Chapter 198: Total Chaos

Anyone who had never entered that crevice would be nervous about what would be on the other side, or rather, nervous about just getting close.

There was a sort of invisible pressure in the surroundings, and a feeling of stagnation and suffocation began to form the closer you got. If I had to describe it, it was like getting really close to a big flare, but without the heat factor.

While it was my first time as well, I wasn’t nervous at all. The memories of my alternate self, where I entered or exited these crevices were so many and so numerous that I felt like I had done it many times before.

When I came in contact with the portal, I felt like I was in between something liquid, but at the same time intangible like fog, it was strange.

You could feel it with your skin as if it were a liquid, but at the same time the sensation was so faint that it could very well be a hallucination.

At a certain point, I began to feel a new and strange sensation, but if I thought about it, it is not very different from when I use space runes or when I used the teleportation scroll. The feeling is almost the same, but more how to say… natural, Stable and free.

’It’s truly interesting, too bad I don’t have time to analyze it thoroughly’.

“Waaa!”, “Unbelievable!”, “This is weird…”, “So that’s how it is” “Tsk”, “Newbies.”

Finally after a few seconds, we reached the other side, From the group we heard different reactions. Some seemed surprised, impressed, clearly coming for the first time and showing expressions of amazement or confusion.

In contrast, some who seemed to have come before simply snorted, glaring at the newbies who were acting like country bumpkins.

This almost provoked a fight, but luckily the dwarf leader stopped it immediately.

I, for my part, immediately focused on the concentration of mana in the environment. Certainly, it was at least three times better in quantity and quality than normal.

I looked around and realized that we were at a height that looked like a mountain, especially high, as far as the surroundings were concerned, which gave us a great ability to see.

The world displayed before me was a bit unique: its sky, instead of the common celestial, had light lavender hues and soft silvery tones that gave it an ethereal concept, there was no sun, or anything resembling a concrete light source, still, it was clearly daytime.

From my vantage point, most of the terrain was woodland, with trees in a variety of somewhat exotic shades.

Mostly warm colors with some cooler ones like purples and blues standing out; they were in the minority, but there were also some of the natural green with which I am more familiar.

Looking carefully, I managed to distinguish at some distance structures among them, infrastructures that seemed to be of civilization.

If I was not mistaken, they should be a line of defense before the portal, and they were placed, strategically, as far as my sight could reach from left to right, I did not know if there were more where my sight could not reach.

There was one especially clear one in a vacant lot. What struck me most, however, was that, curiously, not far ahead of it, I saw a lot of movement.

They looked like ants from this distance and I couldn’t make out exactly what they were doing, although my eyes now, they are kind of binding, were still too far away to see in more detail.

It was then, as I looked at the horizon, in the middle of what looked like the beginning of a mountain range, I noticed a small dark red dot. It was a bit unnatural, so it caught my attention.

A possibility and bad feeling came over me, especially since it was a familiar red, so I strengthened my eyes with mana to look at exactly what it was.

Maybe it was a striking red big tree or maybe it was a more outpost or some kind of in-between spot that made it stand out, it was the most logical from my thinking, and experience, but….

“Hey…”

“…Yeah, that’s exactly what you looked at. fuck! Those, forts over there aren’t the last line, they’re fucking outposts! Why are there even two crevices so close together?”

However, once I looked at it, I could not help but ask my clone if I was seeing it right, and he confirmed it, since through me he also saw it.

Yes, what I looked at on the other side was a crack similar to the one behind me, it was an event that I found curious and answered my doubts a bit.

Not to mention that I could now clearly see structures near that rift, and from all the information I gathered in that bar, it told me that definitely, that rift was being controlled by the Demons, I had heard it was close, but I didn’t imagine it would be that close.

Usually, these types of rifts are so far away that it would take days of travel, even for the most powerful, but here if I set my mind to it, in less than three hours I could reach it.

The war that I thought was taking place in a large territory seemed concentrated in a small place, and now I understand, how easy it was to start a war, here.

Now, my attention and enhanced eyes returned to the wasteland, and I realized that the movement I noticed and thought was military drill or something similar was, in reality, a bloody battle in progress.

Well, leaving aside the surprise at how curious it was that two rifts were so close and were the catalyst for this peculiar war, it didn’t interfere with my plans at all.

Once the dwarf solved the problem, he led the way. Interestingly, the way down was along the mountain cliff, on a carved path, digging into the cliff, and now that I was there, I noticed that the last defense was carved into this vertical cliff, embedded in the mountain. It was easily defensible and extremely difficult to invade from below.

I noticed that we were certainly passing countless more barriers. Everything seemed so airtight that it was suffocating, butthey were mostly anti-demon. It was normal, considering this was a war against demons.

And without any pause, once at the foot of the mountain, we set off towards what was supposed to be our objective.

..

.

“Damn … This is worse than I thought.”

The smell of ozone and scorched earth hit me as I tried to catch my breath. A demon had tried to pierce me with its spear moments before, but now it lay at my feet, its body had a hole in its chest resulting from me piercing it with my gauntlets.

I straightened up, feeling the residual heat in my hands, which were still glowing faintly with traces of mana.

Bommm!!! Baang!!!clank!!!

In the distance where the sounds of explosions and chiques were more intense, for a moment, I was still having trouble processing the situation.

We were on the only front without natural cover, which, from the top of the mountain, was a vast wasteland that offered no hiding places. Here, survival depended on quick reflexes and instinctive decisions.

I certainly knew it was war. It wasn’t just one of the inherited memories that showed it to me, but I don’t know if it was conscious or not; my alternate self left me with no feelings ingrained in those memories.

It was more like a first-person movie memory. More than anything else, while I had seen it, living it was another matter. Today, in my first war, I began to feel the weight it really carried.

The light thoughts of focusing on my purpose above all else faded, and now I had to think about preserving my life before anything else.

Being mercenaries, we were not put on the main ground, only asked to guard the surroundings to prevent the demons from flanking the sides.

Magic crackled in the air like a thunderstorm, I was distracted by the fighting going on in the distance, where the heart of both sides was, as the aftershocks reached as far as I am.

It was a chaos of clashes of weapons, clashes of magic, defense versus attack, some demons were employing what looked like some kind of poison, but the humans also had people purifying it, and recovering, assassins were sneaking in and trying to take out pillars on both sides, while experienced archers were not afraid to join in that chaos.

“damn, get down!!!”

I was only distracted for a moment to capture the situation in the heart of the battle, but there seems to be no room for distraction on a battlefield like this.

My doppelgänger, who was actively watching me, grabbed me by the head and forced me to crouch down with him.

swoooshh!

Above us, a scythe of wind passed over us, followed its path, and cut the unsuspecting people around us in half.

As if that wasn’t enough Not long after, sharp shards of metal flew towards us. I quickly activated defensive plant element spells.

“damn, why are they attacking us!”

“maybe that guy with the spear was your friend?”

As we grumbled among ourselves, my doppelgänger quickly counterattacked, creating spears of light and lightning and firing them at each mage who directed his spells against us, killing one and wounding the other, who had stronger metal defenses.

But now he was vulnerable, and a mage with no visible defenses in this field is an easy target. As I immediately thought, an opportunistic mercenary on our side put an arrow through his head, finishing him off.

I barely had time to get up when I felt the searing heat of another spell heading my way.

fuwoosh!

I looked at it and quickly understood the structure of that fireball and, immediately, when it was within my reach, I deflected it with my hands, without wasting mana in defending myself.

I did not think deeply about the origin of that fireball and left it to my doppelgänger. There was something else to take care of. My gaze rested on the corpse at my feet, specifically on the demon’s spear.

Without thinking, I grabbed it, reinforced it with lightning and plant spells and quickly prepared to hurl it at a crazed bastard who was about to cast a large-scale destruction spell.

I also noticed that it was aided by some blessing that made it more lethal; it seemed to be a six- metamorphosis wizard and I would be harmed by that spell if I did nothing.

’Art of Lust, Fifth Stance: Tempting Torrent’

I did not hold back and mentally activated the art of lust by circulating elemental mana through my body and hurled the refrained spear with all my might.

The spear cut through the air with a speed difficult to decipher and embedded itself in the head of what I now noticed was a female mage. Her defenses were too weak; at least they did not withstand that spear thrown with my art of lust it seemed,

I also noticed that she was relying on her companion, who was holding a shield in front of her, but did not react to the spear strike in time, either because her senses did not allow it or she did not expect my attack.

When he realized that his companion had died, the bewilderment left him vulnerable and he was pierced by the axe of a nearby mercenary and died. It was total chaos, and the smell of blood and burning began to become more prominent.

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