Dan invoked STORM, spun to slash through a devil flying at his back, faced another area, and stomped the ground.

It didn’t look to Xotl that he killed anyone with that Lava Stomp, but he must’ve since he was able to stomp the ground right after, then another emanation of orangish light extended from the sword and cut down the survivors.

For some reason, a lot of smoke was coming off of Dan as he blazed away just in time to avoid a slew of incoming invocations and fliers, a much smaller sword in his right hand and a whip in the other, and a few demons and one devil fell dead as he ran past.

Dan came to a sudden stop in front of a new grouping of Hell creatures. He invoked Lava Stomp again, but instead of engaging these enemies further, he turned to look at Asmodon.

The champion was having a slugfest with Ashen Ruin. All infernals were known for their colossal strength and ability to withstand damage. This summon came from an upgraded Legendary Orbment and was tier 18.

As usual, Ashen Ruin had Searing Armor running, but it looked like some strange and dark energy was covering it too.

Xotl couldn’t tell if that energy was hurting Ashen Ruin or not. It certainly wasn’t stopping the infernal from battering its opponent with its massive arms.

Surprisingly, Asmodon wasn’t just able to take those blows – he was able to give back as good as he got.

Seeing this made Xotl absolutely certain the champion was one of the Terrors the prude had told him about earlier. It was amazing to see.

Dan invoked Void Trap on the Terror for the second time. He followed that up again with a Void Blast that hit Asmodon’s back in a spray of bone shards, causing the demon to scream in frustration.

Dan rolled away from a ton of incoming attacks before Xotl could see what the Terror did next.

Dan sliced missiles and balls out of the air, and a shield of mana blocked a thousand needles. He flipped backwards a few times before jumping over a group of enemies he invoked an explosion under as he landed.

I should upgrade the name of that from Eruption to something cooler, thought Xotl.

As a devil flew by, a cord of lava wrapped around its head. Dan let the devil fly him about 20 meters before he yanked hard enough on the cord to pull the devil to him, cut it in half, and land near a large group of demons that had been lobbing invocations at him from safety since the fight started.

Suddenly, screams and battle cries of mortals could be heard off in the distance as a group Xotl would guess was at least three or four thousand strong charged into battle.

Dan looked around and couldn’t see Asmodon. Then he looked up and he saw the Terror dragging Ashen Ruin high up into the air.

After diving away from some invocations, Dan looked up in the sky just in time to see Asmodon throw Ashen Ruin at him. He blinked away from the descending infernal as it crashed into the ground like a giant comet.

It took Dan a second to spot Asmodon swooping down towards the participants rushing into battle.

A giant fountain of darkness burst out of the ground among the participants, splashing a strange and dark energy all around it. Everyone that energy touched fell to the ground screaming out in horrific pain.

Xotl absentmindedly said, “I wonder what that energy is. The same stuff covered Ashen Ruin.”

He didn’t even realize he spoke aloud until the prude said, “Demonic.”

That answer made Xotl smile wider. It filled his chest with pride to see a demon using demonic mana.

A dozen or so participants with the Fly Orbment flew at Asmodon. The demon waved his hand in their direction. Every one of those participants fell to the ground as darkness began to dissolve them.

As Dan charged forward, he madly sent giant lava pellets at the champion that didn’t seem to do any damage and went ignored.

When he was closer, a two-handed sword grew out of his hand. Orangish light emanated from it and bit into the champion. It didn’t seem to do much damage, but the membranes of both wings were cut through, and Asmodon fell to the ground like a bag of rocks, causing Xotl to groan in disappointment.

As the devils and demons reached the participants, a wide berth was given to the grounded Asmodon.

Dan ran towards the Terror and yelled out, “Keep your distance! Run away if we get close!”

Then Dan barreled into the demon as it was getting to its feet, knocking the champion over.

Xotl had a flashback to the first day of this Game, when Dan tried to mount Rick, and Rick wasn’t having it.

Just like Rick, neither was Asmodon.

As Dan tried to mount the champion, the demon’s hand shot out and wrapped around Dan’s throat.

Dan blinked away, caught his opponent with Void Trap, and followed that up with a Void Blast Asmodon tried blocking with a shield of dark mana again.

The same as the last time, the invocation tore through the shield. This time, it shattered the bones surrounding the demon’s chest, and the demon screamed out in pain and lashed its arms around in fury.

Big balls of lava began to hit the demon all over. Another emanation of orangish light extended from the sword but didn’t look to do any real damage.

And as Dan charged closer to his opponent, his hand went down to grip the void-knife sown to his belt, and STORM cut deeply into the Terror’s already injured chest, sending more shards of bone flying away.

A long whip of lava lashed the champion as Dan dove away from another circle of darkness with skeletal and demonic hands reaching out of it.

As soon as Void Trap expired, Dan stomped the ground, trapping the Terror again.

A devil swooped down at Dan. He spun, grabbed it, and threw it at Asmodon. The small sword in his left hand turned into a massive one as the lava-whip fell to the ground, cooled, and stopped glowing.

Dan grunted with effort as he swung his sword in a wide arc. He cut through the devil and his sword looked as if it bit deeply into Asmodon’s shoulder too.

Xotl couldn’t fault Dan’s defenses. Since this fight started, at least a few invocations were flying at him at any given second. He was continuously dodging or batting away so much stuff, Xotl had sort of tuned it all out as background noise.

The Beads of Interception had all been destroyed a while ago. Three missiles were flying at Dan, and two newly formed beads caught two of them.

Judging by the massive spray of blood that missile caused when it landed, Dan had no more stacking absorb-shields left from his Enduring Trait either.

Though the missile landing and the spray of blood it caused was easy to see, Xotl wasn’t sure if Dan even noticed the injury.

But Xotl was sure Dan felt Asmodon crack him in the face, as that punch sent him flying backwards like a bullet.

Much to Xotl’s amazement, Dan twisted in the air, and his sword turned into a whip that was lashed at the demon’s neck.

Asmodon managed to grab the whip out of the air with his hand, but that still allowed Dan to change the direction he was flying in as he yanked himself back towards his opponent.

Dan plowed into the surprised demon and knocked him to the ground again, this time, with himself on top of the giant. Two lava-daggers started ferociously stabbing downward.

Since the start of this battle, Xotl had noticed strange smoke continuously coming off Dan. He now realized what it was as more dark energy covered Dan, the same that had covered Ashen Ruin and the flying participants.

It didn’t seem like the demonic mana was hurting Dan all that much. Xotl thought it had to be due to Molten Form and the necklace protecting against demonic damage, but without access to Dan’s vitals, he couldn’t know for certain. And, of course, Molten Form was returning some of the damage Dan took back at his enemies.

Asmodon lashed out with a claw. Dan dropped a dagger and grabbed the demon’s wrist. He struggled to maintain his grip on that arm. He dropped his other dagger, and even using both hands, he struggled against the demon’s massive strength.

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The Terror then seized Dan's throat with its other claw and began to squeeze.

Dan let go of the wrist. One of his hands beat on the arm strangling him. His other hand fumbled around, searching. Xotl assumed Dan was trying to find the demon’s neck so he could strangle Asmodon too, but a Void Blast was released into the demon’s face at point blank range.

Blood splattered all over and Asmodon began to scream out in rage. The champion was down one eye and bleeding heavily from his new facial injuries.

The Terror still managed to gain his feet while gripping Dan by the throat. Asmodon loudly bellowed as he raised his hand high in the air and swung it down to smash his victim into the ground.

Cords of lava wrapped around Asmodon’s arm and head. Dan pulled and pulled as the demon’s free arm furiously tried to rip the cords away or slice Dan, and Dan just ignored everything as he heaved on his cords.

Once the arm was pinned to the head, Dan wrapped his legs around the demon’s neck, let go of the cords, and grabbed onto the champion’s massive horns. After some time straining, he broke one horn off. A moment later, the second horn broke away.

Dan jammed both horns down into Asmodon’s face. One went into the good eye, and the other into the empty eye socket.

Asmodon went mad. He flailed his free arm around wildly and bit deeply into Dan’s thigh.

Dan blinked away. A newly formed sword sent an orangish light at the Terror. It seemed to cut more deeply this time as the blind demon roared out again.

Dan dove out of the way of many invocations as he looked around. A force of about 30 demons and devils were headed right at him.

Even with those Hell creatures bearing down at him, Dan looked around frantically.

Xotl assumed Dan noticed exactly what he had. None of the participants that entered the Boss area to fight were alive. They were all dead. Only Dan remained.

“Ha! That was quick,” said Xotl as he smiled wider.

Dan charged at the 30 or so enemies coming at him. Then he dove away from a fountain Asmodon created that sprayed darkness all over.

But Dan messed up. He dove right into one of those puddles of darkness with the skeletal and demonic hands reaching out of it.

Dan screamed as if he were burning alive. He also screamed as if those hands were tearing him apart.

Asmodon laughed as he pulled his horns out of his eyes. An Explosive Eruption tore up the ground under the champion. It caused Asmodon to rise a couple feet in the air. It didn’t look like it hurt the champion otherwise.

The Terror laughed again before saying, “I was born in the darkness. I was raised in the darkness. I need no eyes to see.”

As the 30 or so remaining demons and devils surrounded their trapped and screaming opponent, Dan invoked STORM as he ripped himself free from the pool of darkness and rolled away. While still on his back, he stomped the ground, hopped up, and screamed as he began cutting into his foes.

Asmodon laughed again as thousands of dark meteorites fell onto demon, devil, and Dan alike.

The demons fared the best. Xotl assumed demonic energy was less harmful to his kind. Since those of the lower layer never got such a powerful mana-type, that was just a guess, but he assumed it had to be true, just as he assumed devils had to be resistant to diabolic energy.

Dan did okay at preventing the meteorites from landing on him, but many did as he ran out of the area of effect.

Before Asmodon reached him, Dan sent orangish light from his sword to kill the handful of demons that survived the meteorites.

Then Void Trap held the champion barreling towards him in place. Another Void Blast landed on an already very injured chest.

Asmodon wasn’t looking so good as he screamed and flailed around in rage. It looked like a train ran him over. He hoped Dan looked just as beat-up, but it was hard to tell since he was seeing out of Dan’s own eyes.

When Void Trap ended, Asmodon took a step forward. Lava Stomp locked him down again.

A moment later, as a whip was forming in Dan’s hand, Leena suddenly appeared in the air behind the champion.

To Xotl, she looked less like a mortal and more like a wrathful specter out of ancient legend. Her bloody face, marred by rage and fury, was a visage of unrelenting vengeance. One arm hung in a bloodied ruin of a stump at her side, while the other drove a blade into the Terror’s back with all the force she could muster.

Dan screamed out a warning as he lashed his whip around the champion’s neck and tugged with all his might.

Asmodon didn’t budge. He ignored the whip around his neck as he twisted around, grabbed Leena’s head, and swung her like a club.

She smashed into the ground with a thud as Dan feverishly heaved on his whip, still trying to prevent what had already happened.

Dan screamed out in fury as he tried pulling Asmodon towards him or off his feet. The champion grabbed the whip and slowly wrapped it around his forearm a few times before he yanked on it too.

A tug of war began. Dan was slowly pulled towards the Terror as he struggled greatly and shook with effort.

Then the whip snapped in a small explosion of a sparkle of mana. Dan stumbled back and fell on his ass.

As he hopped back onto his feet, he dove to avoid a searing wave of demonic energy. Then both combatants charged at each other with ferocious intensity.

Towering over Dan, Asmodon's sheer size made his opponent seem tiny, yet Dan tenaciously clung to the Terror, his grip undeterred. One hand latched around the demon’s waist, the other clutched a jagged bone jutting from the champion’s injured chest.

As Asmodon smashed a fist down onto the top of Dan’s head over and over, Dan pulled on that bone with all his might.

The champion grunted in pain, stopped punching, and tried removing Dan’s hand from the bone he was heaving on, attempting to break.

Dan unwrapped his free arm, reached up, and began hammering the demon in the large and exposed chest wound. The Terror gave up on removing the hand from the bone and started throwing his own punches again.

For nearly a minute, both combatants screamed out as they whaled on one another.

Then Dan finally managed to snap the protruding bone off. Asmodon yelled out in agony. The hand Dan had been punching with invoked Void Blast right into the exposed and injured chest wound, causing Asmodon to roar even louder.

Dan dropped the bone as a dagger grew out of that hand. He jumped up and the lava-blade soared towards the demon’s neck.

Asmodon caught the knife-hand before it landed. He pulled the arm towards his mouth and chomped on it with his giant fangs.

Dan was the one to yell out in pain this time as he dangled in the air. As his arm was chewed on, he wrapped his other arm and legs around the demon, shimmied up the torso a little, and bit into the exposed neck of his opponent.

As a chunk of his neck was ripped out, Asmodon screamed, and Dan got his arm back.

Xotl didn’t notice how, but both combatants ended up on the ground in a twisted heap, and it was really hard to tell what was happening as the two rolled around.

For at least a minute, all Xotl could see was the world spinning confusingly. He’d see a flash of the chomping maw of Asmodon one second, then the back of his hornless head the next, then a flash of an empty eye socket, and so on.

When Dan stood, Asmodon was completely wrapped in cords of lava he struggled against with all his might.

A two-handed sword grew out of Dan’s hand, and he held it high over his head before bringing it down on the champion’s neck. Then he did so again, and again.

Dan made strange noises not unlike those of a rabid beast as the sword chopped down over and over. It took some time, but eventually the head parted from the body, and the body stopped trying to escape the cords of lava.

The sword dropped to the ground as Dan ran to Leena and sat beside her. Leena’s face was so battered and broken that Xotl doubted any mortal would find her attractive now. He took some comfort in knowing that science had won in the end.

Her chest rose and fell extremely quickly as if she were hyperventilating. Fear filled her eyes.

She held her hand up and Dan grabbed it tightly. She stuttered greatly as she said, “T-t-t-tell m-m…,” before giving up.

A healing pill was shoved into her mouth, but it sat on her dry tongue, the rapid breathing threatening to send it flying out of the mouth with each exhale.

Xotl doubted the pill would help at this point. She needed a lot of major healing invocations immediately to have a chance.

A finger shoved the pill deeper.

Dan massaged Leena’s neck, trying to get her to swallow. She either couldn’t or didn’t.

He stopped. He took and exhaled a deep breath before saying, “I’ll tell them. I’ll tell your family what you done. How tough you was. What you done for them. For all of us.”

Her hand was held in silence as the chest rose and fell more slowly, then stopped moving at all.

“I told you. I told all y’all to avoid this fight. To stay away from Asmodon,” Dan said to her corpse as he carefully closed its eyes. “I told all y’all. It didn’t have to be this way.”

Instead of celebrating as he should’ve been, Dan sat there with his head bowed as if in defeat. As if he lost.

Confused, Xotl turned toward the prude, and she was moping too.

Even though they had spent a lot of time together, since the prude was a dumb broad, he had no way of knowing whatever crazy shit she was thinking.

Xotl was pissed that his new hero Asmodon had been defeated, and that Dan had won. But he thought this could be for the best.

The prude had told Xotl the second phase of the Game took place on a real world, a very old one not subject to the Game. He could be released there. He could live there. Or he hoped he could. It had to be way better than Hell, even if he didn’t have a skinsuit to wear.

Since he didn’t want to piss off the prude before he was released on the new world, he sat there silently watching Dan do nothing.

Xotl prayed that Dan got up and looted Asmodon. He badly wanted to see what treasures such a mighty demon dropped.

Dan finally got up, but instead of looting Asmodon like any sane being would, or seeing to his many injuries, he began walking around looking at the dead mortals, ignoring all the loot. Like an idiot.

Once Dan looked through all the corpses, he did so again, searching a wider area, even areas without corpses.

Xotl believed he was looking for Chet. Or some sign of Chet’s corpse. A lot of mortals had been exploded to pieces, burned to a crisp, or had their corpses destroyed beyond recognition by other means.

Chet was never found, but near the Trial of Madness, Dan found a very large leg. Xotl thought the leg had to belong to Chet’s giant girlfriend.

There were many dead demons and devils near the leg. Someone had put up quite a battle.

First, Dan carried Quiet’s corpse back and laid it near Leena’s own. Then Valentin’s.

While carrying Mandy’s corpse back to the others, he stopped suddenly as if startled.

Dan looked towards Asmodon’s corpse, but Xotl still couldn’t see what loot the champion had dropped.

What Xotl did see was very strange. There was a mortal-sized being in fully articulated armor bending over the champion’s corpse.

Armor like that wasn’t in the Game. It didn’t look all that different from the armor the prude angel wore, except she never wore her helm, so Xotl thought it could be an angel.

The being had the butt of a lance with a pennon draped off it resting on the ground, the pennon blowing in the light breeze. Around the armored neck was a coiled snake.

The helmet turned towards Dan. With a deep and resounding voice, the being said, “Though he belonged to my master, Asmodeus, he was as a son to me. I was to welcome him into the Order of the Fly after he won me this Game. This Game that has now broken me.

“All my wealth went into this sponsorship. I borrowed heavily. A safe and fine investment since a hefty return was guaranteed. All the remaining loot of this phase and a full fifth of the profits from the Rapture.

“But you killed him. So, now I get nothing. I must now pay my master back my sweet Asmodon’s worth as well. And you think I’d just allow this? My fall with no retribution?”

Xotl was a little confused since this being fit the description of Prince Eligos. Fully armored, serpent familiar, and carrying a lance flying a pennon.

Duke Agares was described as an elderly mortal riding a crocodile, a hawk riding upon his arm.

Once the pennon fully unfurled in the breeze, Xotl knew exactly who this was. Embossed on the pennon was a hawk riding a cockatrice. He had seen the exact same heraldry in the letter announcing this Game’s sponsor.

“No, mortal,” said Duke Agares as he stood tall. “I will not fall alone. If I am to lose my life, so shall you lose your own.”