Bloodflowers Bloom (The Astral Wanderer Book 2), D'Artagnan Rey [essential reading .txt] 📗

as it attempted to snatch her. The reaching arm was trapped in a mana chain held by Jazai. “Pulse!” he cried and sent a pulse of magic through the chain that blew the demon’s arm off, albeit with the same results as before.

“Well, damn,” the magi protested as he blinked next to Devol. “I should have gone for the head.

“I’m hoping that will work,” his friend replied and Achroma flared in his hands.

“This beast is persistent!” Farah shouted and yanked her blade out of the ground.

Something caught Devol’s eye and he turned quickly. Several smaller creatures pushed through the rift below.

“Wulfsun, more are coming,” he shouted as the Templar finally recovered and forced the demon’s leg out from under it. “You have to close the portal!”

“I doubt this damned thing will leave us be!” the man responded as he prepared to face the regenerating creature again. “I need to be able to focus when I work on the rift.”

Devol turned to Jazai and Asla, who immediately understood and nodded as their animas strengthened. “We’ll take care of it. You and Farah close that tear before we are overwhelmed.”

“Are you sure, lad?” The Templar held his barrier against a blast from the beast before he grasped its arm and hurled it several feet away. “Can you handle it?”

“Of course,” the swordsman assured him and he and Asla charged into the fray before the creature could recover.

“It’s probably better than what you two have to deal with.” Jazai joked morbidly as he fired a missile at the head of the demon. Wulfsun and Farah looked into the pit, where at least a dozen fiends pushed through with more behind them.

“Can we still seal it at this point?” she asked and looked somewhat dubiously from her sword to the enemy below.

“Aye, we can. It will take some doing, though.” He adjusted his left gauntlet and nodded to her. “You got my back?”

Farah rested her blade on her shoulder and nodded. “I am ready, Captain.”

“Ha!” The Templar chortled and bent at the knees as he prepared to leap. “That’s good to hear, Captain.” The two of them jumped into the pit to face the horde that now had their complete attention.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Wulfsun swung a powerful single punch smash into the face of one of the oncoming fiends, which released a ripple of magic that surged through a group behind it. Farah quickly began her attack. She sliced through two in one swing before she spun and drove her blade into the head of the next, then used her light magic to extend the tip of her blade and skewer another behind it.

“They are hardly a challenge.” She growled and kicked the being off her blade as she readied herself for another wave of them.

“These are small fry,” the Templar replied and stamped a boot onto a fallen fiend. “They are probably pouring in because of all the ruckus the big guy made getting here.”

She held her sword back, charged it with her light magic, and sliced deftly at her new targets. Her blade was now a glowing saber that cleaved through five of the creatures before they had time to even get within range to attack.

Wulfsun chuckled as he caught the hand of an attacker and thunked it into the earth before he hurled it at another to thrust both back into the rift. “You’re exactly like the lad,” he told her and climbed quickly over some unsteady terrain as he approached the tear. “If you were a Templar, you would make a good mentor for him as well.”

“That blade of his…he doesn’t use holy magic, does he?” she inquired as she kicked the feet out from under another fiend before she smoothly beheaded one that tried to attack her from behind.

“Not exactly,” Wulfsun admitted, checked his satchels, and shook his head. “Damn. Ah well, Plan B then.”

The guard captain noticed two of the fiends sliding down the sides of the pits from above. She pointed her blade at them, funneled her magic through it, and unleashed a bolt of light magic that erupted beside them. Both were soon covered in the glowing, ethereal magic before their forms collapsed into the dark fog. “Is something the matter?”

“I forgot a reagent,” he admitted as he sidled closer to the rift. His anima strengthened to protect him against the disruptive abyssal magic. “There’s no need to worry, though. I have a better plan.” He held his gauntlets up. Both glowed brightly, almost blindingly so. “You’ve got my back, right, Captain?!”

Farah leapt beside him and struck a fiend down on landing. “Of course.”

The Templar nodded, positioned his gauntlets over the rift, and extended them to either side. Two mana constructs that took the form of his gauntlets appeared on the edges of the rift. He began to pull inward and although he wasn’t holding anything in his arms, he struggled as he drew his hands together. Farah watched as the rift was forced closed by the magical gauntlets.

“What do you intend to do? Hold it closed forever?”

“I only need to shut it,” Wulfsun shouted in response. “After that, I can set a ward up to keep it shut and you can destroy the obelisks.”

“So I wasn’t completely wrong then,” she muttered and scowled at several fiends being reborn from the abyss. She held her sword up and checked her surroundings to make sure no others were sneaking around them or coming in from above. They were numerous but easy prey and she wondered how the young ones above were faring.

“This bastard is the worst!” Jazai shouted before he blinked away as the abyssal demon attempted to crush him underfoot.

“It heals itself too quickly,” Asla added but continued to rip and tear pieces of the creature apart with little success. The wounds she inflicted were healed almost as soon as she made them. “We can knock it down but I do not believe it feels real pain.”

“It keeps making those gurgles and hisses,” Devol pointed