Arcane Apocalypse [LitRPG]

"Do you want to go first?" Mia asked, glancing over at Gwen, a doe-eyed girl who looked far too young to be fighting monsters. Unfortunately, she was also the only other person at hand who had a combat-related summoning Skill. "Or should I?"

"I will," Gwen said, grabbing her left hand with her right to steady its shaking. "My summons are just mana constructs. Yours … I'd rather mine get ripped apart if there is an ambush waiting for them on the other side."

Gwen glanced at Mia's lazy pink Familiar, currently napping on her shoulder and making eerie snoring noises that sounded like the distant chiming of bells. Mia was half-sure the cat was messing with her, trying to come up with stranger and stranger sounds to weird her out.

Elementals aren't supposed to be that smart. This one is just weird.

"Okay," Mia said, trying to ignore the nearly fifty people arrayed behind them in battle formations, watching their every move like a flock of hawks. "Have at it then. I'll send this lazy cat in if your summons survive."

"Alright." Gwen took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Her fingers trembled for a moment, but then her mana surged. It flowed up to her fingertips like the rising tide and coalesced into a deep blue spell circle before her palm. "One."

The spell collapsed into a globule of translucent blue energy that slowly floated forward. Its form rippled, then expanded, and the blue energy became some manner of mock-water. It looked like some eldritch abomination for a second, but then its vague form settled and grew more defined.

It looked like a Minotaur to Mia, though one made of still water. The summon finally landed, and the remains of the spell circle formed a glowing core in its chest.

The Minotaur, Gwen's water construct, stood still as a statue while Gwen cast the spell again … and again. The Minotaur was joined by three more of its kin, the four of them standing in a straight line before the Rift while their summoner wheezed and gasped for breath.

"Are you alright?" Mia asked, a hand on her mana potion in case the silly girl fully depleted her reserves. "Did you empty out your core?"

"N-no, I'm fine," Gwen said, swallowing a lump in her throat as she straightened up. Her face was pale, and her arms quivered like leaves in the wind. "I never channelled that much mana at once before. Sorry, I'm fine now. Minions, Advance!"

The minotaurs moved as one, stomping forward as one with robotic movements. They disappeared into the Rift, leaving no sign of their passing besides a faint pop that Mia wasn't sure she hadn't just imagined.

"Will you know if they die?" Mia asked in a whisper, uncomfortably aware of the fifty pairs of eyes locked on the back of her head. "Or should I send the cat in after them now?"

"My second Subskill lets me connect to my summons, even if they weren't built with that in mind," Gwen said, a deep frown marring her face. "But the Rift is messing with that. Still, I'll feel if they are destroyed at least … I think. They feel alive … for now."

"Alright then," Mia said, then snatched her Familiar off her shoulder by the scruff of its neck. She knew from experience the lazy little shit could turn its skin slippery like a freshly oiled snake, but it only whined pitifully now, so she took that as its acceptance of the seriousness of the situation. "I want you to scout ahead, go through the Rift, try to kill any monsters near it and come back here. Retreat if you think you'll get destroyed. Got it?"

The cat nodded lazily, then slipped out of her grasp. By the time its feet landed on the ground, it had grown from its pocket-sized form to the size of a smaller lynx. Without any hesitation, it bounded forth and into the Rift.

It would have been better had they been able to actually see inside the Rift, but the only thing that one mage with the curious Mage Eye spell got from sending his spectral eye through the Rift was a headache as the spell's backlash slapped him in the face.

Mia had kept her attention on the faint spiritual Bond she had with the Familiar, tracking as it let some of its excitement and anticipation radiate through it. When both of those turned to disappointment and dejected boredom, she heaved a sigh of relief. The little firecracker loved to fight, as she'd learned through having it help her through the last few days.

If it's that dejected, there was probably no fighting to be had on the other side.

'Safe?' Mia tried to project the thought through that Bond, though she wasn't sure she succeeded until she received a pulse of affirmation from the Familiar.

"It's safe," Mia announced. "At least according to my Familiar."

"Alright," Brent said, then spun around to face the people behind him. "The two vanguard squads will head in first, be ready for an attack and act like a giant wolf is going to crash into you the moment you step through. Rex's squad goes first, then I want Maven's party to follow them. Secure the immediate vicinity and set up watchers, then I want someone to come back and notify us so we can move through in force. Any questions?"

"Can't we go in with the scaly dude?" A buff blonde man asked with what Mia could only describe as a pout.

Carmilla leaned in to whisper in Mia's ear. "He and his partner are Berserkers. Be careful around them."

Mia nodded subtly, eyeing the blonde man and his friend who stood behind him with a matching look of eagerness.

"No, Victor," Brent said patiently. "You two stay behind with the rest of us. Maven, Rex, questions or objections?"

"None," Rex said, puffing himself up as he grabbed the one-handed mace hanging from a strap on his waist. "We're ready to rumble."

Behind the towering lizardman, four more beastkin grinned as they held brutish, blunt weapons of their own. One and all were beastkin of the more animalistic sort, unnaturally muscular and covered in fur or scales.

"We are also ready," Maven, a man from some strange humanoid species with blue vines for hair, said. He was leaning on an elaborate stave, and the party of six spread out around him was much more varied and well-balanced than Rex's current one. Mages, an archer and three melee fighters decked out in chain mail or steel armour. "No objections."

"Mia, can you call your Familiar back?" Brent asked, turning to her.

"Yeah," Mia said, then frowned. If there was nothing on the other side, the silly cat should have come back already. It probably just got distracted by a pretty flower again. The Bond is still there.

'Return to me,' Mia projected the thought at her Familiar, and felt a faint sense of reluctant acceptance come from it. Not five seconds later, the cat came strutting out of the Rift like it'd just taken a relaxing hike. 'Any danger?'

Negative.

'Will I be in danger if I go through?'

That earned her a marginally less certain negative.

'Are there any monsters close by?'

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

That got her a disappointed 'no' in response.

"Should be fine," Mia said, but by Brent's frown, he caught the uncertainty in her voice. "Just look out. The Familiar is telling me there aren't monsters nearby, but that it might still be somehow dangerous."

"Understood," Maven said, and Mia felt a surge of mana flow from his body into his stave. Runic script carved into the polished wood lit up with a familiar pink hue, and when the man tapped the tip of his glowing stave on the heads of his party members, they were covered in a familiar spell.

"Is that a Ward of Protection?" Mia asked curiously, her eyes taking in the way the pinkish energy formed into a vague bubble around each fighter.

"Symbiotic Mana Ward," Maven said, raising an eyebrow at her. "You have something similar, I take it?"

Mia squinted and tried to see anything unique about the spell. Her own Lesser Ward was as simple as they came and had a matching simple name. What made this one 'Symbiotic' and why was it a 'Mana' Ward and not an Arcane one?

Finally, Mia saw something. A faint thread of mana linked the woman whose Ward Mia was examining back to Maven. There, she found a clump of threads, five in all. One per party member.

"Yeah, a spell called Lesser Ward of Protection," Mia said.

"It's a good Skill," Maven said. "Saved my life and theirs more than once. Now if you'll allow me?"

"Oh! Sorry," Mia said, a grimace of embarrassment on her face as she stepped out of the man's way. They were preparing for a gruelling battle that could last hours and here she was, trying to poke her nose into other people's spell books.

"Go," Brent said. "Be ready for an ambush, but be quick. GO!"

Rex gave a happy roar and charged into the rift with his squad-mates fast on his heels, yipping and growling. Maven's frontliners followed after them, and then their mages, with Maven himself before, finally, the supporters went through too.

Less than a minute later, one of Maven's mages came back out, looking distinctly uninjured and calmer than anyone who'd just been ambushed would have been.

"It's safe," the man said. "We've set up a perimeter and our Earth mage is clearing out the trees nearby … though that's proving to be challenging. We might have to give up on that."

"Why?" Brent asked, stepping over to the man.

"The trees are sturdy as shit," the man said distastefully, scowling down at the earth below him. "Looks like the alien woman was right. They had a metallic sheen to their barks. Maybe they are some fantastical metal-wood or something. A simple shovel or logging axe certainly won't cut them down."

"I see," Brent said. "Go back and tell them that we're coming through. Try to raise walls between the trees, use them as pillars instead of unearthing them. We'll come up with something better once all of us are through."

"Understood," the man nodded, straightening his spine. "I'll get to it then!"

"Sebastian, you are up next," Brent called out once the previous man went back into the Rift. A grinning man with shining golden eyes stepped forward at the call, a pair of women following close on his heels, one wearing the comically shady ensemble of a fantasy rogue while the other looked like she was cosplaying as a wood elf archer. The ears and the garb were real though, as were her steel-tipped arrows. The most impressive member of the group was their leader, though, looking like a paladin with the elaborate armour made of golden Light that took shape around the man. "Aiden and Lori after him."

The paladin and his party disappeared into the portal, and Aiden stomped in after them, followed by his party and the stern-looking woman Brent had called Lori. Mia smiled at the latter group, making eye contact with Gwen standing behind their leader and giving a small wave. The summoner returned it with a tired smile, using her gnarled wooden staff as a walking stick as she walked through the portal.

"Konstantin, the rest of us will go through alternating between our squads," Brent said. "Our two teams will go through last."

"I only have one other team," Konstantin said, his eyes coming to rest on a squad of five wiry young men and women wearing loose and worn clothes. "Seems like you're up, Kruger. They are scouts, Brent, all of them. Want them to sniff around on the other side and make sure nothing's lurking nearby? They have better senses than all other beastkin in our Pack."

"Sounds good," Brent said, nodding as he turned to the distinctly human-looking squad and their leader. Kruger was a tiny man, standing at most at 160 cm tall with short-cropped, greying brown hair. "You heard your orders. Scout around and if any monster comes close to the Rift's entrance, make sure the others are prepared and know of it."

"Understood, Sir." Kruger said, nodding briskly, "At your leave?"

"Have at it, soldier," Brent said, his voice matching the smaller man's military-like seriousness.

That left Konstantin's squad, Jeff's, Tristan, the pair of Berserkers and the weird man who dressed like a Buddhist monk with his pair of friends.

"Henri," Brent called out, and the monk-guy, now named Henri, stepped forward with an air of aloofness about him. "Jeff and Tristan, after him and finally, Victor and Sandor. We and Konstantin's squad will come in after you all. It seems like the other side is mostly calm, but keep an eye out. Go!"

Not long after, only Konstantin's group and Brent's were left, and when Brent sent the last team of beastkin's through, that shrank down to their team of six.

"I don't trust them," Brent said, turning to his team as he whispered. The Raid participants were gone, but there were still plenty of soldiers around and other teams who would be keeping watch over the Rift. "I don't trust most of them as far as I can throw them, especially Konstantin and Aiden's folk, but even that pair of Berserkers are just loose cannons. Keep your eyes open, especially you, Carmilla. You have the best senses and the finest combat instinct out of all of us. Finally, I'm naming Mia as the second-in-command of our team in case I'm ever indisposed or too occupied with commanding the rest of this messy raid party. Any objections?"

Mia just stared, her eyes widening as her heart rate sped up at the mere notion of being in command of anything.

"Brent, you just broke our mage before a battle," Mark said, nudging Mia in the side with an armoured elbow that made her hiss in pain and turn to glare at him. "Oh, it appears she's alright. I'm fine with it, by the way, just a bit worried she's going to die from the stress."

"She's come far since all this began," Helene said, a hint of pride in her voice as she smiled at Mia. "She'll do just fine. I know you can do it, sweetheart."

"Thanks, mom," Mia mumbled, an embarrassed flush covering her cheeks as she gulped. She almost fearfully ran her gaze over the rest of her team's faces, expecting to find doubt or scorn, but only found a surprising amount of trust and encouraging smiles.

"Everyone obviously has no objections," Lina said, eying the Rift hungrily. "They'll think something happened to us if we don't get going soon. May I request that our pair of glorious leaders finally give us the order to advance?"

"Brent's still our team-leader," Mia said, feeling some solace in that fact. "I'm not giving any orders while he's available."

"Well then." Brent rolled his shoulders and put his replacement helmet over his head. It didn't have the enchantments of his original that went with his armour set, but it was functional and had some minor kinetic-dampening enchantments. Mia had examined them when he got it so she was pretty familiar with the enchantment. "Advance. Let's kill some monsters and save the city."

They went through the Rift, bursting into the alien world of its interior just after Mia applied her Ward on everyone. Safe as the landing location was said to be, none of them trusted it after their previous experiences of entering Rifts. One time, they'd been thrown into a sandstorm, and the other ended up with Goblins using them as target practice even before they were halfway through.

A healthy level of paranoia never hurt anyone.

Though Mia did feel a bit silly as she burst through the portal, Wand glowing with a piercing Bolt ready to be unleashed while a buckler-shield of Arcane magic was held in her off-hand, only to be met with the calm gazes of dozens of people. Earthen walls were being raised, and fighters were placing their heavy backpacks down along their edge. Few were already working on setting something more intricate up, but all that stopped as Mia and her friends came through, looking like they were ready to fight a war.

"Well, it seems like everything's in order," Brent said, rising to his full height as he sheathed his blade. "Konstantin! Are your scouts back yet?"

"Not yet," the leader of the beastkin said, glancing back down from his perch atop a nearby tree. "But I've heard their calls. There is trouble nearby, skulking through the woods."

For the first time, Mia looked beyond the thick earthen walls and took in the dense forest they found themselves in. The grass was a pale green, bushes matching its colour, but the trees were what made the otherwise scenic sight truly unnatural, with their metallic black barks and shining silver leaves.

They sang an eerie hymn as the breeze flowed through the argent canopy, rustling thousands of metallic leaves. A leaf fell from a branch just above them, and Carmilla snatched it out of the air, and to Mia's shock, ran its tip along her forearm. A shallow wound was left behind by the leaf's passing, cutting through the vampires's deceptively delicate-looking skin that Mia knew could weather stabs from regular knives as well as cured leather.

The cut closed up a moment later, but Camie was frowning, as was Mia. This forest was dangerous. Looking up at the thick canopy filled with thousands, if not millions, of similar leaves, Mia couldn't see the beauty of the view anymore. Every shimmering leaf glowing in the sun's light could be lethal.

The outward beauty of the forest hid danger beyond anything their small team had ever had to contend with, and now Mia could see that all too well. What would be left of her if something launched her through that canopy of sharp daggers masquerading as leaves?

A corpse. Mia thought with a dark frown. A mangled pile of flesh and bone, nobody would even be able to tell it was me at one point. Let's not get sent crashing through the canopy.