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

Chapter 2298 Snakes on a Plane

--- Kat ---

The area was not quite as empty as it seemed, though perhaps Appoline’s vague poison sense wasn’t so far off correct. As they were flying up towards the top of the area, something tried biting Kat. It moved in a flash and shot towards her with a spark of light. In truth, the only reason the ’tried’ was in the sentence was not for lack of effort. A tiny snake made out of lightning chomped down on Kat’s arm when she placed it between Appoline and whatever the attacker had been.

Alas, poor tiny little snake. It was not Kat’s skin that broke but its own teeth when it tried to bite through her skin. Kat was a bit shocked at the sight, but before she could react, Appoline had swiped a bottle over the thing, capturing it. As soon as it was confined the snake freaked the hell out. It started rocketing around the glass like someone had just set it on fire or something.

Its small form packed a decent punch... but whatever glass Appoline was using held up under the assault. Sadly for her desire to gather ingredients though, when the snake ran out of steam it didn’t simply calm down. No instead it faded into nothing. ”Fascinating...” intoned Appoline.

”Why? Surely the spell just ran out... right?” Kat queried.

Appoline shook her head. ”No, that was a full... life cycle perhaps? The little snake thing was alive and now it is dead. There is a bit of energy still in my bottle here... I wonder why it bothered attacking? Or... hmmm... maybe it’s not dead?”

”Not dead? How could it not be dead?” asked Kat.

”Well, think about it. This entire place is infested with lightning energy... but also a good deal of time and space as well. Perhaps gravity? Regardless, what I suspect happened was that the snake used all the time it had... and now it has rewound back into its egg state.”

”What does that mean for us, in practical terms?” asked Kat as she glanced around the rocky cliff, searching for other snakes like the one that had attacked her, but honestly there were too many oddly shaped bits of terrain that jutted out along the way. All sorts of cracks and crevices for things so small to hide inside. There was no way she’d find all of them. The snakes were also oddly silent.

Now that Kat was thinking back on the attack, despite being living lightning, or close to it, they didn’t spark or crackle as they moved. They were completely, dead silent. Even the bite on her hadn’t made any noise until it fizzled slightly upon its teeth breaking. It was... an interesting thing to note and Kat was glad Lily was currently sleeping. Her poor girlfriend would probably freak out at the thought of completely silent ninja snakes.

”Hmmm... I would suggest trying to get through this area swiftly. It is not a test of speed, not truly, but a test of endurance. I suspect that this area is meant to wear down foes, or perhaps had their teeth been strong enough they could inject a venom of some kind... my main worry is that there could be an endless number of snakes... depending on how they reproduce.”

”And why is that a worry?” asked Kat.

”Because, I suspect when they rewind themselves... they increase in number. A new bit of potential every time one of them manages to do something different... and getting trapped in a glass jar was certainly different...” explained Appoline.

Kat almost wanted to call it stupid, but as if the universe wanted to prove Appoline right, six of the small snakes suddenly shot out at Kat. She did her best to block them all. Using her tail to curve into a big line that blocked all but one of them. Kat winced at one snuck past her, but at least it simply landed on her leg instead. The ones that hit her tail all failed to do any damage.

The one on her leg however? Seemed to have other ideas. It didn’t bother biting down, instead it ’sprinted’ up her leg and tried to get... somewhere. It got about halfway up her stomach before Appoline slapped it into nothing with a hand. When she did so, all of the snakes vanished at once but the pair knew that wasn’t going to be the end. Not anymore.

Kat was ready when a few seconds later more snakes showed up and Kat needed to land a bit to manoeuvre around them. Still, it was the third attempt and she wasn’t surprised. Kat let her foot rest on the cliff for a moment before kicking off, launching herself away from the next swarm of snakes...

But they just kept coming. After that another group all tried to rush her and Appoline. Though by this point Lily had started to shift, waking slightly. They still got through two more rounds of snakes before she opened her eyes. Kat was able to keep the snakes away from the other two fairly well. Her tail whipped through the air, taking out the larger batches while she used her free-ish arm to collect the extras.

A few tried to go for her wings, and while they could make small puncture wounds in her wings, the damage was so small that they failed to even reduce her flight speed. Worse for the snakes, even with their tiny fangs, her wing membranes were small enough that they didn’t so much bite into the membrane as they bit through it, meaning whatever they were intending to inject didn’t even get into her system.

At this point Lily was active and awake. As the snakes continued to come in waves, Lily started to intercept them, not with shadows, but with her paper. Lily was able to summon a swarm of paper airplanes and then keep control of them. Unlike usual, she didn’t simply send them off to attack, she had them orbit around Kat, taking hits whenever the snakes looked like they were getting too close.

The planes did burn away when struck by the snakes, but it killed their momentum, leading them to plummet to their ’deaths’ even as they destroyed the paper. For Lily though, they were so cheap to summon and keep moving that she could’ve brought out two or three paper planes for every snake that attacked. She simply didn’t need to. No reason to waste the mana after all.

The swarms continued though, and while the numbers grew... after a certain point they started to interfere with each other more than help. Some were packed tightly enough together that one plane was enough for a pair, and Kat could simply swing her tail in a direction and clear out a large group of them. There was no thought to their actions. They were not like the squirrels, or even the wind and glass golem. It was swarm tactics plane and simple.

Perhaps if they’d needed to climb the area more normally, the shocks could’ve interfered with their grip, but as it stood, Kat’s flight continued unopposed. She could move to the sides, halt herself, fly a touch faster on occasion, and the matching swarm of paper planes settled into formation and kept them all safe.

Eventually, the attacks dropped off. As the portal got closer and closer, the snakes fell away more and more. Eventually, they stopped entirely. A few that were mid-charge simply vanished as the girls entered the close proximity of the portal they were charging towards. Kat kept flying for a few beats after that, before setting them down on the platform next to the portal.

And it was just the one. Despite the number of spatial glass around the crack, Kat couldn’t see a second portal anywhere. It all seemed to be focused around this one... and it was an interesting sight. On the other side there seemed to be an idyllic looking country town, filled with cottages and brick paths. The grass grew in long strands, paused halfway through a sway curtesy of a breeze that might no longer exist.

Kat let out a long breath as she set the other two down. Lily quickly formed her shadows into a set of two chairs and Kat flopped into one, with Lily hopping onto Kat’s stomach a second later. Appoline glanced between the two of them before shrugging and dropping down into the second shadow chair. ”That was... a lot to keep track off. Not all that difficult in the end... but the constant concentration wasn’t fun,” grumbled Kat. Lily nodded with Kat’s statement.

Appoline inclined her head to show her own agreement. ”It was... a bit much. I’m once again deprived of ingredients. Though it seems that is going to be a running theme. Perhaps it’s because I lack the right apparatus to do something... though there was no way for me to predict I’d need something so specialised as... what, time freezing jars?”

Kat shrugged, ”Well the next portal seems... more put together. There’s grass at least?”

Appoline huffed, ”Bah, ingredients sure but not new or interesting ones. Most grass are much like each other. You see, alchemically speaking...”