章 1: Prologue
A black flame over the buildings. Walking corpses all around. An endless darkness that stretches beyond the naked eye's range. And three simple words, coming from there:
"Come to me."
Fides's light krest and Loikrer's healing krest weren't working here. Our robes weren't damaged, but since they gave us extra stamina and once in a while, sight, we had to protect it at all costs. These corpses and the few monster hordes were posing to be a nuisance. Continuously spewing miasma and shooting medium-value dark Solas from their mouths and palms were definitely something we were not used to facing, but with my shield we could just sit around and defend against them. The miasma was trying to take hold of our consciousness and thoughts; trying to make us vulnerable for an easy takeover, so it'd be best if we could leave as early as possible. But we had to find her. She's an integral part of my life and this plan. Besides, we cannot open the △△△△ without her. Just those thoughts would not let me be at peace.
I cast a reciprocal barrier over the three of us, and we kept moving towards that void.
"Hey Krael," I called out in my mind.
No answer.
"Oi girly, you there or not?"
"Ah…hello. What's up," she answered, in a tone suggesting she'd fallen asleep. It wasn't a daily occurrence, but every once in a while she would dose off. I wouldn't say anything to her though; she'd anyway be overworking herself, so dozing off sometimes isn't a bad thing to me.
"Are you sure this is the right path?"
"It is…probably."
I sighed. We did not have any other option anyway but to move on.
"However," she continued, "what can also be suspected is the fact that she's not here. My reasoning is based over the type of environment in here, contrast to how she is. A hyperactive sunshine-like lady could not survive in a place like this. She would definitely not like this type of environment." Which was pretty much true. Given her nature, she would despise places like these because she cannot not remove the darkness from places as these and hence would like to completely either obliterate them, or seal them. Sighing, we continued forward.
The next step I took was when all hell broke loose. The moment I placed my foot on the ground, all the solas stopped coming. None of them moved. It was an eerie feeling. Suddenly, the corpses started running into each other and began melting. The monsters started eating each other and looked like they were gaining weight, as well as getting bigger. It looked....gross. Meanwhile, a ball the volume of a lake, of dark light and miasma - a huge Solas - was forming above them. The situation wasn't good; we could go down without any success.
"Fides! Loikrer! Stay close to me!" I yelled at them. The two huddled towards me, and I started double incantations i.e., casting two spells at once; one two cast a triple barrier and the other one to launch a counter explosion. This was much easier before, but having not done this for so long it made me a little nauseated. If only she'd been with me…
"No, I can't let myself be consumed," I thought to myself. The monsters had almost finished combining and so were the corpses. What could become worse was the fact that both of them combined to become an unnatural calamity for everyone; one which could escape these Jaws of Hades and wreak havoc not just on the surface world, but also in the other worlds.
A solas was fired at extreme intensity.
"KRAEL!"
"On it," she replied calmly.
My body started invigorating and my robe's color changed from a deep purple to an off-white to give me an extra strength boost. Using Krael's ability, I could freely call forth from any dimension a weapon of mine, and as per requirement, instantaneously convert it to a weapon of my choice. I had to call out a keyword, the dimension cutter:
"Cosmopolitan redundancy."
Which cut open the space in front of me to reveal a reddish-blue place from a different dimension.
The solas hit my shield straight-on, making even me step back a little. While holding on to the shield, the counter and this space, I quickly indicated to Fides for backup and she started singing, which charged up the counter. I put my hand through the space and pulled out a katana – the best that I could've hoped for. The solas hadn't lost any strength and kept trying to push me back, or worse – it would explode right at our faces and vaporize us. Loikrer did not have much of an attacking stead, but he put his right palm on my back, and muttered, "Shock."
A simple word, and electricity coursed through my arms, making me feel more invincible than I already was. I was ready to beat the shit out of all our opponents. The counter was fully charged up. My body was screaming to release all the power generated.
"Overbod," I said, releasing our overall shield and casting an individual shield over the two of them and then screamed, "MOVE OUT OF THE WAY."
I let go of the triple barrier and those two ran at sound speed to the opposite sides of the giant corpse and the giant monster accumulations. With some distance in front of me, I pointed my katana at the miasma ball, charged it up with some electricity making it spew blue smoke, and with an uppercut motion, cut straight through it. Within a second, the cut caused the ball to create some space and then exploded like those big war explosions with a huge smoke and overwhelming smell.
My work wasn't done yet. Taking advantage of this momentary confusion, I sprinted at my top speed towards those giants and jumped straight above them with force large enough to break the ground beneath. Looking down, I saw them both looking bewildered. The counter was cackling with the extra electricity that was going through my body to it. With a smirk, I released the counter.
"Nuclear clarification."