Chapter 194: Push and Pull

“Mama, I think they aren’t gonna attack us anymore.” Mo Na stowed her darkness whip before pointing at the ring of fire elementals ahead, still in the midst of their meeting. Curiosity piqued, she asked: “Mama, what are those things?”

“They should be fire elementals.” I tenderly rubbed her little noggin and hugged her with my other free arm. “I’m not sure what caused this situation but from the looks of it, they seem open to talks. I don’t understand their language though…hopefully one of them knows the language of the devil.”

Just as I strongly wished for a chance to communicate with them, a fire elemental with comparatively more distinct features, stepped out and stopped roughly 50 metres ahead of us after which came a haughty, questioning voice. Because he spoke in the tongue of the devil, I heard every single word of his clearly.

“That devil over there, state your purpose, why have you come to the Raging Flames Lake?” The voice wasn’t grating on the ears but neither was it pleasant either; mostly, it was an average-sounding voice.

The one who spoke was a fire elemental roughly 170 cm tall (5’7) with a balanced, mostly humanoid physique and no particularly defining features except that his facial features were a lot clearer than the other elementals. At the very least, his nose had a bridge and nostrils unlike the other elementals who merely had two holes for a nose or just nothing at all. The elemental had nothing identifying his sex but because his voice tended towards that of a man’s, I assumed he was man.

“We’re just passing travellers, we have no motives in coming here. If you feel that we’re intruding on your space, we’ll leave right this instant.” Having said that, I quickly threw a glance at No.3 and Big 4, signalling for them to leave this place post-haste.

“Don’t even think about leaving! Do you think this is a place you can come and go as you wish!? State your affiliations and motives, or else!”

I honestly intended to make a break for it there and then but who knew that the haughty elemental would be so unwilling to let us go. However, there was nothing we could do about his bully tactics either because of his overwhelming numbers advantage. “I said so already, we’re just travellers with no affiliations whatsoever, neither do we have any special motives.”

“Still you lie! This place hasn’t seen a devil appear in 80 000 years, the fact that you suddenly appeared here must be part of some conspiracy.”

‘Ah, it’s that kind of person, isn’t it? The kind of blockhead that never listens no matter how much you try to explain yourself. Looks like we’re in for a fight then, but how do we handle a crowd of this size…’

‘…for the sake of our safety, I’ll give it another try.’

Suppressing the exasperation in my heart, I replied in a calm voice: “Either way, I do not wish to fight you all so we’ll leave right now, alright?”

“Hmph, you’re just scared of us, aren’t you?” The haughty elemental folded his arms and then threw his head back, pointing his nose right at the sky as he did so. “I bet you’re worried that we might gang up on you.”

“I just said that we came here by unwittingly, exactly how do I make you believe me?”

‘Hmph, you may be right about that last part but there’s no way I’m admitting to that.’

“We hail from the Prison of the Dead, our original destination was Abaddon but because of some unexpected hiccups, we ended up in Purgatory. Having come here, we found no traces of any other devils so we had no choice but to wander around aimlessly in hopes of finding a method to enter Abaddon.”

“You say you’re from the Prison of the Dead?” The elemental had his fiery eyes open wide in shock as he evaluated us.

“That’s right.” I put on my most earnest look in hopes that it would be enough to convince him of the veracity of our claims.

Naturally, all that earned me was a scornful laugh and a raise of his right hand in what looked a rallying signal to surround us. “This might’ve been the territory of the devils in the past, and like you said, the entrance of the Prison is near here, but do you know how long the Prison of the Dead has been sealed up? 80 000 years, that’s how long! For 80 000 years, no living creature has been able to leave the Prison of the Dead! Do you honestly think I will believe your nonsense? There’s no way any devil can leave that forsaken land!” Was his reply, delivered in the most scathing of tones as we well.

‘Ahh, why is it so hard to communicate with this potato, I guess we really have to duke it out then. I just hope they are a lot weaker than they look…hmmm, best if they just keel over from one hit.’

“No more excuses? Hah, I knew right from the very start you guys were lying. Bunch of audacious fools, I see those 80 000 years were enough for your race to forget the painful lessons they received.”

Somehow, my silence ended up becoming all the proof he needed to confirm our guilt —moron.

The intellectually handicapped elemental then pointed at us and yelled, in the most arrogant voice possible: “Well, what other excuses do you have?”

“…”

“Don’t bully my Mama!” Seeing that elemental point at me so rudely, my little baby immediately flew into a rage and took up a battle stance. Then, without wasting another word whatsoever, she swung her darkness whip at the offending elemental.

“You dare to strike me?! Everyone, stay back, I’ll be the one to handle these foolish devils!” While he might have said that, the whip didn’t actually hit him thanks to his impressive dodging skills. Clenching his right fist, he swung his fist in Mo Na’s direction and fired off a ball of raging flames with a whoosh and a sizzle. As the ball of flames pierced through the air, it seemed to suck in the air around it and grow bigger with every meter it flew.

Seeing that, Mo Na immediately withdrew her whip and flapped her tiny wings hard to make a swift dodge to the right. The telltale sizzle of the ball rushed past her ears an instant later, its fiery energies not even coming close to its target. Knowing that she had easily evaded the ball, she leaned forward and shot off like an rocket towards the fire elemental.

From a distance away, the fire elemental clearly saw the speeding silhouette careen straight towards him but chose to do nothing about it, even when he saw her draw what looked like a tiny dagger from her waist right at the very last second. Faced with a potential dagger through his heart, he merely stood there arms folded and blurry lips curved into a smirk; his figure, a picture of absolute confidence.

The dagger plunged into the belly of the fire elemental, and to our surprise, it passed right through the elemental as if it was some sort of ethereal apparition. Mo Na’s body lurched forward from the unexpected lack of resistance, falling right through the fire elemental along with her dagger. An instant later, her robes burst into flames but that wasn’t enough to startle the calm girl. She promptly gave her robes a sharp wiggle, and sent the flames flying away in a tiny wave that dispersed into the air soon after.

Seeing that, the fire elemental didn’t seem the least bit fazed by the ease at which she dispelled his skill, instead he gave an uproarious laugh of arrogance: “Hahaha, we fire elementals are born favored by the flames themselves, even though you devils might have some pitiful semblance of fire resistance as well, don’t think for a second that you are our match.”

Like the haughty elemental said, for the devils to hurt them or fight them was no easy task at all. Fire elementals were creatures born of the elements and could be categorized under the broad category of Elementals. There were two broad types of elementals in this world, one corporeal and one incorporeal.

Corporeal elementals were elementals who belonged to the earth element, magma element, ice element, etc. Their non-corporeal counterparts include those of the water element, the fire element, the wind element, the thunder element, etc. The difference between the two were obvious, those of the corporeal branch had a fixed body of sorts while those of the incorporeal branch couldn’t be interacted with physically as they had no fixed form.

Another difference, and arguably the biggest one, was that incorporeal elementals had the nasty trait of being able to remain permanently ethereal. Unlike undead apparitions however, their ethereal trait did not come with the side effect of receiving double damage from magical attacks. Notable, illusion demons also possess such a trait. For such creatures, they were able to remain immune to normal physical attacks while not receiving much drawbacks.

Long story short, the reason why Mo Na passed through the elemental like that was because it was in a permanent ethereal state.

However, that haughty fire elemental soon discovered that his gloating was a little premature as the seconds ticked by and the wound in his belly refused to heal up. Even more frightening was that his energy was draining out of that wound at a terrifying pace!

“You…what did you do to me?!”

The fire elemental turned towards the smiling little girl, face aghast. Never did it ever cross his mind that there would actually be a weapon that could harm it like that. Such an unhealing wound could basically be counted as a mortal wound for these elementals since their bodies would start to lose their form after a certain level of energy was lost. Should that ever happen, death was the most likely outcome.

“Hah, scared aren’t ya!?” Came Mo Na’s lovely sounding but disdainful scoff, her dagger waving about in triumph. “Try guessing what this thing is made of, why don’t you?”

The fire elemental was stumped but he dearly wanted to know the answer so he asked, eyes unblinking: “What is it made of?”

“The teeth of the Fire Devouring Fish, of course, you dumbo.” Having said that, Mo Na stuck her tongue out at the elemental and even pulled a face at the stunned elemental.

Fire Devouring Fishes, as the name suggested, were creatures who devoured the normally formless flames.

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“Fire Devouring Fish…” If elementals were able to sweat, I bet that elemental would’ve been sweating buckets by now.

It was then that those behind ran up to the haughty elemental to check on his condition. In the meantime, I hurriedly beckoned for Mo Na to return quickly. She obediently flew over as ordered and stood there as if this entire scene had nothing to do with her.

“Get behind me, quick.” I dragged her behind me immediately and reached for Shadowfang with my right hand. “Once we start fighting, I want you to be careful. We’ll do our best to make a break for it in one direction.”

“Mama, Mo Na can protect you!”

“Quiet, this is a matter between adults, kids shouldn’t meddle so recklessly.”

“Hmph, Mama’s a meanie.” She didn’t seem to take too well to my chiding and promptly snubbed me with a turn of her head. “Even though Mo Na is actually stronger than Mama.”

“…” I glared at the girl, telling her with my furious eyes to be quiet or be spanked for making me lose face in front of my enemies.

“Hmph, all Mama ever does is bully Mo Na.”

“Stop being so willful, now’s not the time.” I ruffled her hair to placate her. “Don’t worry, Papa will protect you.”