Chapter 154

The dream state pocket dimension;

Currently Fox is training me...

“So in conclusion, I want you to work on these symbols here. They’ll open up and help you more,” Fox explained. Right now she’s in school teacher mode and drew the symbols in the air using some kind of magic cantrip.

“Once again like this,” she said again redrawing the same rune over and over in the air. It’s cool how she does it, as if there’s a transparent blackboard in the air. Only her reality altering skill can do it, and she also makes them glow a sort of neon hot red when she traces them in the air.

She was teaching me some of the Egyptian runes for magic. Sort of…it wasn’t like we’d remember them all. Sometimes she did this when we had extra time but I felt like it was like trying to dam a hurricane to do because the language was so complex.

Sometimes she does this to teach me, but it’s kind of boring so I don’t always tell the others about it. This isn’t the first time we’ve had a school room setting like this. At least a couple times a week it’s been like this lately.

Near us Asakura is also watching us. She’s taking notes. Although since we don’t have paper or pencils, it’s in the form of using a stick to draw and trace the same symbols with their names in the sand around us of the arena.

“What are these runes for anyway?” I asked. She hadn’t gotten to this part yet.

“Well humans like to use these to make a wizard staff,” she started to say. But then she suddenly sniffed the air.

“Wizard stuff huh? That would be useful,” I noted while watching her.

I don’t think she even heard what I’d just said.

“What? Is something wrong?” Asakura asked.

I also noticed.

“I just…felt something strange just now,” Fox said. She looked suddenly skiddish and wary.

She waited a minute, not wanting to continue.

Nothing happens…so she resumed but still looked puzzled.

Asakura and I shrugged at each other.

“As I was saying, humans like to use them for carving a wizard staff. Then they store extra power in it and…” Fox suddenly stopped. She looked up this time, as if sniffing the wind. But in here there really isn’t wind, but she might still have sharp senses. It makes me puzzled that she’s puzzled. Then she sniffed a few more times as if sensing danger.

“What is it?” I asked.

Fox is still quiet…she’s trying to sense something.

“Shun, is something going on?” Asakura asked.

Fox is acting weird again. She looked left and right. Then she doubled back over and around the arena, where we’re trying to be taught by her. Her eyes don’t seem to lock in anything and that’s making her uncomfortable.

“Something isn’t right,” Fox said. She stopped and has her hands on her hips. This is kind of way different, because now she’s so tall that the skirt she had before is overly tight and resembling a mini micro skirt that’s way too tight, because she’d reshaped them but still didn’t have a lot of material, with her top being reshaped into a sort of low cut spaghetti strap tank top. It also takes getting used to the fact that she’s a sort of golden blonde now from the growth spurt we received when she grew from our bonding.

Her ears are pricked up as high as they can like she does when danger is close. “Ahh…I don’t like this,” she said.

“There!” Asakura pointed. Because of the ghoul race trait, Asakura managed to pick it out first. As we look over, there’s suddenly like what looks like a blowtorch cutter like sparky effect in the middle of the air not far from us near the side of the arena. It’s like it’s cutting a spatial rift door in the air.

“Crap. What is this?” I asked in shock.

“Is it Doppel-chan?” Asakura asked.

“I think it’s like…someone is trying to force open a mana portal in here,” Fox said.

“Is that possible? Someone can really do that?” I asked in shock.

“Besides Doppel-chan is still up there hanging in her cage,” Fox said.

“Ahh no way! We’re being invaded?!” I said. “OK, everyone get armed fast.”

“I agree,” Asakura said.

“It’s not impossible, but it’s hard. They wouldn’t teach it to everyone because only a criminal would do it or someone involved in war,” Fox answered back while we’re seeing the cutting continue.

We all look around again. But sure enough Doppel-chan is still in the cage above us. She’s also acting fairly tame and bored also.

And there’s no other weird things trying to enter our little pocket dimension.

Except for that one spot; as we’re looking at our surroundings and verify there isn’t anything else trying to get in. that spot though is making like a circular cut right in the air, like a doorway. The weird sparky glow is definitely red hot with some kind of heat.

Soon it cuts all around in a complete circle. It looks weird… like mana cuts into the fabric of reality that shouldn’t be there.

While it’s cutting a doorway I’ve buffed all of them as much as I can.

“Hope you’re ready,” Fox said. I noticed she’s wearing the energy sword thing, that’s sparking like mad. It’s a beastly thing that screams of deathly energy on a level that is hard to even comprehend.

Asakura is also armed now and so am I.

“It appears we’re probably going to fight something strong,” Asakura said finally.

I didn’t realize this would ever happen so soon. I thought we would have more time right? But we don’t.

Weird.

Will it be strong, weak, or crushingly strong to the point of not even being able to fight back?

A few seconds later the cut doorway of air slammed open and falls to the ground while there’s a hole in the dimensional pocket.

A surge of big numbers of small devious and cunning;u wicked dungeon imps are surging through the hole.

They look strangely like the other imps we’d seen when we had glances of the demon realm. All small with draconic skin and leathery wings and evil faces full of sharp teeth. Eyes that are sinister, despite their small size also.

And even while looking through the little portal we can see in the background what looks like the sky of the demon realm and some kind of weird meadow with some black robed figures in the distance.

“What the hell?!” Asakura exclaimed.

“Stay ready!” Fox ordered. I noticed she takes point.

“Try to close the portal!” she added.

Ahh..it’s a portal or gateway, not a dimensional door. So that means it could stay open for a long time, I think.

I cast a barrier fence, but then suddenly I’m hearing something interfering with my magic from the other side of the door. It’s like the spell wants to solidify but is melting away at the same time before it can appear.

Something is using a [magic canceler] of some kind to eat through my barrier fence.

I try again, the same thing happens.

“Don’t do that anymore, it will just eat up all your mana and then you’ll be empty,” Asakura suggested.

But If I just try to pour more mana into the existing cast instead of casting a new one that might work. I’m picturing the thread of mana connecting to me into the spell increase it’s ‘hose’ size and feeding a bit more.

While I’m trying to pour more energy into the spell, Fox is cutting at imps. “He’s good at that magic canceler thing Shun. That’s why your spell is being sapped. Keep at it. You can wear him down. Make it count!”

The enemy is still trying to get in though.

I worry about how much mana I can put into this.

My energy field is hitting his, as our mana cancels each other out. I kept the flow steady, matching his every move several times in a row.

Asakura moves to block imps coming at me while I keep trying to put the barrier fence spell in place over the dimension portal.

She cuts one down immediately, and then fends off two others which aren’t wounded.

Fox downs two of them with her glowing hot sword. She’s a bit faster and has more damage than Asakura, which thankfully covers us defensively.

But there doesn’t seem to be any end to the imps. Because whatever caster is on the other side of the portal keeps counter-spelling me there isn’t anything to keep them from flowing through. And Fox and Asakura are having a hard time keeping up.

But the shielding spells I’ve put up on them are holding well.

I can feel the other mage or wizard or whatever on the other side countering me again.

“This guy’s been trained well. His counter spells are solid and consistent. Probably has a big mana pool,” Fox said while she and Asakura keep circling around me to intercept imps.

Two more counter spells took down the last of barrier fencing mana feed.

Damn. This is going to be a big battle.

“Was that even worth it?” I asked.

“Heck yeah, by forcing him to counter spell you now you’ve taken energy that he would have put into offensive magic. He’s probably pissed as hell that he had to waste all that mana just on cancel countering,” Fox said.

“Try leaching the imps of energy,” Asakura guessed.

Will that work?

Instead of casting another barrier fence instead I used my energy tap on an imp before he was cut down. Different from normal attacks, I tried to pull all the energy I could from him and he popped because I took too much.

Oops…

That’s very efficient actually.

So I did it again on another one.

Success again!

But then its body disappeared!

“What the hell?” I accidentally said. I still don’t understand why it worked, even though it worked.

“They’re summoned through magic. You took too much of it and so he was sent back to hell,” Fox said.

But because we weren’t doing a barrier fence I was surprised when the next mage effect cast by the enemy mage shot through the portal in the form of two massive flame arrows that felt heavy and full of juice.

This guy was kind of badass. He was keeping up with me round for round like a heavy truck with power.

The two massive flame arrows sped through the air with tons of force and went to different targets. The amount of energy packed into them was way more energy than my small magic missiles contained. One of them hits Fox’s shield buff, and burns half of it away. The other one hit my shielding, and completely obliterates my shield and I’m knocked on my back.

Asakura dragged me out of the way to dodge two more imp hits and is using her own shield to cover me.

Then I cast a runic shielding again to recover myself. But it hurts and I know I have burns that feel like my whole right side is being cut my razor blades over a huge swatch of skin. I’m not dying or maimed but it does hurt like a bitch.

Somehow I keep my concentration and will to preserve my own life while limping.

This part was shocking. Just like before the little juiced mage casted another set of two flame arrows. Whoever he is, he’s really going full blast at us with everything he has.

My shield goes up in time but he hit me full blast again, despite Asakura trying to intercept. He’s also good with aiming and throwing those damn things. And Fox’s shield has the rest of it melted away too. This time I’m lucky my shield did take up all the damage on hers, but just barely.

I’m thankful I’m a shielding and protection specialist right now. Other mages probably have to deal with their allies dying a lot but I’ve been gifted to not have to have that problem.

“This guy’s strong. He’s casting flame arrow like it’s just an AK-47,” Asakura noted.

“We’ll fix it. Hang in there,” fox said worriedly.

“Cover Fox,” I cried out to Asakura.

I’m already getting my shield up again. I barely got it up in time. He also can cast pretty fast too.

This guy really hits hard.

Asakura kills another imp; while we’re still trying to dodge them and prepare for the next spell barrage.

Fox takes out one imp and slices the wing off another that’s trying to bite and slash her.

We’re still on the defensive when I manage to get Fox’s runic shield buff back up before the next barrage hits.

We get lucky this time. Both flame arrows weren’t full direct hits and implode on the edges of the shielding with minimal damage.

“Bastard’s playing with us,” Asakura said.

“Speed casting bastard you mean,” Fox added.

She’s right. It is a speed casting technique!

But if he can do that, shouldn’t I also be able to?

Imps keep pouring through the portal while we’re getting pushed back.

There’s still seven imps here that we’re trying to block and keep away from us. So far they’ve been deflecting most of their attacks but not all, with some of the damage being taken up by the shields. Every time Fox and Asakura cut them down more come through.

It’s starting to look bad.

The other caster mage while in black robes and a hood is casually and confident walking forward through the gate while we’re being pushed back. He pushed his hood back and finally we can see him, where as previously he’d been hanging back just inside the dimensional door he’d cut into my dream pocket.

He looks old but intelligent and strangely refined. But he’s not human and that surprised me. This one is a hobgoblin though, rather than a real goblin. So his skin looks a bit like light red rather than green with most of his head bald with a short spikey Mohawk in the middle. But he has eyeglasses and clothes a human would wear rather than goblin rags and leather. And he’s not stupid or weak looking like normally goblinoids feel like.

He’s intimidating too.

The look on his face, is almost like he’s been murdering people for years. Any sort of blood doesn’t phase him even the slightest.

“I shall have my revenge. You wounded my brother, now I’ll wound you,” he said. the fixation of crushing hate so fierce it could swallow this whole room if it had a tangible form is seeping out of him. It couldn’t be like that unless I’d offended him. This is hate on a whole new level, from a mixture of the natural hate of goblinoids for all things good and pure and a desire for personal revenge.

Is he the brother of that imp summoner guy?

But the other guy looked goblin rather than light red, which was what Fox told me is the easiest way to distinguish them from hobgoblins. So there’s a chance he’s here not for my dream pocket’s attraction at all but because we hurt his brother…great, that’s even worse.

I have to renew the shielding on Fox.

Then sometimes others, including myself.

The imp’s spell goes off next hitting her shield and Asakura’s next this time with each massive fire bolt.

The imps slash at my shield and it’s littered with cracks at almost the same time his flame arrow hits us. My shield collapses and so does Fox’s at nearly the same time. At almost the same time Fox slashed through two imps at once, flaring the huge energy sword brightly with a full charge of mana. Then Asakura killed one more.

The hobgoblin mage screeched. He casts his spell and two more fresh imps are summoned in thick inky smoke, joining the rest.

Then I have to renew my shielding after the imps got through Asakura around me and slashes it all up.

The next set of fire arrows hits Fox and I. My shield takes little damage but Fox’s winks out from the blast. Then she has to dodge imps. Each hit also feels like the force is so terrific that there’s even a rebound like action when it hits the mana shield that affects our posture and how our bodies are standing up against the villain right now.

Damn this guy is good. He’s a first class mage somehow. I don’t yet know his full strength but he’s been in enough fights to know how to keep up pressing a strong advantage.

I cast another runic shielding and her shielding is back up.

The imps are down to four left after my allies manage to keep us alive once again.

But we’re horried when the hobgoblin mage casts another spell and we see the same inky black smoke dissapate and now five more imps are summoned. His power is crushingly humongous and overwhelming in a mage version of blitzkrieg like overkill.

“Crap,” Fox cried out.

“You have to whittle them down fast,” Asakura cried out, in near panic.

Asakura has three of them bear down on her. She blocks the attacks of two of them while the third is slashing her magic shield up. At the same time Fox slashed two more imps in half with another energy sword flare up.

The imps scream and screech frantically while their bodies disintegrate just like every other imp that’s been killed.

I am breathing hard while trying to keep up. This is the most anyone has ever pushed me I think. And I’m lucky it’s Asakura and Fox with me of all of my allies.

“Why won’t you die?!” the hobgoblin screeched.

Then we heard another screech coming from what also sounded like either another hobgoblin or goblin mage caster in the area of the orc training room down the hall. Those other sounds came from where the window to Ayumi’s crystal was located. I don’t know if they can get into it or not but I can’t take any chances.

“Oh shit! No wonder he was splitting his offense against us. He was the diversion. The other goblin is the real problem!” Asakura shouted.

I accidentally swore in frustration.

Down the hall the other enemy is frustrated clearly, but this hobgoblin is fascinated and proud that he’s blocking us.

“Shun, he’s trying to get to the slave crystal rooms that hold Ayumi and Haruka,” Asakura said quickly to warn me with sounds of desperation in her voice. She then slashed up another imp.

She confirmed my worst fear. When I heard her say that, somehow my heart is pounding even more than it already was. I can’t let that happen.

No matter what…

“Crap,” Fox said.

Fox’s hands blur as she casts a lightning bolt spell. It ricochets off the wall and into the hobgoblin caster wounding him after not quite puncturing his magic shield. Then it also kills two adjoining imps from the bleed through area damage. Their smoking bodies fall to the ground.

But the hobgoblin caster is still there. He’s still looking at us like bugs to be crushed with wild madness.

“Shun, take the other goblin. Asakura and I will finish up this one,” Fox said.

Unfortunately the hobgoblin caster here has absorbed most of Fox’s lightning bolt into his mage shield. I can see there I some damage but not much at all.

It’s hard to know what to do. This hobgoblin will no doubt overwhelm Fox and Asakura.

I resist the chance to panic, while analyzing how to beat him. I still also don’t let up on my mage attacks and defenses coming back at him.

“Go Shun!” Fox cries out.

Her energy sword burns through three goblins in a wide area effect attack. There are four left and Asakura hits them with two slashes and one dies, while the other three are trying to tackle her and force her to the ground, which my shield blocks for her.

I sped down the hall to the training room.

I only have one chance.

I hear the screeching again. But right before I left the room I summon Sunghee quickly in a puff of inky smoke. I don’t like summoning her here though. If I do that then I won’t have any cover in the real world.

“What? What’s going on? Why am I here?” Sunghee is shocked and bewildered. She’s also naked because that’s how she was before we went to sleep. It’s embarrassing and it infuriates me that the hobgoblin will see her but I’d rather have that happen then have Fox or Asakura die.

“I need you to save Fox and Asakura!” I said. I toss her my weapon hurriedly. Then I put up a runic shielding buff on her.

As I round the bend there’s the other goblin caster.

To my surprise I can still feel that Fox is OK, even though I can’t see her thanks to the soul link that had occurred when we’d mated.

Weird. Somehow I can almost feel her moving and slashing at the imps in the back of my mind. She’s…not safe exactly but stable though she’s fighting desperately. But she is getting scratched up along with my shield.

Sunghee doesn’t wait and goes right into the action!

I snap back to the present. I can’t think about Fox. I need to do my best now.

This second hobgoblin had almost penetrated the barrier in place preventing access to Ayumi’s room and been trying to lift the seal with some other type of seal stripping enchant.

No! She’s not ready to come out! She will receive a lot of damage if we pull her out of stasis now!

This little guy is similar to the other one. Like the other he’s also a hobgoblin.

He stops when he sees me.

Unlike the other one he doesn’t have imp minions. He’s not the goblin summoner. Are they really brothers or just call each other that from some kind of goblin religion?

He’s charging up something really powerful…also fire I think. I can see the mana in his hands shaping into some kind of reddish ball, he’s over halfway through forming the technique.

I unleash my stun on him, and he falls to the ground while his spell fizzles.

Then I slam two full volleys of starburst shaped white hot magic missiles into him of eight missiles total. His shield is eaten up but hanging by a thread.

I unleash one more full volley into him of four missiles. They don’t do much damage. To be honest I’m more of a defensive caster, so this is hard for me. Still he has minor burns on his shoulder, but his shield has collapsed finally and he’s shrieking in anger.

But he’s getting back up while screaming profanity and goblin racial insults at me.

My next volley hits him in the chest, while he throws a lightning bolt at me.

I’m lucky my shield took most of the impact. So I recast my shielding to renew it.

He screeches bloody murder.

Then he throws another heavy magic bolt at me, which barely scratched me as I rolled away.

No way…I just evaded a magic bolt? Was it critical luck or something I can repeat?

My next volley of missiles strikes him in the chest. He’s barely on his feet and bleeding heavily while wheezing. One or two more volleys and he’ll be dead.

I beat him on the draw then, and my last volley kills him. At first he staggered and had an unfocused look in his eyes. Then he started trying to recover, and backpedaled trying to stay on his feet with a fearful look resembling a bad child. Finally he gasped and then fell over dead.

This guy was probably the weaker of the two even before we started.

I feel bad for him. He is a pretty strong mage, but he was probably hired as a lackey to open the seal rather than face a full battle. Funny, he must be from our side of the world because his body doesn’t disintegrate into smoke like the other imps.

There aren’t any more casters in this area.

So I run back down the hall in the other room.

I make it back just in time to renew Asakura’s shield.

All three girls are bloody and have their shields slashed up while the hobgoblin here is screaming profanity and rage at them with four imps still out. It doesn’t appear that their shields are burned so it looks like when Sunghee arrived he got greedy and decided to only summon imps rather than burn through their shields.

He’d also concentrated his imps against Sunghee, hoping to capture the naked girl alive.

But his greed will probably kill him, and I can see he won’t take his eyes off Sunghee. He’s ignoring the greater danger of Fox and Asakura.

In contrast Sunghee is able to block most of the attacks better than the other two since she has more martial training. But I need to get Fox’s shield repaired fast. She’s torn up badly with her shirt having been cut to pieces and in threads by the imps that got through her shield with her boobs hanging out visibly.

“Hey you are bigger than he is! Crush him!” I yelled at Fox. I keep renewing their shielding buffs as fast as I can.

“Uh, he’s right,” Asakura is still trying to block the imp attacks.

“Ahh…I sometimes forget. I’m getting used to this too. And…I don’t like them trying to hurt me,” Fox argued.

We concentrate our fire while over the next few seconds I renew the runic shielding on each of them.

But then I was surprised when the hobgoblin caster decides to make a dash for the exit portal that he’d first created.

“Stop him! If he gets away he’ll just come back later!” Asakura cried out.

I barely got the barrier fence spell up in time and the hobgoblin caster bounces off it, falling on his ass.

Then Fox’s energy sword clips his head off while Asakura also makes sure he is down. The rest of the body slumped to the floor in awkward messes of guts, limbs, and goblin fluids which are grossly dirty and smell awful.

“We lived! Yippee!” Sunghee is excited and jumping up and down. Her boobs shake tremendously.

I still have to heal the other girls but their wounds aren’t too terrible or life threatening. I was lucky I wasn’t gone long. Still, something doesn’t’ feel right here.

“Make sure he’s really dead and take all his stuff,” I ordered to Fox.

Then I ran back to the Ayumi’s slave crystal room.

When I got there I’m concerned.

The hobgoblin caster here was truly dead. I sighed in relief a bit too soon, when I noticed that Ayumi’s room seal is broken.

And she’s finally awake.

“Hey you’re Shun right? You’re a student in the school I teach, but where are we? Why are we here? What is all this?” Ayumi cried out in panic with a sick croaky face. She still has the miasma like skin condition on her body.

She’s standing over the portal door that has the holes in it, and talking through them while looking around the room.

Crap. The infection in her body has also made her delirious and within seconds the infection is spreading. I’ll have to work fast. Already her body is mutating and acting strangely at an uncontrolled rate.

Ayumi is awake.

But isn’t this too soon?