Chapter 64 - Vol. 2 - 29

Ash

With every step she took, Ash's concern increased. She began to wonder if she was losing her hold on reality. In the distance, more images of that boy would come and go. However, he'd occasionally be surrounded by different figures, not just that one woman she'd seen. There was another lady who seemed thinner and quieter in a way that reminded Ash of Keiko, and there was a tall and strong-looking man who would occasionally be walking with the kid. 

Is...  She thought.  Is that the same kid from that dream I saw? Wasn't that Niven?  She thought.  But, then... Why hasn't he talked to me? 

"Wait, hold on," Satsuhiro said and Ash shook her head, forcing those thoughts out of her mind. "Hear that?" 

Ash tried to focus. She hadn't even noticed that they'd been walking up to a structure of some sort. 

"What is this place?" Ash asked but Satsuhiro put a finger to his lips, telling her to stay quiet. 

That was when Ash finally heard what he was talking about. 

In front of them, was some sort of small fort. It was like a broken-down miniature castle, she figured. Coming from inside though, she could hear demonic growling. Not just that, but there were screams coming from people who sounded fairly human. 

Oh, shit. 

Satsuhiro waved at her, essentially telling Ash to follow and the half-demon nodded. Walking around to an open iron gate, the pair of Saviors peeked inside. 

Ash almost puked. 

Blood covered the floor, dripping out of multiple fresh human bodies scattered around the area. The smell of death permeated the air. Four demons were currently devouring a pair of corpses to the right side. At the back of the room, she saw two humans though who were very much alive. They were tied up, iron cuffs chained to the walls keeping them restrained. 

Satsuhiro pointed at them and Ash nodded to let him know she was seeing the same thing. She checked the demon's levels. 

Level 17

MP: 200/200

Level 19

MP: 150/150

Level 18

MP: 160/160

Level 18

MP: 140/140

Four of them. All around level 19, with that buff. Fuck, this is going to be... 

Before she could finish that thought, one of the people who were still alive yelled out:

"PLEASE, HELP!" 

Simultaneously, all four of the demons lifted their heads off their meals, looked at the person who had just yelled, and then looked out to where Satsuhiro and Ash were standing. 

"You've got to be kid-" 

"Aaargh!" A demon roared at them, turning to face them and charging immediately. 

"Hold it off!" Satsuhiro ordered. 

"Right," Ash quickly stood between it and Satsuhiro, lifting her sword to act as a barrier. However, this particular demon was far faster than she anticipated. It pushed her down as Satsuhiro spoke an incantation behind her. 

With the demon growling above her, some saliva falling on her cheeks as its teeth hovered over her face, Ash scowled. 

What do I...?

As the demon held her down, the other three soon joined them, but a wave of fire hit them before they could reach Ash. The blow wasn't strong enough to kill, probably thanks to the buff, but it delayed all three creatures long enough to give Ash an idea.

Her spell, Decimating Touch, came to her mind. 

She dropped her sword, placed her hands on the demon's shoulders, and said:

"Let the darkness caress you, take it in, and scream!" Ash muttered and suddenly, her hands glowed with a black aura. 

The demon did exactly as the incantation said it would. It raised its head, swinging it from side to side wildly as the spell took hold, its potency, of course, boosted by Niven's Blessing affecting Ash's INT stat. 

The demon squealed until just a few seconds later, it died on top of her. 

Ash pushed it aside and stood up, just in time to fight off the three demons who had also recovered. With Satsuhiro near her, the two of them launched spells at the approaching figures. 

"Infernal currents, come out!" Satsuhiro said, and a stream of fire poured from his hands. 

"Corruption spread, corruption launch!"  Ash quickly followed up with a Dark spell of her own. The demons were struck, disabled momentarily, though one managed to push through the pain and continue attacking. 

Ash narrowed her eyes at that one. Rage bubbled inside of her thanks to the Dark spells she'd been using, something that caused her to lash out. Without her sword, as it was still on the ground, she charged at it.

They collided, and maybe it had been because the demon didn't expect it, but Ash was able to press her shoulders into its midsection, tackling it down to the floor. Once she sat on top of it, she started to punch it repeatedly, her fists breaking its bones easily. She kept going, disregarding the sounds of fire searing flesh beside her.

Once it was dead, she turned towards the others with a feral sense of bloodlust, only to find that they had already been dealt with by Satsuhiro, when they were on the ground. Even with the difference in levels, with him being able to spray them with flames without an answer from them, they weren't able to save themselves. Looking back down at the demon beneath her, she noticed that she had a violet aura covering her body. 

Shit,  she thought.  I nearly went into my Demon Form.

"HELP! GET US OUT!" Ash looked up when she heard that, seeing the restrained humans looking at her with pleading eyes. "What are you waiting for!?" 

"HEY DUMBASS," she yelled back. "MAYBE YOU WANNA BE A LITTLE LOUDER SO YOU CAN GET EVERY DEMON IN THIS FUCKING WORLD TO SHOW UP, HUH? KEEP CRYING, I HAVE HALF A MIND TO LEAVE YOU HERE!" 

"Ash," Satsuhiro put a hand on her shoulder. "Calm down." 

"What? Are you kidding? We just fought off four demons and-" 

"Yeah, yeah, just breathe," Satsuhiro said and Ash sighed. Looking down at her hands, she still saw that Dark energy. 

Shaking her head, she simply stood up and walked outside. 

"Whatever..." 

A few moments later, the civilians were freed and brought out as well. Satsuhiro pointed in the direction where he and Ash had come from. 

"There's a portal down that way, walk in a straight line, you'll find it eventually." 

Wordlessly, they just ran away. 

"YOU'RE WELCOME!" Ash yelled at them and Satsuhiro shook his head. 

"Come on," he said, "we're getting closer to those spires." 

"Yeah? Well, what the fuck are we even going to do once we get to them?" Ash asked. "How does closing a portal even work?" 

"Hm. Well, it depends. If it's an object, it's as simple as just breaking it apart. If it's a demon, we'll have to kill them."

"And then what!?" Ash asked. "How do we get back to our world?" 

"To be honest, I don't know." Satsuhiro shrugged, "but I've been meaning to ask you a question." He quickly added. 

"Yeah?"

"Alright, listen. When you went into that portal near my house, how far did you go?" 

"We couldn't leave the city," Ash replied, trying to calm herself. "We were sent to this different version of Jade, but there was a barrier all around it." 

Satsuhiro nodded. 

"Ah... Hm, well that just makes things even more complicated, honestly." 

"Why?" Ash asked. 

"Because what that makes me think is that we might not have access to the entire world."

"... I don't get it." 

"Okay, step by step then," Satsuhiro started. "Firstly, the spires. Their existence means that the source of the spell that's keeping these portals up is likely not Niven himself. If it were, there would be just one spire, coming from him, instead, there are multiple. What that means, is that the spell that's happening, while strong, is not on the level of a god, if maybe just a step below, and is being maintained by demons or objects with strength on the level of things in our world. With that in mind, we can assume one very important thing. That there are limitations." 

... Yeah, no. I think I might actually just be too dumb for this. Ash thought, but she let him keep going. 

"And, if we assume that, we can assume three more things, that I believe I've talked about before. First, that there's probably a limit to how far the portal's influence can spread, second, that there's a set duration to these portals, and the third thing being that the portal can't cover the entire alternate realm."

"Uh, summarize it for me, maybe?" Ash asked. 

"Basically, what I'm saying is that I think these spells lead to pocket dimensions," he explained. "Not the entire alternate realm, but just a small portion of it depending on the size of the portal. It doesn't seem like there's a logic to where exactly it sends you," Satsuhiro put a hand under his chin, "I mean, unless..." Satsuhiro muttered. "We... Never mind," he said. "The point is, that if we close this portal, well, because this is only a pocket dimension made by the portal itself, one of two things will happen. Either," he listed, "we'll cease to exist along with everything in here and, well, yeah, that would be less than good. Or, the spell will throw everything that arrived here from its portal back out. In which case, leaving would be as simple as closing the portal. Let's keep going." 

"Okay, but I'm just gonna let you know everything you said just went in one ear and out the other, okay? Just saying." 

---

The pair continued traversing the violet desert. If the only part of that entire conversation that Ash understood was to be believed, it meant that there was a limit to how far they could go, and yet this place felt endless. 

More of those visions came and went, but Ash's mind was too preoccupied trying to piece things together that she simply didn't focus on them. 

Ash looked down, wiped off some sweat, and took a deep breath. Then, Satsuhiro tapped her shoulder and she looked up again. 

And, she saw them. 

"So, they're objects then," Satsuhiro stated as they came close enough to see pyramid-shaped structures shooting those spires up into the sky.

However, that wasn't all. 

Each one of the spires had something else in front of it, guarding them. 

"Well, that looks like fun," Ash mumbled. 

Three Nightmares. A Gluttony Demon, as she could see by the size of its gut, who was holding some strange flail-like object, a Lust Demon, with curved horns and black wings at its back, and a Wrath Demon, holding a greatsword and with blindfolded eyes, far bigger than their basic counterparts, simply standing around almost waiting for enemies to come. 

"Maybe we should have seen this coming," Satsuhiro said. "What are their levels?" 

She could just barely see them from this distance. 

Level 25

MP: 300/300

Level 25

MP: 350/350

Level 28

MP: 300/300

"Yeah, that's not happening," Ash said. 

"Hm?"

"All of those things are level 25 plus." She said, "Even if it was just one of them, I don't think we could take those things... Well," Ash quickly said, "unless I'm in my Demon Form. Even then, it feels hard." 

Satsuhiro nodded. 

They remained in silence for a moment, just watching the Nightmares. Then, Satsuhiro turned to her. 

"It's your call," he solemnly stated. "I, unfortunately, would be pretty useless here. If their buffs are as strong as you say. This isn't a fight I can help you too much in. At best, I'll be able to distract and harass. You'd have to do all of the dirty work though." 

Ash nodded. 

"But, this is what we came for," he gestured at the pyramids. "I'd obviously like to leave this place alive, but... We might not get as good a shot at this again. Who knows where the next portals will open up? Or, if the one we took to get here will even remain up for long?" 

Yeah, he's right about that.  Ash thought, sighing.  But... We need answers. 

"... Fine. Let's come up with something," Ash said. "We kind of have to try, right?"