Chapter 181: Escalate
The message was so alarming that she stood up. "We need to go now. But Sasha, you need to stay here."
"What do you mean, Aurora?" Blaire asked while Sasha felt confused. In their plan, she was supposed to go with them to help evacuate the citizens.
"The situation is dangerous now; an unknown creature is coming out from the portal; Belthazar is doing something that changes the teleportation."
Lily asked for more details, and Alex started linking it with the portal that Patricia had told him about.
Alex stood up and moved to a nearby window. He didn't see anything weird at first, but then, focusing his eyes, he could see a pillar of dark red energy rise in the sky for a moment before dissipating.
'Patricia, check the portal but don't allow anyone to enter it. I need to make sure of something first,' Alex said in his mind.
'Yes, King.'
"Let's go now before things turn worse," Alex said, addressing the people in the room.
After some more discussion, Sasha ended up going with them. Aurora didn't want her to come since she only saw her as a burden in a fight. It would make her put out more effort to protect her and Blaire.
As for Blaire, even though he is not that strong, she doesn't even think twice about bringing him. Despite the danger, she thought it was safer for Blaire to stay with him.
Back in the forest, Freya was now flying in the air, looking at the eerie dark portal that was still growing in size despite being bombarded by her pixie.
Turning her gaze downward, she could see Aimu fighting with the king, the fight locked in a stalemate.
The ground was completely transformed, now filled with many craters and cracks. The king fought barehanded, but his way of fighting was so weird. He is like a magician fighting in close combat.
Belthazar uses his fist, but the one that really attacks Aimu is the dark energy surrounding his body.
Her eyes then looked around the forest. She could feel a familiar presence. With a flick of her finger, she created a new pixie.
This pixie moved down toward the forest to look around the area. Despite its small size, it moved very fast, easily traversing the forest.
Alice, who was waiting for Alex, froze in her place when the pixie appeared inches away from her.
Freya's voice came out from it, "Alice, why are you here?"
"Mother, I..." Alice froze, surprised by the turn of events. She already expected her mother would come, but not now. With the distance she was at, she didn't hear Aimu scream calling her mother.
"You always stutter every time you have something to hide. We will need a long talk after this, Alice!
For now, I need you to go toward the mother tree and bring your sister and the others; we have enemies there. QUICK!"
The pixie then flew to her side. It didn't leave her, but nor did it respond to her words.
Alice sighed. She knew her mother had already suspected what had happened had something to do with her.
She started typing some messages and told Aurora to go separate from Alex and the others. If their mother saw them come together, it would make things more complicated.
They had already made a long-term deal. It would have been more beneficial for her if her mother hadn't known about this.
She then moved toward the entrance of the secret realm. It didn't take long for her to get near the entrance.
Alice frowned, seeing many skeletons surrounding the area. Her eyes sharpened even further when she saw a human standing there holding a blade with a tattoo on his face.
'Another human. But this one doesn't seem to be in the same group as Alex.'
She squinted her eyes, looking at the man's appearance; she couldn't put it into words, but she felt something similar from him, like the one coming from the king.
After some more observation, she realized there was a dark crystal embedded in his blade. Give her the same eerie feeling, like the dark aura he feels from the king.
Meanwhile, Freya was now helping Aimu fight against the king. She didn't come down by herself; she sent some pixies and moved trees and plants to attack the king from a blind spot.
But even with these, the king, as if having eyes on his back, deflected Aimu's attacks while he crouched, jumped, and rolled, dodging the attacks from Freya easily.
His dark aura started flaring again, creating a huge pressure all around him. But this barely affected Aimu other than making the ground underneath him crack.
"A gravity power. Interesting," Aimu mumbled as he slashed his axe toward him; from it, a black shadow shot out, turning into a creature the size of a bull, but looking like a wolf. It also had horns on its head.
Seeing the shadow beast, the king laughed. "I knew it. You keep the good things for yourself, so did you do it like this?"
The king moved both his hands upward, like the posture of someone praising a god.
His dark aura burned like a flame, and a black pattern started appearing on his body, making Aimu frown. He recognized the form of that glyph.
"How did you know that?"
"So he really wasn't lying to me. Kekeke," the king replied cryptically.
The glyph moved from his body toward his feet, then created a circle of shadow around him.
At this moment, two fireballs shot by the pixie came toward him. Many hands came out from the shadow under him, grasping the fireballs and snuffing them out of existence. only-found-at-MVLeMpYr
Poof!
The shadow then condenses, creating a big creature with twice the height of a normal person.
Its legs were many tentacles with a big round face that only had a mouth filled with sharp teeth. The face was surrounded by many dark hands, making the creature look grotesque.
If Alex looked at this shadow beast now, he would compare it to a monster from his game named Malboro.
Although Malboro is a plant-like monster, with moving vines as its legs and hair, this one was filled with hands and tentacles.