Chapter 503: Chapter 500: Mirror Magnification

One of the things that Jadis knew about herself was the fact that there was a spectrum of sights she did not feel she would ever be prepared to see. On one end of that spectrum, she knew lay things like the death of a loved one or other similarly somber and emotionally devastating events that were, ultimately, things she would inevitably come across in her life should she live long enough. They were tragedies, but also the sort of events that everyone had to go through, whether they felt ready to or not. On the other end of that spectrum were things less serious in nature and far less likely to occur but would still take an emotional toll on her should they ever come to pass. Those sorts of events could be categorized in the same group as walking in on her parents having sex or hearing some girls from school talk about how cute and sexy her brother was. Not exactly earth-shattering experiences, but still the sort of thing Jadis didn’t think she could mentally prepare herself for and would probably need a strong drink to shrug off, if not outright deny that they ever happened.

Somewhere between those sorts of wide-ranging potential life encounters lay the sight of Noll standing taller than her. Jadis wasn’t sure why such a vision was so hard for her mind to grapple with, but with the therion towering over her at over thirteen feet in height, she couldn’t deny that the situation was throwing her off in that inexplicable way she had no mental preparation for.

At least he wasn’t naked. Jadis was positive she wouldn’t have been able to handle it if Noll’s furry body had shredded its way out of his armor when Jadis had cast Mirror Magnification on him. The magic of the spell blessedly spared her the sight of seeing the old wolf in all of his unabashed glory.

“Huh,” Noll grunted in his usual, taciturn fashion.

Flexing his now gigantic, clawed fingers, Noll examined his newly boosted size. He shifted and moved around, seemingly to get used to the increase in height and weight. His actions were anything but clumsy, though, and Jadis could tell that doubling his dimensions had not hindered the veteran in any way.

Taking a round stone out of one of his belt pouches, Noll flicked the item over to Jay, who easily caught it. Jadis immediately recognized the object as a Detect Stone, mostly by the fact it had a hole in the middle. After a total of three seconds, the enchanted river rock shrunk in size, showing that the spell had acted as advertised in the description. When Jay tossed the small rock back to Noll, it didn’t redouble in size to match its owner and instead stayed at its original size from before the spell had been cast.

“See you down there,” Noll growled.

The old mercenary wasted no time and leapt off the roof, immediately heading for the eastern road that led to the Demon Prince.

“Alright, here we go,” Jay said after taking one more second to check on Aila, Eir, Kerr, Sorcha, and Alex.

The plan, while hastily constructed, was ready to go. Since no one had any further suggestions or objections, waiting at that point would just be stalling.

Casting Mirror Magnification on herself caused a strange, tingling sensation to bubble through Jadis. All of her bodies felt hot and cold at the same time, and it wasn’t unlike being dipped in a giant pool of fizzy water while simultaneously being stretched on a rack. It wasn’t painful, not even uncomfortable really, but it was definitely one of the stranger feelings she had experienced. When Jay looked down at herself, it was as though she was watching her body magnify under a camera lens. She grew quickly, doubling in height in just a few seconds, and when the spell was finished, she had to take a moment to look around and take in her new perspective on her surroundings.

“Looks like it worked on your other bodies, too,” Sorcha said as she looked over the edge of the roof to where Dys and Syd were standing.

Jay focused her attention on the goblin witch and was almost shocked by how tiny the woman was. Of course, Jadis was used to Sorcha being small in comparison to her, since there was almost a six-foot difference in height between them. That said, thanks to the power of the new spell, Jadis’ bodies now stood slightly more than eighteen feet tall. The size difference between them had gone from comical to nearly terrifying.

Even the difference between her and the others was sort of disturbing. Aila and Kerr, her two tallest lovers, were closer in size to the way Sorcha was compared to Jadis on a normal day thanks to Mirror Magnification. Both Aila and Eir were looking up at Jay with wide, disbelieving eyes, while even Alex had a look about her that said she wasn’t sure what to make of the change.

“Holy shit,” Kerr exclaimed with a wide grin on her face. “How big do you think your cocks are right now?”

“Gods save us…” Aila muttered with a heavy sigh while Eir looked away, visibly flustered by the question.

It really wasn’t the time for crude jokes and innuendos, but Jadis didn’t scold her therion lover. The badly timed question had broken the tension, which oddly enough, calmed Jadis down. She knew the situation was serious but knowing that they could still laugh about ridiculous things like the oversized nature of her members was… comforting.

Checking on her status sheet, Jadis made sure that everything was the way she expected it to look.

As she had guessed, there was no visible change to her stats despite the increase in size. The spell hadn’t said anything about doubling her Strength or Vitality or any other attribute, just her physical size. She felt stronger now that she was towering over the world at nearly twenty feet tall, but that could have just been a mental illusion that came from feeling so big. Then again, Jadis presumed that her natural physical form had to have been altered to be bigger and tougher than normal, if for no other reason than to account for being so much larger than she had been a moment before. Then again, it was magic, so there was no telling how it worked.

“We’ll have to check on that later,” Jay shook her head at Kerr. “Anyway, it’s your turn.”

“Lay it on me,” Kerr said with a wicked smile.

Since Jadis had only cast Crack the Glass twice and Mirror Shine once, combined with the extra magic she had gotten from her increase in levels, she had just enough juice left in the tank to cast Mirror Magnification one more time. As per their modified plan, Jadis touched Kerr and used it on the archer, doubling her size in a matter of seconds.

“Scheisse,” Kerr cursed as she stumbled slightly. “Is this how you feel all the time? Fucking abyss, this is insane…”

“Okay, take a second to make sure you’re good,” Jay said to her now over twelve-foot-tall lover. “My other selves are already pushing forward. Once you’re ready, you take Sorcha. Aila, Eir, Alex, come here.”

First to act, Alex immediately climbed up Jay’s leg and made a home for herself on her back. It was a little hard to tell exactly what the wiggly Demon was doing, but when Jay looked over her shoulder, she saw that Alex had taken up a position where her back was flat against Jay’s own back, so that she was facing the opposite direction. It was actually a clever move, since it meant Alex would be able to watch Jay’s back and catch any enemies that might try to sneak up on her. Jadis wished she had had Alex there for when the centipede Demon had ambushed her, but she also wished she had been eighteen feet tall, too. The fight would have gone quite differently.

Setting one handaxe in her belt, Jay scooped both Aila and Eir up in her left arm, which was now large enough to accommodate them both. The two, along with Alex, would stick with her, while Kerr carried Sorcha. Jadis’ Jay self wasn’t going to be wading directly into the fight if she could help it, not with her three more vulnerable lovers at her side, but would instead keep them all safe while they maneuvered into position. The therion was a bigger target, but in another minute, Aila would have enough magic replenished that she could cast Spectral Armor on Kerr.

Aila had already cast the arcane armor spell on Jadis, which had naturally extended to all three of her selves the same as every other spell had behaved so far. With the magic in effect, Dys and Syd were already putting the protection to work, along with their huge, enhanced bodies.

“C’mon, get on me!” Syd called down at Bridget as she pushed in front of her and Thea. “Thea, get on Dys!”

“What the bloody fuck happened to you!?” the orc warrior shouted as she stared in confused shock at the truly colossal Nephilim.

“Levels and spells! Talk later, fight now!” Syd answered as she scooped Bridget up. “Don’t fall off!”

Since those two parts of herself needed her hands, Jadis depended on Thea and Bridget to hold onto her under their own power, at least for the brief time that they would be on her backs. Neither woman had been informed of the plan, but she trusted that they would both quickly adapt to fill their parts once they got at least a small explanation.

“Look, this is what I need you to do,” Dys spoke for both of her selves. “You’re both going to be riding with the Seraphim once we get them down here. Bridget, you hit the asshole with your flames. Thea, you nick the bitch with your poison if you can. Otherwise, you’ll be with Aila and the others in a bit.”

As she explained their parts, Dys pushed towards the Demon Prince, side by side with her Syd self. There was no need to attack the individual mire hounds anymore. With her increased size, Jadis’ bodies simply stomped on the lesser Demons, crushing them underfoot as easily as she would cockroaches. There weren’t even that many enemies for her to deal with, since Noll had gone ahead of her and was systematically slaughtering every Demon that came within reach of his daggers.

The only true barriers to their progress were the giant stone pillars that Vinea had conjured around it. The columns of rock blocked sightlines and made it difficult for someone as large as she was to maneuver, and there were enough of them that Jadis didn’t think she could just jump over and past them, even if that didn’t come across as an incredibly bad idea. Considering her size and Strength, Jadis was pretty sure she could knock the pillars over but decided against it. While they blocked sightlines to the Demon Prince, they also blocked Vinea’s sightlines to her and the others. The giant wyrm wouldn’t be able to track their movements so easily, a byproduct of its own defensive measures.

Even though they could have gotten there faster, Noll and Jadis didn’t push too hard. For their plan to proceed under optimal conditions, they still needed to draw the attention of the fighting Seraphim. Aila still needed some time to recover enough magic to cast her armor spell on Kerr as well, having already done so on Jadis. While there was a rush, their rush was measured. Getting ahead too fast would be counterproductive.

It was Syd who ultimately managed to get Severina’s attention when the shining paladin made a pass over her head. Flagging the Seraphim down, Syd noted how her angelic lover took her newly doubled size completely in stride, not even commenting on the change. Definitely a benefit of being a highly trained, experienced combatant. And it probably helped that Sev was a little bit inured to Jadis’ particular brand of weirdness by that point.

“We need to get Bridget close enough to hit Vinea with her fire,” Syd explained quickly. “And then out again. Can you carry her?”

“Yes,” Sev replied in her usual no nonsense tone. “But not as well as needed for a close-range maneuver. Let me get Tacitus. He will be able to carry Bridget with less risk of harm.”

“What about Thea?”

Severina glanced over at Dys, where the other giant with her smaller rider was stomping repeatedly on a stone simulacrum that had slipped by Noll.

“You want to poison the Demon Prince?”

“Every bit of damage helps,” Syd confirmed. “If we can manage it.”

“Let me get Noct as well,” Severina said after a second. “I think it’ll be better if they switch weapons instead of carrying Thea, though, at least for this.”

Jadis didn’t question the paladin’s judgement. If that was what she thought would work best, then she’d roll with it. Nodding her head, Syd agreed with Sev’s plan.

“The army is pushing hard from the eastern side,” Severina informed her, taking one more moment to provide valuable information. “If you keep Vinea and the Demon forces distracted, they might even be able to make it all the way to the breach.”

“Got it,” Syd acknowledged. “Tell them to push as hard as they can when they see Vinea light up in blue fire. It’ll be their best opportunity.”

With a final nod, Severina took off into the sky, heading straight for the other Seraphim who were still making passes at the Demon Prince. As Jadis informed everyone within range of what she had discussed with Severina, Aila finally gained enough magic to cast Spectral Armor on Kerr. With that accomplished, Jay and her group began their slightly stealthier trek to get into an ideal position. Being true giants limited just how stealthy they could be, but they did what they could to avoid the attention of the majority of the horde as well as the colossal Demon wyrm.

If the army truly was pushing in hard from the east, Jadis liked to think that meant the forces she had been working with on the western side of the city were also making good progress towards the breach. With her and Noll disrupting the tide of invaders for so long, she hoped that meant they were able to finish off the Demons near them and make their way towards Vinea to serve as additional backup. She didn’t count on it, though, since there had been a huge number of enemies in the market square. It would take a lot of fighting to overcome such a large host, even with the Demons’ reinforcements cut off.

The road leading from the south at the intersection where Jadis had almost drowned in Demons was still the more likely avenue of backup, though that was far from guaranteed. Jadis hoped Meli had made it to Tegwyn and his group would be able to assist, but the plan didn’t depend on it. Of far greater importance was getting Bridget an opportunity to hit the Demon Prince, followed by giving Kerr her shot.

As those thoughts passed through Jadis’ mind, two Seraphim winged their way down to hover in front of her two armored and gigantic selves, giving Jadis her first good look at the holy warriors she had only seen at a distance up to that point. While she had met a good number of Seraphim in the past, these two were decidedly different from her previous experiences. Rather than a calm, if not somewhat awkward encounter, between her and the female Seraphim that Severina had attempted to set her up with, these two were in their full battle regalia and were splattered in the blood of their enemies. Jadis didn’t know the two, but she instantly recognized that they were powerful combatants by sight alone, even without the sight of recent battle dripping from their weapons. If she was going to put her faith in strangers to help her combat the Demon Prince, she had a feeling that the duo were people she could trust. Even if they both looked weird as fuck.

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