Speed Is King

Elliot sighed.

He hated to admit it, but Gilgamar was right.

Foolishness was bound in the hearts of youth, and their hotbloodedness leads them down many reckless paths.

Apparently, Elliot was not exempt from that saying.

He had vastly underestimated the effectiveness and strength of his catalytic spell, and his resulting act of stuffing so many runes to the trigger for nuclear fusion had caused an explosion that far exceeded the energy capacity of the fabric of space in the Shadow Realm!

The shredding of the Realm Barrier between it and whatever “adjacent” realm was definitely another unintended and disastrous consequence. Whether or not it would ultimately be useful like Elliot’s earlier unintended and disastrous nuclear fusion though, remains completely to be seen.

“Our worst case scenario would be that the explosion really unleashed the Realm of Sin upon the Shadow Realm, caused several powerful Demon Gods to enter the Shadow Realm and they somehow traced our movements here.” Elliot finally spoke up.

“Yes, indeed.” Elise Sands agreed. “It would be pretty improbable, but not entirely impossible.”

“We need eyes on the situation.” Elliot said. “I can send out drones to survey the area. Can you open up a portal to the Shadow Realm for them?”

“I would need to set up a relay portal through an uninhabitated dimension so as to avoid the explosions from directly entering our realm, but yes. I think I do not have any problems doing that.” Elise Sands thought aloud and replied.

“Good. Red! I need a thousand of your spy drones. They would be entering a highly energy-corrosive realm so make sure you send out your toughest ones!” Elliot commanded.

“Hohoho. I’ve managed to extort a little bit of treasure from our newest “junior brothers and sisters” the Dragon Primals, and I’ll be able to provide you with “Red Glory”, my latest and most powerful drone series that would be able to survive and operate smoothly in the most hostile and inhabitable locations ever! Don’t your worry, just leave everything to me!” Red proudly declared as he materialized next to Elliot.

As usual, his chattiness knew no bounds and he immediately launched into a long and detailed narrative of how he managed to extort the dragons, all for Elliot’s sake, and how he managed to come up with the idea of his newest design!

“Right. You did well. Thanks. Now, how many do you have at the ready?” Elliot interrupted him after a few, very long seconds.

“Uh. I was just about to tell you, that I only have a hundred or so! Thosy stingy dragons! They-” Red began once more.

“Okay. A hundred is fine. Bring them out and send them into that portal over there!” Elliot commanded.

“Fine fine. Here goes the Red Glory series! Wooohooo!!” Red shouted as he unleashed a series of little bumblebee-sized drones into the portal where Elise had created.

Within seconds, Elliot and Elise got their eyes in the Shadow Realm.

“Here, you can see what they are seeing through this video feed. Oh my, everything looks so empty and depressing in this place. Why do you even want to see all this junk? It’s so… HOLY SMOKES! Red Glory 54 just exploded! Why?” Red shouted.

“Analyzing data feed… Nuclear Radiation overload? What the heck? What happened here? Why… WHAT IS THAT??” Red shouted once more.

“Keep quiet.” Elliot said grimly. “Disperse the drones, make sure we can observe the situation for as long as possible.”

For once, Red obeyed instantly and quietly.

He knew just how serious the situation was.

The drones had finally adjusted to the Shadow Realm and their video cameras had just achieved maximum clarity and range.

And when they did that, Elliot and Elise could finally see the full extent of the disaster Elliot’s little spell had wrought on the Shadow Realm.

A ginormous crack had appeared in the distance, and endless waves of ethereal wisps were pouring out of it.

Before the crack stood a grim looking Blytoros and his own incredibly large army pouring out of his dimensional worlds.

But even in the distance, Elliot and Elise could see that the rate of soldiers pouring out of the crack was many, many times higher than the rate of soldiers pouring out of Blytoros’ dimensional worlds.

At this rate, Blytoros’ private army would be nothing more than a pack of wolves standing their ground against billions of army ants.

On and on the soldiers appeared.

The ethereal wisps coming out from the crack looked like they were the spirits of giganting sea octopuses, with a central body and around ten tentacle-y limbs wriggling in all directions.

Blytoros’ soldiers were also quite strange. Many different types of soldiers had appeared, some were huge, asteroid sized eyeballs, and some were sleek, pencil-shaped ships. All around them were many different types of warriors and contraptions, and they took on a complex formation that looked absolutely impressive.

Against an army of equal size, or even one that was twice their size, Elliot was sure that Blytoros’ army could easily achieve complete victory.

But against billions of octopus-shaped wisps?

“Aren’t you going to ask me what those wisps are?” Elise Sands asked him with a smile.

“I don’t need to. I can sense the Being just behind the crack just fine.” Elliot said with another deep sigh.

“Huh? What being?” Elise Sands frowned deeply.

“Huh? You can’t sense it? It’s emitting a power level that’s almost identical to Blytoros! It’s a God level being! These octopus wisps are denizens of the Realm of Sin, right?” Elliot asked.

Elise Sands stared at the crack with narrowed eyes as she strained her senses to discover the “being” which Elliot had mentioned. But it was too difficult doing that through only Red’s drones.

“I can’t sense anything.” Elise Sands finally said. “And no, these octopus wisps aren’t from the Realm of Sin. They are from a smaller, side-realm we call the Realm of Banshees.”

“Realm of Banshees.” Elliot repeated with a deeply uneasy feeling.