“Victory is reserved for those who are willing to pay its price.”
* Sun Tzu
Kain stared at the legendary monster standing before him, a complex mix of emotions warring on his face. As such moments are prone to, time seemed to dilate, stretching each second that ticked by into its own eternity. Their mission had been successful, judging by the horrific sounds that had echoed across the courtyard of the facility. Kain wanted to feel some semblance of satisfaction in that regard but could not; not when the price of that success might be their lives.
Kain had never much cared for life, his or others. He’d known the path he was taking would be fraught with blood and death. It had been his whole life, and he’d expected nothing different when accepting power from the devil and his ilk. He knew, as well, that the price for such a path was his own violent end. He knew it, and he’d accepted it.
But something had changed in Kain. He’d felt it, ever since that night with Loviatar. Whether it was her intention, or just an accidental consequence, he neither knew nor cared. He felt…alive. It was like a fire had been kindled deep in his soul, and as he looked at the creature staring at him from across the courtyard, he realized something: he was not ready to die, just yet.
“Damon…” did he scream the name or whisper it? He had no idea, his focus consumed by the attack he knew was inevitable. “A grand exit would really come in handy right about now…”
Whether his teammate had heard him or not soon became irrelevant. Varstax was making his move.
The lion’s mouth began to open, impossibly wide, as huge gouts of flame poured from its maw, roaring toward Kain. He reacted instantly, diving behind a low stone wall encircling a small flower bed. The movement saved his life but had come a split-second late.
He felt it then as the world around him turned into an inferno. White-hot pain blossomed from his right shoulder blade. The attack had connected, if only briefly, and the smell of freshly burned flesh assaulted his nostrils. But he did not scream.
Kain allowed the pain to wash over him, absorbing everything it could offer. He felt his senses sharpen and a new potency crackle in his veins. He was not ready to die, it was true. But pain had now become an old friend.
As the blast of fire came to an end, Kain rose to look at the chimaera with a wicked grin on his face, smoke wafting off his charred body in small wisps.
“Looks like you got me.”
As he spoke, he surveyed the battlefield that the courtyard had become. Every member of their team was now engaged by one nightmarish creature or another.
A massive, muscle-bound brute with mottled gray skin and fangs protruding from its mouth looked as though it were trying to eat Damon, who in turn was throwing purplish orbs that splashed off its skin. Everywhere the orbs struck the monster’s flesh was laid bare to the bone. Kain saw the problem as muscle and flesh began to knit itself back together before his eyes. The creature could regenerate.
Layla was faring better, but not by much. She was surrounded by a group of diminutive but wicked-looking creatures holding primitive weapons. Are those…goblins? Layla had her daggers out and looked to have dispatched two of the creatures already.
Kain ducked behind the low wall again as another spray of flame was directed his way. He was unsure how much more the stones could actually take. That fire was unnaturally hot. He had missed Kieran in his first survey of the battlefield, but he needed to find him, and soon.
When he stood once again to continue his search, he caught a glimpse of Raven moving swiftly and silently between the shadows. He was about to call out to her when an awful wail tore through the courtyard, momentarily stunning him. He looked to see something floating in the air, shrouded in a black cloak. The creature screamed again and Kain found himself back on the ground, something wet trickling from his ears.
Kain shook off the stun as he finally located Kieran. He almost laughed in dismay. The man was facing off against a minotaur.
At least eight feet tall with long, dark horns protruding from its head, the muscle-bound creature wielded two massive mauls, swinging both at Kieran. The man was nimbly dodging, one hand conjuring fireballs to hurl at the creature while the other held a fiery whip. The element had proven woefully ineffective thus far as a few modest patches of singed fur were the only signs of damage on the beast.
Kain’s observations were cut short as the serpent’s head of the chimaera made its presence known, showering his location with a spray of venom. While Kain was now immune to most known poisons, he decided not to test the limits of his new constitution against a living nightmare. Instead, he leapt away, tucking into a roll and coming up quickly to stare at the spot he’d just been.
When the venom contacted the stone, it began to melt. Kain swore in irritation. Was there no limit to the danger that thing posed? Something needed to change, and fast. They were losing this fight rather spectacularly.
Kain’s mind was awash with pain once again as the banshee’s cry rang out. He accepted the agony, letting it wash over him and hone him further. That was their biggest problem at the moment. While he had been tempered by Loviatar, his teammates had not. Every time the fiend released its wail, they faltered, and the injuries started to accrue.
He noticed Raven was no longer wrapped in her shadows as she stumbled along, blood flowing freely from her nose and ears. She had been taking the brunt of the banshee’s attacks while failing to find a way to retaliate. Fortunately, just like the chimaera, the banshee’s attacks seemed to take a lot of its energy, preventing a constant assault. They could use that.
“Raven! Can you get to Layla? We need to even the odds a bit!” Kain called to the woman in passing as he dodged another spurt of the venomous acid.
“I’m not sure,” she replied weakly. “I don’t know if I can take another one of those screams…”
“Leave her to me. Get moving!” Kain had no idea how he was going to deal with the creature, but at the very least he could withstand her attacks better than Raven. He ran toward the banshee as she prepared to attack again. It looked like he would get to test his new constitution after all.
The blast of sound felt like death itself had come to claim him. He could feel his bones rattling and his organs being turned to mush as he was forced to the ground. The pain was excruciating. He welcomed it.
As the sensations finally subsided, he looked up to see the banshee descending toward him, a look of malicious satisfaction in her eyes. Kain gave her a bloody smile in return as he climbed slowly to his feet, fisted balled. The banshee paused, a confused look coming over her face, as though uncertain how the mortal before her was still able to stand.
Kain’s face changed from one of tantalizing mirth to pitiless hatred as he fed all of the pain he was suffering into his power. He had withheld his attacks before, unsure of the effect unleashing them would have on his companions. But now, he was close enough for it not to matter. He flung his hands up at the banshee, unleashing every bit of power he could conjure.
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Through a burst of intense concentration, Raven had managed to sink her mind into darkness once more, flitting from shadow to shadow as she made her way to Layla. She arrived just in time to sink her blades into one of the goblin-like creatures that was about to run Layla through. She was surprised, both by the resistance the creature’s tough hide offered, and by the fact that it did not go down until she struck it twice more.
Layla nodded to her as she continued to fight three of the creatures. She was putting up a hellacious fight, but the numerous small wounds she kept accumulating were starting to take a toll on her strength and speed. That was no matter. This type of engagement was Raven’s specialty.
Within a matter of seconds, she rained death down on the disgusting monsters, killing four more. It would have been five, but another blast of sound had her staggering for a second, her body still not recovered from the earlier damage she had sustained.
The remaining goblin moved to attack her in her moment of weakness but froze with a scream of agony still in its throat as the life left its eyes. It toppled over and Raven looked to Layla in confusion. The girl hadn’t moved, so how…
The thought was cut short as the monsters they’d just torn through began to rise jerkily to their feet. Raven had witnessed Layla’s…gift before and knew what was happening, but it still sent an involuntary shiver up her spine. Watching her teammate pilot the bodies of her foes like some sinister marionette was eerie.
“Thanks for the assistance,” even Layla’s voice sounded lifeless as she sent her new minions to harry the troll that Damon was fighting to a standstill. Good. He was their only method of retreat and he looked exhausted.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Raven was about to go and help Kieran when she noticed something more pressing: the chimaera was preparing to attack Kain again, who was currently staring up at the banshee with a maniacal grin. Raven moved with the speed and grace of the Reaper himself, silver flashing briefly in her palms.
Her intent had been to disrupt the monster’s attack and then draw its ire away from Kain. Kiting the enormous beast was an easy task for someone of her skill. One of her daggers succeeded in taking the lion’s head through the throat, redirecting its attack. It roared in pain, but did not direct its focus toward her. She was about to take advantage of the creature’s hesitation when she too was distracted. Kain was attacking, and she could do little else but look on in horrified fascination.
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Kain felt it before it happened. Acting without thinking, he’d thrown his hands out toward the banshee, as though beckoning her into death’s embrace. He felt all of the pain, the malice, the disease coursing through him collect at his fingertips. And then he felt it reach.
Cloying black tendrils sprouted from his hands, quickly fanning out in a dark web of sickness and rot. Before the banshee could react, the web had reached her, stretching out its poisonous strands like twisted fingers, grasping the surprised monster. As the sickly tendrils made contact with the creature, new screams began to fill the courtyard full of terror and agony.
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Kieran could taste the frustration of his blatant failure. He cradled his broken arm as he dodged yet another swing from the minotaur’s mauls. He had been unprepared for the area effect of the banshee’s wails, and it had cost him. He was fighting a losing battle now and he knew it.
The minotaur had proven impossibly resistant to fire. Kieran had been working to master the other elements, but he’d never imagined that he would be so ineffective in this battle without them. Twice, he’d tried to put distance between himself and the monster to attempt to call down lightning, and twice the monster had prevented it. He was running out of time and options, constant evasion and pain leaving him gasping for breath.
If he could just get a moment to focus! But the huge fiend was relentless. Worse, it didn’t even look tired, swinging those brutal hammers with effortless efficiency. It was also slowly boxing Kieran in. He couldn’t help but smile as he saw the inevitability of his situation.
“Alright, ya overgrown cow, looks like ya got me!” He readied himself for one final assault.
“Now let’s see if I can make ya work for it!”
He dodged back as another swing tried to take his legs clean off at the waist. Before he could make his counter, however, another scream filled the air, this one drastically different. Kieran hit his knees, stunned for a moment, as a slow trickle of blood began to drip from his nose.
The minotaur was unable to capitalize on his weakness as it too seemed falter from the sound. Following its eyes, Kieran turned his head slowly toward the source of the sound. The sight that greeted him managed to shake him from his stupor.
A web of sinister black tendrils had wrapped themselves around the banshee and were currently dragging her from the sky. Kieran watched as the web wound itself tightly about the creature, slowly and methodically bringing her into its center, which Kieran realized was Kain.
The tendrils seemed to sprout from his fingers drawing the banshee into Kain’s waiting arms, an embrace that Kieran had no doubt would end in a fate worse than death. He could almost sense the malignant putrefaction that seemed to emanate from the web. From Kain.
The creature’s cloak prevented Kieran from seeing exactly what the web was doing to the banshee, but when she finally reached Kain’s open arms, the screams abruptly ended. Kain held the creature a moment longer, before dropping it to the ground unceremoniously. Whatever he’d done, the banshee was dead.
Kieran came to his senses as he watched the creature hit the ground. Turning back to his foe, he saw that the minotaur was still staring at the lifeless body of its comrade with incomprehension scrawled across his face. With a start, he realized this was his chance.
He reached out with his senses, calling to the sky above. It was faint, but it was there, hiding in the air. Waiting to become. Kieran focused, willing the energy to do his bidding. The hair on his arms stood on end as he drew more and more energy into his attack.
The minotaur turned its attention back to Kieran sharply as it sniffed the air, but its awareness had come too late. A blinding flash filled the courtyard as a massive bolt of lightning crashed through the minotaur’s chest.
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Damon was losing the fight. Not to the troll he was currently holding at bay. Layla and her new batch of reinforcements had arrived, buying him quick reprieves to replenish his dwindling stamina. She had even done something that actually seemed to phase the damned thing, some kind of draining spell.
No, he was not losing the fight to the troll. He was losing the fight to the entity that was currently sharing his body: the spirit of his dead ancestor. The two of them had coincided uneasily since the awakening, the spirit even offering him insight into some of his gifts. The knowledge always came with a price, however. The spirit was violent, unstable, and bloodthirsty. It would whisper insidious propositions inside his head at every opportunity, constantly testing Damon’s mental fortitude.
The situation had been manageable until the forces of chaos had shown up. Naether beasts, the spirit had called them. For some reason the spirit had not divulged, the creatures were a threat to it. It had begun aggressively trying to wrest control of his body from him as soon as the beasts had appeared, and Damon was slowly losing that fight. Tapping into the power of chaos seemed to only make the spirit stronger, and the harder Damon fought to take down the troll, the more ground he lost in the battle for his mind.
A sudden and blinding flash of light sent Damon, Layla, her minions, and the troll flying. Damon almost lost consciousness as he was flung into a nearby tree. He lay on the ground, blinking slowly, trying to clear his vision and muddled brain. What had he just been doing? It was important…
He was able to focus himself just in time to avoid another assault from his unwilling companion. The mental assault, couple with the pain of being thrown headfirst into a tree kept him from getting to his feet. It took him a moment before he could collect himself enough to survey the battlefield. What he saw shocked him.
The troll was currently extricating itself from some hedges lining one of the buildings. It looked little the worse for wear, its uncanny regeneration already working to heal it.
Layla was lying in a patch of grass several feet from him, stirring slowly. Her goblin thralls had lost the will that drove them with her concentration broken, and they were currently scattered about the fringes of the courtyard, lifeless once more. One had even been thrown into a tree adjacent to Damon’s own and currently hung there, suspended by the branches.
None of this was what shocked Damon. Not far from where he’d fought the troll, the source of the blast that had ended his battle prematurely made itself known. Kieran was down on his hands and knees, head bowed and breathing heavily. Damon could see several singe marks on his clothing. Splayed out in front of him, unmoving with a still smoking hole in its chest, was the minotaur. Whatever attack Kieran had unleashed had brought the huge beast down in one go, perhaps even killed it.
Any further investigation of the field was cut short as another voice through cut through his mind, adding to his already considerable mental strain.
The odds no longer favor us. Retreat! Let the master deal with the Nephiyl.
As he started to black out from the all-consuming pain in his head, Damon wondered idly about that strange voice. Did that come from…the Chimaera?
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Levi watched, not without satisfaction, as the tide of battle slowly began to shift in favor of the Nephiyl. They had not been properly prepared for tonight, and yet they had come through. As he watched the minotaur fall, he was reminded once again of the resilience of the human soul.
The Nephiyl did not know it, but they were fighting far outside of their weight class. In truth, he had waited for the order to intervene on behalf of his charges. Now, once again he understood why the order had not come after seeing how events played out. He really needed to have more faith.
As he thought this, the younger man beside him smiled. Together, they watched the beings of chaos disappear into the folds of reality, taking their fallen comrades with them. The Nephiyl made no move to interfere, or to follow them. That was just as well. They had nearly lost this fight.
Levi looked over to where Kain was lying, unconscious. The man’s actions were largely self-serving, but he had still taken it upon himself to save his teammate, an action that had led to the turning point of the fight.
Levi was still unsure what would become of Kain Hunter. He had already demonstrated an unbridled lust for power, as well as a complete lack of human decency. His involvement with Loviatar had only confirmed that. Still, without error there could be no redemption, and Levi was a man who deeply believed in redemption.
“You should go and help your friends, Levi,” the man next to him spoke softly, his voice oddly calming. “They will have need of your talents.”
Levi nodded and made his way over to Layla, who was closest to him. He marveled that she was still able to stand. Small cuts and bruises traced a pattern of violence all over her body, pain and exhaustion plainly visible in her slumped stance.
He laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder and felt it. For the briefest of time, power flowed out of him and into her. Layla’s cuts immediately began to close, the bruises all but disappearing.
Levi could see a difference in her demeaner as well. She seemed to stand taller and had stopped swaying. He met her awed gaze with his usual smile, before moving on to Damon.
Levi paused as he approached the big man. He could sense the turmoil in Damon’s unconscious mind. It looked like Damon’s unwanted guest had finally found an avenue of attack. Good. He needed to come to terms with his power, and that meant finding a way to deal with the spirit. Levi had been instructed not to interfere.
Layla joined Levi as he observed the big man quietly. Raven soon joined them both, and Levi could see that she’d fared no better than Layla, will alone keeping her on her feet. A banshee’s cry could have that effect.
Raven eyed him warily as he reached out to her, palming a dagger in both hands.
“It’s okay,” Layla nodded to Levi. “I think he’s here to help.”
Raven relaxed her stance slightly but kept the daggers in hand as Levi gently placed his palm against her cheek. The result was immediate. Levi could see the relief in her eyes as she sagged, the pain in her head now gone. He once again smiled before moving on. There would be time for talking once the work was done.
Across the courtyard, Kieran had made his way over to Kain. Levi watched as Kieran checked his teammate’s vitals. The look of relief on his face was encouraging to Levi. There was not much warmth between any of the Nephiyl, but it appeared they did not actively want each other dead. Yet, at least. That gave the old man hope.
He reached the prone man and knelt beside him. That last attack had been impressive, but should have been far beyond Kain’s abilities. He had overtaxed his body badly and was now hovering just this side of death. Levi spread his hand over Kain’s forehead, covering his eyes.
This time, a bit more power flowed out, leaving Levi out of sorts. The ground seemed to spin as he put out his other hand to steady himself. He was nothing special. He was a servant. A witness. And in this particular case, he was a conduit for power far beyond his understanding. Sometimes, that power was more than his physical body could handle.
After a moment, the spell passed. Levi got to his feet as the dark veins that had been present on Kain’s body since his attack finally receded. Slowly, he opened his eyes.
“Did we win?”