124 A hasty trap (1/2)

”That was easy, did they really thought mere mortals could stand against us like that?” The red hair of Meridiana was floating in the air, like hypnotic flames. The powerful light of the two moons was accentuating this even more. Her skin had finally recovered the slightly purple color that was the true form of a succubus. Without needing to be someone else, both her and Davion were completely different than their former appearances, the one they used to fool the humans.

”Too many of them escaped. This could hardly be considered a success.” Like her, he had removed his helmet to feed himself on the survivors, or those that survived before that. His blue face was the last thing many eyes saw on that day. However, unlike the succubus, he was not happy by the fact that they were unharmed. The ambush that was planned against them was hardly a threat, making it weird. Maybe the fact that they dealt with it beforehand was the reason, but the orodil felt that something was off.

”Well, if you hadn't prevented me from chasing after them, we would have killed more of those delicious humans. It truly is a wonder that they decided to attack us in the middle of the night. In the end, they could flee in panic while we stood there, watching them. Why did you do that?”

”Feelings.”

Brushing off the answer of Davion, she could only respect it. After all, if an orodil felt something, it probably meant mana was involved. The fact that they probably attacked the early scouts made those that prepared the trap mad. Even more when against all odds, they decided to just retreat, without even chasing the fleeing soldiers. ”By now, with the fact that the sun will be visible in the sky in a few hours, Ymir should have already begun to act. We need to go.”

They were not very far from Archet but they were not supposed to come back there. Instead, they needed to take the tunnel the Akûl and his army crossed to go toward the other side of those mountains. The offensive on Avenio could accelerate everything, and with someone having to defend the newly conquered Archet, it was too risky to expose Leilade to unnecessary risk. After all, Kardel was not really suited to fighting head-on fights, contrary to Davion and Ymir.

After all, if she was to die, no one else could hope to survive. And from what she had extracted from that princess from Massalia, it was complete cooperation between all the human nations and the Organization. Maybe even the last Hero, that Archmage could come as well. And if with less than 900 years, Leilade had reached this point, they could not underestimate a human that had lived for more than 1000 of years. Even if he only stayed on the same planet for all those years and could only painstakingly find new ways to develop magic by himself.

They arrived right after dawn at the same cave they used to create a fake cultist lair. The previously normal cave had been turned into a polished tunnel, with legions of skeletons guarding the entrance. They were wearing grey armors, and behind, dozens of liches could be seen. Obviously, they were weaker than some undead they had seen, but their number could compensate for that. From what they knew facing and battling adventurers, those skeletons could hold their ground against most of them.

Hundreds of meters after entering, and after dodging the vast amount of skeletons still working at digging the walls and cleaning the tunnel, they reached a room with a very familiar inscription on the ground. Not bothering at all by its presence, Meridiana immediately stepped on it, and soon, a blue light surrounded her and made her disappear. Right before walking on it as well, Davion could only see some liches crumbling on the ground, all the mana in their bodies being siphoned by the portal.

”Davion, can you ...” Even before he could reorganize his thoughts, the orodil had the smaller duvodiad in front of his face. Kardel was looking at him, like he wanted to use the portal, in a slightly urgent way. Because they could only step aside since it was quite a surprise, the two newcomers saw the duvodiad disappear in a flash. Turning around to look at Meridiana, he saw her raise her shoulders, as she was as clueless as him.

Walking a few meters, they entered the central room of the base, where they could see a very bright dot appearing on the globe. It was the first time they had seen this, and could only wait for Leilade to inform them about what happened. At the same time, they noticed that the shadows surrounding the little girl were clearly bigger than before. They could no longer touch her without being in contact with the dormant evil that was inside her body.

”A Hero had been spotted in Avenio. During the battle, Ymir had some ... unfortunate words. In reaction, those gods from above blessed one human, to a point where he was capable of forcing the Akûl to kneel. But not enough to injure him with the armor of master Agnil. Therefore, Kardel personally proposed to hunt the unwanted guest.”