"What was that?" Alejandro muttered to himself. The team of adventurers around him were similarly confused.
"Light Element?" Laura Mondero, Adventurer Vigilant based in Nirlith, muttered. "No, it's not purely Light."
"Lady Mondero," one of her retinue said. "This is not the time to get distracted!"
"Ah, yeah, yeah." the blue-haired Sha'ledras woman said.
Alejandro grunted as he watched another beam of golden light blast through the slimes. They had descended to the street level so he couldn't see where the beams were coming from.
"...I see light, but that's not all there is to it. It's strong. I don't see the source…an Advanced Magus?" Laura Mondero continued muttering even as they hurried down the deserted streets. Hours of battle were already done, and while the Chaos Founts were unlikely to be depleted, he knew that stemming the flow was more important now. He and the others might die from being overwhelmed, but it was either that or everyone in the town would be devoured instead.
"Reinforcements?" Alejandro posited.
Lady Mondero gave him a sidelong stare. "I know of no other capable of Light Elemental spell usage, and from the frequency of those beams, there's little doubt that it's an inscribed spell. Or a True Magus, perhaps."
"They are helping us though," Alejandro pointed out.
"I know. I just meant I don't know who it is."
"Ah, of course." Alejandro nodded. The Vigilants were more inspectors than anything else. They went from Adventurer Guild branch to branch to make sure that everything was reported properly. It was just a coincidence that the woman was here now rather than farther down the chain.
Lady Mondero, The Blessed Light, was one of the few with an exotic Elemental mastery, as well as a connection to the Orthodoxy. It was actually rumoured that she was a former Shrine Maiden, but she never acknowledged that when asked, and burned holes into anyone who persisted in rudeness. Not everyone liked the so-called supremacy of the Bright Elements after all. Even if they were one of the few organizations that had healing spells.
The nearest Chaos Fount was right underneath the waterfalls but it was by no means easy to reach. All three of the nearest Chaos Founts had erupted, and maybe, just maybe, the ones farther back did too, except they hadn't reached the town yet. All the more important that the Waterfall Cave was shut down first.
Amanda, with his orders, had organized a raid team. The Waterfall Cave was filled with narrow passages, and more than half of them had a slippery layer of water. The other half was nearly submerged, with the water level going from thigh-high to mid-chest. An elite force was needed to enter the Chaos Fount and neutralise the core. Destroying it was not a viable option since the Fount was essential to Waterlow's economy, so the delvers could not just be anyone.
The river was on the west side of town. It wasn't wide or deep enough to really facilitate travel, so it was mostly used for other things. Most of the riverside was relegated to entertainment and parks, which were now overrun with Blue Slime. Not to mention the Quiller Wolves and the occasional swooping Wyvern, the journey to the riverbank took much longer than the longstride or so that was the straight line distance.
Beams of golden light continued to fry the Blue Slime, as well as any Wyvern that wasn't flying over the town. Alejandro and the rest of the assault team kept looking to the river, looking for the source of the beams. Lady Mondero looked like she was having an aneurysm from trying to figure out what the exact blend of Elements the golden beams of light were made from.
"Hard Light? Superheated Light? Added Fire, or the advanced Element, Heat? I see bits of it, but I think those are just byproducts. Don't tell me it's Radiant Light?" she muttered.
Radiant? One of the Primordial Sources? Alejandro hummed to himself. That was almost on par with True Chaos.
But a Radiant Magus…that would set both Academies scrambling to invite them as a guest professor. Goddess, maybe even a researcher! Millions of golds a year just for the privilege of housing a Primordial Element Wielder.
Of course, the Chaos Magi would either attempt to kill, go on a terror spree, or try to recruit the Magus depending on how powerful they were. Those despicable, snivelling cowards would do anything to further their agenda. 'Why, I wouldn't be surprised that this was their doing.' He muttered in his head, though that was taken with a grain of salt. Blaming Chaos Magi was the go-to explanation whenever something bad happened. Bad luck, accidents, deliberate sabotage… whatever it was, it was blamed on Chaos pervading the Great Continent, and slowly unravelling the fabric of Reality.
And those nutters want to hurry the process along.
"What's that?" someone muttered. One of Lady Mondero's entourage pointed towards the skies. It was either a Wyvern or another enemy.
Oooor the source of the golden beams.
Alejandro's jaw dropped when he saw what it was. A hurried cast of Farsight allowed him to see the details and it was a Divinely beautiful woman surrounded by a corona of golden light, blasting beams of said light at the overflowed monsters, and was surrounded by floating swords similarly made of such light.
She was blasting things at such a high speed that it was clear she was a higher-level Magus. How high remained to be seen, but anyone confident enough to fly on a battlefield must be sure of their power. Or a fool.
And when he saw a Redtail Wyvern dive down from her blindspot, he feared it was the latter. A moment later, the beast was suddenly perforated by the flying swords. She never even bothered to look.
She was hovering beyond the walls, however, and her glowing countenance attracted the Wyverns and Quiller Wolvers to her. So that was why the town got a respite.
"We cannot waste the chance," Lady Mondero said. "Let's hurry."
As they crossed an intersection, a pack of Quiller Wolves charged at them from the right. Alejandro growled as he saw that each of the dozen wolves had bodies in their maws. The lead wolf glared at them but did not move to engage. Instead, the last pair, who weren't carrying anything, flexed their backs. The quills sticking out that gave them their name, flipped forward and flew at the adventurers faster than a bullet.
"Stone Barrier!"
"Earthen Bullet!"
The other two Magi of the entourage yelled their inscribed spells, which honestly made Alejandro's eyes twitch in annoyance. He would have expected Magi not to need that kind of mnemonic with their inscribed spells. Still, adding a vocal component to the cast when it was unnecessary did add a slight bit of power.
Cobblestones from the street were torn from their foundation and rose to block the quills. Earth elemental energy gathered into a dozen small orbs and shot out towards the wolves. The creatures were as tall as a Durandir at the shoulder and were nearly three paces long from nose to tail. The bullets slammed into their fur and tore into the flesh where they detonated, ensuring a fatal blow instead of over-penetrating. Three of the wolves died, and the rest of the pack were driven off.
At any other time, Alejandro would have been after them. Chaos Fount beasts, once they've taken sapient lives, often broke off the Fount's compulsion and would go about as they naturally would. That meant finding and building lairs, reproducing, and predating. If it happened in the wilderness, then that was fine, mostly. But this close to Waterlow, these mongrels would attack the farms.
Alejandro let out a long sigh. Well, the survivors would eventually wind up in a bounty sheet sometime, and get culled eventually.
They continued the run, all four of them. Metal, Earth, Stone, and Light. The latter two were special Elements, with Stone being a cross between Metal and Earth. Both of the entourage were clad in robes, concealed from head to toe. He had little doubt that those robes were enchanted for protection and should be tougher than a suit of armour. Well, it was easy enough to identify them due to the sigils on their shoulders.
When they reached the riverside park, they saw a few soldiers and adventurers taking potshots at the Blue Slimes. Those things were mostly immune to plain bullets, and only heat, cold, or any of the more energetic Elements could kill them. Well, striking at the tiny sphere floating within them would kill too, but those things were less than a fourth of an inch across, and a Blue Slime was at least one to two paces wide. That, and they were called Blue Slimes because of their colouration which made it even harder to kill them.
Still…
Whissst!
He unloaded a shotgun blast at the nearest one, and with full control of the buckshot, he swirled them around the insides of the Slime until it managed to strike the core and break it. The thing lost cohesion and turned into a puddle of goo.
And, not one to waste the lead, he sent the bullets straight at another Slime. About a third of the metal had been corroded, but what was left was more than enough.
"Stone Wall!"
"Quicksand!"
Stone Magus raised a wall and collapsed it over a couple of Slimes while Earth Magus made three of the Blue Slime sink into the ground. As soon as the Slimes disappeared from the surface, the Quicksand spell ended and they wound up buried. That didn't kill them though, but it got them out of the way.
All the while, Lady Mondero strolled as though she was in a cotillon, snootily ignoring the monsters to keep her attention towards the Radiant Goddess. But when one of the Slimes attempted an ambush, popping up from the ground and seeking to envelop the woman, she simply twitched a finger and a burst of white light repulsed the beast, then turned it to steam.
They headed straight to the waterfalls, fighting off as many Blue Slimes as they could while not taking any detours. It only took them another ten minutes, but the thing was, the entrance was occupied.
Two people, one was a clear Ice Magus from how she flung daggers of it with a mere gesture, and the other was… a spear wielder? The man stabbed and swept his weapon, and somehow, the Blue Slimes all popped whenever he hit them. He could not be that accurate with his weapon, right? Or maybe his inscribed spells all had to do with sensory enhancement?
Either way, they should know better than to enter the Chaos Fount by themselves. They had managed to stem the flow of Blue Slimes though.
Just as Alejandro and the others were about to commend them, he overheard their conversation. It was a mix of a strange language and snippets of Wojan.
"...not ending…annoying."
"...saw enter. Stop attacks."
"...go."
Before he could yell for them to stop, the two Magi swept aside the Blue Slimes coming out and then stepped into the portal.
"Fools," Lady Mondero muttered. "They toy with their lives and risk the town, too."
"We have to hurry and enter," Alejandro yelled, "before they trigger something else or are overwhelmed."
"I agree. Stone, Earth, come on!" Lady Mondero ran for the portal even as she blasted beams, nearly identical to the Radiant Goddess' spell, from her fingers. Alejandro rushed behind them. With two defence specialists, one would have thought the guildmaster was redundant, but one could never have too much defence.
They stepped through the portal a few moments later, and Alejandro swore as he felt the twisted spatial forces twist his guts. They emerged into the starting chamber, the only one that was close to dry, a timeless moment later.