The Third Portal: Chapter Fifty-Four

I crept towards the frozen pitcher plants, drawing a knife from Dusk’s realm. I wiggled it back and forth along the long, thin vines of the icy blue and white surface, slowly working the plant free of the tree it had stuck to.

That took a while, and I was growing increasingly self-conscious about the fact that Ivy and Kene were waiting outside the bubble of altered time, and each second I spent in my time, many times that would pass.

I eventually managed to free three pitcher plants with subtly different biology from one another, sending all three to Dusk’s realm, then Foxstepped out of the hidden grove. As I did, I paused and had a shiver run down my back.

I’d missed something. I didn’t know what, but now that I was out, it seemed so obvious – the entire grotto had been completely invisible to me, and I’d been forced to break through the illusions with the Witch Eyes spell bound up in my runelight lens. That was even how it hunted, drawing creatures into the sources of mana with no sight, and letting the hidden mushrooms and plants get to work.

But I hadn’t seen what had been the cause of the invisibility. I doubted it was the sixth gate dark tree. It was far to sharp and deadly feeling for it to have disguise as a part of its plantae repertoire.

Which meant that there was some other source of magic hiding the grotto, which hadn’t been able to be pierced by either my mana senses or my Witch Eyes.

I nodded my head in the direction of the invisible grove and murmured my thanks to whatever was laying there. It was entirely possible that it wasn’t able to hear me, let alone understand me. It could have been another plant, or a magical mineral, some sort of natural array, or a non-sapient animal. But it was better to be safe than sorry.

Besides, I really was grateful.

I flickered back to Kene and Ivy, frowning when I saw that they weren’t where I’d left them.

“Primes,” I swore. The magic of the faerie nappers must have been intense enough that I’d been gone longer than a few minutes.

Though I knew it was risky, I began to channel mana into my spells, blasting my mana senses out over as large an area as I could. The truth of the guardian and the power of my rainbow eyes were more than happy to lend a hand, and the resonance flowed into my spells with seemingly no effort.

Ivy was a lost cause. His veiling artifact was far too strong for me to pierce at range like this. I might have been able to do it if I’d known his location, but as was, there was no chance.

Kene on the other hand, was a different story. Their veil was good, better than mine without the use of my Hiding Spider spell, but I stood a real chance of piercing it.

As I blasted my mana senses out around me, Dusk sat up, blinking and asking what had happened in a soft river burble. I gave her an abridged version of the hidden grotto, before I locked onto something.

Not Kene, unfortunately. The power rushing towards me was far stronger than that, an Arcanist somewhere in the middle of fifth gate. The power it gave off was sharp and conflicting, like a knot of darkness that radiated solar mana.

I immediately drew my senses back in, cast Hiding Spider, and flickered away. I wasn’t going to take refuge in Dusk’s realm, not against something that had a touch of lunar magic. Much like how the dreamstuff of the physical mana slaughter spirit had allowed it to slip partially through Dusk’s protections, I was betting the shadowstuff of this one would act similarly. Maybe even worse – dreamwalking was a much higher gate power than shadowstepping.

No, I needed to run.

I flexed Foxstep, appreciating the way the spell flared without rebellion in my spirit, and flickered across the land. With my veil up, my mana senses were weaker, but I thought I was getting a slow but steady lead on the slaughter spirit.

Then the shadows under my feet began to boil, and a lance of pure white light exploded out of them. I had Foxstepped away the instant the shadows started twisting unnaturally, which was probably the only thing that saved me. That light beam attack was fast, unnaturally so.

I sighed as the shadows coalesced into a flowing, shimmering black form somewhat resembling spinning rings around a black core. The entire body seemed to be trembling with the effort that it had used to teleport that far, but it began to spin again. I Foxstepped behind it, lashing out with a slice of blademoss. That did nothing, and Dusk’s conjured hands and snow orbs also passed through harmlessly.

I wasn’t planning to fight it, though, just distract it. I Foxstepped again, casting both Harvest Distance and my new spell, Spatial Harvest together. The spatial weave in this area was rather disturbed, warping and trembling, allowing Spatial Harvest to return a bit of mana to me, letting me flee further from the spirit. Its short range teleport was more costly than my own, especially since it was using its strange, warped body and dominion to do it, rather than simple mana. I could outrun it.

Then the winds of fortune whispered in my spirit, and through them, my mana senses extended far further than they ought to be able to, rainbow light in my eyes unspooling through the distance. 

“Change of plans,” I told the spirit, even as I flickered back out of existence and to the side, dodging a rain of light darts. “You’ve got a dance partner. At least for a little bit.”

The spirit didn’t respond, which was a little disappointing, but golden light seeped from its body and began to suffuse the darkness, like thousands of amber eyes. It shot towards me, a vibrant red aura around it, and I Foxstepped away, casting Foxarmor and cycling Mantle Dragonfyre as I did so. My shadows began to shift, but before I teleported away, Dusk clapped her hands. They were glowing with a golden light, suggesting that Dawn was within her mana-garden, using her dominion to empower Dusk’s magic further.

At the tiny clap, the pair cast a spell that she had learned from the world mammoths of the preserve: Enforce Reality.

The bonds of the spirit’s dominion shattered like glass in the wind, and it was thrown out of my shadow violently, its body occupying two spots at once for a moment before one faded away into a dark puddle of ooze, which swiftly turned into nothing at all.

The slaughter spirit seemed to grow angrier at that, if that was even possible, and it floated up into the air. The glowing gold and black rings that encircled the dark mass at its center unraveled, and suddenly it was raining tiny pellets of red.

I cursed and teleported behind it, only for the rings to start firing in the other direction.

I knit together my soul mana, Enhance Forging, Briarthreads, and Fungal Armor all at once, while Arthur’s guardian dominion flowed in conjunction with my Nascent Truth, empowering the spells further. All the power was drawn them together just in time to save me from the eruption of fireballs. The spirit had been going for shock and awe, trying to stop me from casually teleporting to avoid them, so I was only caught in the direct blast of one of the attacks, and the sides of two others.

Even still, the spirit was an Arcanist, and I was a lowly mid-third gate. All the layers of my defenses save for the insubstantial ones, like Arthur’s dominion and my Foxarmor, were near-instantly turned to a crisp and, dissipated under the effects of the barrage. The spirit unleashed enough light darts to make the world glow white, and I pulled myself into Dusk’s realm, emerging a second later.

I teleported into the air. It shot upwards, floating on its bright red aura, and a pillar of flame erupted down from the sky, covering what had to be at least an acre in nothing but fire. As it did, its dominion flickered, somehow locking down my capacity to enter Dusk.

Dusk hadn’t been able to enter the fight thus far, since almost all of her attacks were physical in nature, unable to hurt the shadowstuff of the slaughter spirit. Dawn was strange, but she was ultimately still a second gate spirit, so she wasn’t able to emerge and bite into the shadowstuff either, and it wasn’t exactly like we’d had a leisurely break for her to emerge from Dusk, float into me, and start supporting my spells.

But while that was generally bad, in this instant, it meant that the pair was ready. They broke the slaughter spirit’s warped dominion, and we flowed into her realm again.

I reconjured my armor and briarthreads, sans soul mana this time, but using the power of the Ninelight Morels. I drew on the spiritshield lichen, then stepped out and unleashed my trio of attacks.

The first, I knew would work. An overcharged draw of blademoss, enhanced with the spiritshield lichen, let it cut against spirits. It cut into the shadowy mass at the center of the slaughter spirit, causing it to weep amber light.

The second would probably work. Arthur’s dominion was more in line with protection, but I conjured the spectral dog next to the spirit, letting him sink his teeth in against the shadowstuff of the slaughter spirit. He drew some blood, but I Foxswapped my location with him an instant later, taking the powerful spear of light it unleashed on my armor.

My armor crumbled instantly under the attack, only good for a single blow, but that was enough to let me fire off my final attack.

It was the risky one. I was betting that since it had such a heavy solar component, and carried some light, it would be able to hurt a shadow, but I wasn’t really sure. A lot of its power was also in its weight and physical heft, which made it a risk. But you couldn’t fight up two stages without risk.

A three-cycle Mantle Dragonfyre erupted from my hands, a spark of soul mana slipping into it and enhancing it. An explosion of brown and red light ripped out, and the slaughter spirit let out a sound somewhere between an eerily human scream, manic raven laughter, and the sound of a tea kettle whistling.

I teleported away immediately, reconjuring my armor to take the storm of fireballs it unleashed in vengeance. There was no soul mana in my spell this time, and a single round of attacks wasn’t enough to instantly adapt it against fireball, but it was enough to let Dusk pull me into her realm.

There was a flicker as the spirit started assaulting the door, and I teleported behind it in the real world, slicing out with more overcharged blademoss and spiritshield lichen. Dusk shattered its dominion again, stopping the assault on her realm, and as it spun to attack us, I got a good look at the thing.

My dragon’s breath, as empowered as it had been, had done something. It wasn’t the complete annihilation that I was used to, but it had still managed to completely shatter one of the rings that made it up.

I started spinning another instance of Mantle Dragonfire, even as I flickered out of the way of the carpet of fire, landing on the ground and sweeping down at my shadow. My attack struck home, and it was pushed out of my shadow, letting out its strange hiss again. I paced several steps back, checking on my reserves.

I had limited ways to actually do damage. If I had to actually kill the slaughter spirit, I’d probably run dry on life and soul mana first, on top of slowly falling due to the fact my defenses couldn’t take hits from it forever. Even with their adaptations, the slaughter spirit had multiple fire and light-based attacks, not just one.

But... I didn’t need to kill it. I just needed to hold it off. Ideally, it would figure out that I wasn’t worth the mana expenditure to kill, though I had less faith in a slaughter spirit to act that way than a beast.

The spirit burst upwards again, and this time, leaving no more time to think, only to act.