Peter and the Rising Angels (War of Contractia Book 6)

by Tj Dixon

  “Four to go.” I say happily and draw the next stone out of the ice. As I begin to fill it with ice magic I breathe another sigh of relief. The tug on my mana from the remaining stones is hardly even irritating me anymore.

  “The hardest part will be the very end.” Lucy warns us.

  “I know. It’s obvious by now that we’re trying to encircle the temple. That means our last destination is near the temple entrance.” Cherry says.

  “They’ll probably attack continuously with powerful wide area magic. I’ll do my best to shield, but you should wait until the stone is ready before you move to the final point.” Lucy warns Cherry.

  “I was already planning to.” Cherry says.

  “Good.” Lucy says.

  “The next one’s ready.” I tell Cherry as the stone begins to glow.

  “Here will do.” Cherry says so I drop the stone. I watch the stone with its fiery orange shimmer until it hits and buries itself in the ground. Then I draw out the next stone from the ice in my pocket. I focus my ice magic on it and can barely feel the tug on my mana from the remaining two stones in my pocket.

  “Three left?” Cherry asks.

  “Yes. We really are almost there now, aren’t we?” I say.

  “We are!” Cherry agrees.

  “Keep your focus, both of you.” Lucy warns.

  “I am.” Cherry replies.

  “Me too.” I say focusing on filling this stone as quickly as I can with my ice magic. “My mana is getting a little low though.”

  “Can you make do with what you’ve got?” Lucy asks.

  “I have enough to finish this stone and maybe the next one but definitely not for the very last stone.” I answer honestly.

  “I need my power for shielding. Cherry, if you have enough now would be the best time to give some to Aventurine. After this the enemy are likely to step up their attacks.” Lucy says.

  “I suppose you’re right.” Cherry says and using her flight magic swings me towards her until our faces are level. “Take what you need, but don’t get greedy or we’ll be in trouble.”

  “Ok.” I say and kiss Cherry on the mouth. I drain her mana a little. I take enough to get through this with just a little extra in case I misjudged. Then I pull my lips away. “That will do.”

  “I wish that was Peter I just kissed.” Cherry says as she swings me away from her until we’re flying together hand in hand beside each other. Of course it’s still just Cherry’s flight magic that’s keeping us flying. With her extra magic I return my focus to filling the stone. It doesn’t take long.

  “It’s ready.” I tell Cherry.

  “Here’s fine.” Cherry says so I drop the stone.

  “Two more.” I say and draw the next stone out of the ice. I fill it with my ice magic as quickly as I can, but I can’t help noticing that we now have ice, metal and stone fragments pounding Lucy’s shield and covering the general area. The enemy really don’t care about wasting their mana now we’re so close to completing our flight around the temple. I doubt they have any idea what these stones do, but it’s obvious that we’re not just flying around for fun.

  “We were crazy to think we could do this without your help, Lucy.” Cherry says.

  “Have you only just realised that?” Lucy laughs.

  “I had no idea how much magic they’d be willing to throw at just two mages.” Cherry admits.

  “Two mages or even just one mage can turn the tide of a battle or even an entire war. Numbers aren’t everything. The queen has always been a perfect example of that, but Peter is too. The enemy must know Peter is away, but they don’t know for how long or what surprises we may have prepared for them. Going full out under the circumstances makes sense and is exactly what the enemy will do soon to make sure we can’t deliver them whatever surprise we are currently preparing.” Lucy says.

  “This isn’t full out?” Cherry asks.

  “Not even close.” Lucy laughs.

  “It’s ready.” I say as the stone begins to glow.

  “Here’s fine. Let me know when the last one is ready and I’ll move to the final point.” Cherry says.

  Having dropped the stone I draw the last stone out of the ice in my pocket and then move the ice from my pocket into the stone. It doesn’t make much difference but at least I no longer have a freezing cold leg. I fill the last stone up as quickly as I can. Just as the stone begins to glow with an orange shimmer a huge beam of pink, white and yellow swirling light hits the temple shield at the temple entrance ahead of us. It creates a twenty foot wide hole in the temple shield and then continues on to blast a hole through the temple itself, before striking the temple shield on the other side. The light fades without breaking the temple shield a second time, but I hope there was nobody in its way. If there was, they are certainly dead. At least the temple structure has remained intact, thanks to the earth magic holding it together.

  “The last stone is ready.” I tell Cherry but as I do so enemy mages fly at the temple and a barrage of magic from the temple blasts the whole area ahead of us.

  “That’s where we need to be.” Cherry curses.

  “If the enemy are attacking they probably won’t use wide area magic.” I say.

  “But our side might.” Lucy reminds me.

  “Either way we need to drop this stone quickly.” I tell Lucy urgently.

  “We’ll just have to risk it.” Cherry says unhappily.

  “Fine, it was never going to be safe.” Lucy says.

  “When I say now, drop the stone.” Cherry says.

  “Ok.” I agree. Cherry lunges us forwards, veering a couple of times and narrowly avoiding a massive lightning strike from above.

  “Now!” Cherry yells. I drop the stone.

  “Done! Get us back inside!” I yell and a moment later a shimmering orange dome surrounds the temple.

  Chapter 19 (Multiple)

  (Grace)

  Where we were standing just a few moments ago there’s a hole right through the temple. Even though we still can’t port in the temple, it definitely felt like we were just ported. There’s also no denying the fact that we were standing in the way of the last attack and were instantly moved out of the way. Other than porting there’s no explanation that I can think of.

  “Defend yourselves, or saving you would have been pointless.” A vaguely familiar voice says inside my head.

  “Sor!” Carey exclaims from right behind me.

  “Yes, who else could have saved you just then?” Sor’s voice asks, again sounding like it is just inside my head.

  “Thank you.” I answer out loud, unsure whether a thought would be enough for her to hear.

  “I said defend yourselves.” Sor repeats and now I can see the enemy that we need to defend ourselves from. Contractian mages, all wearing simple blue mage robes, are flying into the temple through the hole.

  “Team one shield, team two attack pattern four.” I say calmly and focus on blasting the enemy with acid filled rock shards. Beside me Carey shields us both from a dozen lightning bolts. They seem to have realised that I’m in charge of our group. Either that or they despise my black skin as much as Perry does. Just like my murdered parents though, my skin will turn white when I die. We’re all the same colour when we die. I don’t intend to die just yet though.

  “It’s too much.” Carey says and I can feel her shield weakening by the moment.

  “Damn.” I curse and switch from attacking the enemy to shielding. Carey’s shield collapses but mine holds. I look around and thankfully nobody else is struggling. There are now a couple of dozen lightning bolts hitting my shield. It won’t hold for long.

  Then a floating pool of water covers the enemies attacking us. Their lightning comes to an abrupt halt. A dozen enemy mages were fried by their own lightning, but the other dozen or so that were attacking us have switched to shielding. With shields up they resume attacking but this time they use wind slices that cut right through the water and hit my shield.

  “
Worked better than I expected.” Carey says with a grin.

  “They got careless.” I say with a grin of my own. Common sense says you should always have a shield up when in combat, even if you have an overwhelming advantage.

  “What’s that?!” Carey gasps. Still keeping my shield strong I follow her gaze. Around the temple is a shimmering orange wall that even extends above us.

  “I don’t know. Nothing good, but there’s nothing we can do about it. Everyone, keep fighting!” I call out in case anyone gets too distracted by the shimmering orange wall.

  “The enemy don’t seem to know what it is either. Maybe it’s ours.” Carey says.

  “If they were sent in as sacrificial pawns then they wouldn’t know what it was.” I say dismissing her naive suggestion.

  “I wish it was ours.” Carey says.

  “Focus on fighting. I’m shielding so you need to attack. My shield won’t last forever with this many enemies.” I scold her.

  “Sorry!” Carey apologises and then forms dozens of ice shards in her floating water pool. The ice shards attack one enemy mage. At least Carey seems to have recovered her focus and is using her common sense again. Concentrated attacks like this might work. Spreading the attack to all of the enemies would weaken it far too much to succeed.

  We’re fighting professional mages. They may have made a mistake earlier due to overconfidence and perhaps the fact that they’re fighting children, but we mustn’t make the same mistake by underestimating them.

  There’s a deep growl behind us. I quickly turn my head and sigh with relief. Allies. A few dozen catman monks armed with staffs are charging towards the enemies that are attacking me and Carey. The enemies are still in the sky but the catmen lunge upwards at the last moment. The enemies’ shields are quickly broken by the staffs and the mages are brutally killed. I feel a little queasy as I watch the macabre display in front of me as the catmen do not stop even when the enemies are dead.

  “Makes you feel a little sorry for them, even if they are the enemy.” Carey says. Silently I agree with her but I cannot admit that because it may weaken her resolve if I do.

  “Just remember our parents. There’s no way the enemy shed even a single a tear for them.” I tell Carey.

  “I suppose that’s true.” Carey agrees and the thought of our parents brings tears to her eyes. Her face is filled with hate though. “Almost makes you want to join in.”

  “Maybe when it’s Perry’s turn.” I say.

  “Do you really think we’ll get the chance?” Carey asks.

  “I don’t know, but I hope so.” I tell her.

  “There don’t seem to be any enemies coming through that wall and we’ve dealt with most of the enemies inside it.” Carey says.

  “Remember there may be hidden enemies.” I remind Carey.

  “There aren’t and that’s the last of them.” Sor’s voice says again speaking straight into my head. Nobody else seems to hear it this time.

  “So what’s that orange wall?” I ask nervously. Carey looks at me confused.

  “It’s ours but it would be pointless to explain. Have your teams rest. The catmen will take over the defence here.” Sor’s voice says. It’s an order and she seems as arrogant as ever, but she did just save our lives.

  “Ok. Both teams keep your guard up, but back to our room. The catmen will be defending here if anyone breaks through again.” I say.

  (Sor)

  The catman monks seem to have everything under control now. Grace’s mages were surprisingly effective in that last battle. Their teamwork was much more efficient than I’d have expected, but it was their competence at magic that surprised me the most. I’m glad that saving them from the attack on the temple shields wasn’t entirely pointless.

  I managed to shift everyone who was in its path out of the way, but that meant taking down the dimensional dampener for a fraction of a second. Even someone planning on using the timing of the attack to port should have been unable to port in such a short gap. I definitely felt dimensional magic though, so it seems at least one of the enemy mages also exceeded my expectations. Worse I can’t find them, because the dimensional dampener eroded their trail and blurs my senses.

  I’m desperately searching the temple with my magical senses, but it’s just no use. I sigh and shake my head in frustration. This isn’t going to work. Whoever the intruder is though, they must have an objective. If they were capable of destroying the temple through brute force they would have already acted. That means they must intend to weaken us somehow.

  If they want to weaken us then the best course of action would be to attack our miko, disrupt the temple shield or if they have someone powerful enough then they might even try to kill me. Disrupting the temple shield would either involve killing the monks who are maintaining it, destroying the shield core or blocking the flow of mana. If they plan to kill the monks I suspect the monks will be able to resist for a while. If their plan is to destroy the core or block the flow of mana they’ll have to reveal themselves for much more than a moment and if they do that then I can definitely kill them.

  What worries me the most is the possibility of targeting our miko. Killing Peter and Kuroneko’s miko wouldn’t weaken us at the temple, but it might prevent them carrying out their conquest of hell. In other words defeating the Fallen Angels and getting vengeance for my mother would both be in jeopardy. Killing my miko would be even worse.

  I look down at Emi, sleeping beside me. She’s drooling with a big stupid grin on her face. Perhaps she’s dreaming about last night. She’s certainly still exhausted from last night whether or not she’s dreaming about it. I’ll keep my senses on Peter’s, Kuroneko’s and my miko, but most of all I’ll guard Emi. If anyone tries to harm her, they can expect to be torn limb from limb and skewered most painfully. If they’re still alive after that then I’ll start to get sadistic with them.

  I consider waking Emi, but that would be pointless. She could sit beside me and keep me company, but she’s still human so she needs sleep. Also I need to focus. So I leave Emi sleeping whilst I keep my senses on the miko in the temple and most importantly on this little room.

  The room is only ten feet by ten feet and our bed is six feet by four feet. That doesn’t leave much space but it’s not like I need much space, so any bigger would be pointless. In fact it would be worse than pointless right now, because I would have to keep my senses focused on a bigger area.

  Everything in the room is plain purple including the floor, walls and ceiling. In addition to the bed that we’re on we have two chairs, one small round table and a wardrobe for clothes. The wardrobe is more or less pointless, because we both wear the same clothes all the time. Well, not quite all the time, but all the time we wear anything at all. So I suppose the wardrobe isn’t entirely pointless. Right now for instance Emi’s miko outfit is in the wardrobe as she lies under the warmth enchanted silk sheet on our bed. We could just put our clothes on the table or the chairs though, so we really don’t need a whole wardrobe for just a single set of clothes each.

  My own clothes, which other than the size are identical to Emi and the other mikos’ outfits, are of course on me. The top half of the uniform consists of a plain black flame proof leather jacket and a poison resistant white cloth bandage around the breasts instead of a bra and shirt. We also wear very short pale grey shorts and light brown sandals. The sandals are enchanted to not come off and the shorts to assist with flight magic.

  Yu Kii seemed to think it was pointless when she made them but poison is very hard to guard against. Most magical attacks I can simply shield against or port to avoid them. My miko can use flight magic to avoid attacks or I can port them myself. Although I can shield against poison it doesn’t have to be magical and once the damage is done it can be difficult or even impossible to reverse. Just as importantly by having my miko wear the outfit I chose they have a constant physical reminder that they are my miko. Not that I’d let them forget.

  I mostly wear the outfi
t myself because I want to wear the same clothes as Emi. I doubt poison would be effective against me now that I’m a god, but it doesn’t hurt to take a precaution against an attack that I just might be vulnerable against. I also don’t have to eat anymore so I could avoid some poisons by forgoing food, but nice food still tastes nice.

  Whilst the poison resistance may be useful for me my flight enchantment is pointless. I’d much rather shift than fly. With the dimensional dampener up that would be hard, but even walking is better than flying. Actually I could have my miko carry me on some sort of chair, if I had anywhere to go. I’d have to get them to make a chair that was dignified and easy to carry though. A mobile throne of sorts.

  If there wasn’t an enemy already in the temple I could just drop the dimensional dampener now that Cherry and Aventurine have deployed Rin’s dimensional slicer. Actually it was mostly Rin’s mother not Rin who made it. In fact even Rin’s mother had to come to me for advice. From a porting and shifting perspective it is similar to a port barrier. Even I can’t shift through it without shifting to another world and then back again.

  More important than acting as a port barrier the dimensional slicer sends anything that physically enters it to other dimensions but not in one piece. This includes mana and magical attacks as well as people, monsters and objects, or for that matter literally anything else. Unfortunately now that it’s up the enemy are unlikely to be rash enough to attack seriously without first testing it.

  If the enemy already inside the temple actually does have the confidence to enter my room I will have to assume that they are very dangerous. Protecting Emi comes first. So how best to ensure her safety? Even with the dimensional dampener up I can still set up a dimensional trap. In fact the dampener would help conceal it, but it wouldn’t last long.

  Setting it up on the off chance that I’m attacked whilst it’s still up would be wasteful and I don’t want to waste the power that Emi is giving me. That is especially true if wasting that power might cost Emi her life in the event that we are attacked. What I can do though is mentally prepare traps all over my room. That way I can create them instantly if I need to.