44. Barriers and Preparations

By the time Isaac stepped outside the orange line station, Casimir was flying around the plains, doing loops around the hanging roots, and looked very keen on testing the fire section of the sky.

“Casimir,” Isaac called. The angel spun around in a sharp motion that looked like it used about 70% more energy than it needed to. Isaac gestured at the fields surrounding them. “Well? Can you make the barrier now?”

The angel rolled his eyes. “Yeah yeah. Geez, you don’t need to be such a dick about it!”

Isaac frowned. Maybe he was being a little harsh, and he did feel even more irritable than usual that day. He blamed Fable. Isaac hesitated, opening his mouth to respond, but he stopped when a red glow replaced the usual light that cloaked the angel. It was the same deep red hue that he’d seen briefly during the “pillar incident,” though he hadn’t gotten a good look at it then for obvious reasons.

It began as a soft glow around the angel, then a more concentrated ball of light started to form in the center of Casimir’s palm. At first it was the size of a marble, but it slowly expanded, growing and growing until it was about as large as a basketball. The wind around them picked up, stray gusts swirling towards the center of the light, drawn towards its center like stray asteroids pulled into a black hole.

Casimir turned his head casually, scanning the field. He nodded, apparently satisfied with whatever he’d found. He raised his arm, and in the time it took Isaac to blink, the ball of magic exploded in a flash of light.

A ripple passed through the earth, spiraling out from where the angel stood and rocketing outwards. The grasses at the edge of the plains glowed red, and in the next second, the light shot towards the sky, climbing and climbing until the ends met at the center point, high above where Isaac and Casimir stood in the field, a perfect dome of translucent red now enveloping the area.

Isaac looked around, and he realized he could no longer feel the signature gale of the Old Lands. The plains were almost eerily still, and the upward sections of the sky were blurred, visible only through the tint of red.

The barrier was massive, encompassing the entire plains and extending far beyond what Isaac could see. He was, admittedly, impressed.

[SKILL BARRIER LVL 97]

Isaac blinked, but the words vanished just as quickly as they’d appeared. There was nothing in his vision. Had he imagined it? He furrowed his brow, but before Isaac had a chance to investigate further, Casimir flew up to him with a wide grin.

“See? Told ya I could do it!” He flapped his wings a few times, fluffing the feathers up, and Isaac couldn’t help but smile slightly back.

“Yeah yeah. Thank you,” he said. He swore the perpetual glow around Casimir brightened. The angel flew a little closer.

“Hey! Can I see the participant list for the tournament?”

Isaac raised an eyebrow. “Can I ask why?”

“Eh, you know. Just checking to make sure you weren’t lying about the levels!”

Isaac was about to say he wouldn’t do that, but he probably would, if he was being honest. He couldn’t see any harm in humoring the man (maybe it would even convince the angel not to join), so he grabbed his tablet. Casimir’s barrier skill was flashing across the screen in plain letters, and Isaac stared at it for a bit, trying to match the text with that weird flash he’d seen.

“Hurry hurry!”

Casimir’s voice jolted Isaac out of his trance, and he shook his head, filing his thoughts away for later. One thing at a time. He opened the tablet, wiping away the previous screen, and scrolled around to find the list of participants that Fable had sent him. All the information was laid out in a table that included the participant name, level, species, and location. He held the tablet out to Casimir, who didn’t move.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“I’ll read it from here!” he said cheerily. Well, Isaac supposed if someone had super sight, they might as well use it. He held the device out in one hand, feeling a bit like he was giving a book report or something.

Casimir hummed as his eyes scanned the tablet screen with surprisingly sharp ease. “There’s a lot of demons signed up,” he commented. Isaac spun the device around to check himself, and the angel was right. Demons made up an easy majority of the participants, though there was a fair amount of representation from every realm, excluding the obvious ones like Paradise, the Old Lands, the Graveyard, and the Abyss (thank god on the last one).

Isaac thought back to what Sharil had said about old demon society, how power had once been the sole metric used to gauge one’s position. The amount of demons who’d signed up, then, made sense in that context. Even after so many years under the system, it seemed that old customs and ideas didn’t vanish overnight.

When Isaac glanced up again, Casimir had an unreadable look on his face that looked dangerously close to contemplation. Isaac frowned. “You’re not planning on bothering the demons again, are you?” He sighed in disapproval. “Leave them alone. You scared Olzu shitless the last time you showed up.”

“I wasn’t trying to!”

Isaac snorted. “Doesn’t change the fact that you did.” He shook his head and gestured to the tablet with his free hand. “You done? Satisfied I’m not lying?”

“I mean I guess.” The angel flapped his wings a few times and hovered up a little higher. “Oh well, I’m done now. See you later!” he called, and before Isaac could get another word in, he’d shot off, soaring near the upper edges of the barrier in a wide arc. He circled the area a few times, kicking up winds whenever he passed, before the angel vanished into the subway station, off to harass some other poor realm.

Everything was always so abrupt when Casimir was involved. Isaac shook his head and turned to walk towards the edge of the plains. He didn’t have the time to check the entire perimeter, but at the very least he’d like to make sure that the barrier was working from up close.

Now, Isaac was certainly no expert on weird Underside magic and abilities (he honestly didn’t know if there was a difference between the two), but at least to him, the barrier looked fine. It shimmered slightly, and up close, he could see waves of energy coiling within the red hue like bottled lightning. Isaac carefully pressed his hand against the surface, and it felt smooth and solid. The barrier didn’t react to the touch, and from where he was standing, it appeared to be a consistent thickness throughout.

Satisfied, Isaac stepped back and hit the call button on his tablet, which immediately glowed gold.

“You know, Isaac dear, if you keep calling me like this I might start to think you actually enjoy speaking with me!” Lilith’s voice chirped. Isaac snorted, and he pointedly ignored the statement.

“The venue’s set. Minerva basically told us to do whatever we want as long as we don’t bother the Old Lands creatures, and I got Casimir to put a barrier around the plains so we shouldn’t have to worry about weird weather and stuff.”

“Wonderful! I’ll let Fable know, unless you want to tell them yourself?”

“Absolutely not.”

Lilith just laughed, the noise sounding particularly loud within the stillness of the barrier. Isaac rolled his eyes. “Anything else you need me to do?”

“Hmm, I do believe that’s all. We can handle the rest! You run along home now and, hm, bake yourself a cake.”

Despite decorating cakes for (one) of his jobs, Isaac didn’t actually like cake that much. He didn’t hate it or anything, but it certainly wasn’t his favorite dessert. Whenever he had leftover cake scraps from cutting and carving an order, he usually made cake pops out of them and tossed them in with his cake deliveries. It was a good way to prevent food waste, and it had the added bonus of making his customers think he was more friendly than he really was. The only times he ate the scraps himself was when there was no one else to hoist them off on, and his opinion was usually a simple, “It tastes fine.”

“I don’t eat cake that much. Not the biggest fan,” Isaac replied.

“Oh? But do you actively dislike it?”

“Uh, not really?”

“I see. Just so you know, Isaac dear, if you ever have extras, I, for one, am a fan!”

“Yes, I’m well aware,” Isaac said wryly. He turned, still holding onto the glowing tablet, and began the walk back to the subway station, listening as Lilith continued to speak. Seen through the filter of the barrier, the Old Lands sky looked significantly more homogenous like this, both less chaotic and more controlled.

A sudden thought rose, unbidden, as Isaac drew near the station. He found himself speaking before he could fully process it.

“You know, you don’t have to walk on eggshells around me just because the anniversary’s coming up. It’s been four years. I’m fine.”

The golden glow of the tablet screen flickered and swayed. Lilith just hummed in acknowledgment, and a few seconds of silence passed before the woman spoke again. “Well, take care on the way back! I expect for you to be lively and cheerful once this tournament begins!”

Isaac snorted. He didn’t mention that the woman had clearly ignored his statement.

“I’ll do my best,” he said.