The Ogre Strength Fairy and the Eldest 'Son'-Chapter 371 - Lets Do The Realm-warp Again!

"S-so you know what it is?"

Sevra asked the brunette girl, who ignored her as she turned it carefully. The spiritualist examined the modified sigils with growing concern. Whoever had altered this back to its useful and usual state had understood perhaps a tenth of what they were doing

’Crude work that betrays a lack of fundamental comprehension of dimensional anchoring.’

"These modifications are... amateurish. Like most things found still existing on this continent. Defier-level work at best and a low Echelon at that."

The criticism slipped out as her academic assessment bypassed her usual filters. She was already giving up on acting innocent in front of Sevra - whose face paled at the term Defier. Or perhaps it was the casualness with which the ’small girl’ spoke with a sense of impossible knowledge.

"They did get it to work. I suppose in a way that might be called impressive."

While her spiritual sense alone was at times just as good or better than her eyes for certain things, the illusionist still tilted her head and brought up an expanded section in front of her. Cross referencing with the memory of what it should look like beside it, she compared the changes and tried to figure out what they would cause.

"This sigil still initiates the transport even if it’s not the elegant original that I erased. That means they didn’t have another to compare. The altered anchoring sigils do seem like an attempt at restoration, but the distortion of the dimensional coordinates here..."

Her finger paused over a particular marking. It wasn’t the way she would have done it, and it honestly seemed even more rushed than the rest of it, but that itself started to tell a bit of a story. If what the artifact now did was intentional-

"This was meant to activate as a trap. To pull people inside against their will."

"A trap? For whom?" ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom

"Well-"

Elua er Goltbred’s head snapped up. Her spiritual barrier was suddenly overwhelmed by a chaotic presence approaching. So non-standard that it permeated right through its layers designed to account for known human quantities.

A mind fractured into dozens of conflicting fractal patterns, each radiating different spiritual intent at different frequencies. Already in the fort, already approaching, already too late. The realmshard in her palm thumped with an essence draw, small in initial activation and then deeply as it used that to pull its own spatial coordinates.

"What’s happening?!"

The Shadow Whisker scout asked loudly, properly alarmed by the artifact’s sudden glow. Alarmed by how the reincarnator had simply started to walk away as the object floated right where it had been. Faint sparkles of luminescence spread and coated both of their skin with an ethereal sheen.

"The trap I was talking about triggered. I wasn’t as careful as I could have been, because I underestimated... no, I overestimated myself."

With a flat voice, the heiress rebuked herself by way of an answer. Calculating and finalizing possibilities at fast speed. She knew what was going to happen to a greater extent than anyone else on the continent might. But she was not omniscient.

’Will I make it with all of this? Will she be okay?’

The fox, having followed them inside, was curled near her traveling pack as she scrambled through it. Tossing a few things into one corner of the workshop, it raised its head sharply and trotted over when it saw she discarded the tree nuts. But it didn’t seem concerned about what the woman was.

"I... I can’t use my Element. What is it doing to my essence field?"

"Stop trying and tighten down on it. We’re marked for transport, so you’re only feeding it. Keep calm."

The process was not instant transportation - but inevitable. At least at the ancient cultivator’s level of power. And though she ordered her to do that to calm down, the infinitesimal amount of time it would grant them would surely be of no use. In fact, even with the ability to multitask it probably cost her more time to speak the words.

Soon, the door burst open without a knock or a voiced warning. Slamming against the wall with a thunderous crack made Sevra rotate and hold onto her hidden weapon under her cloak.

A tall figure with wild eyes and adorned with mismatched metal rings - none of them silver - stood in the doorway. Ignoring the woman, Madrigil locked his gaze instantly on the Goltbred girl before striding forward with complete disregard for cautious introductions or proper personal space.

"The sigil prodigy I seek at last! Your work on those brooches is revolutionary! The script you’ve constructed in such tight-"

He seemed like he hadn’t even noticed he was glowing like they were. Elua didn’t even waste breath on warnings or do what might seem logical to most. Pummeling him to death wouldn’t stop it. Nor was escaping the range of effect possible.

’A Defier with certain Aspects that could surge above the clouds and into the immediate cosmos, perhaps. But even a levitating Breacher in essence cultivation would not get far enough.’

The artifact had connected to the nearest planet’s core to power itself before then jumping a connection to the nearest stellar body. That was a vast reservoir of power capable of snatching them from anywhere in this solar system, with how they had been marked. Fragments of their spirit stolen and codified.

"And protected too much for me to corrupt..."

Despite ignoring his continued praise and questions, she mumbled this aloud as her spirit continued its channeling into the obsidian mirror she had latched to the wall with a few simple sigils meant to keep it mounted. Her Ogre Physique also surged as she calculated the transport’s progression.

Elua longed to smash everything to bits in frustration despite knowing it would solve nothing. This whole thing was taking her from Qat... but it would not ’take’ her from her beloved forever. Yet, how was her ’fortress’ to know a thing like that if she wasn’t told?

A compression ritual she’d refined to perfection over millennia was soon enough completed. An almost physical fragment of spirit, a solid bead of Astralism, floated out of the crown of her head. A second later the fox convulsed as her specialized fragment pierced its form.

The curious creature was so good at keeping away from any who looked its way. Aside from being the only living thing nearby enough, it was an acceptable enough thing to carry her... avatar, of sorts. Focused will that carried compressed knowledge to be passed on through more rituals.

And almost more importantly, reassurance for Qatrand er Yecine.

"Oh! Ooooh! What’s happening? I thought I was hallucinating again, but it’s just us glowing for real, is it not?"

Madrigil demanded with excitement even as the four legged beast still twitched in near total incapacitation. A final few touches on the fox and the mirror - and a sigh - made dull mint eyes turn towards the man who had ’caused’ everything. A few dark feelings coiled under her skin.

’I could probably get away with it on the other side. It’s true I would know I harmed him - and I would tell my love when I can see her again. But she would forgive me, I believe. For being so passionate.’

"Interdimensional teleportation. Thanks for causing it."

Sevra pulled out her weapon instinctively, intending to take an action herself based on what that last part insinuated. But her movements slowed as the realmshard’s inner light intensified. It made her think again... that if the solution was so simple, wouldn’t Elua have already committed the atrocity?

"Can you not stop it?"

"No mere Breacher could halt this now. Not enough energy magnitudes. It’s beyond my level of interference."

The brunette freely answered, turning her eyes to the fox that now carried a piece of her spirit. Carried the hope she wanted her Qat to maintain as the light contracted suddenly around them. Compressing their reality into a single point.

As the others were wrenched from the material plane, Elua stubbornly manipulated her spirit to delay her own transport by fractions of a second. Hoping that she could fool the artifact with its inferior sigil work modifications. That her preparations just now would be needless...

’Qat. Qat. I don’t want to! If I escape this, I’m going to-’

The delay cost her. While Sevra and Madrigil experienced a relatively smooth transition onto flat fields with only a stumble, the ancient cultivator’s foolhardy manipulation of the process threw her entry point into chaos.

Materializing ten feet above the ground and upside down... she dropped unceremoniously with a barely controlled tumble due to a viciously applied rotational effect. Reality had reformed around them to show off sun-baked grasslands stretching to an impossible horizon.

Blasting her full spirit out in all directions, pissed off for so many reasons while rising to her knees, she immediately looked for the realmshard responsible. It was the easiest way to get back... but she found nothing but empty air where it should have followed between them.

"...No..."

Her eyes narrowed as she reexamined her memory of the artifact, throwing up schematics of the various ones she’d analyzed over the years. Focusing on a specific segment of altered sigils she’d seen in her old life... that she’d accidentally done once. But that didn’t stop her from hissing her opinion at full volume.

"Incompetent fool! The transport matrix was corrupted and they didn’t... no they intentionally left the anchoring sigil sequence inverted. I knew it was a trap, why didn’t I look at this?"

She knew it was because she had no time - it had already activated - but was still upset. Sevra whirled toward her... still blinking with wide eyes. The whole situation was overwhelming, but interacting with the heiress while she was continuing to drop all her sweet behavior was worse.

It also confused her that the girl was angrily brushing dirt from... a silver dress. That looked really familiar.

"...What does that mean?"

"It means the realmshard itself stayed behind. An object meant to be both key and the door that leads outside. You don’t usually leave your key on the other side of a now locked door, do you?"

Mint eyes gazed across the warm, windswept plain. The sky above held an impossible shade of deep violet, streaked with golden clouds. Lit through mysterious means considering that this familiar location was not actually a planet.

"Right now, we’re locked out of our world and in an Astral Exclave."

"I don’t know what that is."

The scout stated while scanning the vast steppes. She wasn’t sure she really damned them ’all’, but she was starting to get the feeling that her rising unease earlier today was not for nothing. That this was at least partially her own fault.

"In generally simple terms, it might be called a pocket dimension split from the primary material plane during some ancient hijinks regarding the Spatial Divinity. Without the realmshard, our options for return are... more limited."

"Can we get back?"

’Such a first time teleportation traveler question. Why is it I had to be stuck with a suspicious person who feared me and a slightly insane one who has gone quiet? Could I have been stuck with Qat and...’

Try as she could, Elua could not think of a third person she would actually want to be here with.

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