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

by Tj Dixon

  There are two howls of rage that carry through the airless void all around us. Then two ice dragons appear close to us but not so close that we could easily reach them. Using their claws they send lightning and ice hurtling through the void that separates us. A wall of fire blocks the ice but the lightning hits our dimensional bubbles. The bubbles hold but we need to attack quickly.

  Juliet and Sor send black lightning at the closest ice dragon. Our fire mages send fireballs at it and our wind mages send lightning. I try to create a mana leak but this ice dragon is just as strong as the last one. It’s futile.

  Chapter 24 (Peter)

  Three of the ice dragons have left. There are still countless lesser ice demons and two ice dragons left, but three less ice dragons is significant. If Maou Ferdinand were also gone I would certainly risk leaving my hiding place. Did he send them away to trick me into coming out of hiding? Surely he must know that I wouldn’t show myself just because of that though. So why?

  I check my connection to my miko to see how much power I am recovering whilst I shelter here and to my shock I sense Yu Kii far, far closer than I expected. She is not only in the ice hell but very close to me. That changes everything. If Yu Kii is here she can’t be on her own. She couldn’t even survive here on her own. She’d die instantly just from being in the ice hell, and she is definitely alive and has travelled deep into the ice hell. Yu Kii seems to be in trouble though. There’s no time to waste.

  I leave the conjoined soul of Kai and Chidori and swallow it whole, but don’t attempt to purify or drain it. I doubt I’ll be able to hide in it again. The enemy will realise how I hid from them so they won’t ignore it again. To hide in their soul again would only hasten their torment and demise by the demons. Their only hope is that I can defeat or at least escape from the demons.

  Maou Ferdinand is sitting atop one of the two remaining ice dragons. He’s currently about the same size as a human man with wings of ice wrapped around his body like a blanket. His spiked tail looks very similar to my own except that it is made from ice. His head looks like that of a bald old man, but with a little icy horn on each side of his forehead sticking straight up. Those horns are only about an inch tall and thinner than a finger’s width. The point is blunt, but stored in those horns is a vast amount of mana. Ferdinand notices me immediately and attempts to circle behind me.

  The unmounted ice dragon charges straight towards me at only a few times the speed of sound. Right behind the dragon is a horde of tiny ice imps and huge ice hawks that would have blocked out the sun, if there had been a sun. Below me the icy ground is completely obscured by a seething sea of ice mountain demons.

  It would normally make sense to fight the charging dragon first and hope for a swift kill. Yu Kii is directly behind me though, so instead I charge Maou Ferdinand and attack with soul thief before he can get behind me. Surprised by my direct attack, Ferdinand hesitates for a thousandth of a second, which may as well be an eternity. Sadly his dragon reacts instantly, blocking my black soul thief with its own white soul stealer lightning. It’s not like soul thief would have done much damage to Ferdinand, but it is still annoying.

  Recovered now, Ferdinand attacks with a stream of red soul stealer orbs, each the size of a small house and over twenty times the speed of sound. I manage to evade the orbs but the dragon takes advantage of my distraction and hits me with its soul stealer lightning. After the first agonising hit I manage to block the rest of its attacks with soul thief, whilst still evading Ferdinand’s orbs. The problem is that doesn’t leave me any time to actually attack. Worse, the other ice dragon and the horde of flying ice demons are rapidly approaching.

  I dive down towards the sea of ice mountain demons and send a soul thief barrage at them, gathering their souls. Using the unpurified souls as raw mana I send a wall of flames at Ferdinand and his dragon. They shield and dive through the flames but using their momentary distraction I recklessly crash into the dragon and swing my spiked tail into its icy chest. The dragon roars in pain as I tear out half its soul. Instead of trying to purify it, I use it as raw mana and create a mini star inside the ice dragon’s chest.

  The ice dragon melts completely with a crazy sizzle. It will take more than that to kill it, but it should take at least a few minutes to reform its body. Ferdinand howls in fury and sends a huge red soul stealer orb straight through the mini star at me. Still off balance from my tail attack and creating the mini star I’m caught by the orb. My soul screams in agony but I manage to shield Kai and Chidori’s souls as I dart out of the orb.

  As I emerge from the orb Ferdinand’s tail brushes my left wing, freezing and shattering my wing into a million pieces. I thrust my tail at Ferdinand’s tail, but as our tails collide there is a flash of blinding light. Searing agony shoots through my entire body, but Ferdinand clearly in just as much pain backs off.

  As I’m considering my next attack two ice dragons appear right behind me and let loose a hail of ice shards and lightning from their claws. The lightning is just normal overpowered lightning and the one bolt that does hit doesn’t even hurt. The ice shards are nothing more than a distraction. It seems these ice dragons are just young ones incapable of using soul stealer lightning, but even a distraction when fighting a maou can prove fatal.

  Ferdinand sends another stream of house sized red soul stealer orbs at me, but ignoring the two ice dragons I easily dodge the orbs. I retaliate with soul thief but Ferdinand dodges my attacks. The other ice dragon will be here soon, so there’s no time to waste.

  I charge towards Ferdinand again, but he forms a red soul stealer wall around himself. Charging through it would be beyond reckless. It would be suicidal, but his wall also prevents him from reacting quickly.

  I shift myself right beside Yu Kii and throw up an array of dimensional barriers radiating out from us. That should slow down the pursuit. Then I take in my surroundings and to my shock there’s a whole group of my friends here. Even Grunti is here. I was hoping to take Yu Kii back to safety, but with this many people I don’t know what to do.

  As I am about to despair a huge fiery dome appears around us, air fills the dome and earth appears under my friends’ feet. There’s even a circular river or moat running around the edge of the earthy floor. The earthy floor is bigger than Portalis. You could literally build a city in here and have room to spare. The dome’s fire seems to burn through any dimensional currents. It is not only impossible to port through but impossible to shift through too.

  “Peter?” Rin asks in shock.

  “Rin? Everyone? What are you all doing here?” I ask, also in shock.

  “We came to save you, but we had a bit of trouble with a few ice dragons so I decided to set up base.” Grunti says.

  “You fought ice dragons? And how did you create this? How long will it last?” I ask.

  “One question at a time!” Grunti complains.

  “We killed one ice dragon. The other two retreated.” Juliet tells me calmly. I’m the only one who understands what she’s saying though other than Sor, because she uses the fire angel language. It sounds like the three ice dragons came here and fought my friends then, but to kill an ice dragon with just Juliet, Sor and the others is impressive.

  “Yes we fought ice dragons. I hope we don’t have to fight them again though, because they were seriously scary. We created this dome using my new invention, the angel stones. The same stones allowed us to survive and fight here. The dome requires a lot of earth magic and a little of all the other elements, but only to create. It’s self sustaining so we can keep it up as long as we want.” Grunti tells me.

  “What did you use to create the angel stones?” I ask suspiciously. Did he kill the sleeping angels to make them? If he did then father is going to be seriously angry. For that matter I would be seriously angry too. Even if I am fallen those were still my friends and comrades from my time as my father’s angel.

  “I’m glad you asked about that. Nobody else seemed interested.” Grunti says with a huge
grin. “For each angel stone I created a fake star and collapsed it in on itself. In other words these stones each contain a micro black hole sealed within a dimensional containment field. If the containment field was damaged it could easily destroy an entire world.”

  “Um…” I say unable to find the words to reply properly. ‘Isn’t that dangerous?’ doesn’t even begin to describe my concerns. So many of my friends are here using these angel stones. Of course without the angel stone just being here would be instant death. Unable to put my thoughts into words I just ask. “So what next?”

  “Did you manage to kill this demon you’re after?” Grunti asks.

  “No, unfortunately not.” I admit.

  “Do you want to retreat or try again?” Grunti asks.

  “I’m not sure. I don’t want to get everyone here involved any further. It’s just too dangerous.” I answer.

  “We’re involved because we want to be.” Rin tells me.

  “We trained so much at the academy so that we could fight our enemies.” Sherry says. “Or was all our training just for fun and earning a little money from the bounty hunts?”

  “It wasn’t for fun or money, but I never imagined you’d be fighting a maou in his own hell.” I reply.

  “Neither did we.” Cherry says with a laugh. “Grunti gave us the strength to fight here. If it wasn’t for our training though we wouldn’t be able to use that strength, but because we did train we can help you now. It was scary fighting the dragons. For a while I seriously thought we were going to die, but now that we’re together again it isn’t so scary. If the enemy is too strong to fight together we should all go back home, because if we can’t beat it together how can you beat it alone?”

  “How did you kill the ice dragon?” I ask.

  “It wasn’t easy.” Cherry admits. Of course after what she said before she couldn’t very well have said it was easy.

  “I had to use one of my other inventions.” Grunti admits.

  “What did you use?” I ask.

  “It was still experimental so I never got around to naming it, but it worked by briefly bending the laws of reality in a small space. I programmed it in advance to change the point of melting to absolute zero for any object in direct contact that is already at absolute zero. It worked but it was destroyed when I threw it into the ice dragon’s mouth.” Grunti tells me.

  “The ice dragon just let you throw this invention into its mouth?” I ask in shock.

  “It was about to eat me.” Grunti admits.

  “It sounds like you got very lucky.” I tell Grunti.

  “I did, but I still killed the ice dragon.” Grunti says.

  “Actually the ice dragon is probably still alive. If you only briefly changed the laws of reality it will most likely start to reform its body once they revert back to normal.” I tell Grunti.

  “That’s just too overpowered!” Grunti complains.

  “We are in hell so it’s only natural that the strongest enemies here are very powerful. How easy is it to break the containment field in the angel stones?” I ask.

  “Don’t worry. It’s very unlikely to break.” Grunti tells me.

  “What about intentionally?” I ask.

  “You want to use them as weapons?” Grunti asks.

  “Possibly. It sounds powerful.” I tell him.

  “I should have kept one spare then. If the angel stone breaks it will kill the person attuned to it. I can’t make any more either. I used all the materials we had in Nirvali and getting more would take centuries. Making a fake star isn’t easy and forcing it to collapse safely is even harder.” Grunti tells me.

  “How did you make the star collapse?” I ask.

  “That was the easy part. I just froze the energy, which stopped the reactions. Gravity did the rest. The hard part was capturing it and preventing it from destroying the world.” Grunti explains.

  “If you used gravity, does that mean it had to be at least a certain size?” I ask.

  “Yes. About thirty times the size of Nirvali’s sun or twenty five times the size of your sun. That assumes an equal density, as it is actually the mass rather than the size that matters.” Grunti tells me.

  “How the hell did you make such a large fake star?” I ask. Twenty five times the size of father?! That’s beyond huge.

  “I used centuries worth of mana crystals for each star and amplified them using dimensional buffeting as well as advanced fire magic and earth magic techniques.” Grunti tells me.

  “I can’t create something that large.” I say with a sigh.

  “Of course you can’t.” Grunti agrees.

  “Rather than focusing on a powerful attack why not focus on weakening the enemy?” Rin suggests.

  “How?” I ask curiously.

  “Against the weaker enemies we were able to create mana leaks. With your strength surely you could do something similar for the stronger enemies.” Rin answers.

  “Doing so would leave me vulnerable and unable to attack to take advantage of their weakness.” I tell Rin.

  “If Juliet and I try that whilst you fight the enemy, it might be possible.” Sor says thoughtfully.

  “That might be worth a try.” I agree. “If the enemy try to break in here they’ll be weakened too. For now I think we should wait. We can rest and recover our mana whilst the enemy grow impatient.”

  “What about food?” Rin asks.

  “Easy.” Grunti says. “We can grow it. The soil here is extremely fertile and it replenishes its fertility automatically. We can also make somewhere a bit more comfy to rest. That’s why I wanted the earth mages to save their mana.”

  “That was why we didn’t fight?!” Helski exclaims.

  “Food and comfort are important too.” Grunti says.

  “But we could have died!” Helski complains.

  “We didn’t.” Grunti says with a shrug.

  “But we could have!” Helski insists.

  “What’s done is done.” I say. “As long as everyone survived, that’s what matters most. I was a bit shocked to find you all here, but I do appreciate everyone coming here to help me. Rather than worrying about what’s already happened we should be focusing on what to do next. Food and comfort will help everyone recover their mana quicker so for now focusing on them does make sense.”

  “Ok. I’ll grow some food.” Helski says reluctantly.

  “I’ll create somewhere we can rest.” Lilian says.

  “Should I help?” Yu Kii asks.

  “Sorry Yu Kii, but it would be better if you saved your mana. Lilian and Helski should be fine on their own. You’re helping me increase my strength. It isn’t a lot compared to all the mana I’ve taken from souls here, but even a little extra mana may make a big difference.” I tell Yu Kii.

  “Ok.” Yu Kii says and looks apologetically towards Helski and Lilian.

  “We’ll be fine.” Lilian says.

  “Of course we will.” Helski agrees.

  “Thank you.” Yu Kii says and bows to Lilian and then to Helski. Helski blushes when Yu Kii bows to her.

  “Is there weather in here?” Lilian asks Grunti.

  “No. It stays like this. I didn’t have time to make anything more complicated.” Grunti says as if this was a simple thing to make.

  “Then how about four walls for privacy but no roof? Plus a bed to rest on? It’s not going to rain and it’s not too hot or cold in here, so I don’t see much point making a roof unless anyone’s bothered by the light. If there’s an emergency it would be easier to get out quickly without a roof.” Lilian suggests.

  “Sounds fine.” Sor says and nobody disagrees.

  The earth shudders slightly. We all look to Grunti in concern.

  “Don’t worry. That’s the enemy testing the shield. They shouldn’t be able to create more than slight tremors from the outside.” Grunti says.

  “What if they break in?” Rin asks.

  “Then we fight. They’ll be weaker in here so we’ll have an advantage. Only t
he stronger enemies can get through the fire barrier so they can’t swarm us with numbers either.” Grunti says.

  “If they come in here we should be able to win.” I agree.

  “The first one’s ready.” Lilian says pointing at a polished white marble wall with a black wooden door. I can sense the other three walls even though I can’t see them from this angle. The bed is a simple wooden bed but it has comfy looking bedding so anyone should be able to sleep on it just fine.

  “We can’t all go to sleep at the same time, in case the enemy do break in here.” Grunti warns everyone.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t be sleeping so everyone else can sleep if they need to.” I say. My reactions are probably the only ones fast enough to keep up with Ferdinand if he does break in here so I’m the only one who can keep watch anyway. Juliet is the only other person here who may be able to react quickly enough, but she is a lot less powerful than me.

  “That doesn’t seem fair.” Rin says.

  “I don’t need sleep. You do.” I tell her.

  “Do gods not sleep?” Rin asks.

  “It’s not that we can’t sleep, but we don’t need sleep. We do still benefit from rest though, so I will be resting even though I won’t be sleeping.” I tell Rin. Of course sleep helps even more, but right now it would just be too dangerous.

  “Make sure you do.” Rin tells me.

  “I will.” I assure her.

  “What about your wing?” Rin asks.

  “My wing? Oh, Ferdinand shattered it.” I say and summon my soul’s flames where my left wing should be. I quickly form a new spiked green leather wing and dismiss my soul’s flames. The new wing is identical to the old one, but it feels slightly odd. Perhaps I should have reformed both my wings, but I don’t want to waste my mana.

  “That’s a handy spell to have.” Rin says appreciatively.

  “How does it work?” Grunti asks curiously.

  “As a fire angel my soul can switch between a normal state and fire state. In its fire state it can form a new body either entirely or just in part.” I tell Grunti.