Chapter 110

“Huh?” Olivia thought she felt a light tremor beneath her feet.

“What now?” Steve asked, nonchalantly resting his spear horizontally on his traps.

Olivia only paid enough attention to Steve to make sure he didn’t move against her. She pressed the palm of her hand against the wall and concentrated on her hearing.

“What are you doi—?”

“QUIET!” Olivia shut up Steve just as she felt another short tremor. This time stronger. And this time she heard it too. Then another. And another, longer, louder.

“W-what did you do!?” Steve asked nervously and took his spear into his hands properly.

“It wasn’t me,” Olivia said, though she too now felt uneasy as the rumbling grew stronger and louder by the second. The steps beneath her started trembling. Then the walls.

“WHAT DID YOU DO!?” Steve shouted at Olivia as cracks spread all over the walls. “WHAT KIND OF DEMON-FUCKER MAGIC IS THIS!?”

Olivia did not even get the opportunity to answer. As the rumbling grew louder and stronger it took considerable effort to stand upright while both keeping a defensive stance and an eye on Steve at the top of the staircase in case he used this opportunity to attack. However, the big musclehead’s sense of balance turned out to be far from impressive compared to the nimble ninja. Steve couldn’t even hope of taking a step without falling over.

“There she is!” someone shouted behind Olivia. She turned her head and saw several guards armed with swords, stumbling up the stairs.

“Watch it!!” on of them shoved the other after a narrowly avoided accidental stabbing.

“The Demon-fucker underling is casting some kind of spell!” Steve shouted. “Kill her right now!”

“You heard him guys, mo—”

A deafening boom rocked the place.

“Ah!?” Olivia got smacked hard against the wall. Groaning from the pain in her shoulder and arm she looked down to where the guards stood just a moment ago. She saw a contorted arm poking out from beneath a boulder.

Shit! Olivia turned around and sprinted up top from the death trap she found herself in. Not a moment too soon as a large boulder crashed right where Olivia’s head was a second ago. Up ahead Olivia only saw Steve’s feet right at the disintegrating exit from the staircase. The entire place crumbled all around her.

The sprint up a few dozen steps that couldn’t have lasted more than a couple of seconds seemed to go on forever as time seemingly slowed down for Olivia. She leapt from side to side in the narrow staircase that felt tilted at an increasing angle. This made the life-or-death task all the more difficult. Avoiding falling rocks and ever-increasing gaps that appeared one after another in place of solid steps.

“Ghn!” Olivia grimaced when she felt a solid hit against her skull, but still managed a final, desperate jump and barely made it through the opening as it collapsed behind her. She roughly landed on the floor right next to Steve who laid flat on his back. A cloud of dust and small debris followed Olivia out of the staircase as the rumbling refused to stop.

Half-numb, through the shaking, noise, and dust Olivia crawled further until she ended up against a wall. Coughing from the dust in her airways, more in her eyes, Olivia was longer able to see anything. She pressed her back against the wall as tightly as she could and listened to what sounded like an avalanche right in front of her.

“Hmmm ... Not bad at all!” Mary smiled as she looked through where the door and wall to her captivity used to be.

“Ah ... Pretty...” Remi managed to say through her ragged breaths. Remaining on her knees beside her queen was about all the naked guard could do as she did not have the strength to move a muscle. So, Remi just admired the play of colors in the sky as night gave way to dawn. Though it would be some time still before the sun appeared above the walls that surrounded the city, the view was still incredible.

And after the time she spent within these walls, the fresh breeze on her cheeks was rejuvenating to both body and spirit. Remi leaned her head against Mary’s thigh and smiled. She wished this moment wouldn’t stop.

Mary’s smile though wasn’t for the sky or the fresh air. It was for the destruction she unleashed on both the Pits and the fortress proper. With the heavy damage to its foundations a considerable part of Belmot’s impressive fortress crumbled on the city below, causing untold deaths and casualties.

“That’s what happens to those that oppose me,” Mary said menacingly while barely conscious Brittany collapsed behind her.

“Cough! Ptheh! Cough!” Beatrice coughed and spit in her body’s natural response to free her airways from all the tiny particles that seemed to have gotten into every hole Beatrice had. “Cough-Ember!?”

Beatrice called out to Ember, though she could barely hear herself. Her ears were ringing, and her watery eyes were proving hardly more useful. She couldn’t see anything at an arms distance through the thick smog that remained after apparently an entire building collapsed on top of their heads.

Everything happened so fast: the deafening noise, the screams, soldiers running in every direction, the rubble that fell on everyone; Beatrice couldn’t even tell how she did not end up buried alive. She dodged one boulder, then Ember appeared next to her ... The only clear image—a split-second flash—was a blazing flame that engulfed a dozen Purple Capes who had clogged one of the exits from the dome.

Beatrice took tiny uneven steps over the rubble, leaning against larger pieces for support.

“AGH!?” Beatrice recoiled her hand after burning it against what should have been a cold, dusty former part of a supporting wall.

-5 HP

For some reason, the rock was as hot as a kettle. Thankfully, the pain passed within seconds. And though the smog was thick, now that Beatrice knew what she was looking for, she also saw dancing lights around her. Somehow parts of the collapsed structure also caught fire.

Ember, the answer was obvious to Beatrice. Though usually her bodyguard had limited herself to only burning people, sometimes buildings ended up as collateral damage.

“Ember!” Beatrice called out again, this time she heard herself a little better. And with the gradual return of her hearing Beatrice heard screaming coming from all directions. Considering how large Belmot’s fortress was, its collapse in the middle of the city must have been catastrophic. Then Beatrice noticed a movement just a little bit in front of her.

“Ember!?” Beatrice hurried to the moving figure, obscured by dust and smoke.

“STAY AWAY!” the figure screamed and showed Beatrice away.

“Wha-AAAAH!!!”

-120 HP

Beatrice grabbed her arm from the excruciating pain as she fell from the powerful shove. Though the contact did not even last a second, this did not compare to the gentle kiss from the previous rock. Beatrice lifted her arm to look at it closer and felt her skin peel off as she let go of the burnt area.

“Ugh,” Beatrice grimaced. Even with blurry vision it was obvious how nasty the burn was. Third degree, without a question.

-10 HP

Figures, Beatrice thought when she got another system notification of damage while her skin all but sizzled. The only source of relief for Beatrice was her broken health recovery that already went into effect the second she took damage.

Health Points943/1060 (+1.64/sec)

The first burn had healed before Beatrice even had the chance to linger on it. And even this was somewhat bearable thanks to the rapid health recovery.

-10 HP

Beatrice counted in her head from one.

-10 HP

Eleven seconds, Beatrice counted. More than covered by my regeneration. Beatrice breathed a sigh of relief. Her arm already not only felt better, but even looked better, instead of worse how it should have been. Beatrice literally watched her flesh heal in real time. If only the quality of the picture was better, Beatrice thought as she futilely rubbed her eyes, shifting the dust from one corner of the eye to another. But—

-10 HP

“EMBER!!” Beatrice shouted. “What the fuck!?”

“S-sorry,” Ember muttered weakly, still lurking in the shadows. Of course, Beatrice couldn’t hear that. After Ember shoved Beatrice away, she had moved further back out of Beatrice’s sight and only now rose into view.

-10 HP

“This is the second time now!” Beatrice reminded Ember of the incident at the inn. “Ever heard of friendly fire?”

“Didn’t you want me to be more friendly?” Ember asked as she approached Beatrice.

“...”

“Sorry, I ... I had to-to do that,” Ember said unusually sheepishly, looking down and away from Beatrice.

“You look terrible,” Beatrice said, finally able to take a somewhat decent look at her bodyguard.

That they both would be covered in an inch of dust was a given. But Ember looked ... spent.

“That ... That spell ... I don’t use it for a reason,” Ember said, still not looking at Beatrice. “Several reasons. If I was alone, it wouldn’t be that much of an issue. Moving with you while not turning you into charcoal was a challenge on a whole other level. Every second was taxing. I ... I won’t be of much use for some time now.”

“Well ... Thank you for saving me!” Beatrice said.

“Cough, so that magic that you used, was it the same as when Lucarad appeared as a giant bat on fire?” Beatrice asked as she and Ember moved through the debris toward fresh air, and—inadvertently—toward the cries and screams that multiplied in the rattled city.

“No, that was all him,” Ember answered. “I just added a little fire for the show. You could say it was practically the opposite.”

“Do you think the others made it out? The people we freed.”

“Probably. Y’Shtara would not have wasted time hanging around, and they had more than enough time since we parted.”

Beatrice thanked the cat girl in her mind for taking initiative and not following her into this mess.

Ember continued, “Though, if there was anyone else in those pits with Felicia, they most certainly shared the fate of the Purple Capes.”

That stung Beatrice. She never even bothered to check. It was one thing after another and she ended up overindulging with her lactation spells, even if it did prove useful level-wise.

“When you say ‘Purple Capes’...”

“If those two captains ended up dead because some rocks fell on their heads, I will be extremely underwhelmed,” Ember answered what Beatrice was about to ask. “Then again, one of the captains was taken out by a single spell, and another let himself be turned into ... Whatever that was. You should do it more often!”

“I’ll think about it,” Beatrice said. Seeing how rapidly the effects spread, she did not want to accidently turn entire city into zombified simpletons.

“There’s so much potential!” Ember continued. “And we didn’t even get the chance to investigate what effects it had on those soldiers. A change of mental state that completely shifted their allegiances, tastes, thoughts. Would they have truly come out of it as they were before?”

And that’s what I’m worried about, Beatrice thought. Using it on killers and psychos might be one thing, but if a new Lactating Minion starts changing and corrupting everyone in their path. Isn’t that what the demons do to their captives?

“Too bad they all died,” Ember still spoke about the soldiers. “Though a few might have escaped. Bah! Searching for them now would be too time-consuming to be worth it when you can just make a fresh batch to play with!”

And the more excited Ember was about this spell, the more apprehensive Beatrice was about using it again. So she quickly changed the subject to a more important issue.

“What the hell was that earthquake anyway?” Beatrice asked.

“There hasn’t been an earthquake worth notice in this area for as long as anyone kept records,” Ember answered. “A powerful spell would be my guess. Question is who is responsible for it.”