Phuong dodged the now glowing runes made of shadowy smoke, chasing his foe. He weaved blast after blast on the move, blinking from sweat and the intensity of such focus.
The demon lord was fast and dangerous and cunning. Phuong knew better than to think he was a cat chasing a mouse. They were two deadly weapons circling each other. But unlike his enemy, Phuong didn’t have the luxury of a powerful shield. One bad mistake could be his last.
So he made no mistakes.
He chased, he weaved, and he cut. The demon clicked around their little arena on its insect-like legs, closing off more and more ground with its runes, using them as barriers to retreat.
Despite the adrenaline, Phuong felt fear creeping in. At first he’d thought all he had to do was wear down the creature’s shield. But he could see now it was rejuvenating itself.
He had to overcome it quickly—to get close and hack it down in melee. But he wasn’t sure he could hit it hard and fast enough to actually do it. He was reminded this was a kind of ‘boss’ designed to fight a group or two of players.
Then he saw Blake and a few others out of the corner of his eye, standing outside the shield, pulsing with magic. He let out a small breath of relief. They were coming for him. He just had to hold on.
The demon’s eyes twitched to the other players, then back to Phuong. It paused and stopped circling away. There was the briefest moment of stillness between them. Then the demon attacked at full speed.
The curved swords glowed with dark power as they slashed at a blur. Phuong deflected and withdrew, doing everything he could to keep aware of the runes as he kept the swords away with blasting slashes of soul-affinity power.
He knew without the addition demonic-fighting power of his affinity and Maker gifted sword, he would have been dead. That any other player besides Mason or possibly Becky or Blake wouldn’t have lasted long alone against the creature’s assault.
He couldn’t use Adrenaline again. He’d upgraded it to remove the ‘penalty’ when it was over, or he knew he’d already be dead. But he desperately needed more speed.
The purple ‘arena’ was shaking and sizzling. The demon hesitated, squinting as if in surprise. A tiny, flickering orb whipped through the shield, stopping a few feet from the duelists. It looked a lot like Blake’s familiar, though it wasn’t glowing like it usually…
Phuong’s sword flickered. And then it vanished. He stared at his hands in confusion, no idea how the demon could have done that.
A piece of his mind screamed betrayal, or divine intervention. But he couldn’t understand how or why. He saw the innate blade flickering in his profile, like whatever the effect was had only temporarily brought it down and he could soon summon it again soon. He tried. He failed.
A black line of smoke struck him in the chest. He coughed, but couldn’t catch his breath. His arms and legs went watery. He’d been shot twice in the wars. It felt a lot like that.
The demon lord was glowing with magic, lines of power striking it from its runes, one more like a string now attached from its chest to Phuong’s.
You’re mine, Soulkeeper. See you in the infernum.
Phuong swiped lazily at the smoke, hand going right through. Then he stumbled and fell to a knee, still uselessly trying to summon his sword. He couldn’t seem to move. Everywhere he looked he saw runes and smoke. All he heard was the chittering of the demon’s legs as it scurried towards him, sword raised for the kill.
A blade pierced his chest. He lost what was left of his strength, but still pulled away and dodged the second blade as it swiped for his neck.
The demon’s shield popped as Phuong fell back and struck the hard ground, knowing he couldn’t rise. Voices and magic and the battle outside came rushing in. He felt Becky’s Aegis circle him. He saw powers and spells strike the demon as a dozen players charged, wishing he could laugh as the planar lord fell back in a panic.
“Help Phuong!” yelled Blake, “I can keep the demon away!”
For some reason the young man’s voice annoyed Phuong more than usual. But he wasn’t sure why. He looked up as his friend Alex came to his side, hard eyes moving over his wound, then coming up without any of the bullshit other men would give.
Phuong managed to give him a smile. He was pretty sure his heart was in two pieces. He blinked as the darkness came, suddenly very afraid of something worse than death. He felt a spell, and saw a light, and he reached for it like driftwood in an endless sea.
“Be brave, my friend,” Alex said, those hard eyes still calm. “We find you in dark.”
Phuong blinked and thought he saw a meteor falling from the sky. Which seemed not very good. But then some piece of him slipped out of his body like it was shedding its skin, and fell. And he stopped worrying about anything else.
**
Mason’s people were fighting a damn army. He swept the field briefly with his Ranger’s Mark, and blinked when he saw the massive power of the two planar leaders.
That made things simple. He only had to decide which to kill first. But his players looked like they had one surrounded. They’d probably handle it without him, or at least hold it there. He aimed at the giant elemental nearly at the wall, and dove.
[Divine Title Activated: Where you are Gaia, I am Gaius. All natural powers enhanced]
[Title activated: Nexus Defender. All statistics enhanced.]
He hardly registered the system text in the chaos of his profile and vision, or the warmth in his gut at Demi’s presence. Violence had arrived. There was only his prey.
One more flap before he dropped his weight and plunged like an anvil shot out of a cannon. He stamped Stone and Tree and Air runes, activating an instant spell that hardened his bones. He was going head first.
Debris and a sound like thunder roared as his horns smashed into the planar lord’s back. Sound lost all meaning. A ringing filled Mason’s ears, eyes blurry as he gripped his enemy with his Claws, raking and digging without interest in his shattered senses.
Dirt and stone rained from above. Bits of his foe dropped from the explosion of his crash. But he was already digging into the ‘hill’ as his body regenerated, throwing magically infused earth away as he pushed towards the creature’s gem-like heart.
It shifted, and started to re-form with him inside it. But he smiled. He’d smashed it out of ‘phase one form’ in seconds.
The beast roared as it grew legs and a bunch of arms, ejecting him from its body with incredible force. His claws raked through it uselessly as he tried to hold on. Sometimes, impossibly sharp claws were a problem.
He came tumbling to the ground and stood, watching his enemy with his mark to find that gem again.
“Um. Can we…how can we assist, lord?”
One of the eastern players was looking up at him with wide eyes, gesturing some of the other players back. Mason did his best not to growl when he talked.
“Distract him. Don’t die.”
“OK. We’ll just take up position over…”
Mason stamped another combination of runes with full, ridiculously enhanced mana force. A swirling cyclone of acidic rain spun up over the elemental’s head with a huge wind-roaring sound of violence. The planar lord looked momentarily confused, and blind. Mason lowered his horns and charged again.
He smashed straight into one of those big, stocky legs, and shattered it. Swinging, vine-like arms chased after him as the creature grew another leg and spun clumsily after him.
It was far too slow. He raced around it raking and crushing anything that grew or swung at him. But it was just a test, and a delay. He waited until he saw the other players engage, then stamped more runes.
Air and Fire blasted a burning tornado of natural magic. Necessary? No. But then he did have extra infinite mana, and he didn’t even have to drain his blood for it.
Thanks Mav.
The tornado carved a hole in the creature’s chest. Mason jumped easily into it, and went back to digging as the planar champion roared and thrashed.
Phase two didn’t take that long, either. He gripped and crushed the gem-heart with one hand, then hopped out as the beast collapsed with a crash.
“Good. Now help close the smaller portals to the north and east,” he said to the slack-jawed players staring at the corpse. “We’re fine here.”
Then he raced towards the second lord. It took a little will to resist another charge, but he didn’t want to accidentally crush someone. He summoned his bow and tried to take in what was happening as he approached.
Things looked well in hand. Several of his most powerful players were blasting at a demon surrounded by glowing runes. Looked like it was hiding behind them, moving in and out of shadow and smoke to protect itself. That didn’t seem like an enemy feeling very confident.
He’d almost slowed to a relaxed jog before he heard a feminine scream. Becky. A horrible sound of anguish he wasn’t sure he’d ever heard her make. And was sure he’d never wanted to experience.
The world flew by as he raced to her side. Blake was there with some of his constructs. Alex, Seamus, John, damn near half the tier one players in the world. He didn’t understand what had happened until he found Phuong lying beneath Becky’s magic and physical shield. He was white as a sheet, his chest a bloody mess.
It didn’t take Mason’s super senses or mark to know one of his generals was dead, or nearly so. He reluctantly swiped his profile, and found an empty position for a Chancellor of War.
He closed it as Becky looked up at him with tear-streaked eyes, shaking her head like she didn’t understand how this happened, or what to do now.
“I couldn’t….he was trapped.” She shook her head and tried to touch the wound but stopped, then stared bloody daggers at Alex. “What good are you anyway? It’s only one fuckin’ hit. Why couldn’t you heal him?”
Mason knew the men were as close as brothers, and almost snapped at her before he met the Belarusian’s eyes. Whatever worldly pleasures were left to the stoic man seemed one step closer to gone. She couldn’t hurt him with words, however unfair. He didn’t need defending. He shook his head, like he had something to say but wouldn’t do it here.
Mason stood and walked towards the demon.
“Why isn’t it dead.”
Blake sighed and gestured at the circular aura of infernal power. He was his usual self, untroubled, like this was just another day in the apocalypse. Though as he glanced back at Phuong he sobered a little, which was at least something.
“After…well, I figured you’d want revenge. I told the others to wait as I de-activate all the portal runes properly. It’ll take a minute, but once they’re gone, our friend here doesn’t get banished back to hell when he dies. He goes pop forever. You can imagine how immortal demons feel about that.”
The demon looked out from his smoke like he heard and wasn’t pleased. But Mason honestly didn’t really care if some demon got what it deserved. His friend was dead, nothing would change that. He had a world full of people to protect and his own emotions made no difference. He was about to just walk over and end it when Alex grabbed his wrist.
“Let him. Better for Phuong. I explain later.”
Mason grit his teeth but nodded for Blake to go back to work. The ring of tier one players all just stood there blasting/shooting/slashing at the demon the second it tried to come out. All of them temporarily ignored the battle beyond, except to kill anything that tried to help.
It was only a few minutes. Blake confirmed the last rune had come apart, and the demon growled and charged from its defences. Mason smashed it down with a brutal charge. The most powerful players in the world ripped into it like a prison shanking.
It screeched pitifully as it died, leaving nothing but a black skull on the rocky ground. Mason picked it up, and for another moment they all stood there in silence, except for a few helpless sobs from Becky.
For Phuong, no one bothered to say. Mason crushed it.
