NOVEL NEXT Chapter 46 – A god? A Demoness?
"Alright, I've got it." Letty says from her position on my legs and squirms a bit to look up at my demonic face. "I'll need to try, but I'm pretty sure I have a way to pass that barrier. And a few more things, cause I got pretty lost for a while." She adds the last sentence in an embarrassed mumble.
"We doing it now?" I ask with raised eyebrows and She nods energetically.
I rise up from my cross legged position with Letty on my lap and pull her up with me, settling her on my forearm, with her head on similar height to mine in spite of that. I beat my wings strongly and shot up into the air, only giggling at the surprised yelp coming from Letty just before she hugs my large frame to secure herself in place.
I stop just below the barrier, keeping myself in place with Primordial Energy, and look at my girlfriend with an expectant expression.
"Um, gimme a moment." She says and reaches up with her open hand, and I see a sort of field of Nihility extending out of her body and stretching a few meters in each direction, slipping under the surrounding matter and mana, though not under my body. It feels actually deceptively close to what that one eldritch abomination did, just that it is much smaller. It is Letty's detection abilitiy, I assume.
The next moment a swarm of Nihility flows out of her palm and converges above us in a thin layer, which I see to change properties when I feel it with my magic sense. At first it's just neutral, but a moment later it... blinks out of existence and I need to double take if it's really there. But I still see it with my eyes, which is particularly... bizzare. I focus on it to try and sense what's up with it, and I lose track of it despite the fact it's not moving.
I blink and take another look at the thing, and it's visible. What? It's like... I see it normally, but whenever I try to focus on it, it kinda... doesn't exist. I have no idea how else to explain it. I guess it's a bit like, uh, pareidolia, I think? I'm not sure. I mean when you see an image looking at something from distance, but if you look closer it doesn't resemble anything. In this case, an image made out of nothing.
Well, no matter. I shake out of my thoughts when Letty pushes the layer of Nihility upwards. It smoothly passes through the barrier, but when she puts her finger after it, it still gets blocked, the mana in the barrier rotating faster and repelling it, though only below the film of Nihility.
"Alright, that's one." Letty says and pulls the layer out, then focuses on it again. I notice a change in the nature of the thing, it becomes sort of... repulsing, but not in negative meaning, just that it seems to repel things, and my girlfriend sticks it into the barrier again. This time it goes in a bit, but with noticeable resistance, and leaves out empty air under it that quickly gets filled back with swirling mana.
"That's two." Letty nods and looks at me with a smile. "Do you see my Nihility with your magic sense?"
"Yeah, but it's weird. It's like I see it, but whenever I try to focus on it it kinda turns into nothing."
Letty thinks for a moment, looking up at the barrier, and nods. "Okay. I tried to make it undetectable and repel mana without revealing itself, and I think it works. Maybe your detection is just better. Now I just need to shape it and we're good to go."
She reaches out with her hand again and the flat shape starts changing into something a bit egg-like, resembling noses of the jets designed to fly in evironments with significant air friction, though much larger, around two meters wide and four high. In other words, just enough to cover my figure, not counting wings and tail.
"Will you be fine with that?" She looks at me again. "You'll just need to get some speed before crossing the barrier."
Hm. I still don't see how wide this barrier is. "Sure, but this barrier is... at least fifty meters wide." I say. My range is slightly below that, but I don't hope the barrier will end just beyond it. "Be prepared to extend this barrier if somethig unforseen happens." I tilt my head to the side. "Or to pull us the fuck out. That previous time it was only my arm and horns that sunk, and I barely survived the resulting shockwave."
I see Letty blinking a few times in surprise at that. "Alright." She nods, making a few beams out of her energy and attaching the shell to her body.
"I'll just test it first." I warn, see her nod, and beat my wings strongly, though without assist from Energy affinity. We sink around two meters into the barrier and... nothing happens.
"Alright, we're probably good." I say to Letty, folding my wings partially and descending slowly. "There was no reaction from the mana. Are you good on energy?"
"Yep, no problems." She confirms.
"Then let's go." I say, wait a moment for her to register, and beat my wings, intantly shooting up into the sky and crossing the twenty meters we had to the barrier within less than one second. I will the Primordial Energy in my body to make it unstopabble and increase its momentum, and we plunge into the slowly turning mana.
We fly through it at the speed of like thirty meters per second with the mana being forced back, not slowing down in the slightest thanks to my input, and after flying around thirty meters I see the end of the barrier. And it makes me blink in confusion, cause there's nothing beyond it.
No, there's something. There's a tiny bit of mana there, but there's so little of it I would have missed it if I wasn't paying attention. Around one and a half second later we pass the barrier and fly out to the free space above the island along with a burst of mana, so I pull my Primordial Energy back, noticing there's distinctly less of it, around ninety five percent, and slow down.
"Alright." I say, looking at Letty. "We're on the other side, but the mana density here is absurdly small." I look curiously at the barrier and notice that any particle of mana that comes past certain point gets sucked in and pushed down into the barrier, joining the swirling mana, but none escape it. "Well, and I know what's the purpose of this barrier."
"Hm?" My girlfriend looks up at me curiously.
"It keeps mana here on the island and sucks mana from above. Not even a particle of mana escapes it. That's why the density of mana above the barrier is absurdly low." I say and frown, taking a closer look at the thing. "And that's most definitely purposeful. If only because it didn't regenerate where we went through."
Indeed, it didn't regenerate. There is a circular hole in the upper layer of the barrier, which is getting filled up with swirling mana, but without the topmost layer, which seems to be an intricate, unmoving pattern that blocks the swirling mana from escaping. After a few seconds it starts leaking out and dispersing above the barrier, with only minority being sucked back on the edges of the hole.
Just as I am watching the barrier curiously I accelerate my perception to hundred times when I see something huge bursting from the ground, spraying a mass of stone and dirt everywhere and rushing up at us at incredible speed, and I feel my chest tightening in exhilirating fear, awe, and excitement.
Huge, as in masssive, almost ten meters in width, but I can't see it all since it comes from below the ground. For some reason it is only visible to my magic sight, and good I see it with through the barrier vaguely, because at its speed of at least a hundred meters per second we would have most likely been turned into a paste had I only noticed it with my magic sense.
And the reason why I see it through the barrier is that the amount of energy this thing is made of is simply enormous. I need a double take to make sure what I see is actually real, bacause the mana density of this thing is at least ten times higher than what Ave'A had in her body.
And I'm so fucking sure I know where this thing comes from. And if I'm right, and it's from the gigantic eye in the center of the island, then things suddenly start making much more sense.
Having such thoughts in my mind, I wrap my arms around Letty and shot up and away from the thing with a beat of my wings, ignoring Letty's surprise and confusion. I don't manage to fly even a hunred meters away before a huge suction force pulls me back, I almost stop in place before I beat with my wings again and lock my momentum, starting to fly away at much slower speed than I would like.
I don't risk looking back, but instead pay attention to my magic sense, in which the... tentacle thing, because I can't see it as anything other than a tentacle, suddenly appears. And it's whipping in my direction at incredible speed, definitely much faster than my crawl with the suction force still active, which I now realize is coming from the tantacle itself.
I watch as it is approaching and try to beat my wings again, forgetting for a moment I have locked my momentum, and I realize I don't have anything that would help me now from what I have been doing up to now. I need to think of another way.
Do I try to disperse the mana in this this thing? I could try, but this seems to be alive mana, or at least something in this direction. It feels different than anything I've seen before in the way that mana is what makes up the tentacle, not infuses it or whatever, and it just gives off a feeling of being in some way alive.
And, well, I don't think attacking it is the best course of action now. Better not piss it off further, as much as it looks like a good enemy to fight.
So instead I make a large sphere of flames around me, willing the Primordial Energy to... actually, I think it's a good time to try that. I want the energy to form a rubber structure, draw energy from everything that is touching it, and repel any supernatural energies coming close. Then, hm, the more it bends, the stronger it pushes back, exponentially. Add an idestructible, immovable crystal layer around me and Letty for additional protection... and we're good, I think?
Now we wait for the tentacle to arrive, pushing through the last ten meters within ten-odd seconds from my perspective. I'm observing it carefully during this time, and I notice some minute differences in its mana density and arrangement, quite like it is with humans and monsters, merely in this case there is no body to which it would adjust its structure. Maybe it's the soul it is shaping itself after? No idea.
And then the tentacle arrives, and... bounces off. And that's it, done. No energy consumption, no movement, it just bounces off, using only some of the mana sucked out from it to push it away.
I'm staring at it for a long while, unsure what to make of it. Or, rather, very sure what to make of it, but not really inclined to process the implications of what I just did.
"Helia?" Letty asks uncertainly, shaking me out of my thoughts. "What happened? What was that... tantacle?"
"I'm not sure." I say slowly, watching the tentacle writhe for a moment and then quickly pull back into the ground, hiding behind the mana in the ground and making up the barrier and closing up the barrier on the way. "Remember the eye from under the island?" Letty nods her head and frowns. "I'm pretty sure the tentacle came from that eye, but I can't be cartain. That barrier was made by this thing as well. That explains a lot of things, but poses a lot of other questions."
My girfriend stays silent for a long while, making a thoughtful expression, and I let everything I've made with my Primordial Energy dissipate and flow back into my core.
"So, the barrier is here to keep mana on the island. If we assume that higher mana density leads to faster growth of monsters or something, which wasn't said anywehere, but would be a logical assumption, this... Beholder, wants the monsters on this island to grow faster and stronger." Letty says slowly. "The only thing we are missing is the reason, so the question is, why would it want the monsters to be stronger. How it would benefit it."
"Yeah." I nod. "But I don't think we can answer it now, can we? Let's just go back to Black Harbor, alright?"
"Mhm, sure." Letty smiles in response and hugs me tighter, fixing her posture.
I turn around and beat my wings, and we fly off to the edge of the island. It is also the first time I fly properly in my True Demon form, and I love this feeling.
