Divine Contract

Chapter 10 - The Third Contracted Pair

After walking around town for a while, we moved to meet up with the others. After reuniting with the rest of the group, I was introduced to Mia’s Contractor, Lisa Crest. She was slightly shorter than myself, with shoulder-length black hair. Crest was carrying a two-handed greatsword on her back. It looked almost comically large, but with the way she carried herself, I would have bet that she could swing it around without breaking a sweat.

After the introductions were finished, we decided to leave town. We could probably have spent the night in town, because we hadn’t caused any large commotions in this town, but the three Angels said that Astropia was close enough that we could make it before nightfall. Considering how Highlander and Lia had acted after encountering the Demonic Beast the previous night, I decided that they must be confident that we could make it.

We Contractors decided to put our faith in our Angles, and departed for Astropia. Unfortunately, I had completely forgotten that Highlander had zero sense of direction, and it appeared that Lia and Mia were no better; because we ended up wandering around aimlessly until the sun had nearly set. It was only then that we saw a stone ruin in the distance, which the Angels claimed to be the entrance to Astropia.

While we could see the ruin, it would still take several minutes to reach it. Those minutes were the most tense I had been during the entire journey from my home to where we were. The sun was low enough that Demonic Beasts were able to wander around, and without the light from a campfire, they would not hesitate to attack us.

We all had our weapons at the ready, so that we could react if any Demonic Beasts did attack. I noticed that Mia’s Relic seemed rather small, but took a mental note to ask her about it later, since I had more pressing things to be worried about.

As we made our way towards the ruin, it suddenly hit us. A massive amount of demonic aura, far more powerful than what the Beast from yesterday had emitted. The three Angels completely froze, clearly never having felt a presence quite like this before.

If they stayed as they were, they would be killed without a fight, so in order to prevent that, I...

“All of you! Head for the ruin and do whatever you need to do to get us into Astropia!” I ordered, turning towards the source of the demonic aura. “I’ll keep the Beasts busy until you do.” This seemed to bring the Angels back to their senses.

“That’s too dangerous!” Highlander argued. “We can’t let you do that on your own!”

“And we’re not going to.” Crest interjected, with a confident smile on her face. “I’ll stay and fight with him, while you get us in there.”

“But...” started Mia.

“If these two are staying back, then I might as well do the same,” Fields Interrupted, with an unusual smirk. “They’ll need the help, after all.”

“Then we should all...” Highlander began to argue.

“The three of you are the only ones here who know how to get us in there!” I interrupted, raising my voice. “Now, hurry up before we all get torn to pieces!”

After hearing me say that, the three Angels briefly looked at each other, before nodding and running towards the ruin.

“I guess it’s time for us to show what we’re made of,” announced Crest.

“We can’t afford to fail here after saying all of that now, can we?” agreed Fields.

“We’ll need to go all out from the start if we want to even have a chance at surviving this, though,” I added. “But if we can’t get past this, there’s no way we would survive in a war against the Demons!”

““Right!”” Fields and Crest answered, in unison, and, as if on cue, the Demonic Beasts howled and began to charge.

In order to stand a chance, we needed to go all out, and in order to do that... I need to use my magic. I called upon the power that had been with me since birth, and commanded it to come forth.

As I was doing this, the Beast at the front leapt at me. I rolled forward, underneath the Beast, and launched a kick at its exposed underside. A focused blast of wind gathered at the spot where my foot connected to it, and sent the Beast flying through the air, cracking its rock-like skin, before coming crashing down to earth.

“I knew it. My power has definitely gotten stronger since I entered into this contract.”

Normally, I would have only been able to send a Demonic Beast back a few meters, but now I could do several times that. But that also came with the disadvantage that I no longer knew exactly what percentage of my power to use per attack.

As those thoughts crossed my mind, the area suddenly lit up. I turned my attention to the source of the light, and saw Fields, with balls of fire floating around her, and a flaming arrow piercing the eye of one of the Beasts. The rest of the Beasts were clearly rattled by the sudden bright light, because their movements began to slow down.

Despite admiring Fields’ handiwork, I still kept a vigilant focus on the rest of the battle, so I was fully aware when the Beast I had sent flying had recovered and charged at me again. However, I had yet to regain my balance after landing back on the ground, due to being unable to properly brace from my power being greater than I was expecting, so I couldn’t dodge its attack, but I raised my knife, to defend myself as well as I could. Just as its claws were about to reach me, the earth rose, in the shape of a spike, and pierced through its abdomen, through the cracked area that I created. It struggled for a second, before exploding into the same particles that the Demons turn into when they die.

“We’re still not used to our new power, so we need to adjust!” shouted Crest, my saviour.

I nodded in response. At that moment, three Beasts sped past us, charging towards the Angels, who were nearing the entrance to the ruins. All three of us Contractors responded at the same time.

“Flaming Arrow!” “Earth Spear!” “Wind Blade!”

Fields release a flame-clad arrow towards the Beast on the right; Crest swung her sword to the ground, causing two earth spikes to rise out of the ground at either side of the Beast on the left, angled towards its flanks; and I slashed horizontally with my knife, sending a sharp blade of wind towards the Beast in the middle.

Fields’ Flaming Arrow flew towards her target, the flames turning from a bright red to a dark purple, before impacting the Beast, causing it to be engulfed with purple flames. This caused it to crash into the ground and roll several times, before coming to a stop and soon exploding into demonic particles.

Crest’s Earth Spears impacted with the sides of her target, holding it in place momentarily, before shining a light pink colour and piercing through the Beast’s armour-like flesh, killing it instantly.

My Wind Blade reached my target almost instantly, changing from a dark green colour to light blue, and cut straight through the Beast, cutting it clean in half, and then continued to impact a stone pillar outside the ruin, leaving a deep gash.

All three of us had easily killed our targets. However, we all had very surprised expressions on our faces. “I had only expected my Wind Blade to injure it, and slow it down! Even with my increased power, I shouldn’t have been able to kill it that easily!”

It was obvious that we were all having the same thoughts, because our attacks were only meant to buy the Angels the time they needed to reach the ruin, and while we had accomplished that goal, we didn’t know how to react to what we had just witnessed.

I quickly shook my head to clear my mind, deciding to think about what happened later, and I called out to the other two Contractors, “They’ve reached the ruin! We should go too!”

That seemed to snap the two of them out of it, because they glanced at me briefly before nodding. We all started running towards the ruin. I used a technique known as Windstepping, to increase my speed. I accomplished this by creating a cushion to air beneath my feet and forcefully moving all wind around me, to eliminate air resistance.

Crest made the ground beneath her move, whilst also holding her sword in a way to split the air in front of her, causing her to slide forward at unexpected speed.

Fields leapt into the air and used her flames to create small explosions behind her, propelling her forward, whilst simultaneously creating a flash of light to deter the Demonic Beasts that were following us.

We closed the distance to the ruins very quickly, with the Beasts hot on our heels. While still travelling fast, Crest was the slowest of the three of us, so the Beasts closest to us targeted her. She hadn’t noticed that one of the Beasts was right behind her, and was about to s***h at her with its claws, but I did.

“Watch out!” I shouted. I adjusted my positioning and pushed Crest out of the way, managing to move her out of the attack range of the Beasts claws. However, by doing that, I had moved into its range, and received its attack on my left shoulder.

I stifled a cry of pain, spun around and kicked the Beast with all of my might. I knocked the Beast away, but had slowed down as a result, allowing the other Beasts to catch up. We were right outside the ruin now, but there was no way I would be able to make it inside before the Beasts caught me, and even if I did, they would just corner us inside.

As I felt that the situation was hopeless, something wrapped around my waist and pulled me inside the ruin. The Beasts charged forward still, but collided with some form of magic barrier, preventing them from following us inside.