*GASP*
I took a deep breath. It pained my lungs to do it, but I felt like I would die, if I didn't. So, I had to do it.
I opened my eyes, but my body wasn't moving. I had several fractures. My joints were weak. I felt like I was thrown into a pit of gorillas and they used me as a punching bag. I wanted to check my own body for a moment.
However, my mind was shaken.
My senses were not working. My soul power wasn't reacting to my calls. I couldn't think straight at all. However, there was one thing that I knew happened to my body. My lungs seemed to have been penetrated.
I felt like I was drowning. At least a little bit.
There was no water around. It could only be the blood seeping into my lungs.
"A…are you okay?"
I heard a weak voice. A very familiar voice. It was Dhana. She was lying beside me. She looked in a worst state than I was.
Messy was a understatement to describe her hair. Her face was swollen, I could see her shoulder joint being dislocated. She was bleeding from many place. She was worse of than me.
And to my right, I saw Dharma trying to get up.
Only Arun was able to survive without too many injuries. He stood up hurriedly and looked into the horizon.
Dhana, Dharma and I helped each other and stood up to take a look.
I didn't even get a chance to thank Dhana for saving me before we sensed an eerie energy. I don't even know how to describe that feeling. The closest thing that I can come up with is that I felt like Death was staring at me.
"What happened?" Dhana asked Arun who stood on some debris to look into the horizon. He had a deep frown and his hands were shaking as he looked towards the Sea.
"The City walls has collapsed. The camp was attacked. It seems like this tent was the target."
I closed eyes and tried to feel the connection with all the small creatures that I spread across the camp. I couldn't feel most of them. Only the ones that were part of the civilian barracks were left and the ones that were off to Kurma dynasty were alive.
The rest were dead.
That meant, the whole was swept in whatever that explosion was.
After getting out of that debris, we finally got a decent view. The whole place looked like it was subjected a series of earthquakes. Not a single tent or building was left. The wall protecting the city was also destroyed.
From within the debris, I saw a few people climbing out with difficulty. They were all injured severely.
Many people died of course, but the injured were a lot more.
However, I still didn't know who attacked us. But I do know that, whoever it was, they were at least an eighth circled powerhouse. Otherwise, Dhana wouldn't have that much trouble defending against the attack.
As I was thinking of this, I noticed something.
The water level in the horizon has started raising. From my location it didn't look that significant, however, I knew something really fucked up was happening there.
Arun who was the only person without any serious injuries also seemed to have noticed this. He looked at us and spoke.
"Go to the Civilian area. Check the array. Send a message to the Capital. Tell the General, that whatever threat he spoke of, has come and he needs to be here."
"What is happening?" Dhana asked.
"The fuck do I know?"
Arun yelled and ran out. The three of us exchanged a look and started moving towards the civilian block.
We weren't exactly fast. Dharma was the least injured out of all three.
"Why the hell did you do that? You could have been safe." I asked Dhana. She didn't answer and just stayed put.
At the last moment, before the attack landed, Dhana jumped on to me and used her defensive measures to protect me. I was the weakest in the tent and I would have died if she hadn't come and saved me.
The consequence?
Her shield wasn't enough to defend us both and she got severely injured.
We didn't speak about it anymore. I did have an inkling about why she did that, and it is not what you are thinking right now.
The civilians were shook by the time we arrived there. And the first one that greeted me was the chubby figure that I was awfully familiar with. I was surprised actually.
I thought Bubble was within the camp area. Even though he wasn't allowed into the Deputy General's tent, I thought he would be close by or at my tent, but he was alive and is in the Civilian area.
I felt a bit relieved because of it of course.
"You survived."
Bubble scratched his head with a wry smile. One look and we could see that he was exhausted.
"Take both of them somewhere to rest. I will go and make the call."
Dharma who was the least injured among us three went to make the call. While Bubble helped me and Dhana to the nearest house. It happened to be the same woman that I interviewed before. She arranged two cots for us to lay down and relax.
We took our potions and healed a bit. Of course, the impact from the attack was way too high for us to heal completely. But at least, we weren't on the verge of collapsing.
"What do you think the attack was?"
I asked Dhana.
She thought for a moment and shook her head.
"I couldn't put my finger on it. The attack was way too strong and it came out of nowhere. I am sure you guessed what kind of strength was behind it. Only that sense of crisis made me be on guard. I didn't get any hint of the mana of the attack itself."
"But what about after impact? What element was it? Fire, water, anything?"
Dhana once again went into a deep thought. I wanted to know as much information as possible. Just to figure out the situation.
After some time Dhana spoke.
"I did feel some kind of heat sensation on my body. But I don't believe that it was actually fire. It was weird. Like how you feel your body's internal heat when you are on a fever? It was something like that.
And the energy up on impact was very turbulent. It was almost like instead of the nature of the mana the heat was created by the movement of the mana."
I nodded.
There was a possibility that it was a pure mana attack. Something like a mana bullet. The only problem is that mana bullet is a completely neutral elemental attack and was one of the first spells any mage ever learns.
Its composition was so easy that it was used as a training spell to let the kids used to controlling the mana like a mage.
It was easy to the point that some knights who don't actually have any talent to become a mage could get a hang of using mana bullet. Of course, for that they need to have immense control over their mana, a shit ton of affinity to the mana and finally they need to practice for years.
Anyway, the point is that the neutral attacks were not developed far past the mana bullet.
Sooner or later people lean towards their affinity and only learn affinity-oriented spells and even if someone doesn't have any affinity… like me, they will pick a stream like spirit summoning or beast taming, or even inscriptions and arrays.
So, for someone to launch an attack of that scale that destroyed the camp and almost the entire army, then that person is a threat that even Arun wouldn't be able to handle.
In my opinion the only reason we survived was because it was an area of effect skill. It wasn't a concentrated attack.
Otherwise, I am sure all of us would have died right then and there.
Dharma came running to us after a short while.
"I made the call. General was using a portable communication device and I was connected from the HQ. He is coming back. But…"
Dharma paused. Pursing his lips. Maybe because he was doubtful about what he heard.
"I heard some sounds of explosions from the other side and I believe I heard the word, Devil's lair."
"What?" I almost thought I didn't hear him correctly.
"Devil's Lair. I think I heard it. Also, there is something else. The General said something about, him covering the rear and told me to send a message to Arun."
"Covering the rear? What is the message?"
"Message is for Arun to not engage in the direct battle and asked him to draw some time."
I went silent. Devil's lair. Covering the rear.
Was general at the devil's lair? Then does that mean the Devil's lair is beyond the demons?
Several thoughts invaded my head.
I need some answers. So, when Dharma went to send a message to Arun, I walked out of the house and gathered all my energy to levitate and land on the roof of the tallest building that I could find.
I tried to call for any birds, but there were none. As for the spirits… I didn't recover enough to cast a spirit-summoning spell, so I had to do it in an unconventional way.