BXBX NOVEL Chapter 782
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Well, it was more accurate to say she was high above MOST of the city. Something Apep had neglected to mention, perhaps because he found it self evident, was the entire city was built around the largest mountain Lily had ever seen. The edge of the main city seemed to be each of the compounds. The sheer cliff face of the mountain making it hard to build anything higher. They clearly made an exception for the grand aqueducts though.
Ten absolutely monstrous aqueducts seemed to explode out from near the top of the mountain. Each one wider than a house and heading straight downwards, taking no twists or turns until they were out of city. Because that was another thing. Not only was Lily still climbing to the level of the summit, the city itself was too large for her eyes to see the edges of it. Only the sheer size of the aqueducts made them possible to follow at all.
Each of them also had smaller branching aqueducts, taking water down to houses or estates nearby, seemingly draining nothing from the main rivers of water the aqueduct highways provided. Considering what Apep said, it was entirely possible that was actually the case. She wasn’t sure exactly how the water managed to multiply like this, or how they managed to keep things so warm. In Apep’s home, it was simple to think they were in a nice tropical region at around ground level. As she flew higher and higher though, Lily was starting to think they were close to the peak of a mountain rivalling Everest and yet she was starting to feel the strain on her wings before any sort of chill.
And while the cold resistance might be from connecting to Kat, the extra effort required to climb higher seemed to be the same issue even non-magical birds face. Because apparently having magical demonic wings that were able to lift a small cat without hollow bones were still subject to air pressure. *Not quite sure how that makes sense but whatever...*
Lily continued to climb as she looked out over the city, and really, she didn’t think ‘city’ was all that accurate of a name. Apep’s compound and the surrounding buildings could easily be a town onto themselves. The whole city was likely larger than some countries decent sized countries back home.
.....
Looking out of the city, another confusing fact wormed its way into Lily’s mind. *Wait a minute... the aqueducts. They’re all made out of STONE. Where the heck are they getting this stone?* Lily glanced down at the mountain. The mountain that didn’t appear to be missing the millions, perhaps billions, of tonnes of stone required to build just one aqueduct. *It’s not just the aqueducts either. It’s also the houses. All of Apep’s buildings are stone as well. Why is it all stone?*
“Well, I can’t really see what you’re talking about... but I imagine magic is the answer. Stone is probably one of the best building materials if it can be reinforced with magic, or empowered. It might not hold many enchantments, or even most well, but I imagine a skilled Earth Mage could create sturdy stone buildings without trouble, and the strongest Earth Mages probably did the aqueducts,” answered Kat.
*I... I think we might be out of a league here. Or maybe not? I mean... I guess it depends if they’re still around but Kat... you can’t see this. The amount of stone... the amount of power... I guess this is what you feel when you meet powerful demons but... I don’t even know how to conceptualise that kind of power.*
“I mean... once again... I can’t really see what you’re talking about but that makes sense. It reminds me a bit of the moment I saw Stone in action. It’s one thing to hear ‘Rank 6′ or whatever and another thing to see someone, even a lower Rank, control waves of Stone while fighting off a giant rat. It’s the kind of power that makes you wonder about a lot of things,” said Kat who had moved over to the copy of her bed and laid down. Not in a particularly enticing way. Well, it was enticing, but that was incidental.
*Yeah I guess so. Actually... do you want to leave my head for now?* Lily couldn’t help the fact as the city got less and less interesting to her mind, more of it was focusing on Kat. Not a good idea when you were flying.
“I certainly could... but I worry about how long it’d take me to reform enough to fly. I imagine it’s pretty windy... and I’m not sure how my fog form interacts with the wind at all. I could just blow away unable to reform. Then, even if I can stay together long enough, I’d have to avoid falling out of the sky while only partially reformed. Then finally... how good would the guards’ eyesight be?”
*You just want to stay in my head to keep messing with me...*
“Nope!” said Kat before pausing. “Wait... how was I able to say that. The sky is purple. Huh... interesting... apparently I can lie if I’m in your head. Not entirely sure if that’s just because you aren’t in here with me... I’m trying to remember if it was something I could do or not in Minor’s... certainly it’s strange,”
Lily pointedly ignored the fact Kat admitted to lying about why she wanted to stick around and decided to focus on the fact that she was at least somewhat correct to worry about what could happen if she left. Angling herself to the left, Lily started heading towards the next compound. She hoped it would be compound four, but if not, they could just turn around. Sadly, the angle wasn’t quite right just yet to see what number they had on the roof.
It was ten minutes of constant flying later that Lily was starting to rethink this course of action. She was flagging, and they hadn’t even been able to see if they were heading the right direction yet. *Kat... I don’t think I’m capable of flying for too long. Apparently ten minutes at whatever altitude this is, is actually approaching my limit. I might be able to make twenty but after that I’ll be completely done for... well maybe the rest of the day.*
“That’s not good at all. Can you spot anywhere to land? I’ll just have to be a little sneaky taking off and then get really high up. Well if I CAN get that high. It’ll be no problem carrying you around and I don’t really get tired with standard physical exercise. Honestly it’ll probably be a lot faster...”
*Then why didn’t you suggest it earlier?*
“The guards are still a concern, plus I can’t really see how fast we’re moving inside here. It’s just a room. I can sort of get the feeling YOU think we’re moving slowly but I don’t know what you’re comparing yourself too or if the city is just larger than it looks. If you’re tired though we can switch,” offered Kat.
Lily grumbled a bit as she glanced around. There plenty of buildings, or more importantly, rooftops she could land on. The larger buildings all had curved dome tops, but the smaller ones had plenty of flat enough spaces. They were quite obvious though. Yellowish white stone didn’t really hide rooftop trespassers. There also wasn’t really a park or anything of that nature too close by. Everyone seemed to just build near to the aqueducts and have their own gardens. Apparently magical water encouraged people to grow their own food. Go figure. The closest thing to a park was a large house that had their own garden that took up twice the land their house did.
Lily bit down on her bottom lip as she cast her eyes about. There was a few hiding places of course, but they were all at least another five minutes out. She could make it certainly, but she didn’t WANT to fly for another five minutes. She was tired and wanted to glide down somewhere close by and let Kat switch. She was also somewhat concerned with Kat’s attitude while inside her head, further reinforcing the idea of finding somewhere close by.
Eventually, in the corner of her eye, she managed to spot what looked to be a storefront down one of the alleyways. That wasn’t unique in and of itself, there were a few of them, mostly coffeeshops if the customers standing outside drinking were any indication, but this one seemed to be closed, and a bit rundown if the ripped awning was any indication. *Good enough.*
Lily let herself fall into a dive and beelined straight for the alley in question, letting her speed mask her odd shape. While powerful individuals did have better eyes, most tended to need to concentrate to really make use of the boosted capacity. A swooping, winged figure, heading for an alley was probably just a bird trying to catch a rat or something. Ignorable. She hoped.