After an intense battle with not only a swarm of shadow gliders, but two of their merged counterparts, I finally reached the part of the house where our rooms were. The shadow gliders continued to keep their distance from me, either out of fear, or maybe easing up after getting exactly what they came here for.

  I dread the ladder…

  “Sss…” Samael hissed from my hair.

  “Yeah, you’re worried about that too…”

  We both agreed that they may have been successful in capturing Yamin, so that was all the more reason for me to gun it there. Given the power those dire gliders showed off, Indena wouldn’t stand a chance of fully protecting Yamin without stardust.

  Granted, it was possible that she and Yamin could repel a demonic force, since Yamin did in fact have stardust, but that wasn’t something to be banking on.

  “We need to hurry!” I uttered, pushing my wings faster than I should have. “How are you doing up there, by the way? That was a pretty crazy fight.”

  “Sssss…”

  “Really? My transformation didn’t bother you at all up there?”

  That was good to know. It was easy to forget that he was put in harm's way too whenever I was fighting.

  “Ssss…”

  “That means a lot, Sammy.”

  Samael was always looking out for me wherever Uncle or daddy were away. I think he was the only one who knew me better than either of them, honestly.

  We both finally were just a few meters from the door to Yamin’s room. It swung open on its own and out came a shadow glider. He slammed into the wall opposite of the door and made a huge splash of mucky darkness.

  It didn’t look like he did that of his own volition. It was like something forcefully ejected him from the room.

  “Such ungraceful, ugly things!” shouted Adalyn as she came out cracking that whip of hers. She held her weapon confidently, posing like a fashion model, but one disgusted at discovering mold or something else unsightly on the runway. “Nasty lil’ roaches!”

  She didn’t look like she was in bad shape. In fact it seemed like she had a hold on the situation. But when I looked behind her, seeing the wave of dark energy swashing out of the upper vents and heading for the beds, I shouted and ran past her.

  “Adalyn, move!” I brandished my stardust spear and stabbed forward, quickly striking the tidal wave of merged shadow gliders. Carrying the momentum of my attack, I also flew to the window to cut the curtains away completely, allowing the full moonlight to enter in and slightly weaken this mess of shadow.

  To my surprise, Adalyn twirled her whip and harshly snapped at the surface of the demonic collection. A ripple traveled across the watery skin of all the shadow gliders, stunning them and causing a unanimous scream of pain.

  “Vile!” Adalyn smirked, happy to see the fruits of her deeds. “Bad Lil bugs must be punished for making such a mess!”

  While the demons were stunned by her whip, I flew in at the opportune time to slash the blade of my spear across the unrefined body of the giant mass of shadow gliders. The tear in their collective flesh that I ripped open spit out waves of cleansing stardust energy, putting it into an absolute panic mode.

  His arms waved widely. Many shadow gliders took the chance to take their leave, also amassing whatever junk items they could scurry away with in their slushy escape.

  I didn’t pay them as much mind as I did with the still stumbling sludge that tried to shove me away with a misshapen arm.

  “Nothing! You’re nothing!” I shouted, stabbing my spear into the odd palm of this failed dire glider.

  My attack did more damage than I expected, ripping an ever expanding hole through its arm.

  Adalyn once again backed me up by shooting that whip forward and sending yet another stunning ripple its way.

  “What a pest problem I’ve discovered…” Adalyn cracked a smile as striking as her whip attack. “I’ll get rid of whatever tries to take my Lil’ Yamy away!” She turned to me, winking and giving me the floor to finish this invasion once and for all.

  “Time to finish this!” I shouted, using the momentum from my attack to trek my spear into the body of the demon mass. When the tip of the Spear of Destiny stabbed its core, I unleashed a violent blaze of flaming light that blasted the sludgy thing into the next world.

  The shock wave from the explosion shook the whole room, shattering any glass objects left including the windows. Anything not stolen away or devastated by the attack were displaced, mostly furniture. One bed however remained through the ordeal, almost completely untouched aside from any furnishings it once had.

  One thing I didn’t see anywhere was my reason for coming here in such a hurry. The girl I was supposed to rescue… Yamin.

  I frantically searched the remnants of the room in a panic, eventually taking to my LOCATION menu to check the map. It seemed her overworld sprite was under the bed, along with Indena.

  “Where’s Lil’ Yamy?!” Adalyn was even more frantic than me, searching a knocked over closet for any trace of her. “If those nasty roaches took her, I’ll never forgive them!”

  She must have confused these demons for bugs. Human’s not sensitive to the paranormal tended to interpret things like demons in mundane ways, if they even saw their impact at all.

  “Yamin’s under the bed,” I said, also noticing her vitals were fluctuating a lot.

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  Both of us checked under the spacious underside of the mattress, seeing Indena unconscious, but clutching a bundled up Yamin in a blanket. Both of them were surrounded by sprinkles of glowing crystal, which was stardust.

  We pulled them out and laid them both on the bed. It was around then when Cynthia and Marek rejoined us, followed by a few other hired hands from around the house.

  “Mistress Adalyn…” Cynthia ran into the room with her wand out, examining both Yamin and Indena along with us.

  Indena looked like she took a hit to the head, but was otherwise okay. Cynthia used her wand to perform a recovery spell similar to my healing magic on her. Yamin on the other hand was going through something a bit more challenging…

  “Y-yalda…” Yamin struggled to speak up as she opened her eyes, shivering like a leaf. “Y-you’re here…”

  “Of course we're here!” Adalyn placed a hand over her forehead. “My goodness… The poor darlin’ is burnin up.”

  I put my hand over her forehead too and took her temperature. She had an extremely high fever. 40c and climbing! Cynthia’s magic was failing to cool her down, so I had to take more drastic measures.

  A little needle pricked out of my pointer finger, then I poked it into Yamin’s arm. A small synthesized serum of anti-fever drug coursed into her body. It wasn’t reacting very fast, which had me worried.

  “Is she gonna’ be okay?” Adalyn said, holding Yamin’s hand tightly.

  Her fever was going down, but not well enough for her to recover completely. She needed more serious care, which I wasn’t sure how to provide.

  “I hope so…” I pressed my forehead against Yamin’s, calling forth a prayer from my heart. “God, please be with us. Let Yamin survive…”

  Marek bowed his head, joining my hopeful prayer, followed by Cynthia. Adalyn cupped her hands around Yamin’s and did the same. All their souls joining in along with me brought a warm feeling in my heart, but I couldn’t help but feel a slight anxiety well up along with it.

  “Were those bugs demons?” Adalyn said when we concluded.

  “They weren’t bugs. You just saw them that way,” I said. “But yes, they were.”

  Their attack was way too suspiciously timed with our alterations to the barrier. It was like they were waiting for the moment someone could detect them, then they’d come out and cause havoc.

  Regardless of their approach, it was clear that Yamin was their target. However, they failed completely to catch her in their clutches. We should have been celebrating, but something still felt off, especially since Yamin was in terrible shape.

  “W-what the hell happened?” Indena sat up, a hand over her head to ease a blistering migraine. “Ugh…”

  “Easy…” I pressed her shoulder to get her to lay back down. “Did you fight those demons?”

  “Yeah. If it wasn't for Yamin though, we would have been boned,” Indena admitted. “She was complaining about feeling suddenly sick, and… Well, I probably shouldn’t say what she did next…” she sighed. “After that, she freaked out and gave me a stardust thing, like a little baseball bat or something. Next thing I knew, she was on the ground surrounded by freaky pancake demons.”

  “Wait, Yamin was complaining about being sick just before the attack?” I asked.

  “Yeah. she was getting all fidgety and jittery too. It was weird.”

  Could she have been sensing it about to happen too? That wouldn’t explain why she was still like this. We weren’t in a demon’s domain, as far as I could feel, and there wasn’t any darkness around either. For the most part, things were clear here.

  Indena noticed Yamin was burning up. Unbeknownst to us, she had a temporary remedy.

  Her hand went over Yamin’s chest. With a pulse of orange light traveling from her tattooed arm into Yamin, then returning back, Yamin’s fever drastically decreased.

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  “Stole some of the heat from her,” Indena said. “Fire magic can be supportive too, you know?”

  That was a handy skill of her’s. She made it clear that the fever would return soon enough, so it was only a very temporary fix.

  Although relieved that Yamin wasn’t going to overheat, I was still just mad that this happened at all. We were made such fools of because of this invasion.

  “Those shadow gliders must be out of the house by now…” I grit my teeth. “How the heck did they even get in in the first place? What’s going on here?”

  I turned to Cynthia, who was the first and foremost suspect.

  “Well… I…” her personality shriveled up into a shameful husk of its usual elegant self.

  “Oh no…” Adalyn picked up a shredded penguin backpack from between the two beds. “The backpack I got her last Christmas is ruined!”

  That thing was in utter disarray, but I would have ignored it if the grimoire hadn’t been in there before.

  Suddenly it hit me. Those gliders really could have taken Yamin away whenever they wanted, but didn’t because she wasn’t their real target.

  It was the book. Those gliders were after the grimoire. They must have stolen it at some point during the invasion and used the ensuing attack as a diversion.

  “Dang it!” I cried out, stomping my feet in further frustration. My pouting glare turned on Cynthia, increasing ten fold. “This is all your fault!” I shouted. “If you hadn’t suggested Yamin come here, none of this would be happening!”

  She began to shed tears, but held her usual posture so as to not break her role as an elegant maid. Those were real tears of pain, I could feel it in my heart. It softened my anger a little, but merely traded its place with confusion.

  “Don’t yell at her!” Marek shouted at me as he held his lover tightly. “She would never have done this!”

  Miss Adalyn put a hand on my shoulder. I turned to see her face with a soft, but sorrowful smile.

  “Don’t be so hard on the poor thing. I was the one that asked her to see if we could have Yamin stay here,” Adalyn admitted.

  “Why?” I asked. “We could have had her at the church and kept her safe.”

  “This plan was idiotic from the start,” Indena added.

  “I suppose I didn’t realize what was really after her,” Adalyn said. “I’ve always wanted nothing more than to protect my lil’ cousin from harm, but this fight is well beyond me. I take full responsibility for this failure.”

  At this point, it didn’t matter how Yamin ended up here, it only mattered where she was going. If demons found a way into the house, especially while a barrier was up, then this wasn’t a safe place for her to stay.

  “Alright…” I started. “I'm invoking my authority as the Eighth Star…” I stood proudly. “We're having a team from the church come here and bring Yamin to the Grand Cathedral of Life. She never should have come here to begin with, and it was stupid of me to agree to that plan.”

  To be honest, this incident was my responsibility. I looked like a total idiot. I had more authority over this world then even the queen, and yet I didn’t flex that spiritual influence to deny the poor planning of a maid and fashionista.

  I’m so pathetic!

  There were no objections to my plan. Yamin needed to be brought to the church and properly treated for what happened to her. Maybe they’d have the know-how to heal her completely.

  My best guess at what was going on was that we were seeing the sickness of her being separated from the book. If the demons never touched her, and they were all gone, then that was the only conclusion I could draw.

  “We need to get that book back before the demons can find out how to use it,” I said. “We need a plan.”

  This was going to take everyone’s heads to figure out. Not only did we need to find out who was behind this demon attack, but why they stole the book specifically. While I contacted the church, we all made our way into the foyer hall to prepare for Yamin to leave this place for her own good.

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