Rise of the Devourer

“Something weird’s happening up ahead,” Aurelia announced, slowing down. She’d taken the lead in case of more insect swarm attacks, which seemed common throughout the outer region. Her flames were the most mana-efficient at clearing paths through large groups of weaker creatures. Noah’s abilities were stronger, but burned through his reserves at a much faster rate and were less sustainable over long periods.

They’d been descending for three hours. The path from the outer depths to the middle had been gradual at first, a steady slope downward, the canyon walls growing taller and more oppressive with each mile. Now they were more or less on the bottom, thankfully free of whatever shadowy monsters lurked back toward the entrance. Free of anything living, for that matter.

“What kind of weird?” Noah asked, coming up alongside her.

“Some kind of power field.” She pointed ahead to a section of the canyon floor where the air shimmered like heat rising from summer asphalt, except instead of heat rising, it was concentrated mana compressing. It was easily the size of a full city block, filling the gap between both cliffs and leaving no way to slip past it.

“How far up does it go?” Even Noah’s Dragon’s Eyes couldn’t see where the shimmer ended and sky began. “Can we get over it?” Though from the collection of bird and pterodactyl-esque bones flattened against the stone under the shimmer—which was itself several inches lower than the area ahead or behind it—he expected it would be a very dangerous place to try to fly through.

“There is no above,” Zax said. “There is only through. The gravity lensing is even more intense near the top of the cliffs and spreads out over the valley in both directions, which is the main reason for the upper approach existing at all.”

Now he was looking for it, Noah did see a faint spread to the shimmer, like a vast mushroom funneling from the sky down to this one section of compressed stone. “How does it work?”

“The mana density of the outer reaches and the middle depths intersect here, causing a semi-stable gravitational distortion.” Zax tore a chunk of stone free from the wall and hurled it upward, back the direction they’d come at a diagonal. It shot up and away in a straight line, sparking with the lightning Zax used to accelerate it.

For a moment, Noah thought it would leave the valley entirely, maybe burst out of the clouds and emerge into space. But even Zax’s throwing strength didn’t allow it to escape.