Chapter 497: Rockout
Anna couldn’t hear much of anything anymore over the roar of her headphones.
With the music pounding in her head and her heartbeat beginning to match it, it wasn’t long before her feet joined in the rhythm.
The air surrounding her seemed to settle in spite of her rather chaotic aura.
She did two quick hops off the ground to ensure she was perfectly adjusted before cracking her knuckles.
Gamigin laughed at her display, believing it to be little more than needless bravado.
But Anna was hardly the kind of woman who bluffed. Nor did she have it in her to wait around.
She planted one foot in front of her and launched forward like a rocket. Gamigin suddenly knit his brows into a frown.
"...Useless."
Anna couldn’t explain what happened next, but she felt as if the invisible walls of the world had suddenly begun to press down on her from every angle.
She likened it to those random nights where she sometimes ended up at the bottom of the sleep pile. Only this time, she didn’t get the privilege of waking up with boobs in her face or a dick pressed against her back.
All the same, though, moving felt next to impossible.
For some reason, the gaze the horse gave her had suddenly changed.
"...You seem to have some strength. It is no wonder that you did not fear challenging me."
Anna sneered. "Warming up to me, Black Beauty?"
"That force was meant to crush you just now. Had you been any run-of-the-mill succubus, I would have succeeded. Who is your maker, child?"
"My mom doesn’t even know, so how the fuck should I?"
"Anna!" Mal barked from the sidelines.
"Okay, okay, I just wanted to have a little dark humor moment..."
The tattoos on Anna’s body started to heat up. Steam billowed from her gorgeous muscles.
Against the expectations of Gamigin and the demons in attendance, Anna actually managed to take a step forward. Her boot print shattered the ground underneath her like it was made of glass.
"You’re going through a lot of trouble with all of these damn magic tricks... Why, if I didn’t know any better, I would say you were scared of getting beaten up by a girl."
Agares snickered at Anna’s remark. Something that only seemed to anger Gamigin more.
"You speak without knowing your place, urchin. Has your brief moment of significance caused you to underestimate the gap between us-"
"Can’t hear you over Beartooth, you’re gonna have to speak up a little louder, pussy breath! Or just use sign language- can you use those hooves of yours to spell out ’coward’ or do you need a magic spell for that too!?"
Among the higher echelons of demon-kind, there is but only one cardinal rule.
Do. Not. Humiliate. Them.
In a society full of opportunistic murderers, cheaters and schemers, being humiliated is about as open a threat on one’s life as there can be.
And with the entirety of the demon realm here, witnessing the moment, there was no worse stage for it to happen on.
Every imp, succubi, soul-dealer, and tormenter in the kingdom of the damned had just heard the way Anna had spoken to one of its most revered rulers.
And they could not have been more amused if she blew a whoopee cushion in his face.
Lucifer himself was laughing the hardest; it was easy to see him in the announcer’s booth, turning red as tears streamed down his cheeks. It was so strange to see the Dark Lord slapping his knee in hilarity while he held onto his wife for support.
Lilith was hopelessly caught between maintaining her dignified, noble aura and acknowledging the fearlessness and wit of her descendant.
Gamigin was incensed.
His eyes became molten orbs of seething rage. In an instant, he released the spell limiting Anna’s movements.
He threw all weapons to the side before he scraped the ground with one hoof.
When he charged, the force of his momentum was so terrible that the shockwave alone could have leveled an entire New York City block.
His four hooves changed to fists, much to Anna’s surprise.
He raised two of them in a great strike, roaring like the most abominable of god’s dark creations.
Time seemed to slow down for Annalise as she watched the rampaging demon come her way.
Truth be told, there was once a time she might’ve run to meet the demon head-on. Just to measure her own physical strength against one who was considered a god.
But that was before she and her mother got captured. And it was before she had three little girls at home who called her ’mom’.
At this stage of her life, Anna only wanted to do reckless things in the safest way possible. She had way too much to lose by ’playing fair’.
It was a good thing that she had never cared much for honor anyway. It was overrated.
"Gotcha."
As soon as the demon came close enough, Anna rocketed off the ground with one flap of her wings.
Against everyone’s expectations, she narrowly avoided the creature’s fists and flew straight at its face.
As soon as she came within a close enough distance, she held her wings out in front of her like lances.
When she tensed her shoulder blades, every single feather across her ten-foot wingspan became as hard as diamonds, and as sharp as Excalibur.
Her bladed wings sailed right into the eyes of the oversized horse, covering her in a gush of hot demon blood almost instantly.
Anna considered herself to have a pretty strong stomach, but some things were too much even for her.
She retched grotesquely as the horse demon screamed in terrible pain. She was relieved that nothing came up, so she didn’t have to risk accidentally throwing up in the middle of her badass moment.
It was a shame. She wouldn’t realize until it was far too late that her body in the real world was not as lucky.
And today, the ones who had been the ones to pay the price for her underhanded methods were none other than her husband, their daughter, and the sofa that Celsete & Sei loved more than life itself.
