseous ball of mana, and proceeded to grunt as he launched the corrupt mage flying upwards. As the corrupt mage was starting to be launched upwards we heard the corrupt mage yell in fury.
"The Demonic Hand will make sure you pay for this you bas-" The corrupt mage was launched straight into the sky and now appeared as a violently pulsating flare flying into the sky. As we watched it I then realised the worst wasn't past and screamed "Get to cover! It'll be raining demons in a second!"
I didn't say anything else and just ran to Herald and the rest and started to head to cover. Before we had gotten anywhere there was an earthshattering explosion in the sky. Green flames ripped through the sky, shattering whatever glass windows were left at this point, and sending various things that weren't bolted to the ground flying into the air, crashing about. The guildmaster and Alfred were both pumping mana into a very large orb that looked like an enlarged version of the orb of Valas. There was now a barrier covering the entire city in blue and purple mana, cutting off the rest of the shockwave and flames from continuing to wreak havoc on the city.
The green flames greedily burned and slammed into the barrier with vigor but the explosion was dying down now. After a good minute or so, the explosion had finally run its course. A good thing too as the enlarged Orb of Valas that Alfred pulled out of seemingly nowhere was crumbling and breaking with smoke fuming from it as well as crackles of electricity sparking out every so often. As the thing broke apart completely the barrier covering the city disappeared and both Alfred and Grangar collapsed on the ground gasping for breath with looks of pain on their faces. I saw several empty bottles on the ground next to them. They seemed to have chugged mana potions with no regard for their health in order to feed the greedy contraption enougn mana to work.long enough.
"Haah, haah. It seems...that we managed...to survive that..." gasped out Grangar while weakly laying on the ground.
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Alfred laughed and then coughed before wheezing out "So it seems...say, didn't the kid Zane mention something about demons?" As if he jinxed it, a large green rip formed in the sky where the explosion had occurred. On the other side was a sight I was all too familiar with, having spent nearly a year in the damn place with numerous other players on a World Questline.
Beyond the green rip in the sky was the Demonic Realm. There were bone spires made of skulls towering into the sky, various bits of the land lit on fire ranging from red or occasionally, green. A large looming castle was seen off in the distance, with various buildings made from stone, dark red wood and whatever else with the castle walls itself made from a pitch black material. It looked taller than anything else there with walls that were probably somewhere between 9-12 stories high. There were skeletons, imps, flame demons and all manners of creatures on the other side. They all turned to look at the hole in the sky and paused. The rip started to shrink rapidly, its green flamed borders flickering in the sky.
It was then that the roars began. Hellhounds, Hellbeasts and other creatures started charging the rip in a mad scramble to get through it, They approached the rip and started to pour through. What the creatures from hell didn't seem to understand was that the rip to our world was in the sky. And so they plummeted from the heavens and rained down on the city. Amost everyone had gotten inside a building by this point and we waited as creatures from hell fell from the sky screaming fury and hellfire, sometimes literally, as they eventually splatted on the hard unforgiving surface. There were hundreds of these things raining down in a seemingly endless tide as the rip closed rapidly.
As the guildmaster continued to try and pump mana into a spell within the guildhouse to maintain the barrier protecting the building we heard a portal open up. The reinforcements the guildmaster had requested finally appeared. There was a large portal opened in the courtyard where we were sitting, and on the other side there was around 100 armed to the teeth golems in armour. They poured through and marched outside of the guildhouse. Next came a mage and another hundred golems in armour. The mage was rather spooked by the literal rain of blood and guts and looked up, then immediately chanted a long spell. The spell was completed within seconds but would have taken a normal person a few minutes. A large light blue barrier covered the city similar to the enlarged orb of Valas but thinner.
It stopped the bodies from raining down and crushing buildings or splattering on the ground and instead the bodies slammed into the barrier and fell to the outskirts of the city. The mage was concentrating and pumping mana into the spell. Grangar finally passed out after seeing he wasn't going to die from being crushed under bodies falling onto the floor next to the large device he was operating a second ago.
The rip finally closed after another minute but to our dismay, a hundred or so flying imps and some winged lesser flame demons flew out of the rip before it closed. They were ugly creatures, with red skin and terrifying claws and jagged teeth. The imps were small and were the height of 10 year old children. The winged Lesser Flame Demons on the other hand were the height of a 15 year old and had a single black horn protruding on top of their heads. I couldn't get more details as they were very high in the sky and they flew off into the distance screaming war cries in glee.
We were all exhausted and didn't want to think of the ramifications of demons roaming the world and just wanted to rest, so we did. The mage who I now knew was sent from a nearby city's adventurers branch was maintaining the barrier even through the demon threat was gone from the immediate area and instructed the golems to do a sweep of the city to clear any monsters and help any wounded people and just overall help bring back a semblance of order to Namph.
~~~
I had been asleep for the rest of that day all the way until 2pm the next day, along with Herald, Ray and Ronia. Our inn had received some damage as a demon had crashed into its roof, destroying the top floor but was still operational. I didn't want to do anything as I was still tired from all of that fighting but Ronia wouldn't let me stay in dreamland and woke me up.
Ronia shook me awake while loudly saying "Zane, the guildmaster want's to speak with you. He said you seemed to know some interesting things and wanted to speak in greater detail regarding the demons and that Demon Hearth Crystal thing."
I groaned and knew that this meant further trouble for me. Why couldn't I had kept my mouth shut and not blabbed what the hell that thing was. I know it was dangerous but I have one thing to say. "Screw you past me."