I Only Summon Villainesses

The gate collapsing was the one belonging to the perverted Chameleon. That also meant the terrain surrounding it had never originally belonged to the gate either, and had only been there because of the Chameleon. As if someone had taken thread and needle to sew two different terrains together, then dropped the Chameleon right in the middle of it.

Perhaps the nature of the spirit world had created this phenomenon, or perhaps it had simply responded to my presence. There was no way for me to know.

But what I did know was that the battle was not over. I stretched my limbs and walked closer to the canyon, rolling the stiffness out of my shoulders as I went. Then I launched myself into the air. The leap carried me through an immense height before I landed on the edge of the cliff and stared down at the other side.

Below me was the depth of the canyon. Brown rock that blended into darkness as the slope descended, swallowed by shadow long before it reached the bottom. Whatever lay at the base was hidden from sight entirely.

I stood there for a moment, registering what I had felt. The presences I had sensed were four, and I had thought at first that they belonged to Odelia, Ophelia, Milo and Cressida.

But now that I was standing still, I could feel them more acutely. Indeed, Milo’s essence was there. The other three, however, did not belong to anyone I recognized. I also wasn’t sensing any beasts down there.

’Feels very ominous…’

If it were up to me, I didn’t want to have to go down. It sounded like a better option to step away, step out of the gate, go home and sleep for a while before even thinking about what to do next. That sounded like a wonderful plan, actually.

’Nah, let’s not do that okay… they’re in this because of me.’

I had to talk to myself in that manner because I was realizing bit by bit that I could actually tend to be crazy sometimes.

“Do you intend to go down there?”

I turned to Maggie who stood beside me with Nisha slung over one shoulder.

“What’s your opinion?”

She looked a little surprised, but hid it cleanly beneath that pale and vicious gaze of hers.

“Going there might get you killed.”

I grinned. “I guess that’s a yes then.”

I wasted no other second. I leaped off the cliff and descended into the darkness like I was diving from a great height into a small circular pool, only the pool this time was made of darkness.

Everything around me darkened quickly, and not even my enhanced senses helped me see anything better. For what felt like a couple of seconds, I was completely blind. Nothing but rushing air against my skin and the sensation of falling.

But the solution to this was simple. My eyes glowed with a pale radiance and flames ignited beneath my legs. I condensed them into a tiny flame that emanated vicious pressure.

I used that pressure and force to improvise a propeller beneath me, then levitated downward while the white radiance of the flame cast a pale light across the surrounding darkness as I descended.

The descent was swift, but the difference between now and before was that I had control over my speed and could stop if I wanted. As the light traveled down with me, what I saw made my mouth fall open.

There were things clinging to the walls. All of them clung in such large and thick clusters that they looked like the wall itself, indistinguishable from rock. The only thing that gave them away was the liquid shadows pooling in their eyes.

The light of white flames, even though it passed for only a brief moment, was enough to catch the liquid darkness glistening in those eyes. Hundreds of them, watching me descend in perfect silence.

Not a single one of them moved.

Then I reached the ground.

The ground caved in before I even landed on it. The heat from the flames caused it to melt at a horrifying rate, and two deep grooves formed, scorched and connected into each other to form a crater in the earth. One that was burnt into it rather than crushed.

I climbed out of the crater, taking one step after the other. After I pulled myself over the rim, Maggie landed behind me with a thud that shook the entire space.

The place looked like a cavern expanse consumed by darkness.

Then I sensed a presence in the dark, and whoever it was walked slowly toward me.

Maggie snapped her fingers behind me and single flames began igniting along the upper air, sending the darkness retreating into the furthest corners.

A pale light like that belonging to a weak moon drifted across the expanse. And that was when the correct layout of the space registered in my head.

The place was not a cavern expanse like I had expected. It looked like another canyon path, similar to the one Nisha and I had been walking along before our curiosity got the best of us.

But this one was different. There was a thick darkness hanging over the upper layer of the space, pressing down like a ceiling that wasn’t quite solid, and it informed me well enough that something was wrong.

What I didn’t know was whether something was simply wrong, or whether we were talking about a perverted Chameleon level of wrong.

’God please pity me…’

I left all of that for now and focused on the man who had stopped walking.

His face had fully formed in front of me, so had the rest of his body. Before I could take note of how he looked, his voice came at me.

“How endearing. Never in my life did I think that the Black Snow Company would be so reckless.”

I narrowed my brows and my gaze dropped to his hand. He held something by the arm, limp and dangling, and simply flung it with a casual gesture.

My eyes widened when I realized it was a body. I leaped into the air and caught it, twisting mid-flight and landing in a low crouch. I knelt there, looking at the bloodied face.

At the same time, the man had moved. He tore through the distance between us in the blink of an eye, arriving behind me.

But I didn’t move…

Maggie did.