For a short moment, Vance indulged in the feeling of safety that came with the company of others. Shortly after Nathaniel touched down, Vance sensed others approaching, but didn't focus on them for now.

"I need you to flush me out with light mana. And be thorough." Vance spoke in a hurry at Nathaniel. Nathaniel's head cocked to the side a little, but he granted the request.

"Ready?" Nathaniel asked politely but wasted no time.

"Yes."

Vance felt that familiar surge of discomfort that came with exposure to light mana. Let it never be said that Nathaniel does not perform his tasks with diligence, for he was indeed, very thorough. In recent times, Vance had gotten pretty good at weathering this particular brand of mana-induced nausea and, to his surprise, came out the other side of his 'cleansing' without throwing up.

"You did well, no obvious signs of dark mana. Just to be sure, I flooded your whole body, just in case it was too small for me to notice."

"Perfect, thanks."

"Vance, what happened?" Nicholas' familiar voice came from nearby and Vance turned to face him. Before he could speak, Nathaniel interjected.

"Nick is here. Noelle and Olstater are here, too."

"You brought quite the team..." Vance idly mumbled as the others approached.

"It's not every day somebody throws up a forty-foot tall burning tree at the side of the city, we figured it was either you or some other troublemaking Arcanist." Aaron's pleasant voice rang out. Vance found his perpetual joyous tone comforting.

"Care to fill us in, young man?" Noelle put on the tone of a displeased teacher, but he could hear her smile through the words.

"I'll give you the short version. I've had a little while to figure it out." Vance took a deep breath, then began.

"A demon summoned me to its underground lair because I had a trace of dark mana leftover in me from a previous encounter. I fought it, lost, then ran and collapsed a tunnel to create a cave to hide in. I integrated a wood mana core which nearly killed me, then burrowed out of there before it managed to summon me again. There are two other people in the cave down there but I couldn't identify them and I think it's using some sort of space magic? I didn't recognise it, but it had a very specific feeling of size about it."

"Ever heard of a demon using spatial magic, Nat?" Aaron asked, turning to Nathaniel and talking like they were old friends. Vance was beginning to wonder if there was an Arcanist alive that Nathaniel didn't know personally.

"Occasionally. Usually for summoning more demons, but in this case, I think I know what it's up to. We'd better act quickly." Nathaniel addressed his team and turned to Vance.

"We need to take care of this. Can you wait up here?" Nathaniel grabbed Vance's shoulders and lowered to his height when he spoke. There was such concern laced in his voice that Vance almost didn't want to argue.

"Don't you need my help to navigate the tunnels?"

"Seriously, Vance?" Noelle chimed in, reaching out a hand to him and giving him a gentle push. He moved much more than he should've.

"Kid, you're already wiped out of mana and your will is in tatters. Just stay here and let us do what we do. It's not every day you get to see the guy who slew Vesiliant at work." Aaron casually gestured at Nathaniel with a thumb.

"Quit it, Aaron. We've got work to do. Vance, stay up here. If something bad happens, head directly south, you'll hit town. We need to act now in case it's doing what I think it's doing, so we can't guide you back right now. Point us in the right direction?"

Vance pointed towards the remains of his burned tree.

"Beneath there, take a right, then follow the smell of blood and smoke."

"Thanks," Nathaniel replied. He made a vague gesture at Aaron and planted himself next to Nicholas. Vance noticed that Nicholas had remained very silent since he mentioned the people below.

Vance's jaw dropped to the ground a moment later as the earth in front of him simply opened. Aaron was stood with an outstretched hand, pointing in the direction where his tree used to be. Instead, there was now a perfectly constructed and supported set of stairs that descended downwards into his little alcove.

The sheer volume of mana at the man's fingertips was terrifying. Now, Vance was perfectly convinced that these people did not need his help at this particular moment. Seconds later, the troupe of four descended into the darkness, led by Nathaniel.

Vance let his mind linger on the feeling he'd experienced just now. To Vance, Aaron had appeared as a perfectly normal man one moment, and an impossibly tall mountain the next. Made of such densely packed rock and stone that it threatened with every moment to burst outwards and crush the surroundings cities under the boulders that it would fling in every direction should the pressure inside ever win out.

Pondering this, Vance waited. After a few minutes, he started to feel nervous, but reminding himself of what he'd just seen, and who he was dealing with, he managed to calm himself.

Then, as if to ruin his good mood, the ground a few hundred meters away from him exploded upwards in a shower of rocks, dirt and fire.

Vance hurriedly shifted wood mana, which he found a lot easier now, and created a small shield above himself to deflect the incoming hail of small stones. He stumbled to his feet, holding the wide, wooden shield above his head, off-balance. The cracking sound that came with the explosion was so loud that it had left him more or less deafened for a few moments, but it began to recover as the hail of stones struck at him from above.

Between the clattering sounds, Vance could hear raised voices and pushed his mana sense out as far as he could. Then, bravely, wisely, he backed off as quickly as he could. He put his all into his mana sense and managed to get an idea of what was going on.

The demon was no longer alone. Vance sensed not one, not two, but three sources of dark mana coming from that direction. One was diminished heavily, and Vance recognised it. The other two were foreign to him but much larger, much more flush with dark energy and very, very deadly. He could sense a flurry of metal and wind mana in mid-air, lashing out at one of the demons with blades of light mana, the largest of the three. That had to be Nathaniel.

Another of them was being forced back by Aaron, having switched his element of choice over to fire mana. He combatted the other large one, while Noelle occupied the attention of the one that had battled Vance previously. Then, Vance noticed wind mana making its way out of the hole where the demon's cave must have been. A large man's form came out with it, Nicholas. He was moving in Vance's direction and had two others in tow, one carried in his arms, the other on a cushion of wind mana.

"Vance, change of plans, you can't stay here! There's more than one!" Nicholas yelled, running supernaturally quickly in Vance's direction. Vance turned, discarded his wooden shield and did his best to jog towards Nicholas, where he fell in by his side and started running as best he could, using Nicholas as a point of reference.

"I noticed, what do we do?!" Vance yelled to his running-mate.

"They've got it handled, our job is to get these two home safely. If one of the demons comes for us, I'll have to drop them and hold them off. That's when you take over, got it?"

"I don't know if I can manage to bring two people all the way back to town..." Vance was already breathing heavily as he spoke, running was not his forte. He wanted to blame it on his injuries, but he'd be lying to himself.

"You won't need to, just get this one away from me," Nicholas said with all of the cheer of the dead, gesturing to the person he carried in his arms.

That sentence in particular scared the crap out of Vance. What exactly would he be pulling them away from? Regardless, Vance could hear the sounds of battle behind them getting further away. He had no idea how far it was to town, but he'd rather be running for hours than back there.

They ran for a few minutes. Vance experienced a myriad of powerful sensations as they did. Even at this distance, he was picking up tiny aftershocks of the battle taking place behind him. He didn't pick up anything relating to light nor dark, but he did experience flashes of heat that flowed over his skin like scalding water, the sounds of grinding rocks close to his ears and other similar, powerful sensory phenomena, some of which he couldn't, or didn't care to identify right now. Fortunately, they lessened the further away he got.

It wasn't long before Vance sensed dark mana on its way towards them. That familiar, oily substance that felt like it was slathered across his skin, invasive and disgusting. Nicholas' preparation was worthwhile as Vance quickly alerted him and took the person he was carrying from him. As it turns out, it was a young girl. Vance was quite pleased with his revelation, she wasn't very heavy and he could manage her. He jogged ahead as Nicholas turned on his heels, facing the incoming demon. Vance wasn't precisely sure how it'd gotten away from them, but it seemed to be within their expectations.

Vance played his part and ran with what was probably Leslie Sellanion as far from Nicholas as he could. The other body seemed to continue on its own, following along with Vance on a floating pillow of wind mana. That seemed like a decidedly safer, less bumpy ride.

Then Vance learned precisely why he was given the task of getting her away. Vance felt a shock of something run through his body. It wasn't severe and only lasted a moment, but his mana sense picked up a smell, or perhaps a taste. It reminded him of what the air was like just after a storm.

Then he heard the crack and snapping of the air behind him. A bolt of what he presumed was lightning mana was called from above, crashing into the incoming ball of thrashing, demonic hatred. Vance had to fight back the urge to cry out in astonishment, fear, admiration or some other emotion that he didn't have time to work out, and he kept running. He knew that the foul beast had been cast into the ground by the force of whatever Nicholas was doing, but he didn't care to go over and gloat.

He ran and ran until he couldn't anymore. He'd never run so far and he was panting loudly. He fell to his knees and had to skid, leaning back to avoid dropping his passenger to the ground. His breaths came in gulps and his feet burned. It was only really at this point that he remembered he'd been barefoot the whole time, and his feet were practically shredded. Of all things, he found that a little funny. With enough adrenaline, you really didn't notice this sort of thing.

A minute or two later, Vance sensed something coming in his direction. Blessedly, it was not a demon, but Nicholas. He was limping, and Vance could sense that he'd been exposed to more than a little dark mana. Turning, Vance addressed him.

"Nick, are you alright? Did you..."

"It's gone. Let's go." Nicholas' voice was positively dripping with determination, and it stirred Vance to move, despite the protests of his legs. He forced himself back onto his feet and slowly marched with Nicholas back towards town.

On the way, Vance used transference to pluck pieces of dark mana away from Nicholas as they went, slowly relieving the large man of the extra pain inflicted by the demon's hateful claws. He might've won, but it obviously wasn't an easy victory.