Our journey back to somewhat friendly civilization was not a comfortable one.

Considering the value of the information we had acquired, Glaustro was convinced that someone would try to track us. As such, he persisted in his control of the snake construct.

He couldn’t keep it up indefinitely, though, nor could we actually go the whole way without surfacing for air. Some of the demons had air magic, true, and Glaustro was happily burning through mana crystals. But neither situation was sustainable for too long.

So, we spent our nights inside the snake, with its head poking out of the sand. The open jaws looked like a cave.

Of course, the fact that we were out of the wind was a vast improvement over the previous mode of travel. Not having sand constantly blowing in our faces had improved the demons’ mood considerably.

Mia, though? My poor companion’s food intake was steadily declining as we stayed cooped up underground inside the construct. We weren’t even allowed to stretch our feet outside at night. If the jinn that attacked our city had left enough of a trail for us to track him back to the tree, we would almost certainly produce traces our enemies could spot.

Bronwynn did explain, when I pressed him on the subject, that the artifact Glaustro had used to track the jinn was built to detect souls and the energy they emitted. Demons were experts in these matters, so we had a pair of mages scrubbing our traces as we travelled.

Still, with all the unexpected abilities the jinn had shown off already, no one knew exactly what they were capable of. Hence the high alert and maximum, snake-bound security. Glaustro’s caution made sense, really, even though I’m sure Mia thought it was excessive.

I tried my best to distract her. Bronwynn joined the effort once he realized what the problem was. Still, things grew stale rather quickly. There was only so much conversation and magical research you could force on someone before they grew sick of it.

I wasn’t exactly at the height of my wellbeing, either.

While most of my claustrophobia had fled, a mere temporary side effect of battle stress, some of it lingered. The more days that stretched by, full of bland food, cramped quarters, and demons who tended to quarrel when bored, I was hitting a hard limit as well.

When Glaustro announced one morning that we would arrive at our destination a few hours after breakfast, the relief was as strong as it was universal.

Even the commander seemed more relaxed, so much so that he let the construct travel aboveground. We were still in cramped quarters, and he was still burning mana so he could order the snake back underground instantly if needed. But he did cast an odd little transmutation spell that transformed some of the snake’s sides into glass.

This gave us an amazing view of… well, boilerplate desert scenery. Still, after days of nothing but rock and the same old familiar faces, it was a significant step up.

Mia took this as a sign that her tribulations would soon be over, which immediately improved her mood.

After witnessing such variety in the first two cities on Lagyel, I had to admit I was anxiously awaiting this new one. After all, this was the city where the Legion of Torment had established its headquarters for this world. I had serious doubts it would beat the tree we were forced to flee, but compared to the copy-paste approach of Berlis, my time on this new world had been pretty rewarding so far in terms of life experiences.

Thankfully, I wasn’t disappointed.

The first glance I got of the city was a glittering jewel on the horizon. It glimmered and sparkled under the unrelenting desert sky, but I struggled to make out any detail that would explain why.

Then I spotted the familiar sheen and spherical shape, and I was catapulted back in time.

It was in the city of Flaurmere on Berlis that I saw my first spatial barrier. The shield had stretched over the settlement like a coruscating pearl, shimmering in every color of the rainbow. I could barely see through it, just enough to make out the humans patrolling the walls, glaring back at us with equal parts terror and defiance.

This new city was definitely enveloped in a spatial barrier. However, unlike the rough construct deployed by the people of Berlis, this was a refined, stately ward. The glimmering colors were not opaque. They were accents, beautifying the city’s sky. You could see right through the barrier if you so desired.

I did desire to see through the barrier, because the city it protected was beautiful.

The entire thing was constructed entirely out of some gleaming crystal, in line with the apparent tradition of Lagyel. But what really set the city apart was the fantastical plant life. Red vines wound around the streets and buildings. As we got closer, I spotted the same vines adorning more decorative elements like statues and fountains.

The vines might have been an eyesore, a mere nuisance to get rid of posthaste. They would have been, were it not for the large, heavy flowers that draped off them. Blue, red, yellow, white, and green flowers of every imaginable shade refracted the light of the sun, washing the city in their colors.

Because of course the creepy red vines would produce crystalline flowers of astonishing beauty.

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Just as important for the city’s atmosphere was the water.

The city was built on one of the few areas of actual rocky land, a relatively tall hill. Buildings covered the top and sprawled down the sides, almost reaching the sands below. This layout had allowed the city’s builders to craft a series of descending fountains and waterways, conducting a constant stream of the life-giving liquid down the hill’s slopes to pool in a wide moat. The water sprayed clouds of mist, which caught the colored rays of sunlight from the flowers and added an enchanting touch to the whole ambience.

Frankly, I couldn’t wait to walk the city’s streets. Just admiring it from a distance was doing wonders for my mental health. Even Mia had settled down to gaze at it with unblinking eyes.

Once we were close enough to pick out all these details, Glaustro briefly paused our progress, breaking into a low chant. Runes swirled out of him and spun around his hands. He clapped his hands then spread them wide, and a hole opened in reality itself.

A small, bird-like creature crawled from the hole.

I didn’t get to observe it closely, because it immediately threw itself into Glaustro’s waiting arms, extracting a bounty in petting as the demon patiently whispered to it in a surprisingly soft voice.

When he was done, he opened his arms, forcing the bird to flutter away from him with a protesting chirp. Then it took off towards the city, faster than my eyes could track it.

That done, Glaustro got us moving again. Another hour brought us within a few feet of the barrier. I expected our commander to stop and order us to assemble so we could be admitted inside, but he did no such thing. He simply drove straight through it.

Passing through the barrier was one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life.

It felt like I was stretched in multiple directions all at once, each miniscule piece of me thrown to the furthest reaches of the universe before I slammed back together again on the other side of the crystalline dome.

I was left panting and more than a little shaken, but at least I had an answer to something that was bothering me: how were they maintaining the barrier, spatial magic or not, in the face of the sandstorms?

The solution turned out to be surprisingly simple. Namely, they never let the grains of sand touch the spellwork to begin with.

The theory behind such a thing was so mind-boggling, I couldn’t even begin to comprehend it, but I think I barely grasped the basic principle. The barrier erected a vast distance of empty space between itself and the outside world, all contained within less than an inch of its surface. Without the controller’s permission, no invader could hope to approach the true barrier at all.

It was an immensely impressive showing of all the advanced tricks demons were capable of when it came to magic, but I mostly appreciated how it kept the city blessedly sand-free.

The barrier might have also been mitigating the heat issues related to desert-living. When the stone snake finally melted away, depositing us gently on the city’s street, the air was pleasantly cool and even edging towards chilly.

“Brother!” The happy exclamation immediately drew my eyes towards an approaching demon, who I was shocked to recognize as Graighast. “I got your message. I must say I was surprised to have you contact me this soon.”

Graighast sounded so sincerely happy, I felt kind of bad to see the brief grimace flit over Glaustro’s face, but my commander smoothed his expression into a small smile quickly enough.

“And I thank you for getting here so quickly. We had a bit of a… situation.”

At that, the somberness I associated with Graighast reappeared. His keen gaze swept over us. “I see that. Unless I’m mistaken, you’re missing a good many of your soldiers. What happened?”

“I would rather not repeat this story multiple times, or in public.” Glaustro looked around, frowning. There weren’t a ton of demons milling about, but our flashy entrance had drawn some attention. “I know this might be a bit of an ask, especially with how recent your promotion is, but I need you to get us a meeting with Lieutenant General Crewe. I promise it’ll be worth your time.”

Graighast blinked, but he was quick to agree. “Anything you need, brother. You know this. Is it really so serious, though?”

Glaustro gave the man a pointed look, then glanced around again. “Just trust me.”

“I do.” Graighast nodded, then smiled. “Come on. I know a good restaurant close to the headquarters where we can relax while we wait for him to see us. I promise it won’t take long, either. If you’re this serious about things, I know he’ll want to see you.”

“Just a second, but that sounds good.” Glaustro turned to look at all of us. “For now, you are dismissed. You can spend your time at your leisure. I trust you not to get into undue trouble. I’ll notify you if I need you, or if I manage to get us shared accommodations, but… this is the current capital of our operations here. I doubt I’ll be able to claim a compound.”

“Nonsense, we’ll do something about this,” Graighast rushed to reassure him. “We’ll sort it out.”

Glaustro returned his brother’s smile, but I knew the commander well enough to see his expression was strained.

As the two strolled away together, I stared after them thoughtfully. The first time I met Glaustro, he was on rather antagonistic terms with his brother. There was tension between them on account of Graighast’s promotion ahead of Glaustro, especially since the latter was left to languish because, in his own words, he ‘refused to suck up’ to the right people.

I couldn’t know what they had done or discussed, but when I met them in the Abyss after my revival, their relationship seemed much better. Seeing them together now, though, I could tell some of those old issues were surfacing again.

Still…

I suppose there’s no avoiding some relationships, no matter how strained.

I had a feeling the brothers wouldn’t allow things to get as bad as they were before. Surely, in a place as surprisingly dangerous as Lagyel, there were more important things to worry about.

I forced my attention away from the brothers. It wasn’t like I could afford the time or energy to worry about my commander’s family dynamic.

“Come on, let’s go find something to eat,” Mia demanded, gripping my wrist and dragging me off. To my surprise and amusement, not only had she caught Bronwynn with her other hand, but the demon was letting her manhandle him with only token protest.

They had grown much closer over the last few days of travelling together. What began as shared space because they were both friends with me had grown into a quiet sort of friendship. They were both content to just hang out, without feeling the need to chatter much, if at all. It was kind of cute, to be honest, watching them be grumps together.

At least, until they eventually teamed up on me.

But even as I let them drag me into relaxing with them, I couldn’t help feeling tense. Anxiety hummed constantly in the back of my mind. We had discovered a major base of jinn operations, and the legion leadership wasn’t likely to ignore such a thing, even at the best of times.

Since the discovery was the result of an investigation into an attack on one of their cities?

Yeah, there would be hell to pay. Pun intended.

As the discoverer of the city, Glaustro would probably be dragged into it. And as his unit, where he went, we would follow.

In other words, over the course of however long the legion’s leaders saw fit to let us rest, I was going to have to find some way to improve my combat potential. Significantly.

Otherwise, I was going to get squished when the titans came out to play.