The chill of fall did not hit the way I expected it would. As far as I could tell, it was supposed to be early October or late September, but the leaves weren’t changing colors on the trees and the nice autumn breeze with a breath of frost hadn’t made itself known. According to my mind sorcery, which keeps track of pretty much everything, it should be the first week of October which is solidly in the ‘fall’ zone, but summer clearly has not let go of its iron grip yet. Sweltering humidity combined with three minute downpours of almost solid rain in the afternoon were the best indicators that even the seasons were no longer dependable. Who knows when fall or winter will make their debut, but I anticipate it will be with the arrival of the Abominable Snowman himself.

And since it was still summer as far as I could travel easily in a day, I decided to treat it like summer. My pier now had an epic stone grill for the obvious summer fun and above it were racks for pans that don’t exist anymore and hooks to hang drying or smoked meat on. I probably could use earth sorcery to conjure metal and shape it into frying pans and pots but I certainly don’t know enough to give it that ‘no-stick’ quality that modern science gifted us with.

My little elementals were more than happy to find me fish and bring it to me, then throw back the ones I didn’t want. They were like dogs, sort of, mainly in the way that they just wanted to play and touch everything and be everywhere but absolutely hated it if I left. My solution was to put them in Gungnir when I traveled around but their absolute favorite place to be was near my pier on the river. I was laying by the river enjoying a nice lazy day and monitoring the playful water elementals growth when Kraken, who was almost done with my upgraded armor schematics, popped out of Gungnir freaking out.

[The Veil, it’s torn! Run! Scatter! Move! NOW HUMAN!]. Kraken’s mental tone shocked me out of the lovely drowsy haze of the afternoon.

[The fuck is a Veil?] I sent back, summoning a wave of water to clean me off as I started yanking on my armor. [What’s coming and from where?]. I didn’t see or feel anything, and my magical senses unfurled to double check the nearby area.

[No time for lessons, MOVE!].

The urgency in his voice is what made me move. Calling Gungnir to my hand, I took two large steps down the pier and dove into the river. Using water sorcery to maintain a bubble of air around my head, I sent out feelings of danger to my water elementals who wriggled their way to me. As they clustered around me, we all sank deeper until I was knee deep in mud in the bottom.

[Okay, we’re pretty fucking safe down here Kraken, now spit it out, what the fuck is a Veil?], I questioned, making sure that I had as much mana as I could hold ready to go. Down here at the meeting of my most two powerful elements, not much could match me in terms of raw power.

[It’s just a term, really, but it’s never a good thing. Usually those are followed by something very very big and not nice. Traveling by magic is fraught with danger. You can travel by an established portal which has been stabilized by the influence of ley lines and enchantments which tends to be the most common and safest or you can travel via the World Tree if you’re strong enough to brave that kind of immense energy that usually dissolves anything. Or you can use magitech and travel through the stars by going up or down a layer of reality to sort of time-skip your way through. That way is less common as space is full of its own perils,] Kraken explained, his big eyeball looking around anxiously as we conversed at the speed of thought. [Now, the most desperate way is to just hop through a natural rift WHICH IS INCREDIBLY STUPID as you don’t know what the hell is on the other side unless you’ve already traveled through it. You could end up in a volcano or at the other end of the universe in some planetary dungeon. ‘Tearing the Veil’ is when you just grab the fabric of space and rip your way through it to go somewhere, anywhere else.].

[And anything big or strong enough to do that . . . ] I started.

[Is not something you want to mess with.] Kraken finished. [Just to cover the other option, tearing the veil is also done by the desperate. If you have to, you weave an ‘anywhere else but here’ spell and use some wild magic to escape but you’ll have no control where you end up, and the multiverse is a lot bigger than anyone can dream. Some realms have magic, other dimensions do not, and in certain circumstances, there are even parallel planes of existence, but that’s less common than you think.].

[Okay, we’re not going down that rabbit hole right now. Is it safe to go up yet or should we wait? Better yet, can you sense what’s out there? My water sorcery is too loud in my head right now for me to feel anything.].

Kraken shook his eye no, his shivering getting a little worse. He jumped back into Gungnir and hid, proving once and for all that he is at least a bit smarter than me. I gathered all of the elementals around me and traveled back up to the surface, the water churning as I was ready to unleash hell at a moment's notice. Peace and calm greeted me. No monsters turned their ugly heads, no burning forest sending up smoke, all was as it should be. Or so I thought until Kraken who could read the general tone of my thoughts did the equivalent of a mental smack on the head.

[FOCUS! And for the love of all that is magic, HIDE!].

An oily smear of pain tore in the middle of a small clearing about twenty feet away from the river. Light that was more than light, a visible beam of fractured blackness cut space itself, widening until it was twenty feet wide and ten feet tall. Large horned furry creatures that walked on two legs stampeded out wielding giant axes and mauls. As if they were afraid, the invaders began instantly cutting into the trees around them, widening the clearing as more of them poured out. They were pushing and shoving each other out of the way as they tore out of the wobbly portal as if something vicious was on their tails.

Try as I might, I couldn’t understand them. Their guttural noises and thick grunts were clearly not any English that I’ve ever heard, and as soon as a hundred of them spilled out of the tear in the fabric of space, more of them came out riding oversized black lizards that put Clydesdale horses to shame. Liquid fire dripped from their jaws as they snarled and snapped at each other, their riders lashing them back into compliance with crackling whips, sparks jumping randomly from their weapons. In less than a minute, more invaders than I could count had stormed the area and were instantly fortifying the rapidly growing clearing.

[Minotaurs! Shit! They’re probably here for the dryads!]. Kraken said, his message quavering in my head. As this was going on, I had already sunk back down into the river until only my head was above it. My water elementals swirled around me under the surface as well, playfully waiting for my commands.

Several smaller and elderly looking minotaurs stepped out of the portal, collapsing into the arms of what looked to be their guards. While the fourth one coming through was still halfway in, the portal began to close but not before a monstrous sweaty hand that looked to be made of coiled fat gripped his leg. The massive arm began pulling as the elderly minotaur started bleating and waving the staff clutched in its gloved hands. The tip of the staff glowed scarlet and one of the bigger minotaurs yanked it from the older one and hurled it through the shrinking portal like a spear. The nearby minotaurs weren’t watching helplessly, two were holding the elderly one by his horns, one had him by the arms and the one closest to the portal held his own axe up and swung down.

The meaty arm retracted with the severed leg just before the rip closed. The other old minotaurs came and hunched over and began chanting, or mooing? Green light spilled from their hands and staffs and the new wound began to close up. [What the fuck did I just see?], I shot to Kraken, [What eats Minotaurs? And why the fuck do Minotaurs want dryads?].

More trees fell as Kraken sat in silence, his terror coming through loud and clear even as his voice was gravely soft. [You know how you thought the Hungry Ones were your weakness and you’ve been spending all of your time figuring how to fight them? Well, Minotaurs are the weakness of every magic user. They’re mainly herbivores but they eat dryads because they’re just sentient plants that are chock full of power. They’ve evolved to shrug off magical power like yours like a duck shakes off water. You’re screwed if you fight them. I say run, and run far.].

My shock was taken as disbelief, which it kind of was too. I mean, I’ve given the damn squid a decent rundown of my past couple months and he thinks I’m about to let some overgrown cows fuck me up? Fine, maybe pure magic doesn’t work, but I won’t be throwing fireballs at them. The terrain favors me, hardcore.

[Do you understand them? Can you translate or something? And do they think humans are tasty?] I sent to Gungnir, glad that we could talk at the speed of thought through our mental link. [And do they actually eat magic or are just really thick-skinned?]. His lack of response was not comforting. [DAMN IT SQUID ANSWER ME!]. My mental shout shocked him back to some semblance of active thought as another tear in space opened at a different edge of the same clearing. Shiny black suits of armor about four feet tall came through carrying large futuristic rifles in their arms and tower shields on their backs. [Dwarves?! They hate young planets?], Kraken said, finally coming out of his funk.

As they poured through, I noticed some kind of facial fur or beard poking through their helmets. Their grunts and shouts were just as guttural as the Minotaurs but theirs was in sync, a clear sign of an organized military. They ran in ordered columns, shouting cadences and lining up targets, firing silver shafts of light from their rifles as the Minotaurs began flinging rocks and tree trunks they hadn’t used yet. A crazed battle broke out. The cow people with their hastily built fortifications gained a slight advantage as their magical elements joined. The elderly small Minotaurians began swaying and chanting and stomping, flows of mana becoming bright as I saw it pulse through their veins. Reddish green blood trickled from their noses and the corners of their eyes as they sang.

Thick roots sprouted from their shoddy fortifications spiraling up and out and down to form a living wall. The dancing flung droplets of blood across the wall and around the forest causing different rocks to begin to mold together. Little earthen soldiers picked themselves up from where the blood fell, the blood itself forming into glistening runes at random spots as the earthen soldiers began to slowly grow larger. Not to be outdone, the dwarves began tossing out silver marbles that made the earth ripple when they hit the ground causing the growing earthen soldiers to vibrate to pieces and knock the minotaurs over.

I watched in awe as the flow of battle went back and forth, neither side giving an inch. The minotaur magic users, which looks like their version of an old Indian shaman, were fascinating to watch in the magical perspective. Flows of solid green and red connected them to their much bulkier foot soldiers and I saw injuries fade as the red and green flowed from one healthy fighter to the wounded one. The shamans also acted as the ‘eye in the sky’, coordinating through the ropy mana. I saw one minotaur who was about to get stabbed in the back suddenly turn after a shaman saw the dwarf and pulsed power down their connection.

The dwarves were honestly not that fun to watch other than their magically concealed warriors trying to sneak around. To be fair, they had to be the ones to give the Centauri their runetech, because their shield wall did the same thing but better. The raw power of the minotaurs’ axes slamming into the shield wall generated tons of mana when it converted from kinetic energy to power for their rifles. It almost seemed pointless as the rifles were pouring bolts of mana at the minotaurs; it didn’t really do anything except piss them off. All of the minotaur wounds came from one of the melee weapons that the dwarves had. The chaos was incredible when the minotaur’s mounts, the lizard things, joined the fray. All I could do was watch and learn.

Cybernetic cannon walkers climbed out of the dwarves’ rift. About the size of colonial cannons, they walked on four legs and had a spike that they drove into the ground, drinking up the available mana to charge and the lobbying black bombs full of power to disrupt the minotaur's lines and knock them over. As soon as one of them would fall, the dwarves would break ranks to try and keep the downed warrior downed for good.

[See mortal? You aren’t ready for this kind of conflict. They’ll squish you softer than me.], Kraken said softly.

[Yeah, fuck that,] I chuckled, [This is way too close to home for me to ignore. Besides, think about it for a second. All I have to do is make the terrain favor me and not them.].

[They both have magic users whose specialty is earth based magic! You don’t stand a chance!].

[Think squid think! Where the fuck am I right now?] I asked, smugness rolling off of me. [Hahahaha, come on, you can do it, work that tiny ass brain.].

[I hate you sometimes. You know that right?].

[Yup.].

Ordering the elementals to get ready, I pulled myself up so that I was standing on top of the river wreathed in flowing water tightly in my magical grip. I wish I had a mirror because I must have looked freaking awesome. The fighting stopped as I stood there, surveying the area as if I owned it, which I kinda did. [Make it so they can understand me, I don’t wanna yell nonsense at them.], I growled down our link. A fearful mental nod was all I needed.

“Separate from each other and point your weapons at the ground,” I said calmly, gathering more and more water behind and around me. “Further violence of any kind will result in your death. If you wish to fight, you may do so ten miles down the river. Any questions?” I fear that my translator messed something up because while they did separate from each other, as soon as they did they started firing at me. The wall of water behind me moved to the front catching all of the thrown weapons and bolts of mana and bombs. With a thought, I sank back down to the bottom and shot a quick vision of what I wanted down to my elementals who were more than happy to oblige.

The river’s current surged up and over the bank, sweeping over everyone and everything, and then pulled everything out to the middle. The mechanical legged-cannons sank to the bottom as the water elementals separated everyone from their weapons and armor. I made sure to have one elemental grab all of it and encase the gear in ice at the river bottom for me to look at later.

[You so cheated,] Kraken huffed. [Not actually using magic on them but using magic around them.].

[You’re just upset because you didn’t think of it,] I replied, laughing at his pissyness. [Who cares about throwing raw magic at them trying to overpower their natural resistance when I can just throw a river at them? Now what the fuck did you say to piss them off?].

[They really don’t like to be unarmed. Besides, dwarves and minotaurs are almost as bad as demons. And you really don’t wanna mess with demons. They just attack and attack and eat and then fuck and then do it all over again. It’s really why nobody survives going to the Infernal Realms, because everything there is literally trying to eat you.].

My shit-eating grin was so big my face hurt. Boo-fuckin-yah bitches! I had two elementals taking stuff and guarding gear and the other eighteen were taking care of the floating minotaurs and dwarves who were sputtering for air. The elementals thought it was great fun to drown the intruders and then push them to the surface for a breath and then tug them back under again. It’s like they were playing bob for dwarves, or is it dunk the cow? My point is, I won.

[Uhm, you might wanna look over there. We missed one.].

Spinning around, I saw one really angry dwarf who had somehow managed to scoot up a tree and in one arm held a big grenade and in the other was some silver box with a big red button. With a roar that I’m sure translated to a ‘fuck you’, the dwarf smashed the red button with his face. The dwarven rift was almost closed at that point, but at the exact moment that the button was pushed, sharp white light cut through it again reopening it to even greater heights. Several other rifts also cut their way open, white light shining through them as well.

The dwarf up the tree started laughing so hard he almost fell out. Beautiful people stepped out of the white rifts, three in total. Their long white wings were shaken open as if they had been asleep for ages. Each held a different weapon that oddly corresponded to the color of their eyes. The one on the left held a large sapphire samurai sword while the one in the middle licked the two crimson hatchets. The one on my right coolly took everything in while leaning on a thick staff that had many smooth bumps up and down its length. All three of them wore a circlet of silver and a collar of gold, but I could see some red woven into the jewelry.

[Well mortal, it was nice knowing you.]. Kraken’s fear had abated only a tiny bit and now, I felt a heavy sort of acceptance.

[What now coward?], I growled. [Three skinny white dudes with wings show up and you’re done? They’re not angels, I can see old wounds and fresh blood on them from here!].

[You’re right, they’re not angels. They’re even worse. Those, shit, those are nephilim.].