Thanks to Belamus and his team, effortlessly clearing the path of monsters, their pace had quickened dramatically. No assassins. No ambushes. Just a string of monsters; dangerous to most, but nothing they couldn’t handle. For once, everything seemed to be going according to plan.
That was when Belamus felt it: a shift in the air, subtle but sharp, like the prickling edge of a blade brushing against his skin. He halted mid-step, instinct freezing him in place. Something was coming. Something dangerous.
Ahead, Delarosa and Mimi turned to look at him, puzzled.
“What’s wrong, Belamus?” Mimi asked, tilting her head.
“Did something happen?” Delarosa added, brows furrowed with concern.
Judging by their reactions, no one else had sensed it. Whatever this presence was, it was tuned only to him—or more likely, only he was tuned finely enough to perceive it. For a brief moment, he wondered if it might be nothing… but his instincts had never failed him before.
“I want everyone to stop,” he said calmly, scanning the trees.
Meira, who had been leading at the front, halted and turned back, eyeing him with professional curiosity. “Something bothering you?”
“There’s a presence… something wrong with the air. I can’t shake it. Has anyone else noticed anything off?”
The others exchanged looks, then slowly shook their heads.
“I don’t sense anything unusual,” Meira said, though her tone had lost some of its certainty. Still, she didn’t argue. “But I trust your instincts, Belamus. If something feels wrong to you, we move with caution. Everyone, stay alert.”
Belamus closed his eyes for a moment, sharpening his focus. The presence was stronger now, undeniable, like a ripple of magic spreading through the atmosphere, thick and deliberate.
This isn’t natural… this is magic. And not just any magic… summoning.
The realization hit him like a gust of cold wind. Someone, somewhere nearby, was casting large-scale summoning magic. He couldn’t yet identify the caster or their intent, but the technique was unmistakable. Ancient. Dangerous. This wasn’t some elemental conjuring or beast-taming ritual; this was the forbidden kind. The kind that pulled demons or abominations from beyond the veil.
Belamus himself knew how to perform such rituals, but he had never once used them. Summoning magic was a dark art, feared for good reason, and what he was sensing now wasn’t a casual invocation. It was vast. Complex. Purposeful.
Suddenly, light burst into existence across the forest floor.
A glowing circle, roughly three meters wide, etched itself into the ground with blinding white lines. Then another appeared. And another. Within seconds, dozens of summoning circles surrounded them, forming a loose perimeter that lit the woods in a ghostly pale glow.
Belamus’s eyes narrowed. “These are summoning circles.”
The others looked around in alarm, taking in the rings of light that had materialized out of nowhere.
Summoning circles were a sign, an unmistakable signal that something from another world was about to cross into theirs. The moment Belamus saw the sheer number of summoning circles glowing around them, he understood what was happening.
Unlimited Demon Summoning: a forbidden spell designed to indiscriminately call forth vast numbers of lesser demons. While each individual creature was weak and easily dispatched, the real danger came from the overwhelming swarm. It was less a battle and more a war of attrition, designed to drown opponents in fatigue and chaos.
“Combat positions, now! Incoming!” Belamus shouted, first in Dwarvish, then again in Goblin, his voice cutting through the rising tension.
There was no time to explain. No time for questions. But the urgency in his tone said enough. Weapons were drawn, spells readied. Everyone shifted into battle stances just as the first wave burst forth.
They came shrieking from the summoning circles, hundreds of them. Twisted, winged things the size of human infants, black-skinned with leathery wings and lashing tails. Their faces were grotesque, malformed, as if sculpted by a nightmare. Just looking at them made the stomach twist with revulsion.
After a brief pause, down they came.
The demons attacked as one, an airborne swarm of claws and teeth, screeching in rage. Unlike their higher-ranked kin, these lesser fiends lacked intelligence. They didn’t cast spells or coordinate; they simply lunged with feral instinct, one after another, heedless of their own survival.
Belamus and the others met them head-on. Spells and steel alike tore through the creatures with ease. They dropped in clusters, burned from the air, or were skewered mid-flight. But their numbers didn’t slow. Every time one fell, three more emerged from the glowing circles.
“Wh-What the hell are these things?!” Delarosa shouted, her voice sharp with alarm as she blasted another cluster with a sweeping burst of fire. “There’s no end to them!”
Despite their overwhelming strength, even Belamus’s group couldn’t fight endlessly. Magic and stamina had their limits. The dwarves, for all their discipline and skill, were starting to flag under the pressure, breathing heavier, their movements slower.
No summoning spell is truly infinite, Belamus reminded himself. Even for lesser demons, maintaining a portal of this scale must have a limit. Whoever cast this… they can’t sustain it forever.
And he was right.
After several grueling minutes, the tide began to shift. The flow of demons slowed. The shrieking mass thinned. One by one, the summoning circles dimmed, flickered, and vanished entirely. The final demons were struck down, their bodies dissolving into black smoke.
Silence returned to the forest.
“It’s finally over…” Meira muttered, exhaling hard. Around her, the dwarves, Gregald among them, showed visible signs of fatigue, their armor smudged with ash and ichor.
Belamus, by contrast, stood calmly at the center of the aftermath, his breathing steady, his reserves far from depleted. So did Delarosa and Navasha. They had weathered the storm with energy to spare.
Still trembling slightly, Mimi edged closer. Her eyes were wide, her voice barely more than a whisper. “Wh-What were those things?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Meira said, arms crossed as her eyes scanned the fading light between the trees. “But it looked like you knew something, Belamus.”
He nodded grimly. “It was summoning magic. A forbidden art.”
Her gaze sharpened. “Magic? Then we’re dealing with a human? What would their goal be…?” She fell silent, lips tightening in thought.
Behind her, Rugen offered a theory, voice low and cautious. “There are still humans out there who hunt dwarves for our magic stones. Scum who see us as nothing more than a resource to harvest. It could be one of them. Or,” he said with a glance at Belamus, “someone after you.”
Belamus didn’t flinch, but he frowned. That possibility hadn’t crossed his mind, at least, not seriously. The feud with his family, the bloodstained chapters of his past… he had resolved those long ago. There should be no one left with a reason to seek vengeance. No unfinished debts, no lingering threats.
Which left the other theory: that dwarves were the true target. And yet…
No, he thought, that doesn’t add up either.
Something deeper was gnawing at the edges of his thoughts.
Human magic has been in decline for generations. The kind of summoning spell we just saw, on that scale, with that degree of precision, should be beyond what modern mages are capable of. It’s dark magic, yes, and at a level that only high-caliber sorcerers could pull off. So how does someone now, in this era, still have that kind of power? Unless…
A disturbing possibility occurred to him. Perhaps whoever was behind the attack hadn’t kept up with the mainstream magical decline. Perhaps they belonged to a hidden current: an offshoot that had preserved ancient knowledge, clinging to the dark arts while the rest of the magical world stagnated. A secret lineage of sorcerers untouched by the decay of time.
If that’s true… then this was no random assault. Someone is orchestrating this.
Meira’s voice cut through his thoughts. “Either way, we can’t afford to linger. We need to get Lady Mimi to the Emperor Treant, and fast. Once she’s inside the Treant’s domain, no external force will be able to reach her. It’ll be the first real safety we’ve had in days.”
She wasn’t wrong. The attack had changed the equation. And there was no guarantee it would be the last.
With that, the group picked up their pace. Their earlier caution gave way to urgency, and they pressed on toward their destination with renewed intensity. The forest around them blurred as trees passed in quick succession. There was no time for conversation now; only the focused march toward the one place they might finally be able to breathe.