CH616

<EXTRACTION ENHANCEMENT LEVEL INCREASED>

Early the next day, all of them went out, with Ben and Thera heading to their point while Sonya went to hers, wishing each other the best as they parted.

The two weren’t going to be beginning at the hospital that made up the center of that miniature gate network given the fact that there were not yet victims that needed to be healed, instead going to the first of the gates, standing along the wall where they’d been told to before as a flurry of movement went on all around them, with people getting in positions and arranging things the best they could or else just shuffling under the stress as the countdown went on with a flair going up in the sky.

“An hour to go,” Ben muttered when he saw it, flashes of the first wave and everything leading up to it making it across his thoughts as Thera took his hand beside him.

“It will be fine, we’ll survive this and I’ll protect you if things get bad.”

“Don’t worry and focus on protecting yourself, I’ll manage somehow. It’s not like I’m going to be down there at least.”

He looked over the edge they were waiting on to the warriors below, the ones whose skills were trained for direct combat instead of anything that could be used at a distance like so many magics but meant they’d be facing the horde in a significantly less secure way compared to them, being within reach of tooth and claw right from the get-go.

And all of the clouds don’t exactly help, do they? It’s not exactly too dark to see, but a little more light wouldn’t hurt. Oh well, not like it’s going to harm anything either.

At the very least, his vision wasn’t obstructed as he turned his eyes up to the point off in the distance, marking just where all hell was going to break loose.

A part of him that wasn’t suffering under the reality of the situation couldn’t help but wonder how it worked as he stared, and given that line of thought felt a bit more enjoyable than the efforts he was putting towards trying to avoid falling into despair, he let himself indulge in it, just for a moment as his head filled with possibilities.

It surely wasn’t a piece of magical technology, if only because the demons didn’t seem to dabble in such things if the few examples he’d seen were any evidence, though as he thought it he had to admit to himself that the small handful of demon technology and enchantments making their way to his eyes was too little to let him judge a galactic civilization, even if he felt sure of himself.

But if that wasn’t the case, then what? Considering that demons were a terrestrial race, born to a planet like all of those they invaded instead of being free to travel the void like some others in the universe, that meant they had to have had an origin point and his thoughts considered the species from that angle.

He knew they could become powerful if given the time to grow and seemed to be able to act together to an extent, though from his few experiences in the past, that may have been due to having a powerful leader acting above them. But did that translate into them being able to form cooperative relationships and work towards a common goal? From what Ben had seen any time he peeked into one’s mind, he was sure the answer was no. They could be dominated by those above them but a desire to kill and dominate in return was too powerful for him to bet on more than a handful across any planet being able to put aside their differences and ignore their base nature to improve.

That meant what he was seeing wasn’t the product of some powerful ritual, he doubted the species was even aware of that application of magic and even if they were, wouldn’t have the ability to use it on such a scale unless a more powerful demon held such dominion over them that they had no choice but to learn such an outrageously powerful spell that somehow stretched across worlds and keep it up constantly until it was opened for those on the other side to flood through. He didn’t believe the race had the restraint to keep from just leaving it open either.

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Even if I still don’t understand why they do it this way.