He walked down to the bottom. There he found his Champions and knights massed around a craggy mound. Obsidian spikes arced out from the mound, forming a pretty pattern that Nathan found unfamiliar, but the mound itself was unoccupied.
During an invasion, the air itself would split open here. Demons would pour through in the thousands. But all was quiet. Nothing stirred, save for Nathan’s soldiers. They lined up behind him, many carrying cannisters and barrels.
Every few minutes, several demons did phase into appearance. The portal’s activity levels remained elevated from the Twins attack, so demons crossed over passively. But they were swiftly dealt with.
Nathan’s Champions took turns dealing with the ones that appeared today.
“So, we’re here. What now?” Narime asked.
As if to answer her, rays of light shot out from the obsidian spikes. The sky flickered black.
The Twins snapped into existence high above them, their monochrome dresses fluttering in a non-existent wind. Once again, they didn’t wear any underwear and gave everybody a great view of their crotches.
“Tremble, mortals!” Laura shouted, throwing her arms up in a strange pose. “Your doom has come!”
Magic amplified her voice and made it sound halfway intimidating. A shame about her appearance. Maura stared at her sister, before running a hand down her face.
Nathan’s Champions tensed. The rattle of weapons rung out behind him as his knights prepared their weapons. Gasps and shouts filled the air.
“Shut up and get down here,” Nathan yelled at them. “Everybody else, maintain positions. We’re not being invaded. Like you’ve been told, they’re under my control. This portal is tamed.”
“Spoilsport.” Laura pouted.
“I told you to shut up.” He angrily waved a hand at her to come down. “I don’t need my knights trying to fight you because they buy into your dumb charade.”
The two succubi drifted toward him.
“Thank fuck,” Maura said. “That was embarrassing.”
“Like you don’t do the same thing.” Laura glared at her sister.
“I make actual threats. What was this?” Maura mimicked the arm movements that Laura had made earlier. “Do you think you’re on TV?”
“They look cool.”
“No, they don’t,” Nathan and Maura said together.
“See, I win.” Maura pushed her sister’s head down.
Nathan’s Champions stared at the antics in amazement. So did a lot of his knights. Hushed whispers rippled through their ranks.
Many of these knights had battled against the Twins. Now they watched as they obeyed Nathan’s directions and messed around.
“So you’re actually under his control?” Nurevia asked. “This isn’t some complicated act, and you’ll suddenly turn around and attack us all because we didn’t see the signs of betrayal?”
“Yeah, as dumb as it is, we’re his.” Maura jabbed her thumb at Nathan. “Want him to fuck me on top of you to make sure?”
“That wouldn’t prove a thing. You’re a succubus,” Narime said.
“But it’d be hot.” Maura’s grin nearly split her face in half.
Convinced that everything was safe, Seraph stepped aside and gestured to the knights. Those carrying cannisters and barrels walked to the base of the mound. They unplugged the barrels and began pouring oil and tar everywhere. The cannisters were planted in small pits filled with oil and sand, with their tops sticking out.
The Twins stopped messing around. They stared at the preparations with wide, terrified eyes. With each passing second, they edged closer to Nathan. When one of the cannister-carrying knights got too close, they hopped behind him.
“You’re fucking evil, you know that?” Maura growled. “Did you have this shit prepared for us?”
“The geyser minefield wasn’t strong enough. But my tests with the propane gas proved pretty effective,” Nathan said.
“I think you need to use a stronger word than effective,” Sen said drily. “I helped with those tests. Evil is the right word, if you ever used this stuff against humans. I can replicate it with spells, but that stuff is terrifying as well.”
“I can’t believe you’re scared of it,” Seraph said. “I saw you shrug off everything we threw at you last time.”
“Yeah, well, I like my limbs where they are, thank you. I don’t care if you’re into that sort of thing, Nathan, but I’m not.” Maura formed a big X with her arms. “Let’s establish that as my limit in the bedroom.”
“Soft,” Astra said.
“Well, sorry, princess, I’m not fucking immortal.” Maura rolled her eyes. “Although the way you scream when you—”
“Enough!” Nathan snapped.
Everybody stared at him. Astra’s eyes focused on Maura.
“When I?” the dark elf said. She swallowed, then pressed on. “I can feel pain? How?”
“Uh…” Maura and Laura stared at Nathan, who glared at them. “Yeah, take it up with the big guy. He holds our leashes.”
“Later, Astra. Maura, Laura, I forbid you to talk about anything about the timelines.” Nathan ran a hand down his face. “I think I understand why Kadria didn’t tell me everything at first.”
“Um, bad time, but I wanted to say that Ifrit is laughing at you,” Sen said.
“Tell him to go fuck himself,” Nathan said.
Wiseass undying spirit who knew everything.
“Err, anything else we should shut up about? I mean, I have no idea what we’re even doing here,” Maura said, looking around. “Like, you said we’re going to attack another Messenger.”
“I’m going to open a connection to an active portal that a Messenger is using. You’re going to control the cascade that will result. You can do that, can’t you?” Nathan raised an eyebrow. “I’ve seen you Messengers mess around with the leylines and portals a lot.”
“We’re tapped into your binding stone now, so yeah, super easy.” Maura shrugged. “We’ll channel the overflow through you and into the magic rock here. Normally this would be a bad idea, but you’ll be fine.”
Several questioning looks penetrated Nathan, but he waved them off.
“One final question,” Seraph said, refocusing attention to herself. “How does Nathan prevent you from betraying him? He didn’t deny you were slaves, earlier, but you aren’t acting subservient.”
Maura laughed, while Laura merely smiled. Both succubi gave him sidelong looks and licked their lips.
“Slaves, huh? Is that how you want us to act, master?” Laura added a strange accent to “master” as if she were tasting the word. “Ooh, I could get addicted to saying that.”
“You’re such a sub,” Maura said. “But no, we’re not slaves. Unless you are.”
“I’m not, no,” Seraph replied coldly.
“There you go. What Nathan did to us isn’t any different to you Champions. The difference is you’re a human and we’re not. We need a connection to this world to safely remain in it,” Maura explained.
“So, Nathan.”
“No, the binding stone. If all we needed was some chump’s mind, this world would be demon food in five seconds. The magic rocks are the world. The little goat could explain it better, but they’re basically magical chunks of the planet itself. Destroying one would be equivalent to ending the world, or at least a large chunk of it. That’s basically what the boss is doing when he does his thing.” Maura made a biting motion with her hand.
So, Kadria had been telling the truth when she said that her boss ate the worlds he conquered.
Then Maura turned to Nathan and pointed at him. “Which is why you need to protect this tether to us! We can’t touch you, because of the self-destruct, but if it gets cut while we’re outside the portals, bad things happen.”
“Define bad,” Nathan asked.
“The local authorities descend and erase us from existence,” Maura said, her voice deadly serious.
Nathan blinked.
Did she
seriously mean that Omria would obliterate any Messenger not connected to a binding stone? Was that why they were so important?
“I mean, eventually,” Maura corrected. “Messengers don’t belong in this world. We use the binding stones to blend in. That’s why we use the portals. Prepare the invasion in them, bust through, grab the rock, destroy planet. Then you Bastions started fighting us in the portals and it became this dumb tug of war game.”
“Fun tug of war game,” Laura said.
“I’m lost,” Fei said.
“Yeah. Ifrit won’t explain anything. I get the feeling he knows all of this,” Sen grumbled. “Or if he doesn’t, then he doesn’t like what he’s learning.”
“Nathan, I’d ask if you’re making the right decision, but I get the feeling I know the answer,” Narime said, her tails tickling his back.
“Yeah. Some of this is new. Parts of it are familiar. None of it changes anything. There’s no such thing as light heresy,” he said.
“Is it really heresy if you win?” Seraph asked. “There are a lot of things the dark elves claim as heresy that the Empire doesn’t.”
He stared at her, then looked at the Twins. Nobody paid them any attention. Many of his knights were devout, but they didn’t scream and run away.
As far as his soldiers cared, Nathan was a devout Bastion of Omria. He claimed to have tamed the Messengers, and was defending Doumahr. Heresy didn’t enter into the equation.
“I’ll worry about that later,” he said. “I think we’re ready. Get everybody into formation. Once we open the gateway, the invading demons will turn around and attack us.”
The Twins shot into the air above the mound and hovered on opposite sides of it. The knights formed up into ranks at the edge of the clearing, shields raised as they defended the exits. Towering suits of armor stood in front of them, powered by Nathan’s magic. More summons occupied the stone walls behind them, just in case any demons made it through.
Only Nathan and his Champions stood in the clearing itself. Sen began casting spells, pentagons flaring over her greatsword as she prepared for the incoming attack. Her flames would set off the oil and gas trap.
Nathan reached for his binding stones. Then he began to focus the power. This was a form of ascended magic, he realized. He had been taught that it was binding stone magic—an extension of how he used the power to create his summons and castle. But that was wrong. He knew better now.
Gareth had created this technique during the evacuation of Trafaumh in their original world. It had been the second to last of his great feats. His last one had killed him, when he cast a ninth rank spell so great that it wiped out hundreds of square miles full of demons and slew a Messenger.
Now, Nathan took on his old mentor’s mantle. He refined the spell that Gareth had taught him.
Reaching out through the leylines, Nathan found the active portal in the Spires. Then he connected it to Gharrick Pass.
Thunder rippled across the clearing. Wind burst into existence, knocking down several of his Champions.
Nathan remained standing. Above him, the Twins’ bodies shimmered with darkness. He felt the demonic energy of the cascade surge through the connection he had created. A moment later, it hit him like a truck.
His vision swam. Hands wrapped around him, but he remained standing.
Slowly, the world returned to normal.
A window of white stood in the center of the mound. It stood dozens of feet tall, was blindingly bright, and always appeared to face Nathan.
A moment later, the first demons appeared from it.
Chapter 36
The beasts charged through the gateway. Animalistic roars erupted from them as they emerged. Their weapons banged against their armor and their armored greaves rumbled throughout the clearing. Every demon looked slightly different, but all of them were bestial monsters. They had twisted visages created from the animal kingdom, spliced with a brutish human physique, and given blood red skin.
Hundreds of them poured forth. A few looked around in confusion, but most didn’t bother. Nathan didn’t know if demons were intelligent or if they operated on animal instincts. Kadria had implied they were weapons. Created for the purpose of invading Doumahr.
“Sen,” he barked.
The red pentagons around her sword glowed brightly. A moment later, she cast her fifthrank spell.
A plume of flame blocked off the demons’ advance. The wall of fire encircled the gateway, and the demons found themselves with no way forward. They pushed up to the flames but no farther.
More and more demons poured forward. They splashed around in the oil. A few looked down. One even pulled out a cannister of gas. The fire spell had been cast far away from the trap Nathan had set.
“Heavies,” Seraph said grimly, looking past the demons.
Hulking demons strode through the gateway, carrying halberds with blades as large as a person. Each of these heavies wore armor as thick as Nathan’s fist. They towered over their smaller brethren and knocked them about, as if in amusement.
“Wow. They really do look nasty,” Sen said.
“Yeah. We call them heavies because that’s what they are. Hulking brutes with massive weapons,” Nathan said.
The wall of flames showed no signs of wavering. The demons began chanting and beating their chests. Given more time, they would use human wave tactics—demon wave tactics, Nathan supposed.
In the previous invasion, they had climbed the walls by using bodies as shields. A wall of flames could be suppressed with enough bodies. Especially if those bodies were covered in solid steel.
“That’s enough. Sen,” he ordered.
“Got it.”
She pointed her sword at the sky and began casting a supercharged fourth rank spell. A pair of glowing squares appeared around her.
Moments later, meteors crashed into the mass of demons.
The world shook with a series of explosions. Thwooms rippled across the clearing. Great, hot searing balls of red hot fire shot a hundred feet into the air. Gore rained from the sky.
The laughter of the Twins broke through the cacophony of crackling flames, deafening explosions, and screaming knights. Nathan’s soldiers cowered in fear. The heat billowed against him and he covered his face with his hand. He felt like he was standing in front of an open furnace
More canisters of gas went off, as the flames cooked off the oil and superheated the sand around them. The demons still alive panicked as their surroundings filled with fire and earth. Their choices were grim.
If they remained near the gateway, the demons would be blown apart or cooked alive. But fleeing took them through a white-hot wall of flames. They took their chances, and charged through Sen’s spell.
Only the heavies made it through. Narime and Sen put them out of their misery with judicious use of their fiery spells.
Ciana stared at the destruction grimly. The rest of his Champions remained unfazed. Astra appeared openly joyful, and even clapped as each canister exploded, her eyes glowing with excitement.
“Boom, haha,” she said with a grin. “I like these.”
“Holy fucking shit, Nathan,” Nurevia said. “Remind me never to make you mad. I thought they were joking about the spells you used. Is the flesh-eating flood real?”
“They’re demons. Anything less than total destruction isn’t enough,” he said, blood pouring down his face. “They’ll overwhelm us with a tide of bodies if we let them.”
The rain of blood had stopped. Ciana pulled a lace handkerchief from her uniform and used it to clean off Nathan’s face. He tried not to screw up his face as she wiped around his nose.
“Is now the time?” he asked Ciana.
She stuck her tongue out at him. “You shouldn’t leave blood on your face. It might make you sick.”
“I can’t get sick.” Especially now.
That surge of energy he had felt when the Twins had stopped the cascade terrified Nathan. For a moment, he thought he was going to die. He had be
en certain his heart had stopped. His nerve buzzed with magical energy.
And his binding stone reserves had all been topped up.
Was this what true power felt like? The Twins had effortlessly accomplished what Gareth had spent his entire life trying to understand. Cascades had remained the one thing that escaped humanity’s understanding in Nathan’s old world.
Now, Nathan controlled a pair of succubi who effortlessly manipulated them. He had deviated so far from the path of a Bastion he couldn’t even see it anymore.
Whatever. It didn’t matter.
The gateway shimmered. It began to grow.
“That’s not good,” Nathan uttered.
“Should it be doing that?” Ciana asked.
The Twins drifted backward, putting distance between them and whatever was coming through.
“Knights, throw more cannisters into the flames,” Nathan snapped. “Now!”
A dozen beastkin charged forward and hurled the small containers of gas into the burning flames. They bounced and rolled into the flames. Nothing happened immediately, as they needed time to heat up and explode.
Something truly massive emerged through the gateway. A hulking blue head, the size of a house. A single black horn stuck out from its forehead and dozens of beady black eyes covered its carapace-like skin. The beast emerged, standing over fifty feet tall. In place of hands, it had claws the size of people. Its body was covered in a thick shell of steel, which was painted with garish colors.
“Behemoth,” Seraph said, eyes wide. She took a step back. “I’ve never seen one before.”
“Uh, Nathan, Ifrit says to run,” Sen squeaked. “That thing is apparently immune to magic.”
“It’s not,” he snapped. “The armor needs penetrating spells. You’ve been practicing those.”
Before they could continue, the gas canisters erupted. The explosions ripped into the beast. Flames shot beneath its armor. Parts of its blue carapace cracked from the heat.
Heretic Spellblade 3 Page 41
