Carter chuckled. “Well, hecanuse them in a more fun way if he wants. He can make them take shape, give them substance, and if so? Well, I think you get the idea.”
The look on Yun’s face said she certainly did, and she didn’t find it nearly as objectionable as I had.
I groaned as my own cock hardened, not at the thought of getting fucked by Ingram’s shadows, but at the idea of watching Yun thoroughly enjoy that sort of thing.
Carter snorted and gestured toward my crotch. “We’re doing a great job on patrol. Anyone who sees that tent will think twice about attacking here.”
“Like you’re any different,” I muttered.
“Yeah, but I wear pants that hide it better.” He took a few more steps, since the bastard enjoyed getting the last word.
I nearly responded anyway when a familiar wave of energy rushed through us like a wave, so strong it caused both Carter and me to stumble.
The Pitt.
The feeling was impossible to forget. Each dungeon had a slightly different frequency, and that one was tattooed on our psyches.
Except, it didn’t feel right, not normal. When it opened for good, assuming we were anywhere near, we would be knocked off our feet.
That’s when I turned and saw it, not even a mile away, a shimmering, flickering tear between realms, like an unstable dungeon but with far too much power.
The reality hit me—the answer, even the cause. A small tear had occurred as the veil thinned, as The Pitt readied to open. These wouldn’t normally happen, even as the space between our realm and theirs narrowed. The reason it had now? When Yun had touched the heart ten years ago, it must have weakened it, made it so it was less stable than it had been. Now that The Pitt was almost open, the integrity of the barrier had thinned too much.
None of that mattered when dark creatures spilled out, too many for me to count at this distance, looking like grounds of black coffee against the tan dirt of the desert, all rushing right at us.
And it was such a nice walk before…
Chapter Thirty-One
Yun
A wave of power, sickeningly familiar, slammed into me. It was the power that had crushed me formonths,that had nearly swallowed me whole. The Pitt…
There, in the distance, an unstable portal blinked, shimmering in and out of existence. Portals usually looked round, sometimes a circle, sometimes an oval, but always solid, the edges clear and unmoving. This appeared like a rip with pieces of sky running through the portal as it flickered.
“You need to go,” Carter said, his humor having disappeared, his gaze locked forward. “Get back to the trailer. They’ll have guards stationed around them. Don’t leave, don’t open the door, not until one of us comes to get you.”
I wanted to say no, that I wouldn’t leave them, but his tone reminded me that this was no joke.
My vision wasn’t good enough to tell how many monsters rushed toward us, it appearing more like a wave of enemies, a blanket cast out over the dirt. There was damn near nothing I could do against even one of those things, which meant me staying wouldn’t help.
It would only cause them more problems.
An alarm blared across the base, andthatgot me moving. We’d reached the far end of the base parameter, which meant it wasn’t exactly a short run back to safety.
I forced myself to turn and run, knowing I’d prove myself most useful by staying safe until they needed me, until the one job that only I could do was needed—guiding.
As I rushed back toward the buildings, others moved past me, in the opposite direction. It felt like a simple fact of life—some people rushed away from danger and others toward it. I knew where I fit into those categories.
A screech, a roar. The noises buried deep inside my mind echoed through the open space in real life. They’d told me to run, but I couldn’t stop myself from turning around.
The monsters had moved so fast that they were already on the espers—both Carter and others who had arrived just in time. They clashed there, at the boundary, with Kenyon standing back, locked in on the fight and ready to jump into action the moment he was needed.
Most of the monsters ran, but a few flew. Not far, but massive black wings, similar to those of a bat, made the things look like horrific dragons, allowing them to glide over short spans. It didn’t seem as if there were as many, now, but perhaps it was simply that they’d spread out.
My feet rooted in place as I watched, reminded of just how amazing espers were. Sure, they terrified me, and I didn’t trust them, but when they moved across a battlefield like that, it stunned even me.
There were shape-shifting espers who transformed before my eyes into creatures that were just as terrifying as the monsters, and elemental espers who spread ice and fire across the space. Other espers erected shields or sent out energy blasts, while others used weather like rain or winds to gain an upper hand.
