The light rapidly grows in intensity now.

We've been running in the void for what seems like hours, but I think it’s closer to twenty minutes. The generic, amorphous terrain does a number on one’s senses.

It’s a good job one doesn't seem to tire or have regular limits here. I actually wonder if this is really my body or just some aspect of my soul?

The light is now evidently more like a line, splitting the darkness like the first real hint of a sunrise on the horizon.

"Is that it?"

"Yes, boy, that is in fact a leyline. A small one. But usable nonetheless." Seria projects her voice loudly somehow.

Good stuff. Hopefully we can get out then. It’s pretty scary to think what might have happened had I not been able to find the others, though. I could have been stranded forever. Though... perhaps Aeris and I could've done something? Who knows...

As we approach even closer, it becomes apparent that more shadowy, spidery forms are shuffling around en masse around the leyline.

"Do we need to fight again?" I wonder out loud.

"Unn... no... not angry void spirits... more muchly sadder... wanting to come through..." Aeris answers.

Sure enough, we whirl to a stop nary thirty feet from them, but they appear to show no interest, even as we place down the unconscious girls and act wary.

"It’s weird how their behaviour is so... err...um..." Aria stutters

"...Bipolar?" Rishya offers. Ironic from her tsundere nature, but I guess she knows it best. Ha!

"Yes." Aria nods.

"Mmm... I think, 'intense' is more fitting. Studies have shown that void spirits get stuck on singular ideas and emotions; and feel them strongly and intensely almost constantly. They especially dwell on negative ones. Rage, death, that sort of thing. It makes their void mage contractors very brooding, much of the time..."

I guess that does describe Kurono, based on my short and shallow impression of her. A goth natural, she would have been, if she had black dyed hair and more chains on her outfit.

"Wait... you said... they want to... come through, Aeris?" I suddenly notice what she said offhand and turn to her.

She is pirouetting on the spot, possibly trying to drill her way through the ground with her speedy spins, but then stops and falls over.

For goodness sakes...

"Whoa! Dizzy? This is dizzy! Hehe! Oh! Un! They all want to go through! Look how sad they are!" She chortles.

"Hm... perhaps... perhaps this is very important." Seria starts pacing.

"Clustering around like moths to a fire." Aria whimsies.

"Like girls to Elijah-sama!" Rishya giggles behind a hand.

Aria glares at her.

Seria suddenly jumps in shock.

"Oh! My gods!! Sendervils purple cock!! Surely... not..."

"Did you figure something out?"

She looks haunted as she stares at me.

"This... this is actually a major leyline!"

"Right...?" I say, not understanding.

Seria stomps her foot in frustration, charges up me and presses up against me, growing back into her sexy older form as she does so, apparently involuntarily.

"This is a major leyline! This! Stupid boy! Why is it so hard to leygate these days? Why can only sages manage it? Why were they much bigger once? So much that journeyman mages could send armies through! Why are there just so many void spirits? All... here... pressing... inwards!"

"Choking the lines... like fat on veins?" I ponder.

"Oh! So... something used to bring them through... but now it doesn't. So now... now..." I furrow my brows.

"They die. But they are not returning. So, the magic is all used and becomes of void!" She snarls.

"Right." I nod, looking her in the eyes.

Suddenly she makes a choking motion and blushes furiously, realising how close she is.

She pulls away from me again.

"Ahem! There was a growing anomaly. More and more human Void mages were becoming evident. Did you know that bags like Rishya's once fetched a king's ransom? But now any healer and many nobles carry one. Then... the Wood Sage once reported to my master that the demon lands were gradually dying and becoming infertile."

Nobody ever really told me these kinds of facts. I wish they had.

"And that is why cultivator is invading." I nod.

"I... it is? The official declaration was something like... 'we must remove the scourge of humanity from this land.' Or something." Aria looks confused.

"Hahhh... Arry, it’s always about land... or money... or relatives... nobody really longs for genocide. At least I hope not..." Rishya scrunches her brows and shakes her head.

"Well... that statement is not necessarily wrong either... I think... since perhaps cultivator knows a lot more than we ever did. From his perspective, who is now depleting all the magic?" Seria shakes her head.

"Humanity." I answer, glumly.

"Mmmmm... quite so. Doubtless gaining fertile land is one thing. The main thing, even. But this war... has forced summons to occur. Which... although not apparently especially bountiful in the case of the boy... has been adding external power into the cycle." Seria continues.

"Getting land, culling troublesome human mages, and adding external energy? He's playing for time..." I figure it out.

"Yes. That is so."

Wow. It’s all starting to make sense...