85 The Demon Lord and His Wife (2/2)
”Do you know to do that?! Because I sure as hell don't!”
”Yes, but I will need to dedicate my attention to fixing it. …You understand what that means, right? And I can't repair from it here either; I'm going to need to reach the hole itself before I can begin…”
Reed took a long, deep breath and nodded in acknowledgment.
”I will help you push back the horde up until we reach the hole, but then it'll fall on you to hold them back after that. Do you understand? We will only have one opportunity to do this, am I clear? If we fail…”
”We won't.”
Reed would not permit himself to fail. Not here. He was partly to blame for the disaster and had put an innumerable amount of lives at stake.
It wasn't as if he wanted to be a hero or anything. In fact, this couldn't even be called an act of heroism.
Cleaning the mess you made wasn't heroic in the slightest. It just meant that you had weren't a mannerless piece of garbage.
He was simply owning up to what he had done. Other people — innocent people were now caught in the middle of his monumental fuck-up. That, he could not stand.
People should take responsibility for their actions. It is only natural to do so.
Lacrima, I'm going to need your help once we get to the hole.
”Naturally. But what are you planning on doing, boy? How are you going to hold them off?”
You'll see... But for now, help me out with the push to the hole. I need more Anima. A lot of it.
Reed stared the ever-growing, laughing horde of abominations and said, ”Let's get this show on the road, then.”
Lu'um gathered Anima around herself and said, ”Follow my lead and stay close. I'll take care of the front of the horde; you take care of the stragglers on the sides. The firestorm will take care of the remaining scraps, so don't get too focused on clearing them all out.”
”Just keep pushing forward and don't stop until we get to the hole.”
Reed nodded and gathered as much Anima as he could handle and said, ”Making me play second fiddle, eh? That's fine, too.”
Lu'um shook her head and said, ”You're going to need to preserve as much strength as you can — that's why I'm taking the lead. I can't have you gassing out on me at the finish line…”
She quickly gathered a considerable amount of Anima, enough to have reached Reed's limit twice over, and then fashioned it into what she needed the most.
Reed stepped back a couple of feet when he saw she had created.
Two enormous serpents wreathed in burning feathers formed out of Anima and coiled around the pair like guardians. They hissed out tongues of flames at the Infested and slowly bowed when they in front of Reed and Lu'um.
They were both at the very least, taller than the firestorm itself. At minimum eight kilometers in height when they stood up, so to speak. But in reality, their true length was probably triple that conservative figure.
Lu'um grabbed Reed and put him atop of one the serpents and said, ”I will carve out the main path with them while you take care of the sides. And don't worry, they don't bite… well, usually.”
”...”
”That was a joke, Ka'an.”
”...Right.”
Lu'um rolled her eyes and then gave the command. The two serpents charged into the inferno head first and began their work. Superheated flames flew out of the serpents they doused the screeching horde into ash. They also used their massive tails to pound the mountains of Infested into a fine paste as they pushed themselves into the heart of the swarm.
Reed, on the other hand, had summoned an endless rain of meteors — infused with highly condensed Anima. As soon as they crashed into the Infested swarm, they exploded and vaporized everything in a hundred-meter range. Thousands of terrifying meteors flew down upon the Infested as Reed carpet-bombed the ever-loving hell out of everything on the sides.
The screams, explosions, and flames painted as an incredibly beautiful portrait of carnage. It was as if the demon lord and his wife had descended upon hell itself to judge the damned.
It was a spine-chilling scene to behold as the pair tore through the Infested horde. It would have taken two fleets for the Mulian military to have accomplished what the pair had done.
That was how terrifying they were when they worked together...