Chapter 24.1 - Ifrit

He examined his new minion carefully, seriously questioning whether or not he should have just killed her outright and tried minionizing one of the warriors instead.

“Good girl. I’m sure we’ll become great friends over the next little while.” Trey eventually muttered, coming to the conclusion that he really wanted to know what a priestess could actually do.

The young culn woman just continued to shake and hold her broken arm, cowering under him. He looked back at the door where splintered wood chipped away from the blows of heavy axes. The culn on the outside were steadily breaking it down, but the wood was thick. He guessed that he still had a couple minutes left and they made it to the barricade beyond the door.

Concentrating on Rivia’s abilities, the screen popped up a more detailed description of each.

Rejuvenation (Dark Miracle) - Level 1

* A basic healing miracle that rejuvenates 1% of HP per second. Lasts for 200 seconds max. Can mend wounds and broken bones. Cannot cure disease. Channeling ability, if channeling is interrupted the miracle is lost. No cooldown.

Immortal’s Infernal Blessing (God-Specific Miracle: Alkir, Mistress of Darkness) - Level 1

* Instant effect miracle that makes target immune to all damage for 3 seconds. Moderate cooldown.

“Can you heal yourself?” Trey asked simply, looking at the cracked bone tenting the skin of her arm. The sobbing girl underneath him didn’t hear him over her own crying and the loud banging on the door, so he took her face in his hands to look at him again.

“I SAID, can you heal yourself? And stop being so loud. That’s an order.”

The horror stricken girl nodded between sobs and she slowly got ahold of herself. Clutching her arm, the sobbing soon came to a complete stop with only tears shimmering down her bloodied face.

“I can…” the girl said pitifully - dark red eyes staring back up at him. “I was just scared-”

“Well now isn’t the time to just sit there! Heal yourself and get ready to channel your abilities onto me!” Trey snapped at the girl.

To Trey’s left, Napoleon flung a firebolt. Out of a chipped hole in the door it went with a cackle from the imp, and a culn soldier on the other side screamed from the burning impact.

The new minion did as she was told and began reciting a verse in words Trey didn't understand. However, after ten seconds of channeling the miracle and dark energy trickling over her body sporadically - he began to see her broken nose slowly readjust itself and fit into place with a crunch of bones that made her wince.

She was even prettier than he had first given her credit for. Too bad she was evil, along with all the rest of these fuckers.

An arrow shot out from a break in the door and barely missed Trey’s head as axes continued chopping through the door at a frantic pace. Trey responded with a chaos ball of his own that sent all of the culn bastards adjacent to the door in a shrieking spray of body parts. He’d killed at least one and probably injured many more.

“You have gained XP.”

Unfortunately, Trey’s blast had also taken out some of his own barrier and had opened up a very small but traversable wedge between the debris piled up against the door.

“Fuck.” Trey muttered, throwing out two more chaos balls into the crowd of bodies.

“You have gained XP. Your minion Rivia has gained 1 Divinity Point due to increased faith in the divine that they will deliver her from potential death.”

Trey saw the notification and shot the girl a brief glance of interest, raising an eyebrow as her miracle slowly repaired the broken arm and cuts all along her body. He didn’t have too much time to gawk though as another arrow sailed out and nailed him in the gut.

Cursing at his stupidity for being distracted over the likes of a pretty woman, he cast Chains of Chaos and sent them crisscrossing over the other side of the doorway. Four sets of sparking flaming black chains wound back and forth across the door, blocking the enemy culn from getting in as screams of anger, death threats, and insults were hurled at him as they tried to hack away at the solidified mana. Trey hadn’t known if it would work, but was rather impressed with himself for the idea.

“As soon as your arm is healed, I want you to focus on keeping me alive with your rejuvenation miracle. If you think I’m in danger of being killed, then use Immortal’s Infernal Blessing. That's a contractual order. Got it?”

His new minion Rivia nodded frantically, not wanting to anger him any further amidst the shitshow taking place in front of her.

More firebolts were flung from Napoleon, and Trey rushed towards the doorway where debris was piled up to his right and left. The hole he’d created in the debris pile with the first chaos ball was big, and he didn’t think he had enough material to patch it while keeping the integrity of the rest of the piled barrier.

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Swearing to himself he narrowly dodged an arrow that blindly shot through the flaming crimson-black chains across the doorway. The archer cursed because of the misfire and then abruptly screamed when Trey’s clawed hand reached through the opening, gripped his wrist and yanked him in.

The archer crashed against the chains and began screaming while the chaos magic violently rippled across his body. A second later, Trey’s greatsword slid into his belly and out the archer's back. Letting go of the culn man: Trey began to dodge swords poking in while using the length of his longer, larger weapon to stab through the gaps in the chain wall. He simultaneously continued pouring more mana into the chains to keep them from caving in to the strikes of his infuriated enemies.

“You have gained XP.”

He briefly had time to yank the first arrow out of his stomach with a terrible gut-wrenching pain as the hooked ends tore out bigger chunks of flesh. He immediately realized what he had done was stupid, and that he’d just opened up a bigger wound… Now he was beginning to bleed profusely. Just how many times was he going to fuck this up? Gritting his teeth, he glanced over at Napoleon who continued to shoot firebolts out at a rapid pace - but the imp was nearing an end to his mana being at 21/150 MP. Trey’s own mana was at 48/134 MP, while his HP was at 193/220, and there were still a ton of enemies out there. Without mana he was going to be hard pressed to even have a chance at winning… and the realization that he was likely going to die again dawned on him.

But looking at the charred corpse of captain douchebag… considering he’d respawn because of the All Spirit’s ‘ON’ cycle: it had been very, very worth it. Trey would make sure that his life came at a high price before they sent him packing again, and two more culn soldiers hit the floor at the choke-point never to rise again with large gaping wounds.

“You have gained XP. You are bleeding, this is a damage over time effect.”

Then Trey felt something carve into his leg.

He screamed, looking down at a spear with the blade lodged in his shin. He felt it grinding against the bone while the culn soldier holding it laughed out in victory on the other side of the doorway with the encouragement of his comrades, and Trey suddenly began to vomit. He stumbled backwards and tripped over a large book, pulling out the spear head as he went, and if it hadn’t been for Napoleon he would have taken an arrow to the chest again. Thankfully the imp’s cover-fire caused the archer to pull back and miss his shot.

Trey could feel his mana waning as the chaos chains continued to have weapons battered against them. He was down to 39/134 MP and hadn’t even used a spell in that time. The culn were upping their aggressiveness and the swings of their weapons were coming faster since they had seen him fall back.

“Your minion Napoleon’s Firebolt spell has increased to level 9.”

Without even a thought Trey’s right hand shot up and caught an arrow aimed straight for his eye. He stared at it, looking at the shredded fingers where the arrow’s blade had cut through them, and appreciating how close it was to his face.

‘You’re welcome.’ his symbiote Sithis stated, impressed even with himself at the feat he’d accomplished. A feeling of pride was blossoming within Sithis and Trey could almost taste every bit of it.

“Sithis!!! What a badass!” Trey laughed, still being able to keep humor amidst such a dire situation. His laughter only grew when he began to feel soothing dark energy ripple down his body in sporadic waves. He caught sight of Rivia: the demoness was channeling her Rejuvenation miracle while muttering and focusing on him intently. He gave her a grin and a thumbs up, knowing that she didn’t WANT to help him but appreciating it anyways despite the contract forcing her hand.

He rolled behind the pile of materials to the right and caught his breath as his abdomen and leg began to very slowly mend. As he did, he watched Napoleon’s mana bar plummet to zero and the imp immediately became useless. The little imp realized he was out just as Trey did and started beating his little hands against the floor in a loud, ridiculous temper tantrum.

Trey chuckled before watching his MP drop again to 30/134.

“You’ve done well Napoleon, but I think you’d better leave without mana. You’d just get in the way and die unnecessarily... Thank you for your help, my little friend.” Trey gently smiled at the imp who stopped what he was doing to look at Trey with a sad expression.

“But master die if go!” Napoleon whimpered, running over to Trey to put his little claws on Trey’s thigh. “I no let die! I stay stay!”

The sentimental act brought a lump to Trey’s throat. Napoleon may have been an NPC, but Trey wasn’t sure what the even really meant. The All Spirit had made it seem like they were just as alive as he was... and he was still trying to figure how he felt about that. If it was even true...

He patted Napoleon on the shoulder and gave the imp a firm squeeze. Before Napoleon could say anything else, Trey began to dismiss him. Dark magic filtered through his hand to his fingers and a pentagram surrounded the little demon with streaks of crimson light.

“I’ll see you soon, my guy.” Trey declared, and then watched as Napoleon disappeared into the nether realm. He felt a tinge of sadness as the imp went, and it was soon placed with anxiety as he heard the renewed screams of his enemies nearby. His mana pool dropped again to 24/134, and he kept piling it into the barricading chains he’d summoned at the doorway.

His eyes traced the room’s interior until they abruptly stopped on the shredded corpse of Jerekka, his first culn minion. The dead man still lying against the wall where he’d been flung by a psychic blast. The armor had crisscrossing jagged rips in the metal right over where large wounds were apparent on the body underneath.

A large pool of blood had encircled his minion’s body, and although Trey hated the bastard just as much as the rest of these culn, he couldn’t help but wish that Jerekka was still alive so that he had another pawn on his side. Trey was already losing his edge and the fear of death was starting to hang over him. Now that he’d done what he came here to do... Well, let’s just say death isn’t a pleasant thing even if you’re able to respawn.

“Master... May I suggest summoning... one of the creatures... held within me...?” Trey’s greatsword asked, getting Trey’s attention in the final minute before his barrier broke down.

Trey only frowned at the idea. “Why would I do that? Then I’d just have something else trying to kill me and it’s unlikely as it is that I’m going to get out of this alive.”

Another arrow rocketed past him and slammed into the stone next to Trey’s exposed foot, bouncing off the floor and flipping up into the air. He quickly withdrew his foot from the line of sight of any archers and pondered what he had to do. He’d try to kill as many of them as he could, and holding the choke point was the key. Rivia could heal him in the meantime. If he got surrounded he had no chance at all, but if he held it... then he may be able to break free. It was possible that they wouldn’t even realize Rivia was his minion at this point and he’d likely be able to dismiss her then resummon her to whatever spot he’d gotten to after escaping.

But he knew that escape was a long shot.

“It is highly likely... that they have no magic users... in this group...” Talsh’Noc’Un whispered from somewhere within its dark grey blade. “If either summon accepts you... then you will have a better chance... to win this fight...”

He could feel the sword’s yearning to stay. The sword wanted to win... it wanted to win so that it could keep on killing. Sithis’ hunger matched the sword’s own, and the two in unison swayed his mind… causing him to yearn for the fight as well.