Spending My Retirement In A Game

Xenia waved her hands around, concentrating her magic into a mass in front of her. That mass quickly took the form of a needle, and at its end, a long thread was forming as well.

"You can see the gateway, right? The way that this summoning circle works is quite crude, so it has to have created pretty big tear," the high-elf explained, continuing to create more of that magical thread as she moved the needle over to Eisen, "Right now, you need to stitch up that tear. Just in any way you can to make it as strong as possible, so that it won't tear again while I 'heal' the tear."

The old man quickly nodded his head, "Got it, that sounds easy enough."

He took the magical needle into his hand. It was quite large, but considering the size of the 'tear' that Eisen was seeing in front of him, it was quite understandable that it would need something this large. The needle itself felt a little weird to the touch, though; cold and glass-like, while at the same time somewhat soft and seemingly able to bend quite easily, as if it were made of rubber.

It might be a little weird to use it to stitch something up, but it should work out somehow. Eisen quickly looked at the tear that the magic was leaking out of. It was in the middle of the air above the summoning circle.

From the position of that woman's dead body and what he was told by Jyuuk, it seemed like the tear was exactly in the spot where she had cut into her own body to let the 'Filth' through. That was why there were three different lines that he would have to stitch up; the one vertical one seemed to be the most rough and torn. If 'space' acted anything like fabric, then he should be careful with this.

So instead, he started with the horizontal cuts.

He placed the tip of the needle against the edge of the cut, feeling some level of resistance. At first Eisen thought it would simply pass through the air without any resistance at all, but it rather felt like he was trying to push a needle through steel. But after continuing to press, that 'wall' seemed to give in as if melting away, and Eisen was able to push the needle through the air.

He wasn't able to go as fast as he usually would, but before long, he did find the rythm that he needed to stitch up the lines as much as he could.

The tears were pulled shut, but the space beyond it was still bleeding through to this world. Eisen sure hoped that Xenia would be able to properly close this, because it felt absolutely disgusting to be faced by this all. After stitching the horizontal cuts, Eisen moved on to the vertical one. He had to be a bit more careful here, as the edges were frayed.

If he was too rough here, he could just make it all even worse than before.

So, Eisen left a bit of a larger gap between the edge of the cut and the spot he actually pushed the needle into. It seemed like he needed to use a lot more force to get the needle through like this, but it was still working somehow.
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Pulling the edges of the cut together as he continued sewing it back together was also quite tough, and Xenia seemed to be struggling to keep the stability of the magical threads up, as she was attempting to do throughout this whole process

Even so, before long, Eisen had closed the gateway for now. There was still some of that disgusting energy leaking out through it, but it was already much less than it had been before. Once the ends oft he threads were tied off, the old man looked at Xenia.

"I'm done," he said, and the high-elf let out a sigh of relief.

"Perfect, thank you for the help..." she said, slowly letting go of the control she had over the magic. The moment she did, it seemed like the tear was starting to want to pull itself back open, but luckily, it was holding out pretty well for the time being.

The old man watched as Xenia placed her hand in front of the rift, starting to mutter some complex chants that he didn't recognize. It didn't even seem to be the 'common' language that was spoken in this world. As Xenia continued to chant and cast some magic on the rift, it seemed to be healing, like a wound that was slowly fusing back together.

But as that happened, Eisen was starting to see something. Space itself, around the rift, was deforming. It looked like how when the heat from a flame shifted the air, but this time, it was the space that the air laid in itself.

And what Eisen was seeing was the outline of a hand. It was like someone was trying to push against a piece of fabric, looking for an opening. Before long, a second hand joined, and then a third and a fourth. They were all in different sizes, and plenty of them had the wrong amount of fingers, but they were already a lot more 'correct' than that hands that the 'Filth' had come here with earlier.

Though by now, even the hands making up the Filth's body were overall correct, though the fingers still bent the wrong way a lot.

But it didn't just end at the hands this time. In a similar way, distorted faces were pushing against the fabric of space around the tears as they slowly closed down. The faces were bumpy and the positions of everything were wrong.

The noses were above the eyes, of which there were sometimes one, sometimes three, and sometimes five, or anything inbetween, but the eyes were never in the right position or orientation.

Truthfully, Eisen was a bit surprised that he could even recognize them as faces right away. The old man instinctively grasped the handle of his sword, getting ready to strike at everything and anything that might try to force its way out through the tears. At some point, Xenia's chanting stopped, though her magic was still affecting the rift.

"What's happening?" the old man asked, "Those weren't there earlier."

"Yeah, well..." Xenia groaned, "The chants echo through that world like you wouldn't believe. I was basically advertising that there's a gate here. They would have found it sooner or later anyway if we hadn't come along... That would have been an absolute catastrophe..."

"At least it looks like it's working."

"It doesn't just look like it; it's definitely working," a slight grin formed on Xenia's face, "Okay, when I tell you to, just tear away at the threads and get rid of them however you can."

Eisen raised his brow, "Are you sure?"

"Yes, it's the final step of properly closing this rift."

Trusting in his friend, Eisen nodded his head. He held forward his hands, ready to push his finger behind the threads to tear them out of the air. The faces and hands seemed to be getting more and more aggressive, as if they were getting more impatient or... desperate. It was like even they didn't want to stay in that place anymore.

That explained why the 'Filth' reacted so badly in response to being asked to go back.

Eisen waited for what felt like forever, until Xenia finally told gave him the go-ahead.

"Now!" she exclaimed, and Eisen immediately ran his hands over the threads. The magical glow curled around his fingers and were torn away from the air as if they never held onto anything in the first place. Down to the last one, they all disappeared, leaving behind a scar that was only visible to Eisen right now.

The imprints of the 'things' on the other side grew weaker as the scar continued to fade away, until there was finally no trace anymore. The only part of that disgusting energy was the parts that were still here in the air, but those were being quickly absorbed and used up by the Filth. Clearly, it wasn't used to having to use energy like this, so it was wasting it like there was no tomorrow.

But even it had to realize that it was going to die at this rate. And once that realization properly hit it, the filth gave up; instead of attacking, it tried to pull back from the fight with Jyuuk and Brody.