Chapter 552: Approaching The Third Base II
Luton emerged from behind the root formation and bounced back toward Damien at the same unhurried pace it had left with, its form noticeably fuller now, its surface carrying a faint shimmer that came from whatever passive process it ran after a feeding.
It settled back into its usual position just behind Damien. But before they could take a step forward, it moved towards Damien and bounced high, landing on his head as though it was its seat. It had been so before and it had reclaimed that spot once again.
Damien had watched the whole thing without moving.
Cerbe’s middle head had tracked Luton’s progress across the terrain, all three sets of eyes following with the particular attention of a creature watching something it found either interesting or incomprehensible. Fenrir had simply observed. Aquila had continued its arc above, indifferent.
Damien looked at Luton for a moment.
Then looked ahead.
The beasts were handled. The path was clear. The forest ahead was quiet in the immediate sense—no new presences in the range he was tracking, nothing organized, nothing that suggested the third stronghold had sent anything out this direction recently.
He was close to ninety percent.
The third stronghold was ahead—closer now, close enough that the ambient demonic essence in the air was beginning to have a directional quality to it. Not strong yet. But present in a way that was distinct from the general background corruption the demons had introduced to the forest over time.
He thought about the approach.
Going in on foot with four summons active was not the problem—he had done exactly that against the second base and it had worked. But the second base had been a situation where he had time and information and the element of surprise on his side. He had circled it, watched it, counted, planned, and then moved.
The third stronghold was aware that something had gone wrong.
Not specifically aware—not yet, probably. But the silence from the second base would register eventually, if it hadn’t already.
A stronghold with the discipline and organization the demons had demonstrated here would have some mechanism for checking in, for confirming that the units it had sent out were still operating as expected.
At some point, the lack of confirmation would start to mean something.
Damien did not know how much time he had before that happened. Could be soon. Could be later.
What he knew was that speed mattered more now than it had going into the second base.
He needed to get there fast.
And fast, for this terrain—for this forest, with its dense canopy and irregular ground and the sheer distance he still had to cover—meant the air.
He looked up.
Then called inward.
"Cancel Fenrir’s summon."
The wolf paused mid-step.
It turned its head toward him fully, its eyes holding on his face for a moment with the particular quality it had when it was parsing a command it hadn’t expected.
Damien met the gaze steadily.
"You’ll be needed at the stronghold," he said. "Not here."
A beat.
Then Fenrir exhaled once—a slow, measured breath—and dissolved. The blue light of the portal consumed it cleanly, leaving the space at Damien’s right empty and quiet.
"Cancel Cerbe’s summon."
Cerbe’s three heads all turned toward him simultaneously.
All six eyes held on him at once—which was always more attention than felt comfortable, even from a summon. The hellhound made a sound low in its chest. Not a growl. Something between acknowledgment and protest.
"Third stronghold," Damien said. "You’ll have more to work with there."
The sound stopped.
Cerbe dissolved.
The dark-flame energy faded from the air around where it had stood, the temperature returning to normal within seconds of its departure.
"Cancel Aquila’s summon."
A screech from above—brief, sharp, and carrying the specific pitch Aquila used when it was acknowledging rather than objecting. The sound faded as the griffin’s presence withdrew from the air above the canopy, the surveillance arc it had been maintaining dissolving along with it.
The forest felt quieter without all three of them.
Just Damien and Luton now, standing in the middle of a section of scorched and disturbed terrain where none of the disturbance had been caused by either of them.
Damien looked at the slime.
Luton looked back.
Then Damien called inward one more time.
"Summon Skylar."
The portal that opened this time was different.
Not in size—the blue oval of light was consistent with every summoning portal he had ever opened. But the quality of what came through it was different.
Where Cerbe had brought temperature drop and Aquila had brought displaced air, Skylar usually brought something harder to name. A pressure. A sense of depth and speed compressed into a form that hadn’t fully released it yet.
The Shadowfang Wyvern emerged with its wings folded and its body low, the way it always arrived—contained, controlled, the bulk of what it was held close until it was ready to extend. Its scales were dark in the forest light, the deep charcoal-grey that absorbed rather than reflected, making it seem to exist slightly deeper in the shadows than it actually did.
Its head turned toward Damien.
The eyes—sharp, with the kind of focus that reminded Damien of a blade held still—found him immediately and held.
Skylar did not make the sounds Cerbe made. Did not have the measured patience of Fenrir or the watchful precision of Aquila.
The Shadowfang Wyvern had its own quality—a coiled readiness, a sense that it existed in a state of barely-contained forward momentum at all times, waiting only for the direction to be given before it committed fully.
Damien stepped toward it.
His hand found the side of its neck—not a gesture of comfort, just contact, the brief acknowledgment of presence that had become habit between them.
"Full speed," he said. "Direct rideto the third base—north-northeast from here."
Skylar’s head tilted once.
Then lowered, the motion that meant it understood and was ready.
Damien moved to mount.
He swung up in one clean motion, settling into the position he had found through repetition—low and forward, weight distributed for speed rather than comfort, the slight adjustments that let Skylar’s movement translate through him without friction.
The slime had already compressed itself—smaller, denser, its form tightened in the way it prepared for high-speed travel. It had done this before. It knew what Skylar’s summoning meant.
Damien extended one hand.
Luton flowed down his arm and settled in front og him—not attached in any visible way, just present, its surface tension holding it in place with a grip that no wind speed had managed to break yet.
Ready.
Damien straightened.
His eyes moved forward, through the trees, in the direction the ambient demonic essence was coming from. The direction he had been tracking since the second base. The direction the remaining record fragment was waiting.
The direction of the third stronghold.
"Go," he said.
Skylar went.
The launch was immediate—no gradual build, no preparatory crouch. One moment it was still. The next it had driven forward and up, wings snapping open with a sound like a crack of pressure releasing, carrying them both through the canopy gap it identified in the fraction of a second before it needed to use it.
The forest fell away below them.
The sky—dark, wide, the stars still present above the canopy—opened up around them as Skylar climbed and leveled, finding its cruising altitude with the efficiency of a creature that had done this enough times to know exactly where that level was.
Wind hit.
Hard and immediate and constant.
Damien leaned forward into it, his body settling into the familiar resistance of high-speed flight, the pressure against his face and chest and arms that had become associated in his mind with a specific kind of movement—purposeful, direct, committed.
Luton held.
Skylar drove forward.
Below, the Forest of Twin Disasters spread out in every direction—vast, dark, the canopy an unbroken surface from this height that gave no indication of what moved beneath it. What had happened beneath it. What was still waiting beneath it.
Somewhere under that surface, a Thing of Ruin sat sealed and waiting for its challenger to release it.
Somewhere ahead, the third stronghold held the rest of what he needed to find it.
Skylar’s wings beat in a rhythm that was less sound than sensation—felt through the body rather than heard, a deep, driving pulse that pushed them forward at a pace that made the distance below blur.
Damien’s eyes were fixed ahead.
On the direction the essence was coming from and what was at the end of it.
The third stronghold drew closer with every second that passed. Damien was getting excited for the battle.
