As I stood in another plaza, waiting, I couldn’t help but reflect on recent events.
The previous day, Glaustro had handed out final orders and recomndations. He then dismissed us with a command to return to his compound the following morning at eight o’clock sharp.
Mia and I imdiately followed his orders to the letter. That ant hunting down the closest equipnt shop and purchasing several items that would make functioning on Lagyel possible: a set of goggles, an odd, mask-like air filtering device, and a large poncho that covered most of one’s body and ca with a hood.
The total cost ca to 200 souls, 100 per set, and it was only that cheap because it was standard kit for Lagyel. I gladly paid for both myself and Mia, even if it made the cat girl shoot disapproving, embarrassed looks.
If it was standard, perhaps the legion should have provided it for free. But it seed to be yet another way for the demons to separate ’worthy’ additions to an invasion from those who didn’t deserve to be there. Which, frankly, yeah. A hundred souls should be nothing to a demon. The inability to afford that much would not speak well for their abilities. Discover more content at empire
What confused more was that, apparently, even demons were ordered to gear up in these. I couldn’t for the life of figure out why. Their natural toughness should turn any environntal danger into a trivial matter, so the precautions seed excessive.
Several demons had brought up the sa protest when Glaustro told us to acquire all the gear, and were swiftly silenced. The sergeant seed to take a perverse amount of glee in telling them they would understand soon enough, and that anyone who disobeyed would regret it.
So, the next morning, there I was, herded from the compound to a small nearby plaza where a bored clerk waited with a clipboard.
Unlike the last ti I was preparing to invade a world, I actually knew what I was signing up for. Likewise, I wasn’t part of a charging, screaming mob set on nothing but murder, fueled by an invasive command that twisted my mind into a turmoil of rage and desperation.
In a way, it was all… mundane.
There was no grand speech. No threats or promises of pain if we failed. Just a clerk who kept ticking things off, then proceeded to pull a black crystal from a pouch very carefully before tossing it into the middle of the small plaza.
The crystal cracked, and a surge of black energy snapped out in a corona that sliced through space itself. Several seconds later, the view stabilized into an expanse of sand… and nothing else.
No one made a move to pass through the portal. I could only stare blankly as the wind picked up and scattered so golden grains of sand onto the ground of the plaza. The clerk gave all of us a very displeased glare.
It was Glaustro who finally urged us to action, even though the big demon himself didn’t seem all that enthused by the prospect.
"Well, let us be off."
He rumbled the order, then pulled on all the equipnt he already had hanging off him. The poncho went up, swiftly followed by the goggles and the breather.
I tried not to gawk at my commander. If he was taking things so seriously, then…
I equipped myself quickly, ignoring the discomfort it caused. The breather was a piece with a short tube you stuck in your mouth, and it seed to rely entirely on that to stay on top of your face. I was getting better at being in Tornt, but gripping that short tube sent pain stabbing through my skull. The goggles and the poncho started itching imdiately, worse than any regular clothes.
At least I was getting into the right mindset. The combination of Tornt with my new gear did, indeed, make want to kill sothing.
Demons filed through the portal reluctantly. I could see them stumbling and shivering on the other side, so it was with so dread that I crossed over myself.
I hated Lagyel imdiately.
The sun beat down on us rcilessly, reflected on all sides by a sea of swirling sand. The sand itself felt like graters running over every bit of exposed skin, and I genuinely wished to hop back over into Tornt for a second. Unfortunately, since Mia and I were among the last to step through, the portal slamd shut behind .
That’s when the feeling of weakness hit like a sledgehamr.
I groaned and clutched at my chest as my heart and mana core stuttered. It felt like so invisible giant was squeezing down on , assessing , judging . The giant must have found unworthy, because it proceeded to squeeze down tighter, trying to force the life out of .
Except, a second before it could, the link that connected to the Abyss pulsed in the depths of my being. Angry energy exploded into my body, shoving back the relentless pressure.
My eyes snapped open, though I couldn’t rember closing them in the first place, and I beheld more than a dozen golden chains wrapped around . More than half of them started to glow red and disintegrated on the spot, but many still lingered, cutting into my flesh, constraining , making feel weak.
I hurriedly dove into my mana core, and I didn’t like what I found there.
My regular mana was just fine, but the demonic fifty percent of was… dimd. Made lesser. It was like looking at a picture you knew was supposed to be vibrant and beautiful, only to find the colors faded to nearly nothing under unrelenting sunlight.
I managed to recover enough to glance around , and I saw those sa golden chains around every single demon in Glaustro’s unit, including the sergeant himself. In fact, their restraints were far more nurous, constricting them even more tightly than mine bound .
The only exception to all this was Mia. The cat girl had startled when the chains manifested around her, but they broke and fizzled out almost instantly, like they had failed to grasp onto anything at all.
Everyone’s chains were rapidly vanishing from sight. I couldn’t touch them even when I reached out. My hand passed through them like a mirage, but I was under no illusions that they weren’t real. They were disappearing, but they weren’t gone. I could still feel them, after all, winding about my soul.
Wow, everyone is a ss, I thought idly, looking at the demons in various states of pain and misery. Several had even fallen over, twitching in agony.
To my shock, Glaustro erupted into laughter. "Please, don’t tell you’ve only ever invaded weak worlds before? Ha! Welco to a real invasion, troops. Know that the world itself will oppose you from here on out. You will need to adapt to being here, slowly, and break those chains on your own. If you can."
Having said that, the sergeant flexed. His exertion briefly made his chains materialize again, only for several to crack under his strength and fade away as motes of light, for real this ti.
There was plenty of grumbling as the demons picked themselves up. It amused that I was taking the developnt much better than they were. I definitely felt the effects of the chains, make no mistake, but my fifty percent of lingering humanity was doing wonders for .
What wasn’t doing wonders for was all the sand.
It was easy to ignore initially, when the shock of the chains and the world’s suppression had preoccupied, but it was getting harder to do so by the second. I felt like the grains of sand were cutting into sothing deeper than just my skin. Despite the blazing sun, I felt a shiver of fear run down my spine.
Almost on instinct, a shield popped up around . My body strengthening technique ca to life also, giving a much needed physical boost to withstand all the nonsense.
So imagine my surprise when grains of sand slashed right through my protections, then crashed into my skin, utterly ignoring the mana woven into that as well. I could do little more than stare in disbelief as my mana shield was obliterated rapidly by the countless grains of sand, one tiny hole at a ti.
I flexed my mana, regenerated the missing bits, and then tripled the amount I was using to shore myself up, but it did no good. The sand just continued to pierce through with laughable ease. My eyebrow started to twitch in agitation.
If I can’t protect myself, then…
In that mont, I realized exactly how miserable my experience in the world of Lagyel was going to be.
Another shiver of fear coursed through , this ti at the thought of what sand like this would have done to my eyes. As it was, my body’s passive toughening was the only reason rivulets of blood weren’t running down every exposed patch of skin I had. While the sand had no trouble cutting through mana, my enhanced, ’naturally’ denser skin stopped the grains flat easily enough. Eyes, however, weren’t as significantly affected by advancent through mage ranks. Neither were lips, for that matter. Or the inside of one’s mouth.
I shuddered to think what it would be like to breathe without proper protection on this hellish world. At least the legion’s interest made a ton of sense. If the underlying value of the sand wasn’t enough, then the sheer tornt of living on a planet like this definitely would be.
Our glorious supre leader probably took one look at the world and cread himself in ecstasy at the sheer inspiration it imbued him with, or sothing.
The thought made scowl. I hated the fact that we just might pop back into Tornt to find it completely covered in howling sand.
I shivered uncontrollably, then jumped when a ntal presence pushed itself insistently into my thoughts.
It was the voice of my commander, speaking directly into the minds of his troop.
"As you can probably surmise, Lagyel is a desert world. The relevant divisions still haven’t figured out if the mana dampening and cutting effect is a natural property of the local sand, or if the trait is imbued into the sand by the local defenders. We would need to do extensive digging to find out, but the volu of sand available for research and crafting is already valuable on its own."
Glaustro looked mightily amused as he eyed the demons around him, all of whom were flinching and tightening their ponchos to minimize their exposure to the sand. Gazing at them myself, I realized the sand, like the chains, was affecting them even more than it was bothering . So of the demons were visibly bloodied already.
"The problem is, this sand is particularly troubleso for us to face. As beings largely composed of mana, it is a natural weakness of ours. So, you will need to work on your healing and defenses while we are here. I warmly recomnd enchanted equipnt, too, especially with self-nding properties. Otherwise, you run the risk of letting the sand wear away on your equipnt until its enchantnts fail."
I grimaced. Having seen the way Yules worked, I knew her enchantnts were sunk deep into each item, protecting them from damage. However, seeing as the sand could so easily slice through mana, I sincerely doubted that my equipnt had more than its natural toughness to face the damnable grains with. Glaustro’s warning certainly rang true. If the sand could to enough damage to armor or weapons, then it would eventually destroy all their enchantnts.
This thought made draw my sword from its scabbard in a panic. The soul blade was the most valuable thing I owned, and if the sand could just damage it into uselessness…
Thankfully, it only took a few seconds of examination while demons groaned around to realize that I was worrying for nothing. Unlike my barrier and my armor, the blade didn’t seem affected at all. It stood impervious in the face of the sand deluge, its soft green tal glowing as all the grains ricocheted off it harmlessly. Hells, as so of them landed on the edge of the blade, I watched the weapon slice them apart effortlessly.
Now, there’s an interesting thing to keep in mind.
I frowned in consternation.
So far, my sword had shown such effectiveness only against souls. It could slice through them, and the flesh they were tied to, with reckless abandon. But tal, wood, and other such materials? My sword was no more effective against them than a regular, sowhat dull blade would be.
So, if it’s cutting the sand, does that an the sand… has a soul? That it’s alive, sohow?
I pondered briefly, then decided to dismiss the idea for the ti being. Even if it was sohow true, which I found highly doubtful, I could do nothing about it at the mont. Was I supposed to go around slashing at the sandstorm? What would that achieve?
Besides, I didn’t have any proof that the large grains of sand my sword had sliced through were truly ’hard’ by it. If the weapon sohow stopped their anti-mana properties, then maybe the information could be valuable, but I didn’t even know how to go about testing that theory.
Instead of wasting my ti on that, I did as my commander bid. I dropped the strengthening and the shield, then drew heavily on my body refinent technique. Focusing it on my skin alone allowed to heal quickly from the sand’s minor abrasions, and even toughen up my defenses further.
Of course, that made realize the best approach would be to just strip down and let the sand have a go at , so as to strengthen the entirety of my skin all at once.
Which left with a question: was I enough of a masochistic to do sothing like that, for an unknown and strictly potential boost to my toughness?
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