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”The target is not here. I’ve checked every living person among the three groups of survivors and even scanned for additional life-signs, but I haven’t found her.” Zuellni reported, clearly upset and pouting at her own failure.
“And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we don’t let the demonic insects just om-nom-nom all the survivors in order to keep our own hands clean. The target managed to slip out, and we would’ve been ignorant of that fact if we hadn’t intervened.” Karna said a little smugly, even if the news was not good.
"You're getting way too much pleasure out of this." Envy shot back grumpily while folding her arms across her chest.
“I can’t help the fact that I’m always right.” Karna’s grin widened as she teased the other Sin.
“What I want to know is, why are we keeping the centaur alive?” Valor questioned. “You wanted him dead, so now’s your chance.”
“It’s not quite that simple. The deal wasn’t just about killing them. I want to deal with both of them at the same time. For that to happen though, we have to find the other one. Until then, we’ll be keeping him around.” Karna explained.
What she didn’t mention was that she didn’t want to utilize her power as the Reaper more than once. It always gave the wrong people the opportunity to locate her when she did use it. And she also didn’t want the others around when she did do it. She wasn’t going to spread that particular identity around any more than necessary. Envy might’ve already had suspicions, and she had no idea how much Hope knew, but at least Valor wasn’t aware, and she’d like to keep it that way. The Virtue might feel compelled to do something about it if he knew. It was hard to tell with the supposed virtuous types. If they were young enough, they tended to be more chivalric and traditionally virtuous, but the older they got, the more insane and unpredictable they also became.
“Can we even keep him imprisoned? You told me the issue with him is that he's drawing power directly from the elemental plane of earth, which kind of suggests that he's an expert on that element. Imprisoning earth mages is always hard, as the very floor they sit on is made up of their favorite element, and they can easily draw power from the ground. Any metal shackles are only half as effective, as the element of metal is deeply tied to earth.” Valor explained his concern. “He might have submitted to us easily, but that was partly because his associates were around to become collateral damage. If he thinks he’s going to die anyway, then there’s no risk in trying to make his escape now.”
They were currently above the world they found the centaur on and were trying to locate the other target. "He's not connected to earth though," Karna stated, and made a flippant gesture with her hand, bringing up a view of the cell holding the centaur, located deep inside the tower.
“Is that entire thing made of hard-light constructs and magical barriers?” Envy asked, slightly impressed. She had more than enough faith in her old rival, but it was still impressive to see. “You saw this coming, didn’t you?”
“Not this exactly, but I like to be prepared for anything. I have specialized cells for each element.” Karna had built the cell to suppress any magical abilities and dimensional powers, which would be required to draw strength from elemental planes. Every single one of her targets would by necessity have to have at least some skill and affinity with spatial, and by extension dimensional, magic to access the other planes. Even if that skill was limited to just the single plane they had accessed and nothing else.
"Hope wishes to come on board," Zuellni reported. No one could teleport on the ship without the spirit's say so. They could try, but they wouldn’t like the results.
“Let her.” Karna gave the permission. Zuellni was slightly tempted to just allow the witch to get mangled by the defenses, but couldn’t, and didn’t want to, go against her master’s wishes.
“Good news and bad news.” Hope stated as soon as she was brought on board. “The good news is that I managed to find out where the target was traveling when leaving this place. She was wounded, so the odds are that she’s still there, being treated by the healers for severe magical poisoning. Here’s the downside. The world we need to travel to is pretty far from both here and your safe zone, and it has an Emissary present.”
“That’s…less than optimal.” Karna tapped the console next to her seat in thought. She didn’t get far before a warning blared on one of the consoles, and a holographic projection of the world they were orbiting suddenly appeared in the middle of the room.
“We’ve got incoming, and the space around the world has been locked down! The demons are back.” Zuellni warned in an almost enthusiastic voice. She wanted to shoot something, and the demons just offered new targets.
The image showed a crack in space and a throng of demons was pouring through that crack. They also saw that the remaining demons on the world below drew away from the world to meet their reinforcements. Among them were three very distinct figures, all of them much taller than normal demons, and in one case extremely bloated. One was clad in dark leather armor and a heavy coat with only a pair of glowing eyes showing from beneath the hood, with locusts spinning around the figure, slipping in and out from under the hood. The second being was a bloated husk of a roughly Balor-looking demon seemingly made of patches of hundreds of other demons. The last one looked like a swarm of butterflies had taken a humanoid shape, while also wearing bright and colorful clothes, making no effort to hide its nature.
Importantly though, all three of the swarm demons were gesturing in their direction judging by the display. “That doesn’t look like friendly and positive kind of pointing us out.” Envy commented.
“Well, didn’t you complain earlier that you had been feeling useless in previous fights? Well, now’s your chance to make up for it. There are plenty of targets for you to kill. Assuming we’re staying around to fight? I know we could run with this tower.” Hope glanced towards Karna.
“And leave the ones below to their deaths?” Valor questioned, once again unwilling to forsake the innocent.
“We don’t owe them anything. Besides, didn’t they all mention that they have reinforcements coming? Eventually.” Envy argued. She wasn’t feeling the whole goody-two-shoes act. She also knew her old rival could go either way depending on mood and influences.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Why do I feel we’ve had this argument before?” Hope asked sarcastically.
“Because we have, and the same reason why we should intervene holds true. Allowing the Inferno to take this world is not a good idea. However, there’s now an additional wrinkle. If the people down there have called for reinforcements, then the Emissary you mentioned earlier has been informed. Even if he hasn’t, the Host should already be aware of what’s going on and will be reacting. We don’t want to be here when the Host shows up. We just want to slow the enemy down before we leave. So, get out there and make a mess, while I’ll make sure we can make a hasty exit, while keeping an eye on any arrivals.” Karna ordered.
She started working on the spatial locking, while outside three Domains popped into existence. Envy dealt decisive blows to the most powerful enemies present, removing the leadership of the enemy, while Hope rained death and destruction on the rank-and-file by taking the idea of wave spells Karna had reminded her of and running with it. Valor in turn took care of the defense, and any retaliation sent their way met an impenetrable barrier of holy power. Zuellni added to the mess by cheerfully firing the tower’s regular weapons at anything that wandered too close.
Despite the damage they took, the swarm demons proved to be the most tenacious enemies of the entire horde. They were not as dangerous to the group offensively, although the one made of butterflies seemed to be a rather competent mage as well, but they seemed to be impossible to kill. They showed the natural swarm ability to adapt to anything thrown their way, and they could easily sacrifice parts of themselves to save what was important, regenerating any lost parts by creating more insects. By the time the group was ready to leave, only the patchwork swarm had been killed for good by the combined efforts of Hope and Envy. Weirdly, that swarm had been the one that had the most familiar method of combat, trying to engage in standard melee, perhaps showing that it was the one that had not completely embraced the swarm-style of combat, unlike the other two.
“Time to go!” Karna messaged the trio as she sensed both reinforcements and the Host approaching. Thanks to her increased rank, she could now better support the senses that came with her powerful soul, so she could sense their approach well before their arrival. This despite the speed at which the immortals of the Host moved.
The trio didn’t hesitate as they quickly got on board before Karna used her own spatial magic to tear apart the power locking down the area. The methods for spatial locking were widely known and practiced, but few people actually knew how to effectively counter them. Partially that was because it took a lot more effort and at least a decent affinity with spatial magic, which was one of the rarer types of affinities. Most mages knew how to chuck a fireball, but few knew how to tear space apart to allow passage between two places. Some of that was because the physics involved with the latter were much harder to understand. It also required thinking outside the box, something most people were not good at.
The tower vanished from orbit, and Zuellni guided them away from the approaching reinforcements, which meant that they’d have to take a bit of a detour if they wanted to reach the world their target had been transported to. “So, are we going after the other one?” Envy asked, grinning wildly after the battle with the demons. She was almost as bad as Zuellni sometimes. Only one of the reasons they got along.
“Yes, I suppose we have to. We’ll have to make our approach a lot more discreet. A quick infiltration ending up with an abduction.” Karna hadn’t forgotten to consider the issue while dealing with the demonic problem.
“Doesn’t seem like a great solution, but if we must.” Valor agreed. He had also deduced this to be the most efficient strategy. At least it beats any plan that involved slaughtering their way to their target.
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“Have I mentioned that I hate aquatic worlds?” Envy snarked while her head was surrounded by a bubble of air, with magical runes filtering oxygen out of the surrounding water.
"Once or twice," Karna replied idly while focusing on the glowing dot on her holographic map. She’d simply assumed her newish Scylla form with hydra-headed purple tentacles instead of legs coming out of her waist.
"In the last five minutes." Valor resignedly added. At this point, he was quite sure Envy kept saying it just because she knew it annoyed him. He was wearing a glowing helmet that took care of his breathing.
“Could be worse. We could be forced into fighting sea monsters while we’re out diving like this.” Hope had simply cast a spell that allowed her to breathe underwater.
“Monsters like that?” Envy asked while she shot an arrow made of Qi from her bow. The ornate bow glowed with magic, and the Qi arrow shot with a speed that even the group had trouble following before striking down a large shark-like creature.
“That hardly counts as a monster.” Hope waved the concern away. “A real sea monster has to be at least the size of a whale.”
“Like that one?” Valor didn’t attack the monster, simply pointing below them in the dark water, where they could see an enormous eel three times the size of a whale.
“Eeeeeh…” Hope gave an uncertain wave with her hand. “So how much further?”
They hadn’t been too happy to find out that their target had escaped to a world entirely covered in water. Only a couple of tiny atolls were on the surface, while their target was definitely on them. Zuellni had tracked the target deep down into one of the underwater cities. "We're in the right spot, but we'll have to go deeper. A lot deeper. Naturally, the city is on the bottom." Karna replied while studying the map.
“So, if the last guy was drawing power from the elemental plane of earth, please tell me this one isn’t doing the same to the plane of water. Because it would suck to fight someone like that under a bloody ocean.” Envy asked hopefully.
“Sorry to disappoint, but my reports told me the target excels with water magic.” Hope crushed that dream rather mercilessly. “In fact, they described her flinging around water magic, and notably blood magic, as if she had limitless power. Which tracks if she’s drawing power from the elemental plane.”
"Oh great. So not just a water mage, but a blood mage as well?" Envy complained. She loved beaches, and she loved little dips in the water, but underwater fighting was miserable. Fighting underwater was much more challenging than fighting on land or air, as water resistance and currents made many things absurdly more difficult.
“Remember to keep your power around you protectively, to make sure she can’t just tear away the blood inside you.” Valor warned, having fought vampires in the past several times. Blood magic could be highly annoying to deal with.
“Ah! We’re about to arrive.” Karna suddenly announced, and was proven right as they rounded another coral formation before laying their eyes on the underwater city below.
The city had a soft and warm orange glow about it, dispelling the deep darkness at the bottom of an ocean. The city fit the surroundings well with most of the buildings being made of coral and blending in with the terrain. Most of the city was completely submerged, but certain sections of it had been lifted on large pillars planted into the bottom of the ocean, and these sections on the pillars were covered in softly glowing power fields that kept the water away. The city as a whole had a very organic and natural feel to it, and it wasn’t a huge city either, hinting at the fact that it probably wasn’t the main city of the empire controlling most of this world.
“How do they keep the sea monsters away? I don’t see too much in the way of defenses.” Envy pointed out.
"They might not have to." Valor provided a potential answer. "As Hope said, we didn't see too many monsters on the way here, and the ones we did see seemed rather passive all things considered. There’s a decent chance that they don’t need defenses against the sea monsters, because the sea monsters are the defense.”
“It seems the city isn’t just for aquatic races.” Hope pointed at the sections on the pillars, as the group hid behind the edge of the cliff. “I can see some kind of shark people, Sahuagin, Nautolans, a handful of Sea Elves, some type of lizard race, and a smattering of weirder species like Scylla like Wrath, but I can’t see inside the domes. No idea if there are any terrestrial races.”
“The elves really do get everywhere. They get adjusted to all living conditions.” Even Valor had to shake his head in exasperation. “In some universes I’ve lived in, they’re a dying species, but here they seem to be everywhere. Usually not in large numbers, but…”
“Zuellni, where’s our target?” Karna decided to focus on the reason they were here.
The spirit appeared next to her master. “The last sighting was in the medical clinic in the central pillar. Incidentally, the domes aren’t really for non-aquatic races. They’re for facilities that work better while not subject to the salty water of the ocean. Or for recreation for people that enjoy getting out of the water for a time.”
“Well shit. How exactly are we supposed to get to our target without attracting the attention of everyone? I have confidence in my stealth skills under normal circumstances, but this is their natural environment and it’s been ages since the last time I lived under the oceans. I’m not going to claim their guards won’t notice me. And no offense Wrath, but stealth is just not your thing. You’re much better at just showing up and throwing your weight around.”
“We don’t actually have to go through the entire city. Now that we know where our target is supposed to be, we can just make a portal to her." Hope didn't stop to wait and formed a glowing magical door between their current spot and the central pillar. She was even considerate enough to add a charm on the doorway to stop the oceanwater from getting through. Not that the people on the other side appreciated that.
“Guard! Protect the royal family!” An obvious warrior type wearing a shiny scale armor shouted while stepping in front of a male Sea Elf wearing a golden crown.
“Well fuck me sideways. You really picked a room to make the portal to, didn’t you?” Envy wasn’t sure if she should be laughing or crying at their luck.