What Lurks Under II

The explosion spread outward and filled up almost the entire tunnel. The flames almost reached Kies, barely making it to his face. Falte likely had been caught up in the explosion as well even though he dodged the initial attack. No matter how tough the two were, this wasn't something that they could take. "Ammine! Falte!" Kies shouted when the flames retracted. He raised the lantern to his face and moved it around in an arc, searching for the two.

"If only you listened to my warning," the voice said aloofly. "I guess you will have to go as well." Several more fireballs flew out of the dark at Kies. They were a lot smaller than the previous one, but there were a bunch of them.

Kies dropped the lantern and held both his hands in front of him, creating a wind barrier that was just big enough to cover his entire body, but not any bigger than that. He learned that there was no point in creating a barrier that was bigger than himself unless there was someone or something behind him that he was protecting. It was a waste of magic and also took longer to create.

The fireballs slammed into his barrier, exploding on impact and almost breaking it. After the attack was over, Kies dropped his barrier and slashed his arms several times, sending wind blades in the direction of where the attack came from.

He couldn't see if the attacks had landed or not, but judging from the sounds of the winds colliding with the walls, they had probably missed. Another wave of fireballs flew at Kies and this time, it was followed up by another attack. Kies blocked the fireballs just as he did before with his wind barrier but it didn't look like he would be able to block the second attack. A wave of flames rushed towards him, enveloping the ground as it traveled to him. Kies tried stopping the flames by shooting wind at it but it only made it worse.

The fire grew taller and also looked like it was moving faster. It was only a matter of seconds before the flames reached him. Kies looked to his left where the water was. He was thinking about jumping into it, but as it turns out, the flames were also traveling on top of the water. What kind of fire was this? Even water couldn't stop it.

Kies didn't have time to think. He quickly raised his arm and chanted, "Winds, heed my call and serve my will. Clear a path for me this instant." A strong blast of wind flew out of his palm and tore through the fire. It created a pathway in the middle of it but wasn't enough to stop it. The flames quickly filled the gap where the wind had gone through and continued to move at a frightening pace towards Kies.

Kies fired off another Wind Cannon into the center of the fire while slowly backing away from it. "A futile effort," the voice said to Kies. The flames came back quicker than before and started moving even faster. They were only a few feet away from him now.

'Think, d*mn it, think.' Kies tried to figure out a way out of this. If he turned and ran, even with Wind's Blessing, he wouldn't be able to outrun the flames. Furthermore, he needed to check if the two demons were still alive. It was impossible to find them in the sea of flames, but he had a feeling that the two of them were alive but unconscious. The attack shouldn't have been enough to kill them.

Kies thought about running through the fire with Wind Shell on to reach the enemy, but that didn't seem like a good idea since it wouldn't last long with all the fire. Wind's Refuge allows him to go through physical objects, but he wasn't sure if that also applied to magic, and now was not the time to test that out.

In the end, the only thing that he could think of was to either create a vortex to suck in all the fire or to use Wind Cyclone and run through it. Kies weighed the two choices and decided that it was best to go with the second option since Wind Vortex may not be big enough to suck in all the fire.

Kies held his hands out and started chanting as fast as he could without fumbling the words. "Winds, answer to me. Let me be the eye and you the torrent as we destroy all those who oppose me." Just as he finished saying the last word to the spell, the fires caught up to him and jumped on his shoes, but they were instantly repelled before they had the chance to crawl any further, barely burning the tips of his sole before the winds chased them away.

The winds spun around him, creating a cyclone that sucked in all the fire, starving them of oxygen and making them disappear. But the spell didn't come without a price. Kies felt it take an immense toll on his magic, nearly draining him dry. His vision blacked out for a split second, but he recovered quickly and began moving towards the source of the fire. He couldn't keep the spell up for long, so he had to be quick about it.

The winds clawed at the walls in the thin tunnel, leaving large scratch marks that could be mistaken with that of a large animal's. For every step that Kies took, chunks of fire were sucked into the winds. He really hoped that the spell wouldn't hit Ammine and Falte but he didn't have the time to worry about that. His plan was to defeat the mage and then search for them.

Fireballs flew out of the dark and crashed against the cyclone and did nothing. Kies continued to inch closer to the mage that was hiding behind the wall of fire. The mage didn't give up or run away and proceeded to shoot more fireballs at him. Just like the previous attacks, none of them could get through the winds.

The spell was difficult to manage and Kies almost lost control of it a couple of times, causing it to sway away from him. Each time Kies barely managed to bring the center back to him. As time passed, the winds became wilder and more stubborn. Kies knew that he couldn't keep the spell under control for much longer and started running towards the mage, sweeping the fire in his path away as he did so.

"Not bad!" the mage shouted over the winds. "But can you handle this!?" A fireball bigger than the one that took down Ammine and Kies screeched towards him. It almost filled up the entire tunnel and was bigger than his cyclone. This wasn't good.

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