Somewhere just outside of the Aankh river, a certain pair of magicians were inscribing and restoring enchantments on an empty stone archway facing in the direction of Meh island.
"Senior? Are you sure you made the right choice?" Shinji asked while doing some maintenance on the preexisting enchantments of the stone structure.
"Trust me, he can handle it. This much is a piece of cake for an arch-demon. In fact, I'd be willing to bet everything will be over by the time we're finished here." Alex replied while peering into a tiny, glowing hole in one of the stone bricks.
"Yeah, that wasn't what I was asking. I meant, are you sure you should have made a contract with him? He seemed kind of sketchy." Shinji said.
"Tsk. Could you hand me the engraving stick?" Alex asked, his gaze fixed on the interior of the hole as he reached out his hand, gesturing for Shinji to hand him something
"5 or 10?" Shinji asked as he began sifting through a nearby tray of specialized tools made for enchanting.
"5, the extendable one, wind type. Anyways, you don't have to worry, I know what I'm doing."
"I'm sure you do, it just seems like he's plotting something?" Shinji said while screwing on a tiny, pointy, green magic stone on to the tip of a very thin metal stick.
"I'm sure he is, but it doesn't matter." Alex replied.
"Here." Shinji said as he handed over the adjustable, magic-stone-tipped, pointer.
"Thanks." Alex responded as he took the pointer and shoved it inside the hole, the metal pole taking on a blue hue as he began pouring mana into the handle.
"…? So?" Shinji asked
"So, what?" Alex replied as he carefully maneuvered the tool in his hand to draw enchantments on the interior of the rock.
"So, why doesn't it matter that the Haagenti is plotting something?"
"Oh, that! Well, for starters, the soul contract says he can't lay a hand on us. Could you switch the stone out for me? Spatial type this time." Alex asked, handing the rod back to Shinji.
"So? It's not like there aren't any workarounds. He could be making a new deal with the enemy while you're not there to stop him. I mean, that's why he made a contract with you in the first place, isn't it?" Shinji said as he swapped out the green stone for a purple one.
"Maybe, if he has a death wish."
"What do you mean?" Shinji asked as he handed the tool back to Alex.
"Attempting to break out of an active soul contract is extremely dangerous and unlikely to succeed. Soul contracts were created by demons specifically to make sure people kept their end of the bargain. It's essentially a very intricate type of curse that changes based on the circumstances and people involved, which means the same workarounds won't always work. Each contract is unique by design as a means to prevent it from becoming obsolete by some universal loophole. Using one soul contract to interfere with another is already a very risky gamble that could cost him his soul if he's unlucky. Odds of him succeeding with the same method twice in a row are slim to none." Alex said while continuing his work.
"Well, that makes the reason why he offered us a contract even more suspicious. Why take such a risk just to get out of a temporary contract."
"Our master tends to have that effect on people. I mean, the painstick alone is a good enough reason. At least in our case, she needs to make up some kind of excuse first before swinging it around on account of being her disciples, but could you imagine working for her without that small mercy." Alex said, his words striking terror through every cell in Shinji's body.
"I really hate that I can't argue against that."
"Okay, that should be the last of it, I think. Now, let's test it out. Oh, uh, you might want to take cover, just in case we missed something and it malfunctions again." Alex said, urging Shinji to keep his distance from the archway.
Because the elemental energy of the Aankh river causing a bit of interference, using basic spatial travel becomes unreliable when trying to skip straight past the very large expanse of stormy water currents separating the Eyes of Aankh from the rest of the continent. However, more advanced and stable means of teleportation can still bypass this problem with little to no trouble. Hence, Alex, the court magician of the dark empire, had once upon a time built spatial gates that could directly take you to the river islands, no problem, one of which, was this very archway. Unfortunately, following a certain incident involving a certain Pink Palace lord, a ban was issued on the usage of spatial gates in the empire, resulting in all the old spatial gates shutting down and any that were not outright demolished, soon fell into disrepair due to a lack of maintenance. Which is why Shinji and Alex have spent the last couple of days trying to fix this one.
"3, 2, 1, and brace yourself!" Alex warned as he turned on the spatial gate.
A spatial gate is a bit more powerful and stable than a regular spatial distortion. It has similar benefits as a wormhole does, in the sense that it has practically no delay when connecting the spaces, however, it does have certain restrictions. One is that the destination of the spatial gate is preset to a specific location, and changing the destination would require you to rewire the whole thing. Another, …
*BOOM*
Is that it needs to connect with another spatial gate standing on the coordinates it's opening a portal too.
*Cough**Cough*
In truth, the pair had been doing more than just repairing the spatial gate. They modified it.
"Hey Shinji, we did it!" He said, while too busy looking at the functional portal to notice the strange movements under his feet.
After he sent his contracted arch-demon, Hexel, ahead of them to reinforce the soldiers already on the island, Alex and Shinji began working on transport for the rest of their soldiers.
As the spatial gate on Meh island was likely inoperable from erosion as well, Alex, not wanting to go through the hassle of building a boat or aerial ship capable of transporting their soldiers across the Aankh river from scratch, decided to use the remains of the old spatial gate to create a one-way portal to the island. Though, with Alex's knowhow and Shinji's assistance, the endeavor would take less time than building a sufficient vehicle from scratch, however, attempting to make a spatial gate without the gate on the other side makes the task far more complicated and prone to all manner of malfunctions.
"Shinji? Where'd he go?" Alex wondered as he couldn't spot his junior anywhere.
"NO! NOT THIS AGAIN! WHY?!" Shinji screamed, now a living 2-dimensional figure on the ground.
"Whoa, sorry!" Alex said as he lifted his foot off his junior's face.
Unfortunately, when turning on the modified portal, Shinji had not stood far enough away from the exploding archway to avoid the ensuing blast of spatial energy that erupted, and unlike his senior, he did not possess any defensive artifacts that could ward off any strange side effects. Fortunately, or unfortunately, he happened to have experienced something similar back when practicing compound magic and so Alex knew how to undo it.
"What did master call this spell again?" Alex asked, casting the 3rd tier spatial spell he recently learned.
"I don't know! I just remember her screaming plus ultra or something!" Shinji said, his body regaining its original dimensions starting with his upper body.
"…! "Add-Dimensional", that was it!" Alex said, remembering the name.
"Uh-huh! Could you maybe write down the spell structure for me at some point. I don't think it will, but in case this somehow becomes a pattern, I'd like to know how to undo it."
"Sure, maybe later. Anyways, I'll do some minor tweaks to finetune it, could you go call everyone over in the meantime. I doubt there will be much fighting left, but they might be a bit undermanned." Alex said.