Chapter 6-173: A Portal to Slavery (1/2)

Sergeant Smith gestured surreptitiously, and Sama’s uniform began to mend. It was completely shredded from the crisscrossing claw marks ripping across her chest and face, the tatters all bloody from the wounds... and a whole lot of darker gore that wasn’t hers.

The women watched Sama’s wounds heal with a mixture of respect and desire for such self-healing ability. They’d been healed enough by her not to be alarmed at it, and they had experienced plenty of magical healing, so they knew it wasn’t painless, but Sama was ignoring the four sets of inch-deep gashes that had torn across her face and were slowly closing, oozing dark stuff as they did, as if they didn’t exist, and the mess made of her chest was ignored the same way.

The way that grimm, one of the most dreaded and murderous Fey known to exist, was all chopped the fuck up and burning was kind of impressive, too.

The cultist presence in town was mostly wiped, with any stragglers suddenly finding better things to do elsewhere, or fleeing into the vortex and whatever shit was going on in there.

“Awright, listen up!” Sama began, and was impolitely interrupted.

KRA-KOOM SHRIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEKKKKKK...!

All the soldiers screamed and clasped their hands over their ears, staggering at the closeness of the thunderclap... and the even worse ripping sound going off. Those who’d happened to be looking up were additionally blinded.

Sama coolly turned around and looked up to where the heavens were tearing...

“Welp, a little bit too late,” she murmured to nobody in particular, /sending that off to the boys.

Lily had also sent out word of what was happening by cable, after securing the tower by gratuitously butchering everything inside, and the military and independent fighting teams were rumbling to life. Combatants from nearby cities would be barreling towards this place, ready to fight, but what the cultists here had wanted done was already accomplished.

The fuckers had brought something in from Outside the Shroud, probably using the whole town as a blood sacrifice to do it, utilizing the conflict at the border for the necessary magical instability, and exploiting it just enough to bend the Shroud open for a few moments.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!?!” screamed a very powerful, very deep voice, laden down with slaughter and destruction across eons, carrying over the winds and rumbling of the clouds... in Demonic.

Four of the young women promptly folded and puked on hearing it. Private Gilritz, a cocksure Sorceress with tons of discipline problems, fainted instantly.

Sama just listened to the winds, which seemed to be carrying the voices of the Summoners bound to the magic.

“Your Invincible Lordship! You are the mightiest being walking this planet right now! None can come to gainsay your conquest! We have delivered this world unto you!”

Sama blurted out a guffaw despite herself, eye on the sky, where the Haze was thickening on its own, now that the interfering magic was ended, blackening, swirling...

Forming a Shroudcloud!

“YOU UNMITIGATED FOOL!” There was an explosion of flame from inside the vortex, and something managed a final scream. “YOU HAVE TRAPPED ME HERE, DOOMED ME! DELIVERED THIS WORLD TO ME?!”

Well, it understood its position pretty fast. The Shroud had come down and fixed on it as the most powerful Evil entity present, even if it wasn’t undead.

And that meant, with the Curse of the Sun, it wasn’t going much of anywhere.

That said, it still didn’t know what it was facing here, only that the magic of the Shroud was way, WAY above anything these stupid Summoners had managed...

“Dame Grace,” Sama said in no uncertain terms, “you are standing next to Hilda.” The Paladin, the only one in the company, quickly shifted over next to the only Valkyrie in the company, who happened to be toting a Gritworks Mini-Gun, said hefty toy having buzzsawed through a number of recalcitrant oversized brutes. “The rest of us, our job is to get the two of them close to the source of that voice, where the Dame can put her hand on that chew-toy and Smite, and Hilda can hold the trigger down and burn off thousands of dollars of ammunition as fast as possible.”

Everyone was forming up now, helping the stunned women back to their feet, everyone ignoring the vomit, since they all still wanted to puke.

Screams were coming from inside the vortex cloud, black and puke green-yellow demonfire was exploding this way and that, and roars from no human throat were not quite drowning out the gleeful shrieks from other inhuman throats that had popped up.

“They brought in a demon, a big one, and it’s not happy. So, they are likely to be running.

“Spend your spells on the mortals and fey. If we hit demons, use Force effects, holy effects, and shoot them with something magical. They may not fully appreciate being in a technological universe, so let’s make that lesson their last one.”

“Sir!” they all shouted back. Sama turned around, and led the way into the vortex.

------

The winds from the Ritual they’d undergone were dying down, and the demonic lightning had basically ceased... which didn’t help those ahead as they screamed and ran away.

There was no mercy as the first of the shadows came racing out between buildings blown apart and cratered holes in the ground. Demon-eyed Warlocks, screaming Fey in a variety of mismatched forms who didn’t want their souls eaten, lumbering brutes of various sorts, and of course the screaming Hags who’d done fucked up in their judgement were all coming, and so was a great big source of demonfire looming in the churning fog behind them.