Dee was rather surprised about the behavior of the wave of mana from the plane of death as it hit her Aegis. She had expected the two powers to collide and fight for dominance as was usually the case when two opposing forces met. The death mana didn’t behave like that though. It simply went around her Aegis. She got the feeling that the death mana recognized the stronger power of death that came with her blessing, but wasn’t sure how that could be. She had tried to keep her Aegis only to the holy power gained from Lumen.

‘Didn’t the goddess say something about her blessing affecting my other abilities?’ Dee suddenly remembered. That seemed as good of an explanation as she was going to get at the moment.

The villagers she was protecting panicked when they saw the greyish green death energy collide with the golden shield protecting them. They had no idea what the weird energy was but they could guess the golden energy protecting them was caused by Dee. They had no idea whether the golden energy would hold and they could see what happened to all the living things outside the protective shield. All life withered and died, turning into nothing but ash. In the current surroundings that meant mostly trees and plants, but there was also the occasional small animal that also suffered that horrible fate.

Some of the villagers considered running away. How they expected to run away from the energy or survive outside the shield, Dee had no idea. She didn’t quite have the same instinct of fleeing from unknown dangers that other beings seemed to have. However, she did recognize the danger and simply forced all of them down against the ground using her powers. That was not a pleasant experience for those involved but they were saved from their own stupidity.

‘Maybe I should’ve let one or two run just as an example?’ Dee grumbled to Croestia, who simply laughed as a response.

It took a few minutes, but the stream of deadly mana eventually came to an end. Dee could finally drop the shield and survey the situation. Their surroundings had been turned into a barren wasteland covered in what looked like ash from the dead plants that had disintegrated. She knew the other two refugee groups would be fine as she had protected them as well. There was no telling if any among those had been silly enough to run, but hopefully the paladins had managed to keep order. They should’ve recognized the Aegis spell, assuming they weren’t all fresh recruits.

She started to lead the group of refugees towards the other two groups, who were also helpfully coming towards her. The scared people tried to avoid stepping on any of the ash, but it was mostly unavoidable. It only took a few minutes for the three groups to sight each other. One of the groups was led by a human captain that Dee noted to be around rank three, while the other group was simply a squad led by a sergeant. Perhaps they were from the same unit? The insignias they carried were the same, but then again most paladins in this general area would carry the chapter’s insignia.

The young male captain approached Dee. “I assume we have you to thank for the timely rescue? That wave of death mana would’ve most likely killed us all if not for you.” The captain thanked Dee with a wan smile.

Dee cursed the captain’s slip of the tongue. He had not noticed that Dee’s group was much smaller than his, and didn’t include the whole village. Predictably some of the villagers heard the captain’s words and started to draw their own conclusions, which they had not considered before due to being in shock. “What happened to everyone we left behind?” “Don’t tell me everyone back at the village is now dead?!” “What about my cousin?!”

Dee cursed again under her breath. Now the refugees would be even more trouble. “I appreciate the thanks, but I’m starting to regret that little piece of charity right about now.” She replied to the captain with a grumbly voice.

The young man narrowed his eyes. “You didn’t evacuate the whole village? Why not?” His tone started to get a slightly self-righteous tone.

“Because some didn’t’ want to go, and I’m not in the business of saving people against their will.” Dee replied firmly.

“So you just left them to die?” The captain asked slightly horrified.

“Yes I did. And if you keep harping on about it, I won’t have any trouble leaving you to die the next time a wave like that hits. I save those who bother helping themselves, while those that simply act as a hindrance are welcome to their fates. Let them save themselves if they can.” Seeing the young captain ready to argue, Dee just pushed on with her words. “Besides, we have other things to worry about. That might not have been the last wave of its kind.”

“You can stop them like this one, right?” The young captain asked confused and slightly worried. He certainly didn’t have the ability to form an Aegis, even with the help of the other paladins here.

“I can, but we’re drawing attention. We are already being watched by some powerful people here for the rift. The movement of this group will be slow and it will take days if not weeks to get back to safety. The people are moving fast now, but they will tire and can’t be compared to a mounted group like yours even at best of times so it will take much longer to get back than it took to get here. By then we will be attacked by something meaner than just a few beasts. Besides, I’m not a bottomless well of power. If these waves become more powerful or more frequent…” Dee explained her thoughts. They weren’t actually likely to get attacked by any of the powerful groups as long as they stayed out of the way, but she wasn’t going to babysit a group of refugees and some self-righteous paladins for such a long time. She had other things to do.

“I don’t see we have a lot of options. Or do you have a plan?” The captain asked.

“Yes I do. I have the ability to make a portal to lead us away from here, but I can’t guarantee that method to be completely safe either. I usually use it just for myself, not for a group of scared refugees.” Dee suggested. Now she had a fairly decent chance to test what would happen if she took a large number of people through the Astral Plane. At least no one would miss these people if the test failed…

“That sounds ominous. Not that we have host of better options. You’re the only one capable of protecting us, so we’ll have to do it your way anyway.” The young captain agreed much easier than Dee had assumed. She had expected quite a bit of resistance. Maybe the young man had gotten scared by his own impending demise and just wanted to get out of here?

It of course took almost an hour to organize the group and another twenty minutes to coax the scared people to jump into the dark void of the portal. The latter was achieved by reminding the people of the waves of death and the paladins jumping in first. When they showed that they could survive and move around, the others were more willing to follow. Dee was slightly surprised that the pack animals and the wagons managed to go through fine. She had assumed they would have to leave at least the wagons behind, seeing as they had no intelligence or mind to move with, but they were weightless in the other plane and easily dragged along.

The trip through the Astral Plane was thankfully very short, and the people exited the portal close to the portal city where they had been traveling towards anyway. No need to mention that Dee had actually aimed to come out inside the city. Close enough. It was also nice to see that the city was still there and teeming with life, so at the very least the wave of death had not claimed their lives. She left the handling of the refugees on the young captain’s shoulders, as she had no desire to spend any time with the self-righteous man. Besides, she had her own business to handle..

There was another reason for Dee to be thankful of the short trip. As she had been the last to exit the Astral Plane, she had sensed a danger closing in on their location. She had no idea what that danger might have been, but her instincts were whispering of something large and with sharp teeth. Apparently taking a lot of low level people through the plane did really come with risks. If they had taken any longer, who knows what would’ve happened. She would need to exercise some caution with these portals in the future.

-----

As she wasn’t sure if the use of the portals were safe yet, or whether the danger she had felt was still there waiting for her, Dee decided to go to the rift the old fashioned way. She’d done her part with the evacuation, so now it was time to see if she could do what she came here to do in the first place. Razark had assumed that it would take time for the high ranking communities to receive the news of the rift, but she had already noted that this was not the case. The presence of the four weird beings she had sensed earlier was a clear indication of that. She still hoped that the surroundings of the rift were not too heavily contested.

She was soon disappointed. As she got closer to the rift it became clear that the area was swarming with high ranking individuals and beings. She was not surprised by the presence of several groups from the Crimson Path, as she had heard of their interest with the rifts. What did surprise her was the large presence from the Spider Cult. She had little knowledge of the group, but their members were not hard to recognize as they were always accompanied by high ranking undead. Just the necromancers alone were rather large in number, but when fighting a necromancer you never fought just one person. You also had to face their minions. Their numbers were also increased by the presence of several death knights, warriors that amplified their fighting prowess with the power of decay and poisons from their goddess.

The presence of necromancers and death knights was less problematic to Dee than the presence of the high ranking undead. As a templar she had an advantage when fighting the beings, but she wasn’t really interested in jumping into combat when surrounded on all sides by enemies. No, the problem came from the fact that the undead could to a certain extent sense the presence of the living, and as mindless creatures were not affected by some of her psionic abilities. Chief among those now useless abilities was the aura that was so good at keeping her hidden. She could still hide in the shadows, but she couldn’t’ just waltz right by all the undead, like she would normally do.

Luckily for her, the undead were busy fighting the Crimson Witches. There was a constant skirmish going on in the surroundings of the rift, made even nastier by the complete lack of anything living close-by, like trees or plants. The lack of foliage meant that everyone had great visibility in all directions. That also meant that Dee was sorely lacking when it came to hiding places. The two sides didn’t seem to be committing to the fight with their all though. It seemed they were satisfied with the occasional quick fight, and maybe killing one or two of their opposite number. Though in fairness the killing was almost exclusively done by the Crimson Witches putting down some of the undead minions or maybe a singular weaker necromancer. So far Dee had not sensed a single member of the Crimson Path going down. Not that she was sticking around to find out either.

Slowly but surely she got closer to the rift, but felt despair as she saw that the immediate vicinity of the rift was surrounded. The Crimson Path had taken control of the rift, but they were kept busy with assaults from the undead. There seemed little chance to sneak past everyone and enter the rift. There may come an opportunity if it came to an all-out brawl between the two sides, but there was also a great risk of getting mixed up in the battle. There were several powerful beings on both sides, some of which were stronger than her.

Since the ranks below immortal were all about the ability to fight against increasingly large groups of beings weaker than yourself, in essence facing entire armies alone, the people at the highest mortal ranks were essentially trying to cause the largest amount of damage with one attack. That meant increasing the area affected by their skills and abilities. With that being the case, it was almost inevitable that Dee would get caught up in things if beings at rank eight and nine started to fight.

Conversely the immortals were often all about fighting other immortals. They already had the ability to affect whole armies after all, so their worst enemies were singular beings, namely the other immortals. So their aim was to condense as much power into as small of an attack as possible, as those were easier to aim and harder to defend against. That wasn’t to say their area attacks didn’t improve, just that it usually wasn’t their aim.

‘Maybe there’s another way. Perhaps I don’t have to hide my presence from everyone here. The conditions have to be right though.’ Dee suddenly thought with a secretive smile, as she got a good position to wait in. Her opportunity would come soon.

-----

Alexandra cursed at the current situation. The leaders had underestimated the importance of this rift. They had sent almost a hundred swords to deal with the rift, an investment wholly too large considering their normal response to such rifts. Their eyes and ears in the rival communities had mentioned that the other communities had more information on this new rift in the boondocks, and would contest for it heavily. That had suggested to the higher echelon of the Path that there was something special about this rift, and they had been right. They had sent a large number of swords in response. Yet they had still underestimated the enemy.

There were over a hundred of the filthy defilers of the dead from the cult grotesquely named Cult of the Great Mother, more commonly known as the Spider Cult. That was bad enough, but there was also a large number of the Revenant in the area. Luckily the Revenant at least seemed to be leaning towards staying out of the fight this time. Even those mana starved suits of armor knew better than make their own from the mana from the plane of death. And it seemed this rift was leaning that way, though the rift had not stabilized yet. The surroundings were also not heavy with any mana that would affect the outcome of the struggle within the rift, so the plane of death seemed like the obvious winner. That was never good for anyone. The undead were bad enough, but elementals of death would be a real problem.

That’s why the Path closed all the rifts from that particular plane. Not because they were altruistic or anything, but it was in their own interest. There was a reason why the undead were their bitter enemies. Undead were immune to their abilities of taking the power of their fallen enemies, and the power of death directly countered and shattered the powers of the Path. Having that power spread was bad, which was why they were here. That’s also why the defilers were here in strength. And that’s why the swords were outnumbered.

Members of the Path were used to being outnumbered; in fact it was a rare case when they were not. The problem was that the defilers had expected their presence. Most people with even basic knowledge of the Crimson Path knew that there were no swords among them below the sixth rank. Not that the lower ranked members were shunted into a sub-community, the Crimson Path had no sub-communities or lower ranked members. There were some communities they liked to recruit from, but those communities didn’t serve the Path or house their non-existent children. This gave the Path strength that didn’t come from numbers.

The Spider Cult had known this, and had left the low ranked minions home, since they would be of no use in this battle. Although the number of necromancers and death knights was only slightly higher than the number of swords the Path had brought, the minions the necromancers all had inflated that number, and all those minions were actually dangerous. There were no simple skeletons or zombies along for the ride this time. The necromancers had known who they would be fighting.

‘I say simple skeletons, but there’s that too.’ Alexandra thought with slight irony, while staring at the skeletal form of a dragon on the other side of the rift where the undead forces where gathered. There were skeletons, and then there were skeletons that mattered.

Usually the unholy energies that held together skeletal dragons could only be managed by immortals, which hinted at the presence of one hidden among their enemies. That was only fair since the Path had brought one too, Alexandra herself. She was a newly minted immortal though, so her confidence was limited. ‘Let’s just hope the Death Lord had simply given the control of the skeletal dragon to a lower ranked necromancer. Otherwise we might be in deep trouble.’ Alexandra thought. She could destroy the dragon, but doing that at the same time while fighting an immortal? Not very likely.

Additionally the fighting strength of the two sides was roughly equal, maybe even slightly favoring the necromancers. Much of their forces were also scattered over the area fighting a prolonged skirmish. A scattered fight like this favored the Crimson Path as their individual fighters were much more powerful, and they could chip down at the enemy numbers.

“Leader!” A shout suddenly drew Alexandra’s attention. A high ranked sword approached her to draw Alexandra’s attention. “There’s something approaching that you might want to see.” The woman pointed at the other direction, away from the main force of the Spider Cult.

Alexandra looked at the direction pointed at, and noticed the approach of a winged being. “What’s an angel doing here, and how did she get so close without anyone sensing anything?” She demanded a report. Usually the angels didn’t move from their embassies in both Day and Night cities, though they had been a bit more active the last few decades.

“Reporting, none of us can feel her strength even now, while she is clearly visible for everyone!” The other woman said, and Alexandra realized she was right.

‘She also seems to be part Fallen? Can an angel be only part Fallen?’ Alexandra wondered as she noted the two different colored wings of the angel. ‘And why is her other wing the color of candy?’

The beautiful angel flew slowly towards them, but seemed to be aiming straight at Alexandra. Clearly the other party had no trouble sensing the strength of the members of the Path. The lavender haired angel dressed in simple leather armor spoke to the swords standing in her way. Her voice had the playful tone of jingling bells. “Greeting to the esteemed members of the Crimson Path. I seek to converse with your leader, and I assure you I mean you no harm.”

Alexandra sensed there was something weird about the silvery diadem on her forehead, the only decoration the angel had, but decided not to ask about it. It was common to carry some protective items. She waved to the other swords to let the angel through. “What brings one of your kind here?” She asked, hedging her bets a bit. Calling an angel Fallen or vice versa could be very insulting.

The angel smiled at the choice of words. “I seek to make a deal with you. It strikes me that you have a bit of a conundrum. An enemy force that is roughly equal to your own stands arrayed against you.”

The other swords were not happy at the implication that they might lose, but they were too disciplined to voice their emotions. “Are you implying we would lose?” Alexandra decided to give their emotions an outlet. Besides, the question would bring them to the real point and the angel wasn’t entirely wrong.

“No, but there would be a cost that needs to be paid. A cost in blood. A cost that might be somewhat lower with the assistance from a certain type of person.” The angel’s smile widened into something much less benevolent.

‘Definitely a Fallen and not an angel!’ Alexandra thought. “And what kind of assistance would that be?”

“Well, I just happen to be someone with access to a large amount of holy power. I also seem to note that your enemies are mostly undead. What would happen if your forces were all blessed with spells designed to combat the undead? Besides, I doubt you would say no to a few holy spells like, say ‘Banishment’ or ‘False Dawn’.” The angels smile took a definite bloodthirsty tinge. The two spells she had mentioned were especially good at combatting beings with high amounts of negative energy, such as high ranking undead.

“And what would this assistance cost us?” Alexandra asked. Help like that would indeed be very welcome, and something they could really use in the current situation.

“Well, it seems to me you are planning on closing the rift. As it happens, I have some business with it. If you allow me to borrow the rift for a short while before you close it, I think you wouldn’t lose anything really while I would gain. That seems like a fair trade for my assistance, does it not?” The angel knew she had Alexandra where she wanted her. The members of the Path would indeed not lose anything with this trade while it could possibly save the lives of many of their number, so why not?