He flew at a speed that would get him to Sachel’s home in seconds but as he went, he made sure to connect to the few others already up and about despite the early hour, screaming in their heads to go to the adventurer’s guild to get as many adventurers as could be gathered to help deal with a problem he could already guess at while at the same time demanding answers from his god.
Hundreds… okay, no, that’s manageable. I can deal with that, Ben nodded, forcing himself to calm down. I am disgustingly powerful by this point; hundreds of demons are nothing compared to what I can do, which means my only priority is getting there as fast as I can.
He could feel the wind and what dust was in the air stinging his flesh from his speed, but he ignored it. He had only one priority, and it was getting to Sachel’s, ripping the door off its hinges in his hurry by the time he got there and making those inside jump, panic too fresh, even if they were somewhat safe.
Ben could recognize all of them, twenty dryads having made it there with a couple more stepping through once he arrived and, judging from what he was seeing, it made sense for them to be there. Ben was surely called as soon as they realized they were under attack, and with the time change between the two lands, it had to have still been dark when their village had been invaded. The ones who’d been first to get through were the ones who lived closest to Fontesh and among them he could see signs of attack, cuts that could only have been from claws and other injuries that spoke of magic but of the ones who made it through, nothing was immediately life-threatening.
On this side at least. Myriad, get Anailia to send Sonya this way and to get Thera back. She shouldn’t be too far, and I want to have some powerful healers on hand for whoever I send through. When you’re done that, directly call the demis to come help too.
He was trying to be rational about it but he’d gone into the dryads’ heads to see what he could expect, finding chaos had descended on them with the first screams waking up enough others to sound a proper alarm, their memories showing him one more thing. Where the missing one among them was.
Both the alarm and the gate away were kept in Fontesh’s house, and like it or not, it made sense why she wasn’t there. She was an awakened plant mage, a powerful fighting force for her village, who could protect her people while they escaped on top of fighting off the monsters bearing down on them. No, the unexplained absence was her daughter, Ben’s precious student, who was nowhere to be seen among them because the memories of the others revealed she’d slipped back through in the chaos.
Stupid girl, he privately cursed to himself, feeling his fear flood him all over again. What would make you do something dumb like that?
As her teacher, it was a lengthy conversation he was going to have to have with her once he found her but that would only be after they were all safe, with Ben instead focused on what he needed to do then, yelling out orders to the ones around him.
“The five strongest of you, stay here to make sure nothing that shouldn’t gets through the gate before more help arrives while the rest of you go into the streets. We can’t have this place filling so much that it would be difficult for more of you to get through, and when others start arriving to help, you can flag them down.”
He put all of the authority he could in his voice as he spoke, trying to force them to do as he said but not sticking around to see if they’d listen. They at least were safe, he now had different priorities as he rushed through that portal to the chaos beyond, finding weaker dryads trying to make their way into Fontesh’s home while he forced himself out.
Ralia guarded the door as others ran through, the woman in her snake form but recognizable as their eyes met, looking relieved to have him there but said no more as he ran out. From where he stood it was clear the village was filled with demons, already looking like the few hundred Myriad had promised and more beyond it but within the scope of his vision it seemed manageable as he stretched his senses and used the eyes of everyone he connected with to see more before materializing hundreds of hard metal balls and shot them out, instantly piercing skulls around him and leaving demon corpses to fall to the ground like wet sacks of meat, even as more ran in from the woods.
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That’s okay though, I can handle this much, he told himself as he ran, spending more of his mana to pick up every dryad he could see with an unawakened magic and moved them to Fontesh’s home faster than they could ever hope to run, ignoring the panic that caused in favour of pure efficiency. And I’m not alone either. We can all handle this.
He could see a few of the other dryads in town catching their breath after he stepped in to end their own battles, along with Sachel running around, looking for others in hiding in that momentary lull to yell for them to get out, but he didn’t stop. He’d killed everything in his sight, but there was still more beyond that, and he needed to explore the whole of it. He knew everyone there, and he knew who had gotten through so far. There were plenty left, with one group still unseen, giving him another reason to clench his teeth in fear.
The sirens.
It had been his idea to move them there to try to give Mirrian a bit of peace and Kalley a more normal life, but all of that couldn’t have made it more obvious what a mistake that was. He should have left them in the safety of the sirens’ city, not taken them out in the middle of nowhere. Mirrian could have learned to adapt, and Kalley could have been fine being a bit spoiled; there was no need to try and fix their lives in such a way. All he’d done by interfering was put them in danger.
And with their house on the edge of town… okay, that’s where I’m going for now.
He found more demons and more dryads alike as he ran, killing all of the first group he could while moving the second, finding members of that race with broken bones and cuts so deep they could barely move and he forced himself to transport them like he did the others, even with Fontesh’s home no longer in sight. He used a mental map of the town, looking at where they were and then spent his mana accordingly to carry them back as they were moved through the sky and around buildings to be placed before Ralia, even if the sheer distance he was forcing his spells to work from was draining his mana in a rapid way.
Should have gone to the shop early with Thera and Mora, he cursed to himself again. If I’d been there, then I would have had the church of Myriad to fall back on.
What did he care for his self-imposed limits when so many people he knew were in danger? No matter how much mana he currently held, having it with him would have been a boon, yet there he was, spending wildly with even more still to go.
Everywhere he could see, more demons were flooding in from the surrounding woods, long passing just a few hundred in the number he’d slain with no sign of stopping. There were simply too many. Even if the area they were in was sparsely populated, it just didn’t make sense.
Myriad, are you back yet? I have questions here!
No answer came though, his god still busy getting all of the help he could and trusting Ben to be able to handle it, with that trust not unfounded with the number of corpses he was leaving in his wake. Still, something was wrong, and as things were, he couldn’t figure out what; not when he was killing the demons from too great of a distance to read their minds.
And if I were to try to let some get close, there’s still no guarantee they’d come to me, and they could hurt someone else instead. AUGH! Doesn’t matter. Keep fighting, find Delair, find Fontesh, find the sirens and get them all out of there, and then after doing all of that, confirm all of the dryads in general have escaped and destroy the gate so more demons can’t come through. It doesn’t matter why I can’t explain how there’s so many if everyone is safe… except they’ll just go to the next nearby village if we leave it. Fuck. Okay, new plan: get all of the sirens and dryads to safety, hope Thera and other adventurers arrive to help, and from there we’ll kill all of the demons around, one way or another. That’s doable, right?
At least, it was the most doable idea he had to that point, and he trusted other help to arrive. Admittedly, with the early hour in Stonewall, just how many adventurers they could gather on such short notice was suspect, but he had no doubt that once she got word, Thera would come to help, meaning they only needed to hold out until them, seeing some doing exactly that when his destination came into view.
Around what had been the various sirens' homes a new forest stood, trees merged into one another to form defensive walls to keep demons out, even as many went directly there from the woods and the ones already at it forced their way up and over, but that wasn’t enough to stop such a thing from being a good sign. It meant that at least one awakened plant mage was with them, possibly more, along with their guards who had moved there as well, all to fight whatever was getting through.
But for so many of the demons to narrow in on them like that? Did one of them have their brace off at the same time the attack started? Not enough to make some maddening lure but just managing to pull some attention for anything nearby? Fuck me, this really is too much.
Whatever had them narrowing in on the group like that, it was something he couldn’t just leave and with a leap aided by his mana, he killed the beasts surrounding that barrier as he jumped over the treetops, ready to help whoever was on the other side.