Chapter 120: Diamonds in the sky (2/2)

“Why? Because YOU want to touch it?” Ilea asked.

“Precisely.” Trian said while removing one of his gauntlets before putting his hand on the metal. Mana flowed inside and his eyes opened wide a second later.

“It’s… responding… is it a creatu” the man was interrupted by a loud cracking noise from below, both Ilea and Trian teleporting upwards and flying even higher as the noise got louder and louder. Cracks upon cracks first only sounded out but soon were visible all around the ground below them. A rhythmic sound soon took over, loud bangs resounding every other second before the salt rock below them fell downwards and into the spinning metal shredder they had apparently unleashed.

“Yea sure, let’s touch it.” Ilea couldn’t help herself, because she would’ve done the exact same thing which in turn would annoy Trian even more. Disappointing her with his response, the man just watched the scene below them with wide eyes. A minute later the spinning stopped and the massive shiny rhombus shaped object floated inside the massive hole it had created. The thing was at least forty meters high and twenty broad.

“Well that was fucking cool.” Ilea said as she started floating towards it.

“Wait don’t go closer!” Trian shouted “Don’t offend it!”

“Offend a fucking geometrical object… what is this? Evangelion?” Ilea asked and got closer before she touched the object as well. Even after pushing some of her mana inside with reversal, the object didn’t move. “I think we’re safe here...” she said and floated downwards, seeing the opening in the metal.

Trian floated downwards a little more hesitant than her but joined the woman right next to the entrance in the shape of a triangle. “Whatever they are they like their shapes...” she said and got inside, landing on the metal floor as her wings dissipated into flakes of ash. She prepared for a response but nothing happened. There was a magical light of sorts casting the corridor before them in a dim orange red light.

Walking onwards, the corridor opened up to the right before going back towards the middle, the two intruders looking around with wide eyes when they reached the open core of the structure. The shell must have been five or more meters thick but most of its size was in the room they were standing in now, the walls purely metal and absolutely covered in runes neither of them had ever seen. Some of them lit up here and then, likely the reason the object didn’t simply fall down.

“What the hell is this...” Trian asked and Ilea didn’t have a good answer to it and she was running low on jokes.

“It’s beautiful...” she said after a while, floating into the open space with the help of her wings. Touching the runes did nothing. “If only Claire was here...” she commented. “Aki anything?”

“Nah, doesn’t ring a bell either.” the dagger responded.

“I’m not the worst at runes either, just don’t have the class for it. Maybe I can figure something out. I think we should stay here for a while and try to learn more about this thing. Otherwise who knows how long we’re stuck in that salt desert again...” Trian suggested and Ilea agreed wholeheartedly.

“Yea, that sounds great. You try to figure something out, I’ll go hunting and exploring a bit.” she said.

“Are you sure? That monster looked to be quite close to killing you...” the man commented, looking at a rune and sketching it down.

“Exactly that’s why I want to go.” Ilea answered and went back to the doorway, flying out and upwards to be greeted by the mind weaver.

“A marvelous find. If only my kind didn’t lack the skills to use it.” the demon said right into her mind.

“So you know how to use it?” Ilea asked. “Then come on down.” she smiled below her helmet, this place was getting dreadfully boring. Caves at least had vegetation and sometimes water in them.

“This rune here is speculated to be drawing energy. This one as well, while these four expel it in some way.” the mind weaver explained to Trian who was intently listening and writing down all he could get out of the demon. Ilea was sitting near the entrance, her armored legs dangling below. She was eating a celebratory meal from Keyla, their find completely warranting the waste of food.

‘I can still eat demons… doubt they’ll compare to even Drakes… ew.’ she thought as she looked at the beautifully crafted meal before her. A combination of sushi and desert. Both spicy and sweet but somehow the woman had made it work. ‘Maybe she just has the skills and whatever shit she dishes together will be delicious...’ the thought was interrupted by the crackling of lightning.

“There was a reaction, definitely.” Trian said, shaking his arm.

“There was but it’s not the right energy of course...” the demon said, its voice shaking in Ilea’s mind.

‘Is it excited or what?’ she thought, continuing her meal.

The two mages continued to try things out and Ilea had to heal Trian occasionally because whatever they did to the runes was apparently quite dangerous, enough perhaps to kill a weaker adventurer even. She absently noted that the mind weaver hadn’t brought its platoon of horrors down into the structure with it. ‘Now’s the time to kill it...’ she thought but only smirked, her helmet put away for easier eating. The demon didn’t seem like much of a threat to her anymore, perhaps it managed to knock out Trian with a surprise attack but even he should be able to resist if he was prepared.

Again she was glad to have leveled all those resistances. Her veil had become a nearly constant partner as well, always at the ready and even activated in unknown places. Hours passed but Ilea didn’t feel like going out just in case something did progress down here. The two mages had gotten continuously more nervous and excited, learning more about the runes with their testing.

“You think that will work?” Trian asked and the demon nearly shook before answering.

“Yes… YES I’m SuRE of IT… TrY!” it had gotten back into shouting a while ago but Trian didn’t seem to mind. Ilea just tanked through it, reading a book from Albert’s collection.

‘I hope the others are fine...’ she thought. ‘The demons would probably be stopped by the Hand but that massive thing in the end.’ She wasn’t sure about it. ‘Though the elder flying into it might’ve actually done it, who knows.’

“Ilea we need you here!” Trian shouted and she made her book vanish, getting up and flying towards the two crazed scholars, neither looking the part. “Hug on tight and heal me, can you shroud us in ash or something?” the man asked and Ilea went behind him, their armors touching as she wrapped her arms around the man’s chest in something akin to the Heimlich maneuver before her healing started. “You too demon, I don’t think this works if you’re far away or turned to dust.” Trian said, obviously closer to the creature now that they had worked together.

‘Sharing hobbies is a good way to make friends...’ Ilea thought as her wings came to life and wrapped around the two men before her. Right when she considered the demon to be Trian’s friend, it was a man in her book. The implications otherwise would not be nice to think about. Ash came to life around them, building crude walls that might protect them from whatever was to come.

“Are you ready?” Trian asked, healing mana flowing through all of them before lightning crackled and struck four distinctive points in the structure. The feedback was as quick as lightning, energy flowing through them at a constant pulse, only increasing in power as Trian upped his output. Ilea’s healing fought against the damage but if nothing happened soon she wasn’t so sure the demon would make it, the two humans were still mostly fine, herself not bothered by the damage in the least.

“Come on, MORE!” Trian shouted, a massive pulse of red lightning leaving him as the first demons burst into the room, breaking through the mind weaver’s control to be part of the event that might bring them somewhere else. Ilea saw the first of them enter the energy field and bursting into flame when light filled her eyes. Dozens of colors floated in front of her before they vanished, replaced by dull gray metal making her question the thing she had just seen.

Before her she found two damaged individuals, blinking between them and healing both. The demon that made it inside the field didn’t quite come out as well as the two she was healing, the torched and smoking corpse filling the room with its stench. Trian started coughing a minute later as Ilea took in the surroundings. One thing was for sure, they weren’t in the same place anymore.