There were two possibilities in Gilliam’s mind, either they would teleport down to the static gate and just raise a strong barrier to try to handle whatever was going on or wait to see what the buildup of energy was. The latter felt very, very dangerous.
It was something magic related, it came from the town more than the area of the portals, meaning it was not a portal activation, which felt like a good thing at the time.
“What is it?” Angela asked, apparently noticing Gilliam’s hesitation.
“I feel a large buildup of energy from over there.” He pointed in the vague direction of where he felt it. “It’s building up slowly...”
He felt the hesitation in his own words, it felt straight-up idiotic to wait for something to happen. The best would be to go for the portal. If whatever was being channelled was large enough, odds were they would hesitate to damage the portals, at least that gamble was better than the alternative.
Gilliam reached out his hands towards his companions. “We god as planned.”
They didn’t seem to hesitate, parts of him felt a bit weird having that level of blind trust placed in him. He would have to make it up to them later.
They came in closer and grabbed his hand, Savia knew the plan already and teleported them down onto the roof of the cubical building. Like last time, as soon as he could move he set up a large barrier dome around the whole building. Though this time he put in a lot of extra energy, just to be safe. As soon as it formed there were impacts along its sides from locals not liking what was going on.
He couldn’t feel the energy in the distance as well as before, probably because of the proximity of his barrier and the portal itself.
As his eyes started working again, he saw that the girls had already taken action, not sure if they could see sooner than him or just went by sound before they could see, but it was nice to see that it was working out.
Disappearing over the edge of the building there was soon sounds of fighting, though it quickly silenced after a few cracking and squelching sounds.
Making his way down, Gilliam went for the door to the portal, taking a look in the direction of the energy buildup before he jumped down. It was still building up, he thought, it was hard to say.
“The energy over there is still building up.” Mentioning it to the others was halfway an attempt to get more input or for someone else to take charge of that situation. He didn’t know what it was and he didn’t want to get blindsided by something random.
The doors were opened and as there was nobody inside, Gilliam started channelling energy into it like before. His companions took up the defence in the door’s opening.
“What is it?” Angela asked as her eyes tried to keep track of the mix of incoming projectiles and the various demons that were hammering on the magical wall.
“I have no idea, it’s been building up for a while. I don’t know if it’s an attack or something else... It’s just slowly building u-”
Gilliam was looking towards his companions as he replied, a steady stream of mana leaving his hand into the surrounding magic circle, he stopped his own words as he saw that all the demons hammering on the barrier was withdrawing. A few straggling imps and dumber-looking individuals seemed to remain but everyone else was running.
Catching a glimpse of a few demons in the distance not falling, but flinging themselves into a prone position with their hands over their heads told Gilliam what he needed to know.
“Get close to me!” Gilliam ordered the two to step in closer to him, he was pleased to see that there was not even a hint of delay.
As soon as they stepped in closer, Gilliam focused on the barrier pocket of his coat, activating the spell circle three times, manifesting three of them in the air in front of him.
In two of them he fed an arbitrary but very high amount of mana, the inner one he left connected to his mana reserves directly. Activating the circles they collapsed into energy and spread around the group.
Before they were able to properly form he felt the energy in the distance spike, having no idea what to expect he pushed the girls down on the floor as he dropped as well. The pulse of energy radiated towards them much faster than Gilliam’s mana-sense could keep up with, it felt like a speeding bullet that just disappeared out of range. Gilliam felt a massive chunk of his mana reserves just disappearing in an instant, it felt like someone punched his mind with spiked brass knuckles. He didn’t even notice the sound of an almost synthesizer-like vibrating and tearing sound as a field of energy passed through the portal building. The insides of the building briefly lit up like someone triggered a camera flash. The following second illuminated the room as the entire top of the structure was torn off and flung away as debris.
Seconds after, he got to his feet quickly followed by Angela and Petal.
Taking a second to look around it was a horrible sight. In the distance, he saw what looked like a lanky twisted Orc with four heavily veined arms and a long slender tail. The only thing that hinted at this not being an Orc was that his skin was scaled like a lizard, and he had a long tail. His eyes glowed with a weird energy, not unlike Petal’s when they glow at their strongest. In a weird sense, he looked like a male variant of Petal’s sub-species crossed by an orc, stretched out a bit more than it should be...
Between the two were only waist-high remnants of buildings. It was like someone had taken a super high-powered laser and just cut everything down, spreading the top halves of everything in a large area. Behind them, the only part of their building still taller than their waist was the little bit protected by Gilliam’s inner barrier.
Now that he had a moment to process it all, it was clear that whatever attack the four-armed demon threw their way took a lot of time to channel, but was extremely devastating. It had eaten up three of Gilliam’s normal barriers, and the only reason the inner one survived was the frightening amount of mana it pulled from his Boundary.
Parts of him were glad he didn’t wait earlier, the speed that this moved at would probably make dodging impossible and... the barriers he had active at the time would just pop and most likely they would die. Not wanting to risk this happening again he had two options.
The first was to attack and take the mage out before they continued with the portal, and the second was to hope that they could activate the portal faster than the mage could attack again.
If channelling another attack took just as long, they could probably leave with the gate before the next spell could be activated. However, the problem was that like most other mages, he could most likely just cast weaker attacks and cast them faster, given his power that could be very dangerous. Since the attack of his cut through at least five buildings and three of his barriers, it was a terrifying thing to meet someone capable of powering through his defences like this.
Before he had decided what to do, the locals seemed to decide for him. The demons that had spread out and hid before the initial attack were now on the way back. There were more demons here looking a bit more like what one could imagine demons being, with more purple and blue hues of skin, more horns and a surprising amount of extra limbs in the forms of arms, tentacles or legs.
Gilliam wanted to Star Lance them, oh how he wanted to, but the size of the explosion was much larger than their distance at the moment and he didn’t want to aim behind him and hope for the best.
In a single movement, Gilliam pointed his hand towards the four-armed demon and activated the Aether Dart pocket. Using his internal mana he activated a powered-up variant of the spell, the spell circle barely blinked into existence before it had already collapsed and started its supersonic journey towards its target.
A four-legged, almost tiger-looking demon happened to be in the way between Gilliam and his opponent, the Aether dart didn’t seem to even react as it pierced through and tore out the backside of it. As the ground behind it was sprayed with gore and innards the four-armed demon had already slapped all his four hands together, forming a magical cone with a sharp end.
The Aether dart impacted with the slanted edge, and through it seemed to tear the whole side into shreds as it dragged itself along the barrier before disappearing through a building wall, the redirection was enough to save him. Spreading his hands wide enough that all four palms were facing Gilliam, the barrier faded and deep purple energy was gathered in his palms and spreading into a central location between them.
Not wanting to wait for that spell to activate, Gilliam sent out another Aether Dart from the pocket. The girls had started taking care of the incoming wave of close combatants, though they had a barrier that was still standing around Gilliam, they seemed to understand that it was best to not have this drained.
The next teal vaguely dart-shaped energy left Gilliam’s hand.
It sped towards its target, specifically the central point of the magic the demon was channelling, if this worked in any way like the magic he was used to it should destabilise.
The demon spread out his hands as the spell came flying, and the Aether dart slammed into what looked like a solid purple barrier. After the light blue energy particles faded it seemed like there was a jellyfish-like head floating around the demon. A shield of sorts based on the interaction only a second ago.
If this worked like the moving barriers he was aware of from modern media, he had two options. Send in something explosive enough that it would ignore smaller shields, or get a different angle on things.
This did give him a thought on the need for delayed spell activations, but a live fight didn’t seem like the time to do this. He needed whatever was fastest. Considering using Savia to teleport to a different angle and attacking him before he could react was also an option, but it was potentially dangerous.
During the moment of hesitation on Gilliam’s part, two things happened. The first was that he heard Angela shouting for him to kill it, and the second was that the demon had decided to not stop his plans. He had different fields of energy in his four hands that he seemed to trigger, perhaps taking inspiration from Gilliam’s last few attacks. They took vague conical shapes as they were launched towards the group at great speed. Gilliam managed to instinctively dodge, although he felt that the coat probably helped a lot. Angela seemed to react properly but the sound of Petal’s voice in pain had his head snap towards her.
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The attack had missed Angela and Gilliam, but it had pierced the barrier around Petal, completely ignored her armour and penetrated through the side of her stomach. She had fallen to one of her knees, still attacking anything within range she was bleeding badly.
Gilliam extended his hand towards the four-armed demon as he activated the Star Lance pocket. A large and complicated spell circle formed in the air, all lines and runes made up of an almost burning and flowing stream of angry fiery energy. He could barely hear Angela’s objection as he started feeding the circle from his internal energy.
“Come in closer!” He ordered his party members as he walked closer to Petal, mainly focusing on the control circle of Aether; it got all the energy it wanted but he only gave the fire circle a fraction of the power it wanted. The demon seemed to realize the significance of this, or perhaps he felt the mana building up at a surprising speed, Gilliam didn’t intend to ask him and proceeded with his plan.
This took a second, a second where the demon seemed a little frantic and had two of its arms shape the same cone from before, as the two others started gathering the same purple energy as before.
As Gilliam’s magic circle was starting to give off a slightly uncomfortable heat, Gilliam activated the lesser Star Lance.
The aiming circle had locked in as the main circle collapsed into an angry, burning sun. The Aether circle collapsed around it as it all pulsed before it disappeared from Gilliam’s presence. The blinding point of light was flying towards its target at a frightening speed. Gilliam used that short second to drag Petal with him as he stepped into the middle of the static gate. They were all within the barrier he was still maintaining as he expanded it to cover the entire teleportation circle.
At the same time, the lesser Star Lance impacted the Demon’s defences.
There was a massive earthquake, a blindingly blinding light and a massive fireball extending at the same time as the shockwave from the explosion started tearing anything apart. The pressure wave slammed into Gilliam’s barrier with enough force to take another sizeable chunk out of his Boundary, he didn’t have that much left at this point but it was brought even lower as the fire waved over them.
It took a few solid seconds before the fire faded, a few seconds that were surprisingly terrifying as he felt the energy drain from his limited reserves. As the fire faded the only thing remaining in the rough area was debris and scorched sand.
“You...“ Angela seemed like she wanted to add more to that statement but stopped herself. Gilliam took two fist-sized Aether crystals out of his ring and drained them.
Both gems shattered into a wave of bright teal particles that swarmed around Gilliam’s body, they entered his body in a matter of a few seconds, and he felt incredibly invigorated as this process completed.
Leaving the barrier as it was, he started channelling energy into the teleportation circle. At the same time, he did his best to focus healing energy into Petal’s wound. It was hard, enough that he didn’t properly hear what Angela said in a less-than-happy tone. Though channelling into two targets at once was not super problematic, given the nature of the unfamiliar static gate and wanting to heal a wound, he had to properly focus to manage both.
Even though he had used the gems to refill his mana, he was feeling the mental pressure of using that much in that short time. But they needed to get out of there, and he refused to stop healing Petal. They needed to get to a point they could somewhat relax. The dust was moving in the wind, and there seemed to be nothing left of the four-armed demon. Only a crater of glassed sand and debris.
The few stragglers that decided to try their luck only met the barrier. Though this tested his focus even more as the barrier was still linked to his mana, it somewhat allowed Gilliam to channel energy into the teleportation circle.
Petal’s wound closed up enough that the blood had stopped flowing and she could get up.
“Finally...” Gilliam let out a sigh of relief as the circle activated, they all gathered in the centre before he activated it.
The familiar flash of light again moved them elsewhere, the air was stuffy, heavy and stale like it had been closed in for quite some time. They didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary, it was like there was nobody there.
The bright light faded, the remaining mana in the arrival circle dimming by the second allowing them to see enough to find the door.
Pushing the door opened it into the bright light of the never-setting sun. It had not been long since they just saw bright lights but in a brief second as their eyes grew more accustomed to the light again, they found themselves in a tropical forest. There were large-leafed plants, palm-like trees and the sound of animals in the distance.
“.... The fuck..?” Gilliam exclaimed his surprise; until now there had only been the sandy desert. But... this was something else.
A simple glance towards Petal had her expression explain that she didn’t have any idea about this either, though she was also surprised she also had a strange mix of wonder in her eyes.
“Let’s get you properly healed first.” Gilliam’s mind came back down from wonder into what needed to be done.
Not waiting for her to agree or try to stop him, he continued healing her until only a light scar remained, his understanding of skin cells and scars didn’t let him heal it perfectly.
“This is good, my Lord. I feel fine.” She had to somewhat refocus him on the fact that she was now fine. And though this could be a nice moment it was all brought to ruin as Angela slapped Gilliam in the back of the head.
Given her strength this hurt a surprising amount, her hands were made of callouses so it wasn’t like the soft and gentle hand of a healer. The slap had Savia fly out of his hair and take a hovering position not far from them.
“Mother fucking ow!” Gilliam shouted back in a slight overdramatization to further the point into a question.
“You deserved that! The hell were you thinking sending that massive thing off with us that close?” She was visibly upset, and though Gilliam was the cause, he couldn’t exactly fault her.
“Well... I didn’t...” He had to admit. Thinking through the scene as soon as it happened, as soon as he saw Petal hurt in battle he just snapped. The only thing on his mind was to erase the other demon from existence. “I did hold back a lot, though.”
His excuse fell on deaf ears, but he did realize something through this.
He was extremely underprepared for this mission, at least mentally. He had spent that much time playing with the fancy sword, fighting and training with them... He had been thinking of the wrong thing; he was a mage, and he should fight like one.
Banking everything on his superior automatic skill within magic, he tried too hard to weigh up his weaknesses and forgot to further his strengths.
At the same time, he was trying his best to not attack or kill anyone, after all; “they might be friendly”...
That mindset would get you attacked first and... The four-armed demon-mage showed him that Gilliam was not the only powerhouse, and that was without considering the show of experience difference between the two.
This mental process went through as Angela was still yelling at him, Petal tried to calm her down but fell short.
They were here with a mission, what was all that steeling of the mind self-pep hero-talk he had a while back if he’s not going to follow through? Fuck with being the hero, if anything the training with Kintas showed him that he was not here to fight, spar or have fun, he was here to win.
The only proper fight they needed was the one with the Lord at the end, as that needed to be recognized as per their culture. Everything else was just to win.
“Are you even listening to me?!” Angela shouted at him, getting his attention but only confirming that she knew he wasn’t exactly there for her rant.
“No, but I think I got the gist. I have been naive, I have been thinking of this like some weird game, somewhere to flaunt me being the cool super mage. I was not properly mentally prepared for Petal to get hurt... in a war... in an invasion... How’s that for moronic.”
He didn’t look like he was in panic or any form of woe-is-me mode. It was more like finally understanding something.
“I think it’s going to be worse here, but I have realised that I stopped thinking properly like a mage a long time ago. I was focusing too much on the cool and fun things instead of considering proper tactics. Let’s break here, we need to eat something and I need to test something.”
Gilliam walked to the side of the gate building, and a quick cursory check around showed that seemed fine. Savia having been flying around calmly also hinted to it being relatively safe.
“What, stop, wait!” Angela seemed like she wanted to keep the talk going in the rant, but as he started walking and changing the subject she seemed to let it go.
The group sat down in the jungle behind the gate building as Gilliam took some food out of the ring, he also produced some cups that he magically filled with water. No need to dip into their reserves before it’s needed.
“What are you going to test?” Petal asked in a much more careful tone than Angela had only a few seconds ago as she scooted in close enough to lean against Gilliam.
“I need to fight like a mage, but you fight in melee, I have some ideas to make this work for all of us.” Without actually explaining his idea, he manifested a spell circle in the air, filling it with the runes of a familiar spell; Aether, Dart, Speed, Power and Target. The Aether Dart spell. But he removed the Target rune and added a Triangle sub-circle that he filled with Target, Avoid and Homing.