135 - Battlefield

Elric and Gio were camped out on a dune, a spread of sand within the demon territory of Oark. Gio insisted that the demons had cast an enchantment on the area to obscure their whereabouts so they couldn’t be tracked. Perhaps they had chanced on a rift here and gone to another realm. He wanted Elric to figure out if they did and where they went.

Elric felt the arcane imbalance in the atmosphere, but it could be the residue of a conflict or a powerful spell gone wrong. It didn’t necessarily have to be a rift.

Nevertheless, Gio insisted on staying camped here, though Elric knew that it exposed them to a lot more danger. At this point, the demons knew that two powerful humans had invaded their realm and killed a bunch of their kind. They knew they were hunting down even more, and though demons did not always treat themselves well, they often banded together against any other species. So at this point, the Demon Lords might be arranging an army to get rid of the two interlopers.

Gio was the most powerful Archmage they had, but even he would struggle facing up to an entire army of high-ranking Overlords and Demon Lords. And the worst part was how difficult it was to tell time in the demonic realm, with their permanently reddened sky. There was probably some way the demons did it, and Gio said he was simply counting every second that passed by, but Elric thought he might just be messing with him. They truly did not know how long they’d been here, though they had a rough estimate, and he was getting nervous the longer they stayed. Yet Gio refused to budge.

Right now, he was sitting on the sand, sunbathing, he said. Never mind that there was no sun here. It was hot as hell, but the heat was baked into the air itself without a discernible source. In fact, the sand should be scorching him right now, especially as he’d taken off his robe and his shirt so his naked skin sizzled on the surface.

Yet, he made not a single sound of discomfort. He even made sand angels at one point, mushrooming around him. Then after some time, he created a sand throne, sat on it, and watched the horizon where several castles were propped up.

It was as if he was daring the demons to come get him. He had been fighting them since they got here, and he still wasn’t tired of it. The man was clearly insane, which would be his business except that Elric was here stuck with him.

Elric wondered if he should call out of this mission. Archmages couldn’t really deny an assignment, but with Gio, he might be able to manage it. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had put in a call-out request with the other man. On the contrary, Gio had triggered the highest number of call-outs in the entire ascendant world, so much that there was likely a permanent addition to his file that read, “Doesn’t work well with others.”

So it was probably expected for Elric to throw in the towel by now and request an end to the craziness. No one could blame him for passing on the assignment to a lower-ranked mage, or simply taking off and explaining his reason in front of the council.

But Elric didn’t do that for two reasons. One, he didn’t want to subject anyone else, particularly his juniors, to working with Gio. Elric could barely manage him. Gio might put a weaker mage in a coma.

And the second reason...

Well, that one was rather complicated. He supposed the only way he could summarize it was that he did not feel it was safe enough to leave Gio to someone else.

Over the few weeks they had worked together, Elric was certain of one thing. Gio was reckless. Elric had always known that, but he was starting to get to the root of the man’s recklessness. It was more than just arrogance. Gio was powerful, but he was so insulated and furthermore bored with his power that he threw himself headfirst into danger as though daring it to take him out of his misery.

And though Elric might be wrong here–in fact, he was almost certain he was wrong- he thought that some of Gio’s outlandish tendencies were intentionally self-destructive, or at least intentionally self-harming in nature. He couldn’t begin to opine on the reason that was. It could be that his insanity was worse than what they thought or that there was something else deeper than Elric cared to dive into.

But something about this current realization kept Elric by his side, at least for this mission.

Just like a softhearted idiot with a hero complex.

His father had called him that once. Not his real father, but the one holed up in the Earthbinder castle, meditating for hours on end. He had told Elric worse things, but that was the one phrase that stuck the most, because that was the truest insult he’d ever given.

The mind healer, whom Elric began visiting occasionally for the nightmares, had also said something similar, but there wasn’t much he could do about it now. It was just a bit mind-boggling that he found himself in this situation. If anyone had told him that he would feel sympathy for Gio Li of all people, he would have called them a liar and then laughed in their face.

“You keep staring at me, Elric,” Gio spoke up, twirling grains of sand in the air, fashioning an hourglass. “I’m beginning to think you’re falling in love with me, in which case I should warn you, I’m a terrible lover.”

Elric didn’t dignify that with a response. “We should leave,” he said instead. "Continue our journey or go back to the human realm and regroup."

“Why when the fun’s just getting started?”

“Gio, I already told you there’s nothing here. Even if there was a rift, I won't be able to figure out where they've gone. Our staying camped for this long is attracting the wrong type of attention, and pretty soon, they’re going to come for us.”

“Will they?” Gio grinned, that crazed glint in his eye. “I suppose they have no choice.”

Elric sighed. “Gio…”

“What do you suppose is better, continuously hunting a moving prey, or waiting for the prey to come to us?”

Elric raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“Demons are bloodthirsty,” he said. “They are also greedy and arrogant, and incapable of passing up an opportunity to slake their bloodlust, especially on someone they already have malicious feelings towards. The ones we hunt will want revenge. We present an opportunity for them to have their revenge. The others may not know what we’re doing here, but we're human, so we're good enough prey. Eventually they’ll organize enough demons, or at least the proper amount they think can take us, and our prey will come to us. We just need to give them time.”

Elric’s jaw nearly dropped. That was his plan? He wanted the demons to ambush them?

“And this isn’t some hare-brained excuse you’ve concocted to justify your self-destructive tendencies,” Elric asked before he could stop himself.

“You think I have self-destructive tendencies?” Gio asked.

“Obviously. Why else would you make us a target other than to slake your bloodlust and hope that maybe, just maybe, you meet a demon actually capable of harming you?”

Gio turned to stare at Elric for a long moment.

Elric awaited his anger. He knew he had overstepped, assuming things about Gio's character, throwing it in his face. He was no mind healer or scientist. He knew nothing about the inner workings of a man’s soul, and he and Gio were not even friends, so it was presumptuous of him to assume that he could tell Gio about himself.

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But Gio didn’t look angry. Instead, he looked contemplative.

“How’s that cousin of yours doing?”

Elric tried not to react with displeasure at the fact that Gio was speaking about Arielle again. “She’s fine. And you’re changing the subject.”

“I think I’m on topic actually,” he said. “Arielle, right? That’s her name. Or something like that. She should be on break from the academy, correct?”

“That’s correct,” he said.

“Good to know.” He leaned back and closed his eyes, going back to his sunbathing. Elric was tempted to kick Gio’s sand sculpture out of pure frustration, or simply leave him to his own destruction, but he didn’t. Instead, he evaluated the environment again, trying to see if there was something there to even justify Gio’s suspicion.

However, he was soon interrupted by an encroaching wash of darkness, barricading the red sky, turning the air into shadow.

“Gio,” Elric warned. It was certainly an Overlord’s doing, an Overlord who wanted them to know he was coming. He wanted them to be afraid.

Elric could taste the power in the air, the approaching menace, like a swiftly growing storm. This was far stronger than the one that had attacked him on Earth.

The shadow became bodies of winged, red demons. Behind them were the Overlords, not just one, but at least ten, arranged in a looped pentagram. None of them looked like the Overlords Vittoria had described, but it didn't matter. They led a small army of demons who swarmed them.

Anger and exhaustion warred within him.

“I told you so,” he said resentfully.

“Finally.” Gio looked happy. He got to his feet. “Here they come.”

Elric immediately began setting his parameters. With this many Overlords, it would be difficult to maintain control of the domain and keep the environment from entrapping them or drawing them into a pocket dimension, but he would try his very best to forego that.

Gio charged into the skirmish, hot and heavy with [Black Sermon]. It was a spell that turned one’s infirmities or sins against them. A copy of each demon formed out of light and leaped at them, the perfect counter for each attack, turning their magic into their undoing

Then when the Overlords tried to shift the environment, Gio activated [Saint’s Domain], a golden glyph appearing underneath his feet, fanning out far and wide, trapping the demons and holding their world steady.

Gio also had the ability to pull people into pocket dimensions, but it seemed he was using the ability right now to cancel out the Overlords’. Incredible.

He'd activated two high-level, high-complexity, Archmage-tier spells one after another, and it did not seem to tire him out.

He also got physical, leaping at them with a mad grin, attacking with his bare hands, and daggers of light that appeared whenever he needed them.

“In the name of Fabius!” One of the demons screamed and arranged the hailstorm with them at the center. Elric managed to react in time, pushing his boundary to deflect most of it and sectioning off the battlefield so that their onslaught was restricted in stages. Gio’s domain spell wasn’t enough to endure the combined battering of so many Overlords, so Elric had to strengthen it using his sectioning and barrier spell, protecting Gio and himself as well.

Still, he wouldn’t be able to hold them back for long. Not that Gio seemed to want him to hold back.

When Elric put a barrier in front of him to absorb the impact of a lightning bolt, Gio phased through it impatiently, using a technique that Elric himself didn’t understand well to rip the lightning into different color spectrums, essentially breaking it down and making it fade. After Gio stabbedd one demon, they became three, and one was an ambush from behind with a stained needle, not unlike the one that had pricked Elric.

“Gio!” he yelled, but Gio simply held out a hand and blasted the demons back.

The terrain became fiery on one side with ice on another, using paradox and broken reality to stretch the limits of Gio’s magic.

Yet Gio did not look bothered. Instead, he looked even happier.

Elric, on the other hand, wasn’t having a fun time. He created a sand golem to defend himself against the demons, even as the Overlords continuously fought his control, testing his ability to protect Gio and himself. The snarling horned demons were also strong, not behemoth-strong, but they were far more intelligent and adaptable, which made them challenging in other ways.

It was terrible, especially given most of his energy went to battling for control of the space, shifting and balancing magical leylines while Gio tore through the battlefield like a vengeful nightmare. He was making quick work of most of the goons, but that didn’t mean that it would always stay like that. After all, as resilient as Gio was, only half the Overlords had been harmed so far, and only to their first deaths. There were many more to go.

And just when she thought it couldn’t get worse, it happened.

A new energy appeared, that of a Demon Lord.

It was stronger than the Overlord, the pull of his power making the earth shake. The red of the sky darkened into night. A dark chuckle echoed in the atmosphere.

They didn’t see him at first, but they felt him all around, establishing command of the zone.

From bad to worse, Elric thought, heart pounding in his chest.

The demon Lord appeared in the middle of the chaotic field, skin red, tall and lean, with two heavy horns on his head. What set him apart from the rest was that his eyes were not completely black. They were multicolored, like a rainbow, deceptively beautiful. He also wore a long shadowy robe, made clearly of stripped-down souls.

They fed his power, making him bloated with it.

It was sickening. Elric's stomach lurched.

He also acknowledged what he was facing, the consequence of his earlier inaction, refusing to leave when he knew better.

He could die here. They were vastly outnumbered, and he could die, and it was all Gio’s fault.

“Arrogant humans,” the Demon Lord declared. “You will die in my name. Your souls will make wonderful additions to my collection.”

Gio smiled back. “And your head will make a wonderful addition to mine."

But before Gio could do much more than move, something even more incredible happened. So remarkable was it that Elric thought it was a dream.

A flat circle appeared in the air, right above the Demon Lord's head, and a dragon flew out of it.

A real-life breathing dragon, a large, massive beast that interrupted several attacks with its sheer mass, leading to a shocked silence from onlookers.

They all watched in awe as it hung there, its powerful flapping sending gusts of wind that kicked up the sand in their face. A grumble sounded from its chest. It turned its great head from side to side.

The demon goons didn't attack the dragon because even they knew the great thing would be too much for them. The dragon was above level 60,000; there was not much hope of piercing its body even with the flurry of attacks they sent at it.

The dragon merely ignored them.

It instead turned its attention on the main Demon Lord who stared at the dragon as though watching a ghost.

The dragon opened its mouth, its eyes glowing white as it exhaled a blazing white flame.

Elric's jaw loosened. Even Gio paused from his madness to acknowledge the phenomenon that just occurred.

The white flame was so mythical that few people believed it even existed. Only ancient dragons could use it, and even then it was rare to see it utilized. They called it the flame of righteous judgment, a flame that could never be doused. No matter what magic one tried or the deity one prayed to, there would be no mercy. The fire wouldn’t go out.

And it was so horrifically painful.

As could be judged from the way the demon screamed.

Elric had never quite heard a scream like that. It was agonizing, gut-wrenching. It was not just a scream of death. It was a scream of endless judgement, relentless torture. As much as he hated demons, it was not a sound he ever wanted to hear in his life, and it burned for so long until, in between harsh breaths and screams of agony, the demon raised a hand in the air and closed his fist.

In a second, he exploded in a flash of darkness.

Elric knew what that was. Tactical self-detonation. Some demons had the power to simply end their existence, or activate what they called a True Death, but it took a lot to push them to that level.

That was a testament to just how painful the dragon's punishment was.

The demon had done it to escape the pain, to end its suffering rather than continue an endless death cycle.

The dragon kept going, scorching the hordes, merciless to their screams until he finally pulled back.

Then, it looked at Elric and Gio.

They stiffened.

They did nothing, said nothing. Even Gio wasn’t suicidal enough to face off a great dragon.

The divine beast sniffed the air a few times in Elric’s direction, then once it was satisfied, it disappeared.

It was so sudden and anticlimactic that Elric had difficulty wrapping his head around it.

It seemed Gio did too.

Gio and Elric stared at each other. The same question echoed in their gazes.

What the hell just happened?