The city shook from side to side. The fruits from the boxes flew over the ground as the flotation device gave its last breath, a deafening hum and silence. The ground sloped and everyone - and everything- fell into one side.
"What's going on!?" Peter shouted while holding onto the side of a building.
Ariel hammered himself to the ground using his halberd.
"You said that flotation device was a thousand years old right?"
"Yeah..." He gulped. "Oh."
"Amy check the device, Peter and I will try to cushion the fall."
Without turning back Ariel lifted his halberd, letting the slope take him and slid across the surface.
"Wait for me! Ugh."
The stores rushed past him. He dodged a flying cabbage with a jerk of his head and jumped over the jewelry on his way. The outside ladders slowly became clearer as he slid on the marble road.
The crimson leaves of the forest appeared in front of him. Too fast.
With a jerk of his hand, he anchored himself to the ground at the city's edge. Strong, heated wind slapped him in the face.
"Peter!" He looked around.
"I'm here." Peter gripped onto a beam nearby.
"What's the plan?"
"Erecting a wall." Ariel ran his emerald colored mana through his halberd.
Peter looked down at the crimson foliage, it reached closer by the second. "Like around the entire city!?"
"I don't see any other choice." Ariel handed his hand to Peter. "Lend me your mana."
Grabbing his hand, Peter ran his amber mana through his arms to Ariel. The earth beneath shifted upwards, grinding against the unmoving part.
The weight of the entire earth was on his hands. His vision tunneled. The crimson leaves came in faster.
Not enough...
He pushed all his mana in, faster. The earth disappeared from the sight. Ariel pulled his halberd out. Then he collapsed to the ground.
The Crimson leaves embraced the city. The city crashed to the ground in a smooth slope. Ariel's walls ground across the surface, then stopped.
*****
Ariel's eyes slowly opened. The leaves swayed before him. His eyes shifted towards the city. His walls, though thinner, were mostly intact. The buildings inside were not visible from there. He tried to get up, rose a bit, then fell back.
I have to rest a bit. He sighed.
He scanned the surroundings, Amy was drawing the sigil she had shown earlier with additions.
"The sigil is nearly done, Ariel." She said, drawing last lines with her jade pen.
It was important, I'll give her that.
Ariel watched her in silence, the jade pen slid across the ground.
"What are those?" Ariel pointed at arrows between two sigils.
"They are consecutive sub-sigils. Used for establishing hierarchy between two."
Amy drew the final line, then she moved towards an unfamiliar sigil. The sigil had a square border and inside the box curved arrows pointed to the center of it. She looked at the book open beside her, showing the same square sigil. She nodded and placed her hand in the middle of it.
"What's that one for?" Ariel asked.
"We don't know how much the sigil costs or how far away the mutants are. This should fix it..."
Amy paused. She ran her orange-azure mana through her arms to the sigil. The sigil shone in white, mana particles rose from the branches of the trees and snapped towards the square sigil. The consecutive sigils lit up in order. When the last sub-sigil lit up, the complex sigil shone with it.
A nearly-transparent dome with a purple tint expanded from the complex sigil, encompassing most of the Crimson Forest. The dome stopped, cracks started to appear from top the bottom like a glass. Then it cracked, falling to the surface in purple particles.
Peter walked in. He raised his head. "Did it fail?"
"No, that's how the book described it. It is finished."
The sigils faded into the air.
Peter turned to Ariel. "You finally woke up!" He smiled. "I checked on the civilians, most of them are fine, some had injuries."
"That's good." Ariel answered.
"What are we going to do now?" Peter asked.
"We have to report to the king about all of this." Ariel sighed.
"But checking on Aethelburg is our priority." He added.
"Can you get up?" Amy asked.
Ariel tried to get up. He managed to get on his two feet.
"Let me help you." Peter walked towards him.
"No need. We have to hurry..."
Wobbling side to side he walked towards to where they escaped the underground from. Amy and Peter followed him. A gray plant with spirals engraved on it erected before them not long after. They descended using the plant.
The underground used to be illuminated from here. Ariel thought.
A metallic scent hit their nose. They descended deeper.
Ariel's boots clacked against the rocky surface of the underworld. The sound echoed throughout the cavern.
They went forward, where the ruined city was supposed to be.
The metallic scent got sharper. The beam of light where they once escaped moved farther and farther away.
He reached for his halberd.
The fire-stones flickered before them.
Statue of the Great Fox welcomed them, painted in red same as the marble pool.
Ariel looked around. Corpses.
Drenched in blood. He gripped tighter on his halberd.
Footsteps came from behind them. He quickly turned around. Half-humans. He recognized those faces. They were engraved in his mind.
Their expressions were mixed.
He tried to speak but no words came from his mouth. He looked to his right, mutated half-humans stood on the other side.
He drew his halberd quickly. But something in their eyes was different.
Their monstrous bodies held onto the half-human corpses.
They made inaudible voices. Ariel didn't glance at the half-humans.
"Let's just... Go" He muttered.