Chapter 224: And a Frieren Falls from the Sky
The light of the magic circle grew brighter and brighter, and the image in the portal was now clear.
"Good," Ela said, and plunged her staff into the ground. A wall of a thousand vines erupted from the earth, a barrier that temporarily held back the tide of their attackers. For every vine that was destroyed, a new one would grow in its place, and the guards and mages... they could not break through. But it would not last for long.
"We've found them!"
More guards and mages were now coming from the other end of the tunnel. They were now completely surrounded.
"Flamme!" Ela's voice was now a little frantic. She could see them, in the sky above, casting a binding spell. Once it was complete... there would be no escape.
But just then, the girl's own spell was complete.
"Go, Frieren!"
The portal, which had been a swirling vortex of a raw and untamed magic, now flared with a blinding light, and a powerful spatial energy now locked on to the girl on her back, the girl she had been protecting with her own, faint, magical shield. And in an instant, she was gone, pulled into the portal and spirited away to another place.
They had done it.
And in that same instant, the binding spell was complete.
The light of the magic circle faded, leaving only a scorched and blackened mark on the ground.
The guards and mages, though they had stopped their attack, were still wary.
Ela dispelled her wall of vines.
"There's a restriction spell above us. We can't fly," she said with a frown. If they had just been a few seconds faster... but she did not blame her. To have cast such a complex spell in such a short amount of time... it had been a remarkable feat.
"Frieren is safe. That's all that matters," the girl said, and let her own staff fall to her side.
Ela understood. With their own remaining strength, they could have easily fought their way out. But that would have meant harming the guards, who were just doing their duty. It was not a thing they were willing to do.
"We surrender," she said to the lead mage. "And we are willing to make amends for the power we have... borrowed. But please believe... we only did it to save a life."
The mage's own face was a grim and unforgiving mask. He looked at them, at the two thieves who had nearly drained their city's own power source, and then at their own, now unresisting, forms, and in the end, he just huffed. "Take them away," he said. "And wait for the judgment of the bishop and the council."
If not for the fact that they were not demons, he would not have even listened to their explanation. He would have just had them all killed.
The guards came forward and bound their wrists, and led them away.
On the other side of the continent, he and Serie were on their way back to their own quiet, secluded life when they both, at the same time, looked up.
A powerful spatial fluctuation, right above them.
"Was that..." she began, a look of a pure and simple confusion on her face.
And then, the space above them began to twist and warp, and a small portal opened, and a slender, white figure fell from it.
He was there in an instant, and caught her in his arms.
"Well now, it seems a pretty little thing has fallen from the sky," he said with a playful tone. But then he looked down at her face, and his smile froze.
"Frieren!?" he breathed. The girl in his arms... it was the great Grand Mage of the future, the elf with the beautiful, silver-white hair. But her face was now a pale and translucent thing, and her own breath was a shallow and barely-perceptible flutter.
"What is going on?" he was completely baffled. At this point in time... she should have been in an elven village, safe and sound. How could she be here, and in such a state?
"A directed teleportation spell," she said, her own voice now a low and quiet sound from beside him. Her own senses had picked up the familiar aura in the magical fluctuation. "From Flamme and Ela. But... it was a hasty one. The coordinates were a little off."
Ela and Flamme? Had they found her village? But... what had happened? The protective spell he had placed on the girl... it was still intact.
He quickly examined the other girl. "A corrosive power," he said, his own voice now a grim and sober thing. "Not an ordinary demon's magic. It has the same properties as the Godfall Land. And it is now... consuming her very life force."
"Shall we try a holy spell?"
"No. It will not work. It can only... slow it down."
"Then she is unlucky. There is nothing more we can do," she said, a final and unforgiving sentence.
"Not yet," he said. "They would not have sent her to us if there was no hope."
The Demon General, from the original story... he had been the one to have wounded her. But then, she had defeated him. Had his own presence, his own actions, changed the timeline so much? Had the demons... become stronger?
And a new and startling thought came to him.
(End of chapter)
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