Frostbound [LitRPG Apocalypse]-Chapter 177 - Demons

Chris

"Demons? Really?" I asked before I fully comprehended what was said. It was just so outlandish. Sure, we knew of them now that the world had changed but it was still odd to think of them as real.

When one shouted Demons, it was hard not to think of all the depictions from fantasy shows and whatnot. Even though they were very real now and were possibly a threat, my kneejerk reaction was to think it unbelievable.

"Yes, Demons." Carson confirmed like he expected my skepticism, "After we found proof and the remains of a Demon Summoning Ritual, our City Leader sent us out to call for help. That is the reason we are here."

After he gave a touch more information, and my mind kicked into action that this wasn't a joke, I pulled up everything I knew about Demons.

Not something I thought I would ever say.

Demons were a Race among the multiverse similar in some ways to how they were depicted in our mythologies. They were cruel, cunning, deceptive, and most of all, corruptive.

They infected worlds, draining them of their essence and twisting them into hellish wastelands that only benefitted Demons.

Like our stories, they were waging a never-ending war against another Race, the Angels, but that was irrelevant to what they were doing here and not worth getting into. Plus, the Angels weren't as radiant and angelic as their name would believe. There was just as much dirt on their Race as their was on Demons. Except their vice wasn't taking over planets as much as waging holy wars.

Demons, though, were a nuisance anywhere. Just the mana they gave off was enough to infect other creatures, turning them Demonic, which was how the Demonic Leopards from the tutorial were made. The only reason a Demon would be on Earth was for only two reasons. Because the terraforming made them and they now populated the planet, or someone was stupid enough to summon one.

Based on the fact that Carson just said they found evidence of a Summoning Ritual, I guessed it was the latter.

Summoning Rituals sounded exactly like what they were. Using a type of Formation along with rare materials and reagents, sometimes even a sacrifice, you could call out to a being you wished to summon and pull it through space to your location.

It wasn't strictly in the domain of Demons, but they were by far the most popular thing that was summoned in such a way. Most other Races would ignore any attempts at being summoned and some would even take it as an insult.

Elemental Spirits were another commonly summoned Race, but they weren't as typical as Demons.

The reason, not that it was hard to figure out, was for power. Lust for power was by far the biggest motivation to summon one of their ilk.

Making a deal with a Demon was far more real than when that saying originated.

Note that I hadn't mentioned Devils, as those were different Races. While similar, they had one distinct difference. Devil's didn't lie. Didn't or couldn't, I wasn't sure, but in the various books Abigail purchased about the other Races in the multiverse it stated Devil's didn't lie. Additionally, they had an odd sense of honor to them that made them distinct compared to the scheming Demons. A Devil always keeps his word and all that, I guess.

Other than the base background information that came to mind, the reason the people in front of me were taking their appearance as a grave threat was how Demons propagated.

Once summoned, if not contained, they would begin corrupting anything and everything they could while consuming materials and treasures they found to gain power. Just their presence was enough to cause a disturbance.

Similar to an aura, they exuded demonic mana that seeped into the environment and would inadvertently start the process of turning the area demonic.

Turning the flora and fauna demonic was just the start, it would creep into the water and air which spread the infection to places the Demon hadn't even been, creating a virus that was hard to kill off.

If it was only one Demon doing this, the process would be slow and easy to take care of, the inherent nature of the plants and animals would fight against the corruption, but that was when the threat was smallest. Taking on a solo Demon wasn't that different than taking on a strong monster.

The problems began when one Demon started summoning others.

If left alone or unnoticed, they could summon countless of their kind and become a very real threat. Hence their concern and call for aid.

The three guests let me think about what they said in silence and it wasn't until I fully comprehended what they were saying that I spoke, "How long ago?"

The biggest question now was how long had the Demons run free. Knowing how long would give a better picture of how big of a threat this was.

If, for Heaven's sake, they had been here since our return, they would've had over a year to do whatever they wanted. A Demon left alone for a year could've already turned into an army by now, let alone the size area that would be infected.

Carson's face strained at my question and I knew I wouldn't like the answer even before he said it, "We don't know." He sighed. Yep, I didn't like it. "We didn't venture out much during the Winter, as I'm sure you know, and only found the area after the weather warmed up."

"The place was abandoned and it looked to be months old, but it could be longer." It was the Ranger who spoke up now, Victoria.

Seeing another speak wasn't that surprising, but the way the meeting was going so far made me think the man in the middle would talk the whole time.

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I looked over at the taller warrior on the left but he seemed content to let the others do all the talking.

Before I derailed the conversation further with more questions about the type and level of the Demon summoned, if they even knew, I decided to take a step back and cover the basics first.

"Where did you say you were from and where was the Demon Ritual found?" I asked instead of the many other questions I had. Getting a better picture of exactly where this was taking place would help in how we approached this.

"Oh, sorry about that, I jumped right into it without even telling you where I was from. We come from Fort Hope, in Central Ontario." The leader said apologetically.

Fort Hope was a touch on the nose but I didn't say anything. For all I knew it was the name of the city before the world changed and they just kept it, however unlikely that was.

Instead of focusing on the cheesy name, I pictured where on the map he came from. My Canadian geography wasn't the best but it was getting better now that I was up here.

People joining our City told of where they were from based on the city they used to live in, which wasn't easy to translate onto the map we had without prior knowledge. Provinces were easy enough because we had someone from here draw them out for us and we could reference on the map.

That way, we could section the map up roughly based on where the old borders used to be. Where our city stood now was in the Province of Manitoba, even if the land had fundamentally changed.

Our 'Province', or close enough, bordering on Ontario made this threat closer than I would have liked. Then again, if we weren't close these people would never have come. Those names would eventually change, but it was all we had to identify places on the map. Until Cities became large enough and recognizable, the best way to refer to places was by their old descriptions. I was actually curious to see how long it would take for that to change.

Depending on where, exactly, their pylon was, it was around a month's travel on foot to get here if you were moving with a purpose. On horse at speed, it was half that.

As I pictured the map in my head, Carson continued, "We found the Ritual circle a two-day ride Southeast from our city."

Southeast from their city was the opposite direction from where Frostheim was in comparison. While it put their pylon between us and the threat, it wasn't that heart-lifting to know given that they were calling for help.

If they knew they needed help, then they weren't confident in facing the threat alone. While Demons were mostly bad and were a plague to be stamped out, they did carry one good thing with them.

They were hordes of essence.

Their ability to summon others of their kind brought in essence from other planets and supplemented ours. Usually, the amount of essence a planet produced was fixed.

The Planet's core only created so much which caused every living thing to share what was available. It was transferred between beings as things died or were eaten, but the overall amount was set. Or, the influx was set, as the total amount was always rising. There were some caveats to that, such as the System taking some to facilitate the transfers and its 'fee' for various things. There was some loss when using it to enhance yourself, but ultimately, it was lost when people left.

If a being spent years on a Planet sucking up the essence, and then left, that lost essence would go with them. It wasn't a huge deal as the essence the person had was 'locked', in a way, but if enough people did it, the Planet would never grow and if done too much, it would actually deteriorate.

But, with every downside, there was an upside. The opposite of taking essence and leaving the planet, was gathering essence elsewhere and bringing it here, which was what the Demon's did.

These creatures were filled with essence from either their home world or wherever they were coming from and when they were killed here, that essence would then transfer to whoever killed it. It was even better than a dungeon in terms of increasing level as when there was one Demon, there were hordes of them. Plus, there was only so much essence that could be gained from a Dungeon every day. Demon's didn't have limits on how many levels you could gain. Well, besides killing them all.

A faction or city that learned about a Demon infestation would usually keep it to themselves to make sure they were the only ones to gain from such a thing, but if they learned it was beyond them, that was when they reached out.

It went from a massive boon to a grave threat depending on whether or not the faction could capitalize on it. Without knowing the exact levels and number of the Demons, I wasn't even sure my faction could handle it.

"How many other cities did you reach out to?" After finding out where they were from, I probed for more information. While our scouting was good around where we were, outside of that was still scarce. Hell, we didn't even know there was a pylon in Central Ontario.

Knowing that, I attempted to find out if there were any other cities in the area. A genuine question with a deeper probing nature.

"Not enough, I'm afraid. The only other pylon we know of is to the South, roughly the same distance as it was to get here." He answered.

Only three pylons? That seemed far too low for the area. Some major Canadian cities were closer than ours.

"What of Toronto or Ottawa, your Capital?" I asked.

Toronto was a big city and it was hard to imagine a pylon not appearing there. Millions of people lived there. Ottawa was smaller, but still had over a million residents from what I remembered.

As soon as I asked, the three's expressions changed. Looks cast down along with a somber note that spoke of tragedy. It seemed something bad happened and I just stuck my foot in my mouth.

"You don't know?" Carson asked softly.

I shook my head in response and, luckily, he went on without me having to ask, "Toronto's gone. Where it once stood is all water now."

Oh, I see.

When we first returned and I was looking over the changes on the map, the Great Lakes had changed dramatically. Not only did the land grow, but the lakes did as well.

Where land used to connect Michigan and Canada, it was all water now and there were a few other places where the Lakes extended outward from their previous borders.

It seemed Toronto was one of those places the new Lake swallowed up. The city used to sit right on the edge, similar to Chicago, but didn't make it through the terraforming.

"What of the people?" I asked slightly stunned. It was stunning to think a once major city disappeared just like that.

If the entire city was underwater where did the people go? It was unlikely that they were placed back in the city and made to drown.

We had someone in our city who was on a plane when the tutorial pulled everyone away, yet she was returned to the ground instead of left to fall from the sky. If the system did that, I doubted it would dump people in a Lake.

"Scattered around for all we know. We've seen a few who claim to be from there but not enough to know for sure. We can't form any ideas around how they were returned as it was seemingly random. Groups were placed just about anywhere in the vicinity of where the city once stood, instead of being moved in one big group which makes it hard to track them down." He said. "We've had a few people try, looking for family who used to live there, but they've had no luck so far in understanding what happened."

"And Ottawa?" I asked.

Ottawa was their Capital and wasn't on the shores of any Lake, as far as I knew. It shouldn't have disappeared in the same way.

"None we've sent returned." He said sadly.

That didn't mean as much as Toronto being underwater. The people could have died along the way for various reasons or they could have stayed in the City instead of making the trip back.

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There were a thousand reasons that they didn't return without jumping to the conclusion that Ottawa was gone as well.

All told, so far during the meeting the threat of Demons was revealed and it fell to only three ramshackle cities to combat the threat.

My city being one of the three did not make me feel warm and fuzzy. We didn't even have a population of a thousand, yet we were already faced with what could possibly be a major war on the horizon.

Lovely.