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Hump and the others moved the instant the monolithic demon’s focus shifted.
Emilia was already on the far side, while Celaine’s arrows found its eyes. The beast turned with a grinding roar, the entire fragment trembling beneath its weight as it lumbered after them.
“Let’s move,” Hump shouted over the chorus of screeching demons.
They broke for its rear, circling around the oozing blood piling on the ground beneath its shell.
The horde of demons saw the same pocket of space and surged to intercept them. Dylan drove roots through the cracked stone, buckling the ground beneath charging bodies. Bud’s Frostfire swept in controlled arcs, freezing limbs and spearing them on shards of ice. Nisha’s fire did not stop. Hump was surprised to see her power approaching that of Acalin and the other advanced bronze ranked altari already. Captain Hadbur led the altari to cover the gaps, all the while his lightning blade easily slayed the creatures.
Meanwhile, Hump forced himself to hold back and conserve his strength. Not an easy thing to do with hundreds of demons throwing themselves in his direction.
In a way, the demon beast’s appearance had helped them. It had disrupted the swarm and given them some space to work with. Even with the swarm closing in once more, they covered the distance to the thread in less than a minute, boots pounding against black stone.
The rift site lay at the base of a tall cliff face. Jagged rock rose behind them, shielding their rear from anything but the few monsters capable of clambering down from above. It wasn’t safe, but it was defensible.
“Where’s the rift?” Bud asked.
“Give me a second,” Hump said.
He didn’t see it either. No ripple in the air, no shimmer or glimpse of another world within. Nothing. Yet closing his eyes, he sensed the thread here, brighter than ever. Not sure what else to do, he activated Spirit Sight.
The rift lit up like a crack in a glass… if it could be called a rift at all. He’d expected a tear in the veil, opening into another fragment like the one they had just passed through. Instead, there was next to nothing. Only the faintest crack in the veil.
“It’s not open yet,” Hump murmured.
“What do you mean it’s not open?” Bud said. “I thought you said there was a thread.”
“The thread’s here, it’s just not created an actual tear yet. There’s a little crack.”
Bud swung at a few approaching demons, then between breaths snapped. “Well get it open then!”
“Is that even possible?” Dylan asked.
“Loften made it seem simple enough. He forced a few rifts open along the way, didn’t he? So it must be possible.”
“How long do you think you need?” Bud asked.
It had taken Loften only moments each time, but brute forcing it required an immense amount of essence. It also meant he’d be providing all the fuel to keep it open. If he faltered for even a moment, it could snap shut. Anyone still between worlds would be lost to the other side and there was no guarantee he could get it open again.
“Don’t know,” Hump said. “It’ll be open when it’s open. Either we’re over run first, or we’re not.”
“We could find another thread,” Dylan suggested.
Hump surveyed the battlefield. They were already getting tired, and the demons were only growing in number. He hadn’t seen any other good choices to escape through. It was this or nothing.
“I can do this. Just hold them off until it’s done.”
“Do it,” Bud said. “We’ll handle the rest. Acalin, I want you watching Hump. Don’t let anything past your shield.”
“His shield is for me,” Prince Marcoff snapped.
“We protect Wizard Hump or we all die,” Acalin told the prince, then turned to his party members. “Meli, Tamira, look after him.”
Hump let out a slow breath and turned fully to the rift. Unfortunately, the Book of Infinite Pages didn’t have a spell for this sort of thing. At least not one that Hump had been able to find. The rifts were fairly simple in concept—fragments that were bumping into each other in the veil. To open them required pressure exerted with the right amount of force in the right place.
In the previous fragment, he spent days searching and testing countless threads until he found one stable enough to support them. This time there was no luxury of patience.
He raised his staff and aimed carefully at the crack, pressing his essence through the runes Loften had etched into the shaft, guiding them into the crack like water finding a seam in a stone. The staff amplified the flow, channelling it with far greater precision than he could manage alone.
Essence poured into the fracture as he willed the breach to widen. His mind fixed on that singular thing.
Yet nothing happened.
The crack didn’t tremble. It didn’t glow or shimmer. It simply remained as it was, a thin scar in reality that refused to acknowledge him.
He pressed harder, feeding more essence through his staff, pressing his will against the veil.
It did not answer.
There was no resistance pushing back against him, no opposing intent trying to deny him. No pressure, no conflict. His power simply vanished into the fracture without consequence, as if reality itself had ignored him.
Hump frowned and eased off the flow.
That wasn’t right.
Every other rift he had worked with had reacted immediately. The moment his essence touched them, they drank it greedily, widening under the influx of power like wounds forced open. They had been more stable than this, but he didn’t think there was more difference than that. Stable or not, it should have at least reacted in some way.
Unless his essence wasn’t being applied correctly. Something was missing.
Or maybe I simply don’t have the strength. The thought buried itself into his mind—a seed of doubt that could be a wizard’s undoing.
What he was trying to do went against everything, the very rules that he knew. His own mind fought him. Logic against what he knew was possible. He had to envision it. He had to know he could do it. It took effort to trick the brain like that, but Hump had opened many rifts in the past now. This was just another one, only the gap in reality was so small that it was hardly a crack.
If he had time, perhaps he'd be able to figure out a spell to do this. He'd already used the Time Stop Hourglass. There was nothing he could do to buy more time. He simply had to find a way.
He studied the fracture again, tracing its shape with Spirit Sight. Other than being far smaller, he couldn’t see a difference. But when he closed his eyes and reached for the thread, it all fell into place.
The connection was weak. Every rift he’d used before had been anchored by one—connected through the strand of intent that ran through the abyss, binding fragments of reality together. The rifts were the doorway to those connections.
Here, the crack was forming, but the thread was not connected. Not quite. Hump shifted his focus outward through his staff. The runes hummed as he extended his senses into the abyss beyond the fragment, searching through the darkness for the familiar resonance.
He found it. Stronger than before. The thread drifted nearby, its intent brushing the edge of his awareness. Hump tightened his grip on his staff and reached for it. Essence flowed through the crack again, but this time he cast it outward, reaching for the thread. It spiralled through the darkness, just out of reach.
It still wasn’t working. He needed to do more. He needed intent strong enough to draw it to him. With a thought, Hump manifested his soul. The dreadful, alarmed cries of demons filled the air around him, but he paid it no notice, trusting in the others to keep them at bay. Every shred of attention he had was solely on the sliver of intent.
He stabbed his staff towards it. Essence poured from it, reaching inwards, worming into the gap and out the other side, drawing the thread in closer. Yet still, reality resisted. The thread moved, caught in a gentle breeze, but it did not come to him. He was but a mortal trying to force his will upon the universe itself. It was not listening. He needed more. More power, more intent.
The air changed. Lightning crackled around him. Grass sprouted at his feet. The wind surged and small tufts of fire erupted around him in bursts of flame. Hump's dragon blood roared. He was not just a mere mortal; he was the Bearer of Infinity. The thread would come to him.
And then he felt it.
Movement. Proper movement, drawn to his intent like a magnet to metal. The strand of intent followed his own essence back to the crack, and with its touch, the veil finally reacted. The fracture widened with a sudden, violent shimmer. The veil peeled back a fraction, feeding on the residual essence. Hump fed it more, and the rift ate it up hungrily, drinking in his power as it expanded bit by bit. It continued to get wider, stronger, more stable. A fragment beyond appeared.
Hump caught a glimpse of grass around what could have been a lake. At the very least they would land on the other side with something beneath their feet.
“Nishari, it’s time to roar,” Hump said through their bond.
Nishari unleashed a roar like none he'd ever heard, so loud it shook the very fragment itself. That was the signal. Celaine and Emilia would be on their way. They only needed to hold until then.
“Everyone get ready,” Hump said. “The moment you see the girls, I want the altari going through the portal. I can’t hold this long.”
“Is it safe?” Prince Marcoff asked.
“Safer than here,” Hump said.
He caught a glimpse of Nishari and realised why she sounded so different. With the manifestation of his soul, her scales had changed to gold, her eyes were brighter, and her fire hotter as it burned through the ranks of demons. Acid blood rained from above as the great beast's attention returned to them. Hump forced himself not to react, trusting in his companions to protect him. Bud formed a wall of ice overhead, absorbing the blows. Dylan held them off with a field of trees, vines and roots working in tandem, all the while healing everyone and helping to sustain their essence.
“I see them!” Dylan said.
Through the chaos, Hump glimpsed two figures cutting through the swarm as they circled round the giant demon.
“Time to move through the portal,” Captain Hadbur barked.
The altari rushed forward. One by one they passed through the rift while Hadbur counted them off, remaining behind to help hold the line. With them gone, the pressure on Bud and Dylan intensified.
A demon lunged toward Hump, claws outstretched—but an arrow drove straight through its eye before it could reach him.
Celaine.
They had made it.
“Nishari, go,” Hump said. “Everyone else, move it.”
“What about you?” Celaine asked.
“Clear off as much as you can,” Hump replied. “The rift won’t last without me. I need to be the last out.”
Dylan nodded grimly and prepared his largest attack. His quarterstaff expanded, growing until it towered above him like a tree trunk. Channeling the aspect of the bear, he swung it in a massive arc that smashed through the demons in a devastating sweep.
Bud followed with a wave of frost fire that rolled across the battlefield, freezing and shattering anything in its path. Celaine’s arrows fell like rain, each shot claiming another demon.
“All of you go,” Bud said. “I’ll buy Hump some time.
The others moved quickly, one after another slipping through the rift as it shimmered in the air before them. Each passing body made the portal ripple, the fragile edges of the tear in reality trembling under the strain.
Celaine was the last of them.
She paused beside Hump for the briefest moment, long enough to squeeze his arm.
“Move quickly,” she said quietly, then stepped through and vanished.
Bud transformed. The Wings of the Frostfire Paladin surged on his back, the flames billowing out until they seemed as tall as the cliff at his back. He swept out his blade, and Frostfire coated the land. The demons screamed in agony, and were forced back. Then Bud created a barrier of ice, surrounding them both.
“That should give you a few seconds.”
“Go,” Hump said through gritted teeth.
Bud stepped through and then was gone from the realm.
For the first time since the battle began, Hump stood alone. Alone in a realm with only demons. The rift trembled in front of him, still drinking the last of the essence he poured into it. Around him the battlefield roared with distant screeches and crashing stone, but for a brief instant it felt strangely quiet.
And then he felt it. A presence. An observant eye. A sinking feeling filled his stomach. Something had taken notice.
He didn’t give it time to get a proper look.
He tore his staff free from the rift and lunged forward. The moment his body crossed the threshold, the portal wrapped around him like cool water. For a heartbeat he existed nowhere at all, caught between fragments, the world stretching and folding around him. Then he was back in the light.
Pain flared in his leg. Claws, or perhaps teeth, caught him as he passed through the narrowing tear. Then the sensation vanished. Hump fell out of the rift and was caught by Dylan on the other side. The pain lessened, the druids essence encompassing the wound.
Behind him, the rift still hung open. Screeching followed as several demons hurled themselves after him, scrambling through the shrinking tear.
They didn’t make it far.
The others were already waiting. Bud and Emilia’s blades made short work of any that made it through, until finally the closing rift severed those that were still caught part way.
Within seconds, the creatures were dead, and they were surrounded by silence. Hump breathed in the air—fresh and earthy. There was water at their back, and tall reeds growing from it. Inside, he thought he saw something move.
“Celaine, please tell me nothing’s coming to get us this time,” Hump said.
“At the very least, I can confirm that I don’t hear any screaming demons,” Celaine said. “Though I’m pretty sure there are fish in that lake.”