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Chapter 89: The Perion Wastelands Perion's mountains looked pretty normal, but that was probably it always looked like a wasteland. I soon caught up with the others... fighting in the middle of a group of supersized Fire Boars. "Do I have to save them all the time?" I groaned. Then again, I was the most powerful out of them all. I quickly dispatched the pack of boars with a couple of arrows to their heads and dropped down from my cliff. "You guys okay?" I asked, relaxing. "Like we can be okay when we just got tackled by those Boars." Jullian moaned. He was on the ground with a hoof mark on his back. I pointed my open palm at the party and muttered, "Heal." Green light bathed the entire party, healing their injuries. Alexis seemed to have been injured the most. Only now I noticed her armour. She was wearing a sleeveless chainmail shirt that covered her upper torso and nothing more. The desert wind blew gently under a short unmoving chainmail skirt that covered her hips only, exposing the white fabric of her panties underneath. "You need a full armour set. Warriors are supposed to block attacks, not dodge them." I commented. "Figured that out the hard way." Alexis muttered. "Oh yeah, there's a scorpion climbing up your buttocks." She added. I turned around and flicked the errant scorpion off before it could sting me. "Weird, I didn't feel it climbing up." I mumbled, picking the scorpion up by the sting. It snapped it's claws at me. Or rather, four claws. Closer inspection revealed sticky leg points. "Mutant scorpion." I scowled at it, dropkicking it away and getting my toe nipped in the process. "Never dropkick a scorpion." Jullian commented, healing the injured toe. "You might want to put something on." Kyrios sighed. His eyes were covered. I chuckled lightly and the bra stretched downwards, becoming a one-pieced swimsuit and snapping off the middle part. A white bra and bikini again. The eight of us quickly continued on. Perion's destroyed barrier crystal was letting monsters in, and shards of black crystals were...... growing all over the place. Not just growing, they were pulsing. "This'd make a nice necklace..." Alexis drifted off. I slapped her outstretched hand. "Don't touch them. I have a hunch they're related to the mutated monsters." I said. I was right. A passing scorpion reached up to click it's claws at the crystal, touching it. Instantly, it grew several sizes and extended two extra claws. "Knew it." I stared at the enlarged scorpion as it clicked off towards the distance. I put a glove on my right hand and reached it out, caressing the surface of the black crystal. It was radiating powerful demonic energy. "Argh." I grunted, retracting my hand and clutching the glove. Part of it had burnt off, and my fingers were exposed. "Even burns through fabric......" I noted as my fingers started turning black. I placed my other hand on it, concentrating a powerful Heal spell into it. The black sections reverted back to normal. The others had followed my advice and weren't touching the crystals. "These things just keep growing." I observed, then realized something. The ground felt like it was crystallizing! "Heaven help us." I whispered, then began to run. "The crystals are assimilating the ground!" I yelled. Everyone quickly began to run as the rocky ground under us started turning black and shiny. "Whatever you do, don't touch the crystals!" I repeated, picking up the pace. The magicians were teleporting away as fast as they could while the thieves had Haste to boost their speed. Alexis was also running. I quickly turned around, tumbling backwards. "Frostspread!" I shouted as the gold-diamond bow appeared in my hands and I shot an arrow backwards at the crystallizing ground. A layer of ice spread across the crystallizations, but it wouldn't last long in the heat. "Hurry!" I shouted, turning around. I had to jump backwards to avoid touching a crystal, but what I saw in it horrified me. A lone, skeletal human body. The remaining parts of it's flesh were decomposing at an increasing rate! "God..." I gasped, then ran after the others. The demons would pay for this. As the eight of us dashed past several more of those crystals, we saw more skeletal bodies. There were even a few bodies that were still intact, banging on the crystal's inside, begging us to help. Black crystallizations were settling across their bodies. I felt guilty, but I knew I couldn't help. There was obviously enough stolen life energy in those crystals to easily repel one of my arrows. The only thing we could do was run. The longer we stayed near those crystals, the more danger we were in. We passed the ruins of Perion, reaching another field full of those crystals. That wasn't all, the ground had already crystallized there. No way through other than with wings, and I couldn't carry six people at once. "Think we can throw enough at those crystals to break them?" Kyrios suggested. I shook my head. "This isn't a normal crystal. It's an entire life form. If you hit it, it'll absorb the energy from the attack and creep towards you, and you do not want to be one of those poor souls." I jerked a thumb at a crystal. The occupant's body was black and lifeless, with both decomposing eyes out of their sockets and floating around inside the crystal. I cut off a single strand of my hair and threw it onto the crystallized ground. Instantly, a small crystal formed around it and the hair dissolved. "See what happens if anything with just a little life force drops on the crystal." I said. "Only demons can cross this thing safely, but even they can't stay on it for too long. It forces stolen life energy into a crossing demon's body, forcing the demon to grow at an increased rate. If the demon stays on it for too long, he'll overload and blow himself up." I explained, poking the crystal with a twig. It burst into flames. I bunched my hair up behind me, tying it up with a fabricated string. "I think I've got the gist of how this thing works. If there's even just one single strand of demon DNA in your body, it starts pumping energy into you, forcing your body to grow faster. Guess those scorpions from earlier were demons." I closed my eyes, putting one foot on the crystallized surface. It felt warm to the touch, and I felt my body pulsing. I quickly stepped off the surface. I had just changed a small bit of my DNA to demon DNA using the "If we want to cross this, we'll have to bet on things. Absorbing too much life energy from the thing will turn you into a real demon, then blow you up. I'm not affected much, I've got the capacity for the life energy. But you guys don't." I turned to the others. "I can change part of your DNA into demon DNA, but only temporarily." I said, walking towards Alexis. "Some of us might make it across, some might die in the process." I continued on, placing my hand on her head. It pulsed for a moment, then a lone scale creeped across her arm. She shifted uncomfortably, staring at the scale. "Go." I said. She ran through the field, her body pulsing. I did the same with the rest. Some grew a scale, some got their ears slightly pointed. I went last, making sure I had my DNA changed. The black crystal field continued on until the outskirts of Kerning, where we stopped for a rest. "All of us made it." I smiled at the group. "I feel weird though." Lightning said. All of us would, of course. "I feel like I want to puke..." Ares was leaning on the wall of a building. All of us had noticeably grown. Most of us were naked, having outgrown our clothes. Only the magicians retained their loose robes. My breasts were sticking out from under my undersized bra, and my bikini was stretched thin. I walked around, using the Kerning had completely changed. Demons infested every corner of the city, and debris adorned the side of the roads. Hulking metal golems marched around the perimeter of the city, standing guard. "Going in through the front door would be suicide." I mumbled. We were hiding behind a wrecked building. Kyrios was using his spear to draw a map in the rubble. We were trying to determine the weak spots in the city's defenses. "Damn. It's a perfect defense..." I groaned, then looked up and saw another Gryphon flying overhead. I quickly held my breath, but luckily it didn't see me. "We'll have to use someone as bait for those demons, but I doubt they're stupid enough to follow just one person." I said. "Maybe they have peabrains." Lightning suggested, poking a little humour into the heavy mood. No one laughed. "I know what those things can do, and if any of us go out alone, we won't last even one minute. Going together, we might have a chance if we focus our attacks on just one demon at a time, but the others will pulverize us before we get another one down." I said, peeking around the corner. A screeching vampire flew past, nearly scaring me to death. "Well, well, what do we have here?" It turned back. "You never existed." I said calmly, sending an Arrow Bomb to it's head. The unfortunate vampire was blown to smithereens. However, my little stunt seemed to have attracted a lot of attention. Hundreds of Tauroswords were striding towards our hiding spot, and they did NOT look happy. "We have company......" I stumbled backwards. Right into the arms of a hungry vampire. "Let's see how you taste like." It laughed, then I sandwiched it between my right leg and my back. It didn't even have time to open it's mouth. "Buncha annoying pieces of sh!t." I grumbled, dropping the squished vampire to the ground and stamping on it's face repeatedly. "Isn't that overkill?" Another vampire glided out of the shadows. Before he knew what hit him, my left leg snapped out, slamming it's skull into the ground. Something cracked. Definitely not the pavement. "Charming." I muttered, looking as brain fluid leaked out of the crushed skull into the head-shaped depression in the pavement. I got back to the hiding spot to find out that there was no one there. "Come on out, guys. I took care of the vampires." I sighed. The entire party appeared out of thin air. "How did you know?" Ares asked. "Space distortion. Demons aren't smart enough to notice, but I'm human." I pointed at a Fury-shaped distortion in a corner. He faded into view. "Dark Sight won't last long if a Gryphon flies over. No point trying, there's hundreds of those things soaring around." I said, looking out a ruined window. The Tauroswords were very close. "We need to get out of here. Even I can't take care of that many." I flipped a few blocks of debris and found what I was looking for. "Hey Alexis, did you know that this used to be our house?" I asked, lifting up a trapdoor and exposing an empty swimming pool. I found an emergency duplicate of my battle set in the changing room and gladly switched it with my current clothes. They were a little tight though. The shirt only covered half my oversized breasts now, and the pants were showing too much of my buttocks. I slid Artemis's robe on over the set. Instantly, the robe melded with the clothes, extending them quite a bit and changing their colour to white. "Not bad." I slapped my hips fondly. "I doubt we'll fit through the hatch." Alexis pointed at the emergency exit at the bottom of the swimming pool. It was open already. "Won't know until we try." I walked over, climbing into it. My legs could barely fit in, but I persisted. "Ouch." I mumbled, trying to push myself out. My hips had gotten stuck again. Ares and Alexis grabbed my hands and pulled me up. "We'll need to widen that." I stared at the hatch, rubbing my buttocks. The Tauros were really close now, and some were already in range to use their magic. We didn't have time. I blasted the hatch with a magic ball, widening it. We quickly jumped in, nearly getting swept off our feet by the strong current. We were tall enough for our torsos to stay above the water level, so we waded upstream slowly. "They'll be expecting us to flow downstream." I explained, then a metal sword slid down through the tunnel roof, narrowly missing me. The magic radiated from the sword blew me off balance, and I tumbled into the others. The current took us, and without our feet on the ground, we couldn't do anything. It was too strong to outswim, and the tumbling of our bodies kept us from grabbing the side of the waterway. "We'll flow back to Henesys at this rate!" I shouted. My voice was muffled by the foot in my face. "Argh, Lightning, GET YOUR FOOT OFF MY FACE, DAMMIT!" I groaned, pushing his foot off. "It's not my foot!" Lightning's voice sounded from the other side of the group. "Well then, who's is it?" I asked, seriously annoyed. The foot lifted off my face. "Sorry, Artemis." Alexis's voice rang out. I saw a fork in the waterway a few seconds later and pushed at the opposite wall with a free foot, knowing full well where this would take me. The shockwave that had hit me when I first entered the waterway had buffeted my body, blowing me into this very fork. The others had continued on with the flow of the river and ended up at Henesys. "Artemis, what did you do?" Ares asked. "I'm changing our direction." I answered. The river flow here was slow, so we soon found our footing, continuing along the waterway. "Where are we going?" Dray asked. "My home." I smiled. "Your home? But......" Alexis stared at me. I took everyone to the cave where the entrance to Artemis's shrine was located. The oversized alligators didn't bother us for some reason. As usual, I bumped into a few stalagmites in the inky darkness. The others did too, and when we got to the gravity tunnel, the other side of it still had the exact same depression on it. "You guys will have to wait outside." I turned to the boys. Alexis stared at me. I walked over to the depression and my clothes faded into nothingness. The boys turned their backs to me. "Alexis." I mumbled, grabbing her hand. I placed my hand in the depression. It instantly enlarged to my size, and I stepped into it. "When the depression reappears, do this." I said, feeling the soft organic material on the surface. A wall clamped down behind me, and I felt like my breasts were being vacuumed. Having been through this already, I knew it was okay, and didn't flinch. Soon, the first part was completed, and I drifted through the material. I hung on the wall, waiting for Alexis. Soon, she emerged naked, slightly red in the face and clutching her chest. "Don't worry." I smiled at her and went ahead into the next depression. Those green worm-like things shot into me again. I just rested there calmly as I was let into the next part with those things still sticking into me. The strained veins were popping up, but I didn't bother resisting. The green slime formed around me again as Alexis drifted in, in visible pain. "Don't resist." I simply told her. She was trying to pull a tube sticking into her chest out. My silver hair drifted behind me as the jelly substance we were floating in pushed me gently into the next depression. "Wow." Alexis gasped as we emerged in Artemis's shrine. Everything was intact. "Now, meet the other me." I whispered. Blue stars of magic emerged from my body and reformed in the air. The Goddess's naked body appeared in the midst of those stars. My hair turned back to black and shortened back to it's normal length. I felt like something was missing inside me. Alexis gaped. My clothes reappeared on my body. "You need your robe back?" I inquired. "It's fine. I don't need it any more." Artemis smiled, stepping into the honey pool. "Okay." I slipped my clothes off, stepping into the pool and dragging Alexis along. |
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