Encircle

Chapter 1

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. No profit is made out of this story. AU and OOC.

Authors' notes: This is the third collaborative work between @JJSin2020 and @claudia21742. We wrote this story to fulfil the following prompt:

In his defense, Xiao Zhan was very hard not to love. From the day Yibo had first arrived at the institute, orphaned and afraid, the two of them had gotten along like two halves of a whole, eventually becoming sworn brothers as close as blood. Hunting demons was a dangerous business and hunting as bonded pairs greatly increased efficiency and survival rates. But finding another soul you had such high chemistry with to bind together mind and soul was a truly rare occurrence. That was why Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo's astronomically high compatibility potential was such a miracle.There was just one...small...problem. Amongst bonded pairs, romantic relationships were completely and utterly taboo. From AO3 reader Biscutpoo

Oops we did it again! This was supposed to be a 10K word one-shot. No such luck! This grew uncontrollably. Anyway, please follow this account to join in on the next prompt fest. Also, we have a second winner prompt, and we are working on it!

Translation: Jinghua Quan = Purification Circle

Encircle

Every muscle in his body burned with exertion. Wang Wuchen ducked behind the largest boulder he could find to catch his breath. The sweat from his hand made his grip slippery, but he held onto his sabre for dear life. The rest of his team had been scattered following the initial attack to drive the demons back. Now the demons were regrouping to mount an attack of their own.

Three portals had been opened in strategic points around their village and they were gathering their forces around them. The one Wang Wuchen was closest to was created just above the base of the mountain, cradled between the steep slopes on each side. The demons had opened a second portal at the head of the village's water source, damming it and subsequently cutting them off from any water. This was how the village had learned that the demons had returned.

Before this, they had almost become creatures of legend, stories told down through generations from ancestors that lived through the great wars. Wang Wuchen and his best friend Xiao Tingjian had grown up listening to these stories. They staged mocked battles where Tingjian pretended he was a great warrior and Wang Wuchen was a frightful demon that needed to be killed. At times they would reverse roles, but not often. Now he wondered how his best friend fared. Xiao Tingjian had been sent off to the third portal deep in the forest where the village often hunted for game.

For the 100th time, Wang Wuchen wondered how the demons seemed to know the lay of their land so well. It couldn't be by coincidence that the three portals were opened exactly where they needed to be. From what he had read about portal magic, demons controlled portals at will, but they couldn't sustain the magic required to keep them unlocked for long periods of time, so they opted to open several portals at the same time and used them to transport a limited number of their warriors.

Being unable to predict where the portals would open beforehand proved to be a tremendous problem for humans. However, they had gotten somewhat proficient at detecting the explosion of bright blue light, so intense that it blinded their sentinels for a few seconds.

The intense surge of light was not the only sign, the thunderous sound produced right before the moment the portal opened was something that sprang human warriors into action.

There was no record of a human ever using one of those demon-created portals to go to their dimension in recent times. However, there were tales, old tales treated more as myth than as history, about the beginning of the war when some humans were able to travel to the demon dimension using the same portals. How or why? It was lost in the annals of human history.