The shadows of night burned the wastes gray, the level plains growing darker the further away they stretched.
The deepest patch of darkness was right on the border of the ground and the night sky: the shadow of a black forest—Fenrir’s Forest, a vast sea of trees encircling the sanctuary.
Fur deeper than the black of those trees carefully moved amid them. Once the enormous black wolf began to move, it stopped hesitating. It took several soundless, swift steps. There was a dissonant patch of gold in its otherwise black fur. It was Claiomh, riding on its back. She was a lot more tense than the wolf, but still clung steadfastly to the Deep Dragon’s neck.
He didn’t go too far. It was just a few steps for the Deep Dragon’s body. A distance of four or five meters. He went that far and nothing changed.
Orphen expelled the breath he was holding. He stood with the Thirteen Apostles, hanging back and watching Leki. Orphen folded his arms alone, listening to the sighs coming from the black sorcerers behind him.
No, it was hard to call him truly alone—Majic and Isabella stood just a bit behind him. But the rest of the Thirteen Apostles were farther back. He could see Pluto standing at a slight distance with his hammer, a sour look on his face. Maria Huwon stood at his side like always.
“Will he break through?”
Orphen nodded at Isabella’s question.
Leki was moving on ahead. The area he was attempting to pass through appeared to be nothing but empty space, but there was a spirit sorcery barrier there—Orphen suddenly sensed something and unfolded his arms, lowering his stance.
“No...” he groaned. “Here it comes.”
The air around them rapidly changed. Leki stopped. A sharp wind lapped at the Deep Dragon’s body, attempting to remove the massive wolf from the ground. The invisible air current whipped up the sand from the ground, forming into a rapidly moving wall. The whirlwind of sand made the barrier visible. Leki fixed his feet to the ground, bowing his head but attempting to keep his eyes open.
When the Deep Dragon’s eyes flashed green, the ferocity of the wind faded in an instant, but it whipped back up almost immediately. This back-and-forth went on a few times, neither’s sorcery giving an inch.
He can fight back directly against spirit sorcery, huh? Orphen thought to himself as he batted aside a stone the wind whipped his way.
But there was no way to win against spirit sorcery. Leki’s dark sorcery couldn’t dissolve the spirit sorcery barrier. Eventually...
“Waaaaagh?!” Claiomh went flying with a shriek.
✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦
She flew in an arc over the Thirteen Apostles’ heads. The spirit sorcery should have prevented her from getting hurt, but...
“Fate draws near!” the Demon of the Capital shouted, and a spell shot out toward Claiomh. The girl’s body changed trajectory, plunging straight down instead. It even changed the tone of her scream. A second later, Claiomh landed safely in Pluto’s arms, her voice cutting out abruptly.
Leki continued his resistance for a while longer, but as his upper body lifted higher, the ferocity of the wind only increased. Orphen was far back enough that he shouldn’t have been affected, but even he was starting to be pushed back by it.
Eventually, Leki leaped back himself instead of being blown away. He flew over Orphen and the other black sorcerers, landing soundlessly on empty ground. The wind instantly died down when he moved back, leaving only a small whirlwind of dead branches instead.
“I didn’t think that would work,” the Demon of the Capital said bitterly as he lowered Claiomh to the ground. The girl sank unsteadily to the ground, her eyes spinning.
With a glance back at her, Pluto stepped forward and held up a hand at the spirit sorcery barrier that he couldn’t touch. He sucked in a breath and began to chant an incantation, an enormous spell forming in front of him. “The day of destruction—”
“It won’t work,” Maria Huwon cautioned him, pushing his hand down. She lent a hand to Claiomh, pulling her up before adding, “Even I can tell that. We could all come at it together and it wouldn’t do anything. Can the spirits not get through this?”
She looked around sourly as if expecting the spirits of the dead to suddenly make themselves seen around her. “Can’t white sorcery ignore space?”
“I imagine they’re already through it.” This time, Pluto stopped Maria. He shook a fist angrily. “But the spirits’ goal is for us to infiltrate the sanctuary—those ghosts can’t even knock on the door.”
“I guess Damian shouldn’t have been destroyed.”
This voice was neither black sorcerer. Orphen looked and saw the lord approaching with a cool smile on his face.
Orphen seemed to be the only one who’d heard him. He took a breath and added, “Winona too.”
He’d meant it as nothing more than a jab, but the lord raised his eyebrows thoughtfully. “You think she could get through here?” he asked, amused.
Orphen ignored him and looked away, but he couldn’t help smiling wryly. It really was people like her who tended to figure out solutions in situations like these.
There were some twenty black sorcerers here near the barrier while the rest hung back. Pluto ordered his men to group up and the Thirteen Apostles all fell back to the rest of the group, shoulders heavy with disappointment.
Still standing in front of the invisible barrier, Orphen scratched his head, irritated. Leki wasn’t moving, and Claiomh was standing still as well. The blonde girl gave him a vague look. Majic and Isabella were just staring anxiously at the sea of trees in the distance.
The lord planted his cane on the ground, following after Pluto slowly, deliberately. Giving each of them a look in turn, Orphen finally settled his eyes on the enormous Deep Dragon. He knew the beast would never answer him, but he still found himself mentally asking, You got through here once, right? You went to the sanctuary, broke things off with your pack, and came back. But now he couldn’t get through the barrier.
“I exist simply to execute my orders.” He suddenly found himself remembering the words of the doll who had said that everything was a lie. The memory was completely random, but maybe there was some truth to it.
Can only those who follow the sanctuary’s orders pass through here? If that’s the case, then we’ll never get through here unless we destroy the sorcerers responsible for creating the barrier...
Suddenly there was an explosion. Orphen looked back at the gathering of Thirteen Apostles behind him and saw a pillar of flame in the telltale white of sorcerous fire. One of the Thirteen Apostles must have made it. There were three more explosions in quick succession.
“Fuck!” Orphen ran back toward them. He could see an indeterminate shadow dodging the flames at high speed. The black sorcerers’ screams echoed among the explosions.
Leki had changed positions before Orphen even passed by him, but the Deep Dragon didn’t move. The second Leki’s eyes fell upon it, one of the shadows froze and collapsed as if colliding with a wall.
Leaving Claiomh at Leki’s side, Isabella ran to meet up with Orphen. A moment later, Majic joined them.
Putting a hand to her ear, Isabella picked out the orders among the screams and muttered, “The battle’s still going. We were taken by surprise. It’s Red Dragons!”
“They’re attacking even though they know we have Leki with us? What’s got them so worked up?” Orphen asked, still running.
Isabella shook her head to say she didn’t know. She had a long blade in her hands, though Orphen had no idea where she’d been hiding it, and her expression was harsh. “The attacks are coming from underground. They’re trying to kill just us, attacking from the Deep Dragon’s blind spot. There’s nothing we can do!”
“Then—” Orphen started, drawing his own blade like she had.
There was no warning. The ground didn’t rise up, and it didn’t split. Sharp, bladelike attacks simply sprang up from cracks in the ground too small to be seen. Orphen parried one with the back of his dagger and took half a step around, holding up his left arm to release a spell—but by that time, the Red Dragon who had jumped up from within the ground was already gone.
The next attack came from behind, just as Orphen expected. He avoided it without even turning to look, moving the spell he was already composing to aim behind him instead.
“I construct thee, Spire of the Sun!” A flash of white flames illuminated the area.
Once he’d made sure that the Red Dragon tentacle coming out of the ground had burned away to nothing, he raised his hand to signal Isabella, who was watching him with wide eyes.
“You can deal with it if you just get the timing right. Stay calm.”
“What if you can’t get the timing right...?”
“If you team up and give yourselves fewer blind spots, you’ll be able to focus more. It’s true that one Red Dragon is powerful enough to kill dozens of us, but we also each have enough power to take out a Red Dragon. Majic! Watch her back!” He went through all that in rapid succession, then realized that the area around them was as bright as midday. One of the Thirteen Apostles was trying to burn the ground in a large area.
Orphen clicked his tongue. “Trying to burn up all the enemies in the ground, eh? But you’ll just die from lack of oxygen if you do that.”
He looked at Isabella and Majic. Claiomh was being protected by Leki, and he could probably leave Majic to Isabella, since she’d been one of the top casters at the Tower.
Isabella returned his look with a nod, catching on to what he was thinking. He returned the gesture, then took off running once again, heading for the area where the fighting was most intense.