Amadea and the Divinity Blade - Chapter 25

Chapter 25

“Finally!” Zira exclaimed as they approached a village just thick with monsters. “After we seal this one – there’ll be just one left!”

Amadea looked around for the doorway, and her companions searched the village for anyone that needed help. While they did find some corpses, there wasn’t more than a handful, which made them hopeful that most of the villagers had escaped to safety.

“Imperial Majesty!” A soldier shouted to gain their attention. “We’ve been fighting the monsters as best we can, but there’re just too many of them. Now that you are here, we hope to finally clear up this area.”

Zephyr returned from surveying the area. He and Cirrus hovered about two feet above the ground. “I’m thankful that there is a full regiment of soldiers around, because this place is host to every type of demon imaginable! You name it, it’s here!”

Amadea paled. “You don’t suppose…” She shook her head, and made a sign to ward off evil.

Zephyr went to the commander, and gave him all the details about the monster population, and how to handle them. Meanwhile, Luna was electrocuting imps – since she knew that her magic was powerful against them. Notus decided it might be a good idea to test out his new talisman, and was purposely letting a golem punch him repeatedly.

“This is amazing!” He announced excitedly. “Amadea, thank you for this protection. I can barely feel these hits!”

Amadea waved his thanks away, her attention focused on something else. She saw Kyle and Boreus team up against a soul sucker out of the corner of her eye, but she ignored them. She closed her eyes, and barely dared to breathe as she listened intently.

It was faint, but she was almost certain it was there. Please let me be wrong!

Zephyr blew up something next to her with a spirit arrow. “Amadea! Wake up!” He shouted.

She held up her hand to stop him from shouting at her, and continued to track the noise with her eyes closed. Now that she knew it was there, the hardest part was doing something about it. She had to concentrate even harder.

Cumulus flew around her, attacking the monsters that tried to take advantage of her distraction. Even so, there was only so much the flying horse could do.

“AMADEA!” Zephyr screamed, jumping off his horse to defend his wife from a berserker intent on beheading her.

“There!” Amadea finally opened her eyes, and looked to where she pointed. Kyle and Boreus were back to back, and she quickly aimed a levitation spell at them. She purposely added more power than necessary to the spell in order to fling them high into the air. Had she been even one second later, the two of them would likely be dead.

“What is that?!” Luna shrieked, pointing at the giant worm-like monster confusedly searching for its missing meal.

Zephyr well remembered the last time he had seen one, and quickly shot it with a spirit arrow. Thankfully, the monster exploded, and he looked up to see if Amadea had released the spell on his brother and Kyle. The two were still floating, and Amadea had her eyes closed once more.

He glanced at the berserker he had managed to pin to the ground with a boulder. So far, the boulder was holding it down, but it had at least one companion headed this way.

“Oh Gods!” Amadea gasped. There were too many demon worms to track, and they all seemed close to choosing a victim. “Everyone! Get off the ground!”

Cirrus was smart enough to offer Notus a lift, and Luna followed orders by levitating. They urged non-magic using soldiers to climb trees, and were relieved to see that at least half of the soldiers could levitate or float.

The worms all chose a monster as their victim, and snatched them. Amadea sensed one nearby, and prayed that they all had one nest; otherwise eradicating them was going to be nearly impossible. She jumped up and down to gain the monster’s attention, and Zephyr barely had time to gasp, “No!” before his wife was taken away.

He resisted the urge to run after her, and concentrated on shooting the ones that surfaced to seize a meal. Luna figured that if his spirit arrow was effective, then her lightning should be, and bravely landed to help. They stood back to back shooting as many of the humongous worms as they could.

“Please be safe,” Zephyr chanted a prayer. Meanwhile, Boreus and Kyle were wondering how to end Amadea’s levitation spell. They could do almost nothing from this height. Kyle soon discovered that he could manipulate the spell as if he had cast it, and quickly flew down to take a monster by surprise.

Amadea didn’t resist when the snake-like appendage pulled her into its stomach, and waited until the demon worm stopped moving. Then, she used her trusty Divinity Blade to rip it open. She inspected the nest, and discovered that there simply wasn’t room for all of the monsters, but it did look like quite a few of them shared this living space. Wanting to conserve as much strength as possible, she tried out several spells until she found the one that killed them using as little energy as possible.

She took the time to send the dead ones to Amethyst, and then explored the multitude of tunnels the monsters had created. It was pitch black, so she didn’t need to close her eyes to concentrate, but she did so anyway. She focused on the small noises the worms made, and hunted them until she was fairly certain she had gotten them all.

Time passed strangely. She stopped to rest whenever she was fairly certain she was safe, and as a result, she had no idea how long it actually took her to eradicate all of the demon worms. It felt like days went by, but at the same time, she was certain that only hours could have actually passed.

She also had no idea how far she traveled. The nests all seemed to be concentrated in one area, but as many times as she had to travel back and forth through the tunnels to be certain they were clear, she could have traveled miles. It was very disorienting, and she deeply appreciative that there seemed to be vents to keep her air supply plentiful.

At one point, she stalked a particularly nasty stench to a huge cavern. She was horrified to realize that the cavern was packed full of wriggling baby demon worms, and a gigantic mama worm. The Queen worm took offense to Amadea’s presence, and tried to bite her head off.

Amadea instinctively dodged, and wondered how to ensure that all of the monsters were destroyed without blowing up the ceiling of the cavern and trapping her. Deciding to rely on her Divinity Blade to shield her from their attempts to eat her – and her own impending action – she cast a spell to fill the cavern with water, and then made it boil the monsters until they couldn’t possibly be alive. The Queen worn actually screeched, and thrashed about as if in agony.

Even with her shield, Amadea started to feel overly hot, and used a spell to propel herself out of the cavern. She rested a bit, hoping that she hadn’t done any permanent damage to her body. This thought reminded her to cast a healing spell, then she resumed her hunt.

Eventually, she was reasonably sure that they were all dead, but then her blood ran cold as she realized that she had made a grave mistake! I’m so stupid! Why don’t I ever think these things through?!

Amadea cast a spell to create a tunnel straight up, relying on her shield to protect her from the debris. She crawled out of the ground, and rested for a few moments before looking around. She couldn’t see anyone or anything nearby. More importantly, she couldn’t hear anything either, which meant that her companions were not nearby.

“I must have traveled farther than I thought!” Amadea muttered to herself. No matter how far away she was, she was magically linked to her flying horse, so she called for Cumulous, and decided to nap as she waited.

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