Immersion World

by Max Jager

  Zanath started to reload and Estellese ran over to him, she was covered in blood again and it didn't look like her own. Seeing her like this was becoming such a normal sight to Zanath that he was afraid he would always picture her being covered in blood, even when they finally got back to the real world. That it might start looking weird to him when she wasn't covered in blood. He was snapped out of his thoughts when Estellese shouted.

  "We need help over here!" She screamed out, trying to be heard over the explosions in the battlefield. She had spotted two greater demons rushing straight for them, and she knew her and Zanath couldn't take them alone. They looked around the battlefield, Kaden and Mendelen were surrounded by lesser demons and were standing nearly back to back. And Seree was holding off five more greater demons.

  As Seree dodged a huge chunk of ice she fired a bolt of lightning at the closest demon, but it blocked the lightning with an ice wall and another demon bellowed out a stream of flames at Seree while a third demon began firing ice shards at her like a machine gun. Seree made two earth walls to block the demons' attacks but then a fourth demon made a pillar of flames burst out of the ground under her feet while the fifth surrounded Seree in a bubble of fire to hold her in place. Seree used her superior control over fire magic to dispel the barrier then created a stone sphere around herself to save herself from the flames that came from underneath. Once the flames passed she burst out of the stone and made bolts of lightning strike down on all five demons, two of them were struck and wounded. She then took off like a bolt of lightning herself and flew straight towards one of the wounded demons, but an ice wall sprung up in front of her and she nearly slammed into it. She turned around just in time to dodge a fireball and then sent a fireblast right back at the demon, who took control of her flames and veered them off course making her spell miss. Seree realized how futile her position was, she couldn't hit them when it was five on one, she couldn't out maneuver all of them.

  Seree looked around and realized the grave situation everyone was in, she had to do something. She focused and suddenly barriers appeared around the machine and all four Alphas. The barriers started off as normal, white, Aether barriers but quickly turned blood red. As soon as the spell was cast Seree let out a shriek of pain as the blood magic spell tore both her wings off her back. But she pushed through the pain and focused one more time, she clapped her hands together as hard as she could and as soon as her hands met she exploded. The massive fiery explosion knocked all the alphas to the ground and engulfed all of the demons around them. When the flames and smoke cleared the Alphas looked around, the barriers they had been given were shattered, but every demon within a one hundred and fifty yard diameter of Seree was burnt to death. Seree was gone.

  The Alphas regrouped near the machine, the charred corpses of a few fairies caught in the blast fell to the ground around them. They skimmed the area and took in the sheer destruction surrounding them, everything was burnt or on fire, there were so many burnt corpses of demons.

  "We lost Seree." Mendelen stated.

  "Eyrus too." Zanath added. "And there are more demons coming. What do we do?"

  "I want to say we run away. But we are in too deep" Mendelen grit his teeth "There's no way we could fight our way back out of here. Our best bet is to hold our ground here and hope someone who knows what we are doing comes to help. That explosion must have gotten someone's attention."

  "That doesn't sound like a great idea. We're betting our lives on someone knowing we are here and helping when none of the fairy soldiers know who we are or why we are here. Only the queen, king, and elders know about us." Kaden pointed out.

  "But it is the only thing we can do." Mendelen stated. He sighed and raised his shield "Do what we've always done, stick together and fight as a team. Watch each other's backs, if one of us falls we all fall. Let's do this!"

  Kaden held still and disappeared again as the others moved into a tight defensive formation with Mendelen and Estellese in front and Zanath in back.

  The first of the incoming demons reached their front lines, a lesser demon moving at superhuman speeds. As it ran past Kaden suddenly reappeared and slashed at it from the side, the demon was quick to move its mace to block Kaden's sword, but it didn't matter. The enchantment on Kaden's sword allowed it to slice clean through the mace. The demon jumped backwards to dodge the blade and as it landed on the ground Estellese stomped her foot and used earth magic to make the ground under the demon's feet shift, causing it to stumble. The second it stumbled Zanath shot it in the head and it lifelessly fell to the ground.

  "We got this guys, just hold off until help arrives!" Mendelen called out. Mendelen and Estellese both jumped to the side to evade a hail of ice spikes that rained down on their position and Zanath returned fire on the demons in the distance. Before they knew it two normal demons had closed in on them and were moving in for the kill. Estellese swept her axe low at the feet of the demon facing her. The demon flipped over both the axe and Estellese as it bellowed out a blast of flames back at her. Zanath took a shot at the demon's back but it created an ice wall between itself and Zanath to block his line of fire. Estellese spun around and slashed her axe for its ribs missing as the demon jumped backwards to evade the swing. The demon then created more ice walls on the other three sides of Estellese, isolating her from the rest of the group, forcing her to face it one on one in a mini ice-arena.

  "Estell!" Zanath called out, but turned his attention to the lesser demon that had singled out Kaden.

  Mendelen saw Estellese get locked in the ice room with the other demon and cussed silently. He raised his shield to block an ice spike from the demon he was facing and ran towards Estellese. As soon as he reached the arena he slammed his shield into the side of the ice wall, cracking the ice, but it wasn't enough to break the wall. She was stuck in there. Hearing his demon moving in he ducked under a slash from the demon's dagger and turned to face it again. The demon jumped back and threw its dagger at him but he blocked it with his shield. As he blocked, the demon focused and the ground under Mendelen's feet turned to ice. With his armor weighing him down it was hard to move on the ice. The demon then began blasting off a barrage of fireballs at him knowing that the "knight in shining armor" couldn't block them all.

  Mendelen blocked the first two then tried sidestepping the third, but started slipping and fumbling on the ice. The fourth one struck him, burning him through the armor, and he stumbled out of the way of the next two as he moved towards the edge of the ice. The demon then summoned a spiked ice whip and lashed it out at Mendelen, who quickly moved his shield to block it. The whip unexpectedly stopped mid-swing, changing directions, reaching around the shield and wrapping around his arm. The ice then began spreading up his arm. Mendelen quickly slammed the hilt of his sword into the ice-whip and cracked it, it was no use the cracks repaired themselves. He tried yanking his arm back but the demon had superhuman strength and yanked Mendelen to his knees.

  Suddenly a gunshot was heard and the demon dropped to the ground. Mendelen turned to Zanath and saw that he was locked in a fight with two lesser demons, yet he had still managed to land a near perfect shot. Mendelen began slamming his hilt into the ice-whip in an attempt to free his arm. On the third strike the ice shattered and he was free, but he suddenly felt an intense heat beneath his feet. He didn't know what it was but he immediately jumped as far away from where he was standing as he could, and he narrowly avoided a massive fiery explosion that blasted out of the ground. He started standing up and looked around, spotting a full demon far off in the distance charging into the battlefield. He saw Kaden facing off against two demons now, and Zanath was still fighting his own two lesser demons. Zanath seemed to be struggling more with his injuries from the previous fight so Mendelen rushed towards Zanath.

  Zanath was visibly moving slower than he normally did and was struggling to keep up with the superhuman speed of the lesser demons. Holding his rifle in one hand and his pistol in the other he used his rifle to block the
sword of one of the demons and quickly shot it in the leg with his pistol, then jumped backwards to avoid an ice-spear thrown by the other demon. He took aim and shot at the wounded demon with his pistol but an ice-wall sprang up in front of it and blocked the bullet. He ducked just in time to evade a swing from the other demon's mace and rolled backwards to evade the massive spike that jutted out of the ice wall and nearly struck him in the side. The mace-wielding demon focused and a black chain reached out from its chest, and then lashed out in an attempt to grab Zanath, but Zanath bashed the chain out of the way with his rifle and fired his pistol back at the demon. The demon dodged the bullet and Zanath had to quickly duck to dodge the wounded demon as it lunged over his head and barely missed stabbing him with its sword. As he ducked he aimed upwards and shot the demon twice in the chest then rolled backwards and put his pistol back in the holster on his belt. He had been counting his shots, knew he fired his last round and had no spare ammunition left.

  The mace-wielding demon focused and started creating ice walls behind and on the sides of Zanath, trying to limit the space he had to dodge and evade. Zanath pointed his rifle at the demon, but it was all an act now he knew he had no ammo left for that either. With the walls up and Zanath cornered the demon rushed in and swung its mace for his head, but Zanath ducked and bashed the demon's kneecap with his rifle. The demon shouted in pain and stumbled aside, firing a black orb at Zanath. Remembering how Seree dealt with the orb before, he jumped backwards and tried to bat it away with his rifle, and upon impact the orb shattered and disappeared. But before he could react the demon was lunging at him with its mace again, he quickly moved to block. His rifle and the demon's mace clashed, but the demon was stronger and slammed Zanath back up against the ice wall, keeping their weapons locked together. Zanath grabbed his rifle with both arms and was trying to push the mace and the demon back. It wasn't working, the demon's superhuman strength easily outmatched his own strength. He felt sharp pointed spikes slowly forming in the wall behind him and pressing into his back. He struggled to get the demon off him but couldn't, he was pinned to the wall, he couldn't move. He braced himself and felt two sharp ice spikes stab him in the back, he screamed out in pain as he felt the spikes pushing deeper. But then, the demon also screeched out in pain, and suddenly collapsed.

  Zanath collapsed beside the demon and looked up to see Mendelen pulling his sword out of the demon's back. Mendelen quickly reached into his enchanted bag and pulled out a potion, then handed it to Zanath. "Don't worry, I got it. Drink this."

  Zanath took the bottle, "This will take five minutes, we can't use it in the middle of a battlefield." he stated.

  "You won't survive two more minutes in your condition without it. Take it and pretend to be dead, we killed the only demons who know you are alive." Mendelen countered as he turned and ran off to help Kaden.

  Kaden jumped backwards and narrowly avoided the pillar of flames that erupted from the ground. He sheathed one of his swords as an axe wielding demon rushed in and cleaved the axe down at his head. He quickly sidestepped the blow, only to see a fireball hurtling towards him from the other demon. He ducked under the fireball and swept up some ashes from the ground with his free hand. As the axe-demon turned around he slashed at its side and the demon jumped back to evade the slash. Kaden immediately lunged forward at it and threw the ashes at its face. The demon expected a magical attack and immediately jumped to the side to dodge. As soon as it went to dodge Kaden lunged at it and sliced the demon in half with his enchanted sword. But with his focus solely on that one demon the other moved in to attack, before he could turn to react to it he felt an ice shard stab into his shoulder and barely dodged a second attack that nearly hit his leg.

  His wound made him drop his sword but he quickly swept it back up with his other hand and turned to the demon that was attacking him. Its weapons were already broken from an earlier attack, but the demon had magic and ranged abilities and Kaden did not. On top of that, the frequent use of his sword's enchantments were taking their toll on his energy, a powerful enchantment like that came with a hefty cost to his stamina for every use, he was feeling utterly exhausted. The demon could see his exhaustion, and was moving in for the kill. It focused and the air around Kaden began to chill, then small ice-needles began forming in the air and like a whirlwind began spinning around him. Leaving small cuts and puncture wounds all over. Kaden quickly tried to run out of the cloud but as he started to run the ground under his feet turned to ice and the cloud followed him. The shards of ice were growing bigger and leaving deeper cuts every time one of them scraped up against him. Kaden noticed that the demon was holding still, channeling the spell. He thought quick and hurled his sword at the demon, breaking its concentration and forcing it to move out of the way. As soon as the demon moved the whirlwind of ice shards stopped and the ice fell to the ground, Kaden was covered in cuts and slashes but he was not too badly hurt. He surveyed the area as started trying to move off the icy ground, noticing a full demon had entered the battlefield along with a few more lesser demons and was coming straight for them. He held still and disappeared.

  Mendelen rushed at the demon Kaden was fighting, while it was focused on Kaden he flanked it and stabbed his sword down at its back. But the demon heard the sounds of his clunky armor and spun around, blocking his sword with an ice spear of its own. Their weapons clashed and the demon's superhuman strength was overpowering Mendelen, pushing him back. Mendelen knew he couldn't beat the demon in a battle of raw strength so he quickly kicked the demon in the crotch and as it stumbled backwards he bashed its face with his shield knocking it to the ground. He stepped forwards and stabbed his sword down at the demon, but before it could strike the demon blew on the blade, making the point of the blade rounded by covering it with ice. The Ice-sword struck the demon's head, but was no longer sharp enough to pierce anything and the demon instead stabbed its spear back up at Mendelen's chest. The spear struck his armor and shattered instead of piercing the armor. Mendelen was thrown backwards from the sheer force of the demon's superhuman strength, but was mostly unharmed. As Mendelen stumbled backwards the demon sprang back onto its feet and tackled him. It threw a punch at Mendelen's head but he blocked it with his shield so the demon slammed its other fist down into Mendelen's chest with its superhuman strength. Mendelen let out a scream of pain as the force of the blow struck his chest and dented his armor. While he was stunned from the blow the demon then slammed its fists down into the same dented spot on the armor twice more before it summoned another ice spear, intent on stabbing it through the dented section of his armor.

  Right as it was about to stab Mendelen it saw that Kaden had reappeared and was rushing over to assist. It jumped off Mendelen and out of the way just in time to evade Kaden's sword and shot a fireball right back at him. Kaden quickly sidestepped the fireball and held his sword at the ready, but if the demon wouldn't come closer to him he couldn't hit it. The demon had no intent of getting within range of his sword again, it kept its distance and began firing a barrage of ice shards and fireballs at Kaden, knowing he'd eventually get hit. Kaden began dodging and evading the attacks as best as he could, and he could feel the stomping footsteps of the full demon approaching from behind. He glanced back at the full demon to see that it was far too close for comfort. It was only about thirty feet away, and two of the three lesser demons went inside of the ice arena where Estellese was, creating holes in the ice just long enough for them to slip in before the hole closed. But Kaden noticed something, the full demon wasn't coming for him or Estellese. It was charging up a fire spell as it walked towards the machine, no doubt with the intent to destroy it. Kaden grit his teeth, he knew he couldn't protect the machine from that thing. He was snapped back to attention when a fireball struck his side and badly burnt him, forcing him to turn back to the demon he was fighting and focus solely on it.

  Back inside the ice arena Estellese faced off against her own demon, Both her and the demon looked exhausted and were panting heavily,
but the look in Estellese's eyes was a look of pure rage and frustration. The ground was ice and ice spikes were springing out of the ground at an alarmingly fast rate, one after another, each aimed to strike Estellese. Estellese was bobbing and weaving, dodging each spike as it sprang up while moving closer and closer to the demon. As she got within striking range she let out a roar of frustration and slammed her axe down at the demon's head, but the demon blocked with its own sword and shoved her, sending her sliding back across the ice. Another ice spike sprang out of the ground under her feet and she sidestepped it again, throwing a fireball back at the demon. The demon dodged the fireball but Estellese was already lunging at it forcing it to quickly block and shove her away again. As she slid backwards an ice hand and arm reached out of the ice wall and attempted to grab her. As soon as she saw the hand she smashed it with her axe, shattering the ice before she rushed at the demon again. She slashed her axe for its ribs but the demon sidestepped the blow, and seeing her off balance after the swing the demon tackled her to the ground. The second they hit the ground Estellese flipped them over and pinned the demon to the ground, then immediately dropped her axe and began punching its head as fast and hard as she could. The demon bellowed out a blast of flames from its mouth, forcing Estellese to lean back to avoid getting burnt. As soon as she leaned back the demon flipped back on top of her and pinned her to the ground. It took in a deep breath, preparing to use another fire breath attack to finish her off.