Once we made it to the lower level, I could finally properly sense the place where the dark magic was being used. It was behind a couple of large double doors made out of the same metal that every other door we passed before.
Between that door and us there was hardly anything, only a completely open space with the incomplete symbol of the Holy Gods plastered on the ground, while at the sides of the hall, there were a handful of extra hallways; two on the left, two on the right, two at the end of the wall that was next to the large double doors, and a couple more hallways to our sides that led back and into another lower level.
Again, there was no point in investigating those places as the person we were looking for was beyond the door in front of us, so I stretched my finger while pointing to it. "I can clearly sense the magic now. She's likely beyond that door."
"Let's hurry then," Bo'guth said and rushed over to the door. Igladith and myself moving right behind him.
The two of them didn't immediately break into the door as they took cover to the sides while looking at me. It seemed like they were waiting for me to open the door. I stood right by it, but didn't immediately open it as I just placed a hand on it.
I wanted to sense other forms of magic, and there was indeed more, but it was coming from much further ahead, close to the dark magic. This meant that the next area behind this door was either large, or another hallway.
Without hesitating for much longer, I pulled the doors open and quickly got into a fighting stance with the sword over my shoulder. However, there was nobody inside.
This zone wasn't quite as large as the hall we were before. It had about the same height, with a few catwalks on a higher level that led to yet another door. As for this place, it was full of armors, weapons, and magical artifacts that were being displayed behind glass containers. There were also a few doors at the sides of this hall.
"She's up there," I said, pointing at the door at the higher level.
Suddenly, the doors at the side of the hall opened and people in white 'sci-fi' armors—similar to the ones that David showed me before—rushed into the hall. We readied our weapons to fight, but these people simply stood their ground, as a man wearing an armor with golden patterns walked in from our right.
"I knew something was up when the cameras were turning black," he said, confidently striding to the center of the hall to look at me. "You do know you're intruding on private property, right?" He turned his head slightly to look behind me at both Bo'guth and Igladith. "We would be excused for disposing of you, now even more since you've brought monsters into our home."
"I'm here to take their daughter back," I replied with a glare.
"Daughter?" the man asked with a tilted head.
"Yes, she's currently using dark magic to protect herself," I said and pointed to the upper door. "I can feel it up there."
The man half-turned his face to look up before scoffing and shaking his head. "Demons and monsters don't have children, just abominations that must be expunged, and that thing up there is just one of the many abominations we're getting rid of as a gift for the Holy Gods."
"How dare you!?" Igladith shouted, fiercely glaring at the man. "I'll take her back and make you—"
A loud sound was heard and a bright golden line was fired from a loud weapon on another person standing close to the man with the golden patterns. The shot went by Igladith's face, but she wasn't hurt, nor moved from her spot, her glare just the same as before.
"I shall not hear the words from demons," the man said, his face turned our way. I couldn't really see his expression behind the helmet, but I could feel the bloodlust from him as he turned to look at me. "It is a shame that we should dispose of such a beautiful woman—you would've made a great model for our cause—but I see you're tainted by darkness." He looked at the people surrounding us. "Kill them all."
These people rushed us from all sides. Some of them firing those loud weapons, others shooting arrows from complex bows, but most of them coming with swords, shields, spears, and the kinds of weapons I was used to seeing.
Igladith and I quickly moved to dodge the incoming volley, while Bo'guth raised a large shield and blocked everything he could, but I could see that it was putting a strain on him as he was pushed back a few steps with every arrow tip he blocked.
With so many people surrounding us, I had to act fast and deal with as many as I could if I wished to save the little girl. For some reason, thankfully, it appeared that some of the men were hesitating to approach. I took that opportunity and slashed with a horizontal swing of the large sword.
A few of them managed to block, but even if they did, they were all pushed back, with one of them even losing his weapon. I took that opening, following up their mistake with a lightning bolt fired from my left hand.
Their bodies shook momentarily before falling down on the ground. I couldn't tell if they were still alive, but at least they weren't moving anymore, so I dashed over to other soldiers.
"Hero!" Bo'guth shouted and I half-turned to look at him as he hammered one of those soldiers aside. "We'll handle this here! Go find our daughter!"
Without acknowledging his command, I turned to look over at the place I was supposed to go. However, as I was reading myself to jump up there, the man with the golden patterns chuckled, pulling a small round bit from his belt and throwing it between me and the couple of demons.
"Oh no…" Igladith said with worry.
Right after that, a cloud of smoke appeared from the artifact, and I saw both Igladith and Bo'guth turn sluggish in their movements. I couldn't quite understand why they would react that way to that cloud until I focused on it. It had traces of Holy Power in them, and as demons, that power was likely draining their own magic.
But like most artifacts I've seen in this world, that Holy Power was nothing more than an imitation of the real power—and it wouldn't stand a chance when faced with real power.
I lifted my hand in the direction of the smoke, and reached for the Darkness and Hellfire Power within me. A pulse of dark power fired from my hand and the smoke quickly cleared; the Holy Power in the air consumed by the darkness in my command.
"Huh?" Igladith and Bo'guth exclaimed simultaneously before quickly moving to attack the people that were approaching them.
"Good. We'll go all out. You make sure our daughter is safe," Igladith said and I felt the power within her stir.
She quickly transformed. Her dress moved to her back to give her dragon wings, leaving her body in full display. I would've considered her nothing more than a monstrosity before, as her body looked as if someone had skinned her, leaving only muscles that were covered by black scales that made it look like armor.
She had a pair of strong long legs, a very thin frame with large breasts, and her arms were thin and long, giving them the appearance of someone that hardly ever used them—which was in contradiction to the powerful swings that she did with her claw-like hands.
She was now floating in the air, swiftly moving between the people who could hardly do anything to the powerful dark waves that came after each swing of her hands, or each swing and slam of her tail.
"That won't be enough," the man with the golden patterns confidently said before throwing another one of those Holy smoke artifacts.
But this time, before I tried to destroy the Holy Power from the smoke, it was Igladith who tried to do it with her own dark magic. One pulse, and the Holy Power was only partly dissipated, so she was forced to do it a couple more times before it was mostly gone. I realized then that their dark power was similar to the Holy Power being used here, in that it wasn't quite as pure as the real thing, which would explain why they were having difficulty dealing with it.
"Hurry!" Igladith shouted and I wasted no more time.
With a powerful jump, I made my way over to the catwalks on the second floor, right to the front of the door. I reached to open it, but as I was about to pull on the doors, a loud noise came from behind it. The metal door was deformed and forced open, nearly blasting me away with it.
The defenses on the armor activated and I was able to withstand the attack, which allowed me to see what had happened. A woman with the same white armor and golden patterns as the one below was standing with a large loud weapon in her hand inside this dark room.
"You're stronger than I thought," she said and pulled a bit on the lower part of the weapon, which released a small cylinder that fell on the floor. "Let's see if you can take it again."
I moved as fast as I could, hoping to stop her from using that weapon again. She gasped, and leaped back into the room, so I missed slashing her by a small margin.
Once she landed, she once more fired her weapon. I used a Mana Barrier of my own to block her attack, but as soon as whatever she fired hit the Barrier, it completely cracked in several places, causing me to recoil from the sudden usage of mana. I wouldn't be able to take another one of those shots.
"Watch out!" someone in the room shouted, their voice sounding somewhat ethereal, as if it wasn't a person speaking.
I didn't have the time to look around for whoever had spoken, however, as right after, the woman managed to reload her weapon and fire once more.
I was forced to use the large sword as a shield this time. I generally refused to use weapons to block, since something like that could cause the weapon to break in half, but this large dark sword was able to withstand the attack, pushing me back only a couple of steps.
Allowing this woman to fire that dangerous weapon again could prove to be fatal—even if this armor was of top quality—so I dashed as fast as I could, empowering my body with mana to ensure I would reach her before she could reload, and slammed my weapon down on her.
"Ah!" she exclaimed, blocking the attack with her own weapon and falling on her back on the floor, a couple of steps away from me.
But she wouldn't give up. She went to reload her weapon, so I moved just as fast as I did before and pierced the woman on the chest with the large black sword.
She gurgled in pain as blood poured out of her mouth and the large wound on her chest created by the sword. With weak movements, she tried to grab the sword, or remove it, but after a couple of attempts, her hands fell to the side and she stopped moving.
I couldn't afford to feel bad about what I'd done. Not only because this was a combat zone, but because I'd done it many times before—even to the people of the empire. So I stepped over her and pulled out the weapon before slashing it to the side to clean away the blood.
The room remained dark, so I prepared to use a light orb to properly get my bearings, but before I did, bright lights turned on and I was faced with another group of people.
"It is a shame that her light wasn't able to withstand the darkness," a middle aged man with white robes said from behind a large wooden desk at the back of the room.
Standing next to him were also a couple of other people wearing white armors with gold patterns. One of them was carrying a large sword, almost as large as the one I had, while the other one had a large hammer.
To the side of the room, on my right, I noticed another being chained to the floor by the wrists and legs and forced to be in a kneeling position. It was a skeleton, but it was a living one, as the eye sockets on the skulls carried a bright white light that followed me as if eyes were looking at me.
This skeleton didn't appear to be in good shape, as it was without any clothes, a body of broken bones, chipped bits, and even burned parts.
Somewhere close to it, I finally saw what I came here to get: a large ball of glossy dark magic. Mirlaneth.
The man with the white robes seemed to have noticed my intentions as well as he turned to look at it, before standing from the chair. The man was tall, with pale white skin, long dark-brown hair that reached a little below his shoulders and a well trimmed beard. His light blue eyes turned from the Dark Barrier to me.
"I see that you're here for this," he said, gesturing to Mirlaneth. "I must admit, it has been somewhat of a bother to break this barrier, and that stupid pile of bones was of no use." He looked at me with a serious expression. "Tell me. For what reason have you given yourself over to darkness? Is it simply that these are your friends? Or is there something perverse within your soul?"
I considered what to say to the man for a moment, a moment in which I could still hear the fighting from below as Bo'guth and Igladith were waiting for me to come back. However, before I could answer the man, the skeleton on the ground suddenly jolted and we turned to look at him.
"T-that's—That's no friend of ours!" he exclaimed with his ethereal voice, nearly wanting to run away, but being kept in place by the chains around him.
"Hm? Finally willing to speak?" the man with the white robes asked as he looked down at the skeleton. "Please, do tell us what she is to you."
"S-she's—" he paused for a moment, seemingly out of words as his white eyes glowed with a wavery light in my direction. "She's—The Hero of the Holy Gods!"