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Chapter 121: It Disappeared
🕑 Added 2025-08-16 19:01:21 +0000 UTCThe black and red silhouette passed through the air , dragging a long wake of vaporized rain behind it. each stroke carrying him hundreds of meters through the storm-darkened sky. The pocket dimension below blurred into an impressionist painting of greens and grays, details lost to speed and distance.
"The rain is starting to get lighter," Russell observed, feeling the change in impact against Arrogance's protective shell. What had been a hammering assault when he'd first entered the dimension had gradually diminished to a persistent drizzle.
His internal clock had given up trying to track time in this place where noon looked like dusk and the sky never changed. Minutes? Hours? The flight blended together into a single extended moment of motion. The only constants were the rhythmic beat of his wings and the gradually shifting terrain below.
"We're almost there." The confirmation came as much from instinct as from navigation. He'd passed over several interesting sights during the journey—a crystalline lake that glowed with its own inner light, a forest where the trees grew in perfect spirals, ruins that looked almost Roman except for the disturbing number of skull motifs.
But none had interfered with his passage.
At first, Russell had tensed each time he flew over a demon encampment, expecting aerial pursuit or at least some form of challenge. Instead, he'd been ignored completely. Some creatures had looked up as his shadow passed over, but none had done more than watch.
Do they think I'm one of them? he wondered, glancing down at Arrogance's monstrous form. The symbiote's appearance all writhing darkness and predatory angles certainly fit the local aesthetic. Or perhaps it was simpler than that. He was flying at nearly 300 kilometers per hour; by the time most ground-bound demons registered his presence, he was already a distant memory.
The terrain below began its transformation from the relatively flat entry zones to something more dramatic. Plains gave way to foothills, foothills to proper mountains. geology thrust skyward, clothed in forests that looked black even in daylight. This was his assigned territory a vertical maze of stone and wood .
Russell spread his wings wide, catching an updraft to hover stationary. The maneuver looked effortless but required precise control too much angle and he'd shoot upward, too little and he'd stall. Arrogance had learned the physics of flight remarkably quickly, turning instinct into expertise.
Pulling out his phone with one massive clawed hand required delicate movements. The device looked absurdly small in Arrogance's grip, like a toy phone made for dolls. But the protective case held, and the screen responded to his careful taps.
The 3D map materialized above the device, showing his position as a pulsing red dot. He was right on the edge of his assigned zone, the boundary marked by a ridge line that ran north-south like a natural wall. Time to get specific about his targets.
"Let me see where the nearest demon gathering place is," Russell muttered, zooming in on the marked locations. The association's intelligence had identified several probable strongholds based on aerial reconnaissance and previous missions. He expected to see three or four red markers indicating enemy positions.
Instead, he found one.
"Huh? There is only one demon force in this entire area?"
Russell scratched his head a gesture that looked disturbingly alien when performed by Arrogance's clawed appendage. He'd been mentally preparing for a marathon of battles, systematically clearing nest after nest of monsters. His assigned area was large enough to support multiple demon groups, especially with the diverse terrain providing natural boundaries.
But the map showed a single concentration of enemies, marked at the highest elevation in his zone. Everything else was tagged as "wildlife non-threatening" or simply unmarked wilderness.
"It must be because of me," he reasoned after a moment's thought. "They didn't assign me to an area with more monsters."
It made sense from a safety perspective. He was operating solo, without backup or support. One strong demon group was a manageable challenge. Multiple groups meant the risk of being caught between forces, of exhaustion making him vulnerable. The association might push students, but they weren't trying to get them killed.
Or at least, not obviously.
Having identified his target, Russell angled his wings and accelerated again. The mountain peaks ahead grew rapidly, transforming from distant shadows to looming monoliths. As he drew closer, distinctive features became visible and one in particular made him slow his approach.
Several peaks had been... edited. Where there should have been normal mountain tops were instead perfectly flat platforms, as if god had taken a cosmic sword and simply removed the upper portions. The cuts were too clean to be natural, too uniform to be old . This was recent work, geologically speaking.
Russell glanced at the unfortunate, decapitated hills with interest. The scale of destruction was impressive each platform was hundreds of meters across, the missing material simply gone rather than scattered as debris.
Lily's Caliburn could probably do that, he mused, thinking of Artoria's devastating light attack. One full-power release could carve through stone like butter, leaving similar geometric devastation. But to do this to multiple peaks suggested either repeated attacks or...
The cardmaker who worked here before must have been above the gold level.
The thought sobered him immediately. If gold-level cardmakers had been required for the initial clearing, what did that say about the demons that had lived here? Even weakened, even reduced to remnants, a gold-level threat was still exactly that a threat that could kill him without effort if he got careless.
"I still have to be careful," Russell decided, beginning his descent toward the central peak.
Rather than announcing his presence with a direct assault on the summit, he chose a landing spot halfway up the mountain. A small clearing, probably created by a landslide, provided just enough space. His landing was soft Arrogance had become quite skilled at controlling their combined mass.
The wings folded and retracted, disappearing into his back with wet sounds that would have been disturbing if he hadn't grown used to them. In their place, Arrogance shifted its external appearance, adding textures and patterns that would help break up his outline among the trees. Not true invisibility, but excellent camouflage for someone paying attention.
The climb began carefully. Despite his power, Russell moved like a hunter stalking prey or prey avoiding hunters. Each footstep was placed with deliberation, avoiding loose rocks that might tumble and give away his position. His enhanced senses swept the area constantly, tasting the air for demon-scent, listening for heartbeats or breathing.
The forest here was wrong in ways that went beyond the obvious. The trees grew too straight, too uniform, like soldiers at attention. Their bark was the color of dried blood, and their leaves whispered without any wind to move them. Occasionally, he passed clearings where nothing grew at all perfect circles of dead earth that radiated lingering malevolence.
His magical energy extended outward like invisible tentacles, probing carefully for any sign of life. Demons had their own magical signatures, usually a wrongness that registered to properly trained senses. But as he climbed higher, approaching what the map indicated should be a major settlement, he found... nothing.
No guards. No patrols. No ambient life signs that would indicate a population going about its daily business.
Finally, the trees thinned and structures became visible. Russell paused at the forest edge, using a massive trunk for cover while he observed. What he saw made him frown behind Arrogance's protection.
"How come half of it has collapsed?"
The demon settlement for that's clearly what it had been showed signs of recent catastrophe. Buildings that might once have been elegant in an alien way were now broken ruins. Walls had fallen inward or outward with equal violence. Roofs had caved in or been blown entirely away. The architecture that remained suggested a style unlike anything from Earth—too many angles, doorways shaped for bodies that weren't quite human, windows placed seemingly at random.
But it wasn't old damage. The exposed breaks in stone and wood looked fresh, without the weathering that time would have brought. Whatever had happened here had happened recently weeks or months, not years.
"And why are there no living creatures?"
That was the truly disturbing part. Ruins should have life scavengers picking through debris, small creatures making nests in abandoned structures, plants beginning to reclaim what civilization had abandoned. Instead, the settlement felt sterile. Dead in a way that went beyond mere abandonment.
Russell made a decision. Moving with increased caution, he approached the nearest intact structure. The door a weirdly curved thing that hurt to look at directly stood slightly ajar. He pushed it open with one clawed hand, ready to leap back at the first sign of danger.
Inside was chaos. Furniture or what he assumed was furniture given the alien aesthetics lay overturned. Storage containers had been opened and their contents scattered. Personal items littered the floor in patterns that suggested hurried packing rather than looting.
"There's no dust," Russell noted, kneeling to examine the scene more closely.
His enhanced vision could pick out minute details, and what he saw confirmed his growing suspicions. No dust accumulation meant recent activity. Scratches on the floor were sharp-edged, not worn smooth. Liquid stains he didn't want to know what hadn't fully dried.
"That means there were demons living here not long ago."
Days, perhaps. A week at the outside. But where had they gone?
He conducted a thorough search of the building, checking every room, every container that might hold clues. The architecture became more disturbing the deeper he went rooms with no purpose he could understand, corridors that seemed to loop back on themselves, a basement that somehow had windows looking out onto vistas that didn't match the outside terrain.
But no demons. No bodies. No signs of violence beyond the structural damage.
"Let's go to the center," Russell decided after emerging from the building.
Whatever had happened here, the answers would most likely be found at the heart of the settlement. But first, precautions. This whole situation screamed 'trap' in letters large enough to be seen from orbit.
Russell summoned his full roster, cards materializing in flashes of light. Nami appeared with her Clima-Tact already extended, eyes scanning for threats. Luffy bounced on his heels, ready for action. Yoriichi's hand rested on his sword hilt with casual readiness. Unohana surveyed the ruins with the clinical interest of someone who'd seen worse.
"If we're going to be discovered, it would be better to be prepared," Russell explained to his cards. They couldn't respond verbally, but he felt their understanding through their bonds.
If you can beat them, fight. If you can't, run away. The thought came with gallows humor. Twenty-four hours later, another hero is born.
But even with his full team deployed, the journey to the settlement's center encountered no resistance. They passed through what might have been a market square stalls overturned but no goods remaining. A building that could have been a temple or courthouse stood with its doors wide open, revealing an interior stripped of everything portable.
The central plaza, when they finally reached it, was the largest open space in the settlement. Paved with stones that formed a disturbing pattern when viewed as a whole, it could have held hundreds of demons for gatherings or ceremonies. Now it held only silence .
"That's strange. Where have all the demons gone? Did they run?"
It seemed the only logical explanation, but it raised more questions than it answered. Why flee from a fortified position? What could have scared an entire population into abandoning their homes? And most importantly where could they have gone?
Russell switched Arrogance's modules, replacing [Pointed Wings] with [Keen Sense of Smell]. The change was internal but significant suddenly the world exploded with scent information. Every surface told a story through the molecules clinging to it.
Or it would have, under normal circumstances.
"Damn," Russell muttered as the enhanced nose delivered disappointing news. The heavy rain that had been falling when he entered the realm had done its work too well. Scent trails that might have revealed the demons' escape route had been washed away, leaving only the petroleum smell of wet stone and the green scent of rain-soaked vegetation.
"This is going to be difficult."
Standing in the empty plaza with his cards arrayed around him, Russell considered his options. He could return to the entrance and report the situation—the safe, sensible choice that would fulfill his basic obligation. Or he could investigate further, try to solve the mystery of the vanishing demons.
The safe choice had never been his style.
"I don't believe that a large-scale evacuation would leave no trace at all," he declared to the empty settlement.
First, eliminate the impossible. The demons hadn't fled toward the realm entrance that would have been suicide, running straight into association forces. That left three cardinal directions, each with its own terrain challenges and possibilities.
Russell launched himself skyward again, this time flying a search pattern rather than a direct route. He started with an expanding spiral centered on the settlement, eyes scanning for any sign of mass movement trampled vegetation, improvised paths, discarded items from hurried flight.
Miles away, Grant and his team had their own mysteries to solve.
The village they'd discovered squatted in a valley like a toad made of wood and stone. It should have been picturesque traditional architecture that suggested the realm's inhabitants had once had culture, art, things beyond mere survival. Instead, it radiated wrongness like heat from a fever patient.
"Be careful," Grant warned, raising a closed fist to halt his team's advance. "This place doesn't feel right to me."
They'd been moving through the forest for two hours, following game trails and demon paths marked on their maps. The village wasn't on any official survey they'd stumbled across it while detouring around a ravine. That alone made it suspicious. The association's aerial reconnaissance was thorough; missing an entire village suggested either very recent construction or active concealment.
"Grant, what did you find?" Malik asked, tension creeping into his voice. His water-type cards were already half-manifested, ready to deploy at a moment's notice.
Grant studied the too-quiet buildings, the empty windows that looked like dead eyes, the complete absence of movement in what should have been a living community. Even abandoned places had birds, insects, some sign of life carrying on. This felt like a held breath, like the moment before ambush.
"I just feel that the atmosphere here is not right," he said slowly, choosing his words carefully. Intuition was hard to explain, but his team had learned to trust his instincts. "It's always better to be careful."
His teammates naturally would not blame him for excessive caution. In a place like this, paranoia was a survival trait. The association lost more cardmakers to overconfidence than to any specific threat.
"Let's go into the village and take a look," Grant decided. "But stay in formation. Chen, keep those detection cards ready. Malik, I want water barriers on standby. Lisa, watch our backs—I don't want anything sneaking up while we're focused forward."
They moved into the village like professionals, which they were rapidly becoming. Each practical training session added experience, burned away amateur mistakes. Those who survived learned. Those who didn't became cautionary tales.
The first building they checked had been a home. Grant could tell from the layout—sleeping areas, food preparation, personal touches that suggested lives lived rather than mere existence. But like Russell's discovery miles away, everything portable was gone. Only furniture too large to move easily remained.
"They packed," Chen reported, crouched near what might have been a storage area. "Look at these marks—something heavy was dragged out recently."
Grant nodded, pieces of a puzzle forming in his mind. Mass evacuation. Planned rather than panicked. But why?
Back in his assigned area, Russell's aerial search had produced frustrating results. He'd covered every square meter of his zone, flying low enough to spot individual footprints had any existed. The rain had been thorough in its erasure. Three hours of systematic searching had revealed exactly nothing.
"How can so many monsters run so fast?"
The question bothered him more the longer he thought about it. He'd seen the scattered debris in buildings, evidence of hasty packing. This hadn't been a planned, orderly withdrawal. Something had triggered rapid evacuation—but apparently not so rapid they couldn't take everything valuable.
And logistics mattered. Moving dozens or hundreds of individuals, especially with possessions, should have left traces even rain couldn't completely erase. Broken branches from off-path travel. Discarded items from those who packed too much. Latrine sites from necessary stops.
Unless...
Russell turned his gaze back toward the settlement, now a distant cluster of shapes on the mountain. Something nagged at him, a detail his conscious mind hadn't quite processed.
"Give it a try, Captain Unohana."
His cards had remained manifested, following his aerial search from the ground with impressive endurance. At his words, Unohana stepped forward, already understanding what he needed.
Her voice rose in the measured cadence of spell incantation, each word precisely pronounced: "The heart of the south, the eye of the north, the fingertip of the west, the heel of the east... gather with the wind, and disperse with the rain."
Power gathered around her, invisible to normal sight but clear to Russell's enhanced senses. The very air seemed to thicken, reality bending to accommodate the spell's demands.
"Bakudō #58: Kakushitsuijaku!"
The seeking spell burst outward in an expanding sphere, racing through air and stone with equal ease. It was a detection technique, designed to locate magical signatures at distance. Within moments, information flooded back.
Unohana's serene expression shifted minutely—what passed for surprise on her carefully controlled features. She turned to Russell, delivering her findings in the same calm tone.
"Underground. I sense a lot of magical pressure reactions. It's just... a little far from us."
The revelation hit Russell like a physical blow. Of course. OF COURSE!
"Sure enough," he breathed, pieces falling into place with almost audible clicks.
His extensive search had noticed one crucial detail: the complete absence of valuable items in any building. No food stores. No weapons. No ritual objects or whatever demons considered precious. A panicked flight should have meant abandonment of heavy goods. An orderly withdrawal would have left obvious trails.
But what if they'd never left at all?
"They're still here," Russell said, grinning behind Arrogance's protection. "They just went down instead of out."
It explained everything. The hasty packing—not for travel but for underground survival. The lack of trails—because they'd only moved vertically. The stripped buildings—because they'd taken everything below.
This group of demons had hidden themselves underground, probably in prepared shelters. Whether from Russell specifically or from association forces in general didn't matter. What mattered was that his targets were still in his zone, just playing the world's most dangerous game of hide-and-seek.
"So now," Russell said, already moving back toward the settlement with renewed purpose, "what I need to do is find the entrance to this underground hideout."
The hunt had just become far more interesting.
(End of Chapter 121)
Comments
Raphael Espinoza Angulo
Well, it looks like the next chapter will also be about searching ;-; on the other hand, imagine how awesome the main character will be with gold-level cards, and who they will be.
