Chapter 24.2 - Ifrit
Was it really possible that he could win this fight though? He turned around the corner of the pile and watched over a dozen of them clashing their weapons of various sorts into his chains that were becoming weaker by the second. At the same time though, his leg was now almost fully healed and his abdomen had sealed back up. Rivia had done good work.
“Wouldn’t that be a waste? Shouldn’t I wait until later so that I’m certain to get both?” Trey muttered under his breath, yanking his head back as another arrow soared through.
The sword chuckled. “They are indeed... rare specimens... and it is unlikely... that you will find any of their... species... any time soon... but be warned... these culn know who you are... and will likely try... to imprison you... making escape impossible... and life... agonizing... for untold amounts of time... until you lose your permanence... They will... be able to figure out... how to kill you... once their identifiers clarify what... your ability to respawn is... I would hate... to lose another... master...”
Trey paled at the thought amidst the screams of rage and hacking at the wood. He’d been thinking about that same possibility, but hadn’t wanted to keep it in mind.
‘Or you could just kill yourself before they break through. You could even have the wench do it.’ Sithis suggested, shooting Rivia a look through Trey’s eyes. ‘It is a safer route, but choose quickly. They are almost through.’
Ugh. Suicide wasn’t really his forte, and he really... REALLY didn’t want to deal with another agonizing death again.
* Captured Creatures in Storage: 4/5 grand soul stones filled
* Empty
* Ifrit, Greater Demon
* Dark Djinn, Fallen
* Taurun, Greater Demon
* Angelic Dread Berserker, Fallen Archangel
“Fine... Do it.” Trey muttered to the sword when the window popped up. “Pull out the ifrit."
His MP dropped to 11/134.
“My thoughts... echo your own... master...” the greatsword hummed. Another moment later and a dark streak of black lightning shot into the middle of the room, scaring Rivia and causing her to shriek. Immediately after she lost focus, the channeling stopped and the miracle collapsed.
“Keep it going!” Trey snarled at the frightened girl. “I want constant regen, now!”
Stuttering something he couldn’t make out, the girl nodded frantically and began channeling another miracle; taking another single divinity point out of her pool to do it. At full DP points, he realized that she’d be able to cast this miracle 15 times in a row.
He was slightly impressed, if only for a second.
Another blast of black lightning emanated from the sword and into the ball of dark magic floating in the middle of the room. Slowly but surely, the demon there began to take form...
A deep bellowing roar sounded from just outside and Trey turned around to witness two muscular minotaurs had been brought in. They were huge, the largest he’d seen yet with the exception of the brute back at the spawning pools days ago, and these ones were armored with heavy broadswords and shields to boot. When he went to identify them, it made his heart sink a little.
Name: Minotaur
Race: Minotaur, Demon
Class: Warrior
Level: 13
HP: ???, MP: ???, SP: ???, DP: ???
Name: Minotaur
Race: Minotaur, Demon
Class: Warrior
Level: 15
HP: 406/406, MP: ???, SP: ???, DP: ???
They had about twice his HP, which was not encouraging. He wondered for a brief moment how these minotaurs had been subjected to slavery by culn. The culn were... weaker, weren’t they? Culn were even classed as ‘lesser demons’ like Trey’s imp Napoleon, and these minotaur that served the culn were classified by the system as just straight up ‘demon.’ But when the first minotaur charged head down to ram his horns against the chaos chains he immediately realized why they were the underlings.
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These creatures were downright stupid.
The minotaur roared in pain as his horns and face got caught up in the flaming, sparking chains of mana, and it only began to entangle itself the further it went. It pushed and yanked and tangled itself up more and more, and in the end the creature fell to the ground in a screeching lump of tortured mass. But even as it lay dying, it had done its job well.
The chains were in ruin, the remnants of them simmering around the hulking monster on the ground, and the doorway was wide open with only mounds of piled trash to either side of the choke point.
“Oh boy...” Trey cursed and he immediately got up to rush the downed minotaur. Slashing it with his claws in a frenzy he tore out pieces of flesh in chunks just before the second one began to charge.
“You have gained XP.”
The remaining minotaur didn’t give two thoughts about the chokepoint. It was much bigger than Trey, and it couldn’t be stopped. As the huge bulk connected with Trey’s frame, the smaller man was sent flying into the far wall with a sickening thud and crunching of bones.
He gasped, trying to regain the air that had been knocked out of his lungs. Talsh’Noc’Un was still busy summoning the ifrit and couldn’t be used, while Rivia continued channeling the miracle while cowering in a corner. Little pieces of flesh began to knit together as Trey dropped to the ground, the dark miracle doing its work at a slow monotonous pace, but it definitely wouldn’t be fast enough.
The jeering and cheers from the culn beyond climbed in volume as they pushed one another to try and get inside, taking their time stepping over the dead minotaur or scattered debris at their feet. The remaining minotaur already inside the room bellowed and lifted its thick, jagged sword to finish the job. It roared out a challenge, flexing its muscles underneath the thick cast iron of it’s armor, and struck down hard.
Trey saw it coming and knew he was dead. He simply closed his eyes and awaited the death strike, but as the sword made impact a warmth enveloped him and the sword bounced off his skin harmlessly. The minotaur toppled back from the rebound and fell into the culn behind it, causing them all to stammer back as the foremost culn was crushed by the much bigger minotaur’s body
Opening his eyes, Trey came to realize he was glowing with an orange light. Meanwhile, some of the culn warriors from the doorway cast baffled, unbelieving stares of betrayal at Rivia. That’s when Trey understood what had happened. ‘Immortal’s Infernal Blessing’ had been cast, and for three seconds Trey had gained absolute immunity from harm. Though by the time he had realized this, the miracle had worn off, and he knew based on the ability description that the cooldown for it would make it unable to be cast again anytime soon. A divinity point had dropped off Rivia’s DP bar too, and then another went as she began to channel the Rejuvenate miracle again.
God, she was so much more useful than that useless twat Jerekka. The other culn minion under his command left a lot to be desired.
He made the most of the opportunity even with the little time given though. Kicking off the wall for an initial boost and using what little mana he had left, he shot out a chaos ball as he ran forward.
Or at least he tried to. His mana was so low that it wasn’t enough to cast the spell, and instead all he got was a flicker of black sparks from his outstretched hand.
Nevertheless he kept going forward and slammed a clawed hand to wrench at the fallen minotaur’s outstretched bicep. Claws sank deep into the softer flesh and began to tear, but he didn’t remain there for long. The demon bellowed in agony and with a single motion flung Trey away, clutching at the mangled mess of its arm muscle and getting back up to steady itself.
Trey hit the ground on two feet this time, not having taken much damage and abruptly went back at the creature. He feigned an uppercut which it tried to block with an upraised shield, then he dropped low to kick out the legs of the beast. This caused it to rear back and fall on yet another culn in confusion. Angry that the culn were getting in the way the brute elbowed back into the unfortunate culn man behind him, clocking him straight to the temple and dropping him before trying to get back up yet another time. The bloodshot eyes of the beast focused on Trey with hatred and its muscles bulged outwards, glowing a faint red along the outline of its figure just like the minotaur back at the spawning pools in Negaizer had done. It let out a crazed bellow, feeling empowered with its buffs and began to charge through the small choke point.
“Burn.”
In a flash and torrent of searing fire, the injured creature was flung back along with four of the culn behind it, flames billowing out through the doorway and into the hall where screams erupted from the tightly packed group of soldiers trying to get in. The piles of random crap Trey’d piled off to either side of the doorway, originally used as a barrier, were also alight with flames. Smoke was beginning to accumulate at a rapid rate and the burst of heat caused Trey to flinch away reflexively.
As Trey’s eyes adjusted to the new light, he stood in shock while looking at the devastation. He turned slowly to his right, and hovering in the air immediately in front of him was a flaming demon with two large horns adorning the top of its head. Unlike Trey’s horns that protruded to curve forwards and upwards, these horns were thicker and larger. They curved around, up and then back down and around like a ram’s horns would.
At first Trey could only see that it was humanoid in shape due to the raging flames encompassing its body, but the flames were beginning to die down. As the brilliant fire disappeared, the horns stood out as a smooth, rich mahogany color. A long ebony tail darted about from behind it, similar to Trey’s but slightly longer. This new demon was about 7 feet tall, a full foot taller than Trey, but looked even bigger due to the way it effortlessly hovered over them. The creature’s skin was pitch black and completely hairless over the entirety of its body, with handsome masculine features concerning the nose and jaw. The only thing it wore was something similar to an egyption style loincloth colored deep gray, and it unashamedly flexed its muscles with folded arms to posture.
The deep red eyes of the demon slowly shifted from the ones it had just killed over to Trey, with feline slits for pupils. They focused on him, then looked at the sword, and then looked back at Trey.
“Culn... nearly as pathetic as the mortal races we eat. No better than rats.” The ifrit remarked with disgust apparent in his words. The demon blinked and it descended to land, eyeing the man up and down as if appraising him. “Human? I am surprised. When reading your status page I expected you to be... something else, though I could not discern what. Are you the new owner of this sword?”
A culn soldier had shoved himself into the room past the remnants of two comrades and screamed a battle cry to throw an axe directly at the ifrit. With catlike reflexes, the demon batted the axe aside with his tail of all things and simultaneously summoned ball of flames to his hand. In one swift motion the ifrit lunged forward and slammed the ball of condensed flames into a gap in the armor. The culn screamed and flames erupted across his left shoulder and chest - but was cut short as he was lifted up and flung face-first into the ceiling with a loud *CRACK*.
The body dropped to the floor with a thud, then remained still.
Trey raised an eyebrow, silently appreciating the kill’s execution. “I am.”
The ifrit glowered at him for a second, and then pointed a finger Trey’s way. “Then it is you who I will kill. You have robbed me of the opportunity to rip asunder the one that came before you. Make your pleas to the false gods you worship and prepare yourself, summoner.”
Trey facepalmed and grunted out an: “Oh, god damn it!”