D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad-Chapter 2152 Shocking Developments

--- Kat ---

Furen was pouting at Lily while slumped against Kat’s back. You see, Lily and Kat had first forced Furen to listen to a small lecture on thermodynamics. Furen hadn’t been pleased, and Kat was ready to hold the elf down for it... but her arms had failed to hold her steady and she’d fallen back to the ground when she’d tried to get up. So the lecture continued. When it finished, Furen had tried to stand, again, and failed, again. So Kat had scooped the woman up to giver her a piggyback ride. Even if Furen seemed to think it was somewhat undignified... too bad.

The flames were STILL burning behind them and they didn’t look like they’d be going out soon. There was no reason to wait around either. Even if Furen insisted she was fine it was clear that she wasn’t. Kat had no idea how much damage she’d accumulated but in this case it was better to be safe then sorry. As for the matter of Kat carrying her instead of Lily? It was because the two of them had decided that Lily would be the one to fight the bulk of the golems next time.

With her shadows she should be able to direct the liquid away from anything important a bit better and Kat could simply tank the hits from any shrapnel so there was no risk of Furen getting hit. The fire would still be a worry but there simply wasn’t anything to be done about it at this point.

So the group continued. Past a few more intersections that led elsewhere, and were promptly ignored until they got to a turnoff that seemed more important then the rest. The plaque remained, some of it anyway, and the surrounding walls seemed to have a bunch of pipe-like patterns, and actual pipes heading down that way. "Hmmm... worth investigating perhaps? Do you think this is just the water creation area or something else?" 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

"I could see the core being situated inside," admitted Furen. "Generating large amounts of permanent water does take a lot of energy... though in our case they probably just use an enchantment to take the ice in from the outside and melt it. If that’s the case the core might not NEED to be there... but its still worth checking out on the odd chance that it is there."

Kat nodded and started to head down that pathway... only to be stopped by golems. AGAIN. Kat nearly sent out her demonic fire on reflex, but as they descended from the ceiling, Kat could see that these ones were different. Where the previous spider were made of some sort of golden or brass coloured metal, these ones were more of an aquamarine and Kat was assuming that wasn’t a thing purely for looks.

A few moments of hesitation followed, but Lily signalled that she’d still like to fight them so Kat took a few more steps back as Lily’s shadow spread out across the ground. As the golems charged forward, Lily sent spikes of shadow through their cores, hoping to disable them without immediately setting things on fire. Kat wasn’t sure of the ’how’ but probably something to do with the lack of friction on Lily’s shadows when she didn’t want it.

Of course, things couldn’t be that simple. The colouring was a good clue and the fact that this was the water processing area clearly meant something other than fire was needed. In this case, it was lighting. The casing exploded not in a bundle of fire but in a mixture of goop, superheated plasma, and magical lightning. Which did have some distinct differences. The goop helped keep the plasma active and contained... but it was blisteringly hot at close range, destroying Lily’s shadows in less then a second where they came into contact.

The magical lightning was almost, roaming, around the area. Arcs of it spread in every direction searching for things to zap. Which really wasn’t how that was supposed to work. Lily was lucky to be out of range by a good few steps, but the rest of the golems weren’t. Kat expected another chain reaction where they all started to explode... but not this time. Instead, the golems that were still intact started to glow and twitch, just a bit, before they hit the ground.

Once there, they rocketed forward leaving behind afterimages made of lightning bearing the general appearance of the golems in question. Lily yelped, and was forced to throw herself back while sending a wave of shadows along the ground. It wasn’t meant to deal damage, just slow them down. They’d launched themselves along the ground so quickly that Lily worried she’d be zapped if any of them exploded so close to her. Kat was similarly backing up though she was also looking around for something to throw and help Lily defend a bit.

One bright side was that these golems weren’t quite so numerous. There was only twelve total. Originally there had been fourteen but Lily had taken out two while they’d been falling. Realising she’d need to do a lot of damage, and fast Lily swapped minds to paper. Multiple sigils sprung to life and a HORDE of paper shot forth.

The thin slices slammed into the golems, burning up on contact but doing damage before they disintegrated entirely. Some golems lost their front legs, two exploded, and most were slowed down majorly. It was a huge mana sink but it was working. Lily kept pumping mana into the spells to keep the torrent of paper up and used the fact it was slowing the golems down to work on killing the rest.

Her plan didn’t quit work out... the idea was to kill them one or two at a time while eventually reducing the number of spells she had going. Lily simply couldn’t concentrate on so many things all at once. Killing all of the remaining ones was too much... but it might have been the best plan. Lily managed to explode three of them with her shadows, and a further two more were taken out by the damage to their legs before things went to hell.

The lighting explosions from the destroyed golems exploded all across the area, burning not just through the paper storms but also the sigils generating them. Lily felt the backlash immediately as her mana control was interrupted and started to go crazy in her body. Lily felt the need to cough up blood or shake herself to try and clear the problem. Even her shadows were forced back.

Worse, the golems apparently hadn’t hit their speed limit before. The remaining seven shot forward even faster, leaving trails behind them that now exploded a few moments later. They all tried to swarm Lily and she was forced to dodge. Lily had to use everything she had, her wings to duck down and around the occasional golem, while they surrounded her and tried to take her out. She was lucky to be Rank 3. Even if her body couldn’t match their speed, her mind and eyes COULD. Better, they were awfully telegraphed as to where they were going. Lily was often dodging before they’d even started moving.

The golems weren’t smooth anymore, they’d basically teleport in a straight line from one area to another, then turn slowly and launch themselves off once again, leaving behind lightning as they went. For Lily, that was plenty of time to dodge... one or two of the. The issue was that seven of them remained and she didn’t dare strike out at them. Even when her instincts told her to claw at the things as they past her by. That would just mean they’d explode, potentially covering her in plasma.

Kat watched from the hallway warily. Lily was still projecting confidence, even though Kat could see several close calls where one of the golem’s limbs barely missed Lily’s ears and tail. She wanted to help... but Furen needed protecting and Lily was insisting she could handle it. Kat just wasn’t sure how. She also didn’t want to dig into Lily’s mind to check right now in case that proved distracting.

Lily’s plan went into action a few moments later, and Kat found out what had made her girlfriend so confident. One of the golems had paused below Lily, legs stretched out to try and impale her as she fell back down to the ground after dodging its charge in. This however, had been what she was waiting for, as Lily acted immediately. Her shadows had returned to her control at some point and Lily slapped the golem below her... oddly softly but with some force.

This sent the golem in question flying towards to others, catching on them both and sending them pinwheeling. They apparently hadn’t quite taken enough damage to explode, perhaps because they needed to be sturdier to channel the lightning, or perhaps simply Lily’s skill. They DID explode when they hit the ground... but it was already too late.

With three down already, Lily had plenty of mental bandwidth to skewer the remaining four and launch herself towards the ceiling and away from the exploding mess. All golems down.