Sylphy looked up at the sky, noticing Arnold floating in mid-air without the assistance or magic or items. What made her notice him was the gigantic water dragon that came out of his sword that made the ground rumble.
Flight without aid was the domain of Demigods. Of beings whose names were preserved in scripture and legends, not men who spoke to her an hour ago and sat across from her in a carriage. And yet there he was, suspended above devastation, unbothered by the heat, the chaos, or the monsters before him.
Her mind searched desperately for a lesser explanation—some hidden item, some unknown technique—but found none that could fully account for what she had seen.
He truly is in the realm of the demigods.
If this was what divine power looked like when wielded by a human… then the world she thought she understood was far more complex than she believed.
Now wasn't the time to be shocked by his power or scared of the thousands of monsters trying to break out of that barrier.
She took a robe from her magic bag and threw it over herself. The fabric swallowed her outline instantly, bending the light around her body so completely that even her shadow vanished.
As she moved through the ruins of what had once been a beautiful town, an uneasy tension settled into her chest. The silence wasn't peaceful—it was unfinished. Doors stood open without signs of struggle. A dropped basket lay overturned near a well, its contents scattered as if abandoned mid-step. The air carried a faint metallic tang she couldn't place at first, sharp enough to make her wrinkle her nose.
Her skin prickled.
It wasn't just the quiet that unnerved her, but the sense that something else was present. She became acutely aware of her own breathing, of the sound her boots would make if she weren't careful. The dread crawling up her spine felt less like fear of the dark and more like the instinctual warning prey felt when a predator was nearby.
Sylphy quickened her pace toward the portal, resisting the urge to look too closely at the streets branching off into shadow.
"Hey—you!"
The sudden shout made Sylphy flinch hard enough that her heart slammed into her throat.
"You shouldn't go any further!"
When she turned, a demihuman in full armor was approaching at a brisk pace. The shape of his helm and the faint twitch of his ears gave him away immediately.
Wolfkin.
Ah—so that was it. Either his nose had caught her scent or the robe didn't fully erase her presence after all. She hadn't had time to test the prototype properly. Swallowing, she slipped the robe from her shoulders, letting it fall limply to the ground as her invisibility dissolved.
"What the hell…?" The wolfkin stared, then shook his head with a tired snort. "Whatever. I've seen enough bullshit today to stop questioning magic."
He gestured north, toward the city gate. "Private armies from neighboring nobles are sweeping the area. We're evacuating anyone still breathing while the competent people deal with the monsters. Just from the signatures alone, I want nothing to do with whoever's fighting out there."
"…I can't leave," Sylphy began. "I have something I—"
"Gyaaack—!!"
The scream tore through the air, raw and wet, like someone choking on their own lungs. It cut off abruptly, not fading, but ending, as if something had crushed the sound inside a fist.
The wolfkin moved instantly. Steel rasped as he drew his sword and stepped in front of her, his hackles visibly rising beneath the armor.
"Damn it," he hissed through clenched teeth. "I was praying that red-haired woman drew them all away. These things don't die—cut them apart and they just crawl back together."
He glanced back at Sylphy, breath coming faster now. "We're leaving. That scream came from the next street over and I can hear something coming down the alley—"
Something moved in a blur, crossing Sylphy's vision, followed by a thick, meaty snap. The wolfkin's eyes went wide, pupils shrinking to pinpoints as his sword clattered from numb fingers. For a heartbeat, his body remained standing, swaying slightly—
Then his head slid forward like a rock walking on an icy lake.
Blood didn't spray at first. It spilled, heavy and dark, soaking into the cracks between the stones as the body collapsed bonelessly at her feet.
A wet, rope-like appendage snapped back, coiling around the severed head and yanking it upward. The wolfkin's mouth was still open, teeth bared, tongue lolling as if he were trying to finish a warning that would never come.
Sylphy followed the movement numbly, her legs giving out beneath her as she hit the ground.
The creature clung to a bent lamppost above her, its weight warping the metal. One arm held a human torso—ribs exposed, organs glistening and steaming in the cool air—while the other appendage toyed with the wolfkin's head, turning it slowly, curiously.
It chewed.
Bones cracked like brittle twigs. Blood ran down its chin in thick ropes, pattering onto the stones below.
The monster didn't roar. Didn't snarl.
It merely ate, eyes flicking toward Sylphy with idle interest, as if deciding whether she was worth standing up for. Its wings flickered like a dog wagging its tail after finding something interesting.
After sucking out the man's brain and his eyeballs, it threw his head aside and fell down, its weight crushing the concrete underneath. It looked to be a humanoid with longer arms than legs. Its wings looked like the sort you would find on an insect if it were the size of a human.
Sylphy tried to crawl back but its long arm grabbed her and pulled her closer.
In her adventurer life, she had seen and witnessed many horrors, even the kind of things that happens to humans when they are unprepared.
The monster wasn't showing any hostility, merely looking at her curiously, as if it had never seen a specimen like her before. Well, knowing that it comes from literal hell, there were probably zero Elves there.
It cupped a bundle of her hair in its hand and sniffed. Its eyes widened and it lifted its upper body as it scratched its chest, bellowing.
"Hoo…! Hoo…! Hoo…!"
Something thick and long began to rise up from its groin, pointing straight at her. it then began to hump the air as it lowered itself to her, getting ever so closer.
"!" breathless, she couldn't even let out a scream.
The monster wasn't planning on eating her, just yet…
Something whipped past Sylphy and sliced off both of the monster's arms, making it screech and jump away.
What appeared in front of Sylphy were two shadowy figures. Even in the light of the moon, their silhouettes couldn't be identified. It's like shadows came to life.
Speaking of shadows, they were connected to Sylphy's shadow as if they were hers. Thin strands of darkness tethered them to the inky shape beneath her feet, as if they had climbed out of it. She double-checked to see that her shadow was still under her so these things were actually just inside her shadow.
The armless monster staggered upright and threw back its head, releasing another bellow—this one louder, deeper, layered with something that carried far beyond the street. The sound echoed through alleyways, over rooftops, across districts.
A call.
Sylphy's blood ran cold.
She heard it then—the beating.
Not footsteps.
Wings.
She looked up as the moonlight was swallowed up by large shadows from above.
Shapes descended from above, tearing free of the clouds and moonlight like stains spreading across glass. A dozen figures dropped, their malformed wings catching the air at the last moment before they slammed into rooftops, walls, and streets. Stone exploded. Tiles shattered. Dust and debris filled the air as shrieks echoed from every direction.
Not a swarm.
A hunting pack.
The shadow-figures reacted instantly.
One dissolved into a ripple of darkness and reappeared atop a nearby building, cleaving through a diving monster in a single upward slash, splitting it from jaw to spine before it even hit the ground. The other remained close to Sylphy, its form widening, shadow spilling outward like ink poured across parchment.
Despite being torn apart, the monster regenerated as if it sustained no injury at all.
She didn't need to be told to run.
Where did these things come from? shouldn't all of them be inside the barrier? Of course, with this many monsters that came out of the portal, it's unrealistic to assume a few wouldn't have been outside at the moment of its activation.
Behind her, wings beat harder.
Monsters slammed into the ground in pursuit, claws gouging deep trenches into the street as they skidded forward and lunged again. The night filled with flapping wings, wet impacts, and the sound of bone cracking under impossible force.
Shadows surged ahead of her, tearing themselves free from walls and alleyways. One flattened itself against the ground like a living smear before erupting upward beneath a monster, impaling it from below—only to be ripped apart seconds later by two more. Another leapt from rooftop to rooftop, intercepting diving creatures mid-air, exploding into fragments of darkness with each killing blow, only to reform again from Sylphy's shadow as she ran.
It was a battle between two kinds of unkillable monsters.
'There weren't just two of them!?' regardless of how many there were, she was grateful she had protection while attempting this dangerous mission. She had expected to carry it out alone but Arnold thought of her safety. She wouldn't be able to handle these creatures with just her magic items enchanted with runes or not.
She counted them without meaning to.
Five still airborne.
Seven on the ground.
Two circling ahead.
A claw grazed her back, shredding fabric and skin alike. She screamed and stumbled, blood soaking into her clothes, legs nearly giving out beneath her. Instantly, the shadow beside her thickened and hardened, forming a jagged barrier that absorbed the next strike with a sound like splintering glass.
The cemetery grew closer.
Her lungs burned as she took a sharp turn, entering the cemetery through a broken fence. The growls behind her didn't stop but she chose to focus on the task at hand while the shadows dealt with the monsters.
A faint red glow pulsed between the building—or rather the remains of it.
She found the portal atop a pile of rubble, glowing like blood and radiating the power of Death.
'This is the portal connected our world to Layers of Hell…' she looked at the runes floating around the edge of the portal like a wheel being spun. They are quite easy to read so she will be able to decipher them and break the connection between the two realms.
She took out several talismans and placed them around the portal. The moment the last one was placed, a barrier was erected, with all sorts of protection runes floating around it. Anything harboring hostility towards her won't be able to enter it.
Sylphy, chest heaving up and down at a fast pace, looked on with a pale face as the monsters tried to tear through the barrier. Barriers created purely from runes are the strongest barriers known to man. In terms of scaling, the Thousand Year Barrier that Guinevere is using would be the second strongest while Runic Barriers are the third.
Sylphy took out a rolled-up rubber mat and unfurled it on the ground. Inside it were her tools. First, she picked up a pair of glasses infused with runes to see the mana in the air, something the naked eye can't actually see. Second, she picked up her mallet and chisel then approached the
"V'asta Un'la." Upon speaking those words, the runes—which were floating around the portal—stopped moving. At the same time, the red energy twisting inside froze. While the monster technically won't be able to cross anymore, this is just a temporary measure so that she's not disturbed during this process.
Sylphy infused mana into her fingertips and grabbed the first rune—yes, she had to break them all one by one. There were probably hundreds of runes floating around this portal. She could probably automate the process since the majority of them are just copied into the portal to artificially increase the protection placed on the portal.
Thinking that would be a good idea to speed up the process, she positioned her chisel in the air then hit it with her mallet. There was nothing in front of her—or so it would seem before a loud clanking noise echoed and a spark ignited at the moment of impact.
The mana in the air itself was used to sculpt the automation rune which created another Sylphy that came out of her back, with the same chisel and mallet ready.
To a Rune Master—a master of sculpting—the entire world is their marble so long as there is mana in the air.
She then began the process—not one of destruction but countering. Creating an inverse will break the flow of power and make the rune yield to her.
Clank, clank—her chisel hit the air—no, mana above the rune. Each strike formed one golden carving. After the second strike, a pattern began to form. And after the third one, the inverse was starting to show.
Strange, she couldn't hear the monsters scurrying outside anymore.
Just as she was about to look behind her to check what was going on, a voice came outside, directly above her:
"—A Rune Master showing themselves here of all places when we could've used your help many times in the past…" a woman's voice came from above Sylphy, breaking her concentration but not to the extend where the inverse rune was broken.
"We should be grateful that she's helping us out at all. You know how magicians treated Rune Masters back in the day." This time a man's voice came from the same direction.
Looking up, Sylphy spotted two figures standing on a broken ceiling in the debris—a short young woman wearing a white hood with cat ears sewn into it, with her white hair peeking out and a tall middle-aged man with a rough beard, dressed in all black and with six swords at his waist.
Archmage Freya and the leader of the Testaments, Justice.
Around them were the monsters that were captured in transparent bubbles, the work of Freya no doubt.
"The only way to deal with these things—" Freya closed her fist, "—seems to be to put them in a constant cycle of death."
They exploded into mist of green smoke the next moment as she spat out those words like venom.