Dee wasn’t given much time to think as she stepped inside the rift, as she was immediately assaulted by waves of wild mana and pressure from multiple powerful attacks colliding. The insides of the rift were a warzone. Thousands upon thousands of elementals were doing their best to tear each other to pieces. A normal rift consisted mostly of almost mindless elementals fighting each other, partly for no other reason than because it was their nature to vie for dominance.

This rift was different. Most of the elementals here had the gleam of at least basic intelligence in their eyes. They also actually seemed to have eyes unlike some of the youngest elementals, so there was that as well. The elementals silently employed simplistic strategies in their battle, so this wasn’t just a bunch of individual elementals brawling. Instead they had units of elementals working together, almost like a very primitive army.

There were two clear groups of elementals and some odd stragglers that didn’t find a home in either camp. One group was formed out of the dark forms of the elementals of death. Some were indistinct forms made of nothing but energy that only coalesced to attack. These were the lowest ranking elementals and few in number. Above those were vaguely humanoid forms that looked to be clothed in rags that hid most of their forms wielding deadly looking scythes. These Dee recognized as Reapers. Beings who were often thought to ferry the souls of the dead to whatever afterlife the particular species believed in. Whether that was true or not was not known to Dee, though she suspected it was mostly false. Above them were giant forms of darkish green energy clad in armor and wielding a variety of weapons that all screamed danger.

Interestingly elementals seemed to follow a pattern similar to the mortal races. At first the bigger the elemental was the better. Size was an indication of power, and showed the amount of elemental energy gathered to form the being. After a certain point though, the elementals began to shrink, packing the same amount of punch into a smaller form, similar to the immortals. The most powerful elemental lords were usually not much bigger than the humanoid races, although they could expand to become larger than mountains. This also showed that the current battle might have consisted of more intelligent elementals, but not the truly powerful ones.

Against the death elementals was arrayed a coalition of other elements. Dee recognized the lumbering forms of earth elementals and lava giants representing fire. There were creatures that resembled giants made of plants and treants that most likely represented life. Dee was also happy to see several lightning elementals in the form of swirling vortexes of destructive energy.

This might be a good chance for her to gain lightning resistance. Lightning was one of the most destructive elements and a favorite of many mages for obvious reasons. What she was less pleased to see were the forms of the light elementals. Some of them she recognized from books as Glories, elementals that vaguely looked like humanoid women made of light that focused on speed. Those were not a problem. The ones that made her teeth itch were the forms vaguely resembling angels. Some light elementals came in that form, although they had little in common with the real angels beyond that. They were simply the embodiments of light energy taking a convenient form, and had probably been an inspiration for Lumen when she created the actual race of angels. Although the resemblance was vague, Dee still hated them almost instinctually.

‘One could call these proto-angels, I suppose.’ Dee mused. ‘Still have that annoying smug look about them.’ These elementals didn’t even have proper faces, much like many other elementals, so Dee’s judgement was a little unfair.

Dee idly wondered what the reason for such a division of groups might be, but that reason became fairly obvious as the battle raged on. When one of the death elementals died, the soul disappeared back into the elemental plane. Dee had read that elementals were basically immortal. Once their bodies were destroyed, their souls returned to their home plane to reform a new body. It might take a few hundred years for a really powerful elemental to reconstruct a completely destroyed body, but what was time for such creatures? However, when one of the death elementals killed one of the other elementals, the elemental truly died. The soul did the same disappearing act that happened when Dee devoured a soul. According to what Death had said, that meant the souls went back into the cycle of reincarnation.

It seemed that the death elementals were something like pariahs among the other elementals. The reason they could hold their own alone against the others was that they were on average much more dangerous than other elementals of similar rank. This particular rift also happened to be leaning in their direction, so there were a disproportionate number of death elementals when compared to the other elements. Combined the other elements matched their number fairly equally, but they were hardly a united front.

‘You better get to it, before they notice your presence.’ Croestia urged Dee.

‘Good idea. You should do your part too. I’m not exactly sure how you train the resistances.’ Dee replied silently.

‘Just being here helps, but I’ll absorb a part of the power you draw in.’ Croestia replied.

‘Alright then.’ Dee shifted into her kitsune form since it seemed the most appropriate considering what they were trying to accomplish, though she kept the wings to stabilize herself. She opened her mouth and once again started to consume the elementals energies.

This time was different to her last time in an elemental rift. The first obvious difference was that she was fully conscious. The other difference was that the disturbance she created was much smaller than last time. Last time had been mostly the result of her draconic heritage waking, and that required a lot of power, hundreds of times as much power when compared to what she was absorbing now in fact. She had also absorbed power to increase her power as a psion. Moirai had told her than places of power could increase their strength. However, Dee had already used a rift to increase her power, and it would not work as well the second time. She got a small increase in power, but that was a rather minor upgrade in the grand scheme of things. She’d have to find other sources if she wanted to increase her strength this way.

The raw elemental power on the other hand flowed towards her in droves, and a vortex of sorts appeared around her. The elementals of course noticed, but for some reason it seemed like the death elementals almost moved to protect her, while the others were content to leave her alone. She wasn’t going on a rampage this time, so that probably helped as well. The amount of power she was absorbing was still a drop in the ocean for the elementals planes, so why would they care? Especially since they were already busy with each other.

The most interesting part was the behavior of the death elementals. This was the second time power of that element showed what looked like deference to Dee. She assumed that was because of Death’s blessing, but it still seemed a little odd. It would make sense to show deference to the goddess herself and not harm someone blessed by her, but this seemed a little excessive.

She could feel the change in her tails. All the old tails that had received a new color fully showed their elemental alignment now, one the golden color of light, one the blue of ice, one the deep black of darkness, one the bright orange and red of fire. The last and fifth had a gray color and an intangible feel to it. Dee now knew enough to figure out that it represented the same power the old deity that had blessed her also represented, which was time.

The three remaining tails started to get their own colors and affinities. The first was easy to recognize as it became light blue and sparkling, obviously representing lighting. Dee was glad to see that one, as that might have been the most useful resistance along with fire and ice. One got the dark brown hue of earth, which was neither especially good nor bad. Earth mages tended to be more defensive in nature, but they were common so she’d have to face their attacks at some point. The last one got the greyish green tone and feel of death. She had already had some defense against the element of death due to the blessing of the Goddess of Death, but Dee supposed it was a small price to pay and it was hardly a wasted resistance. It’s not like she was immune to the spells of that element, just those that would cause instant death.

Suddenly Dee felt something was wrong. The space around her was in turmoil. It was as if the planes were starting to separate again, and the elementals seemed to be losing interest in their fight for some reason. She quickly put two and two together and turned to see where the rift was supposed to be. The space there still showed instability, but that way was clearly closed. She was rather unhappy that the Crimson Witches had decided to close the rift while she was still inside.

‘Rather ungrateful of them.’ Dee commented, more than a little peeved.

‘You have to hand it to them for getting the better of that deal. They never did promise to not close the rift while you were inside, they only promised access.’ Croestia commented. ‘Although, I think there might be more to this.’

‘Agreed. That leader of theirs didn’t seem the type to pull a fast one like this without a good reason. Besides, I did promise them healing and I saw some of them get hurt. I doubt they have another cleric handy.’ Dee pursed her lips in thought.

‘A problem with the rift itself?’ Croestia speculated.

‘Possibly. Are you done? The rift might be closed but I doubt the connection between the two places has been cut entirely yet. That might change quickly, so we might be in a hurry.’ Dee rushed, suddenly under a time pressure.

‘Extra time wouldn’t hurt, but I got most of the benefit I will get from this rift. Did you have a plan?’ Croestia replied, having a thought or two of her own.

‘Well, I think it’s time to see if the Astral Plane really allows travel between the elemental planes and the material plane. It should in theory, and if the space between hasn’t totally been severed yet…’ Dee left the thought hanging in the air.

‘Then it might not take forever and a half to make the trip.’ Croestia completed the thought for her.

Dee put the idea to practice immediately. The standard portal sprung to existence in front of her and she leaped through. Unlike normally, this time Dee didn’t see the exit in the distance even with her superior eyesight. Somehow she knew it was there though, and she could feel where. This trip would not be a short one.

“Well, time to get to it then. I’ll be late from the time table Razark set, but he’ll have to deal.” Dee said with a sigh and started her trek.

----------

It took almost two weeks to reach her destination, and she missed her target by a lot. She had originally aimed to return to the same spot where the rift had resided in the hopes of shortening the trip, but she had ended nowhere near the place she aimed for. If her guestimate was right, she was another two week’s travel away from the portal city. Of course that was if she actually made the trip the old fashioned way. She could always make a more accurate portal now that she was no longer stuck in another plane. Alternatively she could try making a portal straight back to the home base of the scouts, and forego reporting in completely. She might be considered to have abandoned the mission if she did that.

There was a slight issue though. Most of the time she had spent traveling through the Astral Plane, Dee had felt as if someone was watching her. She couldn’t sense anything nearby, so the observer was either stronger than her or much more familiar with the Astral Plane, but her instinct told her that she was not alone. Whatever had observed her had not attacked her, so its intentions couldn’t be all hostile, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to chance that continuing. As a result she wasn’t entirely sure if she should avoid using the portals for a while, expecting the unknown observer to get bored of waiting.

Dee decided to do it the old fashioned way. The estimate of two weeks was based on her average speed, but she could push that quite a bit. She could avoid resting more than absolutely necessary and could eat on the run from the supplies she had stored within Croestia. Additionally she could risk drawing attention by flying most of the way and any time spent on the ground could be spent running in her kitsune form. There was a slight risk of someone trying to attack her, thinking she was a monster, but she could always escape if that happened. Anyone strong enough to catch her would be experienced enough to not attack her in the first place.

It finally took her eight days to reach her destination. She had changed back to her normal form long before getting close to the city, and the city guards allowed her in without a fuss when she told them she was a scout of the Radiant Sun. The order post of the city was filled with people as most of the paladins had returned from their missions, and the post was originally only meant to house twenty people at maximum. Now it was the gathering point for almost three hundred paladins. In addition, many of the rooms had been converted into offices, so the space was filled to brim with people running around or just lounging around waiting orders.

They all made way for Dee almost instinctually. They might not have been able to feel her level of power, but the scout uniform told a tale, and her confident and dangerous bearing told another. She approached one of the offices and overheard a one sided discussion.

“I have no idea why the rift has closed. Maybe the Crimson Witches did it. I don’t meddle in their affairs.” A firm male voice commented. There was a pause as the other side replied something that Dee could not hear.

"Yes sir, I understand that theoretically the refugees could return with the rift gone. The problem is there’s nothing here. A wave of death mana wiped away all life and all those that didn’t or couldn’t evacuate. Almost all the communities and villages lost people. Only the big cities had enough defenses to resist the wave. I lost almost thirty paladins that were out there when the wave happened, and a dozen more to the aftermath of the rift collapsing.” The man waited again.

“Sir, I know that usually people would return to their homes, and I’m sure some may want to come back to build a memorial for the dead or something, but I don’t think you quite understand. When I say there’s no life here, I truly mean it. No plants, no trees, no crops, no game to hunt, no fish to eat, nothing. I doubt this land will grow anything for a dozen years or more. There’s no way they could survive out here even if they wanted to come back. In fact I’m suggesting we evacuate the cities around this area as well, or they have to rely on supplies through the gates for a long time.” The man voiced his opinion.

He waited again. “Yes, that would mean adding several million refugees to the ones we already have, but it’s not like there’s a lack of space in the Day city. They might be hard to convince now, but give it a few weeks with no food shipments from the outlying villages, and you’ll see how many people you’ll have flooding through. We might as well do an organized evacuation ourselves.”

Dee heard a final “Yes, sir.” before she felt the magical connection disappear. She decided this was the optimal time to knock. “Come in!” The man on the other side grunted.

The gruff dwarven captain grunted again as he noted Dee’s lack of salute and sensed the danger she seemed to radiate. That combined with her obvious status as a scout made it clear she outranked him, hence the grunt. He suspected she was trouble. He would end up being right, but not quite in the way he had assumed. “What brings one of your kind here?”

“I helped with the evacuation of certain villages.” She rattled off the names of the villages, before continuing. “I also have some news about the rift itself.”

There was a light and thoughtful ‘Hrmmm.’ before the dwarf spoke. “It seems Captain Schwartz forgot to mention your involvement. That explain how he managed to keep three villages worth of refugees safe from the death mana however. We could also use any news on the rift. We only have speculations so far.”

Dee gave a rough explanation about the events around the rift, leaving out her own involvement of course, and mentioned that she didn’t know the final fate of the rift or the result of the battle since the circumstances forced her to retreat before she could see the finale, and she elected not to return afterwards due to being injured. The captain had no trouble believing that. Apparently there had been another wave of dangerous mana as the rift closed, though Dee assumed the Crimson Witches were fine since even these paladins managed to stop the wave. Whether that was good or bad remained to be seen.

With her reports handed in, Dee could now freely return. She was already late, so it would be better to return immediately. Thus she was rapidly moving through the city and was already nearing the gateways when she ran into trouble. She had just been wondering whether it was a good thing or not that the Crimson Witches survived, when she noted a group of them having a heated argument with a young female elven paladin.

From what she overheard the paladin was defending a small group of refugees from the squad of Crimson Witches. Apparently the refugees had stolen from the warrior women, but had been caught rather easily by the superior senses of the witches. That in itself was not a problem. Thieves risked punishment with their activities, and the paladins would certainly not stand against such punishments. The problem was, the Crimson Witches only meted out one punishment to those that were not part of their community, no matter the crime. That punishment was death. The refugees were rather skinny and young, most likely desperate due to losing their relatives. Why they had not gone through the gate already was a mystery.

Dee had no intention of getting involved. There were seven Crimson Witches against a single rank four paladin, and two of the witches were rank nine. That would be a short argument. Unfortunately the elven woman recognized Dee’s attire and correctly assumed that Dee would be much stronger than her, thus she suddenly yelled out in appeal. “You there, scout of the order! Surely you as well see the injustice of taking the lives of people over a few coins. Surely you too want to stand against such cruel punishments?!”

The elven woman was good, Dee had to hand her that. With a single shout she had dragged Dee into the conflict, and the appeal would work with almost all justice-minded paladins. Unfortunately for the elf, Dee was not justice-minded and truly didn’t care in the least if the criminals were put to death. She would swing the sword herself if it brought her to the portal a few minutes earlier. Fortunately for the elf, the witches didn’t know that either, and assumed Dee would get involved.

“Then how is it girl-scout? Will a demon like yourself put your life on the line to defend criminals against a just punishment? Or will you forsake them and your little paladin friend here to death?” The most powerful Crimson Witch asked with a smirk. She recognized Dee’s demonic nature with a single glance. She was also making a game out of it. At the start she hadn’t been interested at all. In the first place, it was her fellow sword’s money that had been stolen, so she was just along for the ride. However, she liked toying around with the natures of beings weaker than her. Dee’s dilemma made things infinitely more interesting for her.

Dee made a small growl in her throat, and quickly assessed the situation. Seven witches, four ranked around six or seven, one pretty close to Dee’s level and two rank nines. None of them had been at the rift, most likely being one of the outlying groups fighting away from the rift. “I really wish you had not gone there. I truly couldn’t care less what happens to the elf or the refugees, but now I have another problem. The problem is that you threatened me with the intent of forcing me back. Them dying is irrelevant to me, but having people assume I backed down from threats is another thing altogether.”

Dee cursed in her mind. ‘The bloody pride of a dragon is rubbing off on me! Normally I wouldn’t care what random people think of me and just kill them some day in the future, but now it’s too much for my bloody draconic pride or some such nonsense. Fucking hell!’

“Well then. We find ourselves at a crossroad.” The witch said with a malicious grin. “The only way forward is for you to stop us from killing them. Or you could run away with your tail…tails between your legs.”

‘It seems I’m going to be even more late now.’ Dee thought to herself as Croestia applied a full boost to her, while the light of holy spells flashed around her as she silently applied her buffs.