Klur limps through the forest with Locke’s help, and the terrifying sounds of the full size Kernuules grow closer. Wind even blows past them with the falling of trees, and he can feel the tremors in his boots.
Klur lost a lot of blood, so he probably wouldn’t actually have been able to walk this far on his own. His left arm burns and itches, but some combination of rage, determination, and willpower has dulled the pain, even if he can only see a narrow corridor surrounded by pulsing red darkness.
The anti-magic bullet is in his right hand. Whether or not it works, it’s the only possible defense and attack they’ll have against the Devil of the Woods.
The group of goblins choosing to martyr themselves come to a stop, bracing as a large form presses through a pair of larger trees that tower over the diminutive warriors of Grendel Six.
There are no cowards in Grendel Six, only four idiots that hope to stand against this beast, which towers over them like a dragon to a mouse.
Klur wearily pulls himself free of Locke.
Kernuules has come to a stop. Even as large as it is, it gazes down at the goblins with pure malice.
It’s then that Klur sees the truth that he hadn’t really considered.
This monster truly is a devil. It is not a creature defending territory, nor is it angered by being hindered and damaged by insignificant mortals.
The pure, unfiltered look hidden behind its wooden mask sends a chill down the goblin’s spine.
It’s the same bloodlust, the same savagery, which runs wild in the eyes of dumgobs blinded by excitement for the kill.
No, worse.
This creature doesn’t do it for pleasure with the outcome of sustenance.
Kernuules kills anything that deigns to awaken it as if it were no more significant than breathing. Killing is even more natural than breathing. It simply exists to end the lives of living beings, though mostly focused on sentient beings.
Perhaps, it is specifically focused on killing those with words.
Klur is familiar with evil. He could be considered evil for some of his own deeds in the past.
He has now laid eyes on the Emperor of Evil; the most untainted evil the goblin has ever seen.
A hand lands on his left shoulder, which is a little painful, jostling his recently amputated arm, but it snaps him out of the trance.
Mosko is looking into Klur’s eyes. The eldest goblin of Grendel Six is a sage of goblins. He wouldn’t likely impress any of the Empresses or the normal citizens of the Fievegal, but his life experience and wisdom are undeniable.
“The Emperor will kill it,” states the goblin elder with the surest confidence Klur has ever heard. Even so, Mosko’s wrinkly old hand is trembling.
“Just his bullets brought it to a stop,” jokes Olk. Unlike Mosko, the young northern goblin can’t hide the trembling in his hands or his voice. A streak of blood marks his face, but he stands as tall as he can.
Locke says coldly, “We serve the Harbinger of Calamity. Let us show this scourge what even goblins can do.”
“Wait…” whispers Klur, realizing it from how long they can speak. “Why… did it stop?”
There’s no way it’s actually afraid. I can see in its eyes. It has an unlimited amount of patience, but it also has no real reason to stop, does it?
Klur tries to watch the burning amber coals it has for eyes, hidden deep inside of its tree trunk-like head.
“That’s true…” murmurs Olk. “Just one of those trees would crush all four of us.”
Klur steps forward, but the monster doesn’t move.
“Boss!” whispers Locke urgently.
“Stay there.”
The goblin eases towards the giant, and it almost seems like the archfiend isn’t even looking at him.
Mosko walks away from the group to the side. And still, nothing happens.
“It’s like it doesn’t even care about us at all,” remarks Olk.
Klur gets a lot closer than he thought he might. He feels truly small against the woodland titan, now that he’s underneath its chest.
“When our glorious Emperor comes, you will be nothing but splinters on the Fievegal’s lawn, Fiend.” Klur coughs after saying this, and he stumbles to keep his balance. Using his momentum in spite of that, he quickly leans back, and then pitches his arm forward. He throws the anti-magic bullet for the square of the four-legged feline-like torso of the colossus.
Mere seconds after it leaves his hands, the titan snaps its head downwards to look at the goblin Field Marshal. And, once again, the fear grips him.
It didn’t see us…
Fwoo-BOOM!
A bright blue glow darts in and explodes a white cloud against Kernuules’ shoulder, and a giant block of ice forms around the shoulder. It’s the effect of an elemental blaster; an ice-element, specifically.
Machine gun fire rains down from the sky with a reassuring mercato, hammering the air with deep and body-rattling sound.
Another magic streak falls from the sky like a shooting star, exploding violently with a flash of grey; a special earth magic elemental attack that dries and fractures solids. It shatters the frozen arm of the forest Archfiend, and Kernuules roars, turning its attention on the sky. With the next magic elemental blast racing down from a trio of shuttles, machine gun fire raining down in a hailstorm of metal, the titan shields itself from the magic attack with his tree canopy ‘wings’, sacrificing them to a fire blast.
Elemental blasters use a lot of mana, and they’re too delicate and expensive for most operations. Additionally, they’re more effective against monsters than people, so they don’t have the highest military production yet. And, more importantly, they’re too big for goblins to make use of as they are, and they’re still in a semi-prototype stage.
Regardless, three of them have been deployed by the reinforcements. However the Fievegal knows, which is most likely Feno’xion, they sent help without hesitation. Klur chuckles to himself as his strength leaves his legs. “Looks like we’re not just disposable goblins, huh?”
The Field Marshal smirks at Kernuules, who has already forgotten about him in its battle against the shuttles, which it furiously tries to launch its ranged attacks. Klur could be crushed on accident just as easily as the one also known as Koggus Gristak could intentionally kill him.
That feeling doesn’t frighten him nearly as much as looking into the eyes of Koggus Gristak did.
No.
If anything, being accidentally crushed to death doesn’t frighten him at all anymore.
***
Baeka is the Mikadresselle of the united southern tribes of the dattakoriens known as the Urthbeu. She only just returned to the Citadel after setting out to gather and unite the tribes under the Fievegal to find that Daniel and his many Empress consorts have started making alliances across the mountains.
And, on top of that, the dattakoriens were asked to aid in battle to rescue the goblin special forces known as Grendel Six.
She’s clinging to the handrail of a shuttle as it races towards the forest. She tried sitting, but it was even worse. Every small rattle and shake of the flying vessel makes her tail twitch and her sharp nails screech on the metal railing. She’s not the only dattakorien struggling with an underestimated fear of heights, but there are others on her shuttle that have more experience.
One such feline warrior is none other than Paet, who pleaded alongside Weya for Daniel to revive the Mikadresselle after the disastrous battle of Fort Peony.
Paet puts her hand on Baeka’s shoulder. “Mikadresselle, you’ll get used to it. You’ll have to if you want to participate in most missions.”
“I know!” whines Baeka. “I just didn’t think… there could be something worse… than wyverns!”
Olmosk, who was leading forces in a land across the eastern mountains until recently, adds, “My Lady, you didn’t need to come.”
“I do. I may not be one of the Empress Consorts, but I do still hold the authority Daniel and Hekate gave me. If decisions need to be made, I will make them.”
Before that chance comes, however, Paet suddenly shifts. She takes a knee, withdrawing the strange device that Daniel had only briefly mentioned before Baeka set out.
“Home One, Dante Two, we read you. Go ahead.”
A male voice comes out of the strange device. “Dante Two, Home One; The Valkyries are en route. I repeat, the Valkyries are on their way. Mechanic One asks that Dante Squadron retrieve survivors and evacuate. Codename: Fiendbreakers will be deployed. Evacuate beyond one mile from target.”
“Fiendbreakers?” asks Olmosk while the other troops listen. It’s hard to hear over the machine gun being fired, but they heard at least some of it.
Paet replies, “Trust me, if I’ve learned anything while you guys were gone, if Daniel names something, it’ll get the job done. We need to move, my Lady.”
Baeka nods. “Very well. Take us down.”
“Mikadresselle?” ask Olmosk and Paet in surprise.
The mature pseudo-princess smiles. “I’m one humble dattakorien. If the Valkyries are coming, then the best we can do is rescue the survivors to the last man. And, four of them are still trapped near that thing.” She looks out across the lowered ramp, where a pair of dattakorien soldiers are taking turns firing elemental blasters. She can’t even imagine getting that close.
“I lived in the shadows of the dragons for far too long. I don’t want any of us little ones to be completely forgotten. I’ll do it. The rest of you can evacuate, and I’ll ride with only the golem pilot.”
“Don’t be stupid, my Lady. We’re coming with you,” replies Olmost instantly. The others nod as well.
“But…”
Paet adds, “I didn’t want to fight alongside or for the dragons. But, I do want to fight for the Fievegal. Goblins and all. Please, we’re running out of time, my Lady.”
Baeka smiles happily. She shouts, “Pilot! Please take us to the Field Marshal! If you must, drop us off on the run, and pick us back up when we can escape.”
The female voice of Laschin, a golem that was once a dattakorien, answers in reply, “I have received permission to use stealth magic from Ucahote. Our mana reserves will be low, though. There won’t be enough to do it twice, or for more than twenty seconds if we hope to evacuate. One pass, my Lady. On your mark.”
“Twenty seconds?” murmurs Baeka as she thinks. The dattakorien shakes her head. “No, we don’t have time to object or try something else. That’ll work! I leave timing of stealth to you, Laschin! Go now!”
“Confirmed.” The shuttle banks hard, and Baeka groans as she clings to the rail.
The troops holding the elemental blasters retreat back inside the troop bay, bracing as the shuttle swoops downwards quickly. The dattakorien Mikadresselle can feel her stomach floating, and she regrets coming on the mission for a brief moment. She desperately wants to avoid throwing up and ruining her dignity.
The Mikadresselle can feel the magic of stealth activating, and she does her best to grit through her nausea to call out, “Get ready!”
The ground appears at the ramp, and the ramp itself lurches from a less-than graceful landing. Ahead, the four goblins are huddled together, doing their best to help each other not be crushed by the colossus moving around rather deftly in its battle with airborne nuisances. The shuttles are capable of temporarily defeating the behemoth, though its ability to learn has made even that more difficult.
Baeka feels a little sad that her own mission is being overshadowed, but she dashes out of the troop bay, flanked by her allies. Unlike the shuttle, they’ll be exposed, so they have to move quickly. They also only have twenty seconds, of which five passed just on the rough landing before anyone could even leave the vehicle.
The Mikadresselle never got a chance to demonstrate her strength to the Harbinger of Calamity. His attack was so sudden, violent, and absolute, that Baeka was waking up in the care of Paet and Weya several days later being told that she had been killed and revived.
Her talent in battle, however, might have been able to defeat Daniel if she had a chance to use it.
She is far below Vaergraes in magical power, and she has only mastered control of a handful of the near-infinite possibilities, but the Mikadresselle of the Urthbeu dattakoriens is very capable at her craft.
The feline woman bites the tips of her left-hand fingers using her sharpest teeth, quickly casting her hand forward. Using her right hand, she channels her mana to guide droplets of blood into suspended motion in air, chanting fearlessly in spite of what is in front of her. “{Accept my blood and my strength. Bring forth the agents of my will that they may take wing and ride the breeze in my stead. I summon: Wiuben.}”
Each of the dozens of droplets she scattered in the air with her magic swirl, and each becomes a small, colorful bird, each taking on a ghostly translucence, but a vibrant pattern no different than their living counterparts. “Go! Prevent it from seeing!” calls out the dattakorien as soon as the birds take form, and they follow her command without hesitation or fear, racing upwards into the sky towards the titanic beast’s head. She can feel the energy of her body that left to give them physical form, even if the modest birds are weak on their own.
Baeka may never attain the strength Vaergraes has to summon creatures as powerful as a Death Knight, and certainly not one with an ego like Arachne, who was included on the journey with Daniel and the others. But, the Mikadresselle can certainly summon and command hordes of smaller beings.
A wiuben is a mid-sized bird about three fists together in total size, prized for their appearance.
Detecting the spell, branches start to form on Kernuules without the archfiend even needing to look. Several of the spirit wiubens are blasted apart by the branches, but others manage to weave through on their flight towards their target. They don’t have survival instincts, per se, as they are mostly pure magic, crafted by the summoner and expendable in most cases, since they don’t possess true life. It’s believed that a summoner is calling forth tamed spirits lingering behind after perishing, and the time they’ve spent as spirits has cleansed them of their instincts and identity as living beings, though this is unclear. Baeka only knows that it can be difficult to bring forth new beasts, even if she can find and reach out to the aura of the creature she wants to summon, which shares similarities with Dawnseeing.
Pinpricks prod at Baeka when the spirit wiubens are struck down. In a sense, they are tied directly to her own body through their magic connection, which is why she can command them even if they’re too far away to actually hear her. That can be a further drawback with summoning larger beasts or more powerful monsters; if the summon is destroyed, the backlash on the summoner can be painful enough to distract them or cause unconsciousness. It’s unclear what would happen to Vaergraes if Arachne were to perish, since Arachne seems to have a soul of her own now, thanks to Hekate adding in her own substantial mana.
Either way, Baeka will have to be mindful with her next summon. The birds are successfully distracting the titan for the moment as she levitates a larger orb of her own blood. “{Accept my blood and my strength. Bring forth the agents of my will that they may soar the skies and cast shadows of fear. I summon: Wyvern!}”
There's a larger flash of light as mana coalesces into the sphere of crimson liquid, shifting its color to a near-violet hue. It then quickly expands, taking the distinctive shape of the reptilian avians. Wyverns share some traits with their much larger apparent relatives, the dragons, but also possess feathers insulating their torsos and making their wings lighter than the webbing that spans between the wings of the near-apex beings.
“My Lady!” calls out Paet.
“Go!” She mounts the winged avian. “I’ll buy time for the shuttle to escape!”
Olmosk pulls Paet back when the young woman tries to object. The soldier that Olmosk has become has an undeniable discipline, knowing when the right answer is to simply follow orders. She smiles and nods, urging the wyvern into the air.
While Daniel’s shuttles can fly faster than a wyvern at top speed, few things in the air can match their agility. As long as Baeka keeps close to her wyvern’s torso, it should have no issues avoiding the attacks of the woodland devil.
She braces against it, weaving and dodging as the peripheral defenses of monster lash out at her. It likely has the ability to automatically defend against mana sources, which is why Daniel’s weapons present so much threat to it; it can’t detect them or auto defend when they’re made out of metals so low in mana in spite of the damage they can deliver. Even more so the case is for the anti magic materials the human makes use of.
Kernuules roars in anger as it tries to swat her summons away from its eyes, which causes several more bites of pain in what feels like her very soul. She checks the shuttle quickly, which has already started to become visible as the stealth spell falters. It is lifting into the air, accelerating away, but is at a fraction of its full speed.
“{Summon! Wiuben!}” calls out the dattakorien woman as she scatters more droplets of her blood. She can’t do this forever, but because the wiubens seem to be enough to at least distract Kernuules’s auto-defenses, she may be able to buy time for the shuttle to get away.
However, she spots the monster’s face tilt towards that very vessel, in spite of shielding itself from ranged attacks. Its canopy-like ‘wings’ are in tatters, but regrow as quickly as possible. The only reason Kernuules hasn’t launched deadly weather magic at the shuttles is because they dedicate every anti-magic round they have on stopping him the moment he does, even at the risk of disabling the shuttle’s ability to remain airborne.
Still, it will easily be able to catch the shuttle Baeka just left if nothing is done.
She dives her wyvern as quickly as she can, bracing against its back as she instructs it with her magic connection. The spirit beast shifts its posture as it gets close, dive-bombing the woodland devil’s rapidly growing arm aimed at the shuttle with its outstretched talons balled into tight knuckles like the air-to-air predator that it is. Before Vaergraes united the bulk of the demon tribes in a two-front desperate battle against the Devourer and the Eastern Kingdoms, wyverns were regularly used to attack each other because of their powerful airborne attacks.
And, though it costs a great deal of her mana, meaning she won’t be able to summon it again for several days, her summoned spirit wyvern can strike even harder thanks to its boosted power from that magic.
There are several loud, sharp cracking sounds from the braided wooden ‘tendrils’, rapidly growing like tendons or muscles for the powerful arm. The arm buckles downwards as Kernuules roars in anger, turning to face Baeka directly. It seems like it is able to see at least somewhat, in spite of the wiubens aggressively and fearlessly entering the deep, pitch-black and cavern-like sockets housing its glowing amber eyes.
The titan inhales deeply, and Baeka’s heart skips a beat as her eyes go wide. No! I have to…!
She doesn’t have time to avoid. Kernuules pitches forward and lets out a roar that could almost be said to be a breath of lightning-speed clouds, since the shockwave it produces races towards her with a visible fog that bears down on her in the way she could only envision the sky falling upon her.
The scope of the wave is inescapable. She is just one dattakorien making use of her inborn magical talent.
Suddenly, a black phantom appears before Baeka, casting a perfect contrast to the white tsunami of wind. Time seems to have drifted to a lazy, sleepy crawl as the dattakorien’s life flashes before her eyes.
She didn’t have much to be proud of since she was chosen as Mulmonbargonade’s servant, and she’ll never forget how her heart raced when she watched the Green Sage die, or when she heard about the Red Lord’s death. She made a confession and was rejected by a man who claimed he was afraid to get close to anyone.
Now, staring down what can only be the Ruler of Death, Baeka is nearly suffocated by the sheer power of the being that has appeared before her, reaching towards the feline woman in the dark of the twilight, the sun nearly having set completely.
Death isn’t quite how Baeka would expect. Rather than having an immaterial, unfathomable appearance, the apparition has black hair highlighted with vibrant blue light, broad, tall, triangular horns rising from her head, eyes that glow brighter gold than the archfiend behind her, and a massive, black, furry tail that makes her look larger than her actual body is. Her aura of mana is stifling, and as soon as her hand touches Baeka’s chest, a flash of light blurs the dattakorien’s vision.
“Waaah-ooof!” cries out a young girl’s voice as Baeka lands face first on a hard, uneven surface, and something wraps around the Mikadresselle. In that moment, pain all but clamps down on her heart. Her wyvern has perished, and she is already in the hands of the Final Chaperone.
When her vision clears, she is looking Death in the face once more, except her appearance is far more innocent now. And, embracing them both are the slender arms of a red-headed woman with shimmering metallic-orange horns and a reptilian tail balancing the three of them on a similar scaled blue surface. Large appendages sweep through the air.
“A-Angels?” murmurs the dattakorien dumbly.
While Baeka has only heard about it second hand, they are indeed the wings of the Choosers of the Slain, who are angelic figures belonging to legends from another world.
She is in the hands of the Valkyries.
She studies the two faces in front of her, and it finally registers.
“W-Wait… E-Empresses Hekate and Geirahoel?”
The black-haired empress squirms out from under the Mikadresselle, saying as she sits jup. “That’s me!” She puts her hands on her hips, wagging her big tail a bit. Strangely enough, her shoulders seem to be trembling. “Sorry for the rough landing.”
“Be grateful, Baeka. I was the one who saw you there, trying to fight that thing at close range like a fool.” Geirahoel’s remark is a bit haughty, and she adds, “And, you have been granted the luxury of riding on the Third Empress’s back. Show your reverence.”
Baeka is bewildered. She doesn’t have much acquaintance with either of these women, but… it almost seems like they’re trying to calm her down.
That’s when she realizes she’s still shaking, clutching tightly to Geirahoel’s legs, which are clothed similarly to Daniel when Baeka first met the strange human.
Neither of the Empresses look like regal rulers of a fledgling Empire.
They look more like hunters, or adventuring wanderers.
Hekate stands up, not looking down as she keeps her head high.
“Now, I have a really important job to do, so don’t distract me. Geira, give me a hand, please.”
The feldrok girl has her eyes closed, and the orange dragon in humanoid form climbs to her feet. She instructs, “Stay right there and don’t move. If I have to catch you because you fall, I won’t allow you, no matter how much you beg.”
“A-Allow me?” asks the dattakorien. The dragon glares at her, and she tenses. “Y-Yes, your Grace! C-Certainly!” She keeps her posture low, looking at the huge dragon she’s sitting on. She’s not intimately familiar with all of the dragon Empresses, but she did know them in Shiaulvolgarro’s Hoard, so she recognizes the blue dragon who came to be known as Reignleif.
And, during that, Geirahoel carefully holds Hekate from behind, guiding the feldrok teen’s forearms while Reignleif banks, tilting her head to look back at the group. She makes eye contact with Baeka, and the dattakorien woman would swear she can see the dragon smirk gently.
She finally feels at ease.
Of course, that’s only until Hekate and Geirahoel’s strange behavior is revealed to have a purpose.
Baeka isn’t sure if she actually witnessed the arrival of Death mere moments ago, since she could certainly believe Hekate is the one who appeared in that strange, seemingly final moment.
What she bears witness to now is nothing short of the t the Mikadresselle is looking at now is nothing short of the Empress of Ruin.
***
“Don’t let me fall, Geira,” growls Hekate. The Feldrok Empress has her eyes closed, talking over her shoulders as the orange dragon holds the teen’s forearms.
“I won’t,” retorts the youngest dragon Empress bluntly.
“I’m serious!”
“Me too!”
“If you let me fall, and I survive, I swear I’ll chew your face off!”
“I don’t even know why you’re afraid of heights! You’re a feldrok! And, you’ve been crushed by stupid Onii-chan and were unscathed! You probably wouldn’t even be hurt if we didn’t catch you!”
The fox-eared girl gasps, glaring over her shoulder. “How dare you say that! You better catch me!”
“I thought I wasn’t supposed to drop you!”
“Exactly! So don’t!”
“Shut up and attack before that stupid tree monster can cast magic!”
Hekate grumbles and closes her eyes before looking forward again. Currently, her forward is angled towards the ground. But, as long as she doesn’t think about what’s between Hekate and the ground, she’ll be alright.
There’s nothing between us. I might as well be on the ground. But also, Reina’s here. Reina’s almost as reliable as Daniel. So, it’s fine. Just… focus… and…
“Mukori wouldn’t be able to catch you,” states Geirahoel mercilessly.
Hekate tenses, and the dragon quickly adds with frustration in her voice, “I won’t let you fall! So just attack! Before I burn this whole forest down…”
Daniel explicitly asked them not to use fire attacks to prevent destroying the ecosystem. Since there was a drake to be slain in the forest when Grendel Six first encountered Kernuules, that means there’s a rather large, sustainable food chain in this area, but for some reason, no monsters other than Kernuules and its summoned thralls.
Hekate finally psyches herself up. “Okay, here I go!” She aims her palms towards each other just in front of her chest, channeling her mana into a single spot. The elemental blasters do the basic step she’s performing, but hastily, releasing that magic just as quickly as it’s concentrated. Because it requires a sort of balancing act to keep the concentrated mana from trying to escape, the elemental blasters don’t really have the ability to safely charge more mana than what Daniel’s individual sticks of dynamite can do in terms of blasts, but the various types of magic themselves go a long way.
For Hekate, she can feel the growing mana sphere squirming in her hands like a small, wriggly fish, desperately trying to escape. It gets more and more aggressive the greater the amount of her magical energy she pours into it, and she is careful not to push past her limits. She doesn’t want to do what Daniel’s god-killers can do, but she will be happy if she can at least get a miniature version of the cloud from Kernuules being vaporized.
And, if she finishes him off for good, Daniel will praise her and maybe bend his rules a bit. After all, she has to be at least a little mature if she can cast more powerful magic than anyone else.
The pure mana ball has condensed tightly, glowing a bright white that is a little painful even behind her helmet’s visor and her closed eyelids. Were the sun still up, it might be briefly mistaken for the source of sunlight for a moment. Or, maybe just a star visible during the day, which would be an anomaly.
Hekate doesn’t realize it, but a large shadow is being cast on the ground of a dragon flying through the air, as a modest amount of light reaches the ground for a fairly long ways.
The feldrok girl seals the condensed mana in a ‘shell’ of similar aura, but one that keeps the sphere tightly shrunk in on itself. She pushes the pure magic bomb away from herself, guiding the mana to spring in the direction that Geirahoel guides Hekate’s hands. For all she knows, the feldrok girl could be firing directly at Daniel and Magnir, who are flying behind the three Empresses to give time for the rescue mission to evacuate.
Hekate’s mana bomb reaches Kernuules after only a couple of seconds, and a bright flash hurts the teen’s eyes, regardless of her eyes being shut as tight as she can. She is forced to turn her head away in pain, and she wobbles when Reignleif flinches.
KABOOM!
The explosion startles Hekate into looking, her ears biting in pain as her helmet trembles. For a moment, she doesn’t process the height as she stares in awe at a bright, slightly warping ball of light that has obscured the archfiend entirely before the light seemingly implodes on itself, revealing a rising fiery cloud that mushrooms out partially. It’s not nearly as dramatic as the otherworldly superweapons, but it makes Hekate feel proud. Kernuules’s body is little more than the hind legs, which topple, and one of his arms, which is partially on fire.
“Uh! I… Uh…!”
Reignleif moves her left foreclaw forward, and a magic circle appears. A large sphere of water coalesces from seemingly thin air, though Hekate can see traces of the mana streaks signifying the water being pulled in from the air all around. Regardless, the sphere that forms is rather impressive, and the dragon releases her magic remote grip, which drops the sphere to snuff out the fire quite effectively.
And, finally, Hekate’s brain fully processes her field of vision. Her legs go weak, and Geirahoel pulls her back, allowing them both to sit back down near Baeka while Hekate starts breathing frantically.
“Someone who can do that is afraid of heights…” grumbles Geirahoel.
“Sh-Shut up…!” whines Hekate, in spite of leaning against the dragon for comfort and security. In spite of her jeering, the orange dragon holds her young friend affectionately, patting her back to help comfort the frightened young woman.
Baeka is staring at them both with astonishment in her eyes. She is wholly speechless, and Geirahoel pays her no mind.
After all, Kernuules isn’t dead yet. All three of the Empresses can feel it.
***