ALL NOVEL Loop 254 - Part 113
Cal exited the portal into a world of blackness. Something wasn’t right. Why wasn’t he home? His thoughts started to race as he rapidly moved his head from side to side to see if he could see anything.
“Can anyone hear me?” He called. There was no answer.
“Alright, if there is no one there, then there is no one to mind this,” He said as he released a stream of electrical mana into the air. Small lines of lightning arced across his vision. While he was now able to see his immediate surroundings, everything beyond was still shrouded in total darkness.
Not that the area he stood in was much better. All the lightning was doing was giving him the barest sense of shadow moving across a screen. Wherever he was, he was alone, and he was pretty sure now this wasn’t the voidhouse after some unknown tragedy.
“Fulginanis, can you hear me?” He thought as hard as he could, trying to grab the spirit's attention. There was still no reply.
“Sleek, any chance you’re here?” His voice melted away into the nothingness around him. No matter what he said, no answer came.
“WHERE AM I?!” Cal screamed in a final bout of desperation.
“You are here. I have decided to have words with you as you are something I do not understand, and it has been such a very long time since that has happened,” A figure calmly strode into Cal’s view from that darkness beyond. It looked like a human.
“Where is here? Who are you? And why do you care about me?” Cal yelled these questions one after the other, not giving the newcomer a chance to answer until he had said all three.
“Here is here. I am me. And I care about you because there shouldn’t be any human with the ability to form gateways on your world. Your universe is rather mana-limited, which I’m guessing you weren’t aware of. It should be a simple conquest, no real heavy resources needed, and yet I find you here leading a rebellion against my forces and you are even reasonably capable in the use of cored mana abilities. How did that come to be?” The stranger answered Cal’s questions and posed his own.
Cal liked this situation less and less as the moments passed. He wasn’t sure if he believed the person in front of him was really a human or just someone taking the form of one. He was sure that he didn’t want it to know anything more about himself than it already did.
“Oh, hi, I’m Cal. I’m a wizard, an apprentice to Merlin. I’ve been away from the Earth for a while, which probably explains why you’ve never heard of me before,” He said, forcing a smile.
“I am aware of the being who calls himself Merlin in this universe, and you do have some of his stench about you,” the strange man replied
“Cal, if you can hear me, you need to fight whatever force is holding you. If you can do that, I think I can get the portal reconnected and grab you from wherever it is this being put you,” Fulginanis’ voice rang out sharply in Cal’s head.
“I just need to cause him chaos? Finally, something I’m good at!” Cal responded. He may not have any idea where he was, who the man was, or what exactly was going on, but he was sure he wasn’t looking into his thoughts as he had bought the Merlin claim, and that meant it was time to attack.
“So just what are you anyway? You’re not a human, right? Some kind of bigshot Gryalth who is annoyed I broke your expensive mirror on Pluto?” Cal asked, hoping to distract the thing long enough to charge up a few options.
“My existence is complicated, but I think it’s best to say I am beyond just a Gryalth or human form. I would explain more, but the time required to bring you up to my level of understanding just isn’t with the expenditure. I believe I now understand just where your powers have come from, and while annoying, you aren’t truly a threat yet. So you may stay here as I eradicate your world. How does that sound?” It asked in an oddly longing tone. Cal got the feeling it really wanted him to accept the invite, but he had zero intention of that.
“I’d rather not. There are too many Gryalth to kill, you understand, right? I can’t have Merlin being angry at me for failing a few of his tests after all," as Cal said this, he let loose with several balls of lightning centered around the thing, wearing the form of a man.
Using the blinding light of the simultaneous detentions as a cover, he quickly ran a circle around the figure, carefully placing small balls of void mana every few feet. The closer he got, the more power he could feel radiating from his host. He hoped Fulginanis had a way to get him out here soon. Whatever this thing was, it severely outclassed him, and he knew it.
“Fine, I suppose you can just die then,” The words that came out of its mouth sounded entirely casual, but the force that came with them knocked Cal backward into the darkness. He felt like a battering ram had hit him, and that was only half of it. Behind him, he could feel another wall of mana that he was rocketing towards.
He reached into his core for anything he could use to stop the impact and found it empty. That explained the pounding headache that had set in alongside the punch. There was nothing he could do now as he felt the wall drawing closer.
A familiar sensation flooded his mind, Fulginanis was back, connected to him again, and while he was still moving, his destination was back on course. He could see the void realm on the other end of this tunnel.
Somewhere in the distance behind him he heard something scream in rage, just as he popped through into an all too familiar and missed site. What the hell had just happened to him? No first it was break time, then he could discuss the new event he decided as his feet made contact with the familiar ground of the void house. He was home.