He had not been followed for a short while, taking out that wave of demons before might either be all of the available flying ones, or they had other plans in mind.

Keeping the height until he got somewhat close, he saw the density of constructions change drastically. He was at the very outskirts before where you couldn’t land a stone at the neighbouring construction, the closer he got to this end of the landmass the closer things got to the point that he could see stone buildings close enough to almost touch.

Looking down at the rough area that he stopped, this place felt almost like a decently sized city. He couldn’t properly tell from up here but there were a lot of rectangular stone buildings, almost all of them were one floor, a few had two and perhaps one or two had three, at least in size. The buildings appeared to be made of stone or some sandstone thing, they had rock-grey and sandy colours to them. Based on the fact that some walls appeared to be moving in the wind, it seemed that there were still a lot of tarps used, perhaps to block out the light and create some shade?

All in all it felt much like a barbarian-city, though the proper constructed buildings might change that feel a bit.

From this height it was impossible to properly make out anything walking, save a few very large individuals, but making up any details on even those was not likely.

Moving back and forth, trying to evade any scrying that might be done, he also used the different angles to try and find out where to go. Still having his triple barrier active he didn’t feel entirely in danger. If the best they could do were those super-long range ballista bolts, this should handle that fine.

He had used some time back and forth, managing to avoid detection it seems, at least based on the fact that nothing had come for him. Suppose his pale and dirty body hides well amongst the pale sandy colored skies. However he had found a few candidates for where the gate might be.

One place at the almost edge of the city had some weird altar looking place, it also had a decent amount of activity around it. Another was a very shiny and golden blinged up building that might house something like that. And the last was the only building that looked to be perfectly cubical, this was based on comparing it to the teleportation circle rooms back in Lisica. Luck had it that they weren’t too far from each other, meaning if he didn’t get it at first try it could be relatively easy to get to the next.

He would have loved to wait for nightfall, but as that never happened in this place he might as well just start his plans now. His mana reserves had refilled so that was good, but causing a large commotion would potentially eat up a lot of energy, but this also had a plan he could use.

Ghaos was somewhat terrified at the mana crystal he made when he learned how to, if he just made a few of those, a bit larger perhaps, and just air-dropped them across the city he would get the free-fall time to get over to where he wanted to be before they hit the ground. In the fight with Ghaos he got to somewhat use a few smaller ones as grenades and they were super easy to use. Since Gilliam could apparently create high grade ones, based on Ghaos’ explanation, uncertain face and desperation to be careful with them, odds are that this idea should work fine.

The best part with it was that he could create them and then just wait for his mana to recharge before he started his plan, he could then get the best of both worlds with large-scale bombardment at the same time as he had full mana reserves.

Getting some severe altitude he wanted to get far enough away that nobody could selse the mana he was about to use, at the same time he moved away from where he wanted to go, an entirely different area of the city before he started collecting mana.

Channelling mana out into a single point between his cupped hands had a small nugget condense, feeding more and more mana into it had it slowly grow. It looked like a glass or crystal shard, roughly spherical with some naturally occurring facets, though still very clear and translucent it ended up a bit more than fist-sized when he stopped. He could feel energy radiate from it almost like it just came out of some oven.

For a short second he wondered how he would be holding onto these as he kept making them, but he then remembered his gift from Sirzan, the ring that could store things!

Suggesting the ring to store this in its space had the crystal ball disappear, this didn’t seem to increase the value of the ring’s cylinder, perhaps it could only show the usage in 10’s and would then not increase until it passed the 11’th point?

Well, in any case this was a very good thing!

Gilliam continued doing this, stopping when he felt he was about halfway through his reserves, just in case something happened. Once it had recharged he continued making the orbs. This continued for a while until he felt that it was enough, the ring had not displayed the 2nd disk yet so it seems that the bunch of the magic crystal orbs he had created didn’t hit the 20% mark, if that was how it worked.

He pinged the ring for an inventory, and he instantly knew that he had 8 of the orbs in there as well as the sword. Gilliam couldn’t help himself and smiled like a happy child at how this worked, he was looking forward to testing this with more varied or a random sum of something. But for now he had something he needed to do, first was to wait for his mana to replenish. At this point he was getting pretty hungry again but he didn’t have any food and getting any at the moment was not an option. So he waited for now.

During his wait he realised that he couldn’t just drop this anywhere, sure most demons might be... well.. Demons, but Petal couldn’t be the only one not wanting this life. He didn’t feel comfortable anonymously bombing just anyone.

Even at the place he first woke up, with the Gatekeeper, there were servants that didn’t seem to be super happy about their condition. And again, some if not most of them might be fine with it but all in all, Gilliam didn’t want to just drop this anywhere. In stead he decided to aim at one of the smaller camps, the problem was there as well, naturally, but it was much smaller than in the city or somewhere else. He could plant them just randomly in the desert but he felt that the distraction would be better if it hit at least something. So he flew towards one of the smaller camps as he waited for everything to recharge.

A while after he was feeling great again, he had also reached a good candidate; it was a small camp not too far from the city, so it was hopefully close enough to cause unrest.

Mentally preparing for a few moments he started his plan.

Suggesting the ring eject all of the 8 orbs, he held his hand palm down in front of himself. Since it seemed that the ring manifested the object in his hand this would let them all just fall down. And as expected this worked as planned!

They all manifested in a pile, almost like the ring expected him to have a massive enough hand to carry all of them, but this worked very well to his advantage at the moment. They manifested in a floating pile but this also meant they were already a little somewhat spread out. They fell as gravity did what gravity does, he started speeding towards the first location he thought the gate might be at, he had picked out the altar thing in hopes that this was the gate out in the open.

He tried to count seconds as he flew, having no idea how long this would take nor how high up he was. Around the 20th second it happened.

A bright flash in the area where the orbs landed, it was blinding but only for a split second, this was followed up by a visible shockwave extending out far into the rocky area of the camp, at this elevation he could see it move; but even that only lasted for a second. It tore the rocky formations apart, the fireball lifted dust and sand, it was truly massive. He didn’t get to time it but it felt like only a second before the shockwave hit him hard even at his elevated position, had it not been for his shields he might have been knocked out.

This was much larger than Gilliam expected, it was not to a nuclear bomb level but it was absolutely devastating. This would definitely be a distraction...

Since things apparently fell faster than Gilliam anticipated, he used a moment more to get to the area he wanted to get, though this was just as well as he wanted them to mobilise and move away from the areas he was about to check out. He aimed his way towards the altar!

He had been flying for a short while, he was fast but there was still quite the distance to cover. Even at this high up he could see the demons below being panicky, he could hear a massive bell being rung repeatedly, most likely working as some form of alarm. Many flying creatures had started funnelling towards the area and so far this looked like a great success!

This went on for the while he used to get over to the altar, and only then did he start flying downwards at max speed. He planned to break once he got close enough to see what this was.

The dive didn’t take long, he was discovered well before he was in proper range, incoming arrows and a few spells here and there, as well as a lot of flying demons coming his way. He found out what he needed and... the altar seemed to be some massive demon with an amazing sword sitting in a throne made of skulls... Tasteful, but not what he was after.

The local guardforce seemed to be much more than he expected and was heading his way. The ground forces were mobilising with ranged weaponry and the few magic casters they had available. The air forces were on his way, seeming that they intended to swarm him. He did not want this to happen and an arcane orb scattering was sent their way. Manifesting a spell circle it was the same that he tested not long ago, the carpet bombing spell but with the more sensitive trigger and range bonus. This was swiftly activated and sent towards the largest group of flying demons.

It was as devastating as expected, the chain of explosions cleared out that entire area of anything living, showering their remains over a wide area.

Gilliam didn’t have time to react. Ignoring the weak spells, arrows and thrown things that simply bounced off his shields he started making his way towards the golden blinged up building, it seemed likely and was closer than the cubical building.

Flying that way at maximum speed he didn’t have the luxury of avoiding attacks. He didn’t have the finesse in flight to dodge, all he could do was do vague attempts or just tank it. The latter happened more than the former.

The outer shield eventually was overwhelmed by a mixture of incoming attacks and suicide demons, though they exploded like bugs on a windshield they still sort of got an attack in, together all of this was enough for the outer shield to give in.

He still had two shields left as he arrived at the gilded building, he had to bank on that being enough. Behind him there was a swarm of incoming demons, on foot and flying. Doing his best to avoid getting killed he had to do something about that.

Manifesting a spell circle focusing on an Aether sphere, he added two explosion runes and four power runes before he filled it with energy and sent it into the group. The explosion was massive, filling the air with a mixture of debris, body parts, random chunks as well as sand and dirt. Using the chaos and result of the explosion he made his way into the shiny building, blasting down the doors with a much, much weaker variant of the same spell. This blasted both doors as well as some of the front wall into pieces, showering anyone inside in shrapnel, some of which hit Gilliam’s shield.

As he found himself inside he mentally facepalmed, this was not much more than a glorified brothel of sorts. All acts you could expect were happening in here, and not much of it was behind closed doors.

This was not what he was after and leaving through the door he came from was not an option, it was not acting like a weak bottleneck for the incoming forces of various forms. Arrows and spells again bounced off his shields, some of which still had enough momentum to do damage to the brothel’s patrons or nearby walls.

Aiming upwards Gilliam used a variant of the dirt digging spell, but focusing it on stone as he added a few power and speed runes to make sure that it got through fast enough.

He found himself outside again but this time swarmed by incoming creatures to the point that he couldn’t even see where he was going. This was enough to drive him to crashland on the roof of the brothel, their weight was more than his flight spell was designed for and it was not able to keep him aloft.

The shield was holding, although the second layer was running out of energy fast.

Quickly manifesting a spell circle Gilliam put in a few power runes, Aether again but this time made it a tiny bit more complicated. He made an explosion emanate from just outside his shields. For that to work he needed to give the explosion a linked rune that defined the start range so it didn’t explode inside his shield. Realising that it was better to just use the ‘second shield’ as the start point instead of trying to mess with ranges, he activated the spell based on that.

This worked flawlessly and a large magical explosion extended from the second shield, this practically disintegrated the innermost demons, the others still got hit by a massive explosion but it seemed that some of the force was absorbed into the now vaporised creatures. It also seemed that some of the brothel roof took considerable damage from this. In the ordeal the second shield broke as well, he was now left with just one.

Not wanting to give anyone time to react he started making his way for the last building, the cubical one. Full speed towards it he managed to get a little distance before anyone started following him again, this allowed him to not be swamped for the time being as he made his way towards the front doors.

Everyone in the area knew of this chaos now, there had been enough explosions that this had announced itself. This meant that there was now a much denser collection of guards and protection around the building.

Wanting to prepare, Gilliam cast another shield spell to regain the second layer, which luckily worked as intended, though he didn’t have any time to prepare a third before he was in the thick of it. Instead of casting a third barrier he opted to send out another explosive Aether sphere, this worked fine and as intended it took out anyone in its area, raining them back down in considerably smaller pieces.

This also took out some of the doors into the building, allowing Gilliam to just pass through without effort. And as he finally got into the building he was rewarded by the sight of a massive stone arch, not unlike the gate that opened outside of the academy.

He needed to start channelling energy into it, so not waiting for anything to happen he started the process, placing a hand on it and pushing energy with the gate as the focus.

This seemed to work as the various runes along its stone construction, as well as along the floor and some of the walls started to fill. This was going to take at least a minute of constant channelling, a minute he would not have.

To try to combat this he wanted a barrier around him, but by the time he was about to construct the spell circle they were already on him. He could not use any area of effect spells in here as that could damage the gate.

They crashed into his shield, sending him flying into an opposing wall, the collective attacks that hit roughly at the same time popped the outer shield. He was back to one.

He needed something that could hit multiple targets but would not explode and take out everything, the laser could work but there were a few reflective surfaces in here as well as a few metal pieces on the demons and their weapons, he didn’t feel confident enough in using that and not hit himself. He had not yet managed to make a plasma blade, save the little tool he used, but*

Before he could continue that train of thought they were already on him, doing their best to hit him but hitting only the shield. It was nearing its limit and as soon as that popped he would be screwed.

Oh, that’s right, the sword! He experimented on it only earlier today but for some reason he had forgotten it as it was not as good as explosions at the time. This was a perfect time!

Pinging the ring he instantly had it in his hand, sending the first activation command manifested the inner guard and the slender glowing blade. Making a wide slash towards the creatures ahead of him it cut through the first few without effort, the next few took some swinging force to get through and the sword stopped in a large horned orc-like demon.

The ones that were cut instantly fell down, the first ones were just cut in two and instantly died, the remainder fell down and would be dead very, very soon. The last demon whom the sword stopped in grabbed onto the blade, his skin that came into contact with the blade was sizzling like it was being actively cooked. He raised his crude and asymmetric sword into the air and tensed his muscles to swing down.

At that moment Gilliam remembered and pulsed the sword once more, the wide blade manifested! In that moment the demon’s hand was cut into pieces and the wound in his gut extended dramatically. The minimum of force was needed to just continue pulling the sword through the rest of his body, having cut through most of him.

This had most of the other demons react, the clear victory suddenly turned around with only a sword. Rushing ahead to take advantage of this, Gilliam found himself in striking distance of a large group of demons, some had already swung at him and though most missed a few connected with the shield.

As the inner and final shield popped out of existence Gilliam pulled his sword in a wide horizontal slash, cutting through anyone and anything in its path, even the demons that were trying to block the attack with their swords found their weapons as well as themselves cut in two. The runes on the sword were slowly, slowly losing their charged glow, but a split second after that happened they recharged, almost as if Gilliam was keeping the blade charged.

This gave Gilliam a second to recover, it was not enough to get another shield working as the spell circle was attacked by an imp that managed to destabilise it. Gilliam swung at the imp that became two half-imps immediately, but the opening allowed two male demons, not unlike Petal’s apperance to get in close. They both stabbed at him. Gilliam swatted one to the side easily enough, his sword digging deep into his body, but the other sword landed true and penetrated deep into his chest.

He could feel the pain spreading through the adrenaline, breathing got harder and the shock of what happened was instant and terrifying. He was so close, literally within touching distance of the gate, he just needed to get out of here and he could have made it much easier. It was first now he realised how drained he was . He had chewed through his mana reserves by overdoing the magic, sending large spell after large spell to make sure he hit hard and true. This was clearly not the way to do it and, well, he didn’t have any experience so he made some bad choices.

Swinging at the other demon there was no resistance as his glowing blade passed through his body like it was made of smoke. Gilliam was getting weak, he pulled out the sword in a reaction and focused healing in its area, the wound closed slowly and his breathing became better.

Though this wounding seemed to have given the local force a morale boost and they made for him as well. A few arrows came hailing in and though a few precise sword swings took out most of them, two still landed. One in his right thigh and the other in his gut.

Trying to support himself by stabbing the sword in the ground didn’t go well, it simply vaporised the stone it came into contact with and sunk down well over halfway before it stopped. And it only stopped them because Gilliam let go of it, losing its downwards force.

He needed energy, he needed mana potions or something, any form of energy, he needed to rest. Pulling out the two arrows he focused a lot of healing energy in those areas, his gut more than his leg due to the knowledge of the compilations that can happen with intestinal things coming into wounds in the gut region.

Parts of him were preparing him for what’s to come, several demons were heading towards him, swords, axes and other weapons drawn. He didn’t have any defence and not enough energy to set up any.

As he went through this mental preparation for the end, he saw several things. Savia smiling at him, Petal mistaking how to use the most mundane tools, his teachers and their reactions to the different things he had done, and the first person he met; Angela smiling at him for finally being there to fulfil the prophecy.

It was a shame he couldn’t help her with her dream, but hopefully she was safe with her fa*

Hold on.

As soon as he was to accept his fate the shine came back in his eyes, he had replayed his time in this world in the cliché ‘life passing before your eyes’ thing, but he had seen something good.

One of the spells he was testing, he drew energy out of the plant when testing darkness magic. Though incredibly little, he did feel a little energised; like having a tiny cup of coffee.

He had not experimented with darkness magic but... he could drain living things and revitalise himself!

Not hesitating a moment he waved his hand in the air, this time the circle didn’t have the normal teal colour that all his spell circles had, no; this was deep black and gave off no glow. Almost like he erased the area in the air the circle took form. The main rune was Darkness, the other runes were Area, Drain, Absorb, revitalise, heal, energise. They were put together in the floating shadow that was the spell circle as Gilliam activated it.

He felt that this spell didn’t need any mana, as it activated and started to absorb something from the not-yet dead demons around, forming it into long tendrils of red, purple and black smoke that spiralled around each other before disappearing into the shadow spell circle. The tendrils only came out of the still living, and they were instantly affected, they clearly got weak and groaned out in pain. They clearly wanted to scream but it seemed like they couldn’t muster the energy to do so. In the instant that the smoke hit the spell circle Gilliam felt a rush of energy. Like the wave of energy you get when someone startles you, or you suddenly get a powerful adrenaline boost, Gilliam was feeling better and better by the moment!

His wounds closed, breathing was easier, the pain in his abdomen, chest and thigh was fading. In their place was an energised feeling like he was getting a sugar high in an instant and in short, he was feeling amazing!

Not wanting to miss a moment he placed his left hand on the gate, proceeding to channel more energy into it.

The incoming demons halted for a moment, their enemy having found sudden vitalization, deep dark and nasty looking smoke extending from their dying bredren at the same time.

Using his other hand, Gilliam cast a barrier spell, something he barely managed to complete before incoming projectiles crashed against its spherical shape.

The sword was still burning its way through the stone, some of its runes had completely burned out and lost their glow, but as soon as Gilliam grabbed the handle the runes started recharging instead, completing their charge in the matter of seconds.

At this moment Gilliam felt a small drain going into the sword, it would seem that the sword pulled energy from its user to keep charged, he would have to experiment on this later.

For now he had everything he needed, a revitalising spell he could only imagine was looked on negatively in any society, a steady stream of energy going into the gate, the sword in his hand and a barrier charging.

The sight of everything turning his way had the lesser guardforce take a moment to wonder if this was worth it. The few imps that tried their luck ended up being targeted by the draining spell, cramping their flight muscles which in turn had them crashland only to be drained to death.

This pause combined with everything else gave Gilliam the time he needed to fuel the gate properly, a wave of energy pulsed in its arch, connecting from the gem at the top all the way down to the ground. Not waiting a moment longer than he had to, Gilliam ran through.

A blinding light in his eyes, like teleportation apparently always does, left him slowly. As soon as he could see anything there was a large sword heading his way. It collided into his shield and dented the stone ground under him.

He didn’t even get a moment to take in the area around him, he swung at the arm of the attacker, removing it from its owner. Pulling the sword back and forth through the large sword it was cut into pieces; permanently stopping its further use.

Not wanting this to happen again, he took to the air, just darting straight up as fast as he could. This gave him some good distance and a moment to take in what he was seeing.

A massive landmass was spread ahead of him, it was more sand and desert, although it was a bit rockier than the Finger he just came from. Looking below him he saw that he had managed to leave one of the cubical rooms in his blinded daze, before he was attacked. There were several similar constructions to his right and left, behind him was the end of the landmass and a familiar drop into nothing. But, he saw something interesting, in front of him was a city, sprawling out through the desert, in between large rock and mountain formations. The city had several tall buildings, a few towers and to Gilliam’s glee; a blue tower.

Suddenly Gilliam was knocked sideways as his vision was covered in fire. This felt like a fireball with more force behind it than the one Sirzan used. Since he was now in the Hand, the better mages he spoke about might be here.

Not considering this much at the moment he made a beeline towards the blue tower!