246 246 - The Devil is in the Details (1/2)

Uncharted Forest, Site of Battle with the Hero

The Orcs warily made their way out of the forest into a massive circular clearing. The previous traces of battle has mostly vanished and replaced by new growth sprouts.

The Orcs nosed around and trampled the area in search of something as a human stood in the middle of the clearing.

Ex naval security Spaceman Senior Aaron stood surrounded by the Orcs with his eyes closed. In his left hand, he held a golden trinket that was shaped like a wiggly worm.

He slowly rotated on the spot as if sensing something before he snapped his eyes open. ”This way,” he growled at the Orcs who obediently followed him.

They followed a small trail of destruction which the forest has already started to reclaim. Moss and other ferns grew on the barks of rotting and uprooted tree trunks.

The small trail led them before the stone slopes of a mountainous range and Aaron pointed up to the side of the mountain where a dark cave could be seen. ”Up there!”

The Orcs argued and cursed among themselves before some of them clearly lost to some kind of choosing game, slung coils of woven vines and made their way up the steep slopes.

After some time, the climbers managed to reach the cave and dropped the rope vines down after securing them.

Aaron climbed deftly up the ropes with other Orcs following and entered the cave.

The original climbers grunt and growled as the cave was only barely five meters deep.

Aaron placed his palm with the trinket against the back wall of the cave and he smiled before ordering the Orcs. ”Dig!”

Dirt and rocks flew as the Orcs threw themselves with a vengeance against the cave walls. As the sun dipped down, the Orcs had managed to deepen the cave by a few meters.

It took them two days before Aaron ordered them to stop, and he went down on his hands and knees, sweeping away the loose soil before exposing a withered slump.

He smiled and held the trinket close to his heart and whispered, ”I have found it, Master!”

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Orwell's Point, Marine Stronghold

Liz silently admired the handiwork of the beast girl that just joined them the day before. The beast girl held a swinging crystal pendant and allowed it to spin around an aerial map taken by the dragons.

The pendant's spin slowly stabilized as it came to an area where demonic energies were detected before becoming unnaturally still as it pointed to a spot on the map.

The beast girl's eyes opened and she sighed as the amount of concentration and magic focus that was needed was very high, as evidenced by the fatigue look and sweat plastered all over the girl.

”There should be something bad here,” Kaga said tiredly as she wiped the sweat off her face with a towel provided by Liz.

Captain Joseph nodded and turned to his aide and gave an order who scurried off immediately.

Joseph was impressed by the girl's divination abilities. When she came over in one of the flights, he was skeptic at her skills after seeing her so young and cute. She later asked the troops to pasted those talismans of hers all over the city and he realized that it works similarly as the cameras and monitoring systems of the hooman.

Kaga admitted that she borrowed the idea from the hoomans as it allowed her to cast a ”net” over a vast area rather than having to perform a large scale area spell to encompass the city which required alot more magic power.

Using this net, she was able to detect traces of what she called ”unclean” magic as the energies made her felt that way.

Once she has located any large traces, she will immediately inform one of the officers in the map room and they will send troops down to investigate.

In this way, they have found a couple of sites where traces of occult activities had taken place.

All these occult and demon cultists had baffled everyone, who was wondering what the objectives of these cultists were after.

Liz followed the soldiers down to the new location discovered by Kaga as she was in charge of providing magic support.

A couple of the Claymore Two soldiers followed her as they followed the troops through the streets and surrounded a non describsive looking two story building at a corner of a quiet street in the residential district.

The soldiers surrounded the small house where a small stone wall surrounded a small plot of herbs. They crouched low and waddled their way nearer to the house when suddenly the building made of wood and stone exploded and a towering monstrosity smashed its way out from the ruins of bricks and mortar.

Liz watched from a street away while other residents were evacuated back further and she frowned, wondering what was the purpose of the cultists.

The thunder sticks of the soldiers roared and slurpy yellow pus erupted from wounds on the giant worm like monster with tiny humanoid baby arms and legs that were clawing against the air. Liz was about to cast her magic when a loud whoosh roared out.

She saw a fiery smoke trail flying out from a soldier with a tube over his shoulder. It hit the giant worm with a crying baby face with a sick slap and the white meaty flesh exploded, painting the area with smelly pus.

The demonic monster toppled over with loud curses from the soldiers who some even vomited over the side from the smell of the blood pus. Liz caught a sniff of the smell and backed off, letting the soldiers handle the fallout of the demon while she waited with the other officers.

The soldiers escorting her grinned as they watched the monster blew up and started chatting excitedly among themselves over the cause and reasons why there were cultists here.