Chapter 2 - Fiery Girl and Ancient Rings

Inside of every Portal was different. Some are completely simple, with a platform that leads from an opening Portal to an exit Portal, and some are complicated, taking a form of a labyrinth or some more complex construction.

This was far from the first portal I saw or tried to close, but I already felt something was different. Contrary to public's belief, Portals were not always filled with monsters. More often than not, Portals were just spatial turbulence that comes and goes.

But sometimes, extremely strong space Grandmaster can open a Portals. And they open it for a reason.

We were in some sort of a cave, where the only source of lights was big pile of burning wood in the middle of it.

The cave was three hundred meters long and hundred meters wide, give or take. The only two exits from this cave were two portals. One would teleport us to London, and the other would teleport us to God-knows-where.

"Where are the undead?" Asked Lily, dread creeping up in her voice as she looked back and forth without noticing them. I even looked up on the ceiling of the cave, but nothing. No undead.

Coincidentally, bracelet on my arm was burning more than ever before. Even when I was a meter away from an undead, it was mildly hot. Now it was burning, but no undead in the sight.

Lily's bracelet was the same if expression on her face was anything to go by.

After silence met her first question, she proposed. "Should we try to enter the other Portal?" All the usual arrogance and haughtiness leaving both her face, and her words.

In the hindsight, it was a legit question, but a dumb one. And I never missed out a chance to call out someone on being dumb.

"Are you an idiot? The portals are only for long distances. If we are lucky, we would end up in Eastern Europe. Try explaining that to your parents."

"Then what the fuck do you suppo-" She started speaking loudly, but a loud thumping stopped her.

We looked around once again and found nothing, but the source of the sound showed itself. It was coming from the Portal.

It was one mummy that left the Portal at first. Then ten mummies. Hundred mummies. At the end, there was probably around five hundred mummies.

A small army of mummies would be threatening enough on its own, but the last three mummies that left were monstrous.

Usually, mummies were about 1.7m tall, but the three mummies were at least 4m tall each with menacing looking rings on their fingers.

When the last mummy left, the Portal where they came from closed and now only the Portal that led to London was open.

'Nice, we can't throw them back now. This day just keeps getting better.' I thought, but my mind worked fast looking for solution.

I looked at Lily and she nodded. She was ready for the battle. I nodded back at her and started preparing few basic offensive spells, but then I noticed something weird.

'Why are they not attacking us? They are just standing in a one place.'

But before I could get an answer, Lily attacked. She threw a couple thunderbolts that pushed few mummies back.

That seemed to activate mummies somehow and they started rushing at us.

'Fuck, I do not have any low mana-cost spells that are good against many opponents.' Most of my mana was sealed because of… my special circumstances. The seal was only opened when I was supposed to go on official mission.

Since Lily wasn't going big-scale yet, I assumed that she also had a seal on herself.

'Should I use Hunter's Field yet?' But I quickly shook my head. 'I won't last two minutes if I use it right now.'

I also started throwing few Ice Spikes, but all it did was slow down a few mummies. Not so effective against an army.

As mummies marched towards the center, they seemed to avoid burning pile of woods at the center like a plague. Lily also noticed that and just gave me quick look of confirmation.

'She is getting serious.' I thought as her eyes dilute and she became completely still.

After a second of getting used to her spell, she started running towards an army of mummies with a speed that shouldn't belong to an Awakened.

"Ice Hands." I muttered the name of the spell as the Symbols began forming in my mind. In a few seconds, the Symbols for manifestation, shaping, rotation, and extension quickly formed and repeated themselves.

Ice Hands was a middle-tier spell that needed a fifteen Symbols to activate. It was the most complicated spell I knew after Hunter's Field.

When all the Symbols formed, spell activated and a pair of hands made from ice floated around me. I quickly sent them towards pile of burning wood.

Lily dodged all the mummies and grabbed a burning branch. "Ouch." I reacted unconsciously.

She started bashing the mummies with the burning branch and they didn't even last a single a single hit before incinerating to nothingness.

The fire was more effective on the mummies compared to the other undead since they were made from a flammable material.

My Ice Hands grabbed a branch each and started throwing it at the army.

This strategy seemed effective and after around fifteen minutes, we dropped their number approximately by half, but something changed. The big mummies that didn't move since they exited the Portal started to move.

They raised their hand and their rings shined brightly. The next thing I knew, a giant ball made from stone was furling towards me and Lily. I dodged it easy, but Lily that was focused on fighting the undead couldn't see it.

Seeing that she was about to get hit, I redirected my Ice Hands from attacking to blocking the ball of earth.

Fortunately, my half molten hands of ice arrive in time and defended Lily.

The big mummies didn't stop there though, they just restarted barraging us more. Three of the balls made from stone went into my direction and three into Lily's.

Lily thankfully noticed the real threat and started evading the incoming attacks while destroying the mummies. Deciding that it was time to go on the frontlines and help Lily, I started running towards them.

"Ice Armor, Water Saber." Ice covered my whole body and a pole made out of ice was in my hand.

Ice Armor was one of the most useful ice spells I knew. It protected me from basically anything and didn't impair my movements. Nearly every self-respecting ice magician knew it.

Water Saber, on the other hand, was one of the most powerful spells I knew and my personal masterpiece. When I made it, I thought about increasing my attacking power. Of course, I first wanted to make something out of ice since it was the best candidate for offense of all the states of water, but I was wrong. With high enough pressure, water can cut through anything. Naturally, I wasn't at that level yet, but I could comfortably cut through steel with it without breaking a sweat. And the best thing about it was only low-level spell that only took a six Symbols to cast it.

I am even prouder of it than I am of Hunter's Field.

When I got close to the army, I started cutting them. They couldn't even get close before my water pole cut through them like they were paper.

Of course, the big mummies never stopped attacking. Every few seconds, we both needed to either dodge their stone balls or, in my case, cut through them.

'Wait a minute. Since when did we kill so many of them?'

There was maybe a few tens of them left at best, but we physically weren't able to kill more than four hundred mummies in such short time, especially with all the dodging we needed to do.

As new set of stone balls were hurling towards me, I caught a mummy disintegrating.

'Oh, so it is like that!' I quickly understood what was happening and shouted out to Lily. "The big ones are sacrificing a mummy for each spell!"

She did not glance at me or react in any way, but she stopped attacking the mummies. She completely focused on dodging the projectiles.

Undead were usually of very low intelligence, they were probably acting on very simple orders, that's why they weren't such a good fighters. If the big mummies attacked us together on the start, this would have been much harder, so I was thankful that they were just chilling while we were killing their minions.

And the tactic we have chosen was right. The big mummies attacked us, but the smaller ones were depreciating in numbers. Finally, after a final stone ball missed, last small mummy disintegrated.

"Finally, for fucks sake!" I swore out loudly. Even though I was an Awakened in great physical shape, all that cat-and-mouse spiel tired me.

Lily just snorted, pointed at the three big mummies, and said. "Calm you horses, it is not over yet."

We walked towards the mummies carefully and slowly. Earth magicians can be very crafty with the traps.

Seeing that there were no traps, we got around ten meters close to them.

"Last three mummies are not actually undead, they are golems. Whoever made them is very bad craftsman. They are not moving even though we annihilated their whole group." Lily said, air of an expert practically oozing of her.

"You know, for someone who knows so much about golems, you are pretty shitty at mind magic." I mocked her.

"Heh, says the guy that needs eleven minutes to transport a single thought." She quipped back instantly, her usual arrogance coming back to her now that situation calmed down.

"At least I do not pretend that I am an expert." Of course I got to have the last word.

She looked menacingly at me, but without any comeback she just said. "Less talking, more thinking. What should we do? Do we attack or do we wait for reinforcement."

"Don't you think that reinforcement should have already arrived? Either they are uncommonly super late, or something is blocking them." I proposed my theory to her.

She whistled at that. "Wow, conditional entrance. Whoever made this may be a shitty craftsman, but definitely a incredible space Magician."

There was a few seconds of silence before Lily spoke again. "So fight it is."

I just sighed, cast Ice Hands and ordered them to bring us some of the burning branches.

"Step back. We are too close and we do not now how strong they are." She and I both did so. Now around twenty meters between us and golems, I threw a flaming branch at them.

All it did was hit a golem and bounce off of it.

'Of course fire is not going to work. Why should anything go right for me?' I didn't have time for pessimism as the golems started charging at us.

'Why are they so slow?' I was confused as I manifested Water Saber and Ice Armor. They were definitely not a threat to any of us.

Lily blasted two of them away with high-voltage lightning and she didn't stop. Seeing that I got only one to deal with, I too charged at it. It tried to punch me, but I just dodged sideways and cut its arm off easily.

As I was ready to finish it off, two small projectiles of stone were launched directly at my head. I tried to dodge them both, but was unsuccessful as one the projectiles grazed my ear, nearly taking it off.

'How the fuck is it casting magic without mummies?' I immediately questioned, but answer was clear enough when I saw that the arm I cut off was no longer there.

'Of course, it can cast spells out of itself. Why didn't I think of that.' I mused sarcastically, but the golem didn't wait for me to get my guard up again. Only low distance between us now, it hit me. My Ice Armor cracked, but nothing happened to me.

Using the chance when the golem was without momentum, I cut of its second hand and immediately jumped to reach its head and cut it off too. I then cut off not of its legs and I gutted its stomach.

It was quite strong golem, but too slow to react to my or Lily's attacks. Had it been faster and more responsive, it could have been potential threat. But now it is nothing.

I quickly looked at Lily's situation. She was using blades of solidified, element-less mana, but it was enough to cut the golems. She was much faster then them. Heck, she was much faster than I was.

'I need to inquire about her spell with Nero later. She would be dangerous enemy.'

It took a minute more, but she finished them off easily, not making the same mistake I did.

"You are too slow." I said as I went to inspect parts of the two now not-functional golems.

She seemingly got enough on my shit for today and condescendingly said. "Says the one that got wounded by a golem of this caliber. I thought that you were supposed to be the Blood Awakened."

Hearing the first part, I immediately wanted to counter, but hearing second part, I got quiet.

I shook my head and struck low. "At least I didn't Awaken by trying to kill myself."

"How did y-" Her face went through a bunch emotions and she could hardly form a sentence. "Where did y-"

But she quickly formed her thoughts, snorted, and said. "Really, you can't do better than that?"

At that exact moment, I sensed something flying towards us with extreme speed. I immediately took a battle stance and summoned Ice Armor.

But what was flying towards us wasn't attack from an enemy, it was those menacing looking rings that the golems wore.

It flew towards me with the speed that made it impossible to dodge or raise any shields besides Ice Armor, so I just prepared for the impact. But the impact never came.

Instead, I found one of the ring trying sliding on my finger. Naturally, I immediately tried to take it off, but I couldn't. It was stuck.

I looked at Lily, and her situation was the same.

"Nice, these rings could have those sorts of necrosis spells that will slowly kill us." I said half-jokingly.

She got a little pale at that, but said nothing.

I narrowed my eyes at her and said. "I am just joking, you little snowflake."

How can she get scared at the thought of death and be a part of this job was unthinkable to me, but it was really none of my business.

I took the third ring that was lying on the ground and said. "I reckon that it is time to leave now, isn't it?" She had a furious look over her face, probably caused by my statement, but she had enough grace to just nod in confirmation.

We reached the Portal on the other end of the cave in a around minute and exited.

I faced off a whole army, golems, and got a new menacingly looking ring.

'I hate this job.'