Chapter 35: Broken Summoning
"Hah... damn it."
Elina ducked a swinging tusk, stepped inside the boar’s guard, and brought her blade down hard. Steel crunched into bone, but as the beast hit the floor, three more took its place. Everywhere she looked, red eyes and dark hides swarmed through the corridor.
It made zero sense. The forest fell under the God of Sacrifice's protection, even with the barrier slipping, wild beasts didn't just rush into a consecrated space like a wave. They should’ve been terrified.
Whatever was driving them had been sealed behind the dimensional fold with the rest of this place.
Her lungs burned. Standing her ground was a fast track to getting trammeled to death. She needed space.
"Shit."
Elina tightened her grip on the hilt, planted her heels, and picked the thinnest spot in the horde. She drew a long breath, channeled a burst of mana through her forearms, and swept her sword in a brutal, horizontal arc.
A shockwave of silver light ripped through the hallway.
The front line collapsed in a tangle of severed limbs and blood. Before the rest could plug the gap, Elina sprinted through, her boots skidding on the slick stone as she burst out into the open corridor beyond.
She kept running until the heavy thud of hooves faded behind her. Glancing over her shoulder, she realized the boars weren't pursuing. They stayed pooled in the hall, growling at the air.
Leaning back against a pillar, Elina let her head drop and dragged air into her lungs.
"It's... been a while," she wheezed.
A dry, breathless laugh escaped her lips. Fighting for her life against a mob of monsters wasn't her idea of a good afternoon, but it proved her body hadn't turned to rust just yet.
The beasts seemed tethered to that specific hall. Fine by her. She used her sword to brace herself, pushed off the pillar, and moved deeper into the church.
This section looked remarkably untouched compared to the decaying shell outside. Pristine stone floors, high vaulted ceilings, long empty corridors. The stillness was oppressive.
If Dally and his partner were pulling off a ritual this large, where were the rest of their cultists? Unless... the partner was strong enough that he didn't need guards.
Five minutes later, she hit a wall. Literally.
The corridor just... stopped. No doors, no side turns, no collapsed rubble. Just solid, seamless masonry.
A heavy, sinking feeling settled in her gut. She turned back toward the dark hallway. The distant growls of the boars echoed down the quiet passage.
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"You've got to be kidding me," she muttered. "I actually have to go through them?"
She stared into the dark, rubbing the back of her neck.
"Gods above, I miss Caelan," she sighed into the empty hall. "If I survive this, I am never taking a solo contract again."
Charging back into the middle of the pack was suicide. She needed to pick them off.
Stepping up to the edge of their territory, she tucked herself behind an arched doorway, pressed her back to the stone, and let out a sharp, quiet whistle.
A lone boar lifted its snout, grunted, and lumbered toward the sound like an idiot. The second its head cleared the doorway, Elina reached out, clamped a hand over its snout to stifle the squeal, and drove her dagger straight through the base of its skull.
The beast dropped limp. She dragged it silently into the shadows.
She ran the same dirty trick again and again. It wasn't clean work. Sometimes the whistling yielded nothing; once, two of them rounded the corner at the same time, forcing her to scramble up a pillar and wait until they lost interest. Her heart pounded against her ribs like a trapped bird.
Bit by bit, the pile of bodies grew, and the pack thinned out.
By the time she cleared out half the room, she finally saw what they’d been standing on.
Etched into the stone floor was a massive, sprawling magic circle. Large sections of the runic border were shattered, the stone scorched black.
A botched summoning.
Was this what caused the explosion? The blast had cracked the circle and killed the caster's control, leaving the summoned beasts trapped here in a frenzy.
If these things broke past the dimensional seam, they'd tear through the surrounding villages in an afternoon. She couldn't leave a single one breathing.
She stopped relying on shadows. Stepping out into the open, Elina met the remaining pack head-on, her sword moving in quick, lethal thrusts.
When the last boar crashed to the floor, her sleeves were soaked red and her arms trembled with fatigue. She took three heavy breaths, wiping sweat from her eyes
BOOM!
The floor beneath her violently shuddered as a blast echoed from the east wing.
Elina sprinted toward the noise, her boots slamming against the tile.
She turned the corner into a wide courtyard just in time to see a boar throw its weight into a small frame, launching Alina hard against a stone wall.
Elina didn't think. She closed the distance in two strides, her blade sweeping down and cutting the monster cleanly in half before it could strike again.
"Elina!" Alina gasped, clutching her ribs.
"Talk later!" Elina barked, falling into a low guard. "Clear the room first!"
Alina didn't argue. She summoned her spear, stepped up, and slotted right into Elina's flank.
Fighting back-to-back, the rest of the fight took less than two minutes. Spear thrusts pinned the beasts down while Elina's heavy broadsword finished them. When the final boar collapsed, silence settled over the courtyard.
Elina looked down. Right beneath their feet sat another shattered magic circle, identical to the one down the hall.
"Alina," Elina panted, resting a hand on her hip. "You good?"
"Yeah," Alina breathed, wincing as she rubbed her shoulder. "Just bruised." She looked around frantically. "...Have you seen Nuri?"
Elina's chest tightened. She slowly shook her head.
Alina's face fell, her mouth setting into a thin, worried line.
Elina reached out, clapping a hand onto the girl's uninjured shoulder. "Hey. Kid's smarter than both of us. He's fine."
Alina gave a tight nod, swallowing hard.
"What did you find deeper in?" Elina asked, nodding toward the hall Alina had run out from. "Anything about who's running this place?"
Alina didn't waste time. Words spilled out of her—the hidden lower room, the massive statue, the racks of glowing soul stones, and the man working at the altar right before the blast blew out the door.
Elina listened in silence, her blood turning to ice.
So Dally wasn't lying. They weren't just playing with spatial magic, they were trying to anchor a god into a physical shell. The sheer fallout of a divine entity forcing its way into this realm would flatten half the province.
"Can you lead me back to that room?" Elina asked, her voice dropping into a flat, dangerous quiet.
Alina looked at the blood on Elina's blade, saw the look in her eyes, and nodded.
"Then let's go end this." Elina tightened her grip on her hilt and stepped forward.