80 Chapter Eighty – Profiting from Demons (1/2)
I pulled Tremble from the chest of the last succubus commander, who fell bonelessly to the ground.
A whirling circle of force blades came down around me, and I leisurely slashed out, Null aura lashing through the magic, and it dissipated before they could even start spinning.
”Die!” shouted the lilithi, looking rather impressive there, with her five scorpion tails all poised up and aimed at me, bat wings spread wide, and stabbing a nail-claw directly at me as the unholy symbol at her throat flared with dark purple light.
A ray of necromantic power drove at me… and naturally faded away a foot from my chest.
I took the time to look around, stepping aside as a babau lunged at me with a twisty-spiked dire halberd, cut up through it, down through clawed hands twice as large as those of a human, and then Doc chopped over and cut off its hook-horned black skull as the handless demon bent down to bite at me in pure savagery.
There weren't any other demons in the area. I was wearing parts of most of them, but they were all going up rapidly, coating the ground in burgeoning white mist.
The lilithi was up atop a carriage of some sort, looking rather out of sorts. She had on a tremendously revealing set of priestly attire, her holy symbol bore the black lips of Dedira, and any man would certainly have considered her to be looking dead sexy, with pale skin, black hair, cherry lips, awesome complexion, chest assets like that and hips and legs to match, if you were into cloven feet.
Still, her pet army of Dream demons had been hacked apart… and she'd watched me crush her eight subordinates, totally ignoring the enchantment magic sent my way, and ripping through them so fast in combat it barely seemed they were defending themselves.
She flapped her wings, and barely got a couple feet of altitude before rudely descending back to the top of the carriage. She didn't seem to have a ranged attack other then spells, which basically meant she was stuck up there doing nothing.
”You gonna Call him in?” I asked archly, punting the head of the babau at her leisurely. She avoided it deftly, hissing at me.
”You… you're the soul in this dream! How are you so powerful?” she protested, and I felt the subtle wash of enchantment magic vanishing into my Null.
”You got fifteen seconds, then I'm gonna jump up there and turn your wings into a cloak and your tails into a light snack,” I said, ignoring her question. ”Go on, bring him in. It's your only chance to get out of here alive, after all.”
I'd made sure the city Wards here included an anti-teleport component, so she was Interdicted even if I didn't pop one. But I certainly didn't mind if the succubi brought in more True Karma for me!
Her eyes were sparking hate and fire, but my fingers were counting down, and Tremble was counting down loudly and happily in my hand.
”Horagraezshar! Help me!” she cried out in impassioned Demonic, that actually rippled the structure of Dream, and extended out into the worlds beyond.
”Great!” I added, as something began to roil Out There, and even as her eyes lit up in expectation and she opened her mouth to smile and start the gleeful success dance, I was somehow right in front of her, and Tremble was buried to the hilt in her chest.
As space tore apart behind me, she dropped off the carriage limply, hitting the ground just as her Big Bad Protector showed up.
”Hey there. Pleasure to meet you. We're gonna fight now, so don't go anywhere.”
Space solidified, and the demon's head, like a furless horned wolf, turned sharply as it sensed its avenue of magical retreat had closed, like dimensional vaults slamming together.
It was about seven feet tall, moving with a powerful ease that displayed some very superhuman strength. The beaked axe in its clawed hand was ogre-sized, moving with the ease of a willow wand. Plates of armor were nailed into it all over its humanoidish body, as simply strapping them on was obviously not good enough, and were even affixed to parts of its bat-like wings. The armor was all gory and bloody around the nails, but I was pretty sure they were just parts of its body, and it was all for show.
”You killed Esrizea?” the demon barked at me, and I sensed an expanding aura of pure Chaos churning at the edge of my Null, and upsetting the Dream… or maybe invigorating it, who was I to know?
”Her? This twit couldn't fight if her life depended on it, and it did,” I sniffed, as my Null ignored whatever he was trying to do to the atmosphere. ”But she brought you here, and that's good. I wasn't expecting a Gallu, but you work with what you get, amiright?”
He was visibly debating between charging me and wondering just what the heck I was, to so identify him and not be at all intimidated. And, of course, Tremble was in full Evilborn-Slaying mode, and that was not a pleasant thing for a demon to be looking at. This guy was also one of the top tiers of the Evilborn, so Bane of Legends was cranking in and letting it know how much it needed to die.
He leapt forwards in a blur of movement, hidden power exploding out for all to see. His Axe chopped down almost invisibly fast.
I almost killed him right there. Tremble was out and in the Archer Stands Thrust, and only a desperate heave aside saved him from getting spitted, the skin-plates alongside his neck splitting with a shriek as I moved into his rush, and his Axe chopped down over my shoulder.
Our faces were almost touching, so I slammed my forehead into his nose.
I could see the spike of pain go right into his black-blooded eyes, and he flinched and heaved back as thrust became drawcut as I dove aside to avoid being hooked by that Axe, and he wound up fifteen feet away, the gorget-plate across his throat splitting and leaking black blood.
The cut across my calf hissed and stopped bleeding as Blood Healing poked it. It should have ripped my leg off. He'd spiked and razored the inside edge of his Axe so he could catch and rip with it.