D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

Chapter 2283 Through the Outside

--- Kat ---

In the end, it came down to a matter of percentages and small imperfections, or what Kat assumed to be ones. Lily did offer to sneak in closer and confirm things, but ultimately, it wasn’t like Lily could truly get close enough to the runes to be sure. Some of these differences were so small Kat had to focus right up against them, just barely not touching the floating smaller versions... and it made her wonder if they were part of the test or not. Had she been sure Thyme made them, Kat would have said yes... but she wasn’t certain they were.

So in the end, Kat just had to hope the one with less issues was correct. Grasping it firmly with her hand, another bright light blinded her. Lily could see something similar on the outside, a second massive beam of light. As if the first one wasn’t a big enough indicator of their current location. The second was sure to get some attention. Then again, with the teleportation nonsense involved in the mountain, perhaps they couldn’t truly make it here and become a problem.

Whatever the case, when the light retreated from Kat’s vision she found herself back on the top of the stairs, now with no giant rock piece blocking the way. This also meant there was no pressure, and she could feel the gazes of thousands of little scorpions all eying her closely. They made an odd noise. It sounded vaguely reminiscent of rolling thunder, except in miniature. They were doing something that made it sound like a storm was fast approaching and some were already moving to get in closer.

Lily confirmed that the big ones guarding the outside were already moving in... and Kat decided that she did not want to deal with that at all. Transforming into water, Kat let herself disperse a bit into separate blobs and then moved them at about seventy-five percent of her maximum speed towards the exit.

This seemed to panic the scorpions quite a lot. Some little ones sprinted into the area she’d vanished from. They all looked around, with some even stabbing into the ground with their claws as if trying to find some sort of invisible foe that was hiding in the area. A few managed to stomp through her water... but they didn’t seem to think it was important. Despite the fact they should have seen her transformation.

That gave Kat some confidence to move away in a mostly straight line. She avoided the scorpions the first few times they got close, but that actually seemed more likely to set them off. Perhaps it helped them realise something weird was going on? At the end of the day, they didn’t truly have the intelligence to burn away all of her water, or even chop into it properly. No instead they stabbed it with a claw... and when nothing happened they either poked her water a few more times, or just left then and there.

This meant that just rolling forward was actually the best way to stay undetected from the small ones. The bigger ones? That was a good question. As bits of Kat’s water approached the edge, one of the larger scorpions slammed into the ground nearby. Kat debated freezing. She debated speeding up... but that would imply a reaction. So instead she just kept rolling. Some of her water droplets splattered against the larger scorpions body, burning themselves away on contact.

While the little ones were weak, and didn’t run hot, it seemed that wasn’t so with the big ones. Or perhaps it was just that in their agitated state they could turn up their body heat? Whatever the case, Kat’s missing droplets didn’t seem to disturb them much and Kat herself wasn’t overly worried. It was just one droplet amongst many that she’d lost. The amount of demonic energy needed to bring it back was nothing.

So Kat simply kept moving... until she got to the cage edge. Perhaps it was coincidence, or perhaps one of the scorpions had something to do with it. Lily couldn’t see anything from her side before the strike. This wasn’t odd. The whole thing took a strike every few seconds but it was so large that the overall structure remained about the same.

What was different was the size this time. A massive beam of lightning, nearly as big as the beacon of lights before slammed into the structure, setting the entire thing ablaze. The few droplets Kat had closest to the metal were turned to vapor before she could move them away. Kat cursed mentally but accepted the loss as a minor issue. Instead, she focused on settling her water into slightly hidden spots.

Seconds past as the main lightning strike faded from the skies, but the regular refreshments it got from the smaller ones kept its burning charge alive. Kat inspected the area through her various smaller overlapping ’sight’ bubbles. The bigger scorpion seemed to have moved on... or at least it wasn’t visible to her. Some small scorpions were still around but Kat wasn’t sure if they were watching her or not. They didn’t seem to be, but they also clearly weren’t leaving.

The cage was an issue now. It clearly extended into the earth so just digging down wasn’t possible. She could float upwards and fly through the hole? Kat knew roughly where that was... but with all the lightning around that might still get her struck down. How long was it going to take to cool this thing down? It didn’t need to be perfectly cool, just enough not to boil away her water when she touched it. Or didn’t touch it actually. Kat could float through the gaps... hmmm...

*If I merged my droplets back together would I be able to sneak through fast enough to offset the boiling? Like, would my water only heat up so much and be fine to get through?*

[Maybe not as you are... but if you burn some extra demonic energy to make more of it I think you could manage it. Pick your gap well, and launch yourself through? Hmmm... but the worry would be if the hole is too small you’d need to make the water stream too small. It needs to be large enough that the heat actually spread out, not just cuts off that section of water, or boils it as you pass through.]

This required some doing... but as Kat was slowly circling the edges she realised that there was a better answer. The front ’entrance’. It wasn’t really much of an entrance, but the bigger scorpions had clearly kept it in place to allow them to pass inside the cage, perhaps siphoning lightning away from it to keep the area from closing up. This meant that there WAS a large gap to get out. With the scorpions unconcerned by her watery form, and many of them inside investigating it left Kat free to exit.

This took a bit more effort. She couldn’t see long distance and while it would make sense, to her, to have the main entrance connected to the staircase through the road it had leading up towards... that’s not actually how it was done. It required a bit more investigation, first going left, or rather, angling in from the left side and continuing past where Kat thought the door should be further right until she did eventually find the exit.

It was still heavily charged but the scorpions themselves were quite large, and while they could dig through the ground that didn’t seem to include metal. It was probably safe. It was certainly safer then her original crazy plan. When Kat finally bit the bullet and moved herself outside... it was entirely fine. The gap was more than large enough not to zap the water as she sped through as a rather thin line of water. Notably NOT pressed against the floor just in case the metal was right beneath the dirt there.

Regardless, soon Kat was safe and free. She just had to spend the time getting back. When Kat reformed next to Lily, she was surprised to see she’d gained a ’tattoo’. Sitting on her hand was a glowing blue symbol made of two slices. One matched the shape of the stone relic she’d just claimed, and the second part was the rest of the circle. It sadly didn’t give away how many parts there were, but her guess was between six to eight.

”I guess I know where the relic went... but why is it on my hand?” mumbled Kat as she showed it off.

”I guess so everyone knows you have it? Though what’s the point, most people have gloves,” commented Lily.

Kat nodded along as she poked it a bit, and placed her left hand over her right to hide the mark. Kat was about to jokingly comment on how she’d made it disappear... only for it to migrate over to her left hand. ”Huh... I think we have the answer to that question...”

”Yes yes, fascinating,” Appoline cut in. ”But do you have any ingredients for me to test?”