What did I truly feel about the Mids? Well, the Lowers certainly felt more hellish. It wouldn’t be quite accurate to say that I felt at home there, but it was more like visiting a big city in a country you’d never been to before. There were enough similarities and familiar-adjacent parts of it to feel comfortable… but it was different. The way things were designed, the customs, and the fact that it was literally Hell. I suppose I shouldn’t wish for something worse than the Lowers, but part of me missed them.
By the time Pearl had input a location into the Portal device and we had all gathered our suspended disbeliefs over me getting another random power-up, my legs had all but healed.
“We’re going to the Torment Wastes,” she informed me. “A good mix of humanoid and monstrous demons that are fine to cull. As close to Lowers barbarism as you are likely to find.”
“Perfect, thank you, dear.” I shot her a wide grin as she rolled her eyes at the sign of affection.
“Save your pandering for after you have impressed me, Eric. If this is all hand-wringing and performative ego waving, then you’re getting the cold shoulder tonight.”
I pushed my glasses up and managed to not cast
Green light painted the basement in swirling hues as the portal burst into being.
“All good, Rods?”
He gave me a nod. “Nothing untoward on my end. I’m getting used to the different… energy the Mids has? Will try to improve connection speed and the like.”
“You’re doing great. I’m proud.” I tipped my hat as he grimaced at his device while flipping me off. “Keep an eye on him, David. Make sure he doesn’t hurt himself.”
“Get fucking going, Eric,” the Blank complained.
And having annoyed everyone enough, I did just that.
A wave of vertigo and I stepped out onto a plane of jagged gray stone covered in a weird mottled green moss. Cities ahead of me, their shadowed shapes obscured by a fine mist of deep red. As was tradition, I turned around to see my quarry before me.
Pearl and Wight appeared beside me in their usual fashion.
[These are interesting demons.]
//Connected. All green.
Bone-white, with pale horns that looked like beetle mandibles. Bright red eyes, long limbs, and a starved look to them. Possibly seven or so feet tall each. In this grouping, there were… twelve?
“All yours then, Mr Lantern.” Pearl crossed her arms. “We can find a smaller group if needed.”
I didn’t respond, but I ran. Straight towards the group with revolver ready. Dagger spun out of its sheathe and into my left hand. Two dozen feet and then the demons noticed me. They yelled and screeched, bringing out long club-like weapons that were barbed.
My gun burst into radiant flame as everything came naturally. I slid across the slick moss and slammed into the first. As he stepped away from the impact, I lit him up with three shots running up his torso. The bullet wounds burst and continued burning as if shot with phosphorus.
Stepped to the side as a club clacked loudly against the stone ground. Boot stepped on it so that it couldn’t withdraw, and I placed a shot through their head. I spun the revolver as I adjusted my footing, pausing to fire off a blast into the other demon. Empty casings dropped around my feet as I spun it again. Stepped and ducked beneath a barbed weapon swung widely.
I was in the center of them all now. At the back, one pulled out a horn and blew it. The loud scream of the instrument drowning out the sound of my trigger pulls blowing holes in two more of my assailants. Blocked another swing, sparks bursting from my weapon as it collided with their dark clubs. Two shots to their leg, and then as they dropped, I was in with the blade to find their eye socket.
Twisted away from a jab and then rolled from an overhead swing. Fanned the last of the cylinder, dropping another demon. From the cluttered rock formations nearby, another group was emerging. No - two more groups.
//Thirty incoming, including three large monster types.
Power rocketed down my arm as I shot a foot wide beam of golden energy through two of my opponents. Didn’t even have the usual accompanying whisper of demonic power through my ears to signal that I had used that ability. It was just something… innate to me.
The revolver created a trail of radiant light through the air as I brought it down to strike a demon in the arm with the handle. It burned them and caused the limb to falter. Knife up between their ribs and I turned to empty the cylinder behind me as I forced the blade through as much of their internals as my strength allowed.
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More sparks as I deflected the barbed weapon of another foe. Stabbed the knife into his hand and then fed him the barrel of my pact weapon as he screamed in pain. The ground was growing slick with their blood, as I turned to see the first of the monsters pulling ahead of the new pack.
Something akin to a rhino, but with six legs and a bone-like carapace. It knocked a couple of its lessers out of the way, eager to get a taste of me. I tensed and then burst into the air on my wings of two different colors. Not flying, but it gave me enough of a boost to avoid being charged into. The demons behind me took the brunt of it instead.
I dropped back to the ground and spun the cylinder around, taking aim at the throng of fresh targets. A tingle of power and ten beams of gold light scoured the air, burning and bursting through just as many demons. White lightning arced around my body as the other two monsters thundered across the stone ground toward me. Behind me, the first had righted itself and hoped to pin me between the others.
Not such luck. My grin was almost as bright as the radiant energy flowing from my gun.
I spun the knife back into the sheath and gripped at the revolver with both hands. A flash of bright light burned into my retinas, and my ears rang. The fifteen-foot wide beam of radiant power completely destroying the pair. I spun 540 degrees as my gun rotated, before I leveled it toward the final monster. What would usually whisper Mortar to me fired out and evaporated the front half of the demon-rhino in a large blast.
The rest of the normal demons were now in range, even though I could sense their morale was wavering. Not something that often happened in the Lowers, but they were slightly smarter here. My wings boosted me forward, leaping toward the fray. Radiant shots lit the area as I continued to block and fire through them.
All this power… and I didn’t feel that I was being drained. There was something of a refractory period between skill uses, but I felt that I could do this all day. The demons seemed to come to the same conclusion, as the few that remained turned tail and started to run.
I let them. After all, this was just practice. I certainly thought that my improvements were clear, and-
My danger sense flared up, and I twisted around, my revolver only just blocking the flaming sword from striking me. Wings took me backwards as I deflected her follow-up. Knife spun back up into my hand.
“This better not be false hope, Eric Redd,” she growled, her teeth sharper than normal.
I grinned and pressed the trigger.
She was a blur, appearing at my left side now and avoiding my shot. I ducked as her blade took my hat from my head. Used my dagger to push away the intruding sword and pushed forward with the gun. Struck her in the stomach, but she turned sideward as I fired, blowing up dust and broken stone from the ground nearby.
“Faster,” she yelled.
My gun was a blur as I flourished it in front of me, blocked one attack before I dodged to the side of another. We had danced once like this before in the Lowers. Knowing her true power, it made it clearer how much she didn’t want to kill me back then. I emptied the cylinder into the ground beneath our feet, sending up a cloud of powdered rock. A pulse of my wings billowed it into her face.
Without thinking, I pooled power down my arm and fired ten concurrent beams of radiant light at her.
A burst of energy pushed me back, the dust clearing immediately to reveal the demon. Black flame danced around her horns, which had extended. Her eyes were bright white and teeth had grown into long fangs. Two circles of steaming energy radiated from her armor where I had struck. Sizzling. One by her left shoulder, one right stomach.
“Don’t stop now!”
She flashed toward me, something even my powered up state had trouble tracking. Her sword slashed through the air, burning it. With a clang that reverberated through my arm, I slid back from the impact. Already a jab was coming straight for me. I stepped toward it, ignoring it but tilting so that it struck my collarbone and ran next to my neck rather than through it.
I went to catch the extended limb, but with my left side lagging from my injury, I instead just stabbed her through the calf with the dagger. My grip released, and I dove to the side to avoid her retaliation from almost decapitating me.
“Motherfucker! My own knife too.” She scowled at me and pulled it from her leg, throwing it to the ground near me so that I could retrieve it.
“What, you forgot how to dodge?” I stumbled back to my feet.
“Oh, you’re going to get it now, you wretched worm.”
I concentrated and forced my new powers around. Radiant light flooded over my shoulder wound, and my collarbone reformed. The gash closed up, and the pain went away.
Pearl grinned widely as she did the same, with dark crimson power.
My right leg went back as I got into a ready pose, before my boots bit into the ground and I launched forward. As she moved her sword into a guarding position, I beat down with my wings, turning to launch myself into a flip over her.
At the apex, I aimed straight down at her. Foot-wide beam of energy burst out, and she didn’t dodge. Instead, she had spun her sword over her head to dissipate the energy, at the detriment of getting blistered fingers from the radiant power.
As I landed, she launched a quick flurry of attacks, knowing exactly where I was going to be. With how her blade burned with intense fury, it became something like a beam, twisting through the air quicker than I could track with my eyes. I had a feeling for it now, my latent dodging power acting as an early warning system for where the attacks planned to land.
Barely, I managed to block two, then three hits - each time, my arm feeling numb. I stepped back as the recoil forced my hand away from being able to shoot her. Still, I couldn’t let something like accuracy tie me down. I mashed the trigger at every opportunity, most going far and wide from our actual fight.
I was tiring, and she was not - there was no denying it. Only a few seconds before it really hit. Couldn’t be pushed back any further. As a last-ditch attempt to keep my ground, I ignored her strike and went in with the dagger.
The sword knocked my gun to the side and buried itself in my thigh. I dropped to my knee from the pain and released the knife to clatter on the ground.
Pearl grinned as she leaned into it, pushing it further through the muscle. “Do you submit to me, Eric?”
“Nah.” I chuckled. “I think things are… looking up.”
Both of our eyes went to the sky, just as the mortar shot lobbed in secret dropped back down on us.