Chrysalis

Chapter 1036: Scent of the Beast

After further hours of roaming back and forth, trying to get a sniff of our prey whilst fending off the endless tide of demons, we finally get another hint.

It's Al who manages to catch a glimpse, and he lets us know with his usual even demeanour.

[I found something,] he says.

[Oh yeah? Like what?]

[I believe I have detected a trace of almost pure ash mana. It is… unusual.]

[Get at the point, man, enough of your waffling!]

[What are… waffles?]

[Argh! Damn your endless curiosity! What is so unusual about this ash mana?]

He glares at me, which is quite the intimidating glare, I might add, and I know that the question of breakfast foods has only been delayed, not resolved. Nevertheless, he continues.

[Its purity.]

I swear to gandalf, I'm about to flatten this damn eyeball into a pancake. Perhaps he senses my rising ire, because he elaborates without further prompting.

[I suspect it has come from Pyrixan. Only she, that I'm aware of, could manifest such a powerful and concentrated form of that mana.]

[Goody.]

Is it nice to know we got a hint of our enemies? Yes, of course, but I'd rather it didn't come in the form of manifested destruction in the form of concentrated ash mana.

[Where are they?] I sigh.

[I found the trail at the edge of my awareness. Several kilometres that way.]

[Holy moly, you can sense that far?]

[I can.]

[Impressive stuff. Well, let's get a bit closer and see if you can sniff out anything as we go.]

[Agreed…. Now, waffles.]

[Oh for -... fine.]

We begin a more restrained hike in the indicated direction as I explain to the giant eyeball of flame about the joys of breakfast baking. I've been told that waffles are great with syrup; personally, I never had the chance to try it, but these are the little details Al is all too happy to gobble up.

After ten minutes of careful travel, Al pipes up again.

[It's them.]

After all the running around, it's almost a shock to hear him say it so casually.

[What? Are you sure?]

The eyeball flares with intensity.

[I am.]

[Well… that's good news! We finally caught up to them! How about that, gang!]

Tiny gives me an eager thumbs up, Crinis flops a limp tentacle and Invidia simply flutters his wings as he holds his little body aloft, glaring into the distance. That serves as a timely reminder that we aren't in peak shape. Tiny might be eager to battle, but he's been healed dozens of times over the last few days and isn't exactly fresh in terms of stamina. None of us have properly rested for three days, which isn't the worst thing for us to deal with, but we've been more or less constantly fighting for that time.

To top that off, we're almost certainly walking into a trap.

I mean, after dragging me all this way down into the bowels of the third, away from my Colony, it had better be a trap. If they went to all this effort just to inconvenience me, that'd be annoying as heck. I fully expect, nay, demand a trap be sprung when I go to fight them.

[Hey, Al, I just had a thought, is it a trap, if you know it's a trap?]

He stares at me.

[I… am unsure what you mean.]

[I mean, is the element of surprise an essential component of a trap, or is it a trap regardless?]

Al just looks confused, so I let the matter drop.

We've been doing our best to restrain our mana signatures, Al and I sharing the burden of handling Tiny's since the big ape can't do it for himself. As we draw closer and closer to the spot Al has detected our fearsome trio, we redouble those efforts.

Not that it's hard to spot us if someone wanted to. Amongst the seething ocean of demons, we stick out like a sore thumb. I'm huge, for one, and we're covered in a moving purple dome of energy that flattens everything around us.

Could I bring down the gravity domain in order to make us less conspicuous? Yes, yes I could.

Will I?

There is no way in heck I'm bringing that thing down. We'd be swept away in a tidal wave of nibbling demon larvae. No way, no how.

We creep forward until we crest a ridge of stone, and there, below us, lies a basin filled with dense, burning hot mana, with thick clouds of ash and smoke curling through it like a malevolent snake.

Even the larvae don't seem to want a part of that basin, since it's one of the precious few places the ankle biters don't appear to spawn.

[M-master,] Crinis wheezes. [I can sense the enemy….]

[You mean those three gigantic demons in the pit? Yeah, I can see them.]

[N-no, not them.]

[We are surrounded. Interesting.]

I look behind and I can't see anything except the seething tides of monsters. Al and Crinis have managed to spot something, though.

[Surrounded by what? I mean, other than the obvious….]

[There are strong demons hidden beneath the larvae, thousands of them, all around us.]

[Oh, thank goodness.]

For a second there, when I saw the three big demons down in the basin, I'd feared the worst. Thankfully, they didn't let me down. The trap is a bit simple, a little basic overall, but hey, kudos to those demons for being willing to hide beneath the nasty little biters.

[Alright then, we see them, they see us, I assume, it's time to get down there and get to business. Tiny? You are not allowed to start fighting until I tell you, alright?]

He looks disappointed but nods.

[You do realise these monsters would rip you in half without blinking, right? They're two tiers more evolved than you.]

He shrugs.

[Whenever I can't decide if you're brave or stupid, I talk to you and the answer becomes crystal clear. Let's go.]