All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 325: Houston, We Have A Problem

I gripped two corners of a large canvas sling in my Grabby Arm as I flew through the sky. To my left, Daedalus clutched the other pair in his talons. Inside of it sat all of the Nighty Knights, and they couldn't fly. They were clinging onto the edges and looking out over the scene below. With the speed we were traveling, the sling tilted at a diagonal. We had slowed down a little to make sure it didn't go fully horizontal.

Some of them complained about feeling like they were stuffed in a sack. Most were ogling at the view. Those that weren't comfortable peeking at the landscape rushing by a thousand feet below sat closer to the center. I observed a quite impressive array of green and white faces among them in particular.

The few that could actually fly alongside us were zipping about with Beatrice. My human was resting on her carpet, eating food and recovering from the battle before. She had spent a decent amount of time getting some breathing room for Arthur back there, so I couldn't blame her. She deserved some rest. As long as we were traveling, at least.

I focused back on my connection to the decoys I had left behind. One of the more recent abilities I developed with my Sensory Disruption skill was being able to tie an image to an inanimate object, like a rock. I placed my creations in a few soldiers' bags so that the moving images of Daedalus and me were still moving around out there, being intimidating and just generally imposing. At least, I hoped that was the effect we were having. I certainly never had felt as intimidating as everyone seemed to imagine.

Regardless, I could still feel the objects drawing power through my connection. That meant they were up and running. Hopefully, it was still working to deter anything really bad from happening to the army. I still wasn't too worried, though. With the amount of power everyone had, they really could handle themselves, even with the Knights gone. Especially given the levels they were gaining from just this fight. Plus, with Arthur at their helm and using his full skills as a commander rather than an individual combatant, I was pretty confident they could handle a single Lieutenant coming at them. If more than one came, they probably wouldn't be able to drive it away, but still. They had a perfectly acceptable probability of retreating successfully. And besides, my models were ticking up with ever-increasing certainty that we would find the Lieutenants at the location we were going to.

As I collected more and more data and allowed my models to predict further and further out, it became apparent that there was a pattern of behavior here. A strange one. I wasn't sure what, exactly, since I was still missing data. But it didn't seem good.

But while I was a bit worried, watching the Nighty Knights have fun beneath us was quite entertaining.

Irene floated up next to me. The young woman sat cross-legged on a golden disk that looked like a particularly large and flattering version of myself. The projection carried her around as she had her head bowed and hands clasped together in prayer.

I beeped at her occasionally to let her know we were still nearby. The whole "closing her eyes" thing made following us a little hard, not to mention that it took a lot of concentration to maintain the avatar to this extent. But it was pretty cool. I had to admit that the massive version of me made her skills look a lot more impressive. Maybe I should have used that for my illusions as opposed to my real dimensions. Though I guess that wouldn't really fool anyone.

As I found myself imagining the possibilities, something came over the horizon that stole my attention. A bright red beam should be new, happening as they approach. It was out of place, to say the least. As we came closer and closer to the source, I could see more. It seemed to originate from a spot in the center of four volcanoes, one actively spewing lava out of its cone. The light was almost a kilometer in diameter and was messing with my sensors somehow, too. That was never a good sign. At all.

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Then again, if we were looking for trouble, maybe it was.

We all continued forward quite a bit farther before the others' visual sensors could pick up on the phenomenon. As they did, conversations quickly died and even the motion sick Nighty Knights crawled up to the edge to see what the light was. Beatrice swooped down as close as she could to hold a quick conference.

"What is that?" Felix shouted above the wind.

I didn't know myself. It was a big beam of red light, but somehow, I didn't think that was the answer Felix was looking for. Instead of stating the obvious, I waited for Beatrice to answer. She looked thoughtful but didn't speak for a moment or two. Then, she nodded and pulled her eyes away from the glowing beacon.

"That looks like a ritual. A big one. No, a massive one," she corrected herself. "With that much power, I can only imagine what they're summoning…"

"You think that's where the demons are coming from?" Felix asked. Tony nodded vigorously from where he soared next to us, blue energy circling him in a perpetual halo.

Beatrice shook her head regretfully. "No, I don't think so. We would see rhythmic pulsing if it was continually summoning a bunch of smaller demons. This is something far more powerful and concentrated. If anything, the small demons might just be a byproduct of the ritual that's being conducted.".

That didn't seem to put anyone at ease. It didn't make me feel better, either. The idea that the horde of demons they had spent the last several hours fighting might be a side-effect of something else? I didn't even need to run an analysis to know that whatever this "something else" was would be bad news.

Bee shook her head again and continued to explain. "But I don't know that for sure. Maybe there are other circles responsible for the small fry as well. One that wouldn't be giving off nearly as much energy."

"Are you saying that they're summoning another Lieutenant? Could they even revive one?" Tony asked with a bit of alarm in his tone.

Beatrice looked at me thoughtfully. "It's possible, maybe? But I don't know if they could steal a Lieutenant away from Void's clutches."

I checked my dustbin to be sure. As expected, there wasn't a single remnant of any Lieutenant within me. They'd all been transmuted ages ago. I felt like that was a pretty final kind of sendoff. Maybe it was possible they were recreating them somehow, but that didn't seem right. It didn't seem to fit with what I knew about the uniqueness of souls, for one.

I beeped negatively to convey the information. That just made Beatrice seem even more concerned. "Perhaps they're summoning other Lieutenants, then? Though if there are others that are powerful, why haven't there been more in the legends? Why didn't they already bring them over?"

"Maybe they were off destroying other worlds," Tony said, a wry grin on his face. I wasn't sure what was so funny about that, but I was glad he could see the humor in even the darker times. Archibald snorted. "Yeah. We can only hope. Even if they do bring more over, we'll just have to kick their butts even harder, right?"

"Whatever it is, we need to stop it," Beatrice said, and her carpet put on more speed as she urged it. "Let's hurry. I don't like the look of this."

Daedalus pumped his wings slightly harder, and I also accelerated smoothly to match his pace. All the Nighty Knights got back in the sling, but most of them were not able to fly fast enough to keep up on their own. They gathered tightly inside as I split the air around them to protect everyone from the wind.

Only Tony, Beatrice, Daedalus, and I, with Archibald on his dragon's back, stayed out as we powered forward. We began our descent and curved around one of the tall mountains in order to land in the valley below. On either side, two of the still-dormant volcanoes loomed overhead.

As we neared, I stretched out my sensors to get an idea of what was inside. All the tension building in us increased tenfold as we watched a black fortress rise up from the ground. The smooth, seamless obsidian of its walls absorbed all light as a mass of thousands of various minor demons milled around its entrance. At its front stood a massive black gate with teeth like spikes, leading into a fortress with endless hordes of demons pouring out of it. I even picked up some tunnels that led into the mountains, heading toward the direction we'd come from.

"Well, I think we found the source of the issue," Archibald called from Daedalus's back.

Just as I beeped my agreement, I heard the deep call of a horn echo. Throughout the valley, the milling masses stopped and turned to look at us.

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