The Third Portal: Chapter Fifty-Eight

This time, I didn’t follow the trace of my eyes, but rather an instinct of my own mana senses and nascent truths. Perhaps I was being guided by the wind of fortune and resolve both, I wasn’t sure, but I did know that I was needed.

I appeared next to a group of seven, most of whom seemed to be farm mages – a solid cluster of life, telluric, and death mages, with a handful of others. They were all peak third gate, but none of them gave me any sort of sense of danger.

The group was surrounded by ants, and had taken serious injuries. Three of them were on the ground, and one of them, a life mage, was using a basic regeneration spell to treat them. The other three were wielding a bat, bare fists, and the butt end of an alchemical blast rifle, casting spells that made the earth loose beneath the ants feet to throw off the attacker’s aim.

The one with the bat seemingly had improved his strength with a spell, and was using it to bludgeon through the desolants, while the bare fisted one was flicking his hand every once in a while to fire off a stone spear spell. The woman with the blast rifle had killed a few of the ants, but she clearly hadn’t been carrying a ton of ammo when the attack had happened, as she was trying to beat at the ants as if it were a club.

Honestly, I gave it a solid effort. None of them were combatants, but they’d held out long enough for me to arrive. There was something to be said about the toughness of farmers.

The instant I appeared, I leaned down and cast Foxswap on the injured farmers. A lot of my third gate mana was depleted from pulling off so many swaps in such a short time, and if it weren’t for all the spatial ripples I was leaving behind for Spatial Harvest, and for the assistance of Harvest Distance, I’d have run dry already.

“Thank you,” the man with the regeneration spell said, standing up. I gave him a curt nod, then launched into the fight against the desolants. These were standard soldier ants, with the same attack spells as the ones I’d fought against several times before, and I only needed a pulse of Tortoise Time and a series of Foxfyres to leave them as a burning waste.

I turned back to the group and glanced up and down the street. There were desolants already moving on the farmers again, but I needed mana…

“Come with me,” I said. “I’ll take you to where we’re using as a safe house.”

At that, I started sprinting down the street, the farmers following behind. I swaddled them in my mana senses, spreading them out in an area around us as I cycled Mantle Dragonfyre.

A fourth gate psychic ant approached, and I slashed out the instant I felt it, no hesitation. It launched its mental assault on me, forcing me to use Placid Mind to weather it.

But for all the strength of its magic, it didn’t last long. An ant, even an overblown one, wasn’t tough enough to stand against the breath weapon of the mantle dragon breed. Maybe if it had used its spellbound form to improve the strength of its carapace, it would have, but it had formed a core of mental energy.

The ant died, and I released my mental defenses, started cycling another breath, and cast Transport Item to pull its core into my hand. Then I started running again.

“Primes,” one of the farmers muttered, and I flushed, glad I was in the lead and they couldn’t see. Honestly, the main reason I’d teleported the core was to improve the still-running Spatial Harvest with the warp in the spatial weave.

I took out several more ants as we sprinted down the street, the desolants turning to attack us the moment we got in range of their sight, smell, or mana senses. When we arrived back at the Hyacinth Heart guild, I saw Liz shepherding a group of people, and Damien acting as door guard.

“What happened to the unicorn?” I asked.

“What unicorn? I don’t have a unicorn.”

I gave Liz a bit of side eye, and she gave me a cheeky grin, but didn’t feel the need to explain.

I ushered the farmers in, and Liz did the same with her own group, then I reached for Dusk’s realm. If she didn’t have an open portal so close to me, I’d have been too far, but as was, I was able to restore my mana to full.

I started to head out, then paused. I wanted to check on something.

I stepped into the guild hall, letting all of my spells fade, then rushed to find Gakodi. She was rushing between critical patients, and I rushed with her.

“Have you contacted Elio? I assume guild masters have a way to contact him.”

“We have, but the teleportation arrays were destroyed. He’s having to fly here.”

I nodded, then teleported out of the guild, blurring down the street until I appeared next to Ed. He was standing in the doorway to a large training room that rather reminded me of a fancy version of the gymnasium at my high school where they’d taught us basic mana manipulation.

The training room had about thirty people in it, none of whom were fighters – there were baristas, chefs, construction workers, and more, but Ed was the only warrior.

I watched as he seemed to glow, radiating more intense focus than I’d seen him possess before, stabbing out with his spear, taking a blast of lightning on the pole of the weapon, jerking his head to instruct Kerbos to leap under another, tearing its legs off with his blender-like teeth.

Both of them felt like they were just about dry on mana, but they kept fighting. Ed’s legacy of being able to form and empower weapons out of the earth was showing its worth here, but there was more than that. Every strike, every block, even every new spear he forged from the growing moat before the door, there was something… more… about them.

My own Nascent Truth of the Guardian rang loudly, acknowledging a similar Nascent Truth. Not the same. Ed wasn’t just a guardian. He was a member of the Lightwatch, and now a member of the Brighteyes.

Ed was a Sentinel, and in this current environment, he was in his element.

I stepped up next to him, my own Truth singing, and he frowned, even as his spear exploded under the attack of an ice ant.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“Surprise?”

I tossed my hands out, calling a wave of stonesprout. The sharp blades of energy that the plant forged to defend itself stabbed into the ants approaching, then I conjured a ring of blue barrier milkcaps. It took several moments, but the shimmering dome of force appeared, blocking the door.

“I can keep that barricade up for a bit,” I said. “Are you able to use this as another–”

I cut off, spinning and teleporting away as another psychic assault hammered into me. I drew on my Runelight Lens, casting Placid Mind, then released a lick of Mantle Dragonfyre. This time, though, I’d only cycled it once, and while the ant was injured, it wasn’t dead. My vision started to flicker as my mental bubble cracked, so I drew out one of my small supply of alchemical bombs and threw it.

My vision returned, and I teleported back to Ed.

“Can you use this as a defensible position? I can teleport injured to the Hyacinth Heart guild, but it’s getting crowded.”

“I can hold it, especially since you’ve given Kerbos and I a moment to take a breath,” Ed agreed. I nodded and turned to the crowd.

“Injured, come to me. If it’s super serious, I’ll teleport you. If it’s moderate, I’ll give you a regeneration potion. If it’s minor, you’ll have to bear with it.”

I did as I said, then I teleported further down the street, arriving next to a pair of familiar presences – at least, next to the illusion of one, and next to another.

Espen, the local leader of the Beastbody Guild, had transformed into some sort of bipedal chimera, and was battling it out with a group of ants – multiple third gate, four fourth, and a fifth gate.

That should have made me feel better. The colony that I’d helped break had been led by a single Arcanist.

But the Winds of Resolve knew that this wasn’t over. This was one member of a larger supercolony, not the end.

The Huli Jing local leader of the Nightheart Guild was seemingly teleporting from spot to spot, using Foxfyre to drive off desolants as she protected a group of more civilians. I spotted Mallory, Riley, and even Qwin, the heavily tattooed force mage, as well as several other guild members scattered around, helping her protect them. The buildings around here were burning, being made of wood, rather than metal like the training center, or stone like the guildhall.

“Hello Malachi,” the Huli Jing illusion next to me said. “I’m a little busy for pleasantries right now.”

“I have a spot you all can come to. Follow me.”

“Espen, trade off!”

The Huli Jing vanished, and suddenly there were dozens of her, each form burning with Foxfyre wrapped around them like a spinning cloak, battling the horde of ants. Espen released his transformations and leapt over to us in a single jump that cleared fifteen feet, landing next to me. I started leading him down the street, while Mallory approached.

“Mallory, managing assistant to the local guild leader. This is–”

“You know him,” Riley said, their voice full of amusement. “That’s Malachi.”

Mallory did a double take, and I coughed awkwardly.

“Maybe don’t tell your mom? She thinks I’m a different Malachi.”

“You look… different. Your eyes. You have a tail?!. Your…”

I laughed and shook my head.

“Still me, but I’ve been through some changes. Transitioning does that.”

“I don’t think transitioning is supposed to give you a fox tail,” Qwin responded, her voice snippy. “What did you actually do?”

“Only if you’re doing it wrong.”

I laughed and teleported away, flinging four orbs of Foxfyre of my own on a group of ants before they could get too close to us, then teleporting back. I led them to the gymnasium, then teleported away, glad to be rid of the slightly awkward circumstances. I didn’t dislike Mallory, but it was still a bit awkward talking to her, and Qwin seemed quite angry. Riley… They were fine, I liked Riley.

I teleported next to another group, being led by the manticore-tailed member of the Phantom Hand with the incredibly deadly-feeling blade. It had no non-combatants with them, so I only stopped to let them know about the safe houses, then left.

As I continued to teleport around, I increasingly ran into groups of organized defenders, making their way through the streets, aiming to take down other queens. For all that Crysite had been growing, it had still been heavily in its establishment phase, and there were a lot more combat mages than a town this size had any right to have.

Dusk found me then, looking completely frantic, and I didn’t even have the time to take in her new power when she thrust her hands out into the air, her Dominion humming with power. Idyll’s form manifested within it, smokey, almost entirely formless, and light was surrounding her from all sides.

“Help,” she gasped. “They’re going for the enchantment tethering me.”

There was a flicker, and Dusk’s connection to the old spirit vanished.